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Post by zahidf on Jun 19, 2023 12:27:15 GMT
Applications open
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Post by Jan on Jun 19, 2023 14:22:04 GMT
We could all compile a list of people we’d like to take over, that’s not the problem, the problem is there’s a very much shorter list of people who’d actually want it and thought it was worth applying against the NT/Norris’s already preferred candidate(s).
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Post by londonpostie on Jun 19, 2023 15:30:03 GMT
Do we know why he's announced his leaving in .. something approx. to 21 months: why the Spring of 2025 - to do with the lead-in to a new season?
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Post by londonpostie on Jun 19, 2023 15:32:23 GMT
I think Norris has done a decent job in difficult circumstances. It's a very changed landscape, with obvious pressures like Covid and austerity plus social media cancel culture and pile-ons meaning that constant looking over your shoulder with both new and old work that is impacting the arts these days, and operating at a time of 'peak TV' which is taking some great established and upcoming actors away from theatre. Fwiw I am glad we are hearing more diverse voices, and I don't come away from plays at the NT that deal with difficult complex topics feeling I've been hectored and lectured for 2 hours rather than seeing a well constructed and entertaining play, in the way I do from some other London theatres.
The Dorfman says hi
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Post by Jan on Jun 19, 2023 16:03:03 GMT
Do we know why he's announced his leaving in .. something approx. to 21 months: why the Spring of 2025 - to do with the lead-in to a new season? Just a contract thing. He was appointed on a 5 year contract from April 2015. This was then extended for a further 5 years. He's positioning it as if it is his decision to leave but in fact he has no choice, it's the end of his contract and there's no reason they would extend it again. |
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1,873 posts
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Post by Dave B on Jun 19, 2023 16:12:14 GMT
On a purely commercial side, would anyone be able to comment on how Norris' playing to 88% capacity sits? From the outside, that would seem a pretty decent figure to me.
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Post by londonpostie on Jun 19, 2023 16:35:15 GMT
On a purely commercial side, would anyone be able to comment on how Norris' playing to 88% capacity sits? From the outside, that would seem a pretty decent figure to me.
Fascinating to look at this. I just looked at the NT circa 2011 to 2016 - huge changes (audiences doubling).
What period are you looking at?
ETA >> wider context; lovely data here from SOLT
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Post by Jan on Jun 19, 2023 16:43:07 GMT
On a purely commercial side, would anyone be able to comment on how Norris' playing to 88% capacity sits? From the outside, that would seem a pretty decent figure to me. I see that quoted as a single number with no breakdown in the assorted briefed articles about Norris leaving. Assuming it is % seats sold it is incredibly high, higher than under any previous AD I think. Due to press tickets and things like that the upper limit achievable for an individual production is about 95%, that is regarded as "sold out". I'm *very* surprised the number is so high given high-profile flops in the big theatres (eg. Hex) and audience reluctance and lack of tourists in the aftermath of Covid which would significantly reduce the overall average number. If you dig into the various NT reports they have to file you'll find a second capacity number "financial capacity" which accounts for papering and discounting from face value - that number is always lower than seat capacity %, and sometimes a lot lower. |
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Post by Dave B on Jun 19, 2023 16:44:33 GMT
What period are you looking at? It was in Billington's piece about Norris stepping down as being for his tenure so 2015 to present I suppose. |
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Post by Jan on Jun 19, 2023 17:11:46 GMT
Just out of interest and because it was mentioned in another thread here are the % seat capacity and (% commercial capacity) they achieved for Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia".
Voyage 75% (60%)
Shipwreck 72% (56%)
Salvage 71% (58%)
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2,512 posts
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Post by zahidf on Jun 19, 2023 18:42:45 GMT
Looking at the job description, they say they are looking for someone to aim for 90% sold capacity
Don't most departing ADs etc give a years or so notice?
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7,254 posts
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Post by Jon on Jun 19, 2023 18:57:19 GMT
I assume that the 2024 season is either locked or well in the planning stage so whoever gets hired will start their planning this time next year.
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Post by Jan on Jun 19, 2023 19:20:26 GMT
Looking at the job description, they say they are looking for someone to aim for 90% sold capacity Are they going to give the new AD control over ticket prices then ? Because that’s one of the key factors in achieving that (or not). In my view that is an inappropriate target for an AD - for a start no previous AD has achieved it and its a recipe for bland risk-averse programming with no challenging new plays and no non-mainstream unfamiliar revivals. It’s an interesting requirement though, I wonder if some of the more politically committed candidates would be put off by it. |
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Post by bordeaux on Jun 21, 2023 12:14:25 GMT
One thing I don’t like about Norris’s programming is his decision to fill the Dorfmann with 100% new plays, it means the NT has entirely abandoned the lesser and more obscure classical repertoire because they can’t fill the two bigger auditoriums with them. For example he totally ignored the 400th anniversary of the birth of Molière as he has Ben Jonson, Shaw, Marlowe … it is a long list. Not just the lesser classical repertory. Four of the very best Shakespeare productions of the 90s - Deborah Warner's Richard II with Fiona Shaw, the Sam Mendes Othello with David Harewood and SRB, the Richard Eyre King Lear with Ian Holm, the Trevor Nunn Merchant of Venice with Henry Goodman - all started in the Cottesloe and benefited from the intensity that small space gives. |
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Post by Jon on Jun 21, 2023 12:29:29 GMT
I don't get this obsession people have with the classics, surely it's not a bad thing that the Dorfman is used for new work.
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jun 21, 2023 12:54:51 GMT
I'm someone who would like more classics and ideally in a variety of different size auditoriums. A lot of new work generally disappoints which doesn't mean I'm going to stop sampling I just want to celebrate our theatres rich historical past at the same time.
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Post by bordeaux on Jun 21, 2023 13:24:09 GMT
I don't get this obsession people have with the classics, surely it's not a bad thing that the Dorfman is used for new work. Obsession seems an unduly negative word. Passionate interest is what I feel. I love the classics because they are good: entertaining, gripping, funny, moving, profound, thought-provoking and, in many cases, worth seeing several times. I imagine many of us on this forum like paintings, novels, music, buildings, films too that are more than 10 or 20 (or 100) years old. If I love an art form, I'm interested in its great past too. I imagine a lot of us on this forum feel that way. If I felt a desire to be a bit more controversial, I would also argue that Shakespeare's relation to the theatre is different from the greatest practitioners of other art forms to theirs in that he is out on his own both in terms of quality and quantity in a way that doesn't happen with other art forms. In the novel you have Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, Balzac, Dickens, Austen, Eliot, Mann, perhaps one or two others who are at the top. In painting you have Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Picasso all there. In music Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner all in their way equally extraordinary. But there isn't really anyone up there with Shakespeare: the Greeks, Chekhov, Ibsen, Racine, Goethe, Schiller are all great, but to me they are all on a level below Shakespeare - which is why he's done so often in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere. It's not only sheer artistic greatness, but the sheer number of first-rate works which is unique in literature. There are five great plays by Chekhov, a handful from most of the others, 10 or so by Ibsen. No one compares to Shakespeare. I'm in favour of new work being in the Dorfman, but I think it should be used for classics too, and not just the less well-known ones. |
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Post by londonpostie on Jun 21, 2023 14:43:28 GMT
As someone once said: classics are classics for a reason. At the same time, it's all very well a bunch of middle-aged and old men on here bemoaning the state of the world, but there is no choice other than to platform and encourage next generations. What's the alternative, tell anyone under 40 to sod off to the Royal Court or Netflix?
Just a question of where the balance is, and it will vary depending on so many considerations.
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Post by bordeaux on Jun 21, 2023 16:43:43 GMT
As someone once said: classics are classics for a reason. At the same time, it's all very well a bunch of middle-aged and old men on here bemoaning the state of the world, but there is no choice other than to platform and encourage next generations. What's the alternative, tell anyone under 40 to sod off to the Royal Court or Netflix?
Just a question of where the balance is, and it will vary depending on so many considerations.
You're right that it's all a question of balance. I would disagree with your implication that only the over-40s are interested in the classics, though. I was interested in the classics as a young man and I have taken 100s of sixth-formers to plays by Shakespeare, Sophocles, Euripides, Moliere, Pinter and Brecht - and they loved them. And no one is telling anyone to sod off anywhere or that we don't need new writing at the National. |
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Post by Jan on Jun 21, 2023 16:54:24 GMT
I don't get this obsession people have with the classics, surely it's not a bad thing that the Dorfman is used for new work. I don’t get this thing where you keep making comments about people who don’t exist. No-one at all is obsessed by the classics and no one is saying it’s a bad thing the Dorfman is used for new work. However, it’s the duty of the NT to reflect Britain’s theatrical heritage and not just do those limited classics that can fill their two big theatres so it is self evidently a bad thing the Dorfman is used *only* for new work. |
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Post by Jan on Jun 21, 2023 17:07:27 GMT
As someone once said: classics are classics for a reason. At the same time, it's all very well a bunch of middle-aged and old men on here bemoaning the state of the world, but there is no choice other than to platform and encourage next generations. What's the alternative, tell anyone under 40 to sod off to the Royal Court or Netflix?
He hasn’t cut out the classics to pander to a younger audience though. He’s told us exactly why he has - it’s so he can meet the NT’s self-imposed targets for gender balance amongst writers, actors and creatives generally. I’m not sure that the classics don’t appeal to an under-40 audience anyway. If ROH put on only operas by living composers would the place be full of young people ? |
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Post by lynette on Jun 21, 2023 19:50:59 GMT
As someone once said: classics are classics for a reason. At the same time, it's all very well a bunch of middle-aged and old men on here bemoaning the state of the world, but there is no choice other than to platform and encourage next generations. What's the alternative, tell anyone under 40 to sod off to the Royal Court or Netflix?
Just a question of where the balance is, and it will vary depending on so many considerations.
Oi, let’s have some respect please. ‘Middle aged’ and ‘old’ eh? ‘Men’? You mean experienced, mature and knowledgeable theatre goers who have poured a small fortune into the arts over the years and women. |
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Post by nottobe on Jun 21, 2023 20:29:52 GMT
Has the NT ever staged a play by Aphra Behn? Yes there are not many female playwrights of by gone times but it is a shame she is ignored.
If they are looking for classics written by women then why not explore some other early 20th century writers like Sarah Glaspel, Lillian Hellman or others who are forgotten. Come on Norris if you have your agenda you should at least do some googling.
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Post by zahidf on Jun 21, 2023 22:10:14 GMT
In an effort to find some middle ground, I hope we can all agree that Hex was a complete disaster on every level, and I hope some interviewer has the spine enough to ask him about it
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Post by londonpostie on Jun 22, 2023 6:35:42 GMT
As someone once said: classics are classics for a reason. At the same time, it's all very well a bunch of middle-aged and old men on here bemoaning the state of the world, but there is no choice other than to platform and encourage next generations. What's the alternative, tell anyone under 40 to sod off to the Royal Court or Netflix?
Just a question of where the balance is, and it will vary depending on so many considerations.
Oi, let’s have some respect please. ‘Middle aged’ and ‘old’ eh? ‘Men’? You mean experienced, mature and knowledgeable theatre goers who have poured a small fortune into the arts over the years and women. Why would I include you, would have been presumptive of me. Last comment you made in this thread was a 'didn't like Norris' post. Then the conversation moved on to classics and new writing, on which you haven't voiced a view. |
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