Category: theatre

“Being a playwright is not really a way to make a living. Most of us have some sort of day job — whether it is teaching or, in my case, doing commercial work, writing movies and things. This gives me a certain amount of financial freedom to focus on my theatre work, which is a great blessing.”

“A Long Island stockbroker defrauded the producers of the Broadway musical Rebecca with an elaborate scheme that included a fictitious loan and phantom investors who were conjured up as part of a sham plan to rescue the financially ailing show, federal authorities charged in a criminal complaint Monday.”

With only two exceptions (Martin Guerre and The Drowsy Chaperone), the few attempts at creating big musicals in the Great White North over the decades have generally flopped or fizzled. Says Martin Guerre‘s author, “Musical theatre is not a Canadian art form. It’s a Broadway art form or it’s … a British tradition.” (Canadians may lack the brashness the form requires.) But there are a few theatres trying to change that.

“A political science course took a Marxist view, discussing the work as an emblem of the dark side of capitalism. A philosophy course on existentialism examined the way the characters lost sight of their true selves. Business professors focused on both the ethical and practical problems of the office depicted in the play.”

“Its new strategy of “right-sizing,” to use corporate-speak that has entered the artistic sector, may be the surest path to stability for the in-peril model of regional theatre – and show that cash-strapped times don’t have to mean downsizing artistic goals.”

“Horrible things are supposed to be horrible, to jar and linger. We forget that, so accustomed are we to our easy, instant-gratification culture where, when trouble hits, the grief counselors are rushed in, the popular pills are prescribed, and we’re all expected to dance upon the fresh graves of our personal heartbreak.”

The 1820s oil painting shows black 19th-century Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge in a leading role – and so is an important “document of black history.”

A new report from the Center for the Theater Commons says that “the nonprofit theater appears to have lost sight of its values and raison d’être.” Should we blame Broadway?

A new report on actors – and crew – to work for free on stage and screen has British unions calling for the government to enforce the minimum wage law.

“Mike Daisey is an important voice in American theater, and the Public Theater has a long history with him, one that we plan to continue. Mike and I have had extensive discussions, and he understands that any piece of work we present that lays claim to first-person reporting will be vetted for accuracy.”