Category: theatre

“In the 21st century a theatre or arts centre needs to be judged not just by what it does on stage but in every area of its activity and how embedded it is within its community.”

“In fact what I am doing in that moment of reading is acting. I’m not on a stage or in front of an audience; I am not even moving or speaking out loud. … I may be acting silently inside my head, but in that instant, I’m an actor – a unique and rewarding response better elicited by published plays than by any other kind of literature.” Dan Kois demonstrates how this works, with Annie Baker’s The Flick.

“Plays about plays have a long tradition in the theater; this fall alone there are three on Broadway.”

“‘We had no major funders who were willing to make a lead gift,’ Managing Director Jennifer Bauer-Lyons said. ‘We had other people who were kind of waiting in the wings – ‘If you get a lead gift, call us back and we’ll do something’ – but there was nobody willing to make a lead gift.'”

“The playwrights of three current Broadway plays within plays – Tom Stoppard, Terrence McNally and Donald Margulies – discuss why these insider shows draw big audiences.”

One project will use algorithms that automatically lower or raise the venue’s ticket prices in line with demand, as well as the length of time they were booked in advance. Another project – the Audience Discovery Project app – which has been granted £100,716 – will allow event attendees to give feedback on their experience. The project hopes to then use that information to personally recommend events at venues across the city, and encourage return visits.

“The 2000s have seen a significant return of Hollywood studio interest in Broadway as musicals that click have become cash cows in an ever-growing global environment.”

“Efforts to screen high-definition broadcasts of Broadway shows in movie theaters have been random, halting and frustrating. Yet, in little more than a month, a filmed-live version of the recent Broadway production of Of Mice and Men came together and, beginning in November, will be beamed into about 1,400 theaters around the world. It required an unlikely series of coincidences and a measure of sheer doggedness.”

“From George Bernard Shaw to Nicholas de Jongh, there is a tradition of reviewers penning their own scripts. So can you learn to write plays by watching them? And does being a playwright make you a better critic?”

“The National Theatre generated record-breaking income of £99.9 million in 2013/14, with ticket sales from NT Live screenings to cinemas at home and abroad increasing 179% from £2.4 million in 2012/13 to £6.7 million.”