ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS FOR JUNE 11, 2024
Ambitious international programming in Latvia, an updated edition of the Theatre Green Book, Muriel's Wedding in Leicester, and more
Welcome to the latest edition of ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS, my regular roundup of theater headlines from around the world. New to Jaques? Get the scoop here.
An edgy, “eye-popping” reimagining of The Winter’s Tale provides the hook for a story in the Guardian about the ambitious programming of the Dailes Theatre in Riga, Latvia. The season slate — notably internationalist for the region, and employing both local talents and creatives imported from the U.K., Europe and beyond — also includes a John Malkovich-directed production of Leopoldstadt, a successful new play about authenticity in art called Rothko, and stagings of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and Peter Pan Goes Wrong. Led since 2020 by adventurous artistic director Viesturs Kairišs, Dailes “has an ensemble of 40 actors on staff, boasts Latvia’s biggest stage … and receives substantial state funding,” writes reporter Chris Wiegand. With Winter’s Tale, writer-director Jeff James and designer Rosanna Vize are creating a show on a bigger scale and with a larger budget than they ever would have access to in their native U.K. As Wiegand notes: “James and Vize say the pay is far greater than they are used to at home as Dailes is so well supported by the government; the subsidy it receives could pretty much cover the whole acting ensemble’s salaries, explains Kairišs.”
I feel compelled to include this description of Winter’s Tale, which has been almost entirely rewritten and set in Silicon Valley: “It opens with Hermione pleasuring herself to VR porn, reimagines Bohemia as a deadly video game and turns theatre’s most famous stage direction into the supporting character of a hot-headed panda.” (Writer-director James has worked as an associate director on several productions with Ivo van Hove, because of course he has.)
The Theatre Green Book has launched its second edition with a call for the commercial sector to join the movement. The three-volume guidebook, which aims to get the theater industry to net-zero carbon neutrality by 2030, has already been embraced by the subsidized and not-for-profit sector, according to co-author Lisa Burger, but she “called for more commercial venues to use the Theatre Green Book, noting there had been less ‘take-up’ in that area of the industry,” writes Katie Chambers in the Stage. In addition to refreshing the Theatre Green Book website, the project “has recently secured funding to hire a director for the Theatre Green Book initiative for the first time. It is also scheduling a programme of launches and training events across the UK and a planned International Theatre Green Book conference in spring 2025.”
Read more about the Theatre Green Book and the global industry’s push for greater sustainability in this newsletter from April:
A new, professional, musical theater training course in Chennai is a first for the city and “probably” a first for all of India, reports the Times of India. “A.R. Rahman Foundation’s KM Music Conservatory will offer [a] one-year course designed and taught by KMMC member and Broadway alumni performer Krystal Kiran [‘Bombay Dreams’],” writes Asha Prakash. The internationally renowned composer Rahman has previously said he intends to establish Chennai as the Broadway-like musical theater hub of India.
The developing new musical Muriel’s Wedding will have a run at Curve theater in Leicester, England, next year. An adaptation of the 1994 Australian film that gave Toni Collette her breakout role, the show is backed by Global Creatures, the Sydney-based producer of Moulin Rouge! Muriel’s Wedding premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2017, played a tour of Oz in 2019, and also had an industry reading in New York. With a script by the movie’s screenwriter, PJ Hogan, and a score by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall (plus some ABBA tunes), Muriel’s Wedding will be directed by Simon Phillips (Priscilla Queen of the Desert), who staged the premiere. In Leicester, the show runs April 10-May 10, 2025.
The U.K. is becoming a popular place for developing musicals on their way to Broadway. Find out why in this breakdown of the cost differences between London and New York:
Regular readers of this newsletter will know I love a musical based on a manga, and New York audiences will have a chance to check one out when the musical adaptation of the uber-popular manga and anime Attack on Titan plays New York City Center in the fall (Oct. 11-13). “Directed by breakdance world champion Go Ueki, the piece previously received world premiere stagings in Osaka and Tokyo,” reports Playbill’s Margaret Hall, and the show will feature “a combination of conventional musical theatre techniques and state-of-the-art technology designed to bring audiences into the world of the manga.” As in the manga and anime, the musical’s storyline follows the remnants of humanity living in a walled city and struggling to survive in a world dominated by grotesque, humanoid giants.
The Dubai Opera reported record-breaking attendance for its latest season with 250,000 visitors, the most since the venue opened in 2016. The season’s biggest attraction was The Phantom of the Opera, which “saw over 30,000 guests in attendance,” writes Sian Traynor in Time Out Dubai. “The musical also made history this year, as the Phantom role was performed by an Arab lead for the first time ever.”
The Korea Times has a feature about Su-ho Moon, the puppet designer for a musical adaptation of Benjamin Button in Seoul. Operated by the actor playing the title character as he ages backwards throughout the tale, the puppets “depict Benjamin at various life stages, overcoming the limitations of casting actors of different ages,” according to writer Kyung-min Pyo, who quotes Moon as saying that the puppetry “underscores a cozy, fairy-tale ambiance.” (The Korean adaptation of Benjamin Button, produced in Seoul by EMK Musical Company, is not to be confused with the separate adaptation of the title that premiered in the U.K. last year.)
This fall Barcelona’s Teatre Nacional de Catalunya will premiere an original musical about women working in the American animation industry during the Great Depression. Running Sept. 26-Oct. 27, Ànima “will be the first 100% original musical to premiere in a long time at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya,” according to Broadway World (via Google Translate). The story was inspired by the experiences of the grandmother of Oriol Burés, the original conceiver of the show and its co-dramaturg.