Category: theatre

“UCLA Live will kick off its 2009-10 performing arts season with a world premiere production that also represents the first original production to be created by the UCLA Live series: a new interpretation of the Euripides classic Medea, starring Annette Bening and directed by Croatia’s Lenka Udovicki.”

“Tony officials announced this week that the awards for things such as lighting, sets and costumes — all insignificant components of a Broadway show, as anyone who works in the theater can attest — will not make the broadcast. … Also banned from prime time are the awards for choreography, book of a musical and revival of a play.”

“Over the past 20 years, 64 percent of the nominees for Best Musical and 72 percent of the nominees for the Best Play opened in the spring, [producer Ken] Davenport found. Over the past 15 years, 60 percent of the nominees for the Best Musical Revival and 68 percent of the nominees for the Best Play Revival opened in the spring. … [I]t’s time to change the system.”

“Those who were expecting the giddy clown of his Oscar-winning 1997 film Life Is Beautiful would have been largely disappointed, although there were glimpses of that persona in the first part of the [one-man] two-hour show [titled Tutto Dante], a poetic analysis of Canto V of Dante’s Inferno.”

“Classical theater requires study and training from its actors. Competency at performing contemporary theater does not automatically translate into an ability to make Shakespeare clear and accessible to audiences. … That brings us around to the question of whether a community is better off without Shakespeare if the alternative is poorly executed productions of his work. I believe you do it well or you don’t do it.”

“The 13th century mansion of the Cappello family — believed to be the Capulets of William Shakespeare’s tragic play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ — has for years been a place of pilgrimage for lovers worldwide, who have scrawled love messages on its walls. Now, Verona’s town council is offering couples the chance to follow in the footsteps of Shakespeare’s ‘star-crossed lovers’ and see for themselves ‘what light from yonder window breaks.'”

“W.H. Auden’s famous line about the relative ineffectuality of art … is no doubt correct when it comes to legislative action. But artists have another power, no less far-reaching for being unseen and immeasurable — the ability to broaden our sensibility by inviting us to experience life through another’s eyes.” That’s why the Obamas’ visit to Broadway was particularly apt at a moment when the word “empathy” has the right up in arms.

“The Broadway show that President and First Lady Obama saw Saturday night got a big boost at the box office yesterday. The number of advance tickets sold yesterday for ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ was triple that of the previous Sunday, according to a production source.”

“Shubert Foundation coin will top $17.5 million this year, with about $12.5 million going to theater orgs — 6% more than in 2008. The Randall Grant, previously a $100,000 subsidy awarded to one production of a classic text, has been temporarily restructured to provide smaller grants for general operational support of a number of companies.”

“The three artistic directors of Gotham’s LAByrinth Theater Company, including Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz, have stepped down from their posts, citing growing professional and family commitments. Three LAB members — playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, costume designer Mimi O’Donnell and actor Yul Vazquez — will take up the reins.”