“You might not think of Lamb Chop, the adorable hand puppet that graced the appendage of world-famous ventriloquist Shari Lewis, or the impertinent wooden dummies operated by Edgar Bergan as having ancestors, but they do. One of them is a snake in a human mask. But let’s back up.”
Category: theatre
An Oral History Of The World’s Most Important Comedy Club
“Booker Estee Adoram is still formidable, the bathrooms are still awkwardly placed, and the ‘family table’ is still terrifying. Even as much as the Comedy Cellar hasn’t changed over three decades, the talents who got their starts there have transformed the comedy world. Jon Stewart, Colin Quinn, Judy Gold, and more comedians share memories of the cramped basement venue that made their careers, and that they still call home.”
First: A Broadway Play’s All-Female Creative Team
“Women in one creative role, let alone four, are still relatively rare on Broadway. Over the last 41 seasons of Broadway musicals, only about 1 in 10 directors, authors or composers, and 1 in 4 choreographers, have been female. By contrast, 255 musicals, or 52 percent, have had four men in their top creative roles.”
Can Broadway Musicals Get Brave?
Despite Hamilton and Fun Home, “the season to come – with its promised jukebox musicals, revivals, and adaptations of television shows and films – suggests that most producers are still playing it safe. … Why has [the genre] been so slow to change? And what can writers, directors and producers do to productively shake up the form?” Alexis Soloski sees some hope.
The Play That Succeeds By Actively Anti-Marketing Itself
“There’s something slightly perverse about a play that asks you to attend simply on faith and not to reveal its secrets, because most any arts marketer will tell you that word of mouth is essential for sales.”
Theatre Collective In Minneapolis To Disband After A Decade, Saying Mission Is Fulfilled
“Since 2006, the Collective has given emerging Minneapolis-based playwrights the opportunity to have complete creative control over their productions.”
The Lost History Of African American Performance
“There was an inescapable sense that they’d be letting down more than themselves if they failed. An unfair pressure to put on anybody. Also an exciting one, for the people involved. I kept thinking of one of those movies where they’re trying to lift something out of the desert, some buried archaeological monument, and everyone’s wondering if the ropes will hold. Maybe it will fall and shatter.”
What Broadway Theatres Are Doing About Security
“There are no metal detectors or security wands on Broadway. Instead, the most visible signs of safety come in the security guards who check all theatergoers’ bags manually. In recent months, bomb-sniffing dogs have occasionally joined them. But compared to the kind of measures in place at stadium music events (think Madison Square Garden) or even some Manhattan multiplexes on a crowded Saturday night, these measures can come off as relaxed.”
London’s Royal Court Theatre At 60
“London’s powerhouse of new writing is celebrating its 60th birthday. Explore some of the Sloane Square theatre’s key productions through extracts from the Guardian and Observer archive, alongside new recollections from Wole Soyinka, Ann Jellicoe, Amanda Redman, Sally Hawkins and others.”
Theatre Today Is Too Safe And Too Middle-Aged, Says David Hare
“The idea of a pioneering, cutting-edge avant-garde, I am afraid, has more or less completely disappeared from the British theatre, and now you just have every artistic director with his or her eye on the box office, because that is the mood of the times.”