“The network anchor’s roots are not in journalism but in the native cultural tradition apotheosized by L. Frank Baum. … NBC’s [Brian Williams] train wreck played out as corporate and celebrity farce … because it doesn’t actually matter who puts on the bespoke suit and reads the news from behind a desk.”
What Harvey Weinstein Learned On “Finding Neverland”‘s Long, Long Trip To Broadway
“In making the leap from movie mogul to lead theater producer … [he] has fired or lost more actors, artists and executives than most impresarios do on their shows. … Yet Mr. Weinstein has been more than a hands-on producer. At 63, he has also become a student again, learning the art and craft of making musicals, one of the trickiest entertainment forms to get right.”
A Serbian/Kosovar “Romeo And Juliet”
The Capulets are Serbs, the Montagues are Kosovo Albanians, and each family will be speaking its own language. There are no subtitles. “There are people in Belgrade who don’t speak Albanian,” says the director, “but they will understand.” (Do most people in Pristina, where the production opens next month, speak Serbian?)
Fund Saves 16 San Francisco Non-Profits From Soaring Rents
“A music recording studio operated by women, legal services for people living with HIV/AIDS and a performing arts theater were among the nonprofits threatened with closure amid a climate of soaring commercial real estate rents. The funding contributes to expected long-term solutions for the organizations.”
Is The Quote On The New Stamp Honoring Maya Angelou Misattributed?
According to Postal Service spokesman Mark Saunders, the post office’s research team said the quote had “come up in different media interviews Maya Angelou had done” and that using it had been approved by her family members. He didn’t know which ones.
David Lynch Pulls Out Of “Twin Peaks” Revival
Explained the director in a Facebook post, “I left because not enough money was offered to do the script the way I felt it needed to be done.” The producing network, Showtime, still hopes to win Lynch back.
Jennifer Higdon’s Opera “Cold Mountain” – A First Preview
David Patrick Stearns visits the Guggenheim Museum for the music’s first public outing, and he talks with the opera’s creators. (Librettist Gene Scheer: “When I wrote [Jake Heggie’s] Moby-Dick, I wasn’t worried about getting e-mails from Herman Melville.”)
Baritone Steps In For Plácido Domingo On Half-Hour Notice, Then Does Double-Header
Fortunately, when Luca Salsi got a call Saturday afternoon saying Domingo wasn’t feeling well enough to sing the matinee of Ernani at the Met, he was only nine blocks away from the opera house. On the other hand, he was due to sing Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor that evening.
Watching Matthew Bourne Rehearse ‘The Car Man’
“There is never a sense that Bourne is berating his dancers or psychologically buffeting them into shape, and he certainly is not a shouter. … But although he is a self-effacing presence for much of the time, the dancers are keenly attuned to his gaze; when he does speak to the entire cast, the studio falls silent on the spot.”
That Time Salman Rushdie Had No Idea How Goodreads Worked
“Rushdie, who won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children and had a fatwa placed upon him upon the publication of The Satanic Verses, awarded Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis one star, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird just three.”
China Ramps Up To Become (Overtake) Hollywood
“No longer content simply to build movie sets and provide extras in Hollywood films, Chinese studios are moving up the value chain, helping to develop, design and produce world-class films and animated features. They want a bigger role in the creative process, one that will allow them to reap more rewards, financially and artistically.”
Federal Judge Dismisses Animators’ Antitrust Suit Over Wage Practices
“The animation workers tried to argue that the statute of limitations clock started when they first discovered what they considered evidence of wage fixing — at the time documents from the prior litigation were unsealed — but Koh disagreed.”
The Film Scholar Who Tracked Down And Archived Decades Of African American Films
“Seeking visual representations of black people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, [Phyllis Klotman] learned of the existence of a body of work — long scattered, little known and unpreserved — by early black filmmakers. She traveled the country, scouring attics and cellars and museum vaults, assembling a collection of films by and about African-Americans. Many had survived only in fragments.”
Adults Who Are Addicted To High School Musicals Are, Apparently, A Thing
Um: “Fans seek out the student performances for cheap entertainment or a chance to see a musical that otherwise might not be performed locally. Some even follow the teenage thespians as though they were A-list stars.”
Filming All Of Shakespeare’s Sonnets In New York
“Williams tried matching sonnets with locations based on their ‘imagery and rhetorical arguments,’ pairing, for example, the legal-minded Sonnet 46 with the State Supreme Court building.”
Top Posts For AJBlogs From 04.05.15
A Giant Step Forward At The Met
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AJBlog: For What it’s WorthPublished 2015-04-04
Howard University’s Dance Program Has Changed The Face Of U.S. Ballet
“Copeland and Mack, both African American, will go where no dancers of color have gone before. They will become the first African Americans to dance the leading roles of Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried respectively in what remains our whitest performing art: classical ballet.”
Too Soon? A 9/11 Opera Opens In London
“We’re not following the details as if for a film or a documentary. It’s more the ripples that this terrible event has on peoples’ lives. Music is a fantastic vehicle for expressing energy, emotion, feelings that go beyond language.”
So How Was Jesus About Women, Really?
The actor playing Mary Magdalene in A.D.: “I think Jesus was really advanced in his views on women… he chose to present himself to a woman and I think that was an acknowledgement that women can be and are as fully human as men; as fully and spiritually capable. It’s a huge honour to play that.”