Category: theatre

“A collection of rare texts by William Shakespeare is to be donated to the London theatre that bears his name. US playwright John Wolfson has pledged more than 450 works, including a first folio of 18 Shakespeare plays, to be handed over after his death.”

“It is the most violent five minutes of New York theater in memory: A soldier rapes the main character of ‘Blasted,’ then sucks out his eyeballs and eats them in nearly plain sight of audiences — which, night after night for weeks, have been watching in shock.” It’s an awful thing to watch, but it’s even more difficult for the actors who must enact the scene every night.

“With the U. S. economy in tatters and neither investors nor ticket buyers rushing to part with cash, Broadway producers are also seeing red: Hit shows are playing to half-filled houses, while investment capital for all but the safest bets is drying up.”

The London newspaper’s annual theatre honors are making headlines with the Best Actor category, whose eight finalists include Kevin Spacey, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh and Simon Russell Beale. Other nominees include veteran actresses Margaret Tyzack and Penelope Wilton, the plays Black Watch and Her Naked Skin, and the musicals La Cage aux Folles and Jersey Boys; Rickman lands a second nomination in the Best Director category (for Creditors at the Donmar).

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s staging of Shaw’s drama, starring Christopher Plummer, will be shown in one-night gala screenings at 80 Cineplex theaters across Canada. In a separate deal, the production will subsequently be aired north of the border on CTV-Bravo!.

“Nearly every show had its audience shrink last week, with 14 productions experiencing more than a 10 percent drop in ticket sales. So musicals and plays are trying to hang on until the holidays bring an influx of cheer-seeking visitors to New York, looking to be entertained. After the new year they will try to hang on again, through January and February, traditionally two of the industry’s slowest months.”

“The fringe grew up to provide space for new and experimental forms of work; theatre that could not be staged under the nose of the Lord Chamberlain; theatre that challenged the status quo; theatre that asked unpalatable questions of society; theatre that made aesthetic choices that outraged audiences – disquieting theatre; disruptive theatre.” Today, “the fringe now often seems to be less forward-looking in terms of staging and material than the Lyttleton or the Gielgud.”

“Milwaukee Shakespeare’s lightning-quick demise last week has a bitterly ironic parallel with the financial market forces that caused it. Just as several venerable Wall Street firms suddenly collapsed with virtually no warning, Milwaukee’s 8-year-old Shakespeare troupe made an abrupt and shocking exit from our arts community.”

The Kenya National Theatre has just opened Obama, The Musical, a stage bio of the half-Kenyan, half-Kansan senator who may be about to become President-Elect of the United States. “Those involved in the production are doing little to hide their sympathies. […] ‘McCain comes in as the villain, the chief villain. His supporting cast are George Bush and Sarah Palin who are standing in Obama’s way,’ the director says.”

“Even with the second strongest ticket sales in its history for 2008, the Ashland festival was hit hard by poor returns on its investments and endowment fund, resulting in a $750,000 deficit this year and an anticipated deficit of $1 million in 2009.”