AmericanTheaterWeb Top News

EARLY EVENING ADDITIONS

Playbill

* Young Frankenstein to Close in January 2009
The new Mel Brooks musical Young Frankenstein will play its final performance at Broadway's Hilton Theatre Jan. 4, 2009.

Parabasis

Did You Know There's A Weblog Devoted Solely To Hamlet?

Whatsonstage.com

Gossip: All About Eve Crosses Over to Haymarket Stage???
No official news yet on what will follow Waiting for Godot, starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, in the Theatre Royal Haymarket’s second season of in-house productions, this time under the direction of Sean Mathias

Gossip: Gareth Gates Dons Dreamcoat After Lee Mead???
Gareth Gates, who was runner-up to Will Young on the 2002 series of TV’s Pop Idol, is the latest name rumoured to be taking over from Lee Mead, when he leaves Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the new year

Gossip: Jeffrey Archer Breaks into West End with Prison Diary???
Former Tory party chairman and millionaire author and sometime playwright Jeffrey Archer’s last play in the West End was The Accused::E319580951, the critically panned courtroom drama in which he also starred in the run-up to his real-life Old Ba...

Feature: Perfectly Pitched for New Musicals
Brand new musicals are a rarity in the West End, but not at this year’s Perfect Pitch Showcase, supported for a second year by Whatsonstage.com. Roger Foss talks to Perfect Pitch producer Andy Barnes about how he’s nurturing homegrown musical writing talent.

See all of the early evening clippings

THE DAY'S FIRST TOP STORIES

New York Times

Pages That Weren’t Meant for Stages
Novels can be moving. Theater can be moving. So why don’t novels make moving theater?

New York Post

Dreamgirl Dreams at the Apollo
Hundreds of singers dreaming of stardom gathered at the Apollo Theater yesterday for an open audition for a new traveling stage production of the musical "Dreamgirls." The line of..

Hartford Courant

"A Civil War Christmas" : New American Classic
Paula Vogel was having lunch at a cafe in Berkeley, Calif., in 1997 with director Molly Smith when they started talking about the limited holiday theatrical fare available and why Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" seems to be the singular choice.

Washington Post

Off-Broadway Musical 'Next to Normal' Being Reworked at Washington's Arena Stage
Do-over! The producers, composers and actors of "Next to Normal" are shouting it, in the cause of this musical tale of a suburban mom's total mental collapse. And if they do manage to find success in the unorthodox effort to give it a Washington retooling -- after it was already unveiled and...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Adventurous theater finds an audience
Along with the seemingly inexhaustible audience appetite for endless restagings of Andrew Lloyd Webber's biggest hits and the works of William Shakespeare, many seem eager for new tales told in new ways by new artists.

Denver Post

Denver Center launching new-play fest that's all about musicals

San Francisco Chronicle

Mart Crowley on 'The Boys in the Band'
Before there was "Milk," there was "The Boys in the Band" (1970), William Friedkin's pioneering, explicit and controversial look at gay life in the late '60s. Based on Mart Crowley's off-Broadway play and featuring its...

San Diego Union-Tribune

A new day for Old Town
Cygnet Theatre tailors off-Broadway sensibilities to the history-conscious confines of Old Town

Playhouse plays head to NYC, big names attached
A couple of plays that hit La Jolla Playhouse's stages this year are destined for New York openings – with big-name actresses attached.

Louisville Courier-Journal

Performing-arts groups are nervous about the future
As they face an uncertain future, local theater producers are trying to remain optimistic during a time when foundations are losing money in investment portfolios and the number of unemployed Americans exceeds 10 million, the highest level in 25 years

The Independent

Culture: I don't believe in monsters
I can't remember a play I've looked forward to so much as August: Osage County by the Chicago-based playwright Tracy Letts. The winner of this year's Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it depicts a series of incidents that befall an American family presided over by a terrifying, alcoholic matriarch. It opens at the National Theatre on Wednesday, having transferred from Broadway.

The Observer

The first great American play of the 21st century
Playwright Tracy Letts talks about his Pulitzer Prize-winning work while the actors talk in character about their roles

Daily Telegraph

Telegraph Shakespeare Survey: results
The play’s the thing… today as much as four centuries ago. Shakespeare continues to make news, whether it’s the arrival of David Tennant in the West End (soon) or this month’s pledge of a priceless collection to the Globe theatre. Here, in our unique survey, is proof of the enduring power and relevance of the Bard
[just one today of a series that includes interviews with Patrick Stewart and Sir Peter Hall - very interesting stuff]

See all of the day's clippings