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Dateline:
8th September, 2002
New Board Members
at the National
Six new members have been appointed to the board of the Royal National
Theatre. They are
James Hill (Chairman of Birds Eye Wall's)
Nicola Horlick (Société Générale
- member of the Development Council at the RNT for five years)
Rachel Lomax (Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport)
Caragh Merrick (fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants
in England and Wales and a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers)
Grahame Morris (Chief Executive of Sheffield Theatres; chair
of the Advisory Panel on Drama for the Arts Council of England)
Caro Newling (Executive Producer of the Donmar Warehouse)
The other Board members are Sir Tom Stoppard, Hon Peter Benson, Sir
Christopher Hogg, Joan Bakewell OBE, Sue MacGregor OBE, Ben Okri OBE,
Professor Lola Young OBE, Edward Walker-Arnott, André Ptaszynski
and The Rt Hon Chris Smith.
No Cash for Theatre
Creditors
Creditors of Entertainment Team (Durham) Ltd., the operating company
of Durham's Gala Theatre, are unlikely to get any cash once the winding
up process is complete, liquidator Alan Marlor says. The company, which
has debts of over £700,000 has over 160 creditors, including Durham
City Council which provided an emergency loan of almost £210,000
just weeks before ET's collapse.
Part of the loan is secured by personal guarantees given by ET directors
Michael Power and Nicholas Rule, so the council could recover some of
its money by court action against the directors.
Other creditors are not so lucky. Local amateur companies, which performed
at the theatre, will not be able to recover their box office returns.
Among them is Durham High School which is owed £4,628.
Currently the theatre is being run by the City Council, which is cosnidering
a number of propsals to take over its operation. Should they not be
satisfied by any of the proposals, they could run the theatre directly
but, when the theatre was first opened, they did give council tax payers
a guarantee that it would not be allowed to become a burden on local
people.
RSC Rushdie Play for
Barbican
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, a joint production of the
RSC with Columbia University & the University of Michigan, will
play the Barbican from 29th January to 23rd February (previews from
18th January), before going to the USA. On its return it will set out
on a UK tour. The dramatisation of the novel is by Rushdie himself and
Simon Reade and Tim Supple.
Brith Gof Director
Dies
Cliff McLucas, artistic director of Welsh theatre company Brith
Gof, has died. He had been ill for some time but continued to work until
the end. He had the reputation of being a "theatre maverick"
because of his often daring and experimental work.
Damsels
at the Duchess
Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy Damsels in Distress has transferred
to the Duchess Theatre. The trilogy - GamePlan, FlatSpin
and RolePlay - opened yesterday (Saturday 7th September). All
three plays can be seen one after the other on Saturdays.
Thousands Enjoy Kids
Week
5000 children participated in over thirty free events and thousands
more attended over 27 top West End Shows in this years Kids Week in
the West End, organised by the Society of London Theatre and sponsored
by Marks and Spencer, which took place from August 23rd -30th. Cherie
Blair and family joined in the fun attending a performance of The
Lion King and Kathryn Blair learnt Indian dancing at the Bombay
Dreams workshop.
Sinden on CD
Marc Sinden Productions have released a CD of Sir Donald Sinden reading
Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Details are available
on the MSP website - http://sindenproductions.com
There are also details of "An Evening with Donald Sinden"
in aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund.
Home and Beauty
to be Revived
A second revival of a play by Somerset Maugham is coming to London's
Lyric Theatre. Home and Beauty, starring Jamie Theakston and Victoria
Hamilton and directed by Christopher Luscombe, will follow The Constant
Wife on 29th October (previews from 15th).
Song and Dance
Revival
Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced that there is to be a revival of Song
and Dance, which will star Denise Van Outen, athough no dates or
venue have yet been released. The show, which opened in 1982, features
Lloyd Webber and Don Black's Tell Me On a Sunday in the first
half and a dance piece based on Julian Lloyd Webber's Variations
in the second. The show will be substantially rewritten to suit Van
Outen's style and personality.
Buddy
on Tour Again
A new tour of the musical Buddy opened last week at the Theatre
Royal, Plymouth, and will then go on to Belfast, Wimbledon, Woking,
Stoke, Bradford, Southampton, Sunderland and Liverpool. From 26th September
to 26th October it will tour Europe and continue to the remaining venues
until 14th December. Additional tour dtaes are expected to be announced
soon.
More Pop Stars Take
the Stage
Two more British pop stars are to begin a stage career in the near future.
In December Stephen Gately (Boyzone) will play the lead in the touring
version of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat when
it reached the Liverpool Everyman (16th December to 11th January), after
which the show is expected to West End. In October, Lee Latchford Evans
(Steps) will play the Teen Angel in the revival of Grease at
the Victoria Palace (2nd October to 1st March 2003: previews from 26th
September).
Extending
Five major West End musicals are extending their runs:
- My Fair Lady is now booking to 28th June, 2003
- Taboo is now playing until 31st May, 2003
- The Phantom of the Opera extends until 22 February, 2003
- Les Miserables is now booking to 28th June
- The Lion King has extended to 29th June
In addition, the Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Complete Works
of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is extending until 31st March
and On an Average Day extends by one week to 3rd November.
Index
A-F
Index G-K
Index L-Q
Index R-Z
News
Archive A-L
News Archive M-Z
Production News Archive
Please note that all three Archive
indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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