Category: theatre

“Your first experience with theater in this country tends to be a bad grade school play or a bad high school play that you have to suffer through a three-hour production that has absolutely no truth or meaning to it, or you’re trying to buy that a 16-year-old is Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman, and so it turns people off.”

“The current melange of reviewers leaves this theater lover heartsick and confused. In a city with a wealth of rich dramatic productions, the Post-Gazette’s lack of a drama critic is unforgivable.”

Guthrie Theater artistic director Joe Dowling says Tony Kushner’s “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism & Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures,” previously on a fast track to Broadway, “is not happening in the spring” in order to ensure “that Tony wouldn’t face another deadline like he had in Minneapolis.”

“According to a recent report by Arts Council England, the amount of new writing produced by mainstream, subsidised theatre has more than doubled in the last six years. … With so much new work in circulation, how do script departments forge strong relationships with writers, to help them produce their best work?”

“A group of more than 260 workers on Broadway – cleaners, porters and matrons (bathroom attendants) at some 30 theaters – inched closer to the possibility of a strike on Tuesday afternoon. A unanimous vote … gave the union bargaining committee the authority to settle or strike.”

“[I]sn’t theatre one of the few places left where we can escape the pace of modern life? Call me a traditionalist, but I want to take my time with theatre. It isn’t an amuse-bouche, it’s a slow-roasted main course.”

“Smoking onstage by performers is a commonplace occurrence that most theater professionals don’t think much about – that is, until that right is taken away.
This week, the Colorado Supreme Court handed down a decision that effectively upholds a ban on onstage smoking in the state.”

“Much of the work going on owes more to contemporary dance and experimental theatre than it does to sawdust and elephants. British circus is holding its own despite the fact that it’s not operating on a level playing field: it receives far less funding – indeed, only a few crumbs from the table – and lacks resources….”

The premiere of “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins,” by Margaret Engel and Allison Engel, will be directed David Esbjornson this spring at the Philadelphia Theatre Company.

Though there have been rare wild successes, more shows have experienced devastating failure. “The landlords aren’t hurting. For the moment, every Broadway theater has a backup tenant and a backup for the backup. … For producers, however, it’s another story.”