“Another day, another major award for playwright Lucy Kirkwood. Her smash hit Chimerica has picked up the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn prize in the United States. Set up in 1978, the award is given annually to a female playwright working in English and it is deemed one of the most distinguished in America’s prize-heavy new writing culture.”
Category: theatre
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Profumo Affair Musical to Close After Four Months
Allan Kozinn: “The theater gods have at long last taken revenge on Andrew Lloyd Webber for the ubiquity of Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Evita. His latest musical, Stephen Ward, which opened to mixed reviews in London in December, and has had mediocre ticket sales ever since, will close on March 29.”
Why Did Andrew Lloyd Webber Take On the Profumo Affair in the First Place?
Michael Billington observes that this particular topic lacks the one element at which Lloyd Webber is genuinely brilliant. (This was a job for Kander & Ebb.)
‘Annie’ Co-Creator Disses Recent Broadway Revival (As His Colleagues Run the Other Way)
Martin Charnin, lyricist and director of the original production (and of an upcoming non-Equity tour): “The entire [original] creative team (Tom, Charles, and I) simply had to restore the charm and the magic of the musical, that has endured for lo, these many years, and that seemed to veer off-course in the recent Broadway production.” Composer Charles Strouse and book writer Thomas Meehan very promptly disavowed Charnin’s statement.
Will This Mean a Sixth Tony for Audra McDonald?
“The five-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald will make an unexpected return to Broadway this spring – in time to qualify for the 2014 Tonys – to play Billie Holiday in the musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.”
Inside Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Biggest Flop
“Lord Lloyd-Webber is a pick-yourself-up-and-dust-yourself-down kind of guy. He is also getting used to these kinds of box-office rebuffs – his last triumph, as he himself pointed out, was 20 years ago with Sunset Boulevard.”
What Is This Theatre Pipeline Of Which You Speak?
“Today, the pipeline flows in many directions at once. Theaters genuinely interested in serving their communities would do well to develop twenty-first century ways of making theater.”
An Anna Deavere Smith for the Revolution in Ukraine
“Kiev’s Independence Square has been home to many writers and artists. The Ukrainian playwright Natalya Vorozhbit spent the last three months conducting interviews around the area. Her intention, she writes, is to create a piece of theatre to capture what happened when a peaceful protest escalated into horror.”
Casting Up – When Actors Leave Shows For Better Gigs
“Actors sometimes chase a better deal — whether that means more money, the role of a lifetime or a longer run. Producers and directors sometimes grumble about loyalty and sometimes accept it on the terms of a free market.”
Time To Train Kids In Theatre Etiquette?
“Often it’s the adults, not the children, who are badly behaved. I have seen adult audiences bristle at the arrival of a school party at the theatre, as if they resent the intrusion of young people into what they see as an adult-only arena.”