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Sci-fi merchandise banned from Hamlet
Star Trek and Doctor Who fans will be banned from asking Patrick Stewart or David Tennant to sign sci-fi related merchandise while they star in a stage production of Hamlet. The RSC-run production has attracted a huge amount of interest as a result of its cult stars but hopes to keep the show focused Shakespeare rather that Star Treck or Doctor Who. The stars will still be allowed to sign RSC or Shakespeare related memorabilia. Star Trek and Doctor Who fans will be banned from asking Patrick Stewart or David Tennant to sign sci-fi related merchandise while the... more
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Supperclub
Supperclub is a global restaurant chain with roots in Amsterdam. Put simply, it is a multi-sensory fine dining experience.
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Worst break-ups ever turned into a play: are yours as dramatic?
Ok, so it’s not high on the 'lots of wars, lots of conflict' news agenda, but it is proper interesting. And it has a topical peg and everything.
When the Bush Theatre asked people to share their worst break-up experiences, it was inundated with replies. Now those stories have become a play, '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover', which will debut at Latitude festival this weekend.
Ranging from the flippant one-line kiss-off to the tender conclusion of a quarter-century of marriage, a four-strong cast, two women and two men, including Ralf Little, best known as The Royle Family's Anthony, will race through 50 break-ups in as many minutes in a lo-fi production that was originally commissioned for Latitude Festival. Sounds like fun!
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, a kind of Bayeux Tapestry of broken hearts, features the much-loved/hated clichés ("Let's just be friends", "I'm not ready for a relationship" etc) but also some spectacularly inventive excuses for waving goodbye. Who, for example, could argue with the following? "Yeah, I see a future for us, but it's more a global warming and climate catastrophe sort of vision. So I'm going take some preventative measures. For the sake of the planet."
What about the cad who dumped his lady via his Facebook status? Or the girl who was charmed by the love token of a hand-made teddy bear, only to discover that it growled, "you're dumped. And I want my CDs back" when she squeezed its tummy? Or the charmer ended it all "three days before the wedding.... I told her I was gay... It wasn't very nice..."
So go on, let it all out. What are your worst break-up stories?
Ok, so it’s not high on the 'lots of wars, lots of conflict' news agenda, but it is proper interesting. And it has a topical peg and e... more -
Germaine Greer furious at play based on her life by 'insane reactionary'
Feminist academic Germaine Greer has branded the writer of a comic play reportedly based on aspects of her life an "insane reactionary" who "holds feminism in contempt".
Her wrath was provoked by Joanna Murray-Smith's The Female of the Species, which pokes fun at militant feminism and questions whether ideological extremes stand up to the rigours of real life.
Ms Greer, who became a household name in the 1970s with the publication of her groundbreaking book The Female Eunuch, described The Female of the Species as "threadbare" and was said to have declined an invitation to its first night, and returned a copy of the script unread.
Although the characters are fictional, the play kicks off with an incident similar to one experienced by Ms Greer in 2000, when Karen Burke, a 19-year-old Bath University student obsessed with Ms Greer's work, broke into her house in Saffron Walden, Essex, tied her up and held her captive for an hour. Ms Greer was released after friends arriving at the house for dinner called the police after hearing shouting. Ms Burke later received two years' probation after admitting a charge of harassment.
In the play, a student called Molly holds hostage a feminist writer called Margot Mason. "Men aren't our problem – old feminists are," says Molly.
Ms Murray-Smith said her play was not a "character portrait" of Ms Greer, but the academic countered: "Why do the production team and the writer keep on referring to me, Germaine Greer, if they say it is not Greer they're writing about?" She told The Sunday Times: "Murray-Smith is an insane reactionary who boasts that she has not read a single feminist text. She holds feminism in contempt."
Ms Murray-Smith said: "I'm sorry she has formed that opinion of me without having met me or read my work. It would take a braver woman than me to write about Greer directly. However, my Margot does have many of Greer's characteristics. Both are charismatic, outrageous and irritating."
The Molly character was created to explore "what happens to the fans who find that the intellectuals they admire then renege on their one-time beliefs", she said, adding: "Despite what Greer says, I am a feminist."
Does a play or a film have to actually name a person for it to be clear that the central character is based on them? If your life is on public display, do you have the right to complain when people explore it, even in fiction? Is that the problem for feminism today - that old and modern feminists just can't agree, so end up getting nowhere? And can the hip young things responding to this possibly bear to discuss feminism without mentioning hairy lesbians, ugly bitter women or social outcasts...?
Feminist academic Germaine Greer has branded the writer of a comic play reportedly based on aspects of her life an "insane reactionary... more -
Pretending Trees performance workshop 2
Sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, Richmond, VA June 2, 2008
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Pretending Trees performance workshop
Sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, Richmond, VA June 2, 2008
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Joe Carlson, part 3
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad St., Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Joe Carlson, part 2
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad St., Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Joe Carlson, part 1
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad St., Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Critique of Lelia Pendleton's piece
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad St., Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Lelia Pendleton, part 3
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad St., Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Lelia Pendleton, part 2
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad Street, Richmond, VA June 2, 2008
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Lelia Pendleton, part 1
Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad Street, Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008 Pretending Trees performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad Street, Richmond, VA, June 2, 200... more
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Al Strickland at Pretending Trees, part 3
Performance workshop sponsored by Yellow House at the Firehouse Theatre, West Broad St., Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Al Strickland at Pretending Trees, part 2
Pretending Trees performance workshop, Firehouse Theatre, West Broad Street, Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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Al Strickland at Pretending Trees, part 1
Pretending Trees performance workshop, Firehouse Theatre, West Broad Street, Richmond, VA, June 2, 2008
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What have the Roman's ever given us?
Gary Beach stars as King Arthur in Spamalot, the goofy musical lifted by Eric Idle (or, as he puts it, "lovingly ripped off") from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. What was once a low-budget cult movie starring Idle and his fellow Flying Circus freaks is now a big-bucks Broadway musical, playing until July 27 at The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. Gary Beach stars as King Arthur in Spamalot, the goofy musical lifted by Eric Idle (or, as he puts it, "lovingly ripped off") from Mon... more
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Bard on the Beach
A Wild West take on Shakespeare by Bard on the Beach and a trip to the trenches of the First World War for the Playhouse Theatre Company helped those troupes trot home the big winners at Monday night's celebration of the 26th annual Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. A Wild West take on Shakespeare by Bard on the Beach and a trip to the trenches of the First World War for the Playhouse Theatre Compa... more
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Can We Talk About Black Theatre? (And how well will we listen?)
"If a black person produces something such as a play, a film or music should it be associated with the word black?" asks playwright Bola Agbaje, author of Gone Too Far! which returns to the Royal Court in July.
This well-written and researched article examines current trends regarding so-called "black theatre" in Britain. Does labeling a play as "black," "gay," "Muslim," or "radical" help to put them in context? Or does it create a segregation of sorts? And also, how do these subcultures of theatre change our definition of what we concider "mainstream?" "If a black person produces something such as a play, a film or music should it be associated with the word black?" asks playwright Bo... more
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