Category: theatre

“Forbidden Broadway, the satirical revue of the New York theater scene, regularly updated with the passing seasons, has spoofed and skewered the best and worst theatrical performances since Gerard Alessandrini introduced it in 1982.” But the show will finally end its run in January after more than 9,000 performances.

London’s theatre industry pumps 50,000 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year – equivalent to 10% of the city’s total bus emissions or the annual energy consumption of 9,000 homes.

“Years ago, you had to come to New York City, to someplace like American Ballet Theatre or Juilliard. Now we have kids honing their craft all over the country before coming to New York.”

Vaclav Havel is back as a playwright. “Can the artist survive the blatant compromises of executive power? The focal character of his new play, Leaving, is a deposed leader coming to terms with a melancholic void after losing the status inseparable from his sense of himself.”

Daniel Radcliffe’s nude scene may have stolen all the headlines in last year’s revival, but Michael Riedel says that Peter Shaffer’s Equus is worth a much closer (and less prurient) look. “The haunting drama about an emotionally disturbed boy who blinds six horses with a spike stunned audiences into what Shaffer calls ‘breathless silence’ when it premiered at the Old Vic in London in 1973.”

“The union is understood to be making a last ditch effort to persuade managements, who are represented by the Society of London Theatre, to agree to a 44% minimum wage hike or else face industrial action.”

They’ve documented that memory, comprehension and problem-solving skills all improve in people who apply mental exercises used by actors.

“Our theatregoing was an education for both of us, one that I didn’t then know was preparing me for the job I do now, and a reminder that it is only by seeing the broadest range of work that we really get to develop our own aesthetic.”

“Broadway, it seems, has eclipsed Playboy as the place to make Hollywood pay attention. There was a time when female movie stars who felt they were being ignored by the industry took off their clothes for Hugh Hefner’s magazine. Now they brush up their Shakespeare — or Schnitzler or Miller — and hit Gotham.”

“Why not have someone British step up to the purchasing plate? Why, if Andrew Lloyd Webber were interested, the deal would have a perfect synergy. Among the shows represented by the R&H Organisation just happens to be a little entry called Cats.”