Category: theatre

“The estate of the playwright August Wilson has, for the first time, granted the rights to record all 10 of his plays about African-American life in the 20th century to New York Public Radio’ Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in New York.”

“One of the most recognizable names in the world of theater criticism is stepping down. John Lahr, the senior theater critic for The New Yorker for close to 20 years, is quitting regular reviewing for the magazine to concentrate on profile writing and book projects.”

“The Apollo Theater is about to rip out its orchestra seats, extend its stage and plop its audience right into the heart of the action as its recreates the long-vanished era of the Harlem nightclub of the 1930s and ’40s.” (Don’t worry, Amateur Night fans: the change will be for one week in February.)

“AIDS made it impossible not to talk about gayness. The grave wasn’t even a closet anymore. Angels In America tied it into the huge arc of the American story; the gay community was no longer an isolated group. We needed a big play about this, and he gave us an epic – it was Brecht, it was Wagner. It was amazing.”

“Now that a generation has passed, it seems fair to ask whether the American theater remains equally capable in 2012 of what it brought forth back then. … Could five years, more than $2 million in today’s currency and so much of an audience’s time be set aside to write, develop and perform an unprecedented kind of work by an unproven playwright?”

“With the National Theatre’s acclaimed Travelex Ticket season [offering £10 seats] celebrating its 10th birthday this year, it seems there’s something in the air. But as audiences are dazzled (or not, as the case may be) by these headline-grabbing experiments in pricing strategy, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the implications of such schemes for both audiences and theatres, as well as the challenges that accompany them.”

April de Angelis of London’s Royal Court Theatre: “Staying with us [in a Maharashtra guest house] were 12 Indian writers whose work we’d read but had not yet met. It was an exciting, curious, daunting moment: in three months we would be expecting them to deliver 12 new plays, and in some senses that depended as much on us as them.”

“There were directors who swore through their roll-up cigarettes, there was gossiping backstage and tantrums over plum roles, and not everyone – I hold my hands up – was especially gifted at acting. But there was also passion, commitment, fun, friendship, the thrill of performing. And there were actually some very good shows, with real ambition.”

“Artistic director Madani Younis hopes to widen the scope of new writing. ‘We’re introducing a strand where artists and writer-performers can engage with us without just submitting a script,’ he explains. ‘Speaking to artists, they’ve said, ‘Don’t expect to read our stuff on a page.’ You need to meet them. You need to give them a different kind of space.'”

“The actors carry scripts; props and gestures are kept to a minimum; and there are microphones hanging from the ceiling to simulate a 1950s studio. Nunn calls it a ‘visualised radio play’, and the conceit is that the audience are eavesdroppers at a studio recording.” (Why not just act it out on stage? The Beckett estate, of course.)