Category: theatre

Eleven and Twelve ” is based on the memoir of an obscure Malian Muslim mystic, Tierno Bokar, a leader who put an end to a bloody religious war by conceding that his opponents were right.” It can be seen as a meditation on fundamentalism or colonialism, but “perhaps it is most powerful as a parable on the sacrifice that tolerance demands, as Bokar is eventually ostracised by his own people.”

“Winehouse lashed out at Richard Pound, 27, after disrupting a performance of Cinderella at Milton Keynes Theatre in Buckinghamshire last month.” The singer “was given a two year conditional discharge and must pay £85 in costs” as well as “£100 in compensation to Mr Pound, the theatre’s front-of-house manager.”

The $5 million operations grant from Research In Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis and his wife, Ophelia, a Stratford board member, “will be handed out in increments as other individuals and governments commit to giving to the festival.”

“The new award is for shows which opened before January 1, 2009 and ran throughout 2009. … This means that 20 productions are in the running” for the Olivier Award, on which the public will vote.

Ten shortlisted female playwrights are vying for the $20,000 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, which will be announced in March.

After the Colorado Supreme Court last month upheld a ban on onstage smoking, two Denver theatre companies decided to “pursue a legal case, hoping to win an audience with the U.S. Supreme Court.” In the meantime, they say the prohibition is affecting their art.

“‘Hope,’ a musical that tells the story of Obama’s election, had its premiere at Frankfurt’s Jahrhunderthalle on Jan. 17. … Parts of it are so silly they have to be seen to be believed. Cringe-making moments include a love song between Michelle and Barack, the president-to-be dressed in a gray V-neck cardigan with a large diamond pattern.”

“The nominee is a complete shocker: Amelia Bassano Lanier, a converso (clandestine Jew) and the illegitimate daughter of an Italian-born, Elizabethan court musician.”

“What is striking about Trilogy,” a theatre piece, “is how unfamiliar we have become with the familiar sight of the female form. From the cult of the Virgin Mary in late-middle ages European art to the surgically sculpted cover girls of today, the perfected female nude has been rendered the idealised aesthetic and unequivocal, aspirational norm.”

“With a cast of about 150 actors, donkeys, horses and an artificial tomb, the organisers anticipate some 25,000 spectators. … The crucifixion, which involves Jesus being winched up a cross, will not ‘pull any punches’ in its goriness.”