More schools shy away from controversial play

TheStar.com: "The controversy continues around Joseph Jomo Pierre’s play Born Ready, now playing at Theatre Passe Muraille. The show deals realistically with ghetto life in Toronto and the gun culture that young people are drawn into."

Nick of time

TheStar.com: "When a single production can save two famous theatre companies from extinction, 25 years apart, it must be something truly extraordinary."

PLAYBILL.COM'S THEATRE WEEK IN REVIEW: The Curse Is Off

Yahoo! News: "It came from England's Chichester Festival and the West End, where star Patrick Stewart and director Rupert Goold - �Britain's latest hot young director - �collected laurels all along the way. This week it landed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a six-week-stay, with mountains of press, a cacophony of good word of mouth, and whispers that a Broadway transfer might be in the offing. A Macbeth on Broadway that critics liked? Why, the last time that happened was - wait, has that ever happened?"

Theatre Breaks Barriers for Disabled Actors

Backstage: "Director Ike Schambelan had a problem. The founder of Theater by the Blind in Manhattan wanted to cast company regular Ann Marie Morelli as Tatiana and Hermia in his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream last year. However, Morelli's multiple sclerosis kept her in a wheelchair."

More Than a Feeling

The New York Times: "Tom Scholz, the chief songwriter and founder of the band Boston, has written to Mike Huckabee, complaining of his use of the group’s 1976 song “More Than a Feeling” in his presidential campaign without permission"

Taylor music make for a not-quite perfect 'Love'

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Valentine's Day took edgy turns during Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's 'Forever Love,' a program that built to the world premiere of 'glint' with live music by B.E. Taylor and his band."

Recordings can enrich enjoyment of live performances

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Midwinter is the time of year for season announcements by performing arts organizations. If they've done their job well, the cold outside is dispelled a bit by warm hopes for future delights."

Going deeper than Disney

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Fairy tales can be much more than little stories to help children get to sleep at night and encourage them to be good."

Strange Magic

New York Times: "Your powerhouse of a musical, “Passing Strange,” is about to open on Broadway, which might seem like an unexpected turn of events for a 46-year-old songwriter who has spent most of his career rocking with underground bands in small clubs. Have you always loved musical theater? No. I’ve seen very few musicals, and my producers get scared when I give my opinion of them. Apparently, it’s not the thing to do when you’re on Broadway, to dis other shows. Let’s just say I loved “Chicago.”"

Taste Schmaste! This Is for a Diva

New York Times: "IT has been four years since Bette Midler last had her way with a stage in the United States. On Wednesday, when she opens at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas with “The Showgirl Must Go On,” the stage will reflect this pop diva’s reputation for extravagance. Over a year in the making, the set has components that were constructed in Los Angeles, New Jersey and New York before being shipped to Las Vegas, including three 45-foot-tall trees and curtains created out of hundreds of thousands of individually painted gold coins."

A Raisin in the Sun

New York Times: "IN the shabby living room of a Chicago apartment a frustrated young chauffeur dreams of owning a business and buying pearls for his wife. His fiery sister, a college student, dreams of becoming a doctor. His weary mother dreams of a nice home for them all, and his pregnant wife dreams of just holding on until their poverty eases."

Day in the Work Life: Soap Opera Actor

Marketplace: "With Hollywood's writers back on the job, we turn an eye to entertainment and learn about an actor's day on the set with Tobias Truvillion of 'One Life to Live.'"

Slavery as Seen From the Other Side

New York Times: "Mr. Bandele, a playwright and novelist born in Nigeria, now a resident of England, for a long while wrote mainly about the lives he knew in both. But when the Royal Shakespeare Company had the idea of involving him in a production of “Oroonoko,” the play by the Restoration dramatist Thomas Southerne based on Aphra Behn’s famous novel of the period, Mr. Bandele plunged deep into matters of history, responsibility, power, choices of the heart and the fickleness of freedom. He emerged in 1999 with a new work about Africa and slavery; about slave takers, who are African, and slave traders, who are white."

Sam Buntrock - Sunday in the Park With George

New York Times: "WHEN people think of Broadway special effects, the first things that probably come to mind are big, lumbering spectacles like the chandelier in “Phantom of the Opera.” Such elements are designed to drop jaws, stop shows and above all draw attention. But they don’t always draw good reviews."

Broadway Bears XI Presented Feb. 17; Batt Hosts

Playbill News: "Bryan Batt, the Broadway actor who can be seen in the acclaimed TV series 'Mad Men,' returns to host Broadway Bears XI Feb. 17 at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill on West 42nd Street."

Stage Review: Classical Theater of Harlem trades the classical for the Harlem in 'Romeo & Juliet'

Post Gazette: "It starts with a bang, moves fast with plenty of energy and completes its task in a brisk 85 minutes: that's the stripped down, pumped up, youthful, contemporary, high octane 'Romeo and Juliet' staged at Downtown's CAPA Theater Friday and Saturday nights by the visiting Classical Theatre of Harlem."

Shakespeare contest finalists listed

Post Gazette: "All week, students in grades 4-12 swarmed the O'Reilly Theater to be judged in the Pittsburgh Public Theater's 14th annual Shakespeare Monologue & Scene Contest. Tuesday's snow and much rescheduling have left Public education director Rob Zellers and staff unsure of the final number, but it was more than 1,000."

'Anne Frank' musical in motion

Variety: "'The Diary of Anne Frank' is an unlikely vehicle to be made into a musical, once strictly the realm of love stories and lighter fare. But a Spanish tuner based on Frank's written account of her experiences -- starring a 13-year-old novice selected by the public -- is being readied for its premiere this month in Madrid, despite the misgivings of the book's copyright owners."

Theater fest targets teen audiences

Variety: "Child murder, pregnant 13-year-olds and soldiers returning from Iraq don't sound like standard fodder for theater aimed at teen audiences -- one of the legit sector's most underserved demographics."

Clancy Sigal: Strike Notes from a Screenwriter

Counterpunch: "Our strike is a victory against negatives. We successfully resisted the studios on rollbacks. And the union remained united, solid and militant in the face of the media conglomerates' obvious intent to break or enfeeble the Writers Guild of America, west and east. The strike the conglomerates' film studios provoked had the unintended consequence of strengthening our union and uniting the membership as never before."