Category: theatre

In London, theatre-goers have to pay for programmes. The question is why. “I’m not entirely sure why I should be paying £2.50-plus for something that is often merely a marketing tool, with more benefits for the theatre than for me, even though I’m the one paying for it.”

“The Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival, which is changing its name June 1 to the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, informs us that we’re supposed to use the nickname Orlando Shakes,” writes criic Elizabeth Maupin. What’s with choosing your own nickname? “Yikes. And I’d like you to call me Queen Elizabeth. Please.”

The Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival is changing its name to the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre. “The festival’s move follows the lead of other prominent theater companies that specialize in Shakespeare, several of which have taken on new names as a better indication of what they really do.”

There is a cast of four; “surrounding them are stacks and stacks of composition books with black-and-white marbled covers — not the spiral notebooks [Spalding] Gray habitually laid on the table before disclosing his latest collection of innermost thoughts to the audience. These incongruities aside, the piece being rehearsed is indeed a new Spalding Gray work, but it is the first not to star the author, who leaped off the Staten Island Ferry in January 2004….”

Director-adapter Sulayman Al-Bassam has brought an Arabic “Richard III” to Stratford-upon-Avon. “The form has freed him to consider contemporary Arab politics in a way that would have been all but impossible without the refracting mirror of Shakespeare, said Mr. Bassam, 34, who is half Kuwaiti and half British. ‘You could write such a play,’ he said, musing on the notion of a present-day political work, ‘but you’d be best advised to set it in England in the 1400s.’ “

Architect Frank Gehry has agreed to do a pro-bono redesign project for the Pasadena Playhouse. “Gehry, designer of downtown’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, the interior of Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, will undertake both projects pro bono due to his longtime friendship with Carol Burnett.”

Los Angeles is not known for long theatre runs. But “Wicked” plans to stay a while. “Two years may sound like a tall order for a city in which theater people must ever grapple with the overweening presence of the film and television industry. What’s more, because few open-ended commercial engagements have done well here in recent decades, L.A. is sometimes touted as a tough town for sit-downs. Yet insiders predict success.”

“In a David and Goliath battle, Sunday in the Park with George beat blockbuster rivals Evita, The Sound of Music and Cabaret to be named the outstanding musical production of the year ­ a year that was the biggest for musicals in the West End that anyone could remember.”

Baltimore’s Lyric Opera House, one of the city’s “premier theatrical venues, has fallen dark for several weeks this season as four of its five national touring shows have been canceled. The no-shows, which include Elton John’s Aida, have left patrons with useless tickets and the building’s management scrambling to recoup losses.”

A group of 20-somethings puts together a musical that gets to Broadway and wins decent reviews. So a question: “How did they get to be at the helm of a $2.5 million commercial production in the first place?”