American Theatre back issues from January 2009:
Editor's note.(Editorial)
Jan 01, 2009; ... I'VE BEEN HARBORING THE SPECULATION FOR SOME TIME now that we're in a golden age of theatre design. What gives me that idea? What I see on stages, mainly--tiny, design-on-a-dime stages as well as big, well-appointed ones. There's a moment I distinctly remember, for example, in ...
A voice not heard.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Snapshot National Performing Arts Convention in Denver ("A Dream Team of Disciplines," Sept. '08): Kwame Kwei-Armah blindly holding forth on "Theatre as Foreign Policy" as the moderate voice of Madhusree Dutta is censored from the plenary "Radical Ideas from Beyond the Border." I triple my ...
How upbeat is it?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jan 01, 2009; ... I question whether Theatre Facts 2007 truly displayed "upbeat tidings," as Celia Wren notes in her survey analysis (Nov. '08). Many theatres were in the black during the surveyed term bcause of increased alternate revenue streams and earnings from interest and dividends. However, ...
Looking for work.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jan 01, 2009; ... I just read Eliza Bent's Strategies column ("Audition Odyssey," Oct. '08) about the young traveling actors Jaspers and Zempel. Bless their hearts and good luck to them. However, I noted that Zempel recalled: "One artistic director pulled us aside and said, 'We're using a lot of older ...
Gestures of art.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jan 01, 2009; ... I read Teresa Eyring's editorial in the October issue ("How Theatre Saved America, Part 2") with great appreciation, especially in this political and economic climate. The importance of small gestures of art creating a larger understanding is one of the great hopes for our world community ....
Do you know the way ...?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Please inform your writer Alexis Greene ("No Place Like Home," Sept. '08) that Hazlehurst, Miss., is, in fact, a real town--contrary to her assertion that ...
Corrections.(Correction notice)
Jan 01, 2009 ... The Nov. '08 issue of American Theatre was incorrectly designated as Vol. 25, No. 10. The issue is in fact Vol. 25, No. 9. Librarians should file the issue accordingly. The Sept. '08 Awards & Prizes column incorrectly stated that Christine Evans's play Trojan Barbie premiered at ...
The rise and fall of the Soviet Yiddish theatre.(NEWS IN BRIEF)
Jan 01, 2009 ... NEW YORK CITY AND SAN FRANCISCO: Marc Chagall's tall, supersaturated watercolors of Moscow Yiddish theatrical life lure you in. In one of the gallery rooms of "Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949"--on view through March 22 at the Jewish Museum of New York and ...
California closing.(NEWS IN BRIEF)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... SAN JOSE, CALIF.: American Musical Theater of San Jose has announced it is folding. Its touring production of Chicago will continue as scheduled, but planned productions of Tarzan and 42nd Street were cancelled. This abrupt closure was precipitated by contentious dealings with the ...
'Under the Radar' takes stock of a new America.
Jan 01, 2009; ... NEW YORK CITY: "This is a good time to check in with our artists working today in this country," says Mark Russell, the curator of Under the Radar, the 12-day festival taking place Jan. 7-18 at the Public Theater. "UTR is about the future of society as our artists imagine it. And we have a ...
Play it again, Sam (and Simon).
Jan 01, 2009; ... BROOKLYN: British director Sam Mendes and the extraordinary actor Simon Russell Beale first hooked up at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where Mendes directed Beale as Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, as the eponymous king in Richard III and as a tenor-voiced Ariel in The Tempest. The two ...
In November President George W. Bush honored Ford's Theatre Society.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... In November President George W. Bush honored Ford's Theatre Society of Washington, D.C., with the 2008 National Medal of Arts (in the same month that theatre received a Volk Lincoln Honor from the Lincoln Forum). A few days prior, First Lady Laura Bush presented New York ...
Lighting designer and theatre consultant Richard Pilbrow.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Lighting designer and theatre consultant Richard Pilbrow received this year's Wally Russell Lifetime Achievement Award at the Live Design International Awards in Las Vegas. Jeremy ...
The Asian American Writers' Workshop.(AWARDS & PRIZES)
Jan 01, 2009 ... The Asian American Writers' Workshop presented a lifetime achievement award ...
Laguna Playhouse.(AWARDS & PRIZES)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Laguna Playhouse of California was named an Outstanding Arts Education ...
Portland Center Stage.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Oregon's Portland Center Stage continues to draw recognition for the greenness of its Gerding Theater at the Armory, most recently ...
Winners of the 2008 Pen and Brush NYC.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(New York City)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Winners of the 2008 Pen and Brush NYC play competition included Diana A. Lewis of Santa Fe, N.M., for The Hat; Leah Kornfeld Friedman of New York City for Another Bride, Another Groom; and ...
Shakespeare Festival/LA honored three people.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Shakespeare Festival/LA honored three people with Crystal Quill Awards for their contributions to ...
The Theatre Museum honored both Rick McKay.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... The Theatre Museum honored both Rick McKay (documentary filmmaker of Broadway: The Golden Age) and the Iowa-based Theatre Museum of ...
Steppenwolf Theatre Company.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company was one of 35 finalists in a field of 406 ...
Roundabout Theatre Company.(AWARDS & PRIZES)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Roundabout Theatre Company earned acknowledgement from the Web Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau for the website (www.sundaydots.com) it commissioned from Situation ...
Barbara Gaddie Adams.(IN MEMORIAM)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Barbara Gaddie Adams, a major player in the development of southern Utah theatre, died on Oct. 22. Adams co-founded the Utah Shakespearean Festival in 1962 with her husband (then fiance) Fred C. Adams. After the ...
Clive Barnes.(IN MEMORIAM)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Renowned theatre and dance critic Clive Barnes died on Nov. 19 from complications of cancer at the age of 81. Known for his pithy and conversational reviewing style, Barnes expanded the dance world through his criticism, introducing audiences to such choreographers as George Balanchine and ...
William Gibson.(IN MEMORIAM)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... William Gibson, who won a Tony Award for The Miracle Worker in 1960, died in November at the age of 94. Kansas-born Gibson relocated to Stockbridge, Mass., in 1948 with his wife in pursuit of her psychoanalyst career. Despite growing success as a novelist and playwright, Gibson eschewed ...
Gabriellc Heller.(IN MEMORIAM)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Gabriellc Heller, an integral member of the French Theatre Centre (ITI), died this past fall. Heller was born in Poland, but moved throughout her life--to Italy, Argentina, England--and ...
Moon shadows.(FRONT & CENTER)(Theater review)
Jan 01, 2009; ... COTTON FUELED THE ROCKET SHIPS of Jules Verne's seminal science fiction novel From the Earth to the Moon, published the year the U.S. Civil War ended. Why not--cotton had certainly propelled the economy of the young American nation. And though the combustible forces that made space travel ...
You can go home again.(NEW HAVEN, CONN.)(Theater review)
Jan 01, 2009; ... The title of Athol Fugard's new play Coming Home has many meanings. To begin with, its premiere at Long Wharf Theatre in January marks a return of the South African playwright to his American artistic home in New Haven. Long Wharf is where Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island ...
Still Stanley.(PHILADELPHIA)(Stanley Kowalski)(Theater review)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... If you've ever had the sudden urge to scream "STELLA!" on stage, you can thank the Wainut Street Theatre. In 1947, young Tennessee Williams premiered his new play, A Streetcar Named Desire, at the theatre--then a Broadway try-out house for the Shuberts. In celebration of the theatre's ...
Leading ladies trade places.(LA JOLLA, CALIF., AND NEW YORK CITY)
Jan 01, 2009; ... LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE IS A LONG way from the Limbo Lounge, the East Village bar where playwright/performer Charles Busch cut his stiletto heels in such 1980s-era drag romps as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Psycho Beach Party. But La Jolla is where Busch spent this past fall previewing his new ...
Almanac.(JANUARY)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009 ... 65 YEARS AGO (1924) Sydney S. Cohen and Morris Sussman re-open Harlem's Apollo Theatre after the death of former owner Bill Minsky and welcome African-American patrons for the first time. Originally, the theatre functioned as a whites-only burlesque club, but it will go on to ...
The blogger next door.(SAN FRANCISCO)(Theater review)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Here's how Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, whose new play T.I.C.: Trenchcoat in Common explores the weird world of blogging, assesses the effect of the Internet on his work: "There's awareness of how entertainment gets constructed. People are much more impatient, so the pace at which things move ...
From the outback to the sea.(NEW YORK CITY)(Theater review)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... "SOME STORIES ARE TOLD SO THAT they may be remembered; others are told so that they may never happen again." That's how playwright Andrea James puts it in the stage directions of her Yanagai! Yanagai!, a mythical tale that weaves together Australian Aboriginal yarns of past and present ....
The design dilemma: with so many academic programs cranking out new designers, what exactly are we training them for--and how?(APPROACHES TO THEATRE TRAINING: ALL EYES ON DESIGN)
Jan 01, 2009; ... When I was in graduate school in the early '70s, it was assumed that our class of designers would be heading to one of three professional destinations: Broadway, regional theatre, or college and university teaching. Although Broadway at the time was at a low ebb, some of us packed up our ...
Last call at Ming's and Betsy's Clambake: a chorus of voices celebrates the legacy of the annual stage design portfolio review at Lincoln Center.(Ming Cho Lee and Betsy Cho Lee)
Jan 01, 2009; ... For almost two decades, Ming Cho Lee and his wife Betsy have put together a clamorous coming-out party for emerging designers. Held every spring at Lincoln Center, Ming's Clambake bears the official name of Stage Design Portfolio Review. During this two-day showing of porfolios, the ...
The case for live movies: the training of new-media projection designers will mean new aesthetics, new audiences.(APPROACHES TO THEATRE TRAINING: ALL EYES ON DESIGN)
Jan 01, 2009; ... <Pre> In the simultaneous use of the living actor and the talking picture in the theatre lies a wholly new theatrical art an art whose possibilities are as infinite as those of speech itself. --Robert Edmond Jones (1929)Knowledge of the technical makes creativity possible ....
When designer and actor are one: in the designer-centered laboratory of director Dmitry Krymov, young Russian students are taken on as active collaborators.(APPROACHES TO THEATRE TRAINING: ALL EYES ON DESIGN)
Jan 01, 2009; ... During the past six years, Dmitry Krymov, a Russian stage designer and painter born in 1954, has directed--in close collaboration with a group of design students from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (better known in Russia as the State Institute of Theatre Arts or GITIS)--seven ...
The further adventures of monsieur space: the French designer Jean-Guy Lecat ponders the living intricacies of space, design and performance.(APPROACHES TO THEATRE TRAINING: ALL EYES ON DESIGN)
Jan 01, 2009; ... Eight years ago, Jean-Guy Lecat parted ways with the legendary director Peter Brook. At the ripe age of 64, the French scenic designer and theatre-architecture consultant--who, as Brook's technical director and principal designer from 1976 to 2000, was in charge of scouting and ...
Designing women: eavesdropping on 5 artist-on-artist chats.(Interview)
Jan 01, 2009; ... This past November, women designers took back history when the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the League of Professional Theatre Women unveiled "Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance." On view through May 2 in the library's Donald ...
Alice's adventures in Wonderland: the play ground theatre.(PRODUCTION NOTEBOOK)(Theater review)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Stephanie Ansin, ADAPTATION AND DIRECTION: Our idea for this production was to reset Alice in Wovderland South Florida--to look at our world through Lewis Carroll's eyes. Every single character and every visual element in the show corresponds to a specific South Florida reference. At the ...
Rick Shiomi carving a space: a playwright-turned-artistic director fosters Asian-American theatre in the heart of the prairie.(PEOPLE)
Jan 01, 2009; ... AT FIRST GLANCE, THE MINNEAPOLIS OF THE early 1990s didn't seem like an ideal place for an Asian-American theatre artist. No one was more convinced of that than Toronto-native-of-Japanese-ancestry Rick Shiomi, who'd arrived in what he termed a hinterland of ice and snow--a distinctly ...
Writing without a map: if the theatre is to matter in today's world, playwrights have to start looking beyond themselves--and beyond our shores.(OPINION)
Jan 01, 2009; ... I WAS JUST IN CAIRO DOING RESEARCH FOR A new play I'm writing. It was an extraordinary experience. I attended prayers at the Al-Azra mosque and smoked water-pipes and talked politics in back-alley coffee shops. I spoke with Egyptians and expat Europeans and Americans from all walks of ...
Okay, cut to the chase: should a playwright making a movie stick to his guns?(FIRST PERSON)
Jan 01, 2009; ... VISIONS OF CALAMITY DANCE THROUGH THE heads of playwrights when they think of exposing their work to the world of film. When I told people I was hired to direct a feature version of my play, most of my playwright friends peered back at me with scrunched-up foreheads and questioning eyes: ...
International acquaintance: 'more action, less talk' is urged at global theatre congress in Madrid.(CURRENTS)
Jan 01, 2009; ... THE DRAMA WAS NOT LIMITED TO THE STAGES of Madrid at the recent 32nd International Theatre Institute (ITI) World Congress. The first session of the event's general assembly was disrupted midway by a protest staged on behalf of the delegations from Sudan and three other African countries, ...
When times are tough: 5 funders--Jessica Chao, Cheryl Ikemiya, Vicki Reiss, Angel Ysaguirre and Robert Zukerman--shed light on the current economic climate.(CURRENTS)(Discussion)
Jan 01, 2009; ... AT TCG'S FALL FORUM IN NEW YORK CITY IN November, titled "Radical Shifts: Governing Ahead of the Curve," artistic director Marc Masterson of Kentucky's Actors Theatre of Louisville moderated a panel on the subject of philanthropic giving in times of economic uncertainty. Five leading ...
The man behind the plays: who was Shakespeare, anyhow? Do even the experts really know? And why should anybody care.(CURRENTS)(Discussion)
Jan 01, 2009; ... A conversation at the Philoctetes Center of New York City, with Alvin Epstein, Eugene Mahon, Ron Rosenbaum, Daniela Varon and J.P. Wearing ROBERT BRUSTEIN: What we're going to discuss today is the controversial question of Shakespeare's personality, or Shakespeare's ...
Diva talk: three biographers take stabs at explaining how Ethel Merman, Mary Martin and Julie Andrews ruled.(BOOKS)(Mary Martin, Broadway Legend; Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography; Ethel Merman: A Life)(Book review)
Jan 01, 2009; ... MARY MARTIN, BROADWAY LEGEND By Ronald L Davis, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. 328 pp, $26.95 cloth. JULIE ANDREWS: AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY By Richard Stirling, St. Martin's Press, New York City. ...
The price is right: more people buying higher-priced tickets? Not impossible at Houston's Alley Theatre.(STRATEGIES)
Jan 01, 2009; ... THE CHALLENGE Popular theatre myth: In order to sell more tickets, just slash prices--that's the way to fill seats and make money. But Dean Gladden is debunking this notion at Houston's Alley Theatre. When Gladden began his tenure as managing director there in 2006, the Alley ...
South Korea, France and elsewhere.(GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT)(Theater review)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... LA DIVINA COMMEDIA: Daunted by Dante? Not likely for an artist who has already created theatre from such a hallowed source as the Book of Genesis. Italian auteur Romeo Castellucci has been touring his reaction to Dante Alighieri's canonical tout of the afterlife, The Divine Comedy, since ...
Tehran, Iran.(GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... FADJR INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL: As usual, about a dozen productions--this year hailing from Canada, France, Germany, Korea, Switzerland, Poland, the U.K., Spain, the Czech Republic, Peru and the Netherlands--will compete against half a dozen Iranian shows for top honors in ...
Zanzibar, Tanzania.(GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... SAUTI ZA BUSARA: A parade featuring a brass band, drummers, wanandege (women with colorful umbrellas), dancers, stilt walkers and acrobats will wind through the market of Zanzibar's Stone Town and lead spectators into the sixth edition of the Sauti za Busara (Sounds of Wisdom) festival of ...
Bad cannstatt, Germany.(GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... EUROPEAN MASK FESTIVAL 2009 "NARRENFEST": The pre-Lenten carnival traditions of both Western and Eastern Europe have more in common than most people realize, according to the cultural organization Kubelesmarkt--for starters, beautifully crafted masks and colorful, outrageous outfits ....
Vancouver, Canada.(GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... PUSH FESTIVAL: You've heard of many of the acts on the schedule of this high-profile, midwinter arts fest in Vancouver. American Theatre's November cover subject, Taylor Mac, is also the face of the festival's brochure, and American monologuist Mike Daisey returns to his epic Monopoly! ....
Toronto, Canada.(GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT)(Brief article)
Jan 01, 2009; ... NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL: Last year for its 20th anniversary, the Toronto Fringe Festival considered how its service to artists could be expanded beyond its summertime performance extravaganza. Part of its answer was to begin a "Next Stage Festival," offering a more intimate and personalized ...
Onstage January 09.(Directory)(Calendar)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Here's what's playing this month at TCG theatres nationwide. For the most up-to-date information about performance schedules, contact the theatre or visit Theatre Profiles online: www.tcg.org/profiles. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ALABAMA Alabama Shakespeare ...
20 questions.(Interview)
Jan 01, 2009 ... Have you completely moved out of the Bowery? We're anxiously waiting for the equipment to set up the new office in Chrystie Street. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Can you give us a sneak peek of the opening gala? Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner are the ...