HEADLINES:

Australian and overseas performing arts news
Company B joins the magic million club
  It was the little theatre that could, rising from the ashes of Surry Hill's historic Nimrod Theatre when 50 theatre lovers gave $1000 each over a weekend for a new theatre on the site
Sydney Morning Herald     31 July 2002

Song and chance
  Britain's National Youth Music Theatre continues to nurture fresh talent
The Times     30 July 2002

Stretton under fire, but Guillem shines
  The Queen aged 50 years in three hours on Tuesday night at Covent Garden. Well, her portrait did, at the Royal Ballet's three-hour gala to celebrate the Queen's golden jubilee at the Royal Opera House
The Age     26 July 2002

Another dramatic entrance
  With the RSC likely to announce its new director soon, our correspondent ponders the company's future
The Times     25 July 2002

Leo McKern, 1920 - 2002
  One of the finest and most resourceful character actors in Britain, Leo McKern should be remembered for more than the combative Rumpole
The Guardian     24 July 2002

Madrigals and Englishmen
This summer's Party at the Palace had nothing on the junketings of 400 years ago. The first Elizabethan age saw a reign-long musical picnic of nymphs, shepherds, fauns, satyrs and gentle swains all lustily singing "Long live Oriana!" in a production-line of madrigals designed to flatter and promote the first great Elizabeth
The Times 23 July 2002

'I'm an artist, not a pin-up'
Can you be the face of Chanel and a serious musician? Violinist Leila Josefowicz talks to Stuart Jeffries
The Guardian 22 July 2002

Journey to the middle centres young stars
The set is the oldest landscape in the world; the stage a sandy bank beside the ancient Finke River; the performers 32 born hams aged 16 to 26 from around Australia
Sydney Morning Herald 22 July 2002

Change of pace for La Scala
La Scala has chosen to offer a mainly nontraditional program next season in its temporary home while the venerable opera house is renovated
International Herald Tribune 20 July 2002

Loved ones left wondering why a dazzling talent is gone
  Exciting Aboriginal dancer Russell Page was at the peak of his career when he chose to end his life. He left no clues
The Age     20 July 2002

Queue expected for 'one nation' proms
  Those seeking another excuse to wave union flag tea-towels in the wake of the Queen's jubilee and the World Cup may take heart today
The Guardian     20 July 2002

Playwright travels into satire country
  This guy gets on a plane bound, he thinks, for Valparaiso, Indiana, but by some perverse mistake he winds up in Valparaiso, Chile
New York Post     19 July 2002

Dench and Irons, before stardom
  A 1978 movie made for British television and belatedly having its American theatrical premiere, is one of those buried treasures that are unearthed for reasons that have as much to do with star power as with quality
International Herald Tribune     17 July 2002

Bangarra dancer Russell Page dies
  Russell Page - acclaimed dancer, choreographer and one of a trinity of talented Aboriginal brothers - has died. He was 34
Sydney Morning Herald     16 July 2002

Life in the firing line
It was one of the most brutal sackings in Broadway history
The Times 16 July 2002

I think he's cracked it
  Matthew Bourne sees no mystery to making dance popular. He just wants the characters to come alive, whether in Nutcracker!, in his new National show - or his upcoming work with Disney
The Observer     14 July 2002

Theatre of dreams
  This week the curtain rises on the city's newest performance space, NIDA's Parade Theatre. Matthew Thompson sits in on the last-minute preparations
Sydney Morning Herald     13 July 2002

Sometimes you've got to be a cowboy
  The American playwright Jon Robin Baitz was very young when he felt the first hints of artistic exhaustion. He was in his late 20s, with a few shows under his belt, and about to see the first major production of his work in New York
Sydney Morning Herald     12 July 2002

Opera babes
  In January, while the opera world was aflutter with Pavarotti's appearances in Tosca at Covent Garden, Edgaras Montvidas found himself singing to the great man in his hotel room. This meeting was a dream come true
The Guardian     11 July 2002

The Importance of Being Earnest
  Oliver Parker takes great liberties with Oscar Wilde's classic comedy. Wilde purists are not amused
Sydney Morning Herald     11 July 2002

An actor's life
  I had less than a minute to change into a full suit of armour. It would have been fine - but for the moustache
The Guardian     10 July 2002

Who's who in new British theatre
Reports of the death of British theatre have been greatly exaggerated
The Guardian 8 July 2002

New opera company throws its hat into the ring
Horti (short for Horticultural) Hall, opposite the Trades Hall in Victoria Street, Melbourne, is a new opera venue for the city and not a bad one. Certainly, the traditional shoebox shape and high ceiling help with atmosphere, if not always resonance
The Age 8 July 2002

Dramatic new look off-Broadway
Theater Row on 42nd Street has never had it so good. Maybe theaters are not as important as plays, but you can't have plays without them. And the rebirth of Theater Row, between Ninth and 11th avenues, is an occasion for real theatrical joy
New York Post 7 July 2002

Which Wolfgang is which?
Everyone from Hitler to Nasa has used him. As the Barbican mounts a festival of his music, Peter Conrad wonders what Mozart means now
The Observer 7 July 2002

Sun-loving neighbours say nada to NIDA
The local council has denounced the NIDA site in Sydney as an "utter disgrace", claiming that the back of the building was causing problems for thousands of local residents
Sydney Morning Herald 3 July 2002

A Broadway director comes to Harlem
George C. Wolfe had come uptown on a mission: to write and direct an original musical about Harlem, in Harlem, a show that would give the Apollo a Broadway kind of swagger - and maybe, too, a vast new audience
New York Times 2 July 2002

Reclaiming the heart of walkabout
Stephen Page cannot help but imagine how life could have been so different. He offers his preferred version of Captain James Cook's landing on Terra Australis more than 200 years ago
The Age 2 July 2002

Weber's problem child comes of age
Glyndebourne paves the way for a challenging new Opera Australia premiere
Sydney Morning Herald 1 July 2002

Three strikes and he's out
Baseball is the unlikely medium for a blistering take on homophobia and the American way
The Observer 30 June 2002

Black chick talking
Leah Purcell makes her entrance at breakfast in the hotel dining room as a seasoned interview pro
The Age 30 June 2002

Richard Rodgers - my favorite things
  If you broke into "Oh, what a beautiful morning" in the shower at dawn's early light or felt the urge to "Whistle a happy tune" on the way to work, remember to think of Richard Rodgers
Christian Science Monitor     28 June 2002

It's 'Over' and out for Albee
  Edward Albee has had a bizarre career. His early tries at playwriting culminated in 1962 in "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf," an explosion of drunken, often witty arguing. Then came 30 years of lugubrious missteps until he found his way again with 1990's "Three tall women," before lapsing into this year's glum one-joke (albeit Tony-winning) "The goat, or who is Sylvia?" Now comes "All over" from 1970, which has been brought to New York from Princeton, N.J.
New York Post     28 June 2002

The letters of Arturo Toscanini
  Scrupulously compiled and edited, this is a major contribution to our understanding of Toscanini and of several entire eras of late-19th- and 20th-century musical life. It's also a wonderful, sometimes downright salacious read
New York Times     26 June 2002

In cold blood
Fred West's 'house of horrors', the Moors Murders, the attack on the twin towers: name an atrocity and someone, somewhere will be writing a play about it. Is there more to it than opportunism?
The Guardian 26 June 2002

Reviving absolute classic
A little-known classic of the Australian theatre will be revived in Adelaide this week. The rarely staged Dreamers of the Absolute, by Melbourne playwright Phil Motherwell, was last seen in New York in 1992
The Advertiser 25 June 2002

Mamma Mia, it's farewell to Melbourne hit show
  It starred a single mother, her daughter and three men who could be the girl's father. It was set on a Greek island, ended with a wedding, and 650,000 people have seen it since opening night on June 9 last year. The magic ingredient? A plot intertwined with 22 Abba songs
The Age     24 June 2002

And now, the real thing
  "The peasants are revolting: come at once" was the instruction from the National Theatre, where the large cast rehearsing Tom Stoppard's new trilogy about 19th-century Russia had dragooned director Trevor Nunn into giving them an extended lunch break to watch England play Argentina in the World Cup
The Guardian     22 June 2002

Spontaneous, effortless ... and genuine: Paul Chubb Obituary
He was one of those character actors who seem so akin to the kind of people you meet every day that he was instantly recognisable and unerringly credible
Sydney Morning Herald 22 June 2002








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