More Troubles For DIA-Detroit
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-03-30
The Talking Cure, Part II (discussion and debate)
AJBlog: We The Audience | Published 2014-03-30
English director provokes German storm by supporting opera cuts
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-03-30
Woman’s Point of View from a Tough-Guy Novelist
AJBlog: Straight|Up | Published 2014-03-30
What’s the Matter With San Diego, and a Deadly Impostor
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-03-27
“Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defenceless and unprepared. Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die”
“People are apt to hire people who are more like themselves. Ten to 15 years ago, (orchestra) boards were mostly all male. Now they’re mixed. I think that has created a positive evolutionary change.”
Bach fans “are campaigning to buy the site, under which the foundations of Bach’s house remain under heritage protection, and to rebuild the house the composer moved to with his pregnant wife when he was 23.”
“When the bank called the museum’s bluff last year, demanding full repayment, leaders scrambled to restructure the debt, partner with another arts institution, transform the museum’s operating model and persuade donors with deep pockets to rescue the institution. All attempts failed.”
“Even when certain words are necessary to the understanding of a story, the media frequently resort to euphemisms or coy acrobatics that make stories read as if they were time capsules written decades ago, forcing us all into wink-wink-nudge-nudge territory.”
“We want to ask our audience, do people really care? We’d like to think that what we do is better than a lot of the competition out there. We deliver high-quality music, and we have great musicians. We think we have a reason to be here.”
“Do you realize that asking writers to pick favorite writers causes us physical pain — like asking a 5-year-old to name her bestest best friend while the rest of the class is listening?”
“The internet is a great opportunity for black comedy, Asian comedy and frankly anybody who wants to get their work on TV but cannot get through the gatekeepers.”
“Here’s some comedy: Twelfth Night over The Tempest. Are you crazy? Who’s gonna stop Prospero when he’s in the zone? Viola? The Duke? Malvolio? Malvolio??
“We looked round and saw smoke pouring out of the corner of the theatre. We went running over with a fire extinguisher, thought ‘well maybe it’s just a small fire’, went in and the whole building was just well alight.”
“Some say Kaling is being unfairly singled out and held to a higher standard because of her ethnic background. Shows with predominantly white casts, such as CBS’ ‘The Big Bang Theory’ or HBO’s ‘Veep,’ are rarely asked about including multi-ethnic characters.”
“Can O’Hare’s dazzling company be related to the Royal Ballet which had Equity banging on his door complaining that the dancers were overworked, let alone the company from which glittering principals Tamara Rojo and Alina Cojocaru defected to the rival English National Ballet?”
“After all, scalping—or price-gouging, if you prefer—already works for airlines and sports teams and hotels and Broadway shows and nobody seems to complain—at least, not those that can afford them. And furthermore, like it or not, pretty soon everybody will be doing it. So hey, why fight it?”
“After World War I, many of the film companies in Europe had taken a big hit, and the U.S. government supported the film industry by helping to send over films overseas.”
“There are just more interesting parts for women in the theater. There’s just more to do. I could play Hedda Gabler on stage, but no one will ever hire me to play Hedda Gabler in a movie. … I don’t have the face of a movie star. I have a face of a character actress.”
“An experiment like this, I thought, could also be a useful corrective to the easy acceptance that value for money has just one currency. Consumers have come to expect discounts. In fact, most feel positively cheated if a price tag hasn’t been visibly slashed. By offering goods without any money at all exchanging hands, The Book Barge could become an attractive proposition to buyers.”
“I think it’s going to be a fun experiment for the Portland arts community which is very diverse but often falls into the trap that everyone’s competing for the same dollars, the few art dollars out there that are still left,” says organizer Peter Platt. “Instead there’s strength in numbers. You can come together, collaborate, create festivals and programming that shares expertise, talent and overhead.”
“Fairies were abundant in print until 1926, whereupon they suffered what population ecology types would call an overshoot, followed by a die-off. In other words, we crested ‘peak fairy.’” Then we created cars.
The city’s only a hundred years old – and the land it’s on was a ranch where coyote and bobcats used to roam. But everything changed when two investors decided to look for oil.
“With 3D-printing, there is zero waste, reduced transportation costs, and everything can be melted down and recycled. This could revolutionise how we make our cities.”
“Let’s do a brand-new story that works well for dance, and commission new music, new sets. Have it be a big production. Hire someone to write the libretto. Put a lot of care into it. Even take the time to workshop a lot of it. I’d take an approach that plays or Broadway musicals take, where there can be many phases of development for it, so it’s not rushed.”
“Two of Canada’s highest profile magazines have been told by the Ontario Ministry of Labour to immediately end their internship programs after complaints about unfair labour practices.”
“As a young actor in Poland’s Yiddish theater troupes, Mr. Fibich observed a wide range of expressive gestures and dances in Jewish communities. After moving to the United States in 1950, he and Judith Berg, his wife and first dance teacher, became known through concerts and workshops as experts in theatricalizing Jewish dance traditions.”
“There’s no set way to approach a manuscript. Nobody tells you, ‘This is how to edit. Follow these steps.’ Everyone comes to a manuscript with a different perspective, and you quickly learn that each editor has his or her own personal preferences — conventions they love (and maybe even overuse) and things that are huge pet peeves.”
“While our change might just be producing an art that can create social commentary and create a message for an audience, I think that is an idea of expression in general and of our First Amendment rights: We’re given the ability to produce material that can create change and be a part of our society.”
“Books that traveled around the world via interlibrary loan in the 20th century paper era are safeguarded locally in the Internet age. Indeed, it is the sheer ease with which electronic publications can be sent around the world that is now resulting in their being locked up behind digital bars. The book doesn’t go to the reader, the reader comes to the book — just like in the 19th century.”
“How do you put on new work, in the main house, while also keeping your audience? Familiar stories, brands and characters reinvented for the stage can seem like a smart way forward.”
“The latest version of the bill is designed to calm the complaints of Republicans, who blocked an earlier proposal in 2010 because they feared a new museum would cost taxpayers too much money.”
“It’s a book that respects and honors its source material, but it also provides a necessary correction to what is one of the more troubling aspects of the book, which is how the black characters are portrayed.”