Theatre criticism, like every other kind of critique in the age of the internet, appears to be booming, but that’s not really true. “How is the average theatregoer to sort quality from digital noise and (perhaps more importantly) support those who create high level critiques? Education is key—not just for the would-be theatre critics but for audience members in general.” – Howlround
Category: theatre
Will Finding Shakespeare’s London Home Tell Us More About His Plays?
That’s the idea of the search, truly. Historian Geoff Marsh “concluded from cross-referencing various tax and leasehold documents of the time … that the playwright – then in his early 30s – almost certainly lodged in St Helen’s Place, Bishopsgate, just south of Liverpool Street station. It was one of the City’s more affluent parishes, and he would have been living among well-travelled physicians, merchants, lawyers, musicians and writers.” – The Stage (UK)
As Playwright Luis Alfaro Adapts Immigration Stories, He Says Greek Dramas Are The Primal, Perfect Canvas
Alfaro met a 13-year-old promising playwright in 1999, but she was in a program for felons: She had killed her mother, who had put a hit out on her father. Then he started re-reading Electra, by Sophocles, and it hit him – he could retell Greek tragedies, but set in Chicanx and Latinx communities in Los Angeles. “‘The Greeks are so primal,’ Mr. Alfaro said. ‘They get to the essence: why we hurt each other, this inability to forgive.'” – The New York Times
Writing About Theatre In St. Louis
The critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The way I look at it, there are people who just wanna see a show, and there are theatre people. There’s some overlap between those two groups, but not a lot. Some people want to see a big, bombastic play, an Aladdin, and they’re not looking to see No Exit.” – American Theatre
When Will Theatre Awards Catch Up With Nonbinary Actors?
Howard Sherman says the time has come to figure this out: “So long as there are categories for best actor and actress (or best male and female actor), those who identify outside of the binary will be left out, misidentified and othered. This will come home to roost the first time someone with non-binary identity is nominated for an award, and then we will see awards-giving organisations doing hurried acrobatics to come up with a solution. The better option is to understand where the thinking is heading, and thoughtfully make the appropriate changes now.” – The Stage (UK)
The Offstage Toll It Takes To Play A Loathsome Racist Character
“It can be fraught and isolating, it seems, portraying a white character activating the racial overtones of a beloved novel brought to the stage. Just ask Fred Weller, essayer of Bob Ewell, the patently evil father of Wilhelmi’s Mayella, who forces her to concoct the story that sends a blameless black man, Tom Robinson, to prison for rape.” – Washington Post
Why Do We See So Many Gay Male Characters On Broadway But So Few Lesbians?
Sure, there’s The Prom, and before that Fun Home, Indecent, and, going back, Rent and perhaps The Color Purple, but that’s been about it, writes Elisabeth Vincentelli. “Obviously, Broadway is not the be-all and end-all of American theater. But it does represent validation and awareness, the ability to put on big spectacles, and the opportunity to land regional productions … It feels as if lesbians are still trying to build a theatrical house while gay men — having had a house, a two-car garage and a gazebo for years now — have moved on to deconstructing and repurposing the real estate they can afford to be tired of.” – The New York Times
Festival Tells Theatre Company To Recast Role With Disabled Actor, And Company Writes Out Character’s Disability Instead
When the Belgian company Studio Orka brought its devised-theatre piece Tuesday to the Manchester International Festival, MIF officials said that their policy is that disabled characters must be played by disabled actors and that performances of the work would not proceed with a non-disabled actor in one of the roles. Studio Orka argued that Tuesday could only be performed by the actors who collaboratively developed it and changed the character to a person injured in an accident who recovers. – The Stage
How ‘Oklahoma!’ Created The Original Cast Album Genre
“Typically, show music was cut down and rearranged for a popular dance band. But [Decca president Jack] Kapp had no time for such niceties” — he was rushing to get a recording of the hit show to market after a long musicians’ strike — “and the musical’s full Broadway orchestra was brought in to accompany the performers. There had been a few, somewhat limited, cast recordings before, but Decca’s improvised innovation came closest to capturing the full experience of attending a Broadway musical.” – The New York Times
‘People Will Say We’re In Love’: How The Perky Operetta Duet Of The 1943 ‘Oklahoma!’ Became The Twangy Country Song Of The 2019 ‘Oklahoma!’
The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization was willing to let Daniel Fish, director of the revisionist revival now on Broadway, experiment with the way the story was told but forbid any changes to the songs’ melody, rhythm or harmony. So why is this duet’s effect so different? Jesse Green breaks it down. – The New York Times