In a field known for big egos and explosive emotions, stage managers combine calm, nimbleness and competence that balances left- and right-brain attributes. They have to have an eye for detail, drillmaster-like discipline, psychological finesse and artistic flair. In short, nothing gets off the ground without them. – The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
Category: theatre
Playwright Annie Baker Never Does Interviews, But She Did This One
But she did it only by email, which meant she’d have time and space to craft her answers — and, writes reporter Mark Lawson, “the precise replies suggest that her public reticence may come from a fear of being over-specific about details that the work blurs.” – The Guardian
The Nine-Year-Old Theatre Fan Who Has Something To Say About How To Behave At A Show
Sadie is the unlikely new Emily Post of the theatre community. In June, just before leaving for sleepaway camp, she put Magic Marker to paper and laid out what she calls her Broadway Rules, and the manifesto made the rounds. Her ten do’s and don’ts include some items that seem obvious (“Stay in seat until intermission,” “Listen to the Ushers”) as well as a few that rarely make it into etiquette primers (“NEVER sing along,” “No ‘gas passing.’ ”) – The New Yorker
How Disney Became A Live-Theater Powerhouse
It started with Beauty and the Beast on Broadway in 1994, followed up three years later by The Lion King. Yet Disney Theatrical Group didn’t become a corporate behemoth churning out pale copies of movie franchises. (Whatever you may think of The Lion King, you can’t call it pale.) Peter Marks talks with Disney Theatrical Group chief Thomas Schumacher about the secrets of that success. – The Washington Post
How Does Chicago Keep Its Busy Storefront Theatre Scene Going? Hard Work, Low Pay, Grit, And Community
“Whether traditional black boxes or nontraditional spaces, often in residential neighborhoods, Chicago storefront theatre prides itself on more intimacy, as well as edgier material, than an audience member can find in a Broadway touring production or the city’s larger venues. Storefront theatre differs from community theatre, not in its meager starting budget but in its aspiration that those involved strive to be professional working artists. Even if they don’t make a living doing what they love, they are making a life (and some money) in it.” – American Theatre
Why America’s Professional Theatres Are Broken
“The effect of this legacy for mixed metaphors and a lack of public funding of the arts is a numbing of artistic innovation and an enlivening of artistic repetition. Companies often opt for what seems like more saleable programming—reliable commodities, you might say—to eke out new works initiatives. But commodification is a distraction from doing the real work that our mission statements claim we do.” – Howlround
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between The World And Me’ Is Now A Play, And It’s About To Tour The U.S
One of the first things that Kamilah Forbes did when she became executive producer at the Apollo Theater in Harlem was contact Coates, an old friend from college, and ask to adapt his award-winning memoir. “Book reading can be so solitary; we read our books by ourselves, and unless you’re part of a book club, do you really engage within the topics or in the actual writing or primarily the topic that the book discusses?” Forbes said. “The question was about how can we use theatre as this collective form of communication to have the broader conversation with the book.” – American Theatre
A Frightening History Of America’s Theatre Fires
William Paul Gerhard, an engineer with the British Fire Prevention Committee, stated in a report that by May 1897 there had been 1,115 recorded theater fires in Europe and America (since records had been kept); there were 460 theater fires across America and Europe just from 1800 to 1877. Gerhard claimed that the average life of a theater in the United States was only about thirteen years due to fire. – Lapham’s Quarterly
‘Angels’ In East Texas: How Tony Kushner’s Play Tore Apart, And Then Changed, A Small Southern Town
In 1999, a small college in Kilgore, TX — in an area where, at the time, gay men were routinely beaten and sometimes murdered — staged Angels in America, angry protests from local fundamentalists led to a showdown that attracted national media attention. Wes Ferguson, who edited the college paper at the time and whose sensationalist headline on a preview story ignited the fury, recounts how it went down and talks to some of the key participants about how they, and the town, were changed by the furor 20 years ago. – Texas Monthly
111 New Plays Are Premiering In America’s Bigger Theatres This Year. Here’s A Statistical Analysis
Who is being produced on our stages? What kinds of characters are appearing on our stages? And what do these plays look like in terms of form and thematic content? – Howlround