Category: theatre

The Broadway theatre opened in 1916 as the Ideal, and closed a few weeks ago as a porn house. Now it’s to be torn down. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission also studied the issue and decided the building “did not meet three necessary criteria — architectural features, history and cultural contributions to the city.”

“I am uncomfortable with the phenomenon of cultural tourism in the British theatre, whereby a comfortable metropolitan audience sits and watches working class characters – invariably from deprived parts of the country – suffer. The audience emerges from the performance either titillated by the exotic experience or reassured that their lives aren’t like that.”

Negotiations between Broadway producers and the stagehands’ union have turned nasty, and a possible lockout that could shut down the fall season looms. “Should a deal not come together in a week or so, the producers will put their final offer on the table at the end of the month. If the stagehands reject it, the producers will lock them out of the theaters” at the beginning of October.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival is only four years old, and yet, its reputation has been growing by leaps and bounds. Some now refer to it, without a hint of irony, as Sundance for musicals, an event with the power to simultaneously reinvent and reinvigorate an old form long taken for granted by its audience.

Small towns that have been through devastating natural catastrophes generally aren’t terribly eager to relive the experience. But for residents of a town in Iowa that was nearly wiped off the map when the Mississippi River flooded in 1993, a theatre project that was begun shortly after the floodwaters receded has taken their story of disaster and recovery from the Midwest to New York and back again.

In a bizarre but alluring reversal of theatrical behavior, spectators at a performance art/street theatre event in New York are sitting in a storefront window, watching seemingly ordinary New Yorkers walk, dance, and sing by them outside. “There is no narrative structure. Some scenes last a few seconds, others a few minutes. Famous New York City characters — Jacqueline Onassis, Spider-Man, ‘On the Town’ sailors, the couple from the Times Square V-Day kiss photograph — make appearances.” The title of the show – One Million Forgotten Moments.

“The Better Half, was last performed in 1922 by the London-based Grand Guignol company, but never published. Two University of Glamorgan professors found the one-act play among archives in the British Library during research for a book they were writing.”

“You may have noticed that we Americans get very excited about the nexus of performers and politicians. Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the two leading examples, and what about actor-turned-senator-turned-actor-again Fred Thompson’s recent entry into the presidential race? We also like to see politicians who have never been professional thespians trying their hand on stage and screen.”

“The 287-strong Shakespeare Authorship Coalition says it is not possible that the bard’s plays – with their emphasis on law – could have been penned by a 16th Century commoner raised in an illiterate household. The group asks if one man alone could have come up with his works
It asks why most of his plays are set among the upper classes, and why Stratford-upon-Avon is never referred to in any of his plays.”

What’s a theatre critic to do in a city without much in the way of professional-caliber theatre? Assuming he wants to keep collecting a paycheck, he’ll start seeking out shows anywhere they can be found, of course. But reviewing those who have no realistic dreams of the big time presents special challenges. “This is not a gig for the weak of heart. It’s for the eternal optimist, the dead-end journalist who doesn’t believe in dead ends. It’s for the tolerant, the cheerful, the brave and gratuitously creative. It’s a job for someone who doesn’t have a lot to do on weekends.”