“As a teenager he was a lonely Irish exile in south London, with limited expectations. That early life in England was changed completely by his contact with the Ovalhouse theatre club, an arts organisation he still supports and that later also helped develop the careers of playwright David Hare, actors Tim Roth and Meera Syal and musician Nitin Sawhney.”
Category: theatre
The Easiest Way To See The ‘Hamilton’ Cast Is On The Softball Fields
Raise a bat to freedom: There’s a Broadway Show League, and the Hamilton cast and crew (unsurprisingly) like to win.
Donmar Warehouse To Build A Pop-Up Theatre For Its All-Women Summer Shakespeare Season
“The Donmar Warehouse is building a temporary theatre for an all-female Shakespeare trilogy that will see, on some days, Dame Harriet Walter performing the demanding roles of Brutus, Henry IV and Prospero back to back. … A quarter of the tickets will be free to under-25s in a new initiative called ‘young and free’.”
‘Creating A New Canon’ Of Latino Theater
The Sol Project “plans to partner with 12 Off Broadway companies to produce one play per season. So far six companies have been announced: New Georges, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the Public Theater, Labyrinth Theater Company, Atlantic Theater Company and Women’s Project Theater.”
Does Shakespeare Have Anything To Teach Us About Donald Trump?
“If even Marshall McLuhan, the 20th century expert on the merging of media and politics, would require a crash course in Twitter, Facebook and “The Apprentice,” how could we expect Shakespeare to shed light on this reality TV star turned standard-bearer of the GOP?”
Sydney Theatre Company Director Quits After Just 9 Months On The Job
Jonathan Church “has stepped down from the post in Sydney, stating that he had not been able to do the role alongside his other ventures. The outgoing Chichester Festival Theatre had already announced his own production company, Jonathan Church Productions. Earlier this week, the company announced its first production.”
The Stage’s Top Ten Musical Theatre Composers Of All Time
Mark Shenton’s list includes old Broadway/West End hands, two classical guys, and a rock star. Prepare to agree and/or argue about. (And as you fume about the names missing from the list, don’t forget that this is the final installment of Shenton’s top 50, and there are links to the others toward the end of the page.)
Working Actors Recall Their Days As Waiters
“People would order these decadent desserts all the time and not finish. We were a bunch of poor actors, and we’d bring them back to the kitchen and eat them. I especially remember a banana cake soufflé. I probably ate a dozen or so famous people’s desserts in the half-year I worked there – I’m not ashamed to say.”
The Rise Of Immersive Theatre
“Immersive entertainment is, plainly, weird. It’s far more interactive than watching a film or traditional play, and can often be unsettling. Actors can touch you, they know stuff about you, and you may find yourself exploring unknown settings on foot or alone.”
Time For The U.S. Theatrical World To Claim Spanish And Mexican Playwrights In The Classical Canon
“We have a largely undiluted diet of Shakespeare, Shakespeare, and more Shakespeare, with the occasional nod to the Greeks. Particularly given the US population today, could we not envision instead a turn to the vibrant tradition of Hispanic classical theatre? The lively comedia—the theatrical corpus developed on both sides of the Atlantic by playwrights such as Spaniards Félix Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca, or Mexicans Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz—should not remain in the wings.”