“Rather than fading deferentially into the terrain that surrounds them, the houses that best exemplify the new Chilean architecture are, like Neruda’s impure poetry, emphatically man-made — rough-hewn and, at times, surreal.” – T — The New York Times Style Magazine
An Argument Against Colorblind Casting
Playwright Chisa Hutchinson got involved with theatre because of a “badass” theatre teacher who let her write her own monologues for acting class, because outside of A Raisin in the Sun there just wasn’t much available for her to perform. This same teacher brought her to see August Wilson debate Robert Brustein at Town Hall in Manhattan. She found herself gravitating to Wilson’s point of view that colorblind casting is lazy and can erase the experiences of different races of people. – American Theatre
New Thinking On Getting Old
As the population surges into young old age and old old age, the number of books wrestling with that question has grown from a trickle to a tsunami. Apart from the science journals and science-fiction novels debating whether is it possible or desirable to prolong the lifespan by fifty or a hundred years, or (might as well go for it) eternally, books designed to help readers navigate the treacheries of ageing fall roughly into three categories: the scientific, the personal and the political. – Times Literary Supplement
In A Country With Few Public Libraries, Ordinary Citizens Create Their Own
There’s the tuk-tuk bookmobile toodling around Jakarta schools. “There is the Perahu Pustaka, a library boat that sails around West Sulawesi. There are libraries on the back of vegetable carts, shelves lugged around by horses in Serang and in West Papua. Across Banten, a 200-strong motorbike gang called the Komunitas Motor Literasi (Moli), brings books to homes from a box attached to their vehicles, delivered with the ease of a takeaway.” – The Guardian
Just What Exactly Makes Bernard-Henri Lévy A Public Intellectual?
While Lévy’s ideas are unremarkable, his ability to claim public attention is striking. His lengthy career is a reminder that cultivating a controversial persona to build fame and fortune is hardly a technique invented by reality TV or social media. – Quartz
Ali Stroker Talks About Doing Broadway Musicals In A Wheelchair
In the 2015 Deaf West revival of Spring Awakening, Stroker became the first wheelchair-user Broadway actor, and she’s now playing Ado Annie (the girl who can’t say “no”) in the revisionist Daniel Fish staging of Oklahoma!. In a Q&A, she talks about what she sees her job as being (and not being) as a “mainstreamed” disabled performer, how she deals with a given theater’s accessibility issues, and showing the public a wheelchair-using character who’s also a sexual being. – Vulture
James Dapogny, Who Brought Musicology Skills To Early Jazz, Dead At 79
In addition to performing as a solo pianist and bandleader, “he applied his vast knowledge of music to transcribing early jazz works from recordings, most notably in his 1982 book Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton: The Collected Piano Music, which helped fuel a rediscovery of Morton (1890-1941), who had fallen out of favor but is now widely regarded as the first great jazz composer.” – The New York Times
MoviePass Is Giving Its A-Movie-A-Day Plan One More Try
“MoviePass Uncapped will have a regular price of $19.95 per month, but the company is offering cheaper deals for what it says is a limited time. If you’re willing to pay for a full year (via ACH payment), it will cost the same as that original unlimited plan, namely $9.95 per month. If you don’t want to make a full-year commitment, it will cost $14.95 per month. Now, you may be thinking that this kind of deal is exactly what got MoviePass into so much trouble last year.” Well, the new Terms of Use have addressed those problems (or so the company hopes). – TechCrunch
US Supreme Court Says UK National Gallery Can Keep Contested Matisse
“Three grandchildren of Greta Moll, the muse depicted in the portrait, had argued that the painting was taken in violation of international law and demanded that the National Gallery pay $30 million in compensation for the painting or return it. But last September, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York affirmed a lower-court decision that the National Gallery and Britain were immune from the jurisdiction of US courts,” and the Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal. – The Art Newspaper
Making Music Programs Accessible To People On The Autism Spectrum: Q&A
Following up on her open letter to fellow musicians and her point-by-point guide to accessibility, autistic violinist Chrysanthe Tan selects a dozen reader questions and offers answers. – NewMusicBox
New Opera Gives Voice To The Forgotten Women Murdered By Jack The Ripper
“Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly, Polly Nichols and Liz Stride – odds are that these names won’t ring a bell. But Jack the Ripper will. The most notorious killer in this country’s history has had no name for 130 years, but remains more famous than all of his victims. Composer Iain Bell wants to change this. New ENO opera Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel turns the focus towards the women of the story.” – London Evening Standard
Socially Conscious: New Broadway Oklahoma! Production Will Donate Money For Every Gun It Uses On Stage
For each gun prop used on stage and in decorations, the production will donate money to help destroy illegal guns circulating on the streets.In all, the show will donate $10,000 for the more than 100 gun props used, said “OKLAHOMA!” producer Eva Price. – CNN
Magic Flute, The Video Game? It’s Coming To A Console Near You
New Yorkers Have Named The Vessel-Stairwell-Thingy At Hudson Yards
The developer of Hudson Yards temporarily christened Thomas Heatherwick’s big bronze stack of stairways The Vessel, but — just as 30 St Mary Axe in London is “the Gherkin” and Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park is “the Bean” (whether Norman Foster and Anish Kapoor like it or not) — New York’s new selfie-attraction is now “the Shawarma.” – Slate
Striking Chicago Symphony Musicians Talk About What’s At Stake
We do not easily fit into the capitalistic system. And this is a good thing. The best things in life — education, medical care, love, nurturance —also do not fit neatly into economic life. – Jacobin
Shen Yun: Chinese Classical Dance Extravaganza Or Anti-Communist Cult? Well, …
If you live in an American city with a sizeable performing arts center, at some point you’ve probably seen ads or flyers for this touring company. Writer Jia Tolentino had never paid them much mind until her parents took her to see them as a Christmas surprise. She had to go a second time to believe what she’d seen. – The New Yorker
Developing New And Diverse Theatre Critics In A Town Without A Culture Of Criticism
The English city of Hull has a lively theatre scene for a town its size, but the local newspaper published only two theatre reviews in the whole of 2018, and the national critics rarely make it to Hull. Jamie Potter of the city’s Middle Child Theatre writes about how his company developed and launched a New Critics Programme to recruit and establish at least eight new critics over four years. (And they made a point of seeing that the writers they chose weren’t all, as Potter puts it, “male, pale, and stale.”) – HowlRound
‘Theater That Gets In The Way’ — A Company Puts Itself On The Front Lines Of Poland’s Culture Wars
Two years ago, the actors of the Powszechny Theater in Warsaw had to barricade themselves inside their building against conservative Catholic protesters angry about their production The Curse, about the suxual abuse of children by priests. This year, the company is following up with a staging of Mein Kampf. No wonder its slogan is “Theater that gets in the way.” – The New York Times
Rachel Ingalls, Author Of ‘Mrs. Caliban’, Dead At 78
The daughter of a Harvard Sanskrit professor, Ingalls settled in England as a young adult “and began to publish short stories; her editor at Faber’s, Charles Monteith, said she was ‘a genius – not a word I use lightly’. In 1982 she published her masterpiece, Mrs Caliban, the tale of an unhappy housewife who gives shelter – and more – to a handsome sea creature who has escaped from a research institute. … [The novel,] largely ignored at the time, was republished in 2017 to huge acclaim and she was rediscovered in her late seventies.” – The Telegraph (UK)
Novelist Writes New Narnia Book With Out C.S. Lewis Estate’s Permission
Francis Spufford, who won a Costa Book Award and an Ondaatje Prize for his 2016 book Golden Hill, has spent 3½ years working on a Narnia prequel he’s titled The Stone Table. “After finishing the novel, Spufford made a ‘tentative’ approach to ask the Lewis estate if they might agree to publication, but did not receive a reply. Eventually he printed up 75 copies and started giving them to friends” — who are praising it to the skies. – The Guardian
Actors, Politicians, Even Nancy Pelosi Speak Up In Support Of Striking Chicago Symphony Musicians
As negotiations over a new contract drag on and concerts get cancelled, members of Chicago’s acting community have joined musicians on the picket line, both candidates for mayor in the city’s runoff election have come out in the strikers’ favor, and the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has issued a statement of support. – Chicago Tribune
Harnessing The Arts To Power The Ongoing Recovery In Puerto Rico (And ‘Hamilton’ Helps)
“While the government’s priorities shifted a bit in the immediate aftermath of [Hurricane Maria], as the island works to rebuild, tourism, particularly arts-fueled tourism, is playing a significant role.” The biggest example so far was the tour of Hamilton that Lin-Manuel Miranda brought to the island (and which attracted a lot of visitors) — and Miranda established a fund that funnels profits from that tour to local arts organizations. – Fast Company
J.H. Kwabena Nketia, Father Of African Musicology, Dead At 97
“In a career stretching back to the 1950s and continuing into his 90s, Dr. Nketia wrote hundreds of articles and books in English and Twi, a Ghanaian language, on topics ranging from music theory to folklore, as well as scores of compositions. … His 1974 book, The Music of Africa, is widely considered a definitive historical study, and Ethnomusicology and African Music, a collection of his writings published in 2005, is used in classrooms throughout Africa and across the world. – The New York Times
Why Trying To Protect The Natural World By Assigning It Human Rights Is A Bad Idea
“How can the law account for the value of complex, nonhuman entities such as rivers, lakes, forests and ecosystems? … Perhaps we should take the idea of ‘the human’ as a rights-bearer and extend it to the complex, nonhuman systems that we wish to protect, that we know are deserving of care and concern. Tempting as it is, this move must be resisted.” Human rights attorney Anna Grear explains why. – Aeon
James Corden To Host This Year’s Tonys
“The Late Late Show” host previously emceed the annual theater awards show in 2016, and won the Tony for best actor in a play for his performance in “One Man, Two Guvnors” in 2012. – Variety