Category: theatre

A Chicago theatre company is using its craft to teach young girls about creative expression and build their confidence in dealing with the world around them. “Girls who choose to stick with the program through the spring semester… are paired with adult mentors who have experience in a variety of art forms, including theater, dance and music.”

Suzan-Lori Parks’ play-a-day project is a statement about what theatre is. “You can read along from day to day via the Web site. And they range from tidbits (clever exchanges between a two characters), to surprisingly elaborate 15-minute comedies and tragedies. The subject matter is diverse, but themes recur.”

“Censorship is one of the major issues facing Iranian artists today. … The more fundamental restrictions, however, are cultural rather than political. ‘In Iran, we have all these limitations on how we use the body,’ says the actress Sara Reyhani. ‘Before we even move, we have to censor ourselves.'”

At the 800-year-old church where Shakespeare is buried, “the roof leaks, the metal in the windows is corroding and a small invasion force of deathwatch beetles is boring into the ancient timbers.” The fund-raising goal exceeds $8 million. In the meantime, the visitors keep coming….

Tom Stoppard’s play has been acclaimed. But some, like Charles Isherwood, are not so sure. “Some may fear, as my new acquaintance from the plaza did, that to admit dissatisfaction or outright dislike is to advertise one’s intellectual obtuseness or philistinism. The coercive reasoning goes something like this: Everyone says it’s brilliant; I am bored; therefore I am not smart enough to appreciate its brilliance. The play isn’t a failure: I am.”

The Broadway version of The Color Purple got a major publicity boost when Oprah Winfrey added her name to the marquee. “With some innovative marketing – and a big push from Oprah, who invested $1 million in the show – The Color Purple caught on with black audiences, a group Broadway has tried (and largely failed) to capture in the past.” But the production is struggling now, and Michael Riedel says that The Big O needs to use her awesome powers of consumer persuasion to change that.

“Scotland’s flagship national theatre is set to abandon plans to base itself in a deprived Glasgow housing scheme. Easterhouse had been earmarked as a home for the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS). When the surprise move was announced in 2003 by the then Culture Minister, Frank McAveety, much was made of the symbolic power of the new cultural institution being sited in an area associated with deprivation and poverty. However, the core staff of the NTS has never moved to the £9.5m facility and has instead been based in temporary offices in central Glasgow.”

Plays are frequently products of their specific era, and as such, it can be difficult to make an old script seem relevant (or even understandable) a few decades after it was written. “The toughest problems in keeping a play contemporary are prices and politics… The question of what to do with dangling 1970s references has recently occupied many rehearsal rooms, because theatre seems to operate a 30-year rule when it comes to choosing plays to restage.”

Canada’s largest movie theatre chain has had great success showing the live Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. So Cineplex wants to start showing other live events, perhaps starting with Broadway shows. “I would love to see Broadway productions on screen, and I think our audiences would as well. It’s absolutely in our strategic plan.”

Tickets for Signature Theatre Company’s new Off-Broadway production of August Wilson’s King Hedley II went on sale Jan. 22, and within 48 hours, the entire run was sold out.