Category: theatre

“The current number and quality of roles for actresses on the New York stage is especially noticeable at a time when Hollywood is more obsessed than ever with youth and is providing so few meaningful parts for women, no matter what their age.”

“If only New York could get reattached to grander displays. We have any number of dramatic sites – warehouses, piers, decrepit ballrooms, deserted subway stations. It’s time we took theatre back to the streets.”

Citing stronger sales, the Stratford Festival has restored seven more of the 30 performances put on hold last month after ticket sales for the season got off to a rocky start.

“Tony Kushner is revered in the theater world and has been anointed a Great American Playwright. But despite a career that has in recent years expanded into screenwriting, his name is not as familiar as past Goliaths of the nation’s theater such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller or, more recently, Edward Albee, David Mamet or the late August Wilson.”

“The commercial theater asks its audiences what they want to see and produces theater in response to those answers. We in the non-profit theater must lead audiences to what we think they should want to see.”

“Co-productions between nonprofit theaters, whether crosstown or cross-country, are becoming ubiquitous … But three Off-Off-Broadway groups are taking the idea to a new level. They’re not only sharing resources and expenses to mount three new plays in a four-week repertory; they’re relinquishing their identities in the process.” Is this a good idea?

“Despite a raft of positive reviews and seven Tony Award nominations, this spring’s Broadway revival of ‘The Norman Conquests’ — Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy of interconnected comic plays — has proved to be one of the biggest business challenges of the season, starting with deep losses at the box office that have only just begun to turn around. The plot is like a puzzle, and so too has been the challenge of marketing the show to theatergoers.”

“In a triumph of image over substance, accounting giant KPMG LLP has replaced the small firm that has tabulated Broadway’s Tony Awards votes for more than half a century. The change was made in the hopes of bringing a higher profile to the Tony Awards telecast, according to Alan Wasser, an executive with the awards.”

“[M]any theater people are increasingly concerned that writers, especially writers of nonmusical plays, are getting the bum’s rush at the Tonys. ‘Why doesn’t the playwright accept the award by himself?’ wonders composer and lyricist Maury Yeston…. ‘The bookwriter does, the lyricist does, the orchestrator does, even the person who runs the sound system does.'” But when the Tonys for best play and musical are announced, the stage is swarmed with producers.

“Polly Carl, who has served as artistic director of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis for seven years, will leave the Twin Cities in September to take a job with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. … The Minneapolis-based service organization serves as both midwife and research-and-development lab for new plays.”