Category: theatre

“Dozens of American high school musical performers will compete on Broadway next year for a new national award named after theater owner and producer James M. Nederlander.”

Bailey Hanks was “hand-picked by director Jerry Mitchell out of a group of 10 aspiring Elles on the MTV reality show Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for Elle Woods, which premiered in early June. The finale aired Monday night. Hanks replaces Tony-nominated Laura Bell Bundy Wednesday night, and runner-up Autumn Hurlbert will appear as one of Elle’s Delta Nu sorority sisters.”

More productions and more performances resulted in an attendance jump of more than 80,000 in the Guthrie Theater’s 2007-08 fiscal year.

Jeff Bartlett, a 33-year veteran of the Southern theater, is technically described as being “on leave,” though he is widely believed to have been dismissed from the Southern, which has presented an eclectic mix of music, theater and dance under Bartlett’s curatorial eye.

“Not only is he running a company for the first time in his 26-year career, but he is also battling lymphatic cancer. He found out about the disease just a few months after taking the reins at Santa Cruz. ‘One of the things about facing your mortality is that you realize there is nothing sillier about a bunch of adults walking around getting angry about a play. It puts everything in perspective’.”

“The Hayes will be the fifth Broadway theater operated by a nonprofit. The deal blurs the already fuzzy distinction between nonprofit theater and Broadway. It will provide a permanent home for contemporary American plays on Broadway, although it will also be used for musicals. Second Stage will continue to lease its 296- seat, Rem Koolhaas-designed off-Broadway space on West 43rd Street and a 99-seat theater on Broadway near West 76th Street.”

“For the first time in recent memory, the Shaw Festival is doing far better at the box office than its colleagues at Stratford. In fact, the chances are very good that, come year-end, there will be black ink at Shaw and red ink at Stratford: a definite reversal of the colour scheme in recent years.”

Artistic director Jeff Bartlett, who for 33 years has been integral to the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, has been asked to leave the organization.

An internal memo distributed to staff at Ontario’s Stratford Festival warns that high gas prices and a down economy are translating to falling ticket sales this season. “Insiders have estimated that the festival could lose as much as $5-million this year.”

Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre will get a major renovation, thanks to $6m in funding from the provincial and city governments announced yesterday. “The funds will be used to refurbish the main-floor lobby, replace and repair glass curtains, renovate the administration office and develop new ticketing software and communications systems.”