The whole world’s a stage, and there’s a whole world of entertainment on stages across the country in 2011. Give the gift that keeps on giving: season tickets to your local theatre company. The new season holds much promise, with new artistic directors in place at some of the country’s top companies delivering an eclectic [...]
READ MOREA new broom, a new guard: theatre’s generation next
As Ben Eltham wrote for Crikey on Friday: A new broom is sweeping through Australia’s theatre and dance companies. This week’s announcement that the artistic director of Melbourne dance company Chunky Move, Gideon Obazanek, will step down in 2011 is just the latest in a series of major transitions for Australia’s medium-sized theatre and dance [...]
READ MOREHistrionica! Critical failure on theatre
All this past week, Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre has been hosting Critical Failure, a series of panels examining the health and relevance of arts criticism in contemporary Oz. Wednesday’s panel was on theatre criticism. In the comfy chairs were Julian Meyrick, director and historian, Alison Croggon, critic and blogger, Stephen Sewell, playwright and provocateur, and Cameron [...]
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Snubs and surprises at the Helpmanns … but is that such a scandal?
Cate Blanchett was snubbed! Not a complete surprise, granted, given she wasn’t even nominated. But still outrageous! (Clearly best dressed though, according to most gossip blogs.) Best new Australian work? Cabaret performer iOTA’s Sydney Festival show Smoke & Mirrors, a one-man/woman enterprise obviously less ambitious than Bliss, Opera Australia’s crowning achievement from earlier this year. [...]
READ MOREIt’s just not critic(al)
Marcus Westbury, in yesterday’s Age (or at least the online bit—who knows whether they actually put anything in the paper these days), wrote a piece about the death of art criticism … as we know it: The art form critic that we’re familiar with is neither natural nor inevitable. It is as much a construct [...]
READ MOREGays in the theatre? SHOCK! Perhaps it’s imagination we lack
Sean Hayes will host this year’s Tony Awards (the Oscars of Broadway, if you will) — sweet vindication for the Will and Grace star, who was slammed by one critic for his unconvincing portrayal of a straight man in musical Promises, Promises.
READ MORECan newspapers afford to snub theatre-goers?
So what’s the word on Calendar Girls, the new British movie-turned-musical currently plodding the boards in Sydney (and set to tour the country)? Well, don’t read the Sun Herald to find out. A review on the show was spiked, Andrew Crook reports in Crikey‘s Daily Mail today. In a cracking article he highlights how the [...]
READ MOREGays and theatre: maybe they SHOULD just stay in the closet
Newsweek is on the nose. And not just because it sits unloved on the auction block, an almost-extinct relic of new media. An essay on the venerable magazine’s website has caused a minor storm, at least in theatrical circles. Author Ramin Setoodeh asked — not unreasonably — whether gay actors could play straight, singling out [...]
READ MORE‘House full’ sign goes up on $1b Broadway biz
There’s nothing like New York City’s Broadway for a theatre lover. Tourists and locals are spoilt for choice each day, with dozens of glitzy musicals and star-studded plays to be found bathed under the blinding lights of Times Square. But even 40 theatres in the Broadway district alone aren’t enough. The New York Times reports [...]
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