Category: News

As an intern in the Media Library and Archives of Boston's WGBH, watching the Elliot Norton Reviews and writing summaries of them for the FileMaker database every Friday afternoon never gets boring. Just last week, I came across a massive ¾ inch tape with a title that caught my attention immediately: Al Pacino [!]. In this episode, which aired on February 16, 1973, Elliot Norton interviewed a young Al Pacino about his role as King Richard III at the Church of the Covenant on Newbury St by the Theater Company of Boston. Alongside actor Paul Benedict (Duke of Buckingham), and director David Wheeler, Pacino talks about his love of language. In response to Norton’s question about why he chose to play Richard III, Pacino explains that he used to do soliloquies from Hamlet and Macbeth alone in his room and chose to perform Shakespeare scenes for acting classes. He is inspired by the language and feels that as an actor, “language serves you,” as opposed to the other way around. Pacino believes...

As I watch and catalog the Elliot Norton Reviews as part of my internship in the WGBH Archives, I am constantly reminded of the ephemeral nature of theater. One of the distinguishing aspects of theater, and of the performing arts in general, is its willingness to change and grow every night, as each new audience fills the room. A performance is in a state of continual flux from the first day of rehearsal through the last curtain call, even if attempts are made to reproduce the exact same show every night. The temperature is different, the lead actor has a cold, the lead actress ad-libs a few lines, the audience is bored, the audience cheers loudly, the country’s president was assassinated the day before… Any number of things can affect the mood in the theater and the experience of the performance for the actors and audience. Some of these changes are intentional and some are beyond our control, but every run of...

Last Monday night, the Boston theater community gathered at the Paramount Theatre to celebrate an impressive season of groundbreaking theater and honor the designers, playwrights, choreographers, actors, and directors that made it such a success. The 29th annual Elliot Norton Awards, originally known as the Norton Medal, were founded in honor of respected Boston theater critic, Elliot Norton, upon his retirement in 1982, after 48 years in the biz. From 1958–1982, WGBH, one of the sponsors for the awards, was home to Norton’s television show, the Elliot Norton Reviews. Think Inside the Actors Studio with Elliot Norton as James Lipton, no studio audience, and all Boston theater people. Each 30-minute episode features one to three actors, directors, playwrights, or other theater personalities speaking with Norton about their recent or upcoming production, season, or career as a whole. They discuss the writing, rehearsal, and production processes and touch on topics including script analysis, production changes, design choices, acting styles, and casting decisions. As an intern at WGBH and co-chair...

Stay up to date by subscribing to the ATAP national announcements listserv. If you'd like to participate in discussion about issues and resources related to the project, also subscribe to the ATAP national discussion listserv....