Category: theatre

“The treatment is radical and by no means critic-proof: With the surgical skill of Sweeney Todd, directors and writers must chop the two-act play down to one.”

Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis “expects to reduce its fiscal 2010 budget by about 14 percent, largely in reaction to difficult economic conditions. The organization’s current-year budget of $12.3 million already has been trimmed by 3 percent.”

“Shakespeare & Company is laying off seven employees, reducing two others to part-time, and instituting a 10 percent pay cut for the remaining 41 year-round staff as part of a restructuring plan to save $900,000. … In addition to layoffs and payroll reductions, the three founders of the 32-year old theater group will each lose eight weeks of pay in order to prevent further layoffs and reductions, according to artistic director Tina Packer.”

“More than a month after controversy erupted over Corona del Mar High School’s reported cancellation — then rescheduling — of a production of ‘Rent,’ the American Civil Liberties Union sued school officials Wednesday for fostering a ‘sexist’ and ‘homophobic’ atmosphere. “

“Dr John Casson claims to have unearthed Shakespeare’s first published poem, the Phaeton sonnet, his first comedy, Mucedorus, and his first tragedies, Locrine and Arden of Faversham. He also explores the plays Thomas of Woodstock and A Yorkshire Tragedy, and claims to prove that a ‘lost play’ called Cardenio is a genuine work by Shakespeare and fellow playwright John Fletcher.”

In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Sarah Ruhl’s new work about the use of mechanical devices to treat female “hysteria” in the late 1800s, will be presented this fall on Broadway (at the Shubert) by Lincoln Center Theater. The play had a successful premiere last month at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California.

Radio Muezzin is a documentary-on-stage featuring four of the many clarion-voiced men who sing the Muslim call to prayer in Cairo’s mosques. The play had only one private performance in its subjects’ hometown – the topic is sensitive there just now – but the men and their work have found a warm welcome in Berlin, a city with its own issues around Islam.

“You’ve read the book, attended the seminars and pondered the accumulation of surplus value – now see the musical. Chinese producers are attempting to transform Das Kapital from a hefty treatise on political economy into a popular stage show, complete with catchy tunes and nifty footwork.”

“The news that the Broadway musical Rock of Ages will be offering in-seat alcohol during performances will send actors diving for the drinks cabinet. … We’ve only just weaned the general public off the habit of unwrapping half a pound of Dairy Box during the progress of the play. It may just be beer at the moment, but before we know it, they’ll be touting hotdogs and pretzels, and it can only be a matter of time before they’ll be offering patio furniture and quotations on home insurance.”

“In a move likely to resurrect the row over the BBC’s refusal in January to broadcast the appeal to help the people of Gaza, Radio 4 rejected an unsolicited manuscript of [Caryl Churchill’s] play, Seven Jewish Children, which recently finished a short run at the Royal Court theatre.” The deciding factors, sources say: the controversial nature of the play “and the fact that the BBC has only recently survived the onslaught of criticism for its refusal to broadcast the Gaza appeal.”