Category: theatre

“Daniel MacIvor, one of the most distinctive playwrights in Canada, was honoured for his unique voice yesterday when he was named winner of the 2008 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. … The $100,000 award, the richest in Canadian theatre, has been given out annually since 2001, with a director, designer and playwright winning in successive years.”

“Well, the most positive spin we can put on this bit of theater news is that Pasadena Playhouse is diversifying its audience: During Friday night’s opening performance of ‘The Lady With All The Answers,’ starring Mimi Kennedy as Ann Landers, some audience members noticed that a rat was in the house. Yes, a rat. A Vermin-American. Tiny paws, whiskers and a hairless tail.”

“The skill of the playwright is that they can hear dialogue in their head and write it down. When they come to speak it aloud, they rarely do their own work justice. I’m sure audiences feel that somehow they are getting the authentic voice of the writer. But I would argue that the voice of the text is a very different thing from the way the author sounds: it’s best left to actors to track down and present it.”

“It looks like the Big Orange is soon to lose another playwright to the Big Apple. Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer-prizewinning playwright (‘Topdog/Underdog’), has been awarded the first Master Writer Chair at the Public Theater in New York City.” (Surely the timing of the announcement, made hours before playwrights were to face down producers over the paucity of scripts by women staged Off Broadway, is a coincidence.)

“As audiences cut back on spending, at least six other major Broadway shows are now operating at below break-even, while four that were scheduled to open this year – including a $4.5m revival of Godspell – have been suddenly cancelled after investors got cold feet. And there are signs that the infection is spreading to London’s West End.”

There may not be free lunch, but last week, all across the country, there was free theater. More than 600 non-profit theaters in 120 cities offered a Free Night of Theater, to hook new audiences.

“For too long, dramatists and directors, following the cues of marketing-mad producers and lowest-common-subscriber-oriented artistic directors, have been reflecting the vain self-regard and superficial profundity of a relatively small swath of the country’s population — affluent urban theatergoers. Seduced by the new turbocharged American dream (or at least complicit with it), these artists haven’t been in the best position to critique its hedge-fund-era perversion.”

“Monday’s meeting will focus on Off Broadway, which includes a number of nonprofit theaters with a mission to bring diverse new work to audiences. Broadway’s high-priced commercial operations, however, have a much worse record. At the moment, none of the plays on Broadway are written by women. The problem seems to be magnified in New York, many playwrights agreed.”

While there can be laughter without humour – tickling, embarrassment, nitrous oxide and vengeful exultation have been known to bring it forth – there cannot be humour without laughter. That, at any rate, is what contemporary philosophers think.

“Here’s a grim game theater insiders are playing: guessing how many Broadway houses will be empty in January.”