“You’d have to have your head in the sand, or perhaps somewhere else, to not anticipate that there would be criticism of this in Toronto in 2016, amid the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and right after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s speech on diversity ‘as a source of strength’ at Davos.”
Category: theatre
A Greek Play Cancelled Due To Protests Gets One Final Performance
“On Thursday, the theater’s artistic director canceled the last four performances of the play, saying in a statement that it had caused ‘more pain than room for thought’ and had led to ‘threats,’ without disclosing further details.”
The Globe Is Taking Its All-Country ‘Hamlet’ To The Refugee Camp In Calais Known As ‘The Jungle’
“We’re here for the people who need stimulus… they are in an environment that is not providing any excitement [or] nourishment for the brain.”
What The Hell Is Going On With The Harold Pinter Estate And The Wooster Group In Los Angeles?
“It is not clear how theater critics will respond to the request that they not review the Los Angeles run, which begins performances on Thursday. An offended actor/playwright, Colin Mitchell, published on the local theater website Bitter Lemons a plea for defiance: ‘Let’s flood the LA Media outlets with writing about this show.’ The theater critic for The Los Angeles Times, Charles McNulty, said Thursday that he was in discussion with his editors.”
Experimental Theatremakers, Think Carefully Before You Take That Mainstream Gig
Lyn Gardner: “In a tight funding climate, it’s not surprising that independent theatre-makers are attracted to the opportunities and financial support that the mainstream can offer. But those opportunities sometimes come at a price … Sometimes it leads to a leeching of the very things that made an artist’s work most distinctive in the first place.”
How On Earth Is Robert Falls Putting Roberto Bolaño’s ‘2666’ On Stage?
“It would take 45 minutes just to explain what the novel is about,” said the director of Chicago’s Goodman Theater. “I became weirdly obsessed with this novel years ago, and I still don’t quite know why. The process of staging it is part of trying to figure out what it is I personally respond to. I still don’t quite know.”
“Hamilton” Shows Broadway Why Diversity Is The Best Business Plan
Broadway continues to have serious diversity problems in terms of audiences and artists. But what “Hamilton” and “Fun Home” spectacularly demonstrate is that making an investment in extremely talented artists from diverse backgrounds is still the best business plan for simultaneously growing prestige and revenue.
Wooster Group Project Runs Aground In LA After Pinter Estate Says Critics Can’t Review It
The highly anticipated new production of Harold Pinter’s “The Room” by The Wooster Group has run into difficulties after the licensing company for the play said that critics may not review the show when it has its world premiere in Los Angeles next month.
Submit Like A Man: Female Playwright Will Spend A Year Resubmitting Scripts Under A Male Pseudonym
Mya Kagan: “Over the past few years, I have been increasingly disheartened by the statistics on women in theatre and TV. The exact number varies from study to study, but they all come in around 20 percent. … With all these numbers reminding me that my industry sees and treats me as inferior to my male counterpart, I started wondering … would I have been more successful if people straight-up thought I was a dude?”
Submit Like A Man: How I (Female Playwright) Determined My Male Persona
Mya Kagan: “As a playwright, I am basically a professional character developer, so before I could do anything, I had to get my head around who this person was.”