Category: theatre

“The Ohio Theatre, a 29-year fixture in Soho, will close its doors Aug. 31, according to a Feb. 23 press statement that reads, ‘The new landlord has issued official notice and no further negotiations are scheduled’.” The venue is “where Tony Kushner produced his first play out of college, where Philip Seymour Hoffman made his professional acting debut.”

“The actor-turned-artistic-director-turned-politician has been named director of theater and musical theater at the National Endowment for the Arts.” Remington, a 47-year-old Philadelphia native, founded Minneapolis’ Pillsbury House Theatre and served on the Minneapolis City Council.

David Hare, who chose Grise’s “blu” for the Yale Drama Series prize, “noted that this was a banner year for women, who have often complained that they are slighted by theaters when it comes to production. ‘Of the 12 plays on this year’s shortlist, nine were written by women[,]’ he said, adding that last year’s winner was also a woman.”

“Lucy, one of the puppet stars of the risque Broadway show ‘Avenue Q,’ won’t get [to show her cleavage] in the conservative bastion of Colorado Springs, Colo., where her ample — if also pink and fuzzy — endowment has proved too much for a billboard company.” Lucy’s puppet breasts have been — yes — banned from bus-stop ads.

“This April, 50 actors, writers, directors and producers, aged between 18 and 30, will travel from London to New York for a week-long placement in The Public Theatre. In May, 50 US artists will take part in a similar programme at the Old Vic.”

“While persecution remains a reality for most of” the gay characters in a batch of new plays and musicals, “the widening acceptance of AIDS as a pandemic rather than a gay disease — and the broadening debate on gay marriage and gay soldiers — have led, and have to some extent freed, writers and producers to use a wider lens to explore a broader landscape.”

A “Burbank Catholic high school couldn’t afford to hire two instructors at its usual teaching salary, so they hired two actors to teach a full theater arts curriculum at a fraction of the cost. The professional actors have revitalized the school’s drama program, and school leaders say the idea could be a viable option for other financially strapped schools….”

David Cote: “In early April, previews start for the Broadway run of Enron, [British] writer Lucy Prebble and director Rupert Goold’s apparently brilliant anatomy of our nation’s biggest corporate scandal. But the excitement over this transfer from the West End is mitigated by shame that no one here had thought of it first.”

“Everyone hears the announcement, but no one thinks it applies to them,” says one director. The producers of various plays try various ploys to get the audience to pay attention to the pre-show turn-it-off announcement rather than treating it as background noise.

“The estate of the late Adrian Jacobs on Wednesday added Rowling as a defendant in a lawsuit it filed in June against Bloomsbury Publishing PLC for alleged copyright infringement, according to a statement released by the estate’s representatives, who are based in Australia.”