From The Washington Post

Neil Simon has had a rough couple of years: ill health, Mary Tyler Moore taking a powder from Rose's Dilemma, failed revivals on Broadway. So it's a pleasure to see him receiving the Mark Twain Prize for humor. This, after all, is a guy who has given us laughs that, if lined end-to-end, would last for a couple of centuries.

 

From The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Canada's Stratford Festival once did significant work with new plays and contemporary playwrights, but that was a long time ago. A revival of Djanet Sears' Harlem Duet, however, suggests the sleeping giant might be stirring. (Registration may be required. Feel free to use ours. Username: Escript. Password: escript.)

 

From The Guardian (London)

As a revival of Fool for Love opens in London, Joe ("Blue/Orange") Penhall talks with Sam Shepard, who speaks more openly than usual about his father -- that shadow figure in so many of his plays -- and offers up an analysis of his early playwriting method: "I was riding those plays, like you'd ride a horse. You'd go as hard as you could, then get off and get on another one and go again."

 

From Parabasis

In an address to the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, playwright and artistic director Eduardo Machado challenges theatres to cease programming out of fear, quit building buildings, and become rebellious again. He also has some some piquant things to say about university playwriting programs, including the one he runs at Columbia.

 

From Amakhosi.org

Update from Zimbabwe (see June 4 posting below): Umkhulu Lo Msebenzi, editor of the Amakhosi Theatre website, reports further on the crackdown on artists in his country: "An assault on cultural workers is an assault on culture. In the Martin Luther sense, tomorrow, we will not remember what the government of Robert Mugabe did wrong, but we will remember that Zimbabweans said nothing when it all happed."

 

From Playbill

It's a little odd that The Drowsy Chaperone won Best Book and Best Original Score at The Tony Awards, but not Best Musical. (That award went to Jersey Boys.) But, yes, a musical is more than the sum of the words spoken and sung in it. And The History Boys' win as Best Play was a surprise to no one. But now that they've finally figured out how to shoot segments from the straight plays -- ie., as a television show, with lots of close-ups, etc. -- may we please have more than just 10 seconds from each?