Category: theatre

“A unit investment in Godspell goes for $100 and investors are required to purchase at least 10 of them. In exchange, each investor will receive a limited liability company interest in The Godspell, LLC.” Producer Ken Davenport is now describing the production, which he hopes to open on Broadway next spring, as “community-funded.”

Charles Isherwood: “It’s a comedy of manners to rival anything on a Broadway stage, as the black-clad, clumping-shoe-wearing fashion folk gossip and greet one another and trade impressions as the cricketing of camera shutters spritzes the (usually hot) air. … But all too often, once the lights dim and the models walk, the entertainment evaporates.”

“A religious satire with song-and-dance numbers, The Book of Mormon is scheduled to open March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. … Casey Nicholaw, who received a Tony nomination for directing The Drowsy Chaperone, will stage the new musical, along with [Trey] Parker.”

“People are recognizing that audiences can have multiple allegiances. The old idea that this is my theater, this is the one theater that I go to, is breaking down. People are seeing different work in different places.”

Matt Trueman: “A production can be entirely successful – vivid and vibrant, fiercely intelligent, roaringly enjoyable and deeply emotive – and still not merit that final accolade.… Four stars can be given grudgingly, but five is a real statement of belief. It says: ‘This is what theatre can do.’ It says: ‘If only all theatre were this good.’ It says: ‘This is what I believe theatre ought to be doing’.”

Lyn Gardner: “Once, the fringe was somewhere you graduated from and never went back to. But increasingly it seems to be the place you go to put on the shows you really want to do, but maybe can’t interest a subsidised theatre in, or – if you’re an actor – where you play the roles you really want to play.”

“After more than two decades, things appeared to have shattered at Shattered Globe Theatre. According to ensemble member Linda Reiter, the board of the venerable off-Loop company has decided to cease operations, return grant monies and dissolve the entity.”

The Bouffes Parisiens theater is doing Kramer contre Kramer; Tennessee Williams’s Tramway nommé Désir is at the Comédie Française; other houses are presenting The Odd Couple, Speed-the-Plow and other well-known American dramas.

“Largely unknown by the public, [Jennifer] Tipton is revered within her profession, an interdisciplinary artist whose four decades of design have won her two Tonys, two Bessies, an Olivier, and a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant.”

“It is absolutely possible to create work for young people that is artistically thrilling for both kids and adults.” Joe Giardina, director of education at the New Victory Theater in New York, offers suggestions to performers and parents alike. (“Don’t ignore age recommendations.”)