Category: theatre

As Tom Stoppard’s trilogy, “The Coast of Utopia,” sends Broadway audiences skittering for the bookshelves, Lyn Gardner asks, “But how far should you have to read up in advance in order to enjoy a show? After all, you don’t have to have a degree in nuclear physics to enjoy either Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen or Greg McLaren’s How to Build a Time Machine….”

“A packed bill of hit musicals such as The Sound of Music and Spamalot made 2006 a record year for London’s West End as theatre takings bounced back after terrorist threats. … By the end of 2006, central London’s 53 theatres had clocked up an unprecedented 12.36m attendances, according to trade association the Society of London Theatre.”

“The Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum will receive a $30-million interior renovation beginning in July, Music Center officials said Monday. The remodeling project, expected to continue through mid-2008, will include doubling the lobby space by relocating restrooms to a downstairs lounge and upgrading the auditorium with more comfortable seats and improved acoustics.”

“The former male prostitute whose accusations against New Life Church founder Ted Haggard led to Haggard’s dismissal as pastor has paid a visit to the megachurch. … Jones visited on Sunday with members of a New York-based theater troupe, The Civilians, who are researching a project on evangelicals.”

“The theatre’s high hit rate is no coincidence. Artists start there — and come back — because, uniquely, BAC champions experiment, development and play. It has established itself over 25 years as an incubator of new theatre forms. BAC has changed the whiskery face of British theatre, made the arts more colourful and multifarious and fun.”

Boston area theatres Huntington and American Repertory Theatre are both looking for new leadership, this at a time of great uncertainty in the theatre world. “The leaders they choose will tell us a lot about the solutions they favor. That makes this an excellent time for everyone who cares about theater in Boston to think — and speak — about what we believe it can and should be.”

More and more cities and states are banning smoking – evn onstage as part of a performance. “In Colorado three theater companies — the Curious Theater Company and Paragon Theater, both in Denver, and Theater13 in Boulder– have gone so far as to sue the state, arguing that smoking in the course of a play is a form of free expression.”

Chicago is a great theatre town; no one questions that. But to assume that the designation of “great theatre town” also indicates a surplus of well-paid actors would be a mistake. The fact is that, with very few exceptions, stage actors face a brutally tough existence, especially in major cities with a high cost of living.

Robert Woodruff’s departure as artistic director of Boston’s American Repertory Theatre will mark the end of an era when it occurs this summer. But as recently as last fall, Woodruff was certain he would be returning to ART, and the company’s board had no reason to think otherwise. But in the end, the decision came down to money: there was a strong sense on the board that Woodruff’s uncompromising stance on artistic matters was fiscally untenable, and he was told that his contract would not be renewed.

Tom Stoppard’s new play Utopia has caused a run on a book. “Russian Thinkers,” a 1978 collection of essays on 19th-century Russian intellectuals by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, has virtually disappeared from bookstores across the city, including Barnes & Noble, Labyrinth Books and Shakespeare & Company.”