Category: theatre

“It says on the literature that I am one of the most influential post-war playwrights. I would have billed myself as one of the least influential in the sense that I don’t think anyone else wants to do … what I am trying to do, which is to make a modern myth out of quasi documentary theatre.”

“Most of the nation’s leading theater critics published their reviews of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” online Monday night and in print on Tuesday morning, and the judgments — while somewhat varied in tone and focus, adjectives and invective — yielded a consensus.”

“Facing a serious budget shortfall, Mac Conghail is looking to Boston for fund-raising and to create partnerships. He wants to establish cultural exchanges, especially with colleges and universities, and to put on productions.”

“Most of the critics have cited as reasons for their impatience the show’s record-breaking preview period and the high cost of tickets, which for a single seat can approach $300. They also worry that producers are deliberately outflanking them by pushing off potential negative write-ups, even as the show enjoys a virtually sold-out run…”

Ben Brantley: “This production should play up regularly and resonantly the promise that things could go wrong. Because only when things go wrong in this production does it feel remotely right … Actively letting theatergoers in on the national joke that this problem-plagued show has become helps make them believe that they have a reason to be there.”

“What’s the biggest economic problem with the way non-profit theatres operate in North America? The inflexibility of inventory.” So the Soulpepper Theatre Company is trying out a “flexible inventory” approach to programming.

The actor-director’s new “Middle East Theatre Academy plans to offer workshops for [Arab] youngsters in every aspect of the industry, including acting, writing, producing and directing.” The venture will have no fixed home; the first classes will be held in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

“Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s efforts to silence the Belarus Free Theater Company have backfired. Now the exiled troupe is getting exposure around the world, said co-founder Natalia Koliada.”

Julie Taymor’s $65 million musical “has been lampooned on every major late-night comedy show and by The Onion, which portrayed the producers as still being optimistic about the show despite a nuclear bomb’s detonating during a preview.” Joan Rivers’s suggestion: “Hire a stunt person to fall on someone every three or four weeks – that’ll keep audiences showing up.”

At the center of the controversy was a single couplet, inserted by director Curt Olds into a song sung by the character Ko-Ko, a pacifist executioner. Listing off those people whom he intends to behead, the singer in the Missoula production noted, “that crazy Sarah Palin needs a psychoanalyst / She never would be missed, no she never would be missed.”