Category: theatre

“Who would’ve thought that an avant-garde arts experiment would become one of the nation’s best-known companies within its first decade? That it would launch careers as diverse as those of Peter Coyote, Shabaka and Bill Graham? That a gritty anti-establishment troupe would win a Tony award? Or that mimes could be this vocal?”

“Stephen Eich, the former managing director of the Geffen Playhouse, has been named executive director of the Pasadena Playhouse in partnership with Playhouse artistic director Sheldon Epps. … Eich, who left his Geffen post last June, is also a former managing director of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company.”

“A musical version of the 1963 comedy classic ‘The Nutty Professor’ is headed to Broadway, and the director will be none other than Jerry Lewis himself. The comedian, who won’t be acting in the musical, has brought on board Marvin Hamlisch to write music and Rupert Holmes to do book and lyrics.”

“Broadway tuner ‘Avenue Q’ will shutter in the fall after a run of six years. Comedy, in which a cast of humans and puppets play twentysomethings struggling to find their way in New York City, was one of the first of a new generation of small-scale offerings that carved out a stable foothold on a Rialto landscape more often associated with splashier fare.”

“Why are two schools that were founded by the same person — and that teach the same acting technique — competing with each other? Leaders at both said that simple economics plays an important role. In a city bursting with aspiring actors, there’s money to be made for a school with an aggressive agenda.”

“This has been something of a banner year for female directors in New York, a development that wouldn’t be worth noting if it weren’t so rare.”

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“The global live entertainment group, which sold its US theatres in a $90 million deal in 2007, is accepting bids for a package of 17 UK venues. This includes two of the West End’s largest and most profitable sites – the Apollo Victoria and Lyceum theatres. […] A total of more than 30,000 theatre seats across venues in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh, among others, are on offer.”

“Manchester’s oldest surviving performance venue” – the 164-year-old Theatre Royal – “is to get a theatrical revival after 88 years of use as a cinema, bingo hall and nightclub, if proposals by the city’s Library Theatre company are given the green light.”

“The Theatres’ Trust has released its ‘at risk’ register of threatened buildings. Blackpool’s huge Winter Gardens complex tops the list, due to its poor condition and the threat of demolition.”