Category: theatre

In Cymbeline‘s “opening scene a courtier vainly assures the audience that this play, ‘may well be laughed at,/Yet is it true’. … Fiasco Theater’s success is, like Cymbeline, something of a fairy tale. … Ben Steinfeld, a company member, said: ‘Our story is preposterous. It’s hard to believe.’ Yet it is true.”

The National Association of Youth Theatres, “after 12 years as a regularly funded organisation, has lost its Department of Education and Arts Council England backing. The umbrella body desperately needs to be shored up by December; if it is unable to raise at least £100,000 by then, it may not survive.”

“‘Walk around the room saying your lines,’ instructed Cicely Berry, and the half-dozen members of Fiasco Theater, a theater troupe [in New York], hopped to it, moving around a rehearsal studio at the Duke Theater while speaking their particular stretch of a soliloquy from Romeo and Juliet.” She went on to make them say their lines while running, lying down and rolling from side to side, and slapping their thighs in rhythm.

Total attendance for the week was also naturally lower, with 130,853 people attending all 23 musicals and plays versus last week’s total of 217,661. The biggest casualties of Irene were “The Lion King,” which dropped almost $710,000 from the week before, and “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” which had revenues fall by about $634,000. Both could offer only five performances.

In Britain, a professional theatre production generally gets four weeks’ rehearsal (or six, at best), a few previews, then press night and that’s it. A few directors – Katie Mitchell and Deborah Warner, for instance – will watch performances during the run and give actors’ notes or even convene a rehearsal. At what point do diminishing returns set in?

“Six volunteers have agreed to allow [London’s Theatre503] access to their voicemails, recordings of which will be passed on to one of six playwrights. … These will then form the basis of six short plays to be premiered at the end of September.”

With all 23 productions currently on Broadway having shut down for the weekend, the Broadway League reported that ticket sales were down 42% from the previous week, with attendance down 40%.

“More people in Great Britain attend theatre shows than sports events, according to a new analysis of cultural engagement across Europe. Sports attendance was higher than theatre-going in all … European countries surveyed except Great Britain, the Netherlands and Estonia.”

Texas theatre isn’t just about Houston and the Alley anymore. Instead, everyone’s talking about the Dallas Theater Company. “‘I don’t feel like the ugly stepsister to Cinderella anymore,’ said Kevin Moriarty, the company’s artistic director.”

Everything’s off on Broadway — and Off-Broadway — as Irene hits the city. But what do theatre artists do on their unplanned holidays?