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      The Shed Changes Leadership Structure

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      In the face of financial challenges, the arts institution is making adjustments: Alex Poots, its founding artistic director and chief executive, will now just focus on being artistic director.Having come into the world just a year before the coronavirus pandemic started, the Shed — an architecturally ambitious $475 million arts center in Hudson Yards — has weathered a bumpy beginning. In addition to sold-out performances (such as the recent play about Robert Moses starring Ralph Fiennes), the institution has had its share of financial struggles (28 of its 107 full-time workers were laid off in July 2020).Now, the Shed is making perhaps its biggest adjustment yet, announcing that Alex Poots, the founding artistic director and chief executive, will no longer be chief executive — but will continue to focus on the creative side of the institution as its artistic director.The change is effective immediately; Maryann Jordan, the Shed’s current president and chief operating officer, will handle day-to-day management in the interim.“It has become more and more clear to me that, to really take us on to the next chapter, I need to dedicate my entire time to the artistic direction of this organization,” Poots said in a telephone interview, adding that the change was his decision. “I see it as a positive step forward.”“I’m not going to say it’s not been a struggle, but we’ve gotten through it every time we’ve been confronted with challenges,” he added. “We’re very robust to have built the first arts center since Lincoln Center on an entirely new model with a completely new team.”More on the Coronavirus PandemicNew Subvariant: A new Omicron subvariant, known as XBB.1.5, is surging in the northeastern United States. Scientists say it remains rare in much of the world, but they expect it to spread quickly and globally.Travel: The European Union advised its 27 member nations to require negative Covid-19 tests for travelers boarding flights from China to the region, amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country.Misinformation: As Covid cases and deaths rise in parts of the United States, misleading claims continue to spread, exasperating overburdened doctors and evading content moderators.Free at-Home Tests: With cases on the rise, the Biden administration restarted a program that has provided hundreds of millions of tests through the Postal Service.Jonathan M. Tisch, who in April succeeded the Shed’s founding chairman, Daniel L. Doctoroff, and who — with his wife, Lizzie — in 2019 donated $27.5 million toward the building’s construction, insisted this was not a demotion for Poots. “Alex has done a remarkable job over the past eight years of establishing the Shed as one of New York City’s — and probably the country’s — premiere cultural institutions,” Tisch said in an interview. “But it’s a tough job to be artistic director and C.E.O. at the same time. In conversations, Alex expressed interest in stepping back from being top executive to allowing his focus to center on ensuring our success.”Cultural institutions across the country have struggled mightily throughout the pandemic, primarily because of the lost revenue from closures and canceled performances. The Shed had the added hurdle of being just a year old, without the opportunity to build a loyal audience or donor base. In the wake of the pandemic, the Shed reduced its annual operating budget to $26.5 million from $46 million in 2020; its full-time staff is now 88.Last month, Poots sent an email to staff members saying that “in an uncertain economic environment,” the Shed would consolidate some of its artistic operations.“To align our program developments and resources, we are exploring ways of merging program areas into an interdisciplinary department that works within and between art forms in unified ways,” Poots said in the email, obtained by The New York Times. “After much deliberation, this new model includes the discontinuation of the visual arts Chief Curator position.”That curator position was held by Andria Hickey, who last February left Pace Gallery to join the Shed. She will be staying on, as curator at large.Having one chief curator “makes less sense now,” Poots said in the interview, “because we need expertise across a very wide range of disciplines.”The Shed has also had to adjust to the stepping back of Doctoroff, because of illness. Doctoroff led its successful fund-raising efforts and shepherded the institution into existence after he served as a deputy mayor under Michael R. Bloomberg, who himself supported the Shed.Other successes include the Fiennes play written by David Hare, “Straight Line Crazy”; the comedian Cecily Strong’s New York stage debut; and an ambitious three-part exhibition by the Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno. In addition, the Shed was among the first arts institutions to reopen after New York’s pandemic shutdown. And the institution managed to raise the remainder of its building costs — $135 million — during the coronavirus crisis, Doctoroff said in an interview.“We’re still learning,” Doctoroff said. “We’ve started to understand the model. I’m encouraged, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t normal start-up bumps and bruises. I think we will be incredibly successful over time.” More

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      Barry Grove to Depart Manhattan Theater Club After 48 Years

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      During his tenure, the nonprofit supported works that have gone on to earn seven Pulitzer Prizes and nearly 30 Tony Awards.Barry Grove was 23 years old when, in 1975, he started work as the managing director at Manhattan Theater Club, then a fledging nonprofit producing Off Off Broadway shows in space rented from a Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association on the Upper East Side.Over nearly half a century, as the organization, the art form and the industry have expanded and transformed, he has become a familiar figure both on Broadway, where M.T.C., which primarily presents new plays, now operates the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, and Off Broadway, where the company presents work at New York City Center in Midtown. The company’s annual budget has grown from $172,000 to about $27 million.Grove’s longtime partnership with the company’s artistic director, Lynne Meadow, who is celebrating her 50th anniversary at the nonprofit, has supported work that has won seven Pulitzer Prizes (for “Cost of Living,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “Doubt,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Proof,” “Rabbit Hole” and “Ruined”) and 28 Tony Awards. At the same time, he has taught (most recently at Columbia and Yale) and served on the industry’s most powerful boards (including for the Tony Awards, the Broadway League and the League of Resident Theaters).Now M.T.C.’s executive producer, Grove, 71, is ready to leave. He announced Wednesday that his last day will be June 30. His final shows include two plays on Broadway, “The Collaboration,” which opened in December and runs through Feb. 5, and “Summer, 1976,” which begins performances April 4, as well as two Off Broadway plays, “The Best We Could” and “King James.”“We’ve had an incredible run and an incredible relationship, and have done amazing things,” Meadow said. “I will miss him terribly, and we’re going to continue to try to be great.”As Grove prepares to depart the company, he reflected on his tenure, and the state of the industry. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Why are you leaving?Very recently it became clear to me that it was time for me to do this and have some time while I’m still healthy with my wife and extended family, to maybe go back to teaching and some consulting work. I started in the professional theater when I was 19. I don’t know that I’m ready to get into a rocking chair, but I do want to be able to pursue small projects, a lifelong commitment to teaching, service to the community, that kind of stuff.Why did you stay for so long?If I had just landed in a finished theater — big and mature — I might well have gotten tired or burned out much earlier. But from the beginning, I was able to adopt a strategy of “learn it, do it, teach it, monitor it, and then get out of the way.” And so we were able to grow a staff and to grow the institution. With each new idea Lynne had, or new opportunity that the work demanded, there was a new challenge, and it kept me interested, it kept me motivated, and it kept me moved by the power of the work.What is your favorite show that you’ve worked on?This is a question over the years I’ve been asked a lot, and my answer is always the same: The next one.What is the future of the Manhattan Theater Club?I think it’s yet to be charted, but I hope that it will continue to be involved in important new work, and that it can remain a viable not-for-profit that will allow a next generation to do the work they feel needs to be and wants to be done. I’m not looking to tower over the future. I full well expect they’ll take the place beyond where we have and to places I haven’t even maybe dreamed of.What is the state of the play on Broadway?It’s now clear that we’re still not out of the woods on the pandemic aftereffects. The numbers are just down. In addition, there are for the first time in a while, a number of play revivals on Broadway, with very expensive capitalizations and stars, and between them they are seating a lot of people, but many of them are going to close at a loss. And in the meantime it makes for trying to keep the audience at the same size here hard, because the commercial world is spending a lot of money advertising. And beyond that, people are still slow to come back a lot — they’re buying single tickets to shows they want to see, but they’re not buying large subscription packages. We’re not out of the hole.How are nonprofit theaters doing?Everywhere, sales have been disrupted. I’d make a plea to the general public that cares about the theater: If ever there was a time to support your local theater, whichever one that is, now is the time to do that.Will you keep seeing theater?Of course. I need to see the final act of “Julius Caesar” to know how it comes out, because when my mom started taking me to theater in Stratford, Connecticut, she had an appendicitis attack in the fourth act so I never got to see how it ended. More

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      A Paris Cabaret Makes Way for ‘Cabaret’

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      The 1966 American musical has opened at a venue that for decades hosted one of the city’s most famous revue troupes.For decades, the Lido was one of the glitziest cabarets in Paris, home to extravagant, acrobatic numbers and the Bluebell Girls, a renowned chorus line. Last July, the curtain came down on their feathered headpieces for the final time, and the ensemble was disbanded. Their replacement at the theater this winter? “Cabaret” — the 1966 American musical.On a recent evening, with bejeweled Bluebell outfits still shimmering in window displays by the venue’s entrance, the Lido’s patrons seemed ready for a show. When the Emcee from “Cabaret,” directed by Robert Carsen, introduced the musical’s own ensemble, the Kit Kat Girls and Kit Kat Boys, there were eager cheers, but the lack of topless dancing, not to mention the somber Nazi-era plot, may have come as a surprise to some audience members.Yet the Lido’s move from cabaret to “Cabaret” is no coincidence. It speaks to a larger shift in Paris, where American-style musicals have been on the rise just as historic revues have struggled to maintain relevance.The pandemic only accelerated the decline of mainstream French cabaret, long a tourist attraction at venues like the Lido and the Moulin Rouge: Without out-of-towners, there simply weren’t enough Parisians interested in nostalgic cancan dances to prop up expensive revues. Add to that the genre’s increasingly outdated objectification of women’s near-naked bodies, and cabaret appeared to have fallen out of step with the times.The Lido’s reinvention as a musical theater venue — under a new owner, the hotel conglomerate Accor, and a somewhat silly new name, Lido2Paris — is clearly an attempt to lure back local crowds. To mastermind the transition, Accor hired Jean-Luc Choplin, whose tenure at the Théâtre du Châtelet from 2006 to 2017 saw a string of successes with English-language musicals, including “My Fair Lady” and “42nd Street.”This winter, the Châtelet has again been filled to the rafters, this time for a revival of Stephen Mear’s 2016 production of “42nd Street.” And other venues have been listening to the “lullaby of Broadway,” as one “42nd Street” number puts it. At the Théâtre de Paris, a French-language adaptation of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” by the director Alexis Michalik has turned into a runaway hit since its late 2021 premiere, and is currently scheduled to run through April.The storytelling in Théâtre du Châtelet’s “42nd Street” is bright, and Broadway in style. Thomas AmourouxWhile performed in different languages — “42nd Street” is in English — “42nd Street” and “The Producers” don’t depart from Broadway habits. “42nd Street” opens with the curtain raising a couple of feet, so all we see are is the ensemble’s legs, tapping away and garnering enthusiastic applause. The storytelling in both productions is bright, with an almost uncanny rendition into French, in “The Producers,” of the upbeat pace of American-style dialogue.“The Producers” didn’t please every critic — the French newspaper Libération blasted its “discriminatory” stereotypes — but as theaters in France struggle to return to prepandemic ticket sales and the cost of living rises, musicals have seemed immune. That includes the French rock opera “Starmania,” recently revived for the first time in decades, but France simply doesn’t have a wide repertoire of musicals to draw on: The genre was long considered minor, and too entertainment-oriented, by French theater makers.That leaves Broadway favorites, and specifically the classics — what’s missing on Paris stages, inexplicably, is more recent musicals, like “Hamilton” and “The Book of Mormon.” Carsen’s “Cabaret” isn’t actually the first version of this musical, with its book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, to be seen in Paris this century. A French translation, staged by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, was presented at another historical cabaret venue, the Folies Bergère, in 2006. But the Lido2Paris’s production, in English with subtitles, is a dry, ominous showstopper.Carsen, a renowned Canadian director, takes full advantage of the venue’s layout: The Lido was designed as a cabaret-restaurant, with tables laid out on three sides of a thrust stage, and the Kit Kat Klub, the Weimar-era Berlin venue around which “Cabaret” revolves, is right at home in this atmosphere.Before its revue closed, the Lido offered a high-end dinner service each night. (Over 150 people were laid off as part of Accor’s takeover, from restaurant staff to the permanent ensemble.) Now audience members have to trek to one of two small bars to buy a glass of champagne and nibbles, which left the auditorium feeling a little deserted.The production captures the nihilism of 1929 Berlin and the steady rise of Nazism, which some characters see as little more than a distraction, starting with cabaret performer Sally Bowles (a role made famous by Liza Minnelli, here given restless intensity by Lizzy Connolly). Clifford Bradshaw, a bisexual American writer who has come to Berlin seeking freedom and inspiration, comes to see the growing political threat — yet fails to convince Sally, despite the love between them.As the sardonic Emcee who presides over both the Kit Kat Klub and the show itself, Sam Buttery is an arresting sight from the opening “Willkommen” — bald with heavy, dark makeup, at once charismatic and blasé.Sam Buttery plays the Emcee in Lido2Paris’s “Cabaret,” and gives the production momentum.Julien BenhamouAll the soloists acquit themselves well, but Buttery and the 15-strong Kit Kat Girls and Boys lend Carsen’s production much of its momentum. The choreography, credited to Fabian Aloise, is brilliantly dynamic, its exaggerated sexual innuendo rendered grotesque by the dancers’ distorted, over-it facial expressions. The choreographed opening of the second act, in which the dancers slowly don shorts, boots and swastika armbands, transforming into a high-kicking Nazi line, is especially chilling.Near the end, in video projections, Carsen ties the rise of fascism in “Cabaret” to contemporary events, with images of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as well as protests in Western countries like France. It’s a somewhat vague conclusion for an otherwise biting production, given that, by this point, the audience has likely drawn their own parallels.“Cabaret” is worth seeing both for its merits and to say goodbye to the Lido as it existed for decades. In early February, it will close for extensive renovation, with a view to reopening next December. A spokesman for the venue said that it would retain some of its hallmarks, like the tables around the stage, and upgrade its technical equipment.The long-term plan, under Choplin, is simple: more musicals. Tourists may not take to this change of programming, since the genre is hardly associated with Paris, but French audiences seem to approve, and the applause at “Cabaret” was warm.Blow to Parisian history or not, for now, American entertainment is winning the argument. More

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      The Riverside Drive Apartment Where a Broadway Play Was Born

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      “Between Riverside and Crazy,” Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning script, is set in a rent-controlled apartment that was inspired by the playwright’s own.The world of “Between Riverside and Crazy,” the Stephen Adly Guirgis play that opened on Broadway last month, is confined to a rent-controlled Upper West Side apartment building, where the dark comedy spools out over kitchen table bickering and rooftop joint passing.It’s the kind of New York City apartment that has stayed in the family despite rising rents and a landlord bent on eviction — the kind of apartment that Guirgis himself inherited from his father, an Egyptian immigrant who managed a restaurant at Grand Central and had little else to pass on when he died.Like the one in the play, the real Riverside Drive apartment is a “grand old railroad flat with chandeliers and a river view,” as Guirgis’s introduction to the play reads, with “beautiful fixtures, family mementos and antique furniture competing for survival with dust, stains, garbage, leaks and unattended junk.”About a decade ago, Guirgis started gathering actors there to read his developing play, about a Black New York City police officer who was shot while off duty at a bar by a white officer and has been seeking justice ever since.A fixture of the living room readings was Stephen McKinley Henderson, a friend and frequent visitor whom Guirgis had imagined in the lead role from the beginning. A parade of well-known actors participated in the readings on Riverside Drive along the West 80s, including John Leguizamo, Ellen Burstyn and Chris Rock, whose Broadway debut was in a Guirgis play.“The first time I read it, it was 15 pages,” Henderson said. “And as it grew, it grew on me.”Colón-Zayas and the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis at his Riverside Drive apartment in 2014, the year the play premiered Off Broadway.Monique Carboni The play that developed from those readings became a patchwork of autobiography and fiction, organized around an idea based on a local news story from the 1990s. Directed by Austin Pendleton, “Between Riverside and Crazy” went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in drama after premiering at Atlantic Theater Company in 2014 and running Off Broadway for a second time in 2015. (In that production, Ron Cephas Jones, a friend of Guirgis’s who once lived at the four-bedroom Riverside Drive apartment, played the lead character’s son, Junior.)Eight years after its premiere, the play has landed on Broadway — the Second Stage production at the Helen Hayes Theater still stars Henderson, with Common now playing Junior — in a radically altered landscape.Since the actors first gathered at Guirgis’s apartment, police shootings of Black men have fueled waves of protest. The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer in 2020 reignited the movement, with myriad industries, including theater, facing calls for large-scale racial justice efforts. In addition, rent rates in New York City have been soaring, boxing out lower-income residents from once-affordable neighborhoods, and evictions have picked back up after a pandemic lull.The actors who have inhabited their characters for years say they approach the work with a new depth and personal understanding, but the dialogue remains almost entirely the same. One short line was added, from Junior, a parolee who struggles to get the kind of love from his father that he received from his recently deceased mother.“Pops, it’s 2014,” Junior says, situating the audience in time. Guirgis said he asked that the line be added to prevent references to Donald J. Trump and Rudy Giuliani from sounding outdated.The actress Liza Colón-Zayas, who has been involved since early script readings as a character called the Church Lady, said people who have seen this production and previous ones (including her mother) are convinced that the play has been significantly altered over the years.In the play, a widower fights to keep his home and win a long-running lawsuit against the New York Police Department, as messy relationships and messier politics surface among his housemates and guests.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThough the writing is largely unchanged, the actors approach the work with a new depth and personal understanding in light of the cultural conversation surrounding police shootings since the play’s premiere.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The writing didn’t change,” Colón-Zayas said. “The pain, and the years, and what we’ve survived has changed this play in ways that I can’t exactly articulate.”The seed for the story came in 1994, when a white off-duty New York City police officer opened fire on a Black undercover transit officer on a Manhattan subway platform, seriously injuring him. The white officer, Peter Del-Debbio, said he was responding to a shotgun that had discharged and had fired when he saw the plainclothes transit officer, Desmond Robinson, running with a gun.Part of the white officer’s defense was that the Black officer wasn’t wearing his badge or the color that would identify him as a plainclothes officer, so Guirgis remembered the story as the “color of the day” case. Del-Debbio was convicted of second-degree assault and was sentenced to probation and community service.“It always stayed with me,” Guirgis said.Years later, the playwright said, he was visiting Henderson when the veteran actor, having health troubles, remarked that his career would be slowing down.“I just lied and I was like, ‘Oh I started writing two plays for you: one where you’re the lead and one where you’re the supporting,’” Guirgis said. “When I went home I was like, OK, now I’ve got to come up with something.”By the time he started holding script readings, Colón-Zayas, who met Guirgis when they were students at State University of New York at Albany, had been visiting the Riverside Drive apartment for decades. When Guirgis’s mother died in 2006, he recalled, his family returned to the apartment to find Colón-Zayas and other friends cleaning it.After his mother’s death, Guirgis moved into the apartment, getting his father a dog, Papi, for additional companionship. The apartment became a haven for friends who needed one, Guirgis said, including a recovering addict who started to see Guirgis’s father like he was his own.“Anybody who walked into my apartment with me or with my sister was automatically given a blank check of love and acceptance,” he said.Common, right, is making his Broadway debut as Junior. He said part of what attracted him to the role was the message of redemption.Timothy O’Connell for The New York TimesThe unconventional household is intimately depicted in the play. The ex-cop, Walter Washington, welcomes his son’s sweet but clueless girlfriend, Lulu (Rosal Colón), and his friend Oswaldo (Victor Almanzar), who spent time in prison and is trying to stay sober.Like Guirgis did for his father, Junior brings a dog into the household to keep him company; Walter calls the dog by a choice curse word instead of his name, but the emotional attachment is apparent underneath the derision. (Papi, the fox-like mutt that Guirgis had adopted for his father, died recently, and the cast has mourned the loss of an original attendee of those early script readings.)A stubborn and ailing alcoholic, Walter gripes about his housemates and expresses love begrudgingly, but the core of the play is his inclination to welcome them into his home no matter their mistakes.“As with all of his characters, it’s a lesson in, ‘Who are we to judge anybody, really?’” Colón said.Common, who is making his Broadway debut as Junior and has done advocacy work within the prison system, said part of what attracted him to the role was the message of redemption.When he entered the cast as the only newcomer in a tight-knit group of actors, he received a welcome not unlike the kind Walter tends to give: matter of fact but unconditional.“One day Liza came up to me,” he recalled, referring to Colón-Zayas, “and she said, ‘You aight, you aight. You can roll with us.’”(Colón-Zayas was replaced in the role this month by Maria-Christina Oliveras because of a scheduling conflict.)In the play, as Walter fights to hold on to his home and win his long-running lawsuit against the New York Police Department, a series of characters passes through the apartment — ostensibly there to help a solitary widower. Two police colleagues gather for dinner and a serving of nostalgia; the Church Lady comes to chat and give communion.But in “Riverside,” the intentions of the houseguests are never clear-cut. The relationships get messy, and the underlying politics of the story even messier.Henderson’s character is portrayed as both noble and, at times, misguided. He maintains both a righteous grudge against the New York Police Department and a fierce pride for it. His children, biological and not, are both trying to change their lives for the better and backsliding into old ways.Guirgis is well aware that the persistent character flaws have the tendency to rankle some audience members who would have preferred to see their worldviews affirmed more emphatically. But he’s interested in telling a more complicated story, and says he thinks present-day audiences will see that, just as they did in 2014.“If the characters all just have white hats and black hats, then we’re watching a cartoon, and there’s nothing to learn from it,” he said. “I try to make it messy but I try to lead with love.” More

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      Interview: Going 12 Rounds With On The Ropes

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      Director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour on bringing Vernon Vanriel’s story to the stage

      Boxing and theatre might not seem the most obvious of bedfellows, but we reckon there have been some wonderful plays that bring the two together. And we hope that On The Ropes, which is playing at Park Theatre right now, will add to that list.

      So we were delighted that director Anatasia Osei-Kuffour found some time out of her busy schdule to chat with us about bringing this real life boxer’s story to life.

      Photo credit @ Dujonna Gift-Simms

      What can you tell us about the play?

      It’s a dynamic musical drama set in a boxing ring with a twist, telling the story of the pioneering Lightweight boxer Vernon Vanriel. We see his highs, his lows and how he kept on fighting despite the challenges he faced in his life, not least the challenge of being caught up in the Windrush Scandal and being prevented from coming back home to the UK after visiting family in Jamaica.

      Was Vernon someone you were aware of prior to getting involved with the play?

      I wasn’t aware of him unfortunately. Realising that when I read the script, I immediately felt the draw to join the effort to bring him back into mainstream consciousness because his story is so inspirational.

      Did you get along to any boxing matches as part of your research/ prep for this?

      Zahra Mansouri, our designer, and I went to Wembley to see a set of matches and some of the actors and I went to a second boxing event at Alexandra Palace, both visits were very informative and useful for the process of working out how to put the show together.

      It’s a musical drama about a boxer – which sounds different! How does the rhythm and structure of a boxing match lend itself to music?

      Having visited a modern-day boxing match, I was struck by the many similarities there are to theatre, from the announcer who theatrically announces the boxers, the boxers entering the hall and then the ring to thumping music in performance mode, portraying the character they know the crowd have come to recognise them. At one match there was even a live professional singer performing for one of the boxer’s entrances. I was mostly struck by the thumping music played during breaks in the action and how the crowd sung along to anthemic songs and waived country flags in support of the boxers. It felt celebratory and animated, much like the style of our play.

      What musical styles can we expect then?

      The music in the play is the soundtrack to Vernon’s life and includes Reggae, Blues and Gospel.

      The play’s blurb promises us “12 metaphorical rounds featuring key moments in Vernon’s life” – how has it been working with that kind of structure as a director, what different challenges does it raise?

      It has felt right for the story to be presented in this way because the writing is so clear, Vernon and Dougie Blaxland, the co-writers have set out the story so clearly that we are easily guided by the script. Artistically the main challenge has been working out how we can take the staging of a boxing ring and make it say something more, communicate something theatrical and metaphorical about the story. Working with Zahra Mansouri was a great joy and really helped in figuring this out.

      It’s co-written by Vernon himself, have you spent time with him to discuss his vision for the play, or is he more hands off at this stage of things?

      In summer 2022, we had a research and development week where Vernon communicated his hopes and desires for this production. It was inspirational to have him in the room, have him talk about his life and even take the actors through some boxing training!

      The play is of course also about Windrush, is it important to keep making sure we talk about what has, and is in some cases, still happening with this less than flattering part of British history?

      It is important. The headlines have disappeared from news outlets, so we need to highlight the fact that there are still thousands of families still dealing with the repercussions of the injustice that happened to them. It’s important that the government stick to their promises of compensation and reversing some of the chaos they caused.

      On The Ropes is playing for a month at the Park Theatre, are there other plans to take it elsewhere afterwards? 

      There is hope that it will have a further life. What that will be will be determined by how the run at the Park Theatre goes.

      Our thanks to Anastasia for chatting about On The Ropes. The play is on right now at Park Theatre until 4 February. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      Ben Platt to Lead ‘Parade’ Revival on Broadway This Season

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      The musical’s exploration of antisemitism is timely, with rising concern about the issue in the United States and beyond.Ben Platt, the Tony-winning star of “Dear Evan Hansen,” will return to Broadway next month to lead the cast in a revival of “Parade,” a musical about an early-20th-century lynching of a Jewish businessman in Georgia.The revival, directed by Michael Arden (a two-time Tony nominee, for revivals of “Once on This Island” and “Spring Awakening”), had a seven-performance run at New York City Center last fall. Platt plays Leo Frank, a factory boss convicted of killing a young girl in a case tainted by antisemitism; Micaela Diamond, who previously played the youngest version of the title character in “The Cher Show” on Broadway, will co-star as Frank’s wife, Lucille.The show, with songs by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Alfred Uhry and co-conceived by Hal Prince, had a brief run on Broadway that opened in 1998; it was commercially unsuccessful, but won Tony Awards for both book and score. The history it depicts is real: Frank was convicted in 1913, lynched in 1915 (at age 31), and in 1986 he was posthumously pardoned.The musical’s exploration of antisemitism has made it more timely now, when there is rising concern about the issue in the United States and beyond. The City Center production garnered uniformly strong reviews: in The New York Times, Juan A. Ramírez called it “the best-sung musical in many a New York season.”The “Parade” revival will begin previews Feb. 21 and open March 16 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, where the musical “Almost Famous” closed on Sunday. The “Parade” production is planning a short run, to Aug. 6.The revival is being produced by Seaview, a company created by Greg Nobile and Jana Shea that previously produced “Slave Play” and “POTUS,” and Ambassador Theater Group, a large British theater company that operates two Broadway houses (the Hudson and the Lyric) and also produces shows. More

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      The Etties: Best Fringe Venue Nominations

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      The Etties really are just our way of rounding of 2022 with a nod to some of the best shows we’ve seen. But of course you can’t see a good show without a good venue, so we thought we also needed to include a Best Venue category.

      Of course we all have our favourite venues, and often for very different reasons. It might be because of the welcome you always receive there, or it may be because the view is great, or if could be because they never let you down with their shows.

      So we asked our team to nominate their favourite venues to come up with our shortlist below. The only real criteria is that it had to be a venue we visit regularly, and one we would call a Fringe Theatre (which as we all know, is a broad church!).

      We’ll be announcing the winner on 18 January during our Runn Radio show.

      Battersea Arts Centre

      Why? Because “BAC have absolutely leading edge work, they are totally inclusive with their Pay What You Can performances and relaxed policy. The bar is lovely – you always meet someone interesting and unusual there, the staff are friendly and the Press contacts couldn’t be more helpful.”

      Finborough Theatre

      Why? Because “Finborough have a standard of quality pretty much unmatched in London pub/fringe theatre. Even the rare shows that I have not enjoyed so much have had such a strong cast and technical work behind them. A real testament to all involved.”

      Lion and Unicorn Theatre

      Why? Because “The Lion and Unicorn always feels the most welcoming of venues, not just for the audience, but the artists as well. It’s rare to go along for press nights and not to bump into artists coming along to support others.”

      Southwark Playhouse

      Why? Because “the welcome we receive there is always so friendly, and you suspect it isn’t just because we are there to review. And their programming has delivered regularly quality all year round.”

      The Space

      Why? Because “The Space really is a place that does what fringe theatre should do, encourage new voices and offer support to all the artists that pass through their door. And their move into live streaming has opened it up to a whole new audience.”

      Turbine Theatre

      Why? Because “their front of house staff were absolutely lovely when I couldn’t get there on time because of transport and the staff and crew dealt with a show stop amazingly!” More

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      in Theater

      The Etties: Best Comedy Shortlist

      by

      The Everything Theatre Fringe Theatre Awards, or Etties for short, are simply our fun round up of the past year. Previously, come the end of the year we’ve asked our reviewers to pick some highlights which we would publish as a round up of the best of the year. But in 2022 we decided we should do things a little differently. And that led us to the Etties.

      Obviously we don’t have a team of assessors to go and watch every show, so we aren’t going to pretend these are anything more than a fun way to highlight some of the shows our team have loved in the past year. The shortlists have been put together by looking back at our 4- and 5-star reviews, and then with the help of some of our reviewers, whittling them down to a shortlist. It’s not the most scientific approach but what awards ever are?

      We’ll be announcing the winners on Wednesday 18 January as part of our Runn Radio show that evening.

      The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much

      Photo credit @ Jake F Wadley

      Omnibus Theatre, March 2022

      I can’t remember the last time I came out of the theatre wanting to book to see the same show again.
      Dave Bushe

      Project Dictator

      Photo credit @ De Giglio

      New Diorama Theatre, April 2022

      Project Dictator was outrageously energetic and terrifyingly audience-inclusive. Given the starting point of talking to artists who live under oppressive regimes, it was both worryingly hilarious and seriously worrying.
      Dean Wood

      Qrumpet

      Camden People’s Theatre, April 2022

      Qrumpet draws deeply from the ideas of 20th-century absurdism – at times feeling like an Ionesco for the modern day – and applies them to the weirdest scientific theories of our time
      Matt Aldridge

      Experiment Human

      Credit: Michael O’Reilly

      Cockpit Theatre, July 2022

      Experiment Human is an extremely well made, bold, unique, surreal comedy that explores the things that make us human, and what makes us happy.
      Aaron-Lee Eyles

      Crone

      The Hope Theatre, August 2022

      The tone is set almost before the first sentence is completed, leaving us laughing at the absurdity of it all.
      Rob Warren

      Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story

      Photo credit @ Dave Bird

      The Pleasance, November 2022

      Oh Linus, you extraordinary beast you. This is a magnificent piece of work – whacky, wayward and totally unique. If Diana is looking down now I am certain she’ll be joining in the fun!
      Mary Pollard

      Winners will be announced on 18 January. More