Category: theatre

“Two of the key organizations that Citi Performing Arts Center has sought to merge or partner with, have formally cut off talks with the Citi Center,” formerly known as the Wang Center. “Leaders of the organizations cited a range of concerns, from the $1.2 million bonus paid to Citi Center president and CEO Josiah Spaulding Jr. last year to the impact that bad publicity from a series of Boston Globe articles about the Center could have on fund-raising.”

“The ingenious idea of a Shakespeare tube map sponsored by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and advertising its activities on T-shirts, bags and mugs, has its dangers. I have horrible visions of Japanese visitors, the world their Oyster, taking it seriously and triumphantly working out that they have reached Tottenham Court Road when they see a sign for Hotspur, and Baker Street when they are at Titus Andronicus station. And wouldn’t they be puzzled not to find Lear or Antony at the end of a line?”

“Toronto directors and performers love to drag their audiences outdoors to the most untheatrical locations. Over the last decade, we’ve seen theatre on the beach, dance in parks, Shakespeare under the Gardiner Expressway, drama in a leaky warehouse, staged history in a hot storefront and choreography over an abandoned railway track… But the truth is, to make theatre, one needs a little night magic, and nothing destroys that magic or makes it more difficult to be established than exposure to the natural or urban environment.”

“On the still riot-marred landscape of South L.A., “potential” has become a hackneyed word, a political euphemism for improvements in black neighborhoods that were discussed after the riots in 1992 but never materialized. Yet there is one unlikely area of redevelopment where ‘potential’ still resonates beyond the rhetoric: theater.”

Critics whinge about declines in writing in British theatre. But they’re missing the mark, writes Lyn Gardner. “What these articles about new writing also fail to mention are the high levels of activity that are taking place in British theatre in areas other than new writing. That makes me wonder whether new writing theatres are thinking as creatively as perhaps they should and whether they are still using outdated models of what a play is and should be. Over the last few years, the enegy in theatre has moved elsewhere.”

It worked in London, choosing the lead for a West End revival of “Sound of Music” through a TV talent show. So why not in Canada? “A new talent competition announced Tuesday by Mirvish Productions and CBC Television seeks a performer to play the part of Maria von Trapp in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music.”

“No one could accuse the theatre in this country of being politically shy. In recent years, a whole range of work has been sparked by issues like Iraq, the war on terror, and the genocide in Rwanda. But the massive global threat posed by polar icecaps melting and sea levels rising has, until now, remained almost completely absent from the listings pages.” Nonetheless, “a few writers do seem to be taking note.”

“The philanthropist Chris Abele, head of U.S. fund raising for Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company, is leading by example with a record $5 million donation to the RSC’s planned theater in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The gift is the largest in the long history of American support for the British company, which regularly sends touring productions to the U.S.”

“For me,” Lewis Segal writes, “Bip was the reality, Marceau a kind of invisible conjurer. So I’m mourning Bip’s death as much as Marceau’s. But, alas, there’ll be no obituaries for Bip, no tribute to him from the government of France, even though we knew him a lot better than we knew Marceau and will miss him just as much. Together, they proved to me and to so many others that the realm of art is as palpable as any dimension of existence….”

Center Stage dominates this year’s Ovation Awards. The Pasadena Playhouse’s production of ‘Can-Can,’ with 12 nods, received the most for a single show. Boston Court tied for second with 10 nominations for “Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings’.”