Category: theatre

“The thing is, Natives were a huge point of discussion, contention, concern, admiration, emulation, disgust, and more during this time period. Native representational democracies were also large part of the conversation in trying to build the new system of government.”

“Edinburgh is often described as the world’s biggest arts trade show. It is, but one of the things that today’s fringe producing landscape reflects is changes in the wider theatre ecology. … Edinburgh isn’t just a chance to make money, it’s also about finding future talent to produce.”

“During the 24-month Broadway run of [the play], 21 puppies – golden retrievers and others that look goldenish – have cycled through the show’s cast, appearing in a brief but reliably crowd-pleasing scene toward the end of the show. And as each one ages out of the role – as soon as the dogs grow too big to fit in a gift box, they are replaced – each has been adopted by a performer, a crew member or someone else connected to the theater industry.” (includes slideshow)

“Disney Theatrical Productions and director Alex Timbers have parted ways on the brewing Broadway production of Frozen. ‘Making the tough calls when creating a new Broadway musical is never easy, but this was especially painful,’ said Thomas Schumacher, the president and producer of Disney Theatrical Productions, in a statement. ‘Alex Timbers is one of the most exciting and innovative theater directors I know.'”

“At its best, artist development is terrific, providing opportunities and genuine benefits for early-career artists; at it’s worst, it can be like butterfly collecting, and just as cruel. That’s because too many artist-development schemes are not designed to support ambition and scale and so they don’t help artists develop sustainable careers in the industry.”

“An exercise has gone badly wrong at École Philippe Gaulier” – whose alumni include Emma Thompson, Simon McBurney, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen. “‘You are the definition of a bad student,’ croaks the septuagenarian teacher. ‘This is boring. It is so shit!’ Gaulier’s student gawps at him, chastened and gormless, as his classmates laugh cheerfully at his discomfort. … But for those aspiring to be funny, this is the place to be – and Gaulier’s tongue-lashings are an exquisite form of torture.”

“The performance date may be news, but the subject is well known. Written with the playwright David Ives (Venus in Fur), the piece is based on two films by Luis Buñuel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel. The first, in Sondheim’s précis, is about a group of people trying to have dinner together, and the second is about people having dinner together who for some reason can’t leave.” (The hope is for the musical to run in New York at the same time as Thomas Adès’s new opera version of The Exterminating Angel.)

“A series of recent productions that came to New York with great acclaim have implicitly questioned whether we can still see these plays for what they are, or whether they need to be made new to avoid seeming stale. These productions took plays that are deeply rooted in a particular time and place—and that deal, urgently, with the issues of their day—and ripped them up forcefully to re-pot them in fresh soil.”