Category: theatre

“The fall theater season has kicked into high gear, but so far there isn’t a single musical throwing off real sparks. Broadway isn’t used to this: Every new season in recent memory has delivered at least one show (sometimes two or three) that’s captured New Yorkers’ imaginations – and plenty of their spending money.”

So you’re thinking of going to the Russian theatre but you’ve heard some dicey stories? “Theatre audiences in Russia will soon be able to buy insurance against a terrorist attack or some other catastrophe befalling them during the performance.”

“This weekend Les Misérables will prove the doubters wrong and set a benchmark when it becomes the world’s longest-running musical. Apart from the 21 years it has been running in London, a further 56 professional companies have opened it in 38 countries and 223 cities. With more than 38,000 professional performances worldwide, an astonishing – and estimated – 54 million people have seen it.”

The Penumbra Theatre, the Twin Cities’ leading company focusing on African-American work, operated with a surplus for the third season in a row. “Penumbra also announced that by June it will retire its debt, which ballooned to more than $500,000 in 2002. The debt, described as an albatross, triggered the company’s restructuring program.”

Richard Monette is retiring after 15 years at the helm of Canada’s beloved Stratford Theatre Festival, a fact you won’t be able to miss if you attend any of Stratford’s 2007 performances. In fact, the entire 2007 season, unveiled this week, is a tribute to Monette’s achievements.

“It’s still a new subject area for us in the Valley. Even though across the nation people have been dealing with it for 30 years, here it’s still fairly new.”

Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center plans to mount a “boldly comprehensive showcase” of August Wilson’s plays exploring the African-American experience in the spring of 2008. “The month-long event… will present each of the 10 plays as a staged reading in the center’s Terrace Theater, under the artistic leadership of Kenny Leon, the Atlanta-based director who staged the premiere of the last Wilson play that the dramatist was to see on Broadway.”

A new Broadway collaboration teaming choreographer Twyla Tharp with the music of Bob Dylan is going through more than the usual share of pre-opening night growing pains. Several cast members have been fired over the last few weeks, and now, the show’s female lead has been replaced by her understudy. “The show is in such flux, theater writers have repeatedly been asked to postpone their visits. Even cast members aren’t always clear about what’s going on.”

What if you built a beautiful, Off-Broadway theatre complex and the market for it failed to materialize? “Located on a stretch where parking lots are the only businesses open after dark, 37 Arts has an address that one producer joked was ‘just east of dire,’ alluding to the nearby Dyer Avenue, which is actually northeast of the building. It wasn’t supposed to be that way.”

“The Tricycle theatre challenged mainly black British and American writers to come up with their take on the humanitarian crisis. The result is seven short plays of five to 20 minutes, which will be followed by a debate involving the audience.”