Category: theatre

Perloff said her biggest regret was the failure to sustain A.C.T.’s core acting company. (“The city got too expensive — artists can’t afford to live here anymore.”) But the theater’s thriving acting conservatory remains, and in an era that has seen nonprofit theaters become clearinghouses for jukebox musicals and other commercial trifles from Broadway, she has shored up A.C.T.’s reputation as one of the most principled regional theaters in America.

The idea may seem absurd – he wrote about people’s private lives, and he’s known to have disliked all but the most genteel political protests – but the directors and critics who’ve talked with writer Lisa Rothman make a very good case. (For instance, “The central music of Chekhov’s plays is people talking-talking-talking but never listening.”)

It all started with the Micro Teatro Por Dinero in Madrid in 2009: ten-minute plays performed in very close quarters at three euros a ticket. (It was the start of the financial crisis.) “[Now] the Micro Teatro Por Dinero franchise has been sold to venues in 15 different cities around the globe, including Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Lima, Lebanon, even Miami.”

Appraiser Matthew Haley was visibly trembling as he examined the tiny manuscript, written in Latin in 17th-century script. “We don’t know who the person who wrote it is,” says Haley, “but obviously if it’s a 17th-century hand they were either going along to Shakespeare’s plays when they were being performed and taking notes, or they were reading one of the first four printed editions of Shakespeare, which is really amazing.”

And they do pull it off: Oslo. A Walk in the Woods. Stuff Happens. The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Pacific Overtures. (Okay, that was gunboat diplomacy.) Even Call Me Madam. “[Alexis Soloski] recently discussed stagecraft and statecraft with the authors of past, current and coming plays. Unfortunately, writing hasn’t improved their own negotiating skills. ‘That’s why I have an agent,’ [one of them] said.”

“Ars Nova is unusual – creatively, structurally, and otherwise. It’s not a traditional theatre company; it’s a finder, developer, and nurturer of unconventional artists working in hybrid forms.” And yes, it provides medical and dental insurance to its employees.

Amit Lahav of the company Gecko, on The Wedding: “It’s about the social contract that we all have with the state, the agreement in its simplest form that says you will be protected in return for taxes and loyalty. What if you start feeling, as I have, that you are in a forced marriage and the terms of the contract – potential changes to human rights; surveillance – are shifting beneath your feet, what can you do?”

“If you are a performer who is also a dance captain, your minimum salary increases by $300. If you are an assistant dance captain, it increases $150. For each principal role that you are understudying, your minimum increases $33. For every performance in which you, as an understudy, actually end up playing that principal role, you get an extra 1/8 of your weekly salary. Tony nominated lead actors normally see a $500 per week pay bump while winners can see that number climb to $1000 per week.”

Basically, the set designer had to work super, super hard. “We probably redesigned the show 18 different times,” says David Korins. Many things changed and, perhaps, evolved.