Category: theatre

Observers have been complaining about the decline of panto for at least 150 years. “Pantomime has survived only because it is so plastic and malleable. Instead of becoming trapped like a fly in amber, it has constantly evolved – from the 18th-century Harlequinades, through the music-hall era to the comic and sometimes magical spectacles of today.”

“Why don’t girls plays boys in panto any more? From Peter Pan to Prince Charming, men suddenly appear to be reprising the role of the principal boy, traditionally the preserve of lissom ladies in fishnets and thigh-high boots.”

“Faculty, guest professionals and design and performance students at University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) will merge to realize the classic American musical Oklahoma! as it was first envisioned in 1943. The spring 2011 revival will recreate original Broadway sets, costumes and dances.”

“The US largely lacks a tradition of historical drama. We pioneered the panorama and the pageant and with the living newspaper plays of the 1930s helped forge the transmutation of yesterday’s headlines into tomorrow’s two-act. But we have nothing like the history plays of Shakespeare to serve as a dramaturgical model.”

“Audiences want to see uplifting, holiday-theme family fare, and if it provides a respite from shopping, cooking and struggling to get along with the in-laws, they will pay top dollar for it. … [What’s] absent from the theatrical menu, especially on Broadway and in the large, prestigious nonprofit houses, are original holiday dramas that are entertaining, accessible and even sentimental.”

“Bureaucrats bent over backwards to bend the rules and shovel federal cash to a Toronto theatre festival that staged a sympathetic play about a terrorist who wanted to blow up downtown Toronto.”

Broadway stars are speaking out against “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” director Julie Taymor and the show’s producers in light of all the serious on-set injuries.

“Angelina Fiordellisi, the artistic director of the nonprofit Cherry Lane Theater, a Greenwich Village institution since 1924, will step down next year … She said that she plans to sell the building … and that constant financial struggles in recent years and the changing nature of the business had led to her decision.”

“Theatergoers who attended Monday’s performance of “Spider-Man”… said that they saw a performer playing the title hero fall about 8 to 10 feet into a pit during the closing minutes of the show, and that some equipment fell into the audience when this occurred.”

“This is not taxpayers’ money. In a recession, we actually have a lot of people employed. It’s quite the opposite of what it appears in the paper: ‘Oh my God, they’re spending so much money.’ Yes, on human beings – human beings who are working and are very happy to be working.”