Category: theatre

Ben Brantley: “Ms. Nature (I believe in respecting a goddess who can keep city temperatures in the high 90s in early July) can both enhance and destroy an actor’s performance. If she’s in a good mood, she sends flaming sunsets to accompany soliloquies, makes the moon glow fully for love scenes and provides gentle winds that cause costumes to flutter attractively. When she’s unhappy, watch out.”

A program at Harvard Medical School “uses ancient Greek tragedies to spark discussion among medical students and professionals about the ethics of treating patients facing painful, prolonged deaths.”

“Mr. Jones, who came to the [Millburn, N.J.,] theater in November 2007 after four years at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., helped to bring Paper Mill back from the financial brink with a real estate deal in June 2008.”

“Edinburgh International Festival director Jonathan Mills has criticised media ‘laziness’ for the public being confused about the difference between EIF and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which run alongside one another every August.”

Q: What is the biggest myth about theatre?

A: That it is more populated by egotists than any other profession. Architects, academics and doctors – for instance – are every bit as egotistical and competitive as people who work in the theatre.

“Inspired by the overwhelming popularity of the musical comedy-drama on the Fox network, dozens of theater groups and arts organizations in Chicago and across the country have created ‘Glee’ summer camps for kids using music and choreography from the hit show. ‘Glee’ camps have formed in North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Indiana and Utah.”

“The Red Barn would go on to become Ontario’s longest-running summer theatre and launch the careers of some of Canada’s biggest stage actors and directors. Now, more than 60 years after it was founded and a little over a year after a devastating fire razed much of the theatre, the Red Barn has folded.”

“Although NT Live’s recently concluded inaugural season hasn’t made much of a blip on the cultural radar screen, I’d have to call this initiative of London’s National Theatre to broadcast performances of plays to cinemas across the globe a smashing success.”

Theresa Rebeck: “Somebody recently told me that one of my plays, The Understudy, was ‘too funny.’ … My friend Jessica Bauman, who is a wonderful director, felt like she understood the criticism and tried to explain it in a nice way. ‘Your plays are so funny people don’t notice how serious they are. They’re enjoying themselves too much. So they stop listening’.”

Henry James’s Guy Dornville was one of the 19th century’s most notorious flops, and we definitely don’t revere Virginia Woolf for Freshwater or James Joyce for Exiles – any more than we revere Shaw, Pirandello or Stoppard for their prose fiction.