Category: theatre

“The head and shoulders winner at this year’s awards was the Royal Court theatre – it dominated the shortlists with 11 nominations and won four with awards for two of the most-talked about plays of the year, Jerusalem and Enron. … Unusually, there were no wins for west end commercial theatre or the National Theatre.”

Fiona Shaw lent her brain to science, reciting T.S. Eliot inside an MRI scanner, to help researchers find out. (video)

“Other dates on the original five-city tour had already fallen through, but [producer Kevin] Von Feldt says he had sold more than $200,000 in tickets in Chicago, the last hold-out. ‘We’re going to come back,’ said Von Feldt, comparing himself to Max Bialystock….”

“So are the holidays ruining theater? Or saving it? Companies that thrive during December say giving people what they want is both consumer-friendly and good business during a challenging economic period that, it has been estimated, will kill off 10 percent of all nonprofit arts organizations in the country.”

“The Wrecking Ball is an evening of political theatre, a Toronto tradition that has spread to other Canadian cities. Playwrights are given a short time to write a brief play, political in nature. Directors and actors are brought in, and with very little rehearsal or preparation they put on a show for one night only.”

Lee Strasberg’s son David Lee is maintaining his late father’s acting schools in Manhattan and West Hollywood and even opening a new branch in Mumbai next year. He argues that the Method “is less reliant on psychobabble than most people believe. … [More] interesting is the way developments in neuroscience keep cropping up in his conversation.”

“Set in the mid-1960s … Fetch Clay, Make Man, by Will Power, centers on the young boxer’s friendship with Stepin Fetchit, the stage name of the actor Lincoln Perry.” The play, which “deals with creating personas,” opens in January at the McCarter Theater in Princeton. Ben Vereen will play Fetchit, with Evan Parke as Ali; Des McAnuff will direct

Mark Lawson: “[L]ast week, for the first time ever, I was tempted to leave a theatre in mid-performance, not through tedium or sciatica … but from moral anger.” The reason: a female character – written by a male playwright – speaking about experiencing pleasure while being raped. Lawson and commenters consider the ethics of the situation.

“Ambassador Theatre Group’s £90 million purchase of Live Nation’s UK theatres is being investigated by the [government’s] Office of Fair Trading, in a move that will prevent the two businesses being fully integrated until early 2010.”

Brian Colburn, managing director of the Intiman Theatre, tells the paper: “There’s probably as much theater here as in the city of Los Angeles, but the population is one-sixth the size. You can walk from theater to theater here, meet friends or colleagues at a cafe.”