Category: theatre

“‘We have fun with both plays — so much fun, because Ian and myself are alone on stage for huge amounts of time,’ Stewart says. ‘And we share things that the audience doesn’t always know about, and that’s fine.'”

“It appears to be a victim of mismanagement by its senior staff and board of directors, who borrowed to build a grand palace of culture, but failed to find a wide enough audience and donor base in the hometown of Wilson.”

Yes, yes it is. And Stratford-upon-Avon seems keen to do it again.

A recent PBS documentary made the case, but Mark Lawson argues that, for all the myriad contributions to the form made by artists who were Jewish, thinking that way isn’t necessarily logical or useful.

John Timpane considers three Jacobean plays attributed to other authors on which some scholars think Shakespeare may have collaborated.

Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, has presented his share of complicated new musicals. But Fun Home, he said, was in a class by itself. ‘They went through more iterations and drafts than I think I’ve ever seen a musical go through.'”

“At the end of the 2012 season – the final year when Des McAnuff was artistic director and Cimolino held the head administrative position – the Stratford, Ont., festival announced its lowest attendance figures since 1986 and a deficit of $3.4-million, the biggest in its history, even adjusting for inflation.”

The company, which just opened its 45th season and “catapulted local actors such as Samuel L. Jackson and Michael K. Williams (12 Years a Slave) to Hollywood fame, is facing a real-life drama of its own, from financial struggles, dwindling grants, and constant costs from maintaining its aging building on Fifth Ave.”

“Michael Dinwiddie, president of the Black Theatre Network, proclaimed black theater to be in a state of emergency ‘because of the perverse notion we have in this country that people are being reverse racist by creating their own cultural institutions.’ He went on to explain that ‘funders would rather give money to a white theater doing a black play than a black theater doing a multiracial play’.”

“How did a production with so much commercial potential” – a score by rock stars, direction by the genius behind The Lion King, a well-known title character with a ready-made fan base – “fail so spectacularly? … As Broadway buzzards circle, here are lessons learned from the Spider-Man musical.”