Posts from — September 2010

The “In Transit” team explains how they make a musical with no instruments

When it comes to collaboration, the cast of In Transit, now in previews at Primary Stages, makes everyone else seem kind of wimpy. These seven people are not only responsible for every character in the show—a new musical about a group of New Yorkers trying to make sense of their lives—but also for every sound.

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Unlocking the structural secrets of a new Broadway play

Lee Hall’s new play The Pitmen Painters is a fantastic example of the old saying that “form equals content.” The play’s structure reflects the emotional and political arcs of the characters, and studying it closely opens a new window on the show.

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Meet the pioneers who brought sign language interpretation to Broadway

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A year in the life of Charles Busch’s new play

Anyone lamenting the difficulties of getting a show produced in New York might consider the approach that Charles Busch took in financing an earlier incarnation of The Divine Sister, his latest gender- and genre-bending hymn to old Hollywood.

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How an outsider director rose to Broadway fame

This fall, The Path to Broadway will ask artists and audiences to reflect on their first Broadway experiences. To read all the stories in this series, just go here.

If you were describing the “typical Broadway director,” then you might never mention Alex Timbers. After all, he’s made his name helming low-budget, high-concept shows like Gutenberg!: The Musical and artistic directing Les Freres Corbusier, an off-Off Broadway theatre that used robots in a production of Hedda Gabler and elementary school students in a Christmas pageant about Scientology. It’s hard to imagine him leaping from those back alleys to the Great White Way.

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