Category: theatre

“David Mamet will make his Broadway directing debut next season with the world preem of his new play ‘Race.’ In Gotham, Mamet has previously helmed productions of his plays ‘Oleanna’ and ‘The Cryptogram’ as well as magician Ricky Jay’s outings ‘Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants’ and ‘Ricky Jay: On the Stem,’ all of which ran Off Broadway.”

Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, co-founders of the once-powerful theater production company Livent – the enterprise behind such juggernauts as Show Boat, Ragtime and Phantom of the Opera – have been convicted of forgery and defrauding investors following a lengthy trial in Toronto. They each face a maximum of 34 years in prison.

“In a move that would be truly bizarre, were it not par for the recent course, the former governor of Illinois has invited the cast of Second City’s ‘Rod Blagojevich Superstar,’ a merciless spoof of the disgraced politician’s recent shenanigans, alleged and otherwise, to appear with him on the radio.”

The plan “to raise a new stage on the bones of Shakespeare’s first theatre in Shoreditch, almost certainly the first purpose-built theatre in Britain,” is misguided. “We already have a replica Elizabethan theatre, of course, and – given that the Globe was built from the skeleton of the Theatre – it surely can’t have been that different from the original, at least in its basic form. If the plan is to build something along Elizabethan lines, it’s difficult to see the point.”

Ben Brantley on Michael Jacobs’ Broadway play “Impressionism,” starring Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen: “[E]ven if I were to back up all the way to the Hudson River, with half-open eyes fixed on the stage where Mr. Irons and Ms. Allen labor so valiantly, ‘Impressionism’ still wouldn’t look credible. I mean this both in terms of its plot and as a proposition that would entice some very talented people and a vast army of producers.”

“The Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham will lead an 11-member ensemble cast for the Atlantic Theater Company’s world premiere of Offices, a set of three one-act comedies by Ethan Coen, the Oscar-winning filmmaker (No Country for Old Men).”

The grand Dame was obliged to sit out four performances of Yukio Mishima’s 1965 Madame de Sade over the weekend after spraining her ankle. She returned to the production today but will perform with a cane for the next several days.

“Joy strikes me as being in pretty short supply in the theatre – and in everyday life, particularly given the economic situation. But street arts often seem to contribute to levels of national happiness in a similar fashion to the Olympics or the rugby World Cup. They give people a reason to be cheerful. They make a community of us all. Apparently, crime levels drop during street festivals.”

“It’s tedious to harp on about the current economic climate, but it seems an odd time to inflate prices so drastically. The official explanation is that producers are taking a tip from Broadway – if people are willing to pay ticket touts hundreds of dollars to see the latest show, then the theatres themselves should be collecting that money. But will the British public cough up the cash? Perhaps not.”

“The principal argument is that the theatrical establishment in America has lost sight of the values that led to the establishment of regional theaters, and in its place are institutions that value buildings over artists, isolation over engagement and corporate growth over artistic development. On top and in part because of this is a shrinking and aging audience base, which has led to an art form in contraction, with less and less audience every year.”