Category: theatre

“With a worldwide gross of over $6.2 billion, The Lion King stage musical has now achieved the most successful box office total of any work in any media in entertainment history. … The show quietly took over top spot from the $6 billion-earning The Phantom of the Opera late this summer.”

Sir Isaac Newton, Chris Jones observes, probably did not say “yay” – except in a new play about him now running in Chicago. “That in itself is not a new idea; playwrights have been modernizing historical subjects and simplifying conversations for generations. But in [this case and others], the anachronisms are intended to draw attention to themselves. … So what gives with this trend? To some degree it’s a consequence of the Wikipedia-ization of our culture.”

“Standing around watching a show in a room that appears to have been designed by an Oxford Street store window dresser doesn’t magically make the audience experience something immersive, no matter how many stuffed animals you incorporate into the set.”

“It’s that same old sad story that’s playing out in cities across the United States as capital flows back into downtown: Money talks, and local culture takes a walk. But before we throw up our hands and cue the world’s tiniest violin, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t have to be this way.”

For his stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, the director basically tore out the insides of New York Theater Workshop and turned the space into three separate rooms, each holding 60 people, which get recombined into an amphitheater.

“We need technology to be fully focused on how to improve the live experience. Like: Get me to my seat faster, make the actors more excited, give me stuff that makes being in the venue better. I don’t think live events are going anywhere. I’ve doubled down. This is my business and my life, but we’re becoming irrelevant because we have to figure out how to remain relevant in peoples’ lives. And technology is a part of that.”

“If anyone tells you there are objective standards, they’re full of crap. This is a matter of personal taste. There are trends. There are many people who loved Philip Seymour Hoffman’s acting. But if you don’t, you’re not wrong. At worst, you’re eccentric.”

“Two veteran Broadway producers helped torpedo an Off Broadway theater’s premiere of the high-profile musical American Psycho and are now in talks to bring it directly to Broadway next fall.”

“The mostly sold out production of Rob Ford the Musical: Birth of a Ford Nation will open as planned Thursday night, regardless of Wednesday’s health update” that the embattled Toronto mayor has cancer. (They’ve changed the ending, though.)

Charles McNulty: “Don’t look now, but a positive trend seems to be developing: A bumper crop of talented American playwrights more interested in artistic expression than commercial validation is being recognized with the most prestigious awards and lucrative fellowships available.” Exhibit A: the MacArthur Fellowship that just went to Samuel D. Hunter.