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Best of This Week's Theatre Blogs - 6 Nov 2009

Lyn Gardner captured the mood of the week when she tweeted that the winners of the Peter Brook Empty Space Award were “a sign of the changing theatrical times” as changes, both good and bad, preoccupied Bloggers.

Forest Fringe celebrated winning the Peter Brook Empty Space Award on their blog - and then took the opportunity to look at what the prize money might allow them to do next.

For Alexander Kelly it was the closure of Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Space which caused him to reflect on the relationship between theatre maker and space, both professionally and emotionally. It was a very different type of relationship with space that preoccupied Whatsonstage.com's Michael Coveney, however, as he responded to Ambassador Theatre Group’s acquisition of Live Nation’s British theatres.

In America it was the early closure of Brighton Beach Memoirs which caused Bloggers to reflect on the changing  nature of Broadway audiences. Gratuitous Violins lamented the changing nature of Broadway whilst 99 seats and Parabasis put up spirited defences of audiences.

Forest Fringe Blog - Peter Brook Empty Space Award
“The £2000 that is the prize for this award will go a long way to realising some of the plans we have for next year - audio libraries, microfestivals rearing up across the country and of course once again looking to re-imagine and remake our place within the Edinburgh Festival season.”

Culture Vulture Blog, Alexander Kelly  - Memories of Space 
In many of the theatres that we tour into I am aware that the audience owns the space more than the artists who show work there.  They visit more regularly, they see more work there, and most of them have a stronger relationship with the space than a company that visits it once a year.  But with the rooms I think of as Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre, that isn’t the case.”

Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage.com Blog - Theatre ownership runs riot
“If the Cameron Mackintosh group of theatres are the Waitrose of our theatre culture and the Really Useful Group the Sainsbury’s, you can only possibly view ATG as the Tesco’s or Asda of the chain-store monopoly syndrome.”

Gratuitous Violins - Where have all the Neil Simon fans gone?
“Those tourists pay salaries and keep thousands of small businesses afloat. I love seeing musicals and big stars, too. But we're pretty close to the point where Broadway consists of musicals and limited runs of plays with celebrities.”

99 seats - Pot? Kettle here. I have news…
“Despite what some might think, I don't want good shows to close, especially not prematurely. This is a bad outcome for theatre and for Broadway, but it's not the audience that's to blame here. To act like it is makes the problem worse.”

Parabasis - W(h)ither The “Broadway Audience”?
“I'm not saying that audiences haven't changed for Broadway. Obviously they have. And of course it's a lot more tourist driven than it was.  I'm just not sure I see this as such a huge tragedy so much as a demographic realignment driven by business realities.”

- by Corinne Furness - Theatregoer Reporter

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