Category: theatre

That unequivocal statement came from Carole Rothman, the artistic director of Second Stage Theater, which, reports Michael Paulson, commissioned new works by the nine playwrights – seven of them women, three of them African-American, and one of them Asian-American – with the intention of bringing the shows to Broadway.”

“I think it’s made the whole community feel braver about making work that pushes people harder and gives voice to subject matter and to people that we can see being silenced under this administration. The second he was elected, the theatre community got energy and it’s a really great thing that we have a place to put our anger and our fear.”

Emma Rice: “Never think that my decision to step down in 2018 was simply about lights and sound, it was about personal trust and artistic freedom. … I chose to leave because, as important and beloved as the Globe is to me, the board did not love and respect me back.”

Dromgoole, whose tenure as artistic director (2006-16) was widely admired, comments publicly for the first time about the controversy around his successor: “Sadly the negativity doesn’t only come from without [the Globe], there is also a fair sum within. There are structural problems, there are personality problems, there is too much fighting for territory, and there are too many who feel free to comment on work without ever taking the risk of making it.”

Having just come through a tumultuous period – a near-collapse, a rescue plan, foreclosure on its home stage (and another rescue), the resignation of the old boss after 35 years, and the arrival of a promising new boss – the flagship of Philadelphia’s nonprofit theaters is taking what its board chair calls “a year off from producing to get our house in order.”

“Where there’s truth to the idea of a television ‘golden age’ (ask me over a cup of coffee or a whiskey ginger someday), it’s in the fact that cable and streaming outlets have allowed shows to flourish when they appeal to more deeply invested but smaller audiences. This is what I have called in the past The Age Of Enthusiasm. It has also encouraged the proliferation of shows that are more idiosyncratic, personal, and experimental than television was before. Now, drama and comedy enthusiasts have daily exposure to stuff that’s weird and complicated and formally experimental. They are a good, prepared audience for interesting plays in a way that I, as a teenager in the late 1980s, was not.”

“I was their second choice for Usual Suspects, fourth choice for American Beauty and 15th choice to host this year’s Tony Awards. I think my career is definitely going in the right direction,” said Kevin Spacey. “Maybe I can get shortlisted to host the Oscars if everyone else turns it down.”

“For the greater good of theater criticism as a legitimate form of journalism and for the greater good of theater as an art form, yes, I’d have preferred that the Times authentically looked for, and found, a 30-year-old woman of color or a 34-year-old man of Asian ethnicity or even — in the spirit of a long tradition — pulled some 27-year-old reporter off the sports desk and provided them with a shot.”

“While U.S. theatres have a long way to go in terms of equity, diversity, and inclusion, they are a multicultural utopia compared to the narrow demographics of those who write about the thea¬tre … That’s why American Theatre is proud this year to help administer an arts journalism track as part of the Rising Leaders of Color Program.”

Out Front, Atlanta’s new LGBTQetc. theater company, was preparing its upcoming production of Paul Rudnick’s The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told when it began receiving messages and a petition from an organization called American Needs Fatima thundering that “this blasphemous play is a vile insult to the Mother of God!”