Are Working Class Actors Returning To The Theatre? Jim Cartwright Says Yes
"The working class thing is an attitude. It's a burning, it's a feeling inside," Cartwright says. "That's what came in the '50s. It wasn't just that they were from a particular area or a particular economic strata. They carried with them a certain fire. That's what we're building in the classes. We're not just classes - we're a bit of a movement really and we're a quiet revolution. And we're coming. If you won't let us through the doors, we're coming over the walls and through the stalls. We're coming in. It's time. And anyone out there who feels the same as I do, join us, because it's time for change in theatre. It really is time for change." … [Read More]
Report: Creative Industry Jobs Are Fastest-Growing Sector In The UK
"The latest employment statistics from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport found that almost two million people worked in the creative industries in 2016, a 5% increase on the previous year. Across the UK, employment grew by 1.2% year on year. The overall number of creative industries employees has grown from 1.5 million in 2011 to 1.9 million in 2016, now making up 6% of all UK jobs." … [Read More]
Are Trigger Warnings Censorship (Or A Good Idea?)
If you search for” books with trigger warnings” you will hit an interminable list of titles which include, and are not restricted to, suicide; self-harm; eating disorders; grief; miscarriage; addiction; racism; rape; sexual violence; incest. Where do you draw the line? … [Read More]
Sven Birkerts Found It More And More Difficult To Write. Then The Impulse Returned
"The change did not come overnight, but I did start to notice a while back that I was having fewer of these word surges interrupting whatever I was doing. Less and less often was I waking up wanting to strategize — plotting out paragraph transitions like a traveler marking a route on a map, except that both map and route were both in the head." … [Read More]
Eric Booth: Here’s What Democratization Of The Arts Really Means
"For a very long time, the criteria for excellence in the arts have been owned by a particular body of experts who generally have a condescending view of the quality of art developed in community-based and social change programs and projects. These credentialed “experts” hold to a definition of quality largely based in an “art for art’s sake” paradigm. However, this definition loses the connection with the vast majority of people who live in the country, as well as the vast range of arts that is produced here and the range of reasons for which people make art. Art is for many sakes, including but not limited to art’s sake (whatever that restriction means in practice)." … [Read More]
The Strange Tastes Of Bookstore Shoplifters (Kierkegaard And Wittgenstein?)
Sure, thieves make off with expensive coffee-table books and textbooks, but, says the manager of the London Review Bookshop, "Our most-stolen authors, in order, are Baudrillard, Freud, Nietzsche, Graham Greene, Lacan, Camus, and whoever puts together the Wisden [Cricketers'] Almanack." One booklifter who got caught said as he was escorted from the store, "I hope you'll consider this in the Žižekian spirit, as a radical reappropriation of knowledge." … [Read More]
How The Trump Era Is Changing The Nature Of Comedy
"Comedy is not dead, but it is changing. And comedy’s association with honesty is far more recent than we might think. You and I just happen to have grown up during an unusual period in the history of comedy, one in which it became strangely bound up with truth and virtue. Trump, thank God, has cut the knot." … [Read More]
Is T.J. Miller Doing A Joaquin Phoenix/James Franco-Style Weirdo Act? Or Is He Really This Weird?
That's the question fans of the now-former Silicon Valley star (and concerned onlookers) are considering following this, er, exceptional profile by David Marchese. … [Read More]
Paul Jacobs: Classical Musicians Are Not So Much Advocates For Their Art But Apologists
"So much of our understanding of the arts in this country is bound up with the individual tastes of the listener or consumer. The primacy of classical music as an artful or superior genre has gradually diminished. Increasingly, classical musicians are not so much advocates for their art as apologists. This is not a trend I observe, however, in great art museums." … [Read More]
Economists Predicted Progress Would Lead To Lives Of Leisure. But Indigenous Tribes Had Figured That Out Long Ago
"Convinced that mankind had been on a journey of unrelenting progress since we emerged from the swamp, he believed the 15-hour week to be the culmination of hundreds of generations’ collective ingenuity and effort. Perhaps Keynes would have had a different view had he known that the 15-hour week was a reality for some of the handful of remaining tribes of autonomous hunter-gatherers, and that, in all probability, it was the norm for much of the history of modern Homo sapiens." … [Read More]
He Launched The Careers Of David Lynch, The Coen Brothers, And John Sayles – And Now (At Last) He’s Directed A Movie Himself
"He was sometimes a producer, more often a distributor and exhibitor. He decided to buy Mr. Lynch's Eraserhead (1977) after seeing only half of it and made it a cult hit. Before that, he invented the phenomenon of the midnight movie, with El Topo (1970), selling out the Elgin for six months, followed by Pink Flamingos ... Now, at 82, [Ben] Barenholtz has directed his first dramatic film. 'I'll never be Kubrick,' he said, smiling. 'But I wasn't afraid either.'" … [Read More]
Should Serious Dancers Really Go To College?
Although schools like Juilliard and Bennington College have made degrees acceptable for modern dancers for decades, the competitive ballet world (which often follows a philosophy of "the younger the better") tends to discourage higher education. … [Read More]
Not With A Pop, But With A Hiss, The Higher-Education Price Bubble Is Deflating
Derek Thompson: "Altogether, the numbers paint a clear picture: The higher-education market is not bursting, like a popped soap bubble; but it is leaking, like a pierced balloon. What's going on? The explanation is a little bit of weak demand, a little bit of over-supply, a big crackdown on for-profit colleges, and, perhaps, a subtle shift in culture." … [Read More]
Arundhati Roy Leads This Year’s Booker Man Longlist
On a longlist thronged with literary titans, whose combined trophy cabinet would include the Pulitzer, the Costa, the Baileys, the Folio, the Impac and the Goldsmiths prizes, Roy – the only author to have won the Booker before – is listed for her novel about an Indian transgender woman, which judges called a “rich and vital book”. … [Read More]
Menil Collection’s New Drawing Institute Will Not Be Opening This Fall
"The public opening of the MDI, originally scheduled for Oct. 7, has been postponed until sometime next year. Three planned exhibitions for the space are also being shuffled. Menil Collection director Rebecca Rabinow said the organization's earlier move-in plan was 'probably a little too aggressive.'" … [Read More]
Premium Classifieds
Vice President, Community Engagement – Peace Center, Greenville, SC
The Peace Center, a major multi-theater performing arts center, located in Greenville, SC seeks a Vice President, Community Engagement to design and lead an innovative arts community engagement … [Read More]
Boston Philharmonic Seeks Skilled Development Director
The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra seeks a skilled fundraiser who is passionate about music to lead its comprehensive development program. POSITION SUMMARY: The Director of Development works closely … [Read More]
Deputy Director of Development
The Music Hall, a leading performing arts center with two venues in downtown Portsmouth, NH, seeks a senior fundraising professional to serve as Deputy Director of Development. Reporting to the … [Read More]
DataArts, President and CEO
The President & CEO will work collaboratively with DataArts’ board to envision and lead the implementation of its strategic action plan, comprehensive resource development, and delivery of high … [Read More]
Producing Artistic Director – Theatreworks, Colorado Springs
THEATREWORKS, on the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs campus, is a professional theater company located on this growing campus. THEATREWORKS will move into their new theatre in the $60,000,000 … [Read More]
AEA Consulting is Hiring
AEA Consulting is recruiting Senior Consultants, Consultants and Research Analysts for its offices in London and Beacon, New York We are looking for talented, culturally engaged problem solvers who … [Read More]
We’re Approaching A Major Turning Point In Trump-Era Pop Culture…
Mark Harris writes about how audiences are finding current-day resonance in properties like The Handmaid's Tale, The Americans, The Big Sick, and Dunkirk that were planned and written well before the 2016 election. However, "this moment is coming into focus just as it's about to end. ... With the advent of autumn we'll move into a period in which most of the resonance will be planned. ... My guess - speaking of questionable forecasting - is that our relationship to Trumpian pop-culture material will start to change in the next few months. Critics and audiences alike can be suspicious of art that looks like it wants to have an effect." … [Read More]
What The Hell Does Michael Moore Want Now? To Go On Broadway And Change People’s Minds…
"Now Mr. Moore, this willfully disheveled, 63-year-old hybrid of Noam Chomsky and P. T. Barnum, expects theatergoers to pay Broadway ticket prices to watch him in a one-man show, The Terms of My Surrender. After his previous documentaries, books and television shows, does he have anything left to say, and does he really believe it will make a difference?" Dave Itzkoff goes to a rehearsal to find out. … [Read More]
Auschwitz Artifacts To Go On Tour, Very Carefully…
"More than 72 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the first traveling exhibition about the Nazi death camp will begin a journey later this year to 14 cities across Europe and North America, taking heartbreaking artifacts to multitudes who have never seen such horror up close." … [Read More]
Angry Ex-Wife Destroys $1M Worth Of Violins In Luthier’s Workshop…
"The alleged victim, Daniel Olsen Chen, 62, a Norwegian national living and working in Japan, is a former violinist who maintained a making and repairing workshop in Nagoya. He posted a video of the destruction on his YouTube channel, AV Daniel Violin, and has claimed that in total 54 instruments and 70 bows were damaged, including his own Amati, the value of which he places around 50m yen ($450,000)." (includes video) … [Read More]
June Foray, Voice Of Rocky And Natasha On ‘Bullwinkle’, Dead At 99…
"Foray was also the voice behind Looney Tunes' Witch Hazel, Nell from Dudley Do-Right, Granny in the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons and Cindy Lou Who in Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, among hundreds of others." … [Read More]
Ex-Met Museum Director Philippe De Montebello Goes To Work At A Gallery…
"[He] doesn't exactly need another job. He is chairman of the Hispanic Society of America; a professor at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts; an honorary trustee of the Prado Museum; and a host of the PBS TV program NYC-ARTS. But now Mr. de Montebello has decided to add yet one more, becoming a director of Acquavella Galleries, effective immediately, where he will focus on the curation of special exhibitions and the development of publications." … [Read More]
Mandy Patinkin To Star In Broadway Musical For First Time In 17 Years…
Patinkin will spend three weeks at the end of the summer as Pierre in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. "This marks Patinkin's first role in a Broadway musical since 2000's The Wild Party, and his first time on Broadway since his 2011-12 season concert An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin." … [Read More]
Xander Parish Says The Royal Ballet Doesn’t Develop Its Young Talent (Which Is Why He Left For The Mariinsky)…
"At the time, it was the case in the Royal Ballet that there was a mindset of leaving dancers to develop, like a good wine or something, to gain strength in their own time. Whereas, in Russia, they have an idea of taking raw talent, maybe not ready for the big roles, and working on it until it's ready to be set before the audience." … [Read More]
How That Glorious Italian Marble Gets Wrenched From The Earth…
"The story of Italian marble is the story of difficult motion: violent, geological, haunted by failure and ruin and lost fortunes, marred by severed fingers, crushed dreams, crushed men. Rarely has a material so inclined to stay put been wrenched so insistently out of place and carried so far from its source." … [Read More]
Colosseum Archaeological Park Approved By Italy’s Council Of State…
"Italy's top administrative court has also unblocked the international selection process for a new director to oversee the ancient amphitheatre and its surrounding monuments, including the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and Domus Aurea. The decisions of 24 July overturn a challenge by the mayor of Rome through the Lazio regional administrative tribunal (TAR) on 7 June." … [Read More]