Category: theatre

“Theatre companies across the UK will have benefited from an estimated £25 million of tax relief in the first full year of a government scheme for the sector, according to figures published by HM Revenue & Customs.”

“For the bulk of my life, “TV writer” has been a gentle euphemism for “failed playwright.” A serious theatre person would barely admit to having a television, much less watching one. Those days are long gone.”

In which one unhappy patron, while his fellows are applauding, calls out, “Booooo! Kill the playwright!”, and another patron – herself a playwright – takes umbrage: “I imagined myself confronting the man who’d shouted for Annie Baker’s death. Calling him on his privilege; his insistence on making his experience everyone else’s.”

Paula Garfield, director of Deafinitely Theatre: “Rehearsing was a painful, slow process. We began with a two-week translation stage: it’s not about simply doing it word for word. … Even translating the title into BSL was difficult. I began with the signs for ‘love’, ‘work’ and ‘loss’ – but that doesn’t really make it clear.”

“Despite the massive storm that shut down Broadway on Saturday and forced the cancellations of appearances by several high-profile celebrities at BroadwayCon, including the actors Darren Criss and Jeremy Jordan, the show went on, with panel discussions, singalongs and a Saturday night cabaret that turned a ballroom into a theater camp-style slumber party.”

If the idealistic side can come up with $5 million in the next few days, maybe.

“Theatre-going is a habit, and if it’s lost it may not be rekindled for many years. Start parent-and-child theatre outings early, and they are likely to continue throughout childhood and into teenage years.”

“This weekend’s closings were striking for their last-minute nature — at the Metropolitan Opera, audiences were already in their seats for Puccini’s ‘La Bohème,’ while on Broadway, actors were backstage and audiences were on their way.”

“In essence, I am saying the artistic satisfaction of having one’s work read and produced is much greater than having it lay hidden. And, just as importantly, the intellectual property of an unread script has much less economic potential than that of possible future productions.”

The Drake – just behind the Kimmel Center on Spruce Street, once an Art Deco hotel and apartment building – is the new home for five of the city’s small companies, “who felt the need for place, permanency, and identity, stepped in quickly to establish a theatrical world amid the ghosts of dance and the bustle of a reviving downtown.”