“The playwright behind Homegrown, the controversial play exploring radicalisation and jihadi brides that was shut down less than a fortnight before its opening, … has been approached by numerous figures and organisations offering to put the play back on and discussions are currently underway.”
Category: theatre
How (And Why) I Chose My 101 Greatest Plays (And Why I Left Out ‘King Lear’)
Michael Billington: “Why do it? Why put my head on the chopping-block by writing a book hubristically entitled The 101 Greatest Plays? The answers are many and complex.”
Fire-Eating, Projectile Weapons, A Mandy Patinkin Impression – Offbeat Skills That Have Gotten Actors Work
Stage fighting? Lots of people can do that. Accents? Standard. Foreign languages? No longer uncommon. Here are seven actors talking about the really unusual gifts they have.
Ten Agatha Christie Plays Discovered
The ten plays – five full-length and five one-act works – were discovered by producer Julius Green while researching a book about the author’s work in theatre. He heralded the find as a “forgotten piece of theatre history”.
Post Cate Blanchett-Andrew Upton Era At Sydney Theatre Company Has Its Leader
The new artistic director at Australia’s leading theater will be Jonathan Church, outgoing director of England’s Chichester Festival Theatre, which he transformed from a fading regional company to a powerhouse that regularly sends produxtions to the West End and Broadway.
La MaMa, New York’s Legendary Experimental Theater, Adds A Fourth Stage
The venue, called The Downstairs, “will contain a 150-seat theater, an exhibition space and a classroom, and will emphasize new media and multidisciplinary work. Its opening is part of a larger $30 million renovation and restoration.”
Reporter Wants More Impact For His Blockbuster Story, So He Turns To Theatre
“Assassination Theater, now in a run at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, is a provocative multimedia history lesson dressed up as a docudrama. An engrossing, rapid-fire exposé of “Chicago’s role in the crime of the century,” with tourist-attraction aspirations, it seeks to build on the dicey thing our city’s best known for but usually tries to ditch—its legendary status as a hub of organized crime.”
When Wildfire Smoke Pours Into Town, The Shakespeare Festival Has A Problem
“Each evening, a couple hours before shows begin, the smoke team gathers in the Festival’s outdoor theater, armed with a weather forecast and other pertinent information about the air quality. The team uses the old standard ‘Can we see the mountains across the valley?’ trick, in addition to objective data from Oregon’s color-coded smoke reports, an air quality station on top of one of the theaters, and a handheld monitor that gives real-time measures backstage.”
It’s Past Time To Get Beyond Theatre’s ‘Black Slot’
Lynn Nottage: “I’ve always been told that there’s only room for one black play. If the black slot’s full, they won’t put in another.”
A Quarter Of A Century With L.A.’s Fountain Theatre
“Located between Western and Vermont avenues, the Fountain is at a crossroads of multiculturalism. ‘We’re right in the heart of Little Armenia, so it feels very natural for us to be commissioning playwrights to go out into the community and bring back the stories of the shop owners and apartment residents, as we did in ‘Little Armenia.’ Our process for choosing projects for a season is about what community haven’t we served and what issues are they wrestling with.'”