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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 22, 2019 23:42:59 GMT
I have to admit that's not quite what I expected her highly anticipated first post-Donmar project to be.
I recall her tweeting earlier this year about James Graham being late with a draft he owed her, which sparked speculation that they're working on some future project.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 22, 2019 23:40:36 GMT
That quote is rather high. I could name many successful fringe productions made for a budget of a tenth that, mainly venues that offer box office split rather than hire fees. On the other hand I know two people who've recently had to turn down offers from the notoriously expensive Park (whose weekly venue hire is £4750 to 503's £1500, albeit Park is larger) due to not getting their ACE funding. It's a tough old world. There must be a huge shortage of venues and huge demand for theatre companies wanting to put on shows to inflate these hire prices. This exactly. And 503 are on the cheaper end of the scale.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 20, 2019 10:29:56 GMT
Learning lines is a skill that develops though practice. When I was acting regularly I could read a monologue through twice and it would stick.
Some actors like to be off-book prior to rehearsals but most directors don’t like this, because of the risk the lines get stuck in a certain way that isn’t necessarily the way the director intended. Generally you learn lines during rehearsals just by doing them over and over.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 16, 2019 16:34:21 GMT
They're casting to do Six on one of those big cruise ship lines, Norwegian I think. Another step towards Six' world domination!
My only cruising experience (ahem) has been the ferry to Calais which was sadly light in the entertainment category.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 15, 2019 17:06:23 GMT
I'm not generally a huge fan of musicals but I have to admit that Six the Musical: the Cruise intrigues me.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 12, 2019 12:16:45 GMT
The Death of a Salesman SO Nash witnessed was at press night, so no one in the audience had paid for their ticket. Press nights are a world unto their own.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 4, 2019 10:57:10 GMT
Make me enjoy being part of the world of the play. Make me feel like I'm happy just to be in that world and in the presence of those characters, and would like to watch them even if they were not doing anything.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 23, 2019 22:05:11 GMT
I’ve heard excellent things about the TV adaptation.
Tentatively scheduled for Christmas iirc.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 22, 2019 16:10:57 GMT
There’s major new work in development right now, programmed for next year. Not sure if that’s intentional or not to alternate new work with all Shakespeare seasons. They’re certainly hoping next year’s production will be the new Emilia.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 21, 2019 13:51:25 GMT
Group of women at Toast last night took one of the bags of sweeties going round and KEPT it (you're supposed to take one then pass the bag on).
A different woman tried valiantly to start a one-woman clap-along to one of the songs playing at the beginning of the play which is actually slightly endearing.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 18, 2019 12:34:33 GMT
Saw it last night and really didn’t think it was that bad. Though I’m ignorant about musicals generally.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 1, 2019 11:35:09 GMT
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 31, 2019 13:16:45 GMT
Measured response.
The issue with the "surely plays should be judged on merit" argument is that it ignores the reality of how plays get produced. Almost all productions at major theatres are the result of commissions (or transfers or co-productions). It's incredibly rare for a major production house to greenlight an unsolicited script. Even if an unsolicited script does spark interest, plays go through years of workshopping and R&D before they're actually put on.
The NT Studio (the NT's new play pathway) commissions 65-70 new plays a year (and at any time will also have around 80 other new plays in some stage of development). Only a handful will ever make it to stage. What do you think the chances are that a non-commissioned spec script by a new writer will be able to leapfrog ahead of those 150 plays, plus anything new from the likes of Hare and Graham et al, plus all the plays sent in from the hundreds of playwrights they have preexisting relationships with?
The point of unsolicited submission policies or windows is not to find plays to produce. The reason new writing theatres read unsolicited submissions is so they can meet and start to build relationships with new and emerging writers, with the hope that one day years down the line that relationship will result in a commission. The reason writers submit spec scripts is the same. It's intended as a calling card and a foot in the door, nothing more. Unless a script wins a major award, the only realistic way to get a non-commissioned play on is to get funding and self-produce on the festival circuit or somewhere like Park, Kings Head or TS.
So the issue is not "how do theatres judge plays that have already been written." The issue is "how do theatres decide which playwrights to commission."
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 30, 2019 21:26:09 GMT
They're currently casting for a large-ish ensemble to multi-role.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 30, 2019 12:37:59 GMT
Scripts are not chosen based on merit, and the well-studied and researched concept of "subconscious bias" is neither nebulous nor unverifiable. I am very “sure” the big producing houses won’t pass over a great script because they are written by a lady, that even comes with zero experience. Your posts are very sweet, but incredibly naive. The chance of a script by an inexperienced female writer even being read is slim. Only a handful of theatres have truly open submission policies (the Court does, of course) but generally they won't programme work by a writer unfamiliar to them, regardless of quality. That's simply not how programming works.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 30, 2019 10:46:17 GMT
If you'd sat in on as many literary department and artistic director meetings as I have, you would not be so dismissive in your certainty that there is no agenda or quota. I don’t doubt you at all, but I’d be interested to know what that agenda is then. I think most of us - or at least I do - just find it entirely alien to dismiss someones work entirely on the basis of their sex. Though as a Potterhead I know there has to be something to it - even Joanne Rowling had to change her name to J.K.Rowling because her publishers said boys won’t buy books written by girls. But at least those were kids - I can’t apply the same logic to adults and theatre. I saw Sondheim at the NT earlier this evening and I got talking to a friend afterwards about female composers and deciding that it’s strange a female composer has never really emerged as a household name as familiar as Hammerstein, Sondheim, Lloyd-Weber. Even Sondheim name dropped a lot of his writing collaborators and as far as I recall they were all men too. Primarily subconscious bias I think. I am sure the National Theatre literary department would just judge the hundred of scripts they get on just one criteria. You are wrong. You seem very "sure" about things you have zero experience of.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 30, 2019 0:13:10 GMT
Women make up 50% of the population. It's insane how much of a disparity there is, and the idea that gender equality is a one-off thing, that they can cart a load of "lady writers" in for one season before returning to business as usual shows how deeply entrenched sexism is. This ballyhoo on lady writers blows up again, that article by the BBC makes it sound there is a conspiracy against the ladies. Sure if they want more lady writers then they need to write decent plays that get picked up, there has never been a limit/quota on male/female. Almeida to be ultra pc and jump on the bandwagon did a lady season recently and their commissioned play The Writer was simply atrocious. Equality should come about by quality and that is how I it should be, the gold standard. But that's simply not true. The argument that "if women playwrights are being overlooked it's obviously because they're just not writing decent plays" is absolute, total tosh. There are many, many wonderful plays that never get read because female writers are so overlooked. Female-authored plays that are massive hits on the fringe or festival circuit struggle to get transfers, where half-decent middling male-authored plays get snapped up. Male playwrights with a couple of okay fringe productions get offered large spaces, commissions, screen deals and agent representation far more and far faster than female playwrights with more substantial records (who are usually marginalised to studio spaces). And God knows there's plenty of utter dross by male writers that go straight to the Olivier or West End simply because of the name and status of the person involved. If you'd sat in on as many literary department and artistic director meetings as I have, you would not be so dismissive in your certainty that there is no agenda or quota. This is not a specifically female thing, but last year I personally witnessed a DepAD say, "This is a fantastic play, but the playwright is disabled and we've already fulfilled our minority quota with [play from an Asian writer]". Making explicitly clear that they would not programme more than one play by someone they perceived as "a minority" in one season, regardless of quality.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 30, 2019 0:04:58 GMT
www.equity.org.uk/media/1368/right-to-rest-holiday-pay-guide.pdfI think it's one of those things where actors assume they're not entitled, and the culture of not taking time off (and resultant peer pressure) is so strong, it probably doesn't come up much. I've not come across an actor asking for holiday, unless it's a very long running show.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 29, 2019 22:03:57 GMT
I know more people in regular jobs who have taken time off with mental health/anxiety issues, than performers. Performers ignoring or being pressured to ignore mental health issues is a real problem in the industry. Does anyone know if La Lansbury missed any Blithe Spirit performances? I saw it twice and she was FABULOUS both times (OBVIOUSLY). I think the understudy was Sandra Dickinson, whose voice makes me want to shoot my own ears off. She didn't (and Dickinson edited her own Wikipedia page to add a load of obsequious gush along the lines of, "Which Sandra was thrilled for, being a huge fan of Angela Lansbury and content just to watch and learn from the wings").
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 27, 2019 12:03:18 GMT
Apparently involves a lot of music, movement, and devising. So we can watch people throwing shapes on the Olivier for nearly four hours. Still better that than four hours of Hare's dialogue. /slaps hand/
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 22, 2019 17:37:41 GMT
God why would you?
David Sedaris wrote a hilarious pastiche of an NY Times-style review of a school Nativity play once.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 20, 2019 23:32:27 GMT
Exceptional. Not flashy or gimmicky but immaculately written and performed.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 20, 2019 23:24:53 GMT
Crikey why is it always James G, possibly the nicest man in theatre, who gets it in the neck on Twitter?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 20, 2019 23:06:47 GMT
Dramatic irony: when the first scene of a play has an emotional monologue intentionally interrupted by a character's phone ringing, and the last emotional monologue (of the first half at any rate) is unintentionally interrupted by an audience member's phone ringing. (Downstate NT.)
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Mar 20, 2019 14:55:44 GMT
I'm not condoning it but I looked at the Twitter account in question and there are apparently serious mental health issues at play.
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