Best of This Week’s Theatre Blogs – 30 Apr 2010

How long would you queue for a ticket to see a play? Propitious Productions braved the elements to join the overnight queue for tickets for the final performance of Jerusalem, considering the impact the play has had on its audiences along the way.

Meanwhile it was the controversy over Next to Normal winning the Pulitzer Prize which dominated American theatre blogging. The Playgoer considered the details surrounding the choice of winner whilst Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals looked at the musical itself, asking whether its viewpoint could be reconciled with the win.

For Pat’s Papers, however, it was a more lighthearted look at American theatre, blogging about the experience of appearing (and getting their spelling tested) on stage.

Finally, Mission Paradox made a spirited case for why theatre should aim to change the world.

Propitious Productions – Queuing
“I was queuing for Jerusalem tickets two days before the final performance. And so, it seemed, was everyone else.”

Pat’s Papers – Putnam County Spelling Bee: I Am Champion!
After that they made me dance. And spin. And jump. And then we spelled more words. I got quite a few of them right. (Including “demicastor,” which apparently has something to do with beaver pelts.)

The Playgoer – Pulitzers: “Normal” or Abnormal? 
“I still find the decision of the Pulitzer Board to overrule its own appointed expert jury’s recommendations in favor of a show that only questionably even qualified…upsetting.”

Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals – Next to Normal Wins Pulitzer Prize (Aherm)
“Is it possible for a show to be worthy of a Pulitzer Prize yet still espouse a viewpoint that I find questionable at best, dangerous at worst?”

Mission Paradox – The Real Threat  “One of those things is that changing the world is the only point of being in this business. If you’re not trying to build and run an arts organization that is trying to hammer a dent into the universe … then why are you even around?”