“Ever worry about getting paid, getting laid or finding love? Does social anxiety prickle your palms? Do you despair of a world slipping its moorings? Restoration drama may speak to you.” David Jays makes the case — and looks into why actors find the genre so daunting. – The Guardian
Category: theatre
There’s A Whole New Crop Of South Asian-American Stand-Up Comedians Coming
“They’re finding strength in numbers that have swelled in the wake of new role models, mounting recurring group shows with names like Kutti Gang and Brown Privilege in New York, and Desi Comedy Festival [in California]. … (It’s also no small thing to have people like [Mindy] Kaling and [Hasan] Minhaj to point to when arguing with immigrant parents who may disapprove of even their adult offspring pursuing stand-up.)” – The Daily Beast
Why NBC Backed Out Of Airing ‘Hair Live!’
Turns out it wasn’t because of the ratings for Rent [kinda] Live! (the worst ever for a live TV musical) or even the naked hippies at the end of Act I (well, maybe a little). No, what killed Hair Live! was, one might say, a fire-breathing dragon. – Adweek
Funding Cuts Force UK Theatres To Earn More Of Their Budgets
The most recent annual survey data from NPOs found they continued to make more of their own income through ticket sales and other activity in 2017/18, with earned income representing 55% of total revenue and generating £889.6 million. This represented a 4.8% increase on the previous year. – The Stage
A Theatre In Western New York Cast A White Woman To Play The Enslaved Character Tituba In ‘The Crucible’
Here’s how the play’s director responded to a mild backlash: “All I was doing was trying to put on a show. … It’s a community theater and the community of people that showed up to auditions were cast in the show.” – Olean Times Herald (New York)
A Playwright Says It’s Time To Dismantle Theatre’s Hierarchy
And, she says, it’s time to stop seeing playwrights as god. Morgan Lloyd Malcolm: “What I enjoy more as a creator is to be in a room with a bunch of people working it out together. … We need to think of a new structure for how we create things.” – The Stage (UK)
The Vanishing Stars Of Bengali Folk Theatre
Jatra stars used to be major celebrities, but now they have to work second (or third) jobs to make ends meet. “Jatra originated in Bangladesh and the eastern Indian states of Odisha and Bihar. It’s a living and vibrant form of theater, usually performed on open-air stages, inspired by Hindu mythology, popular legends and contemporary events.” – NPR
Under A Hardline Government In India, Theatre Is Facing More Censorship, And Violence
Hardline Hindu activists, empowered by the 2014 election of Narenda Modi as prime minister, have been doing things like this to plays they deem unpatriotic: “Hours before the show was due to start, the crew said they were forced to escape the venue as a mob had gathered. They said they ran down back alleys and had to take side roads to avoid being attacked on a main road. ‘It wasn’t that people didn’t like our play, expressed their dismay and left. No. We were being hunted across the city,’ said Ashwath Bhatt, an actor in the play.” – Reuters
Why ‘Game Of Thrones’ Has Been Good For British Theatre
It’s the same reason that Law and Order is good for New York theater, only more so — GoT has arguably pulled some new audiences to see, for example, some Christopher Marlowe and Sam Shepard. – The Stage
Meet The Artists Radically Transforming Broadway Theatre
“In recent years, the dam between uptown and downtown has started to spring a leak or two—and this season, the floodgates have opened. A rush of new productions written and directed by artists with a distinctly downtown sensibility are reshaping the Broadway landscape.” – Vogue