Category: theatre

The founder and director of Cirque du Soleil “has a new passion: to re-energise the museum exhibition and spread his concern about the world’s water crisis. Laliberte’s new baby, Aqua: A Journey into the World of Water, opens at the Australian National Maritime Museum next week. It is a gamble for the museum.”

“Plans have been announced this weekend for the first full-scale musical based on the songs of the totemic British performer. A futuristic fantasy called Heroes: The Musical will tell the story of Major Tom, as well as the starman and a ‘young dude’ called David.”

“But ground control to Major Tom – your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong: in a brief statement Mr. Bowie’s representatives said that he had not consented to this project. ‘Neither the David Bowie Organization, nor its co-publishers EMI Music and Chrysalis, has issued a license for a Bowie musical at the O2, as has been reported in the U.K.”

The saga continues, and the ideas for recouping the $75 million investment do as well: “The most unusual idea: adding new scenes and perhaps a new musical number to the New York “Spider-Man” every year, making it akin to a new comic book edition, and then urging the show’s fans to buy tickets again.”

He wrote his autobiography at age 29, but his famous pride (not to mention the divorce from Emma Thompson) seemed to trip him up in his 30s. How did Kenneth Branagh make it back in action as a beloved British actor? (Even he’s not sure.)

Why is Richard II – one of the most beautiful but also most archaic of Shakespeare’s plays – suddenly all the rage again?

“After running theatres for 15 years, I feel I am now ready to go to a place where I can make my own work but maybe without a building. What we’re doing is talking to and meeting people, and buying rights and getting stuff together for 2013.”

The musical’s depictions of swastikas and characters in Nazi uniforms has previously been a point of contention in Austrian productions — and caused some walkouts when “The Sound of Music” was presented in Vienna in 2005, The A.P. said — but Andreas Gergen, director of the Salzburg production, said, “I think that this is truly the right moment in time, when Austrians are actually ready to deal with their past.”

“Playing for the first time in this haughty town of opera lovers, The Sound of Music has been met with surprisingly positive reactions in what is commonly considered a last bulwark of resistance to the iconic show.”

“Two Ukranian boxing brothers have teamed up with Sylvester Stallone to stage a musical version of Rocky in Hamburg, Germany.”