Barely more than a week ago, the board of the Seattle company said there wasn’t money to continue operating even for another month and was prepared to close. (This just nine months after Intiman finally retired $2.7 million in debt.) Artistic director Jen Zeyl and her colleagues insisted that they could raise $200,000 by the end of the year, and the board has agreed to let them try. In fact, they’re already more than halfway to the goal. – The Seattle Times
Category: theatre
Can A Rapper’s Take On Camus Become France’s ‘Hamilton’?
Spoken-word artist and author Abd el Malik is staging Camus’s The Just Assassins, now considered a classic play in France, at the Théâtre du Châtelet with R&B and hip-hop accompaniment and an almost entirely non-white cast that includes amateur actors from the housing projects in the Paris suburbs. Says one cast member, “Here, onstage, are people like us. Blacks, Arabs, who come from the suburbs, who didn’t think they would do drama one day, even less so at the Châtelet.” – The New York Times
Royal Shakespeare Company Gives Up BP Sponsorship
“The RSC announced that after months of deliberations and a vociferous campaign from artists, the public and environmentalists, it had decided to curtail its eight-year relationship. The move will increase pressure on other cultural institutions such as the Royal Opera House, British Museum and National Portrait Gallery, which have all come under pressure over their tie-ins with fossil fuel companies.” – The Guardian
David Henry Hwang And Jeanine Tesori Turn ‘The King And I’ On Its Head
“In [Soft Power], a stand-in for Hwang named DHH is hired by a Chinese producer to try to stage a theatrical production in Shanghai. Then, after a stabbing that mirrors Hwang’s own, he falls into a coma and imagines a full-blown future production of a Chinese musical about an intrepid Chinese producer who meets Hillary Clinton and teaches lessons from the communist perspective about screwed-up American democracy. There’s also, of course, a ‘Getting to Know You’-style lesson scene, but about learning to distinguish tones in Mandarin.” – Vulture
Does An Actor Always Need Her Own Voice?
Mind you, this isn’t a question of mime or dance. Chris Jones considers the implications of The King’s Speech, in which Britain’s King George VI learns to use his voice properly, and Lucas Hnath’s recent play Dana H, in which the star (brilliantly) lip-synchs to a recording of the playwright’s own mother recounting a horrific experience and its aftermath. – Chicago Tribune
What American Theater Owes To Uta Hagen
“Beyond her acting, her greatest legacy may be how she influenced generations of actors, teaching at HB Studio and writing two books that are popular with acting students across the globe. Reporter Jeff Lunden speaks with some of those former students and colleagues, including F. Murray Abraham, Mercedes Ruehl and David Hyde Pierce, about what made Hagen such an important figure in the history of American theater.” (audio) – Studio 360
Making Non-Boring Theatre About Climate Change
There’s a sliver of space where audience members can start to consider societal change. “I keep coming back to the idea that, as theatremakers, our greatest weapon in the fight against climate change may ultimately be this sliver of audience-lifting space. In this space comes an expanded capacity for empathy and, perhaps, the ability to be more collectively accountable.” – HowlRound
Is It Theatre Or Theater?
“I remember we thought we should use the British spelling of ‘theatre’ so that people would take us more seriously.” – Washington Post
Seattle’s Intiman Theatre: A Truly Existential Crisis
Myriad issues are to blame. Donors’ funding priorities have changed, and corporations are donating less to nonprofit theaters, making the fight for funding more competitive. High-quality entertainment can be accessed on-demand at low cost. Arts journalism has become more sparse, and the public, concerned about an economic slowdown, might be less inclined to show up. – Crosscut
Chicago Festival Has To Cancel A Highly Anticipated Premiere Because Immigration Denies Visas To Playwright And Crew
Conchi León and her touring cast and crew had been making Chicago-specific plans since March, building a special traveling set for her Yucatán- set play La Tía Mariela. It was set to premiere at the Chicago’s International Latino Theater Festival … until the US Department of Citizenship Immigration Services decided not to issue visas to the cast and crew because “they were determined to not be ‘culturally unique.'” What? – NBC News