London has one of the most vibrant cultural scenes in the world. So why does it need a new plan for cultural infrastructure? For the same reason cities need to plan for any other services or physical amenities. And this isn’t just about preserving or building buildings or creating cultural zones. – Arts Professional
Two Very Different Australian Productions Of “West Side Story” Spark Debate About Clashing Cultures
The two productions are emblematic of a broader shift in the industry as a whole: one that is trying to be more thoughtful and inclusive, but is still dominated by old habits and modes of thought under a predominantly white, male leadership. – The Guardian
RSC’s Artistic Director On Shakespeare’s Greatest Actor
“Richard Burbage was the go-to leading actor for the greatest playwrights of the 17th century. RSC artistic director Gregory Doran assesses the legacy of the first man to play Hamlet and Lear, four hundred years after his death.” – The Stage
They Say Blockchain Is Going To Revolutionize The Publishing Business. Is This Just Hype?
Perhaps not since the advent of the internet itself has a single technology buzzword captured the imagination of so many. Book publishing is no exception: a growing number of startup companies, people in existing companies, and investors are touting the promise of blockchain technology for publishing. Meanwhile, skeptics say that blockchain cannot possibly live up to all the hype. – Publishers Weekly
Two Chicago Ensembles Make A Mission Of Programming Female Composers
Oboist Ashley Ertz started the group 5th Wave Collective especially to perform and promote music written by women. “Since April 2018, the volunteer-based group of more than 115 musicians has performed works by more than 50 female composers via 12 concerts throughout Chicagoland.” And the Chicago Sinfonietta under composer Mei-Ann Chen — who perform more female-authored music in a single program than the Chicago Symphony manages in several seasons put together — has just released a recording titled Project W: Works by Diverse Women Composers. – Chicago Tribune
Bill T. Jones On The Artistic Struggle To Make Art Useful
“I wanted to make a piece about a man who saves himself through art. I don’t want people to think he’s just a train wreck. The most important thing an artist has is the will to do something — it’s evidence of life and a spiritual wellness, even if the body is decrepit.” – Washington Post
Prescribing Art As Medical Treatment
The museum prescription was inspired by a movement in what’s called social prescribing. This has kind of taken off more in the UK. And in looking at the literature, we see that doctors were prescribing, in addition to things like eat better and get out there and walk more often, they were prescribing social activities within the patient’s community, with the belief that that was going to accelerate their healing and give them opportunity for more agency, that I am a participant in my healing. I’m not just waiting for something to be fixed for me. – Hyperallergic
Maya Turovskaya, ‘The Soviet Susan Sontag’, Dead At 94
She co-wrote the famous documentary Ordinary Fascism, which was seen by millions of ordinary Soviet citizens (and got past the censors because it was, on the surface, about the Nazis), but she spent most of her career as a widely admired theatre and film critic, “writing cultural criticism that was erudite and cleareyed — and that managed not to outrage the Soviet authorities.” – The New York Times
The Exquisite Awkwardness Of Literary Parties
It must be that people don’t remember real parties well enough to re-create them with any accuracy. There’s too much missing information. Fictive parties evoke this sense of impaired time by impairing the narrative, with non sequitur, snippets of nonsense conversation, and continuity errors. It’s often suddenly 2 AM. Whole hours may go by in the space of a sentence, as in A Handful of Dust: “They drank a lot.” Those four words are one paragraph, and contain so much. – Paris Review
‘Seismic Shift’: American Children’s Books Have Rapidly Become More Diverse
“Campaigners have hailed a ‘seismic shift’ in US children’s publishing after statistics showed that the number of kids’ books featuring African-American characters has more than doubled over the last 10 years, and the number featuring Asians more than tripled.” – The Guardian
Drunken Audience Member Convicted Of Assaulting Actor In All-Female ‘Othello’
Mike Fox, a 56-year-old comedy promoter in London, was fined a total of £500 and sentenced to 50 hours of community service for shoving one of the actors in a 36-seat-theatre production of the Shakespeare tragedy. The incident began with a shouting match between Fox and the director just after Othello killed Desdemona. – The Times (UK)
All It Really Takes To Become A Dancer
Marisa Meltzer: “Choreography, as something that isn’t normally part of my life, is incredibly hard to remember and appears to use a part of my brain that has gone dormant. It took so much concentration that I couldn’t think of anything else, which was liberating.” – The New York Times
The SWAT Team That Hunts Out Fakes At Europe’s Elite Old Masters Art Fair
Vetting, as the process is known, is expensive, invisible, and has recently undergone some major changes at TEFAF. But it remains key to ensuring that collectors can trust in the fair’s offerings and know that they are getting exactly what they are paying for. – Artnet
Where Classical Music Has Become An Obsession
Inna Faliks: “Seventy-five percent of my students at UCLA are Chinese or Chinese American. Pianists from China, after graduating from the best music schools in Europe and the United States, return home to pass on classical music traditions in their own distinct ways. This musical exchange is exponentially growing. Concert halls may remain empty in our nation’s cities, especially when traditional classical recitals are offered by a non-household name, but in China, playing a Beethoven or Chopin program is not boring or unhip. Chinese audiences are hungry for more.” – Washington Post
The Disney/Fox Merger Has Forever Changed Hollywood
Disney and Netflix offer the two clearest visions of Hollywood’s future. The former is a media company that’s as old-fashioned as they come, trying to make movies that will pull audiences en masse to the theater. The latter is a tech company that’s largely uninterested in the theater business but has won subscriber loyalty by offering a wealth of viewing options. As the cinema business continues to evolve, perhaps only the biggest films will survive as in-theater experiences, with streaming becoming an equally profitable venue. – The Atlantic
Poet, Playwright, And Sociologist Eve Ewing Is ‘The True Mayor Of Chicago’
Well, not really, but she does have more than one finger on the pulse of Chicago’s fiery cultural heart, and she writes about it in more than one way. “Part of me is an extremely argumentative person, and I really also enjoy just finding information and seeing how I can piece it together to figure out something that had previously seemed inscrutable. But part of me just likes to play and I think poetry allows for that a little bit more.” – The Cut
This Broadway Star Would Love To Make Theatre More Affordable
Playing Eliza Doolittle right now on Broadway, Laura Benanti (whom people might know as the actor who has played Melania Trump on The Late Show) says, “If I could wave a magic wand, ticket prices would be affordable so that people could bring their families, and it doesn’t become theatre for a rich audience. It can be more theatre for the masses.” – The Stage (UK)
Trend: Symphonies Playing New, Non-Film Music By Film Composers
Sure, you’ve got your Harry Potter scores and your Star Wars celebrations (that’s all John Williams, of course), but the real hot trend with film composers now is getting their non-film work into symphony halls. “Adventurous programmers are seeking new works by established film composers in hopes that audiences have developed a thirst for similarly melodic, even exciting, music by names they recognize even if there are no images to accompany them.” – Variety
Ballet Musicals Are Rare, And Super Demanding
We don’t mean Oklahoma! either, though, yes, there’s a ballet in it. This is something different: “It’s very difficult to cast a ballet musical; the Marie ensemble requires dancers with a strong background in classical ballet, but also the ability to sing — while on pointe! — and act. ‘They’re rare,’ said Stroman, ‘but it makes them even more special.'” – Seattle Times
How Miami Became A Book Town
Mitchell Kaplan founded Books & Books in 1982, a time when Miami was seen as a place of drug running, diet culture, and political unrest – and certainly not literary culture. But, well, “thirty-seven years, an international book fair and eight additional locations later, Kaplan is celebrated as the man who turned Miami into a book town, and one of the foremost literary centers in the world.” – The New York Times
The Office Of The Architect Chosen For Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Has Some Terrible Intern Practices
Junya Ishigami + Associates allegedly sent an email to a student interested in interning in their Tokyo office laying out the conditions for internship: “No pay, a six-day working week and office hours that run from 11am until midnight. The placements were described as lasting between two and three months (‘or more’), with interns required to bring their own computer equipment and software.” – The Guardian (UK)
City Lights: The Little Bookshop That Could
As Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns 100, a tribute to the first decade and a half of the beloved bookstore he founded. – Jan Herman
San Francisco Symphony Musicians Announce Their Support For Striking Colleagues In Chicago
They are supposed to perform in Chicago on Tuesday, but they say they “will join striking Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians on the picket line if the labor conflict hasn’t been settled by then.” (They already sent a letter of support, but this is a bit more direct.) – Chicago Tribune
The Elton John Biopic Will Be Rated R, Probably, For An ‘Intimate’ Scene (And For Drugs)
Of course it’s not because that intimate scene has two men in it. No, no, of course not. It’s … the swearing. And the drugs. “According to one source close to the production, filmmakers and Paramount are in discussions about the love scene, which has the F-word several times and includes brief rear nudity, and someone snorting cocaine.” – The Hollywood Reporter
The Guggenheim Won’t Accept New Sackler Family Gifts Either
The move comes after Britain’s National Portrait Gallery and Tate (all of them) said the same thing. “The Guggenheim announced its decision on Friday in a brief statement that did not mention the opioid crisis or Mr. Sackler’s past on the museum’s board. A museum spokeswoman declined on Friday night to explain its rationale for the move or its decision-making process.” – The New York Times