Katherine Hepburn On Stage

Hepburn in the original 1939 play, The Philadelphia Story,
a year before the classic film was made. Playwright Philip Barry wrote the part of the spoiled socialite especially for her.
Photograph by Vandamm Studio. Billy Rose Theatre Division,The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

It's easy to forget that in addition to being one of the 20th centuries most iconic movie stars, Katherine Hepburn was also more than an occasional stage actress. Having started her career the conventional way in bit Broadway parts (beginning in the late 1920s) she continued to return to theatre after her 1932 big screen debut.

As is proudly displayed in the Lincoln Center performing arts library's current exhibit "Katherine Hepburn : In Her Own Files," featuring tons of theatre-related documents and photos from her archives there.

For instance: the part she reportedly got "discovered" for? 1932's The Warrior's Husband--title says it all--in which she entered hoisting a dead stag and fought with swords (see below).

Photograph by White Studio. Billy Rose Theatre Division,The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

That's her on the right, by the way.

If you can't make your way over to the West Side by October 10, then download a brochure or just peruse Judy Samelson's exhaustive summary of the exhibit and of Kate's extensive credits and lovely anecdotes.

Ohio Theatre Update

No, not the state. The downtown NYC alt-theatre fixture.

After facing near-foreclosure, looks like they're hanging on for at least another year. "Speaking for myself, notwithstanding everything that’s happened in the past year, I’m basically upbeat about things,," he tells Time Out, while also previewing this summer's installment of the always-anticipated Ice Factory festival.

What? A Panel About Theatre Blogging?

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday!

Another panel discussion of blogging, theatre, and the interwebs. Featuring yours truly, Parabasis' Isaac Butler, and Time Out's Helen Shaw. Moderating us (though not to the point of moderation, I hope) will be the Times' Erik Piepenburg, who I must say has done an outstanding job giving the paper's theatre page a real web presence, with nifty features like the "slideshows."

So come to CUNY next Wednesday, July 8 at 6:30. And be ready to rumble.

Meanwhile, you can check out the latestissue of American Theatre for a transcript of a similarly-themed CUNY panel earlier this year about the future of theatre journalism ("Criticism in Flux"). Lots of talk about blogging. No bloggers on the panel. Hm.

Oh, and the transcipt isn't posted on their website. So you'll have to buy the mag. How apropos, in a way.

Karl Malden

Malden as Mitch. Definitive.

Not to make this Obituary Central here, but Karl Malden has now passed, and I find it amazing to think what a link he was, at 97, back to a great theatrical heritage. Known from movies, of course (and American Express commercials), remember too that he was the original Mitch in the play Streetcar (not just the film) and also had a brief role in the original 1937 Golden Boy in the Group Theatre, with which he apprenticed.

Rest in peace Mladen Sekulovich of Gary, Indiana...

NEA Update

House of Representatives has ok'd a nearly-10% increase for NEA funding. (up to a whopping $170 mil.) Now over to the Senate.

Where's Rocco?

And where's Al Franken??? We kinda need that 60th vote now...

Pina Bausch

German choreographer Pina Bausch, one of the world's foremost figures in dance-theatre (and who basically defined that genre over the last quarter-century) has just died at 68.

Critic Sues Actor

But not for any reasons you might guess.

You may recall that New Yorker Magazine critic, and prolific author, John Lahr collaborated with Elaine Stritch a few years back on her Tony-winning one-woman show (or "Special Theatrical Event") At Liberty. His official title was not playwright but, "constructed by...", reflecting, I guess, some unique dramaturgical process. To make matters worse, the final Broadway credit (after the downtown Public Theatre permiere) appended the line: "reconstructed by Elaine Stritch."

Well such vagueness has come back to haunt him, it seems, since Stritch (who is now about 102, I think) has continued to play the show periodically. So Lahr is suing for any unpaid royalties due a regular playwright for these subsequent performances.

Yet another risk of critics collaborating with artists. Still, will be interesting to read the next Lahr review of a Stritch appearance! (Or a super "up close and personal" version of one of his signature extended "profile" essays.)

Further details from NY Post.

Post Mortem

Theatre managers take note. Boston Globe gives the rundown on what went wrong at the now-defunct North Shore Music Theatre.

Seems to me something's wrong when the only thing keeping you afloat is High School Musical 2.

Regionals in the Recession, cont.

AP's Michael Kuchwara takes a look at yet more theaters around the country (yea, the continent--okay, not Mexico) struggling to keep afloat in trying economic times.

One common problem:

"We are finding that people are waiting to make their decisions," says Antoni Cimolino, Stratford's general director. "People are buying later. It's really created an uncertainty in advance..."

Well, duh.

Indeed a problem for subscription-based companies, founded on that principle and who have no other business model. But is this going to work?

At the Utah Shakespeare Festival, there's an "Early Bard" special to entice theatergoers into buying tickets in advance - the farther in the future, the bigger the discount.

Early BARD, get it?

Hanne Hiob

Interesting Brecht footnote...

Hanne Hiob, Brecht's daughter from his first marriage (to Marianne Zoff), just died. She was born in 1923, just as Brecht's career was taking off.

She went on to become an actress herself and, after retirement, a peace activist.

Shake-Ups

Don't want to read too much into this, but couldn't help noticing two high-profile departures of bigtime nonprofit Managing Directors.

Rob Orchard has been at Boston's ART, like, forever. (30 years) And he's probably been the glue that's held that place together through all the many leadership changes since Robert Brustein left a decade ago. And now he's leaving just as a new Artistic Director, Diane Paulus, comes in. All sounds very amicable, but still, quite a changing of the guard.

And here in NY, Second Stage is losing its Exec Direct. Ellen Richard, just as the small troupe has taken on the burden of occupying a Broadway house! (Soon to be the former Helen Hayes.) Richard previously navigated the Roundabout's rise from quaint little rep company to B'way behemoth, so no doubt she was to be instrumental in this transition. Yet another ominous sign over at 2nd Stage that begs the question: why do this?

Bill Ivey

"The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage--the expressive life of America."

Provocative words from Bill Ivey, NEA Chair under Clinton. (No, not William Ivey Long, the costume designer.)

Douglas McLennan has posted a revealing interview with him about his hopes and fears for the Endowment under Obama. And some behind-the-scenes views of the congressional sausage-making that forever stymies any national arts support.

Meanwhile, take a look, over in France, at a real "culture minister"--a gay activist filmmaker who happens to be the nephew of former President Francois Mitterand!

As if "In My Life" Wasn't Bad Enough

The world will little note nor long remember the hilariously disastrous vanity musical In My Life that some hack Hollywood songwriter put on Broadway a few years back. (Which didn't prevent NYT Arts & Leisure back then from doing their usual glossy feature.)

Well now one Joseph Brooks is in the news again for quite different reasons, such as 11 counts of rape and/or sexual assault against young actresses he was claiming to be "auditioning."

Sorry, allegedly, of course.

While identifying Brooks as, yes, the Oscar-winning composer of "You Light Up My Life" today's article sadly forgets his onetime contribution to Broadway musical theatre.

Aside from his personal assistant, a young woman herself, being implicated as an accomplice (we all knew those personal assistant jobs could get yucky, still...) the highlight of the police report has got to be:

Lt. Adam Lamboy, the commanding officer of the Police Department’s Manhattan Special Victims Squad...said they [the victims] recounted that Mr. Brooks would have them engage in a role, such as a prostitute, and to enhance their seductive manner, he would ply them with wine.

“At this time, we don’t believe this was an actual movie role he was casting for,” the lieutenant said.

No kidding.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, I wish the victims well in their ongoing recovery and want to remind all young performers out there...please don't answer (let alone fly in for) casting calls on Craigslist.

Review: Axis Company's "Hospital 2009"

Beam me outta here. Axis Company's "Hospital 2009."
Photo: Dixie Sheridan.

I suppose the downtown Axis Company has kind of a cult following, with, among other ventures, their annual "Hospital" staged mini-series. Nice idea. At least I thought until I saw it for this week's Voice.

Patti fights back

Against the NY Times, and against YOU the audience. That is, if you're one of those folks snapping pics of her or texting through her show.

Dear Dave Itzkoff,

Your story about my stopping my concert in Las Vegas on the New York Times ArtsBeat blog was forwarded to me.

I found the tone of your report very snide and feel compelled to write you to ask – what do expect me, or any performer for that matter, to do?

Do we allow our rights to be violated (photography, filming and audio taping of performances is illegal) or tolerate rudeness by members of the audience who feel they have the right to sit in a dark theater, texting or checking their e-mail while the light from their screens distract both performers and the audience alike? Or, should I stand up for my rights as a performer as well as the audiences I perform for?

And do you think I’m alone in this? Ask any performer on Broadway right now about their level of frustration with this issue. Ask the actor in “Hair” who recently grabbed a camera out of an audience member’s hand and threw it across the stage. Or ask the two Queens in “Mary Stuart” (Harriet Walter and Janet McTeer) how they react to it.

Good for her.

And here's some audio of her in action during Gypsy, mid-"Rose's Turn."



A show in itself.

Regionals in the Recession

Leonard Jacobs surveys the health of some regional theatres with some reported financial woes in troubled times.

In short, San Francisco's Magic & Chicago's About Face: still afloat.

But since Leonard's piece...

MA's North Shore Music Fest: kaput.

New Haven's Long Wharf: downsizing.

Off B'way: Bigger than Coney Island!

Kudos to the fledgling "Off-Broadway Alliance" for taking a page out of the Broadway League and advancing the field's interests in the media and lobbying. They have a report out showing just how big an audience does indeed attend non-Tony eligible productions.

The report, released by the Off Broadway Alliance, found that shows produced in theaters with fewer than 500 seats bring more than $461 million in direct and indirect revenue to the Big Apple. During the 2007/2008 season, 5.47 million tickets were sold at off-Broadway theaters worth a total of $173 million. The tallies included data from both commercial and non-profit off-Broadway productions.

The impact is small in comparison with the Great White Way, which contributes $5.1 billion to the economy. But the numbers show that off-Broadway is a greater economic force than a number of other local attractions. Off-Broadway productions were attended by 1.7 million more people than visited the Empire State Building, 1.2 million more than visited the Statue of Liberty, and 2 million more than Coney Island, according to the report.

Let's see, 5 million tickets, divided by x number of 500-seat-or-less houses...that's enough to fill over 10,000* Off-Broadway theaters! On at least one night, that is.

I hope that stat means something. Does it?

*Rob Kendt is right. I suck at math.

"Special Theatrical Events" No Longer So Special

Bad news for Carrie Fisher, the Ballroom Dance extravaganza Burn the Floor ("conceived five years ago at a 50th birthday party for composer Elton John", and any other foreign freakshow or celebrity vanity monologue looking for an easy Tony nomination: there won't be any Special Theatrical Event award category any more.

That's the one Liza Minnelli took away this year from Will Ferrell's grotesque George W., scarily flexible Chinese acrobats, and a sad Russian clown with makeup more frightening than Liza's.

New NEA Report

The NEA just released a new study of US arts audiences, and the news is pretty much the usual "audiences getting grayer"/"income going down" variety. But I find many of the theatre-related findings surprisingly positive--only in that they show things not getting that much worse yet than they've been the last two decades.

(Full 16-page report is downloadable for free. Or read NEA's quick summary. Note that survey focused on the period May 2007-May 2008. So that's just before the recession really set in.)

For instance:

-Good News/Bad News: As the above graph illustrates, only 20% of Americans went at least once to the theatre in the twelve months before May, 2008. But we sure beat ballet and opera! In fact we're second only to museums in overall "arts attendance."

-Contrary to the general impression, this figure has actually not changed much in the last 25 years. Dividing all their theatre stats (probably wisely) between musicals and plays, NEA looks back at previous surveys going back to 1982 survey and finds that 18% of the population back then reported going to at least one musical (compared with 16% in '08) and only 12%, even back then, to a play (compared with 9.4% now). The percentages say that's a 10% decline in musical attendance and, yes, 20% for plays, but still, when you look at the absolute numbers, it hasn't gotten much worse.

-Age: NEA breaks down these attendance figures by age-group and finds similar modest decline/holding patterns across the board. But wouldn't ya know it the steepest decline is among middle aged folks (45-54) going to plays! From 15.2% in 1982 to only 8.7%. That's almost half. But that was back in '08 and perhaps God of Carnage has redressed that now singlehandedly. (Completely sold out after the Tonys, btw.)

As for how old the audience is NEA looks at "medians" instead of "averages," which, as your middle school math teacher told you, is not the same thing. It's nice to learn that the median theatre attendee back in '82 was just 39. (That is, still in their thirties!) Now it's 45-47, for musicals and plays, respectively. Still younger than we'd guess based on what we hear. However, remember that "median" means just as many in the group below that number as above. (Right, Mr. Hertz?) So, seems to me, we don't necessarily have a healthy bunch of fortysomethings in our theatres. That number could just as well result from 50% senior citizens, 25% tweens and 25% toddlers, right? (Which certainly must be the forumla keeping The Little Mermaid going, I imagine.)

-Class: NEA measures the class makeup of the audience basically by tracking for "Education." Which leads to neatly predictable graphs like this, for overall arts attendance:

But breaking the numbers down more specifically reveals at least one more surprising (and disturbing) trend: a real decline over the years in theatre attendance by the entire "college educated" demographic as a whole. (Including advanced degrees.) In other words: our core demographic, supposedly.

In 1982 40.5% of US college grads attended at least a musical, 30% a play. By the '07-'08 season that was almost down to 32% for musicals (a 20% falloff) and 20% for plays (basically one-third lower). Not. Good. News.

Conclusion? Well here's a radical one: maybe we shouldn't consider upper-class highly-educated our core audience anymore? Problem is, though, they're who tickets are priced for. At the current ticket values, they're the only ones who can afford theatre. And they not coming as much anymore. So...who's got a new business model?

David Hare: Man of the Moment

Well whatever one might have thought about Stuff Happens or his occasional first-person "monologues" (like the recent--and unreviewed!--Berlin/Wall, which I missed), you gotta give David Hare credit for staying current.

His latest, The Power of Yes: A dramatist seeks to understand the financial crisis, seems very much along the lines of Stuff Happens in its methodology and is described thusly:

As sub-prime mortgages and toxic securities continued to dominate the headlines,
the National Theatre asked Hare to write an urgent and immediate work to be
staged this autumn that sought to find out what had happened, and why. After meeting with many of the key players from the financial world, he has created this work, which is described as "not so much a play as a jaw-dropping account of how, as the banks went bust, capitalism was replaced by a socialism that bailed out the rich alone."

Actually, maybe the credit should go to the National. They're certainly not shy in using the power of "commissioning." And while it would be nice to give that job to a less overexposed playwright...maybe someone on these shores will take up that idea?

In the Company of Neil LaBute

David Ng at LA Times claims there's more than meets the eye behind MCC's recent cancellation of a new Neil LaBute play next season. Just when many here have been wondering if MCC had any other raison d'etre other than to give Monsieur La B a carte blanche platform for anything he scribbled... it looks like a falling out has ensued over the aftermath of the unsuccessful (and just shuttered) B'way transfer of Reasons to be Pretty.

"The Break of Noon" was set to open the MCC's 2009-10 season after being
bumped from its original spring 2009 slot.... A spokesman for MCC said that the
play is finished but that the theater has decided to cancel its planned
production for September. When asked why the theater has canceled the play, the
spokesman only said, "We have no comment."

Reached by phone, LaBute said that "The Break of Noon" isn't finished yet
and that he plans to write at least one more draft. He said his commitments to
his most recent movie projects and the Broadway run of his drama "reasons to be
pretty" have prevented him from completing the play.

So MCC pulled the plug when they got exasperated with the playwright's tardiness? Or LaBute let the clock run out so he can take the play elsewhere? (He will instead premiere the play, The Break of Noon, in London, another favorite launching pad of his.) Did the small Off B'way company of modest means decide to dump their cash cow out of principle? Or did LaBute--as close to a "star" as American playwrights get these days--get tired of owing anything to such a meager operation.

Not that this answers anything (ahem) but coincidentally today Riedel also reports that LaBute is prepping a new Broadway production of another show MCC first premiered downtown, Fat Pig, starring...Ashton Kutcher.

Jude's Dane

In case you're wondering, here's a handy roundup of what the London critics thought of Jude Law's Hamlet, recently opened in a Donmar Warehouse production.

Most pithy summation goes to David Jays who dubs it the "Hugo Boss Hamlet."