Category: theatre

“One of Britain’s leading directors has bemoaned the deficiencies of the next generation of actors, who he says are being taught theatre theory above drama skills. Nicholas Hytner, the director of the National Theatre, said the failure to concentrate on the craft of acting would leave actors unequipped to rise to the challenges of the stage.”

“As the often-confrontational Santa Ana storefront troupe makes its final bow,… the last script Rude Guerilla will perform is Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza,” Caryl Churchill’s very controversial 10-minute play. “It will be staged once, as a reading, on March 22.”

“Three years after New York Theater Workshop drew protests for canceling My Name Is Rachel Corrie, a play sympathetic to Palestinians, it is considering mounting a production of a new piece by Caryl Churchill, Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza, that at times contains images of heartless Israelis.”

“A fine old row is developing over whether Seven Jewish Children, Caryl Churchill’s eight-minute play provoked by the recent conflict in Gaza, is antisemitic. The work, now playing at London’s Royal Court, involves seven brief scenes, in which Israeli adults discuss how to explain moments in Israeli history to seven children. The last, about Gaza, includes the line: ‘Don’t tell her about the dead babies.'”

The drama teacher at an Orange County, Calif., high school says the principal nixed “Rent” due to gay content; the principal says she asked only to review the script. “Now, amid growing backlash and consternation from some students and members of the gay community, the actors at Corona del Mar High are grudgingly preparing for a very different show: ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.'”

“In something of a glittery coup for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren will be featured this September at the troupe’s Sidney Harman Hall, in a visit by the Royal National Theatre’s new production of ‘Phèdre.’ … Officials of the Shakespeare Theatre say that Mirren’s D.C. appearance, which will follow a three-month run of the play in London, is at this point the only U.S. engagement of the Jean Racine tragedy.”

“International ticket sales for Broadway shows dipped slightly last season, but advance purchases rose. Those were among the trends logged by the Broadway League in a study of Rialto demographics in the 2007-08 season.” Last season saw “the highest percentage (12.4%) of children or teens on the Rialto in 30 years,” the survey found, “and legit critics still have the power to sell tickets to Broadway plays.”

The fallout of Obama’s inauguration has been particularly harsh for the satirical group Billionaires for Bush, whose raison d’être was skewering the last president. “The group might have recast itself as Billionaires for Obama. But that would have required ‘irony we can believe in,’ said Andrew Boyd, who sometimes goes by his Billionaire name, Phil T. Rich. ‘Here’s the conundrum,’ Mr. Boyd said. ‘Can you point out that the emperor has no clothes when you like the emperor — and his clothes?'”

“‘You’re the only one in tonight,’ said the man at the box office as I picked up my ticket. It took a second for this to sink in. What, no one else? Just me? Yes, it seemed so; I was to be the sole audience member for Charlie Shand’s When Do We Start Fighting? on a chilly midweek evening.”

“I don’t need theatre tickets. Yet I buy them, partly because they have never been cheaper – and partly because, if people don’t start buying tickets to the theatre, they won’t have any theatre left to go to. I am not asking my fellow Americans to buy things they do not need. I am asking them to zone in on things they really do enjoy and spread their cash around.”