Asides

The incom­par­able Elaine Stritch is doing Beckett’s Endgame in New York:

I always remem­ber the story of the woman who under­stud­ied Lena Horne in some Broadway music­al. And she was told she was going to go on that night because Lena had lost her voice. And the under­study said, “Oh, won­der­ful!” She said she just needed a cer­tain kind of eye shad­ow she had to pick out her­self. And she was going to go out to one of the drug­stores on Eighth Avenue and she’d be right back. And she went to Philadelphia instead. Isn’t that a great story? And it’s true. I under­stand it per­fectly. I love the fact that she went to Philadelphia. What a story. And that’s an example of Beckett’s unhap­pi­ness being the fun­ni­est thing in the world.

Gene Sobczak, exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or of Denver’s Arvada Centre on their 30% drop in attend­ance last year (follow-up quote from artist­ic dir­ect­or Rod Lansberry):

“In our line of work, everything we do loses money,” Sobczak said. “It’s the nature of pro­fes­sion­al theat­er and non­profits.” Or, as Lansberry puts it: “If theat­ers made money, they would be on every corner, like Starbucks.”

So the more theat­er you do, Sobczak said, “The more money you lose. Part of our expense equa­tion is we’re los­ing more money by doing more.”