1. Gilbert & Sullivan's The Gondoliers is up at Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago the weekend of March 9. It "takes place in 19th-century Venice, where two handsome and charming would-be Kings – both gondoliers – vie for the disputed throne of Barataria." Riveting! Will there be water? Another fun fact: When it opened, "the comic opera was Gilbert & Sullivan’s last great success, opening in 1889 and continuing for 554 performances—at that time the fifth longest running piece of musical theatre in history." And a final fun fact: 2012 is the 28th consecutive year that the proceeds from the production will benefit the University's Department of Music.

2. We've got more detailed thoughts about the power of regional theater from Jason Loewith at Howlround. The gist? Stop whining! "Managing institutional expansion while staying...

It’s like global warming: a lot of the evidence is anecdotal rather than empirical. But over the last decade at least, plays have been getting shorter and shorter. Are playwrights at fault? Do they realize they can earn the same bucks (if they earn anything at all) for a 75 minute show as for one twice that length? Or are audiences with shrinking attention spans demanding shorter performances? Whichever it may be—and you’ll have my opinion by the end of this post—a good night out in theater almost always is briefer than it used to be.

Right now in Chicago, you’ll be hard-pressed to spend even two hours in a playhouse, let alone longer. American Idiot, the Tony Award winning musical at the Oriental, runs 95 minutes. Feast: An Intimate Tempest at Chicago Shakespeare Theater is 75 minutes. Punk Rock at Griffin Theatre is less than two...

We've recently seen a spate of shows running between 75 and 90 minutes, no intermission. At first I greeted this trend with joy: Intermission has always galled me by interrupting the fictive dream, and I'm not averse to being home in time for The Daily Show. But I've started to notice the downside of all this expeditiousness: The plays often seem unfinished, like sketches rather than full-fledged pieces. Perhaps this is the result of our theaters' intense hunger for new work, and the concomitant pressure on playwrights to finish up this thing so they can start on the next thing. But a number of recent openings have demonstrated the drawbacks of this speed-dating version of playwriting.

Hesperia, at Writers' Theatre, captures its mise-en-scene...