Category: theatre

“A new report has found stark disparities in racial representation and pay gaps on the New York stage – the vast majority of writers and directors remain white, while some theater non-profits spent up to six times as much on white actors as actors of color.” – The Guardian

“Cautiously, with six-inch cotton swabs and four-gallon drums of hand sanitizer, theater is creeping back — on the side of a cliff in Cornwall, England; on stoops in Montreal; even, in a few cases, in New York. … We asked artists and audiences — even an usher and a critic — to reflect on what it was like to return to shows across the world.” – The New York Times

Harris: “I’ve always felt this responsibility that if I was going to be in the theater, I had to do theater the way the Greeks did it. The theater of the Greeks was as much about civic responsibility as it was about anything else. It’s about people witnessing the world, responding to that world, and then maybe doing something to change it. That’s why the only people who could see it were people who could vote.” (video or audio) – Variety

“We believe that theatre artists could learn something from the collaborative storytelling techniques employed in tabletop role-playing games. As professional dramaturgs and gamers ourselves, it’s easy to see that theatre and TTRPGs share obvious points of overlap.” – Howlround

“Agatha Christie’s whodunnit, the longest-running play in the world, had been due to welcome socially distanced audiences at St Martin’s theatre from 23 October onwards. However, its producer Adam Spiegel announced on Tuesday that it would now be postponed ‘in view of the current uncertainty and with greater restrictions looming for London’.” – The Guardian

Plays that explore broken institutions, social unrest, and isolation may be uniquely suited to the Zoom platform with its fractured screen of boxes and its disruptive glitches, hiccups, and delays. – Howlround

“In the pause, you question things and understand why they happen instead of just going along with it, in terms of structures and roles and pay. It’s going to be a really hard couple of years rebuilding, but there might be positives that come out of it. Well, there will be – because we will see change.” – The Guardian

What is on offer from our stages, via podcasts, Zoom presentations, and the rare live productions? Mostly escapes to comfy territory rather than confrontations with the difficult present. These approaches often reflect a yearning for the ‘old normal’ via a focus on Boston’s history. – ArtsFuse

We are in increasing danger of reducing public language to spectacle. We are urged to judge performance in terms of crowd-pleasing; we don’t want to see our leaders engaged in reflection, or inviting us to look behind and around issues. Fascism is one of the most extreme forms of the triumph of spectacle. In such a context, theatre is all the more vital. – New Statesman

“The Institute for Counterfeit Memory” cannily employs the devices it provides to bring you back to the feeling of being in a room with other spectators, even as it reminds you that you are alone. Its ministrations so impressed me that when I turned over the final cue card instructing me to applaud, I actually did. – Washington Post