Category: theatre

“‘Most pop stars come to you and say: “Oh you want to write a Broadway show. Here’s all my songs. Have a good time.” Cyndi came in and did’ the work, Mr. Fierstein said, adding an expletive for good measure.”

The producers are suing the former publicist for scaring off investors; the publicist is “arguing that he simply warned a potential investor that its producers had fallen prey to a fraud scheme.”

“There was a time when theatre artists who had unresolved issues with their parents would turn them into lightly fictionalized characters in a play – and then tear them apart by proxy. Now, as part of our new ‘reality culture,’ more and more performers are dragging their real-life parents up on stage to air their dirty laundry in public – and allowing the older generation to return fire.”

“In the river of announcements spewing from the front offices of theaters around town, a theme is emerging for the offerings of 2013-14, and it’s as robust and optimistic a stream as any I’ve encountered.”

It’s a play by the man himself (and doubtless a shot at the critics he so vocally despises), and it will debut this summer at New York’s Signature Theater Company after a year’s delay caused by Albee’s (as he put it) “overcomplicating” the script.

Lyn Gardner: “I can only ever review what I see. I can’t review intent, and I can’t review the fact that the people putting on the show will almost certainly have expended much time and effort, and may even have mortgaged someone’s granny’s house to raise the money. So where does that leave the critic – and indeed the audience – when it comes to community or participatory theatre, where often the performance is but the tip of the iceberg?”

“Theater executives who have been through government budget tightening before say it’s likely most organizations will see a percentage reduction rather than an outright elimination of their funding. Still, for small-to-midsized theaters a reduction of $5,000-$10,000 could mean one or two less Equity actors in a production.”

“There are too many playwrights to squeeze comfortably into a single photograph but we have invited 11 – a dramaturg’s dozen – to come and say goodbye. And it turns out that every one of them, with the exception of Bruce Norris (who is from Chicago), attended the Royal Court’s young writers programme or has had work showcased in the young writers festival.”

“While Jefferson Mays was performing in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder in the fall of 2012 at Hartford Stage, he recalls, his wife kept overhearing variations on the same remark at intermission: ‘Isn’t it wonderful how they got actors who all look the same to play the different members of the D’Ysquith family?'”

Why? As she tweeted this weekend, “heres why: no tickets, no work permits, and nothing done. Thats why.”