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Don Quixote / Baryshnikov, Harvey, American Ballet Theatre

With so much content beaming freely across the web, consumers have never had such unfettered access to entertainment. Dilating bandwiths have meant data transfers have shrunk to infinitesimal speeds and, as entire fleets of pirate P2P websites and media data streamers career off all over the place, the notion of actually paying for entertainment is quickly becoming rather odious.

With a West End theatre seat costing you easily in excess of 20GBP, the economic future of live drama is looking decidedly well, shaky. Pair this with the increasing dependence that West End shows have on celebrity and many have forecasted murky waters ahead.

Matt Wolf from the Guardian describes the recent Hollywood invasion of the West End as the “visiting celebrity cavalcade” come to rescue the dwindling audiences dribbling through the gate. A few years ago, Sheriden Morley described in the New York Times how the influx of celebrity had “turned London audiences, once the best and most perceptive in the world, into mindless stargazers.”

Pretty stern stuff isn’t it? But then, that might not be the whole story. After all, can we really declare that traditional theatre has lost its bite?

It certainly hadn’t just over ten years ago, when Sarah Kane’s Blasted premiered at the Royal Court. The fury that splashed over the front pages of nearly every national newspaper the next morning was burnt into the mind of anyone that dared to assume that theatre had lost its power to shock. The violence in the play is no worse than is found in the tamest of Tarantino flicks so why the outrage?

Quite simply, in the cinema, on television or on DVD, the action happens elsewhere, in a shifting world behind a screen. In the theatre, the action is right in front of you; you can hear it, feel it and, if you were really so inclined, you could reach out and touch it. You can watch actors enact the most brutal or intimate scenes on hi-res plasma screens anywhere, but only in the theatre can they watch you right back.

What’s more, It might not just be the available ‘experience’ that saddles defiantly in theatre’s corner. Theatre, it seems, has quietly started embedding itself within popular culture. Although slightly fewer than its predecessors, Ofcom insists that the BBC’s hunt to cast a new West End version of Oliver!, “I’d Do Anything”, steadily attracts over 5 million viewers. Match this with the recent crop of copycat shows like “Hairspray: The School Musical”, which is currently preparing to air on SkyOne, and it may look like there’s fight in the old girl yet.

To many, theatre may not seem like the most viable economic prospect; who would want to pay for entertainment when they can get huge budget content streamed to their home for next to nothing? But then that may be the whole point, where as ‘content’ can be zipped, transfered and then unzipped at any computer the world over, theatre cannot.

Theatre will be affected by technological advances, of course it will, and it may need to change in order to progress, but it cannot be trampled over by the digital stampede because it is a totally different entertainment animal. Streamers may supersede television schedules and force licence fee funded institutions into remission, but it cannot replace what it cannot do to begin with. Theatre is temporal, magical, immediate, personal and not, under any circumstances, available to download.

westendtheatre.com rounds up what looks hot in London theatre in 2009

If theatre mirrors life then you would expect 2009 to be a bad year for the performing arts in London: economic downturns and credit crunches sound like gloomy news for our discretionary entertainment spending. But West End theatre box office figures have kept on going up in recent years, and the huge number of new productions sailing into town during 2009 could mean that Theatreland manages to buck the trend.

THE GREAT REVIVAL

The RSC, National Theatre, Donmar and Old Vic dominated straight drama in the West End in 2008, and they haven’t finished yet. Big hitters coming to town include Judi Dench in the Donmar in the West End’s Madame de Sade at the Wyndhams; Jude Law offering us his, hopefully fighting fit, Hamlet; Gillian Anderson in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Donmar Warehouse; and a number of crowd-pleasing revivals at the Old Vic, no more so than Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel’s hugely successful play starring Andrea Corr, and Sam Mendes directing Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, both featuring Simon Russell Beale and Sinead Cusack.

STAR POWER

Other stars shimmying into town include Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket, Ken Stott in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York’s, heavy-hitter Pete Postlethwaite as King Lear at the Young Vic, and Antony Sher giving us his Prospero in the RSC’s The Tempest. The Gavin and Stacey phenomenon continues to roll on, as we see Joe Orton’s delicious romp Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Trafalgar Studios starring Gavin himself, Matthew Horne, alongside Imelda Staunton; whilst Gavin’s onscreen Mum Alison Steadman plays a barking Leeds housewife in Alan Bennett’s Enjoy at the Gielgud Theatre.

NEW PLAYS

The sharp eyed amongst you will notice that all of these plays are revivals rather than new work, keeping audiences firmly in their comfort zones. That said, new plays may be thin on the ground but not absent all together, with the National offering up Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice, following two lovers across four centuries, and Samuel Adamson’s Mrs Affleck set in the 1950s. Jez Butterworth has two new plays in pre-production, with comedy Parlour Song at the Almeida and Jerusalem at the Royal Court. Also at the Royal Court, Mark Ravenhill will bring his new play Over There. Plus Hollywood man of the moment James McAvoy is to star in Richard Greenberg’s acclaimed play Three Days of Rain at the Apollo, and at The Old Vic Richard Dreyfuss headlines the world premiere of American playwright Joe Sutton’s new play Complicit, directed by Kevin Spacey.

“BASED ON A FILM”

In musical theatre, 2009 promises to be a year of great big fabulous and familiar shows, surely enough to see us through the dark times? And it’s no coincidence that many of them are based on hugely successful films.

Oliver! will be well and truly steaming ahead through 2009 at the Drury Lane Theatre Royal with Rowan Atkinson and Jodie Prenger; La Cage Aux Folles will continue camping it up at the Playhouse but with Graham Norton taking over from Douglas Hodge; and at the Adelphi Theatre Lee Mead will bow out of Joseph to be replaced by Gareth Gates.

Jason Donovan will be donning the wigs and lip gloss to take us on an Australian power-mince in Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the Palace Theatre. And Sister Act at the London Palladium will be doing its best to recreate the fun of the film, helped along by Whoopi Goldberg as co-producer. And not quite a musical but as good as, Calendar Girls the stage play will up the naked flesh quotient in the West End, starring Patricia Hodge and Lynda Bellingham at the Noel Coward Theatre.

KIDS RULE

Kids should also see a good year in 2009 with an enormous live theatrical production of Walking with Dinosaurs coming to a stadium near you, and War Horse transfers from its successful run at the National Theatre to the New London Theatre.

Book these shows here

The Broadway Theatre district is situated in Midtown Manhattan.  The area is dotted with Broadway theatres including restaurants, hotels, movie theatres and other entertainment venues in the vicinity.

The district begins from 40th Street to 54th Street, and extends from east of Sixth Avenue to west of Eighth Avenue, and includes Times Square as well. The area of Broadway which flows through the theatre district is commonly called the Great White Way. In ‘Theatre Row’, which is an area on 42nd Street from Ninth Avenue to Eleventh Avenue, comprises many Broadway theatres, may also be considered to be an extension of the Broadway Theatre District, although it is not considered so officially.

Broadway theatre, simply known as Broadway, refers to theatre performances acted out at one of the 39 large professional theaters located in Manhattan.

Broadway Theatre is the equivalent of London’s West End theatre, and is usually considered to showcase the highest quality of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.

The theatre district is a popular tourist attraction in the city of New York. According to New York’s Broadway League, the Broadway shows have sold approximately $937 million worth of tickets in 2007 and 2008.

When in New York it is only natural to want to watch a Broadway show and these shows sell roughly a billion dollars worth of tickets annually contributing towards the tourist industry. In addition tourists who come to watch the shows in turn generate billions into restaurants and hotels.

A New York Hotel such as the Millennium Broadway Hotel New York is located in the heart of Times Square and offers easy access to Broadway theatres, Fifth Avenue and some fine dinning as well. Guests at this hotel could enjoy the Manhattan skyline from the spacious guest rooms and suites of this hotel.

The existence of the theatre in the city of Odessa began from the first days of the city’s foundation. The Opera & Ballet Theatre is entitled to be called the elder among a great number of cultural institutions. Odessa strived for the right of building the theatre in 1804, and in 1809 it was already built. On the10th of February 1810 the first performance took place – the Russian troupe by Fortunatov staged a one -act opera by Fralih “A New Family” and a vaudeville “A Consolating Widow”.

But, unfortunately, in 1873 an old building was burnt. And it was burnt completely. The restoration was our of the question. It was a tragedy, which was relented by one circum-stance – nobody suffered from it. It was suggested to draw up a draft of a new city theatre to Vienna architects F. Felner Y. Helmer. Eleven years have passed since laying of the first brick into the foundation of the new theatre building. And the theatre opening took place on the 1st of October 1887.

The building of Odessa Opera and Ballet House was fulfilled in the style of Vienna “baroque”, which was the main in the European art from the end of the XVIth up to the middle of the XVIIIth century.

There is a sculptural group over the front, portraying one of the muse – a patron of art- Melpomena. She is sitting in the chariot, harnessed by the four furious panthers, which were subdued, her. A little bit lower there are sculptural groups from the ancient mythology subjects. At the bottom, near the central entrance, on the high pedestals, two sculptural groups are set up, personifying Comedy and Tragedy: on the left – a fragment from the tragedy by Euripi “Ippolit”, on the right – an episode from the comedy by Aristophanes: “The Birds”.

Along the pediment of the building in the bays of the upper circle the busts of the brilliant Russian art & literature creators. Pushkin, Glinka, Griboyedov, Gogol are placed. The most beautiful part of the building – is its hall. Its architecture is maintains in “rococo” style.

It is luxuriously decorated by various molded ornaments, with the fine gilt. The ceiling is of a special interest. Four pictures by Lefler in the form of a locket (medallion) are in its basis. The scenes from the works are Syakespeare: “Hamlet”, “A Dream in the Summer Night”, “The Winter Fairytale” & “As You like It”, is depicted on them.

A big chandelier in the centre of the ceiling strikes by its drake of tracery details. There are many different stucco moldings in the hall and in all the circles.

The modeling in the circles is fulfilled with a special grace. Side lobbies and along staircases, leading to the boxes. All kinds of lampions, candelabrums and bronze ornamented inlays are originally and inventively made. Perhaps, in any of the theatres, there is no so tastefully made curtain, outlined by the prominent theatrical painter – Golovin. The area of the stage is 500 Esq. The unique acoustics allows to deliver even a whisper from the stage to any part of the hall.

The Theatre itself is interesting not only by us architecture, but by its rich creative biography. The great merit in the development of musical culture in the south of our country belongs, to this theatre. P.Tchaikovsky, N.Rimsky-Korsakov, S.Rachmaninoff, Ezhen Izai, Pablo Sarasate and others performed their works. There appeared on the stage the actors, who glorified the home art/ the great singers: Fyodor Chaliapin, Solomiya Grushelnitskaya, Antonina Nezhdanova, Leonid Sobinov, Tito Ruffo, Batistini, Jeraldoni sang here, Anna Pavlova, the first world ballet-dancer, had been dancing here. In 1926 the theatre was awarded the title of “Academic”. The theatre ballet group consists of 50 people. Among them such Honored ballet dances of Ukraine as Andrey Musorin and Yelenaa Kamenskih – the participants of the Farewell Tour of Rudolf Nuriyev, and others. “Jizelle”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Nut-Cracker”, “Don Quihote”, “Chopiniana”, “Un Ballo in Maschera”, “Hunchback Horse”, “Carmen-Suite” are in the repertoire of the theatre. The ballet dancers were touring in Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Ceylon, China, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland, South Korea, Italy, Spain and Portugal – with Maya Plisetskaya and in Indonesia, Switzerland, Sweden and other countries. The opera singer’s troupe consists of 40 people. They are National artists of Ukraine – Lyudmila Shirina, Anatoliy Boyko, Anatoliy Kapustin and Vladimir Tarasov, the Honored artists of Ukraine: Anisimova Tatyana, Irina Berlizova and Nataja Yutesh, Pavel Yermolenko, Laureates of International Contests. Viktor Mityushkin, Shalva Mukeria, Natlja Shvchenko, Ruslan Zinevich and others.

There are 25 operas, such as “Carmen”, “Aida”, “Il Trovatore”, “La Traviata”, “Cavaleria Rusticana”, “I Pagliacci”, “Iolanta”, “Madam Butterfly”, Rigoletto”, and others are in the repertoire of theatre. The theatre opera singers were appearing on the stages of Spain, Italy, France, Finland, Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Belgium, Greece and the individual opera soloists – practically in all the countries of the world.

The Singer’s Musical Theatre Anthology: Soprano, Vol. 3

The ETC offers a fantastic view from every seat (about 200 or so by my guestimations), and also has surprisingly good acoustics for that space. What makes the venue even better is the building itself…it is a gem and has all sorts of architectural details for you to enjoy (if you’re in to that sort of thing).

As for the show we saw ‘Rabbit Hole’ which is the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Best New Play and a Tony Award-winning drama. The show was great and the seats were full…at the end the audience gave a standing ovation for the great performance. The ETC is a great theatre that has a strong history and is nationally known.

I highly recommend a visit to the ETC. It is a good alternative to the movies and the show lets out with plenty of time to go out drinking afterwards. The ETC offers student discounts, as well as, senior discounts. You can now also buy tickets online…and if you want to see ‘Rabbit Hole’ then you better hurry because its time runs up this Sunday.

Evidently, Hampton maintained his beguiling knack for separating urbanites from their money long after Guare dramatized, in 1990, Hampton’s most impressive scam, that of persuading members of Manhattan’s upper crust to take him in as the son of Sidney Poitier. Of course, Guare is interested in more than the attractions of one con artist; he uses the story both to poke fun at and commiserate with his real subject: the well-meaning but somewhat lost liberal rich.

The play’s success in performance hinges on whether we buy that Paul (the Hampton character) could charm the pants and pocketbook off pretty much anyone. On that account, Marra’s otherwise lively production fails: Engelen brings to the character a childlike sincerity that justifies the older characters’ parental concern for him, yet there’s nothing irresistibly seductive about his Paul. As the principal scamees, Griffith and Steinhagen display some comic timing but lack the necessary air of patrician breeding troubled by liberal guilt.

Read more: http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/theater/69269/six-degrees-of-separation-signal-ensemble-theatre-at-chopin-theatre-theater-review#ixzz0ah3XrnwH