Category Archives: Theatre

Boss of theatre hosting Chinese dance group Shen Yun in Sydney won’t be intimidated by ‘outrageous’ threats

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Graeme Kearns, chief executive of Foundation Theatres, says: ‘Our job in theatre is to absolutely defend the right to tell stories about culture’

The head of the theatre hosting the Shen Yun dance troupe in Sydney says the company would not be intimidated to pull the shows by any “outrageous” anonymous threats and that the publicity had increased interest in the show.

On Monday, the Gold Coast venue for the Shen Yun performances was forced to evacuate after a bomb threat, with a similar threat forcing the evacuation of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s official residence, The Lodge, in Canberra the next day.

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Conservative theatre-making will kill the UK industry, says National’s director

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Indhu Rubasingham calls in Jennie Lee lecture for renewed commitment to creative risk and new writing

The National Theatre’s artistic director, Indhu Rubasingham, has said conservative theatre-making will kill the industry, even if it helps venues balance the books for now.

Delivering the second-ever Jennie Lee lecture in front of an audience of 200 representatives from the UK arts industry on Thursday, Rubasingham called for a renewed national commitment to backing creative risk and new writing.

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Playwrights’ ‘thrilling’ debuts share the Susan Smith Blackburn prize

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Hannah Doran’s The Meat Kings! (Inc) of Brooklyn Heights and Ro Reddick’s Cold War Choir Practice declared joint winners of award for female, transgender and non-binary writers

The Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights has been awarded to joint winners, both for their debut plays.

Hannah Doran’s The Meat Kings! (Inc) of Brooklyn Heights and Ro Reddick’s Cold War Choir Practice beat the other eight finalists to the 48th annual award. Doran and Reddick each receive a cash prize of $25,000 (£18,500) and a signed print by the artist Willem de Kooning.

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‘The new Hamilton’? Show with Mary Todd Lincoln as drunken first lady comes to London

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The one-act play Oh, Mary! – ‘the stupidest, funniest thing possible’ – to open after blockbuster run in New York

What if, in the final weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the first lady could not care less about the American civil war and was instead hell-bent on becoming a cabaret star?

That is the question posed by Oh, Mary!, the smash-hit show that reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a gloriously unhinged alcoholic who despises her closeted husband.

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‘The ad libs had us shaking behind the camera’: Corbyn and McKellen cameos raise panto’s profile

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Star turns are boosting ticket sales this season, including Islington show featuring MP’s Wizard of Oz and Olivier winner’s Toto

We’re a third of the way through the fabulously camp production of Wicked Witches, a mashup of Wicked and The Wizard of Oz, at the Pleasance theatre in Islington, north London. Dor (formerly known as Dorothy) and Tin 2.0 need guidance on how to take down the Wicked Witch and save the borough of Oz-lington from a great blizzard.

But wait! Who’s that Facetiming? It’s only Jeremy Corbyn, the wise Wizard of Oz-lington! The 200-person audience cheers and applauds the Islington North MP, who looks as if he’s beaming in from the allotment.

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Big belly, wavy fur and a nose for trouble: we exclusively reveal the new-look Paddington

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It’s been the biggest secret in theatre: what will the marmalade-loving, hyper-polite Peruvian look like in Paddington the Musical? As the curtain rises, we speak to the new bear’s creator, a veteran of Star Wars and PG Tips ads

Paddington stands within touching distance. His fur flutters as he turns, his neat button nose sniffs the air, and his eyes soften with a smile. For years, design details of the bear for Paddington the Musical, directed by Luke Sheppard, have been kept top secret. Now here he is, in his blue duffel coat and red hat. A quiet theatrical marvel. “What we’re doing,” says producer Sonia Friedman, “has never been done before.”

Standing around 1.2 metres (just under 4ft) tall, the bear is beautifully round, all belly and sloping shoulders. He is not an exact replica of the Paddingtons we’ve seen in illustrations or movies, but something new. His shaggy, caramel fur has a gentle wave, and his white snout is dotted with a brown nose, ideal for sniffing out trouble. Around his neck sits a label, threaded through an old piece of string, asking for someone to look after him.

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What’s in a name? West End casting directors raise concerns about trend for big stars

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Film and TV stars are selling tickets, but director says reliance on famous names is ‘killing audiences’ intellects’

From Ncuti Gatwa in Born With Teeth to Alicia Vikander in The Lady From the Sea and Susan Sarandon in Mary Page Marlowe, there is no shortage of starry celebrities being cast for the West End right now.

It is a phenomenon happening in subsidised theatre too: Indhu Rubasingham’s inaugural season at the National Theatre features the likes of screen favourites Paul Mescal and Nicola Coughlan.

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BBC sitcom Two Doors Down to be adapted for the stage with full TV cast

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The hit Scottish comedy about suburban neighbours will move from screen to stage next year at Glasgow’s Hydro

Two Doors Down, the BBC comedy series about a suburban Scottish couple with constantly knocking neighbours, is to be brought to the stage.

Unusually, it will make that journey with the full cast from the hit TV show intact. Alex Norton and Arabella Weir will reprise their roles as Eric and Beth, whose house on Latimer Crescent is consistently besieged by the street’s residents, usually expecting a drink or two. Elaine C Smith will return as the oversharing Christine, and Doon Mackichan and Jonathan Watson are reuniting as a flashy couple, with an unhealthy interest in everyone’s intimate business. The younger couple on the street will again be played by Graeme Stevely and Joy McAvoy, while Jamie Quinn will be back as Eric and Beth’s son, Ian, with standup Kieran Hodgson once more playing his partner, Gordon.

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‘I need to do everything now’: the Ukrainian combat medic-turned playwright

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Since Alina Sarnatska’s first play premiered a year ago, she has documented wartime Ukraine with unflinching frankness

Eighteen months ago, Alina Sarnatska was serving as a combat medic on Ukraine’s frontline – including in the hellish battle for Bakhmut – and had barely been to the theatre.

Six months later, she was preparing to watch the premiere of her first play in Kyiv. Now Sarnatska, 38, has several dramas under her belt and is emerging as one of Ukraine’s most powerful voices in the theatre.

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Chadwick Boseman play about police brutality to receive UK premiere in London

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Deep Azure, written by the Black Panther star in response to the death of a fellow college student, will open at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse next year

A play by the Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer aged 43 in 2020, is to receive its UK premiere next year.

Deep Azure was written by Boseman in response to the death of Prince Jones, his fellow college student at Washington DC’s Howard University, who was killed in 2000 by a police officer. The play was first performed in 2005 in the US and will be staged at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London in February, directed by Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu.

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Billy Porter recovering from ‘serious case of sepsis’ as Broadway show closes early

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The 55-year-old actor has been playing Emcee in Cabaret, which will now shut a month earlier than planned

Billy Porter is “recovering from a serious case of sepsis”, forcing the early closure of Broadway’s revival of Cabaret in which he played a leading role.

The show’s producers announced on Sunday that Porter “is recovering from a serious case of sepsis” that will prevent him from returning to the stage.

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Jerry Adler, actor in The Sopranos and The Good Wife, dies aged 96

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Adler was involved behind the scenes of storied Broadway productions before finding acting success in his 60s

Jerry Adler, who spent decades behind the scenes of storied Broadway productions before pivoting to acting in his 60s, has died aged 96.

Adler died on Saturday, according to a brief family announcement confirmed by the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York. Adler “passed peacefully in his sleep”, Paradigm Talent Agency’s Sarah Shulman said on behalf of his family. No immediate cause was given.

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‘It’s ourselves and society on trial’: playwright adapts Gisèle Pelicot case for stage

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Case that exposed France’s rape culture and shocked the world has been made into play to be shown in Avignon, where trial was held

A stage play based on the trial of the men who drugged and raped Gisèle Pelicot will be staged this week in the southern city of Avignon, as France continues to debate the lessons for society from the country’s biggest ever rape trial.

The three-hour performance, The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot, has been created by Milo Rau, the Swiss director and playwright acclaimed for his theatre interpretations of court proceedings, including the Moscow trial of the Russian punks Pussy Riot and the trial of the Romanian despot Nicolae Ceaușescu.

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‘They rewrite the ending’: the knife crime play with its own outreach scheme

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Sam Edmunds hopes to help young people with his play The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return

Growing up in Luton in the late 90s and early 00s, the playwright Sam Edmunds witnessed an abundance of knife violence that has stayed with him to this day.

“Me and my friends had knives pulled on us on numerous occasions. We once saw someone being chased with a machete at the back of the field by our school. In drama class, I remember a boy went into his bag to get his notebook out and a massive knife fell out. A boy in my brother’s year was stabbed over 10 times on a night out.”

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‘Shorts and flip-flops are not allowed’: La Scala enforces opera dress code ban

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Management ask visitors to ‘choose clothing in keeping with the decorum of the theatre’ after complaints

Operagoers have been warned they will be banned from entering Milan’s prestigious La Scala theatre if they turn up wearing shorts, tank tops or flip-flops. Kimonos, however, are acceptable.

The venue’s management team reminded people how not to dress for an opera after complaints that some spectators were donning attire more suitable for the beach.

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Charles Dickens’s ‘sliding doors’ moment: how a cold turned an aspiring thespian into a writer

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An exhibition explores the authors’ love of theatre, highlighting the dramatic impact of his works

As a sliding doors moment, it leads to arguably one of the greatest “what if?” questions in literary history. Passionate about the theatre, Charles Dickens, then just 20, wrote to the famous Covent Garden theatre actor-manager George Bartley seeking an audition, saying he believed he “had a strong perception of character and oddity, and a natural power of reproducing in my own person what I observed in others”.

Bartley responded saying they were producing “the Hunchback” and arranging an appointment. Dickens planned to take his sister, Fanny, to accompany him singing on the piano.

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Pioneering London playwright decried gentrification of ‘writer’s paradise’

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In 1992 letter, Mustapha Matura warned of risk to Ladbroke Grove, home to strong Caribbean creative community

A groundbreaking Trinidadian-British playwright who paved the way for modern Black British theatre makers warned about the dangers of gentrification in Ladbroke Grove, which he believed would ruin the “writer’s paradise”.

Mustapha Matura was the first British writer of colour to have work put on in the West End, and used the west London area as an inspiration for many of his plays, which were also staged at the Royal Court and National Theatre.

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Tony awards 2025: full list of winners

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Tonight’s nominations are led by musicals Maybe Happy Ending, Death Becomes Her and Buena Vista Social Club

Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical
Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club – WINNER!
Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw
Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time
Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical
Joy Woods, Gypsy

Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a play
Tala Ashe, English
Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
Marjan Neshat, English
Fina Strazza, John Proctor is the Villain
Kara Young, Purpose – WINNER!

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Edinburgh fringe event organisers urged to capitalise on Oasis and AC/DC gigs

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Fringe Society CEO says venues could offer concertgoers ‘morning after’ shows or tempt residents who ‘want to hide’

Organisers of Edinburgh fringe events have been urged to be “pretty smart” and capitalise on the decision by Oasis and AC/DC to play gigs in the city midway through the festival.

There was surprise and irritation when it emerged the bands would be staging four concerts at Murrayfield stadium in mid-August when the world’s largest arts festival is in full flow.

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‘A steamy wrestle’: Guardian article inspires play on Shakespeare and Marlowe collaboration

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Exclusive: Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams, coming to West End, imagines rival dramatists working together

A Guardian report on William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe being literary rivals and collaborators has inspired a play that will be staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in London’s West End this summer.

The RSC’s co-artistic director Daniel Evans will direct Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams, an Irish-American playwright, who has imagined two of the greatest dramatists of all time working together, wrestling creatively, both envious and admiring of each other.

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