Category: theatre

Alexis Soloski: “I thought I was immune to horror on stage, but watching sock puppets mime real-life torture reminded me [theatre] can still beat cinema at its own game. … [T]heatre’s forces combine to offer something viscerally unpleasant, which seems to work on the body (goose bumps, shivers, nausea) as much as the mind.”

Having spent 11 years as dean of the Yale School of Drama and artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, Stan Wojewodski, Jr., wasn’t eager to “go back into administration,” the dean of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts said. “He came here because he could direct again.”

It’s “an intriguing question, especially in an age when women are more likely to participate in comedy, acting, sports and music.” Respondents – 220 male and seven female – to a survey of magicians consider possible answers.

“‘Tonight we are closing this theater,’ Executive Director Stephen Eich told the crowd of over 600 audience, board members and well-wishers from the stage on a night that also saw the closing of the Playhouse production of ‘Camelot.'” He said the theatre is “absolutely optimistic that it will in fact reopen.”

Orlando performance artist Brian Feldman “has a pretty strong motivation for marrying a woman he doesn’t know. … He’s trying to point out the craziness of a state system that will allow near-strangers to marry, as long as they’re of opposite sexes, but will not allow marriages for committed partners of the same sex.”

Heidi Rodewald and Stew split up before their musical, “Passing Strange,” got to Broadway. A year after it closed, “Stew starts writing breakup songs. His friends tell him they’re great, but you know what would be really great? Have Heidi sing about her side of things.” Now St. Ann’s Warehouse is staging the new show.

“Looking ahead, the faces of those swimming in the investor pool have changed, but basically the same number of check writers are afloat. Says producer Roger Berlind (‘A Little Night Music’), ‘There are more producers above the line who are enthusiastically contributing — no shortage of people playing that role.'”

Next year, the company will bring five plays to the Park Avenue Armory, where they will perform on “an exact copy of the company’s Royal Shakespeare Theater, which is being built in Stratford. The reproduction will be shipped in pieces to New York and assembled in the Armory’s monumental Drill Hall….”

“After years when big musicals ruled London’s West End, new plays and revivals of classics dominate the nominations announced today for this year’s Olivier theatre awards. The Royal Court took the lion’s share, with 15 nominations.”

“Hollywood heavyweights feature strongly in the race for Britain’s 2010 Laurence Olivier theatre awards, with Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, James Earl Jones and Keira Knightley among the nominees announced Monday.”