Sam Mendes’ 25 Tips For Directors
Avoid, please, all metaphors of plays or films as “pinnacles” or “peaks”; treat with absolute scorn the word “definitive”; and if anyone uses the word “masterpiece,” they don’t know what they’re doing. The pursuit of perfection is a mug’s game.
Here’s What LA’s Creative Economy Looks Like In 2014
“The distinction in creative labor, put simply, is that artists have autonomous control over the direction of their creative output, whereas members of the “creative industries” produce products on spec. While both trade the products of their labor for capital, the latter, professionalized class dwarfs the former in economic clout, and so is dramatically more lucrative and stable an avocation.”
Why Repetition Is Fundamental To Our Enjoyment Of Music
“Music didn’t acquire the property of repetitiveness because it’s less sophisticated than speech, and the 347 times that iTunes says you have listened to your favourite album isn’t evidence of some pathological compulsion – it’s just a crucial part of how music works its magic.”
The Advantages Of Disadvantage
“There is this weird thing where having a little bit of resources is worse than having none. Or: having a few numbers of options is worse than having no options. It can be freeing to be at the very bottom.”
Van Gogh Museum Resumes Ban On Photographing In Galleries After Complaints
“Permitting photography led to constant tension between those who wanted a clear view for their camera and those who wished to look at the paintings. Many also insisted on photographing their companion or themselves in front of a picture. This led to numerous complaints from other visitors.”
The Future Of Books: A Netflix-Like Subscription Model?
“So now that we know that it’s possible to deliver books like magazines, to sell them like magazines, and to target them at clusters of readers like magazines, the big question looms: Do book enthusiasts actually want to engage with literature the way they engage with magazines? And can they afford to?”
Should America’s Broadcast TV Networks Abandon Free And Move To A Subscription Model?
“By going all-subscription now, the big networks would have a chance to define that future rather than becoming its victims.”
Tone-Deaf Minnesota Orchestra Board Bobbles Leadership
“This talented orchestra and Vänskä, who resigned as a show of support for his players, have almost come to represent a blue-collar crew who took on the elite in the city. But now with deadlines looming and the newfound attention the orchestra is receiving, there’s also a new pressure on the board to act.”
“Mozart In the Jungle” Gets Picked Up As A Series
Blair Tindall’s memoir turned into an Amazon.com series. “Amazon Studios has settled on four series orders among the 10 pilots the company announced last month were under consideration, according to sources close to the deals.”
Critics Hated This Show But It’s Finding An Audience. Here’s How
“So how come a show with no press support and a tiny marketing budget (we’ve had some tube posters) found an audience? The answer seems to be social media.”
How 20,000 Lines Of Code Became One Of The World’s Most Recognized Sounds
“The THX Deep Note was played in front of 4,000 movie theater audiences a day, or around once every 20 seconds. Yet despite its distinctive crescendo, the THX Deep Note wasn’t actually composed so much as it was programmed, which makes it a fascinating success story of early computer audio design.”
City Of Seattle Creates Musician Loading Zones
“Seattle’s music scene is a critical part of our city’s cultural draw and the quality of life in our city,” said Mayor Ed Murray. “We want to better serve local music venues’ needs and the musicians that play there.”
EU Plan For Levy On Tablets To Benefit Musicians Is Stymied
“Plans by the European Union to raise a levy on the sale of iPads and tablets to help young musicians benefit from downloads have been blocked by the British government.”
World Changer: Creative Economy Taking Hold In More Cities
“A whole new economy based not on manufacturing or even service provision, but on knowledge or more precisely creativity and innovation is slowly taking shape. What makes people creative and innovative however, is still being debated.”
Giant Paper Sculptures on Park Avenue
They’re not actually made of paper (they’re aluminum and fiberglass), but they sure look like it. The seven pieces make up Alice Aycock’s Park Avenue Paper Chase, now going up in the median of Park Avenue in upper midtown Manhattan.
Life After Merce: What Happens After a Great Dance Company Disbands?
Dance Magazine checks in with former members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company to see where life and career have taken them.
How Do You Write a Realistic Novel About North Korea?
“The problem with North Korea journalism is that you can write almost anything and almost nobody knows if it’s bunk. Then you have North Korea fiction, where you can paint a very vivid reality and readers, I imagine, will want to believe that it’s 100 percent true.” Adam Johnson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Orphan Master’s Son, talks about how he dealt with the challenge.
Is Shakespeare’s Globe Wrong to Visit North Korea?
With the London-based company about to begin a two-year global tour of Hamlet that they hope will include every nation on Earth, Amnesty International has given them a scolding for including Kim Jong Un’s domain on the itinerary. Mark Lawson considers the precedent – the long boycott of apartheid-era South Africa – and whether the situations are comparable.
Dancing the First World War
English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo and her three choreographers – Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan – talk about creating their upcoming mixed bill, titled Lest We Forget.
How ‘Rocky’ Made It to Broadway
It was the idea of Sylvester Stallone himself, after the disappointment of the fifth Rocky film in 1990. But nobody took that idea seriously for more than 20 years …
All Animals Play – Why Do Scientists Have So Much Trouble Accepting This?
“Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions.” David Graeber explains why. (Don’t blame Charles Darwin.)
Science’s Problem With the Idea of Play Goes Deeper Than Economics
Barbara Ehrenreich: “But I would say that the roots of our short-sightedness about play range far beyond economics, that they extend into all of Western science, and that what is at stake here is ultimately even deeper than play. For the last few hundred years, Western science has been on a mission to crush all forms of agency, which I mean in the philosophical sense as the capacity for action.”
The Grandmother of Body Art
Carolee Schneeman, “the avant-garde artist who bared her buttocks for Yoko Ono, filmed herself having sex when movies still couldn’t say the word ‘vagina’, and made art out of meat long before Lady Gaga, talks to Steve Rose.”
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Diana Rigg: ‘I’m Portrayed As This Tough Broad, But I’m Not’
On the other hand, says the 75-year-old, “I think women of my age are still attractive. Men of my age aren’t.”
West End’s Queen Musical to Close After 12 Years
We Will Rock You, “which has been seen by more than 6.5 million people at the cavernous Dominion theatre, will close on 31 May 2014. It will have run for a total of 4,600 performances, with an annual average of 600,000 tickets sold.”
Haves/Have-Nots: Here’s Who Reads In England
“More than one in four (27%) of adults from the poorest socio-economic backgrounds said they never read books themselves, compared with just 13% of those from the richest socio-economic backgrounds.”
Ironic: Greece’s Economic Meltdown Has Been Huge Opportunity For Greek Filmmakers
“The same recession that brought misery to tens of thousands of families since 2009 has fueled demand for tales out of Greece — prompting the nation’s filmmakers not only to adapt to the new economic realities but also rack up awards in the process.”
Warning: UK Curators Leaving Country For Higher Pay In US
“Higher salaries in North America are attracting an increasing number of British curators, and insiders warn that poor pay in London will lead to a “brain drain” from the city’s museums unless conditions improve.”
How A Small Bay Area Theatre Became A Powerhouse
“Our audience is made up of many of the greatest scientists, computer engineers, cooks, urban gardeners, authors, environmentalists in the country, if not the world. They want their experience at the theater to reflect the complexity and thoughtfulness of their daily work.”
Where Were The Outstanding Women Jazz Instrumentalists?
“Were there no female musicians playing instruments or do we just not know about them? The truth is that there were plenty of capable and talented ladies, but social expectations for the household matriarch did not include frequenting dance halls at night and touring around the country for weeks in a bus full of men.”
New Smithsonian Secretary Has Been Champion Of The Humanities
“The funding we allocate to the humanities through our government has never come close to the value the humanities add to individual lives and to the life of our nation. Even in times of austerity, especially in times of austerity, sound investments must be made.”
Fifteen Of The World’s Most Beautiful Concert Halls
“More and more concert halls are being built that stand out by virtue of their eye-catching shapes, colors and materials.”
Remembering Gerard Mortier And His Influence In America
“I can think of no one more important than the crafty, brilliant Belgian impresario in making opera a uniquely telling, relevant, contemporary and meaningfully controversial art form in Europe. But it wasn’t only Europe and it wasn’t only opera in which Mortier’s influence has proven pervasive.”
Television Academy Updates What “Television” Means
Instead of referring to the electronic console as “television,” the group now embraces a more inclusive moniker — television means programming — in a nod toward the rise of disruptive new digital programmers, including Netflix.
Trey McIntyre Project Shutdown – Does It Say Anything About The State Of American Dance?
“To be certain, the company’s January announcement that it was shutting down as a full-time performing troupe drew plenty of congratulations from some circles. But there was also a good deal of consternation about what this would mean for the folks in Boise.”