Category: theatre

A small Boston theatre stretches to do David Hare’s play about the Iraq war. “The play goes behind the scenes to try to show, step by step, how and why the Bush administration led America into war and persuaded the British to join it. The claims the play makes were controversial at the time… That Iraq was essentially an opportunistic venture where a small group in the White House chose to exploit 9/11 for their own political ends. That was controversial. It has now become standard history.”

Portland Oregon’s biggest theatre gets a handsome new home. “We really needed to be in a space where we could reinvent and expand our relationship with the community. We needed a place that said, ‘This is Portland.’ “

Tom Stoppard’s new play is a mammoth undertaking. It requires “six and a half months of constant rehearsals — full days and part days — and 115 performances, including the three marathon performance days. Even harder when it’s an ensemble piece, where the actor’s name will appear somewhere in the crowd below the title. And harder still when it’s at a not-for-profit theater, with its do-gooder pay scale.”

A pending statewide smoking ban in Colorado would include a ban on actors smoking in theatrical productions, and the Denver theatre scene isn’t taking the action lying down. “The Curious Theatre Company will take pre-emptive action against the ban this morning, when it plans to file a lawsuit in Denver District Court against the Colorado Department of Health and Environment.” The suit contends that the ban constitutes a violation of the company’s right to free expression.

London’s theatre district has been developing a distinctly American flavor of late. From the Broadway smash, Wicked, to Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon For the Misbegotten, the American tradition is suddenly everywhere in London, and no one seems to be complaining.

“I’m working on a big, new gay play. It’s been a long time since I’ve written about gay issues. I guess I feel that corners have been turned for me personally and also for the [gay] community and we’re in a different, though unfortunately, not improved era.”

“Outrage from playwrights over a proposed policy change by the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, in which it would take a percentage of future royalties from plays presented there, caused the conference to backtrack rapidly over the weekend, leaving confusion about whether the proposal was still being considered.”

Cleveland Play House director Michael Bloom made a very public critique of Plain Dealer theatre critic Tony Brown. “Inspired by an unfavorable review Brown had written of the play and his direction, [he} spied Brown in the back row of the theater, hurried down the aisle and ran the critic down in the lobby, where he passionately delivered an intimate and unrestrained critique of the review.”

“From tiny Centastage to the Lyric Stage Company, New Repertory Theatre, Barrington Stage Company, North Shore Music Theatre, and the American Repertory Theatre, the area is becoming a veritable incubator for new plays and musicals, many by local artists.”

It was four years ago this month that a plane carrying Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone and his family crashed in a remote northern town, killing all on board and putting a shocking end to what many American leftists had hoped would be a long and prominent political life. Now, on the eve of another crucial Senate election in Minnesota, a prominent St. Paul theater is mounting a play dramatizing Wellstone’s life. It’s a risky move – Minnesota is not the Democratic stronghold it once was. “Politicos’ reactions to the play have been muted because more attention is being paid to the coming elections than to the arts. But for those who are aware of the show, the late senator is proving to be as controversial in death as he was in life.”