Category: theatre

August Wilson’s legacy as a playwright is vast and hard to pin down, making it difficult to mount any sort of overarching celebration of his life’s work. But Washington’s Kennedy Center is making a stab at it anyway, presenting ambitious stagings of every one of Wilson’s ten plays in a single month.

New York theatre pundit Michael Riedel sees more labor strife and a revamped Tony awards broadcast in the air in 2008. “Ancient rules governing which shows can and cannot appear on the Tonys will be jettisoned, and popular hits [from past years] will get as much stage time as this year’s crop of nominees.”

Broadway box office “totaled more than $938 million in 2007, up 3.5 percent from 2006 despite a 19-day stagehands strike in November that shut down most shows in the New York industry. Attendance rose 2.7 percent to a record 12.29 million.”

The Chicago production of “Wicked” has announced that it broke its own box office record, grossing $1,418,363.24 for the week ending Dec. 30, filling the Oriental Theatre to capacity.

Perennial top dog “Wicked” ($1,839,950) officially claimed the record for the highest-grossing week in Broadway history, surpassing the $1.8 million record it set in Christmas 2006 — although estimates for “Young Frankenstein,” which is not reporting its sales, overshot even that figure, pegging the week’s cume at $1.86 million.

What is it about Stephen Sondheim and Hollywood? Sondheim has been the preeminent figure in American musical theater for nearly 40 years. Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for all of these works, each of which has helped extend and redefine the musical. None has been adapted to the screen.

Dominic Cavendish writes that few of today’s plays challenge the Left-liberal consensus. “Is there a tacit complicity between many of today’s writers and the liberal establishment? Is the ‘liberal consensus’ and the fear of appearing Right-wing hobbling the urge to conduct tough, awkward public debates?”

“In a typical Broadway fall, star-led revivals and glittery new songfests might make the news. This year the lone major musical to open, “Young Frankenstein,” landed with a splat and proved how tricky it is to fine-tune the work of a stage full of talent in the context of a machine-tooled megamusical.”

Three new theatres opened in St. Louis. “That, in a city plagued for years by venue wars, would be good news all by itself. What’s better: Plans call for all of the theaters to be used by different troupes. That’s a healthy plan for the community on both sides of the lights.”

“In an age of megachurches that thrive on congregations that sometimes number 20,000 or more, elaborate Christmas productions that can cost $1million have become a valuable marketing tool. Gone are the days of angel costumes made of white sheets and tin-foil halos. With the proliferation of megachurches, holiday pageants have gone Hollywood.”