Category: theatre

Theatre Critics Should Stop Cooperating With Producers’ No-Review Requests

Jeremy Gerard: “I’m all for producers and the sometimes preposterous lengths they will go to in order to promote and protect their shows. That’s their job. But I’ve often wondered why we, the critics, so willingly go along with their manipulations. Especially when they interfere with the, well let’s call it the journalism part of our job — reporting to our readers and giving context to the cultural news of the day.” – Broadway News

How Will Theatre Fare During, And After, The Coronavirus Outbreak?

Lyn Gardner takes a look at history. “Shakespeare’s fellow thespians toured out of London, far away from the plague’s more deadly ravages. But that is not an option for theatremakers in the interconnected world of Covid-19. But of course, there are other methods of distributing art – including live streaming – that might offer different ways of getting theatre out there while venues are closed. It might help open the eyes of theatres and companies to the possibilities of digital in a way they haven’t previously explored.” – The Stage (UK)

The Oregon Shakepeare Festival’s New Director Is Still Surprised By How Much Audiences Love Her Theatres

Despite the issues of the past ten years – forest fire smoke, some ugly moments in the town between a small business owner and some company members, not to mention that beam collapse in 2011 – the Oregon Shakespeare Festival seems to be thriving. New AD Nataki Garrett says, “‘I’ve never been to a theater where people move to a city to be closer to the theater’ … She’s talking about the passion and dedication of the festival’s nationwide audience, and about inheriting the leadership of a company that can inspire fans to not just buy tickets but rent U-Hauls.” – Oregon Artswatch

Cash Crisis At New Orleans Theatre Leads To Layoffs, Cancellation

“The Southern Rep Theatre company has laid off six staff members and canceled an upcoming play as it struggles to pay expenses and debt, artistic director Aimee Hayes said Thursday. The 34-year-old playhouse hopes to raise $350,000 in a GoFundMe crowd-sourced donation campaign in order to return to full operation.” – The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

Broadway Worries About Coronavirus

“Of course, I’m worried as a producer about tickets not being sold and people canceling their trips to New York City,” the Broadway producer told The Daily Beast. “But my main concern is for anyone involved in the industry being affected directly, and if people are affected, how does Broadway sustain itself? Theaters are petri dishes for three hours.” – The Daily Beast

Is This Playwright ‘The American Noël Coward’?

“Noël Coward’s fantastic, but all I could think was: What’s the use of having an American one?” says Richard Greenberg. To him, writes Kurt Soller in this profile, “that comparison has always felt like false equivalency, a naïve supposition about the people he was chronicling — and the behavior he was lampooning, particularly among urban cultural elites.” – T — The New York Times Style Magazine

Two Playwrights Embedded In A Newsroom. They Had To Rewrite Their Play When The Paper Started Laying Off Reporters.

“Janielle Kastner and Brigham Mosley thought they had finished writing their play about journalism when The Dallas Morning News announced layoffs in January 2019. They had spent more than a year and hundreds of hours embedded in the newsroom, interviewing and shadowing the paper’s staff to come up with what Mosley calls ‘a really beautiful, clean play.'” – Dallas Morning News