Category: theatre

“Robert Woodruff, artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre, will leave the ART at the end of this season, when his contract expires. Woodruff, who succeeded founding artistic director Robert Brustein in 2001, plans to return to his native New York as a freelance director and a teacher.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s back on top. “One of this year’s most important developments, if not its most important, was the emergence of reality TV as a means of casting theatre shows.”

“The new building, which will be situated in Nicosia, at the old GSP stadium premises and will cost 9,4 million Cyprus pounds, aspires to give a new momentum to the theatre activities on the island. The building will include two state-of-the-art stages (550 and 150 seats), offices, an exhibition area, a foyer, a bookshop, a restaurant and a cafeteria.”

The amazing cast of young actors at Lincoln Center for “Utopia” is “a reminder of the richness of this generation of actors, whose commitment to unabashedly literate theater parallels their characters’ more fanatical devotion to finding progressive solutions to the systemic social problems of their homeland.”

“But this is the first year in my decade as chief theater critic of The New York Times in which Broadway, all by its big, bloated self, provided enough laurel-worthy shows that even a list of 10 can’t include them all.”

Toronto’s Canadian Stage Company has canceled plans to stage the controversial “My Name is Rachel Corrie.” The company’s artistic director Michael Bragg says he just changed his mind. A possible alternative reason? “Members of Bragg’s board were alarmed by negative response from influential supporters of the theatre, especially in Toronto’s Jewish community, who were canvassed for their opinion.”

“Teresa Eyring, managing director of Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, has been named executive director of Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for nonprofit theaters… The CTC was recognized with the 2003 Tony for Outstanding Regional Theater. The largest youth theater in the nation, CTC’s annual budget has nearly doubled, to $11 million, during Eyring’s tenure.”

Broadway has recorded its biggest season at the box office in 20 years. “Last season, Broadway shows collectively sold 12,003,148 tickets, while the theatregoers were predominately white, rich and more often than not, female.”

South African theater impresario Taliep Pietersen, producer of some of the country’s most successful musicals, was shot dead during a robbery at his home outside Cape Town, police said on Sunday.

Colorado’s state smoking ban has cast the future of the Phoenix Theatre and the Next Stage Theatre Company in doubt…