Category: theatre

How does a play make it to the stage of a prominent festival? It’s a combination of personal experience and practical willingness…

Dominic Cavendish makes a list…

Critics have given the musical, starring former Pop Idol contestant Darius Danesh and Broadway actress Jill Paice, a collective thumbs down.

“The number of stage performances and theater companies in and around Washington went up last year, while overall attendance dropped 1.9 percent… 67 professional companies [presented] 8,050 performances of 454 shows. That is an increase from 2006 of three companies, 402 performances and 20 shows.”

Mel Brooks’ follow-up to “The Producers” may have received a tepid welcome from New York press, but “Young Frankenstein” topped the list of Outer Critics Circle nominations, scoring 10.

“The play, In Your Hands, seeks to recreate the horror of the 2002 theatre siege when Chechen rebels took more than 800 theatre-goers hostage in what was one of their worst attacks on Russian soil.”

“Gone with the Wind, billed as ‘a play with music’, will be arguably the biggest West End opening of the year and represents an equally monumental gamble. Early word-of-mouth from those who have attended previews is not encouraging and has raised questions over whether the project is being rushed for financial reasons.”

The play Moose Murders, is, “even 25 years later, it is considered the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway flops are judged.” Now it’s taking another shot. Was it really so bad after all?

“Pop culturally, the Boomers are easing into what might be called their Lawrence Welk years, when their cherished hits are finding their way into the entertainment equivalent of the rocking chair. Where once Welk’s music charmed seniors watching PBS (to Boomer derision), now it’s the Eagles or retrospectives on the Mamas and the Papas showing up during pledge week. Nowhere is this development more notable–or odd–than on Broadway.”

Spamalot is closing in Las Vegas after a successful 18 month run. So is this the end of theatre at Steve Wynn’s high-end casino? “I’m as dedicated to the musical theater as I ever was. But I look now for a product, a show, that we can produce ourselves, that we own, that has the musical quality of something as good as the Beatles or something like that.”