The new African-American-cast production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof begins February 12. Amol Palekar creates Indian theatre festivals as documentation. David Mamet is blogging as President Smith. Here are a few opportunities for directors in Chicago. Press Release: "MONO is Theater's Answer to Reality TV". Virginia theatre seeks blogger. Interestingly, the Year in Japanese Theater suffered from many of the same problems as those in the US and UK.

I relate to this a little too much for comfort.

What has kept you working in the theatre form for so many years?

The main reason I think, because I know that when left to myself, when I'm not coming to work at the theatre everyday, I'm sort of a hermit, and I think that's bad for me and it makes me atrophy. And I think I need to be forced to interact with other people and although I resist it, for my health (laughs), I have to do it.

Slay will be posting for Theatreforte from New York City, January 17-22.

We already have tickets for the Beckett Shorts and The Farnsworth Invention. We'll definitely be stopping by the Under the Radar fest again.

We're looking for other cool things to do. Any suggestions?

RIP: Michael Kidd.

"Nearly 200 arts organisations in England have now been told that their funding will end from next April." Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a new musical featuring all these guys and gals. The Too Much Coffee Man opera? Rehabilitation Through the Arts sounds like a great program for a seriously under-served population (prisoners) who need it. Work for writers: The Hollywood Fringe? The NEA and Arena Stage will team-up to support new plays.

WEST CHESTER, Pa. - Bam Margera is a step closer to opening a theater in his hometown. West Chester Borough Council has agreed to withdraw its objection to a liquor license for the MTV star's planned theater after a long list of conditions were met.

From the Fractured Atlas blog:

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a spending bill that increases the National Endowment for the Arts' budget by about $20 million. President Bush is considered likely to sign the bill, which will represents a 16% increase over the NEA's budget from last year.
...
They like us, they really like us! Or at least, they don't despise us quite as much as they used to. We still spend roughly 1/200th as much per capita on the arts as Finland.

Here's a provocative little interview with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. View the trailer for Martin McDonagh's feature film debut. Cherry Lane is putting up Edward Albee's The American Dream and The Sandbox this March as an evening of one-acts directed by Albee himself. (h/t tc) Uganda used to have a thriving theatre, not so much these days. Sondheim speaks on Sweeney Todd in a series of video interviews. Julie Taymor held the first reading the big Spider-Man Musical. Drowsy Chaperone to close.

If you're a long-time reader of Theaterforte, you may know that we're huge fans around here of Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays.

The 2008 Festival will be my 9th, and I'm more excited than I have been in a while for two reasons.

1. The 2007 festival was the best in years.
2. This year's fest features a lot of people whose work has already really impressed me, including Marc Bamuthi Joseph, about whose work I would love to say volumes, but I'll save it for later.

More about our experiences with the last decade of Humana later, for now let's take a look what ATL will be presenting this year, courtesy of the Lousiville Courier-Journal.

Greil Marcus, in the Prologue to The Shape of Things to Come, a book in which he spends an entire chapter talking about Bill Pullman's face, writes the following:

America is a place and a story, made up of exuberance and suspicion, crime and liberation, lynch mobs and escapes; its greatest testaments are made of portents and warning, Biblical allusions that lose all their certainties in American air.
...
The story of American as told from the beginning is one of self-invention and nationhood. ... From John Winthrop in 1630, with "A Modell of Christian Charity" ... to Abraham Lincoln in 1865, delivering his Second Inaugural Address, to Martin Luther King, Jr., ninety-eight years later, speaking on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, America has told itself that story.
...
This story, once public and part of common discourse, something to fight over in flights of gorgeous rhetoric and blunt plain speech, has long become spectral; it is now cryptic. To the degree that it is worth the telling, it is a story told more in art than in politics, even if it is at the heart of our politics - our ongoing struggle to define what the nation is and what it is for.

So, what does this have to do with theatre? Right?

If you're someone who wants to work in showbiz, the thought of moving to NYC, LA, or Chicago has certainly crossed your mind. But is it really necessary to move to a big city if you want to make a living from your art? Well, according to agglomeration theory, yes.

Developed by geographer Allen Scott, agglomeration theory helps to explain why certain industries - including the entertainment industry - tend to consolidate in just a few select cities. The theory applies specifically to vertically disintegrated industries, those that subcontract the majority of their operations to freelance and part-time workers. Theatre is a great example of this because actors, directors, and crew all work under short-term contracts on a show by show basis. What follows is a brief summary of agglomeration theory I copped from an article by Jamie Peck.

Who out there knows Emily Connor, who works for Samuel French ... ?

Anyone?

Was it you?

I was reading a bit of American Theatre online - specifically this article by Celia Wren that summarizes and slightly analyzes this year's Theatre Facts insert - and I came across this quotation.

Jorge Z. Ortoll, executive director of New York’s Ma-Yi Theater Company, frets over the fickleness of theatregoers today. “If it’s a rainy day, they don’t come,” he says. “If it’s hot outside, they don’t come. If it’s a nice day to go to the park, they don’t come.”

Is there ever a good night to do theatre?