Category: theatre

“We can tentatively add another play to the Shakespeare canon. Using a unique form of text analysis, in which they weigh the “psychological signatures” of three possible authors, psychologists Ryan L. Boyd and James Pennebaker of the University of Texas-Austin conclude Double Falsehood was written largely by the man who brought us Twelfth Night and King Lear.”

“I can’t even use the word surreal anymore, it’s so trite; it’s weird … I do understand that there’s a difference between the play and my life, but it is a very strange and permeable boundary. It’s some kind of hall-of-mirrors thing. There’s been this strange feedback effect.”

“[It] pulls information from databases with names of locations, people, organizations in the city at the time, as well as reference material about the early modern period in London. These data are layered on to the ‘Agas’ base map [from 1561]. So if you click on the Middle Temple building, for example, the map will give you an idea of what it is and how it was used, back when Shakespeare was around.”

“In making the leap from movie mogul to lead theater producer … [he] has fired or lost more actors, artists and executives than most impresarios do on their shows. … Yet Mr. Weinstein has been more than a hands-on producer. At 63, he has also become a student again, learning the art and craft of making musicals, one of the trickiest entertainment forms to get right.”

The Capulets are Serbs, the Montagues are Kosovo Albanians, and each family will be speaking its own language. There are no subtitles. “There are people in Belgrade who don’t speak Albanian,” says the director, “but they will understand.” (Do most people in Pristina, where the production opens next month, speak Serbian?)

Tim Jennings will lead the Shaw Festival. Originally from Georgetown, Ont., he “has had a long career in theatre management, having worked at the Canadian Opera Company and held the position of managing director at Toronto’s Roseneath Theatre and the Seattle Children’s Theatre.” Most recently he has led Minneapolis’s Children’s Theatre Company.

Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds takes place at a silent Buddhist retreat. “Aside from the unseen teacher, who lectures from offstage, its characters say almost nothing. Most of the play is written in the form of stage directions, and the audience bases many of its assumptions on nonverbal cues.”

“There has never been a better time to be a comedian: The talent pool is broad, deep, and more diverse than ever before; a new generation of passionate fans is supporting experimental work; and there are countless ways (online, onscreen, in your earbuds, at live shows) for new voices to be heard and — not always a given when it comes to the internet — make a living. It’s a peak that hasn’t been seen since the first comedy boom, which lasted from 1979 to about 1995, and was defined by two stages.”

Um: “Fans seek out the student performances for cheap entertainment or a chance to see a musical that otherwise might not be performed locally. Some even follow the teenage thespians as though they were A-list stars.”

“It isn’t just a numbers game, and it isn’t just down to playwrights, but I hope that if we keep making conscious choices about the characters we write, then we won’t just change theatre but maybe also the world.”