Category: theatre

“Our time is an exceptionally rough one for criticism. With the dizzying changes in the way we communicate altering the whole fabric of our social life, we are going through a double revolution, and revolutions are never optimal moments for integrity and clarity of thought. The critic–whether viewed by the theater as an enemy, a necessary gadfly, a creative partner, or a poor relation to be tolerated–was never more than a small part of the picture.”

“Experimental theater in L.A. is getting a significant financial boost thanks to a $1-million grant to Center Theatre Group’s new play production program from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The three-year grant will be used to develop stage productions with L.A.-based artists that use new technologies and a non-textual approach to performance, said CTG in its announcement Wednesday.”

“Every afternoon this month in a converted Edinburgh church half a dozen Malawian dancers wear ‘Adopt me’ T-shirts in Mercy Madonna of Malawi,” Toby Gough’s “reverse Black-and-White minstrel show” at the Fringe. “The ‘Madonna’ whose eye they are trying to catch is a strapping black man in a platinum blonde wig and pink negligee who sings ‘Last night I dreamed of Malawi’ to the tune of the Material Girl’s early hit ‘La Isla Bonita’.”

Taking the stage after the opening-night performance of a Collaboraction production, actor Eddie Torres told the audience that refunds were available for anyone who hadn’t enjoyed the play. The pledge was a condition of an “unusual new endeavor from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation” that’s a well-intended, very bad idea, Chris Jones writes. “[A] piece of art is not a light fixture. And I think that such a speech is beneath the dignity of a fine artist like Torres.”

“The director of a leading independent Fringe venue accused Edinburgh City Council yesterday of ‘pure greed’ in crippling small Festival operators with a huge rise in theatre licence fees. Julian Caddy, co-director of Sweet Entertainments, a rising player on the Fringe, said fees had risen a staggering 800 per cent in the past three years. His broadside against the ‘madness’ of the charges was backed by several other venue operators….”

“[T]his year’s recession-hit fringe is more sex-crazed than ever. The Chippendales are on at the Gilded Balloon; Jane Austen’s Guide to Pornography is at the Zoo Southside; porn star Ben Dover is billing himself ‘innocent till proven filthy’ at the Underbelly; and Ashley Hames, sometime reporter for cable TV sex show Sin Cities, is at the Pleasance Courtyard telling some disturbing tales about his adventures with ‘sexual astronauts’.”

“[A]ttendances at straight plays in the first half of 2009 are up by 19% on the previous year,” and the reason is obvious. “Audiences are hungry for new plays that deal with big issues and provide fat lead roles. I am not anti-ensemble, and I always hesitate to tell dramatists what to do. But history proves that the plays that endure are those that provide rich gifts for actors.”

Paul Reubens’ Hollywood stage show “will feature the same story line as the original: Pee-wee, a nerdy man-child with a colorful menagerie of anthropomorphic friends, is granted a wish to learn to fly but gives the wish away, much to his eventual regret. Reubens said he has revised parts of the story to include new songs as well as characters from his popular CBS television series, ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse.'”

“Arena Stage has received a $1.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create the American Voices New Play Institute, an initiative to help further new play development within American theater. … The institute will become a center for research and development of practices, programs and processes for new play development, Arena said.”

Guirgis blogs from the Ojai Playwrights Conference: “I have already fallen head over heels for the brilliant, hot and award-winning playwright Lisa Kron — and the fact that she is a lesbian only means I’ll have to work a little harder to figure out a way to turn myself into a gay woman. … The truth is that everybody here is pretty brilliant and hot.”