Category: theatre

“After canceling most of its 2012-13 season in September due to financial troubles, the renowned African-American theater company has scaled down, paid its bills and is back onstage … Penumbra needed $340,000 to get back on its feet and raised $359,000 by the end of 2012.”

“In early 1965 Granada produced Thomas Middleton’s Women Beware Women for primetime ITV, starring Diana Rigg. … If it’s a shock to think of Jacobean drama on primetime, it’s just one measure of how seriously television in the 1960s took theatre – and how, today, it fails to.”

“A federal judge has set a May 28 trial date for the director Julie Taymor, Bono and the Edge of U2, and the producers of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark to battle in court over a lawsuit stemming from the spectacular implosion of their years-long collaboration on the show.”

“We don’t do musicals in Ireland. Well, not much. We like to keep our actors and musicians separate at all times. In separate counties, even. There is possibly a musical theatre company hidden on Sherkin Island doing a production of Wicked right now, but they haven’t been found yet. And when they do find them, it will be a heavy dose of Samuel Beckett for those grinning fools.”

It’s not just because it’s hard to hide a rabbit in a little black dress. There’s some real historical baggage here.

“Since Shakespeare’s time, greasepaint-loving taverns across the city have adapted their spare rooms to host performances for patrons who like to catch a show or two without moving too far from their favorite bar taps. A permanent fringe movement, this eclectic pub-theater scene thrives, with Londoners and savvy visitors regularly squeezing into 50-seat studios for dramas, comedies, musicals and even operas.”

“Actors already work antisocial hours in regards to leading a normal family life, and to eat into this time any more is too much of a sacrifice.”

The answer is not anymore, not in a little town an hour north of Austin at the theatre where former President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna held a wedding rehearsal party.

“I have been reading plays written by black writers and working with these playwrights and let me tell you something–I am concerned. I have been asking myself about the future of black theater because I have been watching the black story die.”