Category: theatre

“Saddled with debt, infested with infighting and now again seeking new artistic and executive leadership, the late founder Jeffrey Nickelson’s dream is proving to be unsustainable, done in by petty bickering, staggering costs and audience abandonment.”

“Love Never Dies may well be the most pre-emptively vilified show yet. Vicious verdicts began popping up online immediately after previews started on February 22.”

“We have a culture right now that has us buried in our BlackBerrys and our iPhones and all of our Palm things. Everywhere you look, there’s a screen now.”

“Despite a bailout from the city in 2006, the theatre’s operating loss nearly doubled from $220,908 in 2008 to $406,812 last year, according to officials.”

“According to the festival’s report, total revenues for 2009 amounted to $59 million with expenses totalling $58.8 million.”

“Far from being the muscular entity I recall from the 1960s and 70s, one that could set wage structures, negotiate overtime and working conditions, and even insist on the odd backstage visit from pest control, the actors’ trade union now more resembles an elderly grandfather attempting to reason with the yobs as they make off with his roofing slates.”

After years of politely ignoring them, British theatre has woken up to the audience, and the role they play in any piece of work. As Connected on-line curator, Andy Field, writes on the website and forum (which is well worth checking out) interactive performance “is not a genre. This is not a niche.”

“Several theatre events in the capital at the moment address the rise of the BNP. But can these productions really further the debate around racism, or is this merely the liberal middle-class arts community trying to make itself feel current and politically engaged?”

Shadow Theatre Company’s Keith “Hatten, who was hired in June to head Colorado’s only black theater company after the board ousted founder Jeffrey Nickelson, cited a power struggle with the current board, which has largely turned over since Nickelson was pushed out.”

A Noise Within, a classical repertory company, had aimed to hit that mark “in time for a planned April groundbreaking” in Pasadena. “One key to its success was an agreement by its board of directors to match every dollar donated between Nov. 1 and Feb. 28. More than $700,000 was collected during that period….”