The actor died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, his publicist says
Richard Chamberlain, the hero of the 1960s television series Dr Kildare who found a second career as an award-winning “king of the miniseries,” has died. He was 90.
Chamberlain died on Saturday night in Waimānalo, Hawaii of complications after a stroke, according to his publicist, Harlan Boll.
Continue reading...Dmitry Krymov, who fled Moscow after the Ukraine invasion, plans Dickens hybrid with UK and Russian actors
The acclaimed Russian stage director Dmitry Krymov the winner of many of Moscow’s top theatre prizes before his exile due to public criticism of the invasion of Ukraine, has spoken angrily of the impact of the war ahead of his first work with British actors. The Moscow-born director, 70, plans to use Dickens’s two stories Great Expectations and Hard Times to create a new performance.
Arriving in London this weekend for a short stay, Krymov, who is regarded by many western theatre pundits as among the best directors in the world, told the Observer he wants to link British and Russian performers and audiences, despite the divisions caused by President Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading...Standup, 41, says she was initially given all-clear by private doctor after raising concerns about a mole
The comedian Katherine Ryan has received a second skin cancer diagnosis after raising concerns about a mole on her arm.
Ryan attended a private clinic where a doctor who also works for the NHS dismissed her concerns about melanoma and gave her the all-clear, but she went back and a test revealed the mole was cancerous.
Continue reading...In a statement, 35 signatories from dance, theatre and music industries express concern about ‘fragile ecosystem’
More than 30 performing arts leaders in the UK, including the bosses of the National Theatre, Opera North and the Royal Albert Hall, have joined the chorus of creative industry concern about the government’s plans to let artificial intelligence companies use artists’ work without permission.
In a statement they said performing arts organisations depend on a “fragile ecosystem” of freelancers who rely on copyright to sustain their livelihoods. They also urged the government to support the “moral and economic rights” of the creative community in music, dance, drama and opera.
Continue reading...Furlough’s Paradise, a ‘lyrical’ journey about grief, scoops award for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights
The Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights has been awarded to the US writer ak payne for their poignant and funny two-hander Furlough’s Paradise.
The play has been described by payne as a “lyrical journey about grief, home and survival”. It follows two cousins, one of whom is on a three-day release from prison, as the pair attend a funeral in their childhood town.
Continue reading...A giant of political drama, Fugard captured the injustices of apartheid in works such as Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island
The South African playwright and director Athol Fugard, whose works included the play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and the novel Tsotsi, has died at the age of 92. The actor John Kani paid tribute on X on Sunday, saying “I am deeply saddened by the passing of my dear friend”. The mayor’s office in Cape Town said: “Athol Fugard was not just a luminary in the world of theatre; he was a teller of profound stories of hope and resilience about South Africa.”
A major political dissident playwright of the 20th century, Fugard wrote more than 30 dramas including Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act (in 1972) and “Master Harold” … and the Boys (1982). Both of those drew upon the time in the 1950s when he could only find employment as a clerk in one of the courts where black South Africans were charged (and inevitably convicted) of breaches of the “pass laws”, designed to control the movements of a racially segregated population under the apartheid system. There, he witnessed hourly the dehumanisation of those who had chosen the “wrong” streets or people.
Continue reading...Director says Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, which provoked fury at its first production in 2009, is a ‘family story’ at heart
The premiere of Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children at the Royal Court theatre 16 years ago proved to be one of British theatre’s most controversial opening nights.
Audiences were immediately divided by the British playwright’s deliberately stripped-back treatment of Jewish generational fear and Israel’s history of conflict.
Continue reading...More than 400 artists sign letter urging organization to resist funding ban for projects focused on DEI and gender
Donald Trump’s efforts to influence US cultural institutions received more pushback on Tuesday, as a group of more than 400 artists sent a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) calling on the organization to resist the president’s restrictions on funding for projects promoting diversity or “gender ideology”.
The letter, first reported by the New York Times, comes after the NEA declared that federal grant applicants – which include colleges and universities, non-profit groups, individual artists and more – must comply with regulations stipulated by Trump’s executive orders. The new measures bar federal funds from going toward programs focused on “diversity, equity and inclusion” or used to “promote gender ideology”.
Continue reading...Justin Audibert’s production with the Hamilton star is part of season including Top Hat, Natalie Dormer’s Anna Karenina and new play Safe Space
Since opening in 1962 under its first artistic director, Laurence Olivier, Chichester Festival theatre has hosted some of the world’s greatest Shakespearean actors. But surprisingly it has never produced its own version of Hamlet. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” says Justin Audibert, who in 2023 succeeded Daniel Evans as the theatre’s artistic director. “We’ve done three Antony and Cleopatras!”
Audibert is now preparing to direct Hamlet himself, with the tragic prince played by Giles Terera, who won an Olivier award when he starred as Aaron Burr in the London premiere of Hamilton. The play will open in September in Chichester’s smaller Minerva theatre. “We are imagining that Old Hamlet [the prince’s father] has let the kingdom decline,” says Audibert, whose production will explore the “leadership vacuum” that comes from an older generation “clinging on to power for a really long time”. Hamlet’s father “has definitely got some Biden vibes” says Audibert, and the director has also been reflecting on the succession of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad from his father, Hafez. Terera, who starred as Othello at the National Theatre in 2022, will play a Hamlet who is similar in age to his stepfather, Claudius.
Continue reading...The writer of Shopping and Fucking will direct cycle of bawdy comedies inspired by scenarios from a 17th-century Italian collection
A premiere by Mark Ravenhill has been an event ever since the British playwright’s explosive debut 30 years ago with Shopping and Fucking. But Ravenhill is now set to unveil a staggering 10 new full-length plays over two days, performed by a cast of 80 actors and directed by Ravenhill.
An epic cycle of bawdy modern comedies, the plays borrow from scenarios collected in a 1611 publication by the Italian commedia dell’arte actor and manager Flaminio Scala. Ravenhill said he had been attracted to the “generosity of spirit and comic energy” of the scenarios. “They are sexually frank, with the women given as much agency as the men. They are socially acute, depicting the newly rich mixing with the urban poor and new migrants from the countryside. They are grounded in money, sex and the body.” Collectively, the storylines depict a world “in which we are all fools and we all need to find a way to get along”. His aim, Ravenhill said, was not to make a historical reconstruction but “to write plays that allow contemporary audiences to laugh and to celebrate our shared humanity”.
Continue reading...Lowden first appeared in David Ireland’s two-hander in Edinburgh last year. For its West End run, he is paired with his ‘hero’ Freeman
Slow Horses star Jack Lowden is to reprise his role in The Fifth Step, a play about addiction, faith and masculinity, in a new West End production co-starring Martin Freeman.
Lowden first appeared in the drama, written by David Ireland, at the Edinburgh international festival last year and drew acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic, Luka, who joins the 12-step programme. The two-hander starred Sean Gilder as Luka’s older mentor, a part that will be played by Freeman in the production at @sohoplace in London, running from 10 May until 26 July. Finn den Hertog will again direct.
Continue reading...New drama, When Maggie Met Larry, reveals exactly how the world’s most famous actor coached the fledgling Iron Lady
In 1972, a nervous Margaret Thatcher went to Laurence Olivier’s London home for a lesson on presentational skills. The most famous actor of the 20th century told the then education secretary to put a book on her head and walk around to improve her deportment. He also advised her to take long confident strides, and to use her eyes to seduce and flirt.
The future prime minister went on to visit Olivier’s house for a further five lessons, details of which are revealed in a new Radio 4 play, When Maggie Met Larry. Starring Derek Jacobi, who joined Olivier’s fledgling National Theatre when only 24, and Frances Barber as Thatcher, the drama tells of the previously unknown advice on style and voice offered to the Tory politician.
Continue reading...Actor helped shape British postwar theatre through her performances at the Royal Court, National Theatre and in the West End
• Michael Billington: Plowright was a dynamic force
• Joan Plowright: a life in pictures
The actor Joan Plowright, who was celebrated for her long career in theatre and film, has died at the age of 95, her family have announced.
Plowright won acclaim for performances during the early years of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court and the National Theatre when it was based at the Old Vic and led by her second husband, Laurence Olivier.
Continue reading...South African dancer and choreographer died unexpectedly after a brief illness, her family says
The dance world is mourning the internationally acclaimed South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo, who died in hospital at the weekend aged 39.
Masilo died unexpectedly on Sunday after a brief illness, a spokesperson for her family said in a statement.
Continue reading...Leading theatre figures warn ‘drastic’ reduction in funding will cause bankruptcy and harm city’s tourism appeal
Plans to slash Berlin’s culture budget by tens of millions of Euros have led to a huge backlash, with leading venues saying they have been forced to cut performances and others warning they will be pushed into bankruptcy.
About 450 institutes that are reliant at least in part on state subsidies, from theatres and opera houses to nightclubs and galleries, have formed an alliance in an attempt to force a rethink over the €130m (£108.6m) cuts. At around 12 to 13% of the current annual budget, they have been described even by those proposing them as “brutal”.
Continue reading...St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre says dancer was taking painkillers for an injury and fell from fifth floor
The acclaimed Russian ballet dancer Vladimir Shklyarov has died aged 39.
Shklyarov died after falling from the fifth floor of a building on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Mariinsky Theatre told the news outlet Fontanka at the weekend.
Continue reading...Police notified after former trustees and current chief executive of Actors’ Benevolent Fund were sent notes
A bitter feud that tore apart an illustrious actors’ charity has been reignited by the emergence of poison pen letters threatening former trustees.
The annual meeting of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund (ABF) takes place on Tuesday after at least three years of turmoil with little prospect that it will pass off uneventfully.
Continue reading...Jamison joined Alvin Ailey’s dance company in 1965 and performed there for 15 years, premiering solo Cry in 1971
Judith Jamison, an acclaimed dancer and choreographer who for two decades was artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, died on Saturday in New York, at the age of 81.
Her death came after a brief illness, according to a post on the company’s Instagram page.
Continue reading...Godley, whose comedy drew upon her Glasgow upbringing, died ‘surrounded by her loved ones’, her management says
Janey Godley, the Scottish comedian and author whose quick wit led her to swap pint-pulling in Glasgow for international standup tours, has died aged 63.
She died in a hospice “surrounded by her loved ones”, her management said on Saturday. Godley had announced she was receiving palliative care in September after her terminal cancer spread.
Continue reading...Florentina Holzinger’s bloody Sancta was criticised by Austrian bishops and is now a sellout in Germany
Eighteen theatregoers at Stuttgart’s state opera required medical treatment for severe nausea over the weekend after watching a performance that included live piercing, unsimulated sexual intercourse and copious amounts of fake and real blood.
“On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,” said the opera’s spokesperson, Sebastian Ebling, about the two performances of Sancta, a work by the Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger. A doctor had been called in for treatment in three instances, he added.
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