Category: theatre

“The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is appointing Elizabeth Bradley as its senior artistic associate.” The position is unpaid, and Bradley will essentially serve as Stratford’s ambassador to New York. Her aim is to “assist the festival in establishing relationships that will enable it to export productions, provide details of opportunities for collaborations and suggest new markets of interest.”

“Although Broadway, like pretty much every other industry, is taking its lumps this season, some theater veterans are hoping that as portfolios go down, the appetite for entertainment will go up… Across Broadway, musicals and plays are trying to focus their marketing budgets more effectively.”

Fulfilling the predictions of many a dubious observer, Imagine This, a let’s-put-on-a-show musical set in the Warsaw Ghetto (and said show is about Masada, no less) is closing after only a month on the London stage. Producer Beth Trachtenberg blames the press for its “narrow-minded critical belief that musicals are limited in their emotional impact and ability to deal with meaningful subject matter in a powerful and sensitive manner.”

“Unlike McDonald’s hamburgers…, plays from different cultures don’t appear in identical form when they are produced in another country.” But the abundance of American plays on London stages has some Brits riled up. “When it comes to theatre paid for at least in part by the UK taxpayer, does there remain an onus on artistic directors and producers to ‘buy British’?”

“The end came so suddenly for Milwaukee Shakespeare, we didn’t get closure. So the company is throwing a wake for itself next Sunday in its empty rehearsal hall…. In a widely distributed e-mail, the company said, ‘This is a BYOB event. Sorry, but if we had any money we’d be doing shows!’ Everyone is invited, but attendees are advised to bring their own furniture.”

“Confirming the selling power of well-known actors in classic drama, the producers of Broadway’s ‘All My Sons’ and ‘The Seagull’ announced today that they made their investors whole. The two shows are the first of the 2008-09 season to recoup their costs.” “All My Sons” stars Katie Holmes, John Lithgow, and Dianne Wiest, while “The Seagull” stars Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard.

The list of shows facing their final curtains in January has hit the double digits.

Broadway’s been hit by the recssion. But maybe the answer is to produce some smaller plays that aren’t so expensive…

“I’m a storyteller. I don’t know what my method is. I only know that if material fascinates me, I’ll go to the ends of the Earth to do it. That’s really been the secret.”

“The good news for fans of August Wilson is that Joe Turner’s Come and Gone will return to Broadway next spring. But the idea that a white director will helm the work of America’s foremost black playwright has raised some eyebrows.”