Category: theatre

Lyn Gardner: “Sometimes friends look at me with sympathy when they ask if I’m on the annual panto patrol. But it’s a great art form that creates a special bond between performers and audience – and helps keep many theatres in the black.”

“In an email, she wrote that she had drafted a statement detailing her reasons for leaving the show, but that her lawyer had discouraged her from sharing it. ‘I’m not even sure I want to tell it,’ she wrote.”

“To see an actor other than Miranda step into [the title role of Hamilton] is to be aware in a different way of the risk and the danger and the promise of the historical moment, and the theatrical one. It is also a salutary reminder to all theatregoers to embrace the understudy, in whatever show he or she appears, in whatever role he or she is cast. See the understudy take his shot. It might be revolutionary.”

“On Monday, [Carolina Theatre’s] leaders announced they had run up an additional $800,000 in debt since July 2013, when they and the rest of the board thought the city-owned theater was making a profit. The city [of Durham] pays Carolina Theatre of Durham Inc. $654,000 a year to run the complex on Morgan Street.”

“Redmoon, an unusual performance company specializing in public theatrical spectacles and a part of Chicago’s cultural fabric for 25 years, is going out of business, effective immediately.” The trouble began in earnest with a festival commemorating the Great Fire.

“Having Hermione be played by a black actress onstage is both an acknowledgement that the Harry Potter universe has long been lacking in this regard, and an affirmation of theater’s historically progressive attitude toward actors of color.”

“Why doesn’t the United States have a national theatre? On its face, the question seems ridiculous. After all, we’ve only just arranged for national health care. …The U.K. has a national theatre. So does France, Germany, even China. So why don’t we have one [here]? We put some theories to the test and came up with a solution to America’s arts problem.”

“People have muscle memory from years of play and putting their butt over their head. … The play and the sense of adventure and creating a character hits on a deep childhood thing—everyone has an aspiration to be a famous performer. Doing something like circus speaks to that.”