Spidey, Your Time is Up

Yes, Ben Brantley went and reviewed Spider-Man.

And, yes, today the New York Times published it.

And yes it's still "in previews." 

Here's why they're right to do so.

First: February 7 was the previous opening night dates announced, and it is my understanding that at least some critics at the last NY Drama Critics Circle meeting advocated going ahead with plans to review it then regardless of the latest postponement to March 15. Enough is enough, they said, especially since critics have been the last people in the world somehow barred from discussing what is the most discussed show on Broadway. (So other critics will, I believe, be following suit soon.)

Second: Let us recall that all an official opening night is a "press opening." In the theatre this means when members of the press are invited to attend and write up the show. Critics and newspapers have long honored this convention, as part of the general agreement that critics do not pay for their own tickets and that they only come when asked. Many have questioned aspects of this relationship (including many commenters on this blog!) and so maybe this is a good time to reexamine the usual practices, and to ask what is actually helpful to our theatre and what is simply coddling of powerful money that's rich enough to "squat" in a Broadway theatre without paying the piper.

Spider-Man has now had 50 "previews" (by IBDB's count). We should ponder this number and ask whether any theatremakers--yes, even our beloved Julie Taymor--get to publicly perform on a professional stage, charging full price tickets to the public fifty times and not have their work assessed.

As many downtown theatre artists I know have said (some on this blog), how many good shows today even get fifty performances, period? It's even hard to eek that out on Broadway these days...

When I first responded to the Times' coverage of the very first preview (back in--wait for it--November) I admit I was a little taken aback. But only because it blurred the line between reportage and criticism by containing a lot of critical comments--from the audience, that is. And it was the very, very first preview, the first public performance ever, and I do think that's a bit premature for any heavy reporting, let alone criticism. (Of course, Off-Off Broadway shows who often open first performances to the press don't have the luxury of "tryouts.") My only carping, really, was not in defense of Spider-Man, but to point out the hypocrisy of the Times in claiming they were above the chatrooms and blogosphere of the Internet while indulging in the very same behavior, clearly out of fear of being scooped in this difficult competitive climate for print journalism.

Anyway, that was a long, long time ago. Since then we have had a Super Bowl, five snowstorms, and a couple of Middle Eastern dictatorships fall.  And yet, somehow, Spider-Man claims it is still not "ready" to be judged.

Yes, there are good reasons we consider a preview process sacred. But let's not romanticize and mythologize it out of proportion.  I'm still trying to research when exactly preview performances on Broadway even started, but I believe it wasn't until the 1960s. (If anyone knows for sure, feel free to fill us in.) Before that, opening night was...well, truly an opening night. The way most theatre folk experience it from High Schools to community theatre to most places south of 14th street. Instead, Broadway shows back then might have had a series of "invited" dress rehearsals, amounting to private previews, which were also, by the way, free previews. The big change in the 60s was to actually sell tickets to shows that hadn't opened. But that's why "reduced-price previews" were the norm till sometime in the last ten or twenty years.  I guess that was when Broadway producers realized most audiences (especially the increasing tourist portion of the audience) didn't know the difference any more.

Of course there has also traditionally been the "out of town tryout" route for Broadway shows, which served much the same purpose as extended preview processes today-- get the show in front of a random, paying audience to work out the kinks, out of view from the New York critics. But even though some shows have still gone out of town (Wicked, Addams Family, The Producers, many of the Disney shows) lots has happened to make it less workable--the expense, the dearth of vibrant metropolitan audiences in other cities, and, of course, the global village of the internet, where nothing is a secret no matter how far out of town you go. (In the good old days what happened in New Haven stayed in New Haven!)

By the way, some have cited the old tryout circuit as precedent for Spider-Man--i.e. that many classic musicals, for instance, had the benefit of fifty previews, they were just on the road. But--let us remember, there were still critics in those towns and they reviewed those shows. And while it took some effort for a New Yorker to get his hands on the Philly Inquirer or Boston Globe in those days, those who cared enough sure did. So going out of town hardly insulated you from any critical judgment at all.

Let us also consider this about previews-- can you think of any equivalent practice in another art form?  Can you imagine a big-name filmmaker, a James Cameron, for instance, releasing their latest movie into theaters, selling tickets, but re-editing it every night and still insisting on some critical embargo until they were done? No, of course not. In Hollywood, they do "test screenings" for that--and, again, they're freeyou!  I'd like to see Taymor and company offer that to their guinea pig audiences of the last few months.

Another example. Say Jonathan Franzen writes a new novel, it hits the bookstores, but his publishers don't send out review copies and even admonish the leading book reviews and lit-critics not to say a word until Jonathan's finished more rewrites and two more editions are published. Would The New Yorker stand for that?

So it's a quaint little practice we have here with these previews. Once the convention became accepted, producers, of course, tried to exploit it to their advantage. Even Joe Papp would sometimes put off "opening night" till the end of a four-week run to make sure a show would be "critic proof." And, yes, other Broadway shows have pushed the preview envelope long before Spidey. Nick and Nora managed 71 back in 1991. And as the Times recently reminded us, a forgotten farce by comedian Jackie Mason in 1969 set the still unbeaten record of 97. When Spidey opens on its new announced date of March 15, it will have passed 100 previews. Does Julie Taymor really want to achieve Jackie Mason status?

I should say here that I'm actually a great admirer of Taymor's. But that isn't from Lion King, which I've still never seen. No, she cast her spell on me with her 1994 Off-Broadway Titus Andronicus (at Theatre for a New Audience), which gleefully and chillingly combined comic-book violence, nightmare dreamscapes, and damn good acting--on a shoestring budget, no less. (Sounds like what Spider-Man should be, right?) Since then, I've enjoyed her films, mostly, but in stage work she seems increasingly to focus intensely on the design over all else. A good example was her recent opera Grendel, which was all moving set pieces and no drama. There, her chief collaborator was her non-husband, composer Elliot Goldenthal, so I get the sense that, in order to succeed, she really needs someone else in the room to complement, even work against, her visual strengths, with some good old dramaturgical fundamentals. (Or even just a lesser play by Shakespeare.) This clearly seems to be what's amiss with Spider-Man, where she's written the libretto herself--and she's no playwright--along with playwright Glenn Berger, whose main credits are a one-man play (Underneath the Lintel) and the small-screen kids' show Arthur. Not to knock Berger, who's been successful at what he's done and seems a decent enough scribe. But not the person I'd want to have in my corner giving shape and discipline to a $65 million, epic-comic-book-theatre mess.

It also hasn't helped Taymor that there's no seasoned theatrical producer on the show. The lead man now is Michael Cohl--concert promoter, former head of Live Nation, and all around rock impresario. In other words, just who you'd want to steer your U2 tour. But that's not what this is, is it?

And speaking of U2.... Remember when the involvement of Bono and The Edge was the main attraction of this project? Finally a rock musical from the best rockers?  Well they haven't exactly been the collaborators Taymor needs, either. They were absent from most of the early previews (due to prior tour commitments) and have never written anything not for themselves, let alone a Broadway musical. I haven't heard the score myself. But it doesn't seem a promising sign when their songs only get mentioned by Brantley in the very last paragraph of his review today. Even if Brantley were just an old fogey who didn't like anything on electric guitars (which I don't believe he is) what that omission tells me is that the score is not so much bad as negligible.

My right honorable friend from Time Out, Adam Feldman, made a case a few weeks ago for giving these valuable artists enough respect to work through their process on their own schedule. (Isherwood made a similar argument around the same time, too.) It's a nice thought, and I'm all for honoring fine artists and releasing them from the pressures of commercialism.  But not when they so embrace that commercialism itself. Julie Taymor is not developing Spider-Man on the island of Bali (where she once studied puppetry) or retreating, Peter Book-style, to some hermitage. She's right there on Broadway, using the public arena as her laboratory.

Aside from being foolhardy I have to say that's also quite luxurious. When Adam says the show "deserves" all the time it's been taking, I must disagree. The only reason it "deserves" several months of on-display development is because someone dropped 65 million bucks in Julie Taymor's lap. With that kind of cash to keep a show running, "desert" has nothing to do with it. We all know artists "deserving" of that time and patience but don't have that kind of carte blanche backing.

Which brings me back to how we must not forget how thoroughly commercial a product this has been from the inception and not confuse it with some magnum opus a great artist is rightfully devoting her life to. (Hell even Whitman, forever tinkering with his Leaves of Grass, kept publishing the new editions and subjecting it to review.) I mean, it's freakin' Spider-Man for chrissakes! And the show is so beholden to the trademark that the character even has to wear the same old cheesy spandex suit--whereas if Taymor were really "reinventing" the story she could surely come up with a more interesting look. And all the hot air she has been spouting in interviews of Spider-Man as on the level of Greek Myth and part of our collective unconscious... really? Even for a comic book characters he's hardly that iconic. (At least Superman has the whole Jewish golem thing going for him.)

So, trying to square the Spider-Man fiasco with my admiration for Taymor, I often find myself muttering that great line from A Man For All Seasons, when Thomas More realizes that his old friend Richard Rich has turned State's Evidence against him in exchange for some bureaucratic post in Wales and sighs: "It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales, Richard?"

But for Spider-Man, Julie?

Let us not forget that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark would not exist without the initial backing of Marvel Comics (still a credited producing partner) whose interest was in doing a Disney and diversifying their brand. Otherwise, I don't believe any theatre artist would really get that excited about Spider-Man, certainly not these folks who never expressed an interest in the character previously. If they had, and they were all just closet comic book geeks bringing a whole new graphic novel sensibility to the stage, I'd respect that. But before you go calling Ben Brantley just too square to get it, man, check out self-professed comics fan Isaac Butler and his review on his blog a few weeks ago. I'm glad Isaac broke the "embargo" because not only is he better qualified than most critics to critique the show from this angle, but it also happens to the best, most thorough and rigorous pieces of dramatic criticism I've read so far this year.

What Isaac argues persuasively (as does Brantley today) is that the extended previews are not in fact making the show by any measure better. That's not to say that liking Spider-Man is not a matter of personal opinion. But it seems apparent right now that the ticket-buyers who are reportedly liking Spider-Man now, would have liked it last month and would like it about the same next month. While the critics aren't going to like it any more in March than they have so far. In other words, the previews are not changing the essentials of the show, just tinkering.

And what, by the way, is the reason for delayed openings?  Isherwood and Feldman seem disposed to cut the team some slack due to the immense technical difficulties. Fair enough, in theory. But Taymor has also freely admitted--nay, boasted--that the time has also been used to put in a new ending, and that other changes to the script have been made. (And, reading some of these early reviews, one would hope so!) So which is it? And do we owe them the same deference for simply not being able to tell a cohesive story as we would for problems with, um, gravity?

And even if the problems were only technical-- what does it say that there are still major glitches well past preview #60? (Brantley spends nearly the first half of the review describing one.) When even, presumably, the best people in the business are working on this problem day and night? Is god telling us something here, that Broadway actors were indeed not meant to fly? I admire Taymor's vision of a crazy kinetic "circus theatre." But she's clearly had a problem incorporating Cirque du Soleil stagecraft within standard Broadway operating procedures. There's a reason you go see Cirque du Soleil in some special-purposed tent with performers and stagehands trained specifically in rigging these high-wire acrobatics. It's not usually in the Broadway backstage job descriptions--nor that of the actor/dancers sacrificed on the great altar of Marvel Comics.

Yes, Taymor has indeed seemed to soar too close to the sun on this one, and got burned. Too bad it wasn't for a more noble cause.

Interesting--somewhat similar, somewhat different--thoughts on this from David Cote today and Charles McNulty a while back. Note that I have not tried to critically assess the contents of the show itself--and that's because, I admit, I have not seen it. Why have I not seen it? Because, quite simply, I refuse to play anything in the neighborhood of $100 for something that: a) I've heard from people I trust is awful, and b) is still in freakin' previews!

Supply, Demand, and New Plays

So, speaking of the NEA, what has Chairman Rocco gone and said now...

“You can either increase demand or decrease supply...Demand is not going to increase, so it is time to think about decreasing supply.”
[...]
“There is a disconnect that has to be taken seriously — our research shows that attendance has been decreasing while the number of the organizations have been proliferating,” he said. “That’s a discussion nobody wants to have.” Foundations and agencies like the endowment should perhaps reconsider re-allocating their resources, he said, perhaps giving larger grants to fewer institutions. “There might be too many resident theaters — it is possible,” he said. “At least we have to talk about it.”

This is of a piece with Rocco's earlier controversial pronouncement, early in his tenure, that maybe the NEA should be focusing--more like a European culture ministry, frankly--on the best art America has to offer and leave Peoria (literally) to the local level. Or to put it another war, in a time of such scarcity, an agency like this is going to have be more selective--so let's make sure the funds are going to A-List talent.

Well I do certainly bristle at the thought of local arts scenes being left out in the cold completely, especially considering many are in states and townships that will probably be axing their arts funding entirely soon.

But-- I do think his introduction of the terms "supply and demand" are worth mulling over--just not necessarily in the context he means.

First we need to remember the context of these remarks was about new plays. (They were delivered at the Arena Stage's big new play festival in DC.  Awwwk-ward...)  So while this will even further anger playwrights out there, it's not as if he's saying "eliminate half of all theatres."

I, for instance, have long wondered whether even such a mecca as New York City can sustain ten or more mid-size nonprofit subscription-based theatres devoted to new plays. There clearly is not enough audience "demand" (in numbers) to buy that many tickets and/or subscriptions a year for New Play X, up front, no questions asked. Maybe enough to fill 2 or 3 such theatres year-round.  Maybe enough to go to 10 or so scattered productions, buying single tickets along the way. But otherwise: I will go on the record saying that new play supply has outstripped ticket/subscription-buying demand in nonprofit Off Broadway land.

By qualifying this by stressing the ticket and subscription sales, I mean: "...at these prices."  I might as well also add: "... at these production expenses."

Notice no one talks of a supply/demand  problem for movies. Or bands.

That's because when the expenses are low and talent just keeps doing its thing, there is no such thing as "too much supply."  That only becomes a problem with millions of dollars are spent on supplying the supply.

Maybe this used to be a problem with movies. But what made Indie Cinema possible and flourish--especially in the last decade--is the sudden cheapness of the equipment and the viability of Digital Video. And Netflix. The monetary investment that goes into making a film does not dry up the moment of the first screening--as it kind of does on the stage.  The DVD copy of the film can be marketed and shown in perpetuity in a variety of venues and platforms.

Supply is only limited in an industry where the cost of supplying becomes prohibitively high.

Which leads to Rocco's follow up remarks in a (worth reading) blog post of his own:

There are 5.7 million arts workers in this country and two million artists. Do we need three administrators for every artist? Resident theaters in this country began as collectives of artists. They have become collectives of arts administrators. Do we need to consider becoming more lightly institutionalized in order to get more creativity to more audiences more often?

Now, not to scapegoat Arts Administrators once again. And, I'm sure there's every reason to question his figures there.  (How many "artists" don't necessarily identify as such on whatever census/poll he's citing?) But--worth thinking, again, about the expense of the supply.

In brief: how do we make the performance and "distribution" of new plays as (relatively) easy and inexpensive as shooting your own DV movie or circulating MP3's of your band?

In other words...eliminating the middleman?

I'll leave the rest to you. For a full account of the events at Arena check out their blog that recounts all the rowdy back and forth.

Oh, and by the way, NY Times? A statement posted on that official Arena Stage institutional blog by one of the session participants does not count as "the blogosphere" (let alone "reverberating through the blogosphere"),  especially when posted by "the public relations and publications manager at Portland Center Stage."

No, this is what the blogosphere looks like. (i.e. people with blogs!)

Save (What's Left Of) The NEA!

Performing Arts Alliance has a very user-friendly petition site up for you to write your congresspeople and pressure them to stand up to the artsjob-killing Republican plans to kill the National Endowment for the Arts.

I especially urge anyone NOT in New York and/or anyone with a Republican congressman (ie House of Representatives) to consider signing this, since that might actually make a difference. Otherwise, you can at least make yourself feel good for a brief moment.

Digital Theatre Update

A little over a year ago I reported on the launching of the London-based website, Digital Theatre. How's it doing?  Well, you can now watch current productions there from such esteemed companies as the Almeida, the Young Vic, and even a little outfit called the RSC. True, to view will cost you anywhere from $10-$20 right now in US currency, so more than your usual downloads. But here's hoping that comes down as the site grows.

Plus, they're going global. For instance, do you figure it's time you saw some Arab theatre without flying to, say, Cairo? As the Guardian  reports, you're in luck!

For those of us unable to hop on a plane to research Arab theatre, Gulf Stage allows audiences around the world to access filmed recordings of six productions from young companies hailing from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. All the productions have English subtitles and, unlike Digital Theatre's other productions, will be free to download for the first year.

So all in all, not a bad way to kill time on a freezing-rainy day like this, huh...

Quote of the Day

"According to an alarming new study released Monday by the University of Chicago, children raised in households where alcoholism is present are at a significantly greater risk of writing and performing a one-man show than those who grow up in a more stable environment. The study found that males raised by alcoholic parents are 40 percent more likely to someday force their friends to attend a self-penned theatrical production about their life experiences, and the same painful behavior is eight times more prevalent in women over the age of 30 who have alcoholic fathers than those who do not.[...] A report released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said that alcoholism is the third leading contributor to one-man shows, outpacing having immigrant parents, surviving cancer, and having an ex-girlfriend."

-The Onion

Sara Krulwich: The Best

Blood From a Stone (2010). Photo by Sara Krulwich for the New York Times.

One of the privileges of being the "paper of record," "arbiter of culture," etc. when it comes to New York theatre is getting the best news photographers on the scene. So I'm thankful for the New York Times' professionalism in this manner whenever they send out Sara Krulwich on assignment to photograph a play.

Yes, so mighty is the Times that they send their own photographers (usually) to cover performances, rather than relying on whatever jpg your press rep flashed on his or phone at dress rehearsal. The reason, of course, is when you're the Times you take no chances about the quality of the "art" on your pages. And you can afford to.

But the true beneficiary of Krulwich's work, I say, is for the theatre lover. Theatre photography is an often overlooked but vital participant in our theatre culture and in theatre history.  Think--just think--of how much our perceptions of our theatrical past are shaped by particular production photos. And now think about how often those photos might have been from "photo calls" or other "posed" publicity shots and, thus, don't represent anything that happened on stage at all?

(For a terrific scholarly--but accessible--essay on this topic see Barbara Hogdon's "Photography, Theater, Mnemonics or, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Still" in the book Theorizing Practice.)

Anyway, back to Sara Krulwich.Whenever I see a photo in the Times like the one above (which accompanied this month's review of the New Group play Blood from a Stone), one where the action of the play just pops out of the page and the actors come to life, I look down at the photo-credit and invariably it's a Krulwich.

At first I assumed she was just another of the city's many pr photographers. But then I couldn't find her photos anywhere else. I'd find the "official" shots from the press kits and, apologies, but they just weren't the same. (Nothing wrong with them, certainly professional, just not works of art unto themselves.)  After I started noticing this correlation between this name Krulwich and those kinds of photos, I started more actively looking for it in the paper--and saving pics, both from off the screen and using the old fashioned scissors. I now have my own private collection, but I hope one day she gets to publish her amazing documentation of the New York Theatre of the early 21st century.

I have no idea how she works to get her unique effects. Whether she does a separate photo call or is actually allowed to shoot during performances (or, if not, in rehearsal?).  But these photos never looked posed.  Even when they're not as obviously eye-catching as the milk-in-the-face shot above (which is just showing off, by her standards) there's always genuine organic motion in them. In other words, pure action photography photojournalism.

Sure enough it turns out her background at the Times originally was as photojournalist--including, not surprisingly, sports!  In a brief personal essay she wrote for the paper's website last year, she tells of how her childhood love for theatre (and need to stay in the city more for her children) motivated her to demand the assignment from the paper. Indeed she practically made up the position!

I began asking the photo editors in the culture department if they had any jobs I might do. They gave me dance and opera assignments, portraits of authors and playwrights, museum installations. After a few months, I was asked to shoot the arts full time as The Times’s first culture photographer. That’s when I started to question the way we relied on handout photos for theater stories and reviews. Many of these pictures had been touched up or set up, or both; practices that weren’t allowed in any news section of the paper. I felt that because the culture sections are news sections, handouts should be discouraged....

I set out to convince press agents and producers to allow me to shoot my own production pictures. And I definitely ran into resistance. Imagine asking someone who has spent millions of dollars on a show to give up control of the images that will run alongside reviews and news articles in The Times.

It took time. Off Broadway producers were a little more agreeable at first. Eventually, when it became clear that I was honestly documenting productions and not trying to embarrass or demean anyone, I was allowed into almost every play in New York, on or off Broadway.

Can you imagine these producers saying no to a seasoned professional New York Times photographer taking your shots--for free!?!  Of course, I guess maybe they're also thinking they don't get the rights to those photos...

But the obstacles she initially encountered reveal a lot about the showbiz pressures of the New York Theatre:

My goal has always been to provide our readers with an accurate representation of the show, which sounds simple enough, but was really quite revolutionary. You see, production photographers have to please everyone. Many actors have the right to approve all pictures. If they don’t like the way they look, they can make the producers use pictures from an older production. Through the miracle of Photoshop, actors can lose pounds. Sparkles can be added to their eyes. In group shots, if one person’s face isn’t quite up to par, it can be replaced with a more flattering version from a different frame. By the time everyone involved signs off, the photo is likely to have little to do with reality and a lot to do with marketing or vanity....

My feeling is: the picture in the paper should look pretty much like the performance you’re seeing and not some idealized version that’s simply meant to entice you to buy a ticket.

So these stunning photos are quite an achievement of art over commerce. And as time passes, Krulwich's artistry will only enhance and merge with that of the plays themselves that she documents--since those lucky enough to have her visit will have their play preserved like no other.

And what's more, it's a necessary service to the present. Sara Krulwich's photos make theatre look exciting. Even cool. We need that today in our major media outlets.

Her Times "Lens" blog essay features a fantastic slideshow.  But here are some of my own favorite Krulwiches from my personal collection that I've collected over the last few years.

Boeing, Boeing (2008). A visual definition of farce.

Photo by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times

Ruined (2009)

Photo by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times

(Of this photo, Krulwich writes: "The production shots only featured the rare happy-go-lucky moments of the play. Any other photos might have frightened away ticket buyers. In contrast, my pictures and those that ran in the paper captured the essential, disturbing focus of the play.")

Two photos better than the plays: Neil LaBute's

Reasons to be Pretty (2008) & In a Dark Dark Place (2007). 

As Krulwich captures, it was the actors' emotional liquidity that gave those productions whatever jolt they had.

photos by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times

 South Pacific (2008). The Cathartic Joy of Musical Theatre.

photo by Sara Krulwich for The New York Times

Yes, good photography (and good theatre photography) is about more than "action shots" and motion. But to capture the feelings behind those human movements and put you on stage with them...that's great art.

Let Sara Krulwich's work raise the bar for all who visually document performance--amateur or professional.  Posterity is counting on us.

Repeal the Job-Killing Arts Cuts!

Two useful posts on how cuts to the NEA and other "artsy-fartsy" agencies would only kill jobs and do nothing to trim the deficit.

(via ArtsJournal)

Yes, the economic case is not always the case we should make for arts funding.  But in this case...well it's just so obvious!

Stage Managing a Disaster

For all those who know what it's like to "call" a show, here's a glimpse (via Riedel) at the SM's report for a particularly tortured preview of the already cursed Dracula that recently crashed and burned Off Broadway.

7:15 p.m.: Willa Kim informed [producer] Michael Alden that those costumes that have not been paid for have been removed from the building. I informed Joe Tantalo [theater manager] that some of our actors would be performing in street clothes this evening. I asked Joe how large our house was this evening. He replied "180 . . . 120 of those being comps."

7:20 p.m.: Alexander Morr [producer] called on my cellphone asking to speak to Willa.

7:30 p.m.: I called the ½ hour explaining to the cast that Michel Altieri [Dracula] and Emily Bridges [Lucy] would be performing in street clothes. (The cast took this news more or less in stride.)

7:40 p.m.: Alex agreed to present Willa a check in the amount of $8,630.83 by tomorrow at 3 p.m.

8:08 p.m.: The red velvet curtain at The Little Shubert rose majestically on our handsomely costumed production of "Dracula."

Yes, it got to the point that actors, informed there are no costumes, apparently said, whatever.

What's your favorite ever Stage Manager's report--either that you read or wrote?

CT high school will NOT ban August Wilson after all...

In case you haven't been following this odd story, the school superintendent for Waterbury, CT tried to prevent a high school from staging August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone because of its dialogue's, um, liberal use of the word "nigger." 

Not quite a replay of the Huck Finn bruhaha down south, since in this case the would-be censor is an African American worried about kids going around using the word too much.

But kudos to Connecticut theatre bigwigs James Bundy (AD of Yale Rep) and Howard Sherman (formerly of the O'Neill Center and American Theatre Wing) for lobbying against the decision, and now the show will go on.

I guess I understand the concern as a "language" concern--about what's appropriate or not for children to be asked to perform on stage.  But this apparently is an arts "magnet" school for chrissakes.

Have you ever noticed...

When you sit in the balcony of a Broadway house, or many other older theaters, you can't see the apron of the stage without leaning over.

This creates all kinds of problems of course, not least of which is the annoying phenomenon of how one row leaning forwards leads every other row to do the same to see over those people's heads, until everyone is suffering back problems.

But in my more contemplative moods on such occasions I ponder this: This isn't an oversight in architecture. When these theaters were built no one performed in front of the proscenium. (That's what a proscenium is for--a barrier!) Plus, theater etiquette of the time would encourage proper posture among patrons. (i.e. no slouching!)

So these theater sightlines are relics of a time when as long as the actors stayed safely behind the proscenium, and audiences all sat back in their seats...everyone was just fine.

Yet another problem the theater has adjusting to the culture of today.

Caveat Emptor

Spidey agrees to put the word "Preview" on their ads...

On Jan. 5, Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, wrote to the Department of Consumer Affairs, saying that the Web site for the “Spider-Man” musical did not indicate that the show was in previews. “Theatergoers attending such a production are not necessarily aware that the show could stop at any time while changes are made, that the music and plot line are subject to constant change, or that the technology being used in the performance is still a work in progress,” Mr. de Blasio wrote. “Their theater-going experience can be one of confusion and frustration.”

Large block lettering on the “Spider-Man” Web site now says, “Now in previews on Broadway. Opens March 15,” and the Department of Consumer Affairs said the issue had been resolved.

"Only" the 100th Preview

Yep.  Spidey delays again.  To March 15.

Maybe because of this snafu:

Nuclear Bomb Detonates During Rehearsal For 'Spider-Man' Musical

New York- In yet another setback for the $65 million dollar Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark—a production plagued by multiple delays, poor early reviews, and severe injuries to its cast and crew—a thermonuclear device detonated during the first act of Tuesday night's preview performance. "The bomb should not have gone off at all," said lead producer Michael Cohl, adding that the explosion that vaporized most of Manhattan was "not that unusual" for a major Broadway show still in development....

Ok, that was The Onion.  But I don't blame you for believing it.  Read on.

The List of All Lists

The folks at StageGrade have saved you the trouble of consulting every New York critic's 2010 ten best list and created a mathematically challenging chimera:

We combed critics' Top 10 lists (sources listed below) and assigned points according to whether they ranked shows or not: i.e., a show in the No. 1 slot on a properly ranked Top 10 list received the maximum points, while shows on unranked lists all received equal median points.

Without further ado, the consensus on the best shows in New York in 2010:

1. A View From the Bridge
2. The Merchant of Venice
3. The Scottsboro Boys
4. Clybourne Park
5. The Little Foxes
6. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (the Broadway version, which a few listsOff-Broadway run) insisted on distinguishing from the
7. Gatz
8. Angels in America
9. La Cage Aux Folles
10. Red

Interestingly, quick click-throughs on these titles will reveal that these weren't necessarily the highest-graded [i.e. best reviewed] shows of the year.

Unfortunately, only Merchant, Angels, and La Cage are still running.

Ellen Stewart

Words just getting around this morning that Ellen Stewart, founder and eternal director of the legendary LaMama space, died last night at 91.

She had been not well for a long time, so it's not a shock.  But she could still be seen at LaMama openings and events frequently up to the end, even in her wheelchair.  More important than her valiant end, though, are her vitally important beginnings in, a) founding the space, b) nurturing the notable talent than came through it in the early days (Andrei Serban, Liz Swados, Sam Shepard), and c) keeping an Off-Off Broadway institution going--despite multiple changes in venue, despite a devastating economic landscape--for forty fifty years.

More tributes from others doubtlessly to come in the coming days...

Peter Brook Moves On (Again)

At 85 Peter Brook is still going strong, but he is finally letting go the reins of his Paris Bouffes Du Nord company and handing it off to others.

On the occasion, one of his designers, Tom Piper, pays tribute:

Brook's pared style – with a stripped stage and minimal props – is so pervasive as to be mainstream now, but the director, says Piper, always worked at the Bouffes as if he were struggling in a start-up venture. "In my time he ran just a skeleton staff there. If you wanted to take anything anywhere, you had to hire a van. It was like working in a fringe theatre."

A good reminder to artistic directors--and managing directors--everywhere.

The Sin of Lateness

"The problem with theatre, of course, is the inflexibility of its start time. Turn up five minutes late to a restaurant reservation and your table will be waiting, five minutes late to a film and you're still only up to the Volvo adverts, five minutes late to a gig and the band haven't even come on yet – but turn up even two minutes late to the theatre and you're greeted by the disappointed face of the usher which seems to say 'Where have you been? Look, the doors are shut – and behind those doors are literally HUNDREDS of people simply more competent at everyday life tasks than you.'"

-Guardian blogger, "Sans Taste" on the shame of late seating, as well as "the century-old battle between the performing arts and the human bladder."

Personally I always compare getting to the theatre to making a plane on time. Reminds us how unfun the whole playgoing experience must feel to the layman.

As for the human bladder, here's a tip.  Make sure you don't drink any liquids for at least two hours before your pre-show meal then make sure you hit the lav before your first drink at the restaurant.

"60 Minutes" Spider-Man Preview

In case you missed it last month, here's the 60 Minutes piece on the making of Spider-Man.

Money quote: "Nobody wants to see the $20 million Spider-Man. They want to see the $60 million Spider-Man."

Likewise, nobody cares about just a small flop. They care about a big flop!

Bono, by the way, saw the show last night. For the first time.

"The Theatre is Necessary"

Sorry I've taken an extra long holidays/New Years break.  As I catch up to speed, I have some videos to share today, beginning with the footage of that Obama quote I posted last month, from his Kennedy Center Awards speech. 

Too bad the AP here snipped out the original Oliver Wendel Holmes quote the prez cites. For the record it's: "To many people the superfluous is necessary."  And yes, due to that split lip he got playing hoops, Obama has some trouble with Holme's eloquent verbiage.

Quote of the Day

"For a major critic to review a Broadway musical, or play for that matter, after only the twentieth preview, is disappointing and uncalled for."

-Spider-Man press agent Rick Miramontez

Only the 20th preview???

Oh, What a Tangled Web

"To him, life is a great big bang up
Whenever there's a hang up
You'll find the Spider man." 

-theme song to 1960s animated Spiderman TV show

The actual plunging of a Spider-Man actor into the orchestra pit after his, um, magical powers failed to save him from a dodgy harnessing method has catapulted the show's offstage drama into even greater tsuris, if that were even possible.

This latest accident has now triggered more organized concern and even protest from the acting community, both through union reps and, now, politicians coming to the defense of "workplace safety."  Crain's reports:

Assemblyman Rory Lancman, chairman of the Assembly Subcommittee on Workplace Safety, staged a press conference Thursday at Foxwoods Theater, where two performances of the show were canceled Wednesday in light of the accident. Mr. Lancman said the code of necessary safety conditions for theater productions may no longer be relevant for such technically complicated shows as Spider-Man, which has 38 aerial maneuvers that involve actors being hoisted into harnesses and flying through the air. “The current legislation that governs these kinds of performances dates back to 1953 and has not been materially updated since then,” Mr. Lancman said. 

Less politic are the online outbursts of various show people, named and unnamed:

Many actors voiced their displeasure on social media, including Adam Pascal from RENT, who wrote on Facebook: "They should put Julie Taymor in jail for assault!” On Twitter, Tony-winning actress Alice Ripley posted "Does someone have to die? Where is the line for the decision makers, I am curious"....And BroadwayWorld.com quoted an anonymous “theatrical insider” at length railing against the effects of the show, saying “It's made me angry that this level of technology and that people's safety being at risk is being allowed. Someone needs to STOP Julie Taymor NOW!”

While such accusations are not pretty, I would still advise Taymor's lawyer not to take the asshole approach:

Seth Gelblum, a partner at Loeb & Loeb, and the attorney for Julie Taymor and a number of the production's investors, said actors get hurt in the theater all the time. For example, Fela! was forced to cancel a performance last year when three dancers couldn't perform because of injuries.Mr. Gelblum said the incidents are receiving outsized attention because the musical didn't work out the kinks in an out of town run, but is doing so on Broadway under the scrutiny of the New York media. “Broadway musicals are very strenuous and people always get hurt unfortunately,” Mr. Gelblum said. “But everything is magnified on this show because of the unprecedented attention.”

Of course. It's the internet and Michael Riedel that gave Christopher Tierney "a hairline fracture in his skull, a broken scapula, a broken bone close to his elbow, four broken ribs, a bruised lung and three fractured vertebrae." And actors wind up in "serious condition" at Bellevue from strained jazz-hands all the time!

Stage Directions has a very helpful rundown of all the backstage technical issues involved, as well as a roundup of industry reactions.

Meanwhile...

When I posted a while back about my surprise at the NY Times' reporting on the show's first preview, I was actually not, as some of my bloggy friends assumed, condemning the paper.  I just wanted to be sure everyone took note of what may be a "rubicon" moment in the whole etiquette of press reviewing.  It may well be that in the age of the internet, it makes no sense for a critic to hold his peace while everyone else in the world is holding forth online 24/7.  At least, that's what a couple of bigtime critics have decided...

In articles that ran over the holiday weekend, Linda Winer of Newsday and Jeremy Gerard of Bloomberg News both wrote about their recent experiences at “Spider-Man,” which is scheduled to open at the Foxwoods Theater on Feb. 7. Both Ms. Winer and Mr. Gerard acknowledge that under typical circumstances, it is customary for a theater critic to see a show in the days just before it opens, when the production presumably will not undergo major changes, and to publish the review after the show opens. They both also make the case that the lengthy preview period for “Spider-Man,” not to mention its $65 million price tag, do not necessarily constitute typical circumstances.

[...]

Mr. Gerard said Monday morning in a telephone interview that his review was “an interim report” and that he intended to revisit “Spider-Man” for its official critics’ previews in February. That said, Mr. Gerard added, “Critics should be part of the conversation, ultimately. We don’t serve the producers, we serve our readers, and I thought that it looked stranger and stranger, and my editor agreed with me.”

(Since no one actually reads Bloomberg or Newsday for theatre coverage, this is all from the Times, of course.)

This is notable because Gerard and Winer are no gossip-mongers. They are two of the most oldschool reputable critics around.  And Gerard has a point there, I think, about the "stranger and stranger."  It's the same question that increasingly faces all "traditional media" outlets today. Does it make sense to let the old journalistic practices keep you from talking about the thing that everyone else is talking about.  (Everyone in a particular field, at least.)

One could argue maybe that's best left to beat reporters and not critics--as with the Times sending Patrick Healy, not Ben Brantley to Spidey's first preview.  But then again: isn't your critic the writer on your staff best qualified to report on performance?  As Winer is quoted as saying, "There’s something a little nuts that critics are now the only interested parties who can’t see the bride before the wedding."

There's also the question of how long a show can reasonably keep the critics waiting.  This all might not be happening if Spider-Man had a normal two-week preview process and opened on schedule.  Instead the opening has been repeatedly delayed and now has been pushed back to February 7.  As Bloomberg culture editor Manuela Hoelterhoff  puts it to the Times, "“I worried that by the time the show opened, I might be in a rest home with [Gerard]."  Asked to comment, the Times' own culture editor makes the valid point that all this time the show's producers are pleading a grace period, they "are raking in the cash, charging some people more than $200 a ticket," adding that while the Paper of Record won't break the embargo, "We’ll wait, but not forever."

Finally, the Times also has someone's 8-second cellphone video of the notorious accident.  But here's a more accurate filmed record:

Theatre Flicks

Here's a nice holiday time-waster, or even a shopping list!  Howard Sherman's lists of notable (if not always good) movies about the theatre: one for features, one for documentaries.

Titles I wholeheartedly second are: Looking for Richard, Topsy Turvy, Me and Orson Welles, The Libertine, The Cradle Will Rock, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Dresser, The Bandwagon, All That Jazz, and, yes, even Hamlet 2 (or at least the first half of it).

Your picks?

The Only "Christmas Carol" I Would Sit Through

Yes, the Klingon version.

(sorry about the opening ad)





Now this is what supertitles are for!

No, this is not High School Theatre

Patrick Healy has the awesome job of recounting the backstage shenanigans of the already ill-advised commercial Off Broadway revival of that creaky old Dracula play from the 20s. (The play that was the basis of the 1931 Bela Lugosi film--and hence the reason that movie bears no resemblance to the novel.)

Basically the lead actress, Thora Birch (of American Beauty and Ghost World) was fired due to no fault of her own, other than the bad luck of having the most insane stage-father ever.

This online update of the story gives even more, um, colorful detail than the print edition:

[Birch] was playing the central female character, Lucy Seward, the love interest of Count Dracula. [Director Paul] Alexander said that Ms. Birch was fired because her father, Jack, had threatened another actor during a rehearsal on Thursday night. Mr. Birch, in an interview, denied making any threat.

Mr. Birch, formerly an actor in pornographic films...

Yes, you read that right.  But there's more.

Mr. Birch, formerly an actor in pornographic films who is now Ms. Birch’s manager, had attended most rehearsals to provide support and guidance for his daughter. At one point during Thursday’s rehearsal,  Mr. Birch confronted an actor who had been working on a scene with Ms. Birch. [...] Mr. Birch asked the actor why he was rubbing Ms. Birch’s back during the scene. The actor – whom none of the sides would name – said that he had been directed to do so as part of the scene. Mr. Birch objected, saying that the back rub was unnecessary, and told the actor to stop. (It is unusual for anyone other than a production’s director to instruct an actor.)

[...]
 Mr. Birch had been a frequent presence at “Dracula” rehearsals. Ms. Birch’s contract had called for her to have a bodyguard, and Mr. Birch said that he was serving that role because “Thora had had some stalking issues in the past.” But he and Ms. Birch also said he had been on hand to offer support and advice to Ms. Birch and confer with her about upcoming projects, including a film that Ms. Birch said her father was co-producing. “My dad is my support, and he is the best support that I could ever have,” Ms. Birch said.

I'll refrain from commenting on that eerie sounding daddy-daughter "film" project.  Only because you can't make up something funnier than this next bit:

At another point during Thursday’s rehearsal, Mr. Alexander said he noticed Mr. Birch peering through a window that was part of a library set while a scene with Ms. Birch was underway. “I couldn’t believe my eyes and turned to a crew member and said, ‘Is that Jack Birch looking through the window at Thora?’ ”

Mr. Birch said that he had been backstage at that moment examining  “a loose, very wobbly platform that Thora and others had to walk across.”

Mr. Birch and Ms. Birch said that he had been her manager for years. Mr. Birch and Ms. Birch’s mother, Carol Connors, were stars in pornographic films in the 1970s.  Ms. Connors is best known for “Deep Throat.”  Mr. Birch has been on film sets with Ms. Birch before; a gossip column in The New York Post reported in 2007 that he had been present during Ms. Birch’s taping of a sex scene for her movie “The Winter of Frozen Dreams.”

Always nice to see the child go into the family business, eh?  (And how about that "How I Met Your Mother" story!)

And now for the coda...

Ms. Birch has been replaced by her understudy, Emily Bridges, whose father is the actor Beau Bridges; Ms. Bridges’s role will be played by Katharine Luckinbill, whose parents are the actors Laurence Luckinbill and Lucie Arnaz.

Well I'm sure these parents will behave themselves.  After all, what diva-rights do they have. They weren't in Deep Throat!

The New Provincetown Playhouse

Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times                                          

NYU has unveiled their renovated Provincetown Playhouse, part of a new Law School building complex that almost destroyed the legendary downtown theatre.

From this angle at least, kinda looks the same to me, no?  Still, the controversy continues.

Quote of the Day

"Being here with tonight’s honorees, reflecting on their contributions, I’m reminded of a Supreme Court opinion by the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In a case argued before the Court in 1926, the majority ruled that the state of New York couldn’t regulate the price of theater tickets, because, in the opinion of the majority, the theater was not a public necessity. They argued, in effect, that the experience of attending the theater was superfluous. And this is what Justice Holmes had to say: 'To many people the superfluous is necessary.'

The theater is necessary. Dance is necessary. Song is necessary. The arts are necessary -- they are a necessary part of our lives."

-President Barack Obama, saluting this year's Kennedy Center Honorees.

John Simon Fired by a Website

After being bumped from his longtime perch at New York Magazine five years ago, that critic you love to hate, John Simon, now can't even hold down his cushy sinecure at Bloomberg.com.  (Where the expenses of keeping him surely can't be much damage to the conglomerate.)

But the old man ain't going away yet.  Behold JohnSimon-Uncensored.com!

Like a giant tortoise from its shell, I am re-emerging on this web site. Here I will continue, freer and more independent than ever, to dispense my opinions, critiques and enthusiasms about our arts and culture. I hope to be as interdisciplinary as all get-out and separate with might and main what might remain from what must go.

Well I guess the internet won't suffer from yet another angry old white guy.

Welcome to the blogosphere, John!  And in the eternal spirit of your "independent reviews" let me say that I wish your site better "legs" than what you're showing us on that profile pic!

"So What Have I Seen You In?"

Another gem made possible by the self-animation Xtranormal site.  Here, an obviously experienced fellow named "InsaneActor" offers a cartoon sketch of "the conversation you've had with every member of your family."

My favorite: "You should go do Phantom!"

Oh, our poor, naive relatives... And the folks we meet at parties.

(In case you've never seen an Xtranormal video before, don't read too much into the bears. It's just the basic character lineup for this DIY animation kit.)

Closings

The past week has brought an onslaught of Broadway closings and closing announcements for shows that aimed for more than the usual entertainment:

A Life in the Theatre--closed November 28
Elling--closed November 28

Scottsboro Boys--closing announced for December 12
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson--closing announced for January 2

Meanwhile, despite what you'd think was pretty bad publicity this week, Spider-Man just sold over a million bucks in advance sales!

NYT goes all "All That Chat" on Spidey

Expect to hear more about Patrick Healy's NY Times article covering last night's first preview of Spider-Man. (Posted online now, but not in today's print edition. Will it run? and, in print, on page A21 of the Metro section--probably because it's one of the last sections to go to press.)  Read it, and tell me if you don't think it comes awfully close to breaking the Preview Taboo that the respectable press is supposed to observe.

Still, no denying it's an irresistible read, reminiscent of really oldschool journalism--like The Tatler.

All $65 million of the new Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” took flight on Sunday night at its first preview performance, but not without bumps. The show stopped five times, mostly to fix technical problems, and Act I ended prematurely, with Spider-Man stuck dangling 10 feet above audience members, while Act II was marred by a nasty catcall during one of the midperformance pauses....The fourth and final pause at the end of Act I was the worst glitch of the night by far. Spider-Man had just flown and landed onstage with the musical’s heroine, Mary Jane Watson (played by Jennifer Damiano), in his arms. He was then supposed to zoom off toward the balcony seating area, a few hundred feet away. Instead, a harness and cables lifted Spider-Man several yards up and over the audience, then stopped. A production stage manager, C. Randall White, called for a halt to the show over the sound system, apparently in hopes of fixing and re-doing the stunt. Crew members, standing on the stage, spent 45 seconds trying to grab Spider-Man by the foot, as the audience laughed and oohed. When they finally caught him, Mr. White announced intermission, and the house lights came on. 

Some Act One curtain!

So as much I enjoy this, I do think the Times should answer to the charge of "reviewing" previews, even if they're technically not.  This is especially important at a time when "The Internet" and "Bloggers" are constantly blamed for ruining the practice of criticism by doing such things.

The truth is, what you see here is a blatant move by the Times to get in on the action. The action of All That Chat, specifically.  Notice how they have their gossipy story online already, probably just a few hours after the firstSpidey chatroom post. No doubt the Times also assumed that Riedel would have a story in the Post--and he does.

The Times has certainly done stories about "troubled" productions in previews before.  But that's always been after there were a series of troubled previews to report about, and days/weeks of buzz.  In this case, Healy clearly went to the show himself last night with the express intention of writing about it.  And while he doesn't express an "opinion" or critical judgment about the show being good or bad...um, he sure doesn't make last night sound like a good night of theatre.  And he quotes several audience members for their responses--a virtual "chat room" of opinions, as it were.

I don't know if I'm really outraged or not at this point, frankly.  But with moves like this I do think it's time for major print media to finally get off it's high horse about what was once known as critical "ethics," especially when criticizing (so sue me) bloggers or anyone who writes online.

In other words...welcome to the club, Grey Lady!

Photo/Video of the Day

In case you need 5 minutes away from your family...

Presenting the new Royal Shakespeare Company mainstage in Stratford Upon Avon.  After over three years' renovation, the space is no longer a proscenium but a "1,040-seat thrust-stage theater that will bring audiences closer to the actors."

Some behind the scenes video here.

See you Monday!

The Logic of Censorship

John Heilpern reminds us what life in the British theatre was like under the censorious rule of the Lord Chamberlain's Office:

The Gilbert and Sullivan madhouse of the Lord Chamberlain's office within St. James's Palace was mostly comprised of lordly aristocrats and showbiz-inclined army colonels who'd been censoring any play that was remotely sexual since the Theatres Act of 1737. Homosexuality frightened the horses most. Thus, the lordly Lord Chamberlain could rule that in Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer, the cannibalism was OK, but not the implication that the cannibalized man could be gay.

And this was the law of the land until the 1960s!

All this by way of profiling the rediscovered early John Osborne play, Personal Enemy, which also fell victim to this regime.

Good book on the history of the Lord Chamberlain's office, and the damage it did, here.

Day Jobs for the 21st Century

Forget waiting tables. I got one word for you about the actor's day job of the future.

Bedbugs.

Ever since the city began suffering from a widespread infestation of the pernicious bugs last year, demand has soared for people to get rid of them. Actors, it turns out, make the perfect bug busters.

"Actors have great personalities and follow directions well," says Janet Friedman, owner of Bed Bug Busters NY, who employs many people from the theater world to clean up the vermin. She favors entertainers, she says, because they can improvise, work quickly and are used to the drama of a stressful situation. 

There's a joke somewhere here about agents, but I'll spare you...

Actually, the piece surveys the overall trends and changes in how New York actors make their real living in this day and age:

To be sure, bedbug hunting is not the main alternative career for New York's unemployed actors. Some are tour-bus guides, and others are seasonal greeters at Tiffany & Co., according to the Actors Fund Work Program, a New York-based nonprofit that helps entertainment industry professionals land supplemental gigs.This summer, some actors worked for the Census Bureau, and some posed as would-be renters or buyers for the nonprofit Fair Housing Justice Center, to ensure that federal, state and local laws are followed. The most common jobs for struggling entertainers in New York remain temporary administrative work, catering and waiting tables. But "because of the economy, catering and waiter work has been way down," says Kathy Schrier, director of the Actors Fund Work Program.

Any other suggestions (or crazy anecdotes) about good jobs for actors?  Or bad ones?

Photo of the Day

 photo: Marcus Yam

Mark Rylance warms up with the cast of La Bête before curtain.

Yes, that's David Hyde-Pierce and Joanna Lumley on the right.

Nobody Good Enough for the Wasserstein Award?

Hardcore playwrights out there might already have spent all weekend following the ruckus going on over the Wendy Wasserstein Prize--meant for an emerging female dramatist under 32 years old. And by emerging they mean truly not emergent yet--no previous NYC productions beyond 199-seaters, or on regional mainstages, and no prior previous national media exposure or tv/film success.

The committee basically was going to pass on awarding anyone this year claiming no acceptable entry met the requirements. Apparently all the good young female playwrights are already working!

This led to a playwright's angry blogpost, a petition, and now an apparent reconsideration.  Time Out's Adam Feldman unpacks it all.

Personally, I feel most sympathetic to the argument that if someone sets aside $25,000 every year for a playwright, then the profession is better served by someone getting that money, as opposed to it just sitting there.

Tonys at the Beacon

So it looks like the Tony Awards have had second thoughts about relocating to Harlem?

Although it's nowhere mentioned in this NY Times story, the first announcement after the awards show got bumped from Radio City Music Hall (for Cirque du Soleil, no less) was the old United Palace Theatre at Broadway and 175th St. But now:

On Wednesday, the American Theater Wing, which presents the Tony Awards with the Broadway League, announced that the ceremony will be housed at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side. Though it’s far from the theater district, it is actually on Broadway. (Radio City is on Sixth Avenue.) However, the art deco Beacon has roughly 2,900 seats, less than half as many as the bigger hall.That is bound to create some keen competition for seats to the June 12, 2011 ceremony among the increasing number of investors and producers it takes to finance a Broadway show. 

Note that the United Palace has a 3,293 seat capacity. But did I mention, it's in Harlem?

Seattle Theatre Rumblings

Leadership shakeups and talk of mergers are what's being whispered about in the Seattle theatre scene.

Backstage at Seattle's major three theaters there have been many discussions about merger, collaboration, or other cost-saving steps. At one point, the Rep and Intiman talked about combining, with [Bartlett] Sher as the artistic director of the merged entity's three stages. Sher was not interested, having outgrown Seattle, and because the Rep has so many seats to fill that it makes it harder for an experimental director like Sher to spread his wings with risky productions. (Intiman, with a small house and a very large stage, is far better for him.) ACT had lengthy, ultimately abortive discussions with Seattle Theater Group (Paramount and the Moore) whereby the latter would take over one of the two ACT stages. Seattle Children's Theater has also been part of some of these talks.

In the end, all that came of the discussions (not surprisingly) was an agreement to combine on some educational programs; the theaters already swap costumes and props and they agreed jointly on a ticket-management system. One reason for the failed talks, aside from pride and the threat to jobs, is that the three main theaters have distinct approaches. The Rep concentrates on production values, ACT on acting, and Intiman on its edgy directors.

Gee, I would think all three would like to think they have good acting!

But seriously, mergers have got to be in the offing amongst some of our suffering nonprofits, no?  Personally the idea appeals to me, but not the inevitable layoffs, of course.  Maybe the logistics of nonprofit make it more complicated than it seems?

Havel's "The Memorandum"

In this week's Time Out, my review of Vaclav Havel's 1960s Czech comedy The Memorandum, in a rare revival by the TACT company.

My reaction to the production is, as you'll see, mixed.  But for the Havel-curious, it's pretty much a must-see. Just not a guaranteed night of entertainment.  And I wish I had space in print to single out some very fine performances by Joel Leffert (pictured) as the stern indoctrinator, Mark Alhadeff as the icy antagonist, and Jeffrey C. Hawkins' mime-like corporate tool.

Humana Fest 2011

Some familiar names--Rapp, Washburn. Jordan Harris--but other lesser-knowns are featured in the upcoming slate for what is, arguably, America's biggest new play festival.

The hometown Louisville paper gives an overview of this year and the program's 35 year history.

Not that this has anything to do with Louisville, Kentucky of course.  The host, Actors Theatre of Louisville once upon a time had a high profile thanks to AD Jon Jory.  What happened?

Oscar Brockett: The Man Who Wrote the Book

News out of Austin yesterday that longtime UT professor Oscar Brockett died.  Or, as anyone who ever took a theatre history survey knows him, the guy who wrote your textbook!

He will surely be missed. Maybe he stopped teaching a while ago, but he was still issuing updated editions of the book as recently as 2007--the 10th and "40th Anniversary" edition, no less. What will they call it now?

For those feeling especially moved and have cash on hand, "the family requests donations be sent to the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre Endowment, Department of Theatre and Dance, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station-D3900, Austin, TX 78712-0362."

Deep Thought

On the true nature of theatre:

Hours of rehearsal can go into the most sublime, subtle, and sensitive acting moment on stage.Then, at any given performance, some guy with too much phlegm can just cough right over it...and no one will notice your work.

Audition from Hell

From the Onion, but no doubt based on a true story:

You know what? I'm really sorry, but I'm still not a hundred percent on exactly what's supposed to be taking place here in regard to the acting, etc. Let's kind of break things down and start with what I know. You're sitting down there, and I'm up here. That makes sense. Okay, now: I have a piece of paper with lines on it that I'm supposed to read. No, I'm asking you. Do I? Is that what this paper is for? Right, great, I figured. And so all of you are…actors? No, I'm the actor. Right. So actors and acting are all part of the same thing. Gotcha.

One thing that's sort of tripping me up is, I'm looking at this piece of paper and it says these lines are supposed to be read by a Sgt. Michaelson. Yeah. See, that's not my name, though. My name is Cliff Baum. I mean, I can absolutely read Sgt. Michaelson's lines for you anyway, but I just want us all on the same page with that. Also, and this is more of a heads up for you guys, really, but were you aware that the lines here are things I've never said before? And, totally not a big deal, but it says I'm a soldier, and I'm not. Not at this point, at least. Just so you're aware.

Which reminds me: If I start reading this piece of paper now, do I actually become Sgt. Michaelson? Like, will I still be him when I leave this room? Because I'd really rather be able to go back to being myself when the acting is over. 

Actually the guy sounds like he's ready for a Performance Studies class!

Quote of the Day II

“By giving Shakespeare away for free, it has become inaccessible for many...Tell someone they have to wait six to 36 hours in line for a ticket and it erases 90% of population that would have considered going.”

-Oskar Eustis, Public Theatre, on the cunundrum of "free" Shakespeare in the Park.

Glad you've seen the light Mr. E!

Quote of the Day

“I think we have a very British problem here. The British don’t like confessing that they do anything well. But I go to the theatre three times a week, and there is not a capital in the world that offers as much good theatre as London. If something is not paying its way and is second-rate, I can see a point in cutting it. But it makes me mad to think of cutting first-rate work. The theatre makes a lot of money for the Treasury, provides a lot of employment and seems very central to our society.”

-Peter Hall, on the latest UK "austerity measures."

Hall--the director who founded the Royal Shakespeare company over 50 years ago and then ruled the National for 15 peak years in the 70s and 80s--marks his 80th birthday this week and, as Charles Spencer notes, to mark the occasion, "he will be made a freeman of the City of London, which gives him the right to drive his sheep over London Bridge."

Need a Rush?

Nonprofit Off Broadway is offering slightly more rush ticket options these days, and Playbill has the breakdown.

Unfortunately most are still limited to students and/or "under 30" folks.

I tell ya--I don't care what my accountant would tell me about the finances, but if I ran a theatre right now I would try automatically, no questions asked, offering $25 day-of cash-only tickets. To anyone. 

Would we fall short in sales? Very likely.  But at least we'd have a shot at filling the house. And if the show was really good, that would translate into more advance sales.

The nonprofit business model so desperately needs subscriptions and advance sales that it misses out on what the younger generations of playgoers value most--the spontaneity and convenience of walking up to a box office and buying a ticket...without having to show any friggin ID!

You'll always do well with advance sales when you have a hot property--a name playwright or star actor, for instance.  But for the other 80% of your season offerings, why am I paying you $45 a seat a priori???

Bizarro World Steppenwolf

Yay for Chris Jones for calling out mass media on yet another dumbing down of professional theatre:

Despite its Chicago setting, the CBS political drama "The Good Wife" films in New York. Just as well. After Tuesday night's snobby and dazzlingly ignorant slam of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the local arts and cultural community would have run the show out of town.
The first scene of Tuesday's episode, penned by Robert and Michelle King, was set at a fundraiser in a hotel ballroom. "And now as dinner is served," says the hostess, "Steppenwolf Theatre will entertain us with scenes from their hit play, 'The Cow With No Country.'"

Yeah, that's credible. Steppenwolf does bits of its shows in hotel ballrooms all the time. Just as the beef is served.

And with that introduction, a motley and pathetic little group of ragamuffin actors popped out, replete with their crude puppet-cow and all, and do some kind of whacked-out performance that lands somewhere between moronic Medieval drama, pantomime, Bertolt Brecht, "War Horse" and "Jack and the Beanstalk." English accents and all. We kid you not. What has that got to do with Steppenwolf?

Indeed the fact that the show isn't really a Chicago show despite ostensibly being set there might explain it.  Have any of the writers actually been to Steppenwolf? Or is it just the only name they could think of? Anyone hip to the company at all would know that the right way to spoof it would be two guys in t-shirts and jeans throwing each other against rubber walls and screaming obscenities!

But the insult is not just to Steppenwolf, of course, but all professional theatre.  Yet again what we get has nothing to do with the artform as currently practiced, but instead is all about college theatre, really.  Obviously the Good Wife writers need to get over whatever grudges they still bear against those pretentious "drama fags" in school who gave them the cold shoulder.

It makes the other recent theatrical tribute on The Office seem downright sophisticated. Which it was, kinda.  And at least that explicitly was about Community Theatre.

Of course neither hold a candle to Slings and Arrows--now streaming on Netflix!  But of course, that was Canadian TV...

Quote of the Day

"One of the things people most dislike about critics is that we traditionally occupy the best seats. Only recently, I got a letter suggesting that my intense enjoyment of the RSC Romeo and Juliet was dictated by where I sat. Had I been in the back row of the balcony of Stratford's Courtyard theatre, I was told, I'd have had difficulty hearing the actors....What we need, of course, are theatres where the gulf between good and bad seats is radically diminished: that will be the ultimate test of the redesigned Royal Shakespeare theatre where they have suspended a fake seat in the circle bar to show how far from the action the back wall once was. But the spaces I really warm to are those such as London's Young Vic or Hampstead theatre, where the quality of the experience doesn't depend on where you sit. Only when we create more democratically designed theatres will we share the same experience and erode the detested notion of critical privilege."

 -Michael Billington, The Guardian.