Category: theatre

“Perhaps the most shuddery response was from an anonymous actor who left makeup on her dressing table after a show: ‘I had tiny bite marks on my lipstick recently when I left the lid off.'”

“A spokeswoman for the theatre said there had been a ‘security incident’ which meant an ‘unauthorised user’ accessed customers’ online accounts. But financial details of customers were not compromised as that information is encrypted, the spokeswoman said.”

“The honoree — clearly deeply moved by the event — said he was looking forward to his namesake venue ‘taking its place among the theater listings.’ … [T]he first show is yet to come. But here’s the listing: The Richard Christiansen Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago.“

Jack Shafer: “Would the [Wall Street] Journal have run this bogus trend story had it spent two minutes on a Nexis search on the topic? The archives teem with similar stories about playwrights migrating to the electronic form.”

“Certainly sober subjects have found their way into musicals before — from Broadway shows like ‘Carousel’ (domestic violence, class prejudice) in 1945 to ‘Next to Normal’ (bipolar disorder) last year — but the Off Broadway offerings this winter and spring stretch the possibilities of the form and seem particularly fitting for our troubled times….”

The Regency-era Theatre Royal in Bury St. Edmunds, England, “was running a deficit of 180,000 pounds ($269,100) on annual turnover of 1 million pounds” when Artistic Director Colin Blumenau took over in 1996. By “2009 the theater’s turnover doubled to 2 million pounds, and it’s still breaking even.” His secret? “I treated it like a business,” he says.

“The newly expanded Jewish Museum in north London has built a tiny interactive theatre – a karaoke machine – so you can declaim the Yiddish classics.” Hear, and even recite, for instance, Shylock’s famous speech: “Hot a yid nisht keyn oygn, nisht keyn hent, glider, gelfiln, laydnshaftn?”

“Shakespeare-themed events will be held from John O’Groats to Cornwall as part of the first Shakespeare United Day, to be held on the playwright’s birthday weekend. Events, including themed pub quizzes, Shakespeare’s Got Talent in Wales and a football match played by Shakespeare United will be held on April 23 and 24 across the country. Organisers also plan to stage Shakespeare in Cornish.”

“In earlier eras, when Broadway spawned its own stars, Rodgers and Hammerstein or Andrew Lloyd Webber were imprimaturs of a good show; more recently theater producers have cast movie stars like Hugh Jackman and Jude Law to build an audience. Now the latest idea is tapping marquee names from pop culture as investors and ‘presenters.'”

“Like Scotland’s national theatre, the company has no permanent home. Its home is all of Wales, and its first season will feature a dozen productions stretching from Cardiff, Swansea and Newport in the south to the beaches of north Wales, via Barmouth, Bangor and a military firing range in the Brecon Beacons.”