From a tender age children run around in this theater of knowledge, appropriately guided and following correct itineraries, so that they learn joyously, as if playing a game, without effort or pain.
But two theater executives with knowledge of the "Spider-Man" casting said on Tuesday that Ms. Damiano had recently signed a contract to play Mary Jane in the musical, to be directed by Julie Taymor and begin performances later this year at the Hilton Theater.
Such debacles are rarer Off Broadway, but the lead producer and investors in the Nashville-themed musical "Lucky Guy" lost at least that much money when the show closed on May 29, 10 days after opening night, according to two theater producers with knowledge of the musical's capitalization.
But the theater executives with knowledge of the project – who spoke on condition of anonymity because casting is confidential – said that Mr. Pine was now a leading contender to play Brick and that no final decisions on the role had been made.
A new Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is in the works for the spring of 2013, with Scarlett Johansson starring as Maggie the Cat and Chris Pine ("Star Trek") and the Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner ("The Hurt Locker," "The Town") among the actors under consideration to play her alcoholic husband, Brick, according to theater executives with knowledge of the project.
Their sense of theater makes their knowledge entertaining, and their enmity sizzles like a fireworks fuse.
"As an erstwhile theater kid whose knowledge of it was strictly confined to traditional musicals such as Oklahoma! and Fiddler on the Roof, witnessing a Latino actor write and star in his own show, reveling in the specificities of our culture with brilliant, razor-sharp wit and a uniquely hip-hop energy, exploded my every notion of what theater could be".
By the time the third movie, Revenge of the Sith, hit theaters, fans went into theaters begrudgingly, with the knowledge that this was a zero-sum game.
It's a board game he created that tests players' knowledge of theater and their tolerance for self-abasement.
He had a vast knowledge of theater, music and art, great curiosity and a high energy level.
Mr. Reeder, a former member of New York City Ballet, William Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt and Ballet Theater, possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of classical ballet and Broadway forms, which he imparts throughout the film.
