Category: theatre

After inexplicably not including the Outstanding Orchestrations category in this year’s awards – the press release says, “The Board also decided to eliminate the category of Orchestrations” – the Drama Desk board has ruffled more than a few industry feathers.

“Unlike the Tony Awards, the Drama Desks consider productions from Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway equally in each of its multiple categories.”

The work, a contemporary script based on a 1746 play, isn’t a revival, says the Broadway awards’ eligibility committee. “A committee member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the eligibility discussions are private, said the view among several on the panel was that the One Man producers had been trying to manipulate the categories and avoid the crowded field competing for best play nominations.”

“The teacher said an awareness of the short attention spans of children with developmental disabilities was crucial to reaching them. She tries to divide her class into different activities lasting around 10 minutes each; at the recent class, because the theatrical signing and charade-type games were ‘really cooking,’ she said, she allowed them to run longer.”

Tony Adams, artistic director of Chicago’s Halcyon Theatre: “There is no way any argument could be made that a classical theatre can’t find plays to broaden their season beyond exclusively white men-other than [Joe Dowling] didn’t bother to try. I stopped and thought about it for a couple minutes. Two. I set a timer for one-hundred twenty seconds. I was curious to see if I could come up with a possible twelve play season, without consulting Google or my bookshelf.”

“When Cirque du Soleil first set up in Moscow’s Kremlin theatre in February, Russian circuses were nervous about losing their audiences. That hasn’t happened, as the Montreal troupe’s Zarkana differs from the traditional Russian circus fare. However, the Cirque then began hiring away their performers.”

“When the Guthrie Theater announced its 50th Anniversary season last week, the absence of women and minorities among the playwrights and directors ignited a fierce debate in the Twin Cities arts community.”

Lyn Gardner: “[T]heatre-going doesn’t just begin with buying a ticket and end when the curtain falls. People clearly do want a more interactive theatre experience that allows them to engage with others who have seen what they’ve seen, and they want to share and discuss over many platforms.”

The Barrow Street Theatre in New York’s West Village is where a Chicago production of Thornton Wilder’s play made headlines, ran for months, and turbo-charged director David Cromer’s career. Some Barrow Street producers were recently back in Chicago to check out playwright Ike Holter’s Hit the Wall, a new play about the Stonewall riots (which happened just steps from the Barrow Street).

The Playhouse has 668 seats. On opening night, 343 tickets were spoken for. Of those, 256 were comps. “That was an epic fail,” John Cassini says. “To come out … and see those empty seats, I’ve got to say, in the first couple of minutes of the show, I think we were all, as actors, a little shocked.”