Category: theatre

“Two Roads West is set in a most unusual theatrical setting – the inside of a Belfast black taxi cab. For just over an hour an audience of up to five people travel around in a theatre-on-wheels as the taxi criss-crosses the Falls and Shankill Roads and tells the story of one woman’s journey home after 40 years in exile outside Northern Ireland.”

“The acrobats of Cirque du Soleil and a developer won a victory today when the L.A. City Council unanimously approved a $30-million loan to help finance upgrades that will allow the Kodak Theatre to host the troupe for 368 performances a year. … The federal government must still approve the loan.”

“Thank goodness there are no MPAA ratings for the live theater. A new stage musical about the San Fernando Valley’s porn industry is currently in the development phase. The production is a partnership between New York’s experimental group the Civilians and L.A.’s Center Theatre Group. The still-untitled show ‘will explore the real-life stories of the people who work in California’s pornography industry,’ according to CTG.”

The Los Angeles City Council is to vote today on whether to sponsor a $30 million loan for renovations to the glamorous but frequently dark Kodak Theatre, whose lease holders plan to sign Cirque du Soleil to a 10-year contract. “Designed to accommodate the Oscars and other red-carpet awards shows, the theater has not been an attractive venue for many other types of programs, and a good number have gone to competitors in Hollywood or the LA Live entertainment complex downtown.”

“Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb are unlikely to spend more than a few hours in custody even if they are sentenced to a prison term tomorrow by Ontario Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto. The Crown is seeking eight to 10 years in prison for the founders of Livent Inc.,” while “Drabinsky and Gottlieb are asking for conditional sentences or house arrest. … The legal precedents suggest a term much closer to what the prosecution is seeking….”

“[U]nless you are Keats or Kane or Dunbar or Büchner, most young playwrights and theatre-makers eventually go on to become mid-level artists. But what sort of career support do they go on to have? Or are they simply forgotten in the endless rush for the new? … Ultimately, theatres must start seeing that they have a responsibility to really help playwrights to develop their careers and not just look to the next great find.”

“A number of London’s West End theatres are to boost their security to counter worsening audience behaviour, owners have said. It comes after reports of drunkenness and even fights during performances. … The deteriorating behaviour is being blamed on cheap tickets, attracting younger audiences, and a liberal attitude to alcohol in theatres.”

American Players Theatre, in Spring Green, Wis., “is a conservative operation that has long tended to operate under a dictum akin to first, do no harm. This irritates those of us who’d like to see this gorgeous and highly proficient, but demonstrably risk-averse, arts organization grow its national reputation…. But it’s a we-pay-our-bills philosophy that has allowed APT to build one of the very few new theaters in America constructed in the teeth of this recession.”

“So, here was a quintessentially English operetta set in a make-believe Japan, being performed by Americans in Bangkok, 90 years after it was written. If being able to survive rough handling and transplantation into unfamiliar cultural territory is the sign of a masterpiece, then the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan must rank among the greatest. And unlike some canonical works, these have never suffered a dip in their fortunes.”

“It’s a beguiling experience to watch something with all the verbal information removed – it makes you watch harder, for one. Instead of listening, you find yourself appreciating the costumes, the bodily gestures, the tone of the voice, the sets, the music – in short, everything except what is actually being said. And it’s remarkable how much that alone communicates.”