Why Two River Theatre Is Shifting to 7:30 PM Curtains

www.broadwayworld.com: Not long ago, I found myself doing that familiar pre-theater math: watching the clock at the end of the workday, checking train times, wondering if there was time to grab a quick dinner, and thinking, “Can I actually make this curtain without it feeling rushed?” It is a small thing, but it can make the difference between a great night out and a stressful one.

Every show should be captioned for deaf audiences, petition demands

www.thestage.co.uk: Theatre owners ATG Entertainment, Delfont Mackintosh Theatres and LW Theatres are being urged to ensure every performance at their venues has captions in order to be accessible for deaf audiences

Why Those Post-Show Diner Trips Meant Everything

OnStage Blog: Theatre people understand that post-show hunger is not normal hunger. It is a full body emergency. You just spent two hours singing, dancing, quick-changing, carrying set pieces, pretending to die, or all of the above. Of course you need mozzarella sticks at 12:14 a.m. Be serious.

It IS The Little Things That Matter

Butts In the Seats: Reimagining The Civic Commons (RCC) made a post on Medium about the contribution of even brief passing nods and greetings on the street have in establishing our sense of belonging.

To cry or not to cry: how moving the audience to tears can backfire

theconversation.com: “One must have a heart of stone not to read about the death of little Nell without laughing” was Oscar Wilde’s notorious response to the emotional onslaught of Charles Dickens’s 1841 novel, The Old Curiosity Shop. Having watched two films in two weeks about the death of a child, it offers a clue as to why I cried in only one.

How China's Wanda Film Attracts Gen Z With Immersive Experiences

www.hollywoodreporter.com: In an age when audiences are spoiled for choice across countless entertainment platforms, it’s no secret that cinema operators worldwide are feeling the heat.

Live Nation Study: Fans Choose Live Music Over Sports, Film, Sex

www.ticketnews.com: Live music has officially taken center stage in global entertainment, surpassing sports, film, and even sex as the world’s most preferred form of enjoyment, according to a new report from Live Nation.

Why It's More Important Than Ever to Watch Movies on IMAX or PLFs

www.indiewire.com: For film fans of all kinds (even the ones who make their living in the cinematic arts), going far afield to see a film in a unique format is something of a badge of honor. Consider this anecdote shared by Phoenix Theatres owner Cory Jacobson and VP of Project Development Jordan Hohman: earlier this year, an employee of their Midwest-based regional theater chain drove all the way from Cleveland, Ohio to the Lincoln Center theater in New York City in order to see “The Brutalist” projected on 70mm. That’s over 450 miles.

Alamo Drafthouse Promises No Ads That Waste Your Time at the Movies in New Video

collider.com: The last thing anyone wants to do with their limited time on Earth is watch ads. Least of all, nobody wants to be stuck sitting through promotions they don't remotely care about while trying to do something they love, like going to the movies.

More than words (and numbers): The 2024 TEA Global Experience Index™

InPark Magazine: It’s that time of year when journalists, industry professionals and park fans are eager to read the latest attractions attendance report. Produced by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) with presenting sponsor Storyland Studios, the TEA Global Experience Index (formerly the Theme Index and Museum Index) serves as both a mirror and a map – reflecting where the industry has been and helping to chart where it may be headed.

The Hunger Games stage adaptation branded ‘chaotic’ as theatregoers complain of delays and accessibility issues

The Independent: The highly anticipated stage adaptation of The Hunger Games has been labelled “chaotic” and “messy” by theatregoers after its first preview show on Monday (20 October). The Hunger Games: On Stage opened at the purpose-built 1,200 seater venue, Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre, with US actor John Malkovich playing the villain, President Snow, on a screen.

In the Intimate ‘Arborlogues,’ You Perform for a Tree

The New York Times: This summer, fans of immersive theater have ventured onto a rooftop to welcome the Phantom of the Opera back to Midtown Manhattan and clambered through “Viola’s Room” while hearing Helena Bonham Carter whisper a gothic mystery into their headphones.

Study Finds COVID Concerns Still Deterring D.C. Audiences

AMERICAN THEATRE: TheatreWashington and Limelight Insights by Shugoll have released the findings of a recent online survey aimed at assessing D.C.-area theatregoers’ opinions and attitudes toward COVID-19 safety policies. The trend among the 2,755 responses from survey participants, representing theatregoers both pre-pandemic and since theatres began to reopen in the fall of 2021, is clear: Theatre attendance is down overall, and it is driven by continued concerns about COVID-19.

Immersive Wolf of Wall Street actors get personal alarm buttons

Stage | The Guardian: The company behind The Wolf of Wall Street, the latest production to tap into the trend for immersive theatre, has introduced safeguarding measures to protect actors and participants following a series of incidents at previous high-profile shows.

Those Who Play: Notes On Building The Immersive Audience

noproscenium.com: Some days it feels like the aspects of immersive design that we love — that sense that you’re a real part of an imaginary world — won’t ever manage to spread outside the little biomes we’ve made for it in the great cultural capitols. That instead what tends to attract funding and make an impact on social media feeds is the mere semblance of immersive: projects that are more interested in chasing valuations over value.

Cellphone use during a movie. Clanking ice at a show. What should we do about annoying audience behavior?

The Seattle Times: On a recent night at the ballet, I was distracted from the ethereal beauty on stage by a decidedly nonethereal clanking. A woman in my row was holding a wineglass filled with ice and repeatedly reaching inside of it, maybe to extract a specific, special cube. Or maybe she was panning for gold in there, I don’t know. Regardless, the music was quiet and the constant clankety-clank of the ice against glass was a weirdly discordant note. I wish I hadn’t noticed it, but I did. And I wished, later, that I’d said something, but I didn’t.

Will Immersive Entertainment Experiences Ever Overtake Real Physical Involvement in the Game?

HERO Sports: After years of unfulfilled promise from developers, it finally appears as though immersive technology is slowly but surely breaking into the mainstream. The entertainment industry - including sports broadcasting - is proving to be a particularly fruitful playground for virtual reality and augmented reality technology; firms such as Ticketmaster are now able to show customers the view from their seat before they purchase their ticket, while others are opting to stream full music gigs in augmented reality via a number of headsets. Although the technology is undoubtedly impressive, will we ever get to the point where it becomes more popular than being physically present at the game?

Activating the Audience

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Across the many different kinds of theatrical work, the presence of a live audience is one of the few elements that remains constant. Historically, the positioning of the audience inside a performance has taken many forms. In Victorian-era melodrama, audiences determined the outcomes of plays by yelling and throwing food at the stage; in the less violent Commedia dell’arte, audiences gathered in their community spaces to watch groups of traveling players. When it comes to contemporary theatre, many artists—working with historical precedents like these in mind—craft unique and engaged performer-spectator relationships in order to tell their stories.

This Play Dares You to Leave… or Stay

Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Although dramatists are not necessarily the characters they write, there
are many compelling reasons the title figure in the monologue play Thom Pain (based on nothing)
seems like a Will Eno self-portrait. Eno and Pain are both dryly funny
fellows, with a skewed view that's at once cosmic and mundane. When they
speak, both comment on their own language -- undercutting, annotating,
contradicting.

WI Moves 40-45 Audiences 360 Degrees Around Venue

www.livedesignonline.com: Creative engineering specialist WIcreations has designed, developed and installed a unique, bespoke wireless laser-guided system to move eight enormous seating tribunes holding audiences watching Studio 100’s ground-breaking “40-45 Spektakle Musical” around the performance space.