Category: theatre

“In interviews with more than 20 past and present performers, staff members and others, as well as with the leadership, the challenge of making these enormous changes becomes clear. This is at least the fifth time Second City has tried to reconcile the concerns of employees of color. … Yet the culture that many found deeply offensive was ingrained for decades.” – The New York Times

“Theatres are entering a critical stage in their fight for survival, with the cancellation of the 2020/21 pantomime season expected to cost the industry more than £90 million in lost revenue. … Some [theatres] have said that their annual pantomimes can provide almost 50% of their yearly income in just over a month.” – The Stage

“In 2017 [sic], two Americans attempted something unconventional … a musical about a subject even Afghans would consider too sensitive and unsettling — ‘bacha bazi‘ or ‘boy play’.” Turns out it was. When Diversionary Theatre, an LGBTQ company in San Diego, presented The Boy Who Danced on Air onstage, the play was well-received; when the company posted video of it online this summer and people from all over could see it, the response was not so warm. – BBC

At Berkshire Theatre Group’s outdoor production of Godspell, things are different. “For the artists, it’s a brave new world. … They perform six feet apart in the musical about Jesus and his disciples, flanked by plexiglass shields on wheels that protect them and the audience as they sing. For good measure, in their pockets they also have masks, which they put on periodically during the show.” – Los Angeles Times

It is hard to think of a leading critic under fifty. There is no new generation in sight. This is unprecedented. Billington was barely thirty when he began at The Guardian, older than Nightingale when he started at The Statesman. Much is made of the fact that Tynan took over at The Observer when he was 27, but Hobson was only 31 when he began as a theatre critic and James Agate was 30 when he began at The Guardian. The great critics, in short, always began before they were forty. Who are their equivalents today? Where are the new, young voices in theatre criticism? – The Critic

Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is was the last show of the season at the
Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, and when the shutdown came, there was still time to figure something out. “We then went through at least four different iterations of what the production could be,” said managing director Leigh Goldenberg, “so that we could still tell the story, share the art and employ the folks involved.” The key problem was that what most theaters were doing (reading plays on Zoom) would not work with this script. So the Wilma folks got a better idea. – NPR

“The reluctance to produce shows with casts that are all or largely non-white disproportionately affects shows written by Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) playwrights and composers. And the problem ripples outward beyond writers and actors. Predominantly white institutions (PWIs) all too often seemingly forget about directors, designers, stage managers, and dramaturgs of color entirely.” – Howlround

That’s what Actors’ Equity president Kate Shindle said (via video call) to the cast of the Berkshire Theater Group’s Godspell, the first live-with-audience musical Equity has approved since COVID struck the U.S. Michael Paulson reports on the elaborate measures the production has in place, onstage and off. As Shindle put it, “People are going to look to you to know that theater can happen without anybody getting sick.” – The New York Times

“Dozens of pantomimes across the land have been cancelled or postponed due to uncertainty about easing lockdown restrictions for theatres. … Though it is only August, pantos take months to prepare and many venues and producers have been unable to commit to spending money on shows that might be scrapped.” Local theatres depend on these holiday shows every bit as much as American ballet companies depend on Nutcracker — and so do local communities. – The Guardian