Category: theatre

“From an artist’s perspective, going lean can be fairly constricting. San Francisco playwright Mark Jackson laments that the new ethos has come full circle: Playwrights won’t write large ensemble plays anymore because nobody wants to stage them.”

Charles Newell, artistic director of Chicago’s Court Theatre, keeps a spotless office and is garnering an ever-mounting reputation in regional theatre – but award committees haven’t noticed. Does that matter?

“Amidst the conversations, grants and re-naming of staff positions, what common values, if any, do we believe engagement should hold as a growing body of practice?”

“The series about the making of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe, which NBC recently renewed for a second season, is a long way from getting to the real Broadway. Still, the show has been a passion project for NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt for years, and it boasts a large cast of executive producers with elite pedigrees and credentials in the theater world.”

Richard Kobak, a stunt performer on the Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark musical, is the latest to claim injury from high-flying stunts for the Broadway production.

In an era where artist-celebrities assume the role of human rights icons through stints as UN “good will ambassadors”, photo-op tours of disaster stricken areas and pronouncements of disgust with the war criminal of the week, Mer-Khamis was an artist in the truest sense of the word. He used his considerable gifts as an actor, filmmaker and theatre director both to represent suffering and injustice in unique ways and to offer a glimpse of a different future. He was, in fact, a cultural terrorist. And the world needs more of them.”

Olivier Choinière is known for his déambulatoires théâtrals, in which audience members wander a streetscape while listening to a prepared podcast. But last October, one of his MP3 pieces led audiences members into the balcony for another theatre company’s show – which his podcast proceeded to mock and criticise during the performance.

“The independent report found 6,800 young people went to the theatre for the first time because of the project. But 37% of participants admitted they would have paid for their ticket without the subsidy.”

“No one should read any kind of criticism – and especially theater criticism – as gospel. It’s not the last word. It’s the beginning of a conversation. Seeing shows more than once allows me the critic to continue my part in that conversation, if only in my own head.”

“Playwright Lisa Kron mines her own life to create her often-hilarious work. She has written about being the child of a Holocaust survivor, and about her mother’s struggles with chronic illness. Her latest play deals with a struggle common to all of us – the agony of computerized customer service.”