Tag: 05.30.06

The Royal Shakespeare’s Unconventional Shaplin

Adriano Shaplin is an unconventional choice as writer-in-residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company. “These essentially conservative institutions, the National and the RSC, are now under new leadership and are looking around for the people who are making real ensemble theatre. It’s great that they’re turning to companies like the Riot Group and Shunt. The RSC has used the phrase ‘blood transfusion’. It’s so exciting.”

Reality – Playwrighting Tough On TV

More than 2000 people submitted plays to be considered for a UK reality TV show that would reward the winning entry with a West End production. “The contestants – including call-centre workers, chefs and supermarket shelf-stackers – were whittled down to 30, where the programme takes up the story. At the next stage, the remaining 10 writers were hot-housed by a team of theatre experts and had to produce their full-length play. Then it was down to the final three, one of whom would have his play staged in the West End.”

The New Indie Biz

Indie presses are reinventing their businesses. “In big publishing, the line is that people don’t read, and we’re all competing for the same dwindling pool of readers. That’s not true. We’re going out and finding new readers, and showing people that reading can be provocative and exciting.”

The Enigmatic Moscow Art Market

“The economic free-for-all after the collapse of the Soviet Union created a new class of wealthy entrepreneurs who have been buying Russian art and are already widening their collecting interests. All this should favour the Moscow fair, founded two years ago, but nothing in Russia is ever as simple as it seems.”

Protesters Demonstrate At Opening Of Stratford Festival

Monday night a group of 60 anti-poverty protesters gathered outside the opening of the Stratford Festival. “The protesting groups referred to the opening night crowd in their advance publicity as ‘a who’s who of the rich and vile’ and condemned the festival as ‘a playpen for the rich.’ Despite vows by the groups to shut down the production, the show went on last night.”

Are we In A New Golden Age Of TV Drama?

Tom Shales thinks so. “The 2005-06 TV season probably boasted more solid hours of good drama than television has seen in many years. The networks showed what could be done when they let producers dare to stray from the familiar and formulaic — from the old cops-and-robbers and doctors-and-nurses templates. You know: the sick and the dead.”