Category: theatre

“Gershwin’s tune-laden slice of life in the Charleston slum known as Catfish Row (based on Heyward’s 1925 novel and the subsequent play) did not flinch from confronting issues of race and class. Those issues – grinding poverty, domestic abuse, racist bigotry, crime, drugs and prostitution – remain very much with us today.”

“In a surprise move, the board of directors of the Carbonell Awards has voted to suspend the program for 2009. A ceremony honoring the best work in South Florida theater during 2008 will still take place in the spring, but no productions that open during 2009 will be given awards.”

“While everyone suspects that there might be a handful of empty Broadway theaters in the spring, at the moment the big theaters are still largely booked, and most nonprofits have finished their fund-raising for this fiscal year. More significant, though, is what happens when the next fall season comes round. Those in the industry wonder not only about empty theaters, but also about the effect on the stream of creative work.”

Marissa Jaret Winokur, who won a Tony for playing the hefty, happy Tracy Turnblad in the John Waters-inspired musical, is returning to the show Dec. 9. Harvey Fierstein, who drew raves as Tracy’s very downscale mother, came back earlier this month.

The Yalta dacha where Chekhov wrote “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard” is plagued by mold and a leaky roof. A campaign to save it is under way, sans state aid. As the head of the campaign explained, “The Russian government didn’t want to fund the restoration because the house is in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government didn’t want to pay to promote a Russian author.”

“There is an obvious paucity of right-leaning voices in theater. There are many reasons for this, but it is to the detriment, I believe, of the community as a whole. My own political posture leans distinctly to the left. But we will not, in the long run, benefit from casting out all those whose opinions offend us. And there are sure to be many tests of tolerance ahead.”

The UK group doesn’t like the plan to give away free theatre tickets to professional productions. “If… the Arts Council really want to encourage young people to participate in the arts, they should be focusing on funding those very young people to participate at a local level in the first instance as opposed to issuing such gimmicks.”

“Billy Elliot, which tells the story of a boy from a working-class city in England who wants to be a ballet dancer, is shaping up to be the one bright spot on an otherwise gloomy-looking Broadway, where shows are crashing with the speed of emerging markets in Southeast Asia.”

“Having already destroyed one art form – alternative pop music – Morrissey’s grandchildren, the shock troops of self-obsessed and willfully underachieving middle-class miserabilism, are setting out to destroy another, the musical. They must be stopped.”