Fame or Famine

On my shelf sits a book, a black book with a picture of a curly-haired smiling lady on the back. It’s called “Improvisation for the Theater” and is written by drama pioneer Viola Spolin.
Her son, Paul Sills, died of pneumonia today at age 80, having continued his mother’s work and shaped theatre as we know it today.
Paul Sills, the “Orson Welles of Improv”
Maybe you’ve heard of some of the places Paul Sills’ influence was felt. Second City? The Kids in the Hall? OK, how about Saturday Night Live? 30 Rock? Broadway’s Ragtime? Or how about one of his students, a …read more

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It’s a banner day on Broadway, especially for some of the stories I’ve been tracking on this blog.
Stew Gets an Obie for Passing Strange
I wrote recently how musician and auteur Stew had garnered no fewer than seven Tony nominations – but there’s more out there than Tony. The Village Voice also gives out its own theatre award, the “Obie”, and Passing Strange has secured Best New Theatre Piece. I’m a little amused, though, because part of the prize is $1,000 – to be split between Stew, co-author Heidi Rodewald and director Annie Dorsen – which I think is just about …read more

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No, this is not some weird new musical, this is exactly what I’m saying it is: sex workers in western Maharashtra, India, have spent over a month taking acting lessons and then putting together a play about their lives.
Entitled  My Mother, the Gharwali, Her Maalak, His Wife, the play has the avowed message that “We too are human beings like you, and this is a profession like any other.” The play opens March 18, to portray the people who interact with the sex workers in everyday life.
“We are also humans” 
“We sell our bodies to earn money,” says Sangeeta, a sex …read more

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Dancehunter (huh, just mistyped that Dancehunger, Freudian slip perhaps?) got a fantastic interview with Alison Crawford, the Artistic Director for Cirque’s Corteo. The whole interview is well worth reading, but I especially like this bit, about how Cirque’s philosophy of performance and technology work together:

"Corteo is one of the most technical touring shows that we have. We have had some major technical work and always need to make sure the fluidity is working. We added a lot of the show and have done a considerable amount of tweaking to get to where we are today. It’s got to grow with …read more

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