Remembering The Now-Gone Music Stores On NYC’s 48th Street
Forty-eighth Street was once famous for stores that sold musical instruments. Those stores catered to musicians of every stripe, but the vibe was very rock and roll. The names that stand out for me are Manny’s and Sam Ash, but there were several others, packed together, one next to the other, each a world unto itself. In my own private atlas of the city, that street was also notable for the degree its character changed in the course of one block, from Seventh Avenue to Sixth Avenue. The music stores, like the support of a seesaw, were the point at which that character made its pivot. … Read More
Plagiarism? Are There Really Any New Ideas?
Writing consists of basically two things: idea and execution. You come up with an idea, and you figure out how to execute it in terms of style, setting, and genre. Writers are understandably protective of our ideas, but for better or worse the law only really protects execution. Unless someone is directly stealing your exact words, it is nearly impossible to prove that they took the idea. And it probably wouldn’t be a good thing if it did. … Read More
Does The Future Of Stagecraft Lie In Virtual Or Augmented Reality?
Howard Sherman: "While I don’t look forward to watching plays while holding up my mobile phone (ringer off, of course) for two hours, technology is beginning to offer ways for companies to create more immersive worlds without the construction of physical scenery. As work increasingly bursts out beyond prosceniums, augmented reality may offer possibilities to performances anywhere people can congregate, but without the need for lugging scenery into parks and playgrounds." … Read More
Opera Australia Bets The Future On A (TK) Digital Revolution
Lyndon Terracini is staking much of the future and reputation of the national opera company on a digital revolution designed to immerse audiences and create an experience more akin to watching a movie than traditional opera. The glittering reptiles on the Joan Sutherland Theatre stage are part of the wholly digital production design for OA's upcoming Aida. It's the first step along a road Terracini says will revolutionise the way opera is staged and experienced. … Read More
Amazon Has Made Self-Publishing Lucrative For Authors
For decades, self-publishing was derided as an embarrassing sign that an author couldn’t cut it in the “real” publishing industry—“the literary world’s version of masturbation,” as Salon once put it. And Amazon, the world’s biggest e-commerce site, with its bookstore-beating prices, was painted as an enemy to authors. But now its self-publishing service, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), has made it easy for people to upload their books, send them out into the universe, and make money doing so. Its store has created a place for readers to go and easily find inexpensive self-published books. The site that got its start by radically changing where books are sold is now reshaping how books are published and read. … Read More
It’s Important To Understand What Book Prizes Are (And Aren’t)
"Prizes, at least the biggest ones, help sell books. Many of them were created for just that purpose and the prize-givers are not shy about saying so, and why should they be? What’s the point of publishing great books if you can’t find an audience for them? Authors and editors all hope that a nomination or a prize will draw attention to work they’ve already committed enormous amounts of time and energy to bringing into print. Still, the contrast between the language of literary merit and that of cool business calculation can be jarring." … Read More
When Mr. Balanchine Taught His Dancers The Proper Way To Drink Tea
Jacques d'Amboise told the story - with mime - at an opening gala for this summer's Dance on Camera festival at Lincoln Center, and filmmaker Maia Wechsler recorded it for the rest of us. (video) … Read More
The Benefactor Who Gave Away Millions Anonymously To Support Artists Comes Forward
Her own anonymous grant program is called Anonymous Was a Woman, in reference to a line in Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” to pay tribute to female artists in history who signed their paintings “Anonymous” so that their work would be taken seriously. The donor behind the prize wanted to remain unknown. But now she is stepping out from behind the curtain: Susan Unterberg, herself a once underrecognized female artist over 40. … Read More
A Composer With Migraines Sees St. Hildegard Of Bingen As A Model
Jenny Giering: "In a theological work, Scivias, she described an experience strikingly similar to my own: 'When I was 42 years and 7 months old, Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast.' Hildegard is best known, though, for her music — a powerful body of mystical religious chants that are listened to more widely today than the music of any other single composer of her time. I want to talk to her." … Read More
Scientific Study: Beetles REALLY Don’t Like Rock Music
The researchers report beetles who were serenaded by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings ate just as many aphids as those who dined in silence. But exposure to the rock music greatly depressed their appetites. Listening to AC/DC reduced by nearly half the number of aphids they consumed over a 16- to 18-hour period. … Read More
Playwright Young Jean Lee Loves To Watch Her Audiences – And Herself – Squirm
"Lee's work is about wrongness: about being the wrong kind of man, woman, Asian; about saying the wrong thing; about getting other people wrong. Her characters are ill at ease in their bodies and in the world and, sometimes, in the very play they're starring in. ... With each production, she begins by asking herself, 'What's the last play in the world you would ever want to write?' Then she casts actors and builds a play for them and with them, incorporating their feedback." … Read More
Problematic Classics Make Us Uncomfortable, But They Should…
These shows are important – but we can’t be uncritical of them. When an all-new Broadway version of West Side Story was recently announced that Ivo van Hove will direct with new choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, its lyricist Stephen Sondheim said: “What keeps theatre alive over time is reinterpretation, and when that reinterpretation is as invigorating as [Ivo van Hove’s] productions of A View from the Bridge and The Crucible, it makes for something to look forward to with excitement.” … Read More
What 2018 America Could Learn From Patsy Cline
"In the decades following her death [in 1963], Patsy's people were ascendant: Winchester's white laborers and cleaners, people who proudly traced their family land to the [impoverished] hilly folds of the surrounding valley, became homeowners, businesspeople, parents to first-generation college students, even mayor. And through it all, Patsy was their North Star, their proof that a Kent Street girl could be globally recognized." … Read More
The Myths Of Meritocracy
“The whole process of constructing life narratives is biased in ways that almost guarantee that people won’t recognize the role of chance events adequately. We remember the moments or months of perseverance that contributed to our triumphs, but forget, or even fail to notice, when Lady Fortune smiles on us: a great teacher, a chance encounter, or—in Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston’s case—having other A-list actors not take up the role of Walter White. … Read More
The Danger Of Adjusting Classic Plays To Current Values
Producer Richard Jordan, citing Bartlett Sher's current Lincoln Center Theater production of My Fair Lady: "While critics enthused over Sher's new ending, referencing it back to the issues of today, watching it play before a regular audience you felt a sense that the musical no longer gave them a pay-off. Instead, it felt as though they had been waiting more than three hours for the 'I love you' moment only to then be denied it – it's not how Lerner intended this scene to play and it was surprising his estate allowed it. We should be concerned about a growing attitude that classics can be 'fixed' to match today's agenda – one risks changing the very essence of the work itself." … Read More
Premium Classifieds
Publicity Manager, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center seeks a creative, high energy Public Relations Manager, with proven success achieving consistent high visibility for a classical arts or other … [Read More]
VP for Arts Impact
With the help of tens of thousands of donors, ArtsWave supports more than 100 arts and community organizations that make the Greater Cincinnati region an amazing place to live. We believe that the … [Read More]
Chief Development Officer, Miami City Ballet
The prestigious and internationally acclaimed Miami City Ballet seeks a Chief Development Officer to establish a best-in-class fundraising operation, advance the development strategies of the company, … [Read More]
Executive Director of the Office of Arts and Culture
The City of Phoenix seeks an experienced, innovative and collaborative leader to fill the position of Executive Director of the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture. This executive-level position … [Read More]
Director of Operations – Opera Omaha
The Director of Operations leads and oversees all aspects of the company’s producing activities encompassing mainstage performances as well as the development and execution of designated community … [Read More]
Did Robert Indiana’s Assistant Exploit And/Or Steal From Him? Two Legal Cases Aim To Answer
"In May the Morgan Art Foundation (MAF), Indiana's representative since the 1990s and the owner of the artist's famous Love trademark, filed a lawsuit in New York against the artist's long-time assistant, Jamie Thomas, and an art publisher, Michael McKenzie. MAF says the pair exploited Indiana towards the end of his life, producing dubious works in his name and isolating him from friends. ... Meanwhile, the lawyer representing Indiana's estate — estimated to be worth $50m — is seeking documents to determine the extent of the artist's assets, based on 'reasonable suspicion' that some 'may have been conveyed away or otherwise misappropriated or sold without due compensation'." … [Read More]
Yuval Sharon Wants To Stage ‘La Bohème’ Backwards
The MacArthur-winning director, whose staging of Lohengrin is about to open the Bayreuth Festival, seriously proposes doing Puccini's opera in reverse order, Acts 4 through 1. "It will work really well, from devastation to the beginning. Some people might even think it's the way it's supposed to happen. ...You can put it on the moon or anywhere else and it's still the same old Bohème. But how do you get to the core of this piece if not by radically transforming our ability to listen to this piece and thereby open a door to a way that we've never thought about it before? So if we end in Act 1, with them singing offstage with these high C's, what a wonderful way to end an opera." … [Read More]
We’re In Another Stephen King Media Renaissance, This One From The Generation Who Grew Up On Him
"King's enjoyed numerous renaissances since Carrie put him on the map in 1973 — the era following Brian De Palma's 1976 film adaptation; the early '90s one-two punch of Misery's Oscar win and Tommy Lee Wallace's It miniseries; the two-year spell at the turn of the millennium when he dropped the final three Dark Tower books. This one, however, is markedly different than those that came before, due not only to its scale and scope, but also because it's unfolding in a generation that's succeeded at both commodifying and intellectualizing nostalgia." … [Read More]
Walker Art Center To Commission Indigenous Artist To Replace Sam Durant’s Disassembled ‘Scaffold’
"The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis ... has created an Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee, which will be charged with commissioning a Native artist to do a public artwork for the museum's sculpture garden. ... The museum's release said the committee was formed in response to the controversy surrounding Sam Durant's Scaffold (2012)," which was installed there last summer and them removed following protests by Dakota people. … [Read More]
Paramount Fires Head Of Its TV Division After Racially ‘Insensitive Comments’
"Five years after being tapped to lead the newly relaunched Paramount Television banner, Amy Powell is out." Multiple individuals had complained about things Powell reportedly said about black women on a conference call about the company's TV adaptation of The First Wives' Club, which features a largely African-American cast. … [Read More]
One-Third Of UK Performing Arts Students Have Been Sexually Harassed: Survey
"The poll of 600 drama, music and dance students found that more than half (51%) had experienced inappropriate behaviour, sexual harassment or bullying. Nearly two thirds (73%) of those who experienced some sort of incident identified as female. ... When asked if they had reported their concerns, 57% who had experienced inappropriate behaviour did not report it. Just 13% did." … [Read More]
Netflix Is Expanding Into Radio With Comedy Channel On SiriusXM
"The streaming giant has announced a partnership with SiriusXM that will see it create and launch a comedy-focused satellite radio channel, a move that signals the company's interest in extending its programming foothold beyond its online video roots." The channel's name: Netflix Is a Joke. … [Read More]
At A Workshop Where The Choreographers Don’t Have To Finish Their Work
"The National Choreographers Initiative in Irvine seek[s] to emphasize the creative process and take the pressure off producing a finished, polished product. The three-week summertime workshop — now celebrating its 15th year — will culminate with a public performance July 28 ... Unlike formal, completed dance productions, the show will start with four choreographers introducing their pieces, 16 dancers presenting what they've learned, and a question and answer session with the audience concluding the program." … [Read More]
Anna Netrebko And Yusif Eyvazov Cancel Because They’re In Quarantine With Norovirus
The superstar soprano and her tenor husband were to star in this weekend's performances of Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur in Baden-Baden until health authorities required them to stay away. Singers Tatiana Serjan and Migran Agadzhanyan are coming to the last-minute rescue. … [Read More]
Students Cover Mural Of Rudyard Kipling Poem With Text By Maya Angelou
"The poem 'If', which was written around 1895, had been painted on the wall of the university's newly refurbished students' union. But students [who argue that Kipling 'dehumanised people of colour'] painted over the verses, replacing them with the 1978 poem 'Still I Rise' by the US poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou." … [Read More]