The history of The History of King Lear
From 1681 to 1838, performances of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy King Lear had a happy ending.
Category: Theatre
Shakespeare riot
On May 10, 1849, New Yorkers rioted over who was the better Shakespearean actor, the English performer William Macready or the American Edwin Forrest.
Don’t forget to breathe
People with central hypoventilation syndrome, also known as Ondine’s curse, can forget to breathe.
The magician’s toilet
John Nevil Maskelyne was a turn of the century stage magician who created the first levitation trick, built an automaton that could play whist, revealed the secrets of card sharks, and invented the pay toilet.
Theatre of silence
Andrea Bocelli’s Teatro del Silenzio only hosts one concert a year; every other day, the open-air theatre is silent.
Return to the Winter Palace
In 1917 Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Three years later, more than a thousand actors, circus performers, and ballet dancers stormed it again.
Dance notes
Music notation gives you a record of exactly how to play a piece of music. But how do you write a record of a dance?
Red alert at the circus
If you’re at a circus and you hear the band play “The Stars and Stripes Forever” – you better run.
Coney Island to the moon
One of the earliest amusement park dark rides was a trip from Coney Island to the Moon and back.
Verbatim theatre
A last-minute injunction blocked the live stream and recordings of the same-sex marriage court case Perry v. Schwarzenegger. So Dustin Lance Black took the trial transcripts and made a play reenacting the whole case.
Water puppets
Vietnamese puppetry uses an ingenious method to hide the puppeteers’ controls: they put them underwater.
The Kabuki pose
At the emotional climax of a Kabuki play, performers will strike a stylised pose to drive home the drama of the moment.
From the barricades
Twelve years before Orson Welles’ classic radio play The War of the Worlds, BBC Radio broadcast a hoax revolution in which government ministers were murdered and Big Ben demolished by trench mortars.
Communal pseudonyms
What do George Spelvin, Walter Plinge, David Agnew, and Alan Smithee have in common? None of them exist.
Ghost lights
On a theatre stage in the middle of the night, one light remains lit. It’s there to appease old ghosts… or prevent accidents that would make new ghosts.
Shortest play
Samuel Beckett wrote one of the shortest performed plays in the world on the back of a postcard. The first staging still managed to mess it up.
The Generalist Academy 