Category: theatre

This is one of Broadway’s busiest falls in years. And the box office so far – even in a recession – has been mostly good…

What went wrong with “Brighton Beach Memoirs” is a case study in success and failure on Broadway today. There were no big stars like Jude Law in the current commercial hit “Hamlet,” there was no marketing campaign that framed the Simon play as a can’t-miss theatrical event, and there was no wow factor that brought the period piece to life, like the breakneck pacing of the popular farce “Boeing-Boeing” last year. But the failure also reflects America’s evolving sense of humor and taste.

Impresarios are businessmen by definition, but they also possess the starry-eyed ability to stare stone-cold fatal logic in the face and say, “We can make that work.”

“The Depression-era comedy-drama, loosely based on the early life of playwright Neil Simon, has struggled with low sales since it began perfs Oct. 2.”

“Great performances rarely disappear. The technical elements of a show don’t vary much (disasters notwithstanding). Poor casting choices — and I could list several on the boards currently in Chicago — remain poor casting choices. But the longer I do this job, the more I realize the importance of these nightly variances.”

“Around 65% of the tickets for Broadway shows are bought by tourists from outside New York’s metropolitan area. A reliable choice for a family on the town has long been a splashy musical with some hearty laughs. But the recession is bringing about changes, some of which may be for the better.”

The spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency is performing “a remarkable 20-minute, one-man play intended for Israeli audiences but so far unwelcome in Israeli theatres. It tells the story of the main UN warehouse in Gaza, a storage point for food and aid for a million Palestinians, and how it was hit repeatedly by Israeli artillery shells.”

The advocacy group Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts says a blind or deaf child actress should have been cast in the “Miracle Worker” role that went to Abigail Breslin, while the Broadway show’s lead producer argues that it would be “financially irresponsible to approach a major revival without making a serious effort to get a star.”

“Ticket holders at this week’s first previews of Matthew Broderick’s new Off Broadway play have been privy to a second drama: watching the veteran theater actor try to learn his lines, with help from a prompter sitting in the front row.” And he’s not the only one …

“Live Theatre in Newcastle has been granted £923,000 to help it through the economic downturn, as part of Arts Council England’s Sustain funding programme.” The money will replace lost income from endowments, foundations, sponsorship and theatre rentals.