Category: theatre

Probably not, but it’s a fine excuse to get three great actors who’ve played the role – Antony Sher, Jonathan Singer and Simon Russell Beale – and Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole to talk about Shakespeare’s portrait of the much-maligned king.

On the stage of the Young Centre in Toronto these days, an actor with Down syndrome is confronting audience members with their own prejudice, demanding, “You think I’m retarded? Look at yourself!”

“It’s the thing of continuing to play your age and accepting it when you’re younger and you suddenly realize, oh, now I’m playing the mom, oh, I’m playing the grandma. Some parts are smaller.”

“Why bother putting everything into it if you are not producing something that is really worth doing? Something that pushes you and pushes everyone else involved? If it is just another run-of-the-mill show, then what is the point?”

“I’m inclined to think that leaving the issue of spoilers to the judgment of critics and audiences is far better than pressuring them into secrecy. The more robust a piece of work, the more likely it is to withstand spoilers.”

“The duplication of offerings is not what you’d call a point of pride. Some artistic directors at theaters whose identities are forged by unique choices of plays express a bit of embarrassment at what appears to be play selections made in a mind cloud.”

“When PTC producing artistic director Sara Garonzik became directly involved in talks, ‘that turned the whole thing around.'”

The actor’s one-man version of Shakespeare’s Scottish play, set in a modern psychiatric ward, originated at the National Theatre of Scotland and had a brief run at last summer’s Lincoln Center Festival. It opens on Broadway in April, in time for Tony consideration.

“While Fiorello! is the most successful Broadway musical about a New York mayor, it’s not the only one. Jimmy, about La Guardia’s predecessor Jimmy Walker, had a short run in 1969, as did Mayor, about Edward I. Koch (sample song: ‘How’m I Doin’ ‘), in 1985. Could Mr. Bloomberg be next? We asked three musical-theater composers to imagine song-and-dance numbers from the life of our current three-termer.”

“Plays were particularly successful, with audiences up 9% on 2011, which itself was up on the previous year. Plays now account for 29.4% of overall attendances and 23.6% of box office. Musical attendances were down 3% and revenue down 2%.”