Category: theatre

“Entrance applause, the seemingly obligatory practice of clapping at the first glimpse of movie stars or Tony-honored performers, is an odd thing. While it provides a sense of communion between performer and audience, and an ego boost, it can also be disruptive to the show.”

“After more than three decades of putting on shows, the Northwest Actors Studio made its final curtain call Thursday. The Capitol Hill nonprofit is closing, its founder said, after falling $35,000 in debt.”

“Richard Stein resigned suddenly this week after 17 years as executive director of the Laguna Playhouse, saying in a statement Thursday that he ‘longed to spend more time on the artistic side’ of theater and couldn’t do that while handling his job’s business responsibilities. Stein, 54, was a key figure in the playhouse’s transformation … to one of Southern California’s front-rank professional companies….”

“Given that the Mel Brooks musical ‘The Producers’ introduced the $480 ticket to Broadway, it’s no wonder that rumors are already spreading about the ticket pricing for ‘The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein….’ Well, here’s the official word: On Friday and Saturday evenings and at weekend matinees, you will be able to buy something called a premier seat — roughly, one of the best 100 seats in the theater — for $450.” (third item)

“There’s a new recycling process evident in the arts: the decent film which spawns a lousy musical now spawns an ever more dreadful movie,” Shane Danielsen opines, citing “The Producers,” “Hairspray” and “Grey Gardens” as evidence of the trend. “All this is a little like watching a dog consume its own vomit.”

After wandering through Shakespeare gardens in San Francisco and New York, Jeremy McCarter muses that contemporary plays seldom “yield the kinds of passages that people erect gardens to celebrate. Look at the foremost living playwrights: Pinter, Mamet, Albee, Churchill, Kushner (to name a few). All … show varying degrees of flair with language. But who among them employs the kind of luxurious metaphor, the rich description, that people will cast on bronze plaques in a 100 years’ time – and where would they go?”

“Theatre in the UK has never been cheaper, we’re told. The internet’s overridden with offers, deals on West End shows put Broadway prices to shame and the National’s £10 Travelex season has convinced many that a night at the theatre doesn’t have to be horrifically expensive. That’s all very well – I love a bargain – but maybe thrifty theatre-going comes with a hidden cost. You might save a few quid, but does it leave you with a miserable experience?”

“You think it’s tough out there on the streets? Try going to the theatre. That was my first reaction upon reading of a homophobic incident the other evening at the West End musical Spamalot. … This particular musical has developed – both on Broadway and, evidently, here as well – a reputation for recognisably blokeish audiences at odds with the women and gay men who make up musical theatre’s traditional constituency. But verbal abuse? That’s a new one on me.”

“A play about the Iraq war that was banned from performance by officials at a Wilton, Conn., high school will enjoy a three-performance run at the Vineyard Theater…. ‘Voices in Conflict,’ created by theater students at Wilton High School and based on books and other material produced by American soldiers who have served in Iraq, was preempted from performance at the school by its principal. The production subsequently received single-evening runs at the Vineyard, the Public Theater, and the Culture Project.”

“The first revival of ‘Stalag 17,’ the 1951 comedy-drama about American prisoners of war written by two former P.O.W.’s, Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, is scheduled to arrive on Broadway in late spring next year. And in one of the more surprising combinations in recent Broadway history, the director of the new production will be Spike Lee. Yes, that Spike Lee.”