Category: theatre

“As well as being regarded with a certain warmth, there’s also a sense of mistrust around the genre. Writers fear that it’s somehow a bit uncool – a bit 70s – and so we get interminable plays about Urgent Contemporary Issues rather than coolly speculative projections. It’s a shame. After all, some of the 20th century’s greatest literature was set in the future – consider 1984, Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange.”

“Buskers in Covent Garden have claimed victory over the market’s owner, saying proposals to halve the number of performances allowed on the site have been withdrawn following huge public outcry.”

“The divisions between the religious right and the secular left, the tech-fueled widening of the generation gap and the ever-relevant question of what makes a modern marriage function smoothly were among the themes explored by playwrights at the festival.”

The BBC’s current attitude to theatre is, in my view, nothing short of a disgrace. On the one hand, it lines the coffers of already wealthy impresarios by putting on promotional shows. Far from helping the West End, as it claims, the corporation is actually damaging its ecology.

Ted Shen and his foundation have spent more than $4 million subsidizing about 35 nonprofit musical theater productions and 10 cast recordings. “Like the research analyst Shen once was — he followed airline companies at DLJ in the late 1960s and 1970s — he has the philanthropic equivalent of ‘strong buy’ ratings on just a few composers he says are advancing the art form.”

“The actor and artistic director of the Old Vic said that the BBC had ‘crossed the line’ with its shows on Saturday nights to find stars for productions written or produced by Lord Lloyd-Webber.”

“We’d be foolish to convince ourselves that African-American actors have the same opportunities as Caucasian actors. I know that for many people, I am a black girl before I am Stephanie. Being black, you can’t really hide that. When I walk into an audition, I’m a black actress. I’m already categorized.”

“This year, students have discovered the drama of the fantastical and the grotesque. In an education system that has become increasingly utilitarian, they want an outlet for their creativity where they can shout and scream in pain or pleasure. The NSDF is a celebration of the imagination that for more than 50 years has made a real contribution both to the professional theatre and to generating an enthusiastic and informed audience. That is already a hard job. To make it harder by withdrawing public funding would be, well, grotesque.”

Colombia’s biennial International Theatre Festival took place in the capital city, Bogotá, this month. Just days before the festival opened, the Colombian government was very nearly dragged into a war with Venezuela. One cannot doubt, however, that even if hostilities had broken out, the event would have carried on regardless. “The first ever year of the festival we had a bomb. We just keep going.”

“The 2008 Humana Festival of New American Plays will be remembered as a celebration of bad parenting: Kidnapping, abandonment, ridicule, sexual abuse and even matriarchal claw-hammering took center stage this year.”