Category: theatre

“The musical, based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of triumph over adversity, will have played 910 performances by the time the final curtain falls next month at the Broadway Theatre.”

“After 29 years, New York’s Theater by the Blind is changing its name to Theater Breaking Through Barriers. The company will continue its commitment to blind and vision-impaired artists, but it has expanded its mission to include performers with a range of disabilities.”

Live Nation has at last sold off its theatrical biz, with Key Brand Entertainment, a private investment company owned by Brit theater producer John Gore, acquiring the legit division for $90.4 million.

London’s West End theatres need £250m in repairs, says a study. “The area’s 40 venues were all built before 1937 and many are in “desperate need” of repair works. The investigation concluded that there was no single solution to tackling the long-term under-investment.”

Those who bemoan the state of American theater should consider this sobering fact: even for its most successful playwrights and directors, it’s a world without money or security.

Edward Albee’s latest play is a little difficult to cast: the main characters are 28-year-old identical twins, both named Otto, who look so alike that their own mother can’t tell them apart. “The key was finally giving up on finding the real thing and instead switching to a hunt for two actors similar enough in age, physique and height to be made to look alike.”

“Surely the theatres in question will only go out of business if they continue to put on plays that fail to capture the public’s imagination. It is only because they don’t sell enough tickets that they’re forced to depend on hand-outs. If their artistic directors were a little more in touch with the taste of ordinary theatre-goers, their survival wouldn’t be in jeopardy.”

“The notion of understudy performances reminds us that a star does not a production make. Indeed, a star can divert attention from a fine production. As last year’s debacle surrounding Trevor Nunn’s King Lear and The Seagull proved very publicly, understudies aren’t kids shoved on stage with a script at short notice.”

Mel Brooks says that the critical slams that greeted his latest Broadway spectacular, Young Frankenstein, were due in part to producers’ decisions to price the top ticket for the show at a whopping $450. Michael Riedel says that’s nonsense. “He should listen to his own cast recording, just out from Decca, where he’ll find 19 far better reasons, starting with ‘The Transylvania Mania’.”

“A lot of young actors can no longer be easily heard. And the causes are fairly obvious. TV is a prime suspect as it encourages what could be termed ‘conversational realism’. Actor training also no longer makes the vocal demands it once did.” But it’s also true that “that we live in a culture that distrusts the spoken word.”