Shakespeare in the Park sponsors withdraw funding

It's pathetic.

Interesting. Piers Morgan is going on about it on Twitter. (I don't follow him but others are quoting his tweets.)

As said above, the setting of this is a bit too easy and just trying to be provocative.

It's interesting that Bank of America is only withdrawing sponsoring the production rather than the theatre itself whereas Delta is withdrawing as a sponsor of the theatre. I'm sure The Public will be able to find another sponsor to fill the gap left by Delta.

Absolutely they do - but what does that imply for theatremakers? We've seen an increasing reliance on commercial sponsorship over the years. If sponsoring a ticket-access scheme means that the brand has to be concerned about the content of the play reflecting on them - rather than taking the view that it's always good for the brand to be associated with artistic philanthropy and expression - do theatremakers start to self-censor?

It's not like productions of Shakespeare (or other classic plays!) with contemporary political references are anything new. We've all seen productions make those references.

They have displayed a stunning inability to separate fiction from reality, no undertanding of the purpose of the arts, and no small amount of cowardice and childishness with this decision - Delta in particular in withdrawing from the theatre as a whole.

Dressed like Trump with a wig, a gold bathtub, and a wife with a foreign accent and designer clothes.

Didn't the Adrian Lester Henry V use video footage of Bush?

Isn't part of the problem that some theatre-makers want too much money and therefore sponsorshp rather than desirable becomes essential? I am of course not talking about the people on Equity minimum but some of the startling prices for straight plays with small casts and little or no scenery leads me to suspect that some actors are making loadsamoney.

Some of them go on to complain about the high cost of theatre tickets.

Michael Cooper‏Verified account @coopnytimes

Unusual night at Shakespeare in the Park @publictheaterny for "Julius Caesar." I was there. Here's what happened.

Heavy police presence outside the Delacorte Theater. Two guys were protesting the show, one had a "Boo the Cast" sign. They were outnumbered

by pro-show counter-protesters, one of whom had a "Make America Literate Again" sign...

Right after the Trump-like Caesar was assassinated, a woman with blond hair, dressed in black, rushed the stage

"Stop the normalization of political violence against the right," she cried, stopping the show. A voice called for security.

A young man seemed to be filming her on his phone. When she was ushered out he stood and told the audience "You are all Goebbels!"

A voice, presumably of the stage manager, gave the cast their cue: she told them to pick up at "Liberty! Freedom!" The audience cheered.

But the woman's screams outside the theater could be heard through the next scene.

Before the funeral scene, this production has the outraged Plebeians come from the seats of the audience. Each time one got up...

With a (planned) outburst, you could feel the audience tense up. And the staged mob scenes led to higher adrenaline levels than usual.

When the show ended -- badly for the conspirators! -- the audience cheered the cast heartily.

Here's the @jwpetersnyt story on one of the protesters, Jack Posobiec , a pizzagate conspiracy theorist www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/comey-fake-news-twitterposobiec.html …

Contrary to what he wrote on Twitter, I heard *no one* in the audience cheer when Caesar was slain.

They should copy what happened and redo it every night.

There is, of course, a long history of Shakespeare being used for insurrectionary purposes, starting with the Earl of Essex and his failed rebellion, the day after a performance of Richard II was put on at The Globe that he'd paid for. More recently, in the last gasp of the eighties, the role of Hamlet in the fall of Ceaucescu is well documented.

Assassins is being remounted by Encores in New York in July. You can guess what the response will be....

Personally, I think having the play feature a Trump type character is a great idea. I'd love to see Jesus Christ Superstar with a Jeremy Corbyn type figure as Jesus, Trump and May as Caiphas and Annus, Boris Johnson as Herod.

F****** morons.