Category: theatre

“Producers of Broadway’s much- delayed $70 million Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are in talks to replace its high-profile choreographer, Daniel Ezralow … Ezralow is likely to be replaced by Chase Brock, a Brooklyn dance maker in his late twenties.”

“Vibrant, sexy and ensconced in a swish new home, as it reaches its 50th year the Royal Shakespeare Company is buzzing. But just a while ago, it looked doomed.”

“In the ego-driven world of Broadway, as in politics, you’re simply irreplaceable, dahling — until you’re not. I’ve noticed many similarities between the politics of theater and the theater of politics, but the spectacular fall of Ms. Taymor was a moment that crystallized several of them.”

“If a classic is something from the past, to be honored because it’s from the past, it’s like eating a canned fish or something beyond the stop date. And the only way that a classic should be staged is because you’ve discovered, or you believe, that it is still alive.”

“Eight dramatists were commissioned to write a play responding to the cuts. The plays, each lasting no longer than 20 minutes, were made available for theatre groups to download for free.”

“This year’s ‘achievement in dance’ award managed to pass without a single dancer being honoured. Why does dance put up with playing the Cinderella among art forms?”

“The Pasadena Playhouse took another step in its recovery from bankruptcy Tuesday, announcing a 2011-12 season of five plays and courting subscribers again after operating on a show-by-show basis since its October return. Two and possibly three of the plays will be world premieres.”

Says the writer-director of Mona Lisa and The Crying Game: “I remember meeting Bono and Julie at Bono’s house in the South of France and discussing ideas for the book. But it rapidly became obvious to me that Julie’s ideas were not very sensible. She was not headed in, let us say, a coherent narrative direction.”

Charles Isherwood laments the crush of plays and musicals opening in April in order to meet the Tony Award deadline: “You can’t decide to skip Arcadia and catch up with it on Netflix later. … When two dozen plays and musicals have to fight for the minimal attention the media gives to theater, there are going to be lots of casualties.

“When you visit Mormon temples and visitor centers in Salt Lake, you realize that it’s really a religion [founded in the 19th century] that came of age in the 20th Century at the time of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Disney. Mormonism has this great cheesy aesthetic – when you watch their videos, it’s almost as if they’re about to flash a smile at the camera and burst into song.”