L.A.’s Elephant Theatre Company, Short of Money, Goes On Hiatus

“The Elephant Theatre Company – one of the most recognizable names in Hollywood’s Theatre Row district – has suspended operations for the 2012 season due largely to financial difficulties and will undergo an internal reorganization, … Founded in the mid-’90s, the Elephant specializes in new American plays, often with edgy themes.”

Japan’s Leftist Revolutionary Filmmaker Is Now An Eminence Grise

Masao Adachi was part of two underground movements in 1960s Japan: avant-garde film and leftist protest. (He later joined the Japanese Red Army.) “Now 72, Mr. Adachi is the focus of renewed interest: part exemplar and part cautionary tale, a figure who lived out the dilemma of merging art and politics more fully and messily than just about any of his radicalized peers.”

Playing The Buddha Onstage

Reaching 40 with too much money and too much booze, Evan Brenner went through a midlife crisis not unlike that of Siddhartha Gautama himself. After poring through the Buddhist sutras and finding a “whirlwind” story of the prince’s life buried under all the religious teaching, Brenner decided to incarnate (as it were) Siddhartha in a solo theater piece.