Category: theatre

“The mature and the mid-career who might have other things to say that might be off the grid are not encouraged. This creates an environment of “the Chosen”, as well as a serious talent drain. Every week, I get word of yet another black British theatre practitioner packing it in and planning to head Stateside. Our industry simply cannot afford this.”

“Smith, leaning in so far that she was almost doubled over, started with a preamble about how long and hard [Congressman Henry] Waxman has been working on behalf of health care. Then she tossed out her first question [to him]: ‘What is most underappreciated about all that work?’ If an interviewer wants to open a floodgate, is there a more inviting question? “

“Gambon, 68, was set to take the lead in The Habit of Art, but has been forced to pull out due to ill health.” Stepping in at the National Theatre in London will be Richard Griffiths, star of Bennett’s last play, The History Boys.

“Twenty-four years ago, the curtain never quite raised on the Rainer Werner Fassbinder play Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod. The Jewish community, flexing its muscles for one of the first times since World War II, blasted the piece for being anti-Semitic.” This week the piece began its debut run in Germany’s Ruhr Valley. “And, over two decades later, feelings about the play among Germany’s Jews haven’t changed.”

“British archaeologists have unearthed a Roman amphitheatre the size of the Pantheon at the site of a port which once supplied Rome and its legions.” That site, as it happens, is very near the runway at Fiumicino. “Its design suggests it was used by a high-status official, possibly the emperor himself.”

“Working with high-tech puppets that are meters high and weigh tons, the company [Royal de Luxe] can turn any city into a stage for another chapter of its ‘giant saga,’ which started in 1993. … This chapter – named ‘The Giants Arrive – a Fairy Tale for Berlin” – will cost around €1.6 million.”

“Orlando Theatre Project, the area’s longest-lived professional theater company, is calling it quits after 23 years. The reason? The economy, of course, but also the hardships of an arts group so small it had no professional staff.”

“The Roundabout Theater Co., which operates four venues, including the American Airlines Theater in Times Square, reported … that its 10-year sponsorship contract with the airline expires in six months and may not be renewed.”

“Michael Boyd, the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, today struck a rare note of discord amid [the] new orthodoxy” that reveres live theatre broadcasts, saying that broadcasts of the National Theatre’s Phèdre were “a cool experience … not in a million years better than being in the theatre.”

In a production of Kira Obolensky’s Cabinet of Wonders: An Impossible History, “much of what’s on stage is also on sale. … An honest-to-goodness tag sale takes place one hour before each performance. Ticketholders who see something they like pay for it and take it home that night.”