From Theatre.com

The question of why so few new plays are produced on Broadway and in the West End these days isn't as vexed as some make out. The great majority of new plays receive mixed to lousy reviews, as is evidenced again by those for On the Third Day, the play which famously beat out 2000 others to win Channel 4's "The Play's the Thing" reality series (see story below). Just why this is -- whether most new plays are, in fact, mixed to lousy in quality, or most critics simply can't judge material that hasn't yet been declared "classic" -- is moot; these days, mixed to lousy reviews spell certain financial doom for efforts trying to make it in those largest of commercial marketplaces. So why do producers keep trying? What exactly is wrong with the system of letting hits emerge in small settings, and then transfer to bigger houses? What strange masochism is this?

 

From The St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)

At the Fresh Ink festival, playwrights escape "workshop hell" -- and end up in not-fully-staged, rehearsed-for-two-weeks purgatory. Good on Illusion Theatre for doing what it can, but wouldn't it be nice if spies from the Guthrie were there, looking for new plays to produce -- really produce -- in their brand spanking new theatre? (Registration required for the latter link. Feel free to use ours -- username: escript / password: escript)

 

From The News Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri)

In St. Louis, the apartment in which Tennessee Williams lived with his family as a young man, and which he later transmuted into the setting for The Glass Menagerie, is transmuted again into an upscale condo.