Category: theatre

“An Ontario Superior Court judge has sealed affidavits in the bid by Aubrey Dan’s Dancap Productions to block the sale of Toronto’s Canon and Panasonic theatres to rival stage producer David Mirvish… Dancap has sued, arguing that the sale breaches prior undertakings Key Brand had made to Dan.”

Chicago’s North Side is getting a stately new theatre, as investors have purchased a classical revival-style building with plans to convert it into an arts center which will become home to the Porchlight Music Theatre troupe.”The interior of the building… will be designed by Chicago architect John Morris, whose local projects have included the Steppenwolf, Lookingglass and Raven theaters.”

Members of Britain’s House of Lords say that “deteriorating West End theatres should be given the same tax breaks as historic churches to prevent them from falling into disrepair and becoming financially unviable.

“Livent founders Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb ordered their employees to falsify financial statements to boost the bottom line and attract investors for their once powerful theatre production company, says a former top executive.”

Among the notable snubs in this year’s Tony nominations (Mel Brooks, Disney, etc.) is Broadway veteran Harvey Fierstein. “The nominators appeared to go out of their way to ignore Fierstein’s A Catered Affair, about a working-class couple struggling to make ends meet while planning a fancy wedding for their daughter.”

“The Tony nominations are in, and it would be difficult to come up with a season that presented a clearer portrait of where Broadway is headed and where it has been.” From a hip-hop musical to an acclaimed play penned by a writer new to Broadway, the nominations have a decidedly transitional feel.

“Critics wondered whether the company could really make a go of it on Navy Pier, known for its Ferris wheel, fried food and shorts-clad tourists — not exactly an atmosphere conducive to drawing the typical theater crowd. It succeeded, however, by focusing on a varied schedule that includes everything from the bard’s classics to family-friendly fare to performances by visiting international troupes.”

“Really Useful Holdings Limited – the parent organisation for Lloyd Webber’s companies including the Really Useful Group, which operates his theatres and owns the copyrights to his musicals – has reported a total operating profit of £21.9 million, thanks in part to strong production income from copyright and rights exploitation as well as strong trading results from the theatres.”

“Seaside Music Theater, a professional-theater mainstay in Daytona Beach for 30 years, has canceled its five-show summer season — a victim of the ongoing battle between the Daytona Beach News-Journal, its biggest patron, and Cox Enterprises of Atlanta, the News-Journal’s Atlanta-based corporate partner.”

And “to no one’s surprise, Tracy Letts’s ambitious prizefight of a family drama, August: Osage County, was the leader among the new plays, with seven nominations (a robust haul for a play), picking up three acting nods and one for its director Anna D. Shapiro.”