Category: theatre

Beijing will build a complex of 32 theatres dedicated to putting on musicals, state media said on Tuesday, calling it the country’s answer to Broadway.

“Not content with seven feature films or myriad TV spinoffs ranging from the current Clone Wars cartoon series to the dreaded Star Wars Holiday Special, the Jedi masterminds are readying a stage show.” Star Wars: A Musical Journey, opening in April at London’s O2 arena, will feature narration by actors, clips from all six films and the Royal Philharmonic playing John Williams’s score.

The Lost and Found Orchestra has a bigger cast than its popular, percussive predecessor, and more pitches as well (if not a whole lot of actual melody). But, like Stomp, the new show combines homemade instruments (made from traffic cones, filing cabinet drawers, woks and such) with finely synchronized movement to make grunge into high spectacle.

“It’s going to be a joyous holiday season at Shakespeare Santa Cruz after all. The week of existential crisis is over at the acclaimed 27-year-old theater company, and for fans of professional theater in the redwoods, the news couldn’t get much better. SSC not only met its university-imposed fundraising goal, it exceeded it by six figures.”

“Going backstage to see mates [after watching them perform in a play] throws up interesting moral conundrums, particularly if you’re an actor yourself and know how things work. If you’ve enjoyed the show, all is sweetness and light: gazes can be returned, questions can be asked and backs can be slapped. But what if it’s the biggest turkey before Christmas?”

“Facing ‘Black Tuesday’ – when the first six of 13 shows slated to close go dark on Jan. 6 – Broadway has been hit with a final indignity: a 4 percent tax on theater tickets.” The item is part of Gov. David Paterson’s list of proposed taxes and tax increases. “Executives say the fee could be the final blow to an industry reeling from dwindling ticket sales.”

“The pleasingly insouciant revival of David Mamet’s anti-Hollywood screed ‘Speed-the-Plow’ was one of the few shows on Broadway this fall to actually attract an audience. … That’s why the news of star actor Jeremy Piven’s premature departure (he says he suffers from abnormally high levels of mercury, because of a diet heavy in sushi and Chinese herbs) from ‘Speed-the-Plow’ this week caused such an orgy of self-serving consternation. Everybody was about to make money.”

“The New York theater, like virtually every other enterprise in America, appears to be heading for some lean times… At least this bygone era of amplitude is ending on a note of unusual aesthetic strength. Many of the marquee events of the last year on Broadway were superb examples of high-end stagecraft at its most rewarding.”

“This was the year of trans-Atlantic theater in New York, when Anglo-American cooperation (a subject wittily excoriated this season in Caryl Churchill’s Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? at the Public Theater) produced a hearty crop of expertly mounted – and in some cases transcendent – productions.”

“When it comes to ideas, nurture is as important as nature… If you have the opportunity to develop a show in a small black-box theatre, then it is likely the idea will spread out to fill that space. Similarly, if someone asks you to submit a series of drafts to a literary editor, a predominantly text-based piece of theatre is likely to be the result.”