Category: theatre

“Both the artistic director and the co-founder of the West Bank’s Freedom Theatre have started hunger strikes in prison. Artistic director Nabil al-Raee commenced his hunger strike last Friday, having spent the last month in administrative detention in an Israeli prison. The company’s co-founder Zakaria Zubeidi began striking on 2 July, vowing to continue until his death if necessary.”

“This is not just your grandmother’s La Mirada Theatre,” crowed Producing Artistic Director Brian Kite in an announcement on the theater’s website, citing more than $1.3 million in single-ticket sales (that is, nonsubscibers) over the past season. By comparison, in 2010-11 the theater barely cleared more than half a million dollars in sales.

“Bernard Gersten, the executive producer of Lincoln Center Theater, announced on Monday that he would step down next June after 28 years in the position. … [The] theater will continue to operate under the leadership of its artistic director, André Bishop, and Mr. Gersten, 89, will not be replaced.”

“Writers’ development agencies have played a vital role in the spectacular expansion of new writing over the last decade. Uniquely, they are run by writers for writers, which is why the best ones have such longevity and success. If [such] institutions are allowed to perish, the consequences will be bitterly clear for new generations of playwrights in the future.”

“As artists and organizers involved in a collaborative form that demands, arguably, one skill above all others, we are at a moment where we can put that skill to new use. That skill is listening, and we can radically alter our role in our communities if we employ it with greater intentionality and generosity. Arts organizations do not have to engage with non-arts partners solely through a lens of project-based needs.”

In one high school theatre/robotics program, “The robots are forever keeling over, wandering off, missing their marks and stealing focus. … Will robots ever develop the acting chops to compete for top billing? Probably not anytime soon. Nonetheless some robotics researchers and experimental dramatists are finding fertile ground in working with a new generation of increasingly sophisticated robot actors.”

“Critically esteemed yet commercially challenging, these playwrights have been underserved by Los Angeles. One problem is that the marquee nonprofit houses have been reluctant to take chances on dramatists carving their own paths, while the city’s few midsize theaters, which would be the logical venue for emerging writers who aren’t pandering to established tastes, haven’t seemed eager to fill this gap. So what’s keeping the better smaller companies from stepping into the breach?”

“When focusing purely on the commercial West End, the average face value of a ticket was £46.96, an increase of 2.4% on 2010, and £43.12 in the subsidised theatres, an increase of 6.3% on 2010.”

“Despite the new additions, the overall number of buildings on the list has reduced from 56 to 49 in the last year, with a number of high-profile venues removed from the register.”