Category: theatre

“The 112-seat theater, home to Lincoln Center Theater’s latest program, LCT3, aims to develop new talent, feed the company’s two larger theaters – the Vivian Beaumont and the Mitzi E. Newhouse – and attract younger, more diverse audiences. Even the drinks at intermission will be cheaper” – as will the tickets, at $20 each.

“The relationship between any work of art and its perceiver is mutable. (Every time I reread “Anna Karenina” or “David Copperfield,” I feel differently about the title character.) But that of theater and the theatergoer is especially fluid. Unlike books or paintings or movies, works of theater are not fixed creations.”

“Punch and Judy men and women – known as ‘professors’ – took their hand puppets on a procession in London’s Covent Garden, staged shows for hundreds of children and held a church service with the red-nosed Mr Punch in the pulpit.”

“It took flipping out about stage directions for me to realize how much I have internalized all the various messages I’ve heard and witnessed over the past seven years. And it’s even sadder that I felt the need for permission from others to embrace something that used to be instinctual to my process.”

“Does it say something about the state of the American musical theater that the animating incident in the most accomplished new Broadway show of the season is the repairing of a vacuum cleaner?”

“Theater and movie industry execs Jed Bernstein, Bob Israel and Rich Battista have teamed to launch the Broadway and Vine Fund, a new fund for optioning movie titles for musical theater adaptations. First property to be optioned is 1984 Fox pic The Flamingo Kid.“

“Five years ago she stunned admirers of her luminous soprano by decamping to Los Angeles and the (nonsinging) role of the fertility specialist Naomi Bennett on the ABC series Private Practice. Now she has come back to New York theater, in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and her performance as the wanton, drug-addicted Bess has earned her superlative reviews and a Tony Award nomination, her seventh in 18 years.”

“I climbed gingerly up a ladder and stepped into a red structure hanging like a balloon from a tree, deep in the woods of Holt Hall in Norfolk. The balloon began to expand as if by magic, its sides unfurling like petals; I lay down and the sky was visible through a porthole above me. There was a strange, soothing singing; a hand and face appeared at the porthole, and a smiling woman dressed in a kimono descended, set out four cups and saucers, and offered me tea.”

“Adding a star packs the house, allowing producers to command top dollar for tickets, but here’s the rub: Most stars can agree only to limited engagements because of film and TV commitments. And when a star departs, attendance generally dips.”

“The Royal Court theatre in London has named Vicky Featherstone, head of the National Theatre of Scotland, as its first female artistic director. Featherstone, who kicked off her career as an unpaid assistant director at the Royal Court, will succeed Dominic Cooke when he steps down in April 2013.”