Category: theatre

“The show, which won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards including best musical, was one of the most critically praised stage productions of the last decade. The show, which opened April 19, 2001, was such a hit that the top ticket price was raised the next day from $91 to $100 — a $99 top price plus $1 for theater restoration.”

“The ‘work-play’ was an acknowledged genre that had its heyday from the late 1950s to the mid-70s. All these plays had something important in common. They realised that work itself is dramatic: that it has its own natural rhythm, and that people often reveal themselves through the jobs they do. But why has the work-play all but disappeared from our stages? There are several reasons. One is that, in the age of the graduate-playwright, there are fewer dramatists who have done real manual toil.”

“In a Broadway landscape currently filled with plays and boutique musicals ‘The Pirate Queen’ is a behemoth: large scale, ambitious and one of the most expensive shows of the season, if not the most expensive. So how did a show of this size and scope, and with this pedigree, end up running headlong into some of the worst reviews of the season?”

“Julie Taymor, who won Tonys for direction and costume design for the Broadway production of ‘The Lion King,’ will direct, with U2’s Bono and The Edge creating new music and lyrics for the project. Auditions are taking place, and a reading is scheduled for the summer. No dates for a Broadway opening have been set.”

“Lindsay-Abaire may be the first Pulitzer-winning playwright to benefit from a seldom-invoked rule that enabled a board made up mainly of high-ranking news editors to snub the choices of a nominating jury of theater experts for the second consecutive year.”

Wouldn’t it be great if you could combine going to the theatre with snooping around your friends’ apartments? A strange new production making the rounds of loft apartments in Manhattan is starting to attract attention as it plays to a few dozen audience members at a time. “The effect is something like watching a psychology experiment through a conspicuous one-way mirror, knowing that everyone on both sides is only pretending not to be seen.”

What do America’s big regional theatres consider when they’re putting together a season?

“Since we live in the age of interactive TV and instant blogging, should the principle be extended? In the majority of cases, I doubt whether audience voting is relevant. But audiences are changing. With the development of a new kind of forensic, factual drama, such as that pioneered by the Tricycle, it is perfectly legitimate to have a vote.”

“With £675m of arts funding now earmarked for London 2012, everyone knows this is just the beginning. The great paradox is that it is local theatre – the very community- inspired projects that are supposed to be a legacy of the 2012 games and which helped secure the Olympic bid – that will almost certainly be hardest hit. And it is happening at a time when local theatre, once associated unkindly with summer Shakespeare and panto, has become one of the most potent forces on the UK arts scene.”

New York is considering dropping its limits on ticket scalpers. “The world’s gone digital. It’s much more efficient. The transfer of money is much quicker. At Ticket Central four years ago, 70 percent of our tickets were sold on the phone. Last year, 65 percent were sold on the Internet. The efficiencies of the Internet have made it so easy for the broker. It’s a huge annual market.”