Category: theatre

“Zacek, who will be 70 in November, has directed more than 250 productions at the Gardens and was responsible for the creation of its famed ensemble of playwrights, a group of 14 writers to whom Zacek has been fiercely loyal.”

“I go to the fridge for milk, the garage for petrol and the vet to fix my dog. It’s a conventional approach to life, but it works. If, however, I want to go to see some of the latest and most exciting theatre, I have to spend hours rummaging around for a pair of walking boots, a raincoat with a hood and an up-to-date Ordnance Survey map.”

“This is the first time Teatro Buendia has performed in the United States, but the troupe has traveled around the world.” The company’s artistic director “says that the company has never been censored, is no government mouthpiece, and that she and the troupe do not attempt to sugarcoat the reality of their country as they see it.”

“Until Sunday, [Femi] Kuti, 48, had vowed to see ‘Fela!’ only if the show was brought to Lagos, where in the 1970s Fela built a nightclub and residential compound to perform music and criticize the corruption and human rights abuses of Nigeria’s military rulers.”

“I don’t want to lapse into BBC-bashing, but I find it astonishing that Sky Arts is currently occupying territory that once would have been claimed by public-service broadcasting. But, in recent years, the BBC has treated theatre-based drama with an indifference bordering on contempt.”

“The show, Non Abbiate Paura, takes its name from the rallying cry ‘Don’t be Afraid’ oft employed by John Paul during his time in St Peter’s, and attempts to chart the 84 years of his life in two short hours.”

Stanley E. Williams, artistic director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, died July 2, “just nine weeks after his longtime partner, Quentin Easter, executive director of the company they founded in 1981.” Their “untimely deaths … have left the Bay Area’s arts community uncertain about the future of the theater they founded.”

“Mr. Reitz, who will start in early September, will succeed Ellen Richard, who left Second Stage in June 2009 and was just named executive director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.” The Public Theater’s director of development, he “has helped oversee the Public’s $35 million capital campaign.”

“When the National Theatre unveiled plans to film productions and relay them live by satellite to cinemas in Britain and 21 other countries, I was sceptical. I feared the results would seem excessively stagy and lack the excitement of watching actors in the flesh. How wrong I was.”

“Richard comes to ACT after having led New York’s relatively small Roundabout Theatre Company from bankruptcy to Broadway. During her 22 years as general manager, the Roundabout grew to become one of the nation’s largest and most successful nonprofit theater companies, with three theaters – including Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre – and assets in excess of $67 million. She received six Tony Awards.”