Category: theatre

The finances are precarious, but Bread and Puppet Theatre doesn’t seem to mind – because it’s too much fun: “We created a very powerful daffodil attack force with a daffodil navy and daffodil knights and daffodil weaponry and that’s going to fight the F-35 very effectively.”

One producer “said he was being both playful and serious in admitting to ‘using tactical Johnson-esque mind games’ to attract producers to his Johnson play at the expense of the other one.”

“Cast and crew involved in the failed Coronation Street musical Street of Dreams say they have given up hope of receiving thousands of pounds owed to them, after administrators were unable to prevent production company Reckless Entertainment from going into liquidation.”

“The Theatre Development Fund, the nonprofit that runs the booth selling discount Broadway and off-Broadway tickets, announced Wednesday a Fast Pass program that allows anyone who has bought a ticket from the booth to return within seven days and skip the wait when they buy another ticket.”

“A Night With Janis Joplin, a concert-as-theater featuring a buzz-generating performance by Mary Bridget Davies as Joplin, will open on Broadway this fall after touring the country over the last two years.”

“Built and opened in 1966 under the auspices of director Bob Sickinger, it’s the only remaining one of the Hull House group of theaters that gave birth to the city’s now-famous off-Loop scene. In the mid-70s through 1981, it was where Organic produced some of its most iconic shows”

“Thus dial testing, common in politics, television and movies, has now arrived in the theater. Though at this point Ken Davenport is the first to embrace it eagerly for Broadway, the very idea of it is raising questions in the industry about what makes good theater.”

“Several Broadway plays” – Tony-winner Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Bette Midler vehicle I’ll Eat You Last, Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, starring Tom Hanks – “are performing powerfully at the box office as summer begins, a time when plays usually fade fast while increasingly tourist-heavy audiences opt for musicals.”

An organization dedicated to revivals of musicals, led since 2007 by artistic director (and television star) Jason Alexander, Reprise “cited its inability to raise funds for the decision to permanently shut down.” The company’s last mainstage project was an autumn 2011 production of Cabaret.

“What we should always remember is that Shakespeare wrote plays primarily to entertain – his plays were never supposed to comprise a history lesson, but simply drew an audience by virtue of its historical setting.”