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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée to be performed for first time, replacing classics by Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky after fundraising in London
One of the “most English of ballets” will be performed for the first time at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv after a boycott of the classic Russian repertoire, including Swan Lake and the Nutcracker.
Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, a celebrated romantic comedy, will be performed to a sell-out audience on Thursday after Ukraine turned away from the works of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev.
Continue reading...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!
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.
Continue reading...Emmy award-winning TV, stage and film actor also known for her role in Young Sheldon died of cancer
Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-award winning actor known for her roles on Northern Exposure, Desperate Housewives and Young Sheldon, died on Friday. She was 71.
Her husband, actor Joseph Kell, said in a statement to Variety: “I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actresses. She will be missed.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Over the course of an illustrious career, Strouse composed music for Broadway shows such as Bye Bye Birdie and Applause but was best known for Annie’s evergreen songs
The composer Charles Strouse, a three-time Tony award-winner whose hits included Annie, has died at the age of 96. His death at home in New York on Thursday was announced by his four children.
Over the course of a long and illustrious career, Strouse composed music for the Broadway shows Bye Bye Birdie, Golden Boy, Applause, Rags and Nick & Nora. But he was perhaps best known for his score for Annie which opened in New York in 1977 and ran for almost six years. The story of the plucky red-headed orphan featured evergreen songs (with lyrics by Martin Charnin) including Tomorrow, You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile and It’s the Hard-Knock Life, which was sampled by Jay-Z in a 1998 single. Annie received seven Tony awards, including best musical and best original score, and won the Grammy for best cast show album. It was adapted as a film in 1982.
Continue reading...Actor tells BBC about his relationship with the playwright, his ‘mentor’, and how he went ‘off the rails’
The actor Danny Dyer said the death of his mentor, the Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, triggered a “spiral of madness” in his life.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Dyer reflected on how he had stayed at Pinter’s home while performing in his play Celebration. The play opened at London’s Almeida theatre in 2000, before transferring to the Lincoln Center in New York.
Continue reading...Prolific Canadian director also made one of the country’s first internationally successful films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring Richard Dreyfuss
Ted Kotcheff, the prolific Canadian director of films including First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s, Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, has died aged 94. His daughter Kate Kotcheff told the Canadian Press that he had died of heart failure on Thursday in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, where he lived. His son Thomas said: “He died of old age, peacefully, and surrounded by loved ones.”
In an amazingly varied career, Kotcheff’s work ranged from hardhitting TV plays and low-budget features in the UK, to hit Hollywood comedies and prestige-laden award-winners and cult films. Kate Kotcheff said: “He was an amazing storyteller. He was an incredible, larger than life character [and] he was a director who could turn his hand to anything.”
Continue reading...Meera Syal also to star in London production reflecting producer’s experience of censorship in Georgia
Hidden from view inside a south London warehouse, a new underground movement will be fighting the international blight of misinformation this summer.
The huge immersive event – half theatrical show, half social campaign – is to involve some of Britain’s leading acting talent, including Toby Jones and Meera Syal, and has been put together by a theatre company led by a woman who learned about misinformation the hard way, at the Georgian television station Imedi.
Continue reading...John Lithgow, Imelda Staunton, Romola Garai and Layton Williams are among the winners at the annual stage awards
The play Giant, which portrays children’s author Roald Dahl amid an outcry about his antisemitism, has triumphed at the Olivier awards on a star-studded night at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
US star John Lithgow took home the best actor prize for his performance as Dahl, Elliot Levey won best supporting actor (for playing publisher Tom Maschler) and Mark Rosenblatt received the award for best new play.
Continue reading...John Lithgow, Imelda Staunton, Romola Garai and Layton Williams are among the winners at the annual stage awards
The play Giant, which portrays children’s author Roald Dahl amid an outcry about his antisemitism, has triumphed at the Olivier awards on a star-studded night at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
US star John Lithgow took home the best actor prize for his performance as Dahl, Elliot Levey won best supporting actor (for playing publisher Tom Maschler) and Mark Rosenblatt received the award for best new play.
Continue reading...Actor, who won an Olivier for Oedipus, says her ‘bugbear’ is that venues outside London do not get enough money
Lesley Manville has called for better funding for theatres around the UK, saying her biggest “bugbear” with the stage industry was “there is not enough money thrown into regional theatre”.
Manville was speaking on Sunday night at the Olivier awards in London, where she was named best actress for her performance as Jocasta in Oedipus at Wyndham’s theatre.
Continue reading...Actor, who won an Olivier for Oedipus, says her ‘bugbear’ is that venues outside London do not get enough money
Lesley Manville has called for better funding for theatres around the UK, saying her biggest “bugbear” with the stage industry was “there is not enough money thrown into regional theatre”.
Manville was speaking on Sunday night at the Olivier awards in London, where she was named best actress for her performance as Jocasta in Oedipus at Wyndham’s theatre.
Continue reading...Director Kevin O’Hare announces staging of NYCB choreographer Peck’s 2014 piece, as well as new works by Akram Khan and Cathy Marston
A ballet by one of New York’s hottest choreographers, set to the music of Sufjan Stevens, and Akram Khan’s first work for the Royal Opera House stage are two highlights of the Royal Ballet’s 2025-26 season, announced on Wednesday. They will be seen alongside the first commission for a UK company from choreographic duo Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, premieres from Wayne McGregor and Cathy Marston and a new ballet based on Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man, with live music by John Grant.
“It’s about working with new voices, looking for what we haven’t experienced and what’s important to see,” said artistic director Kevin O’Hare about what will be his 14th season in charge of the company.
Continue reading...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.
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