After three years on the West End, London’s Frozen announces closing dates. The news came as quite the surprise to fans and critics alike as the show has done well on the West End and the franchise remains a staple point in the Disney company. The show opened on the West End soon after theatres began to reopen after the pandemic, and to see it close after only a few years has everyone reeling to get last minute tickets as they come on sale.
Some of the best known musicals coming to the UK in 2024 are new and returning fan favourites. A portion of these musicals are transfers from Broadway in New York but there are a few that will be making their world premiere with their sights set high.
I have some bad and even disturbing news, in short the answer is simply it’s not going to happen. For anyone in the entertainment industry who is affected by the SAG-AFTRA strikes in America, benefits are unfortunately not accessible for the majority of workers. Where does this leave the workers? It means once again, most of its people are barely holding on and surviving off of their savings. As there is no end in sight for the SAG-AFTRA strikes, this means people are running out of time with the holiday season fast approaching.
Working in the entertainment industry, especially for large-scale acrobatic circus shows had been my life’s dream. A dream which I had, over the years, painstakingly realized. I had found the backstage experience exhilarating and highly addictive. Magical. In the end, I decided to say goodbye. Yet, how do you let go of something that lives and breathes in every fibre of your body?
The complex issue of funding for UK orchestras and theatre companies continues, with both positive and negative developments. There have been announcements in recent weeks that funding and relief with be both given and cut, making the situation for UK musicians, actors and performers a complex and uncertain one at present. The good news – […]
The Zurich Theatre House (Zuercher Schauspielhaus) has been at the center of a heated debate for many months now. The big and quite profound and philosophical question is: For whom do we create and perform theatre? In order to find out, the Zurich Theatre House actually ended up inviting its audience for an interview.
Can you remember times when you had multiple colds in a row or that one cold that just didn’t want to go away? Or you got injured, then went back to work too early, only to end up prolonging the healing process? We are all so busy in our lives. And falling ill often seems like an annoying hindrance. Yet it is so important for us to give our body the time it needs to recharge. How else do we want to be able to sustain long-term energy in this marathon called life?
Each year on May 25th, Peru celebrates the Peruvian Clown Day in honor of José Alvarez Vélez, better known as Tony Perejil, a popular clown who died on that day in 1987. To this day, many citizens of Lima remember the humble, benevolent, and entertaining clown who made people laugh even in the worst situations. With nostalgia and, perhaps as well, with a little regret.
Elisa Tauro grew up in Toronto and, from a very young age onwards dreamt of becoming a circus acrobat. 1 year ago, she became part of the cast of Cirque du Soleil’s show O in Las Vegas. A position every circus acrobat dreams about. In this second part of our interview, Elisa tells us how life and work at O developed and how things are going now.
Elisa Tauro grew up in Toronto and, from a very young age onwards dreamt of becoming a circus acrobat. 1 year ago, she became part of the cast of Cirque du Soleil’s show O in Las Vegas. A position every circus acrobat dreams about. In this first part of our interview, Elisa tells us what brought her there.
You can enter the backstage world from whatever location you like – through Joshua Broadbent and Kelly Plank’s podcast Whispers in the Wings. Their podcast focuses on life as a Stage Manager. It offers fun and fascinating insights of life backstage. Bringing order to chaos and making the impossible possible on a daily basis. In this article, listen in, as Joshua Broadbent tells us about his and Kelly’s creation: Whispers in the Wings.
Being an ascendent of the founder of Swiss Circus Monti, Guido Muntwyler, Mario Muntwyler has grown up within the circus. He is both a performer and an administrator, enjoys both roles, and is passionate about circus life. In our interview, he gives us insights into the workings and tour life of Circus Monti.
This week, I traveled from Zurich to Oslo to venture Underwater with Ludovico Einaudi. I had looked forward to this concert for months. And, in the weeks leading up to the event, I became quite neurotic. Attempting to avoid all contact with other human beings so as not to lose the opportunity to see him live due to coming down with Covid. I managed to stay healthy, and there I was, on April 11th, ready to be taken on a musical odyssey.
Now that theatre and entertainment events in general have moved back indoors, it is time to think about the positive influences the pandemic has had on our industry. Things we began doing differently due to rather sad reasons might now be new, enchanting, best practices we might – at least in part – want to keep. One of these new best practices is to keep having more theatre performances outdoors.
As we move into our third year of navigating a global pandemic, the way we experience theater continues to refine itself and adapt to new forms of technology, inclusion, and innovation. Backstage’s awards editor Jack Smart perhaps put it best when he said, “Big picture, years from now, looking at the entertainment industry in general, the pandemic is going to have these great benefits because it was an opportunity—or an obligation—to reassign some values, to reassess, to rebuild, even.”
With the major focus in the entertainment industry worldwide often being on the Western Hemisphere, it is easy to miss valuable events which consistently take place all around the world. Coming up, from February 22nd to 24th, the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi will host a major performing arts conference.
Even at the height of the pandemic during the last two years, ever larger cruise ships were being built by the huge cruise corporations. The pressure on all sides was enormous to keep this industry afloat. Yet, my question is, how sustainable is all this in the long run? And do we really need ever bigger cruise ships?
January and February are notoriously difficult times for theatre during a good year, but with the added issue of Covid, this winter has been one of Broadway’s hardest in recent years. However, Broadway grosses for the first week of February reveal that attendance is slightly up as the Omicron surge falls – and when it’s hard enough to fill seats, any improvement matters.
In 2020, after many months of performances halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, clowns, jugglers, and artists of the Estoril Circus in Rio de Janeiro found a way to go back to the stage. They created a drive-in circus to keep being able to entertain a populace which, these days, needs uplifting creative performances more than ever in their lives.
Long before Covid, theatre and performances already found their way into the digital realm. It all began with the visionary media art duo Sherrie Rabinowitz & Kit Galloway and their project “Hole in Space” from 1980. Measured by today’s standards it was a simple installation, making it possible for people on the East and West Coast to see each other in real time. However, beginning of the Eighties this was a sensation which widened people’s understanding of space and time.
As the Omicron variant surges through the United States, some Broadway shows are opting for a temporary closure instead of cancelling performances or closing the show entirely. Mrs. Doubtfire, The Girl from the North Country and To Kill a Mockingbird have all announced temporary closures until spring in order to wait out the Omicron surge. However, Broadway unions are worried that this is not only a way to avoid losing money, but a way to avoid paying artists.
futureStage is a global research project dedicated to investigating current challenges and future prospects for the development of opera houses, theatres, and performing arts centers. It is a brainchild of metaLAB at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. In October 2021, the project released their manifesto which offers a vision of performance as a human right.
Sundance Institute has released a statement on 5th January that the 2022 Sundance Film Festival will be held online due to the Omicron spread.
The Bregenz Festival is a performing arts festival which is held every July and August in Bregenz, in Vorarlberg (Austria). It features a large floating stage which is situated on Lake Constance. Said stage is legendary for having some of the most elaborate, creative, and outlandish set designs out there. Last year, the festival celebrated its 75th anniversary.
© 2021 TheatreArtLife. All rights reserved.
Thank you for your interest in the TheatreArtLife Archives, this area is for members only.
Our contributors are currently writing more articles for you to enjoy.
To keep reading, all you have to do is become a subscriber and then you can read unlimited articles anytime.
Your investment will help us continue to ignite connections across the globe in live entertainment and build this community for industry professionals.