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How To Reprise A Role 34 Years Later

Step one is to fight against 1980s racist tropes. Tamlyn Tomita: "I said I would love to, this would be so fun, but the only caveat is that because I’m older, because I’m a little bit more knowledgeable and I’m going to fight for it anyway — I need to be able to inject a truer picture of Okinawa."...

The Law Professor Who Did More Than Dream Of Being A Novelist Later In Life

Pam Jenoff - you may know her from The Diplomat's Wife, The Lost Girls of Paris, and many other novels - started taking writing classes just as soon as she began practicing law. "She has learned to be a tireless reviser — a skill acquired in the legal world, where 'people are always marking up your work.' She says,...

Dancers Have To Learn New Tricks And Stretch New ‘Muscles’ During The Pandemic

That is, their business muscles. They became bakers, started resource centers, trained non-dancers, and gotten into fashion - among many, many other second, third, fourth, and fifth jobs in 2020. - Dance Magazine

US Arts Venues Are Finally Getting Some Relief

Is it too little, too late? "Unlike other business sectors that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, performance centres are in a uniquely challenged position due to thin profit margins that rely on large audiences." - BBC

Percentage Of Women Directors Is Slowly Creeping Upward

The headlines say it's a record, but is 16 percent something to brag about? Hollywood thinks maybe. (It's certainly a better record than 2018's 4 percent. Four.) - Variety

Australia’s National Anthem Gets An Anti-Racist Tweak

The anthem - which replaced "God Save the Queen" only in 1984, though it had been written in the late 19th century - previously had a tweak from "Australia's sons" to "Australians all," and now it's from "young and free" to "one and free" - including the peoples who have been on the continent for 60,000 years. - The...

TV Production Stays On Holiday Hiatus In Los Angeles As Covid Numbers Rise And Rise

Positive cases have been identified - in one case described as a cluster of infections - in several of the studios where production won't return for an extra week or two. - Los Angeles Times

How Jewish Theatre Scrambled And Remade Itself For The Digital Year

As with every other kind of theatre, Jewish theaters and playwrights, actors and tech people, had a lot to figure out. The Jewish Playwriting Contest completely reimagined what it was asking, and to whom it was advertising - and got a huge bump in engagement. "It actually ended up being a really successful year for us." - Forward

Hollywood Had Rules, And In 2020, It Busted Them All

A lot happened to the moviemaking business in 2020, but not a lot of it by choice. "Since March, the industry has, in effect, attempted to defibrillate its own heart attack while also reattaching its severed limbs and recover from a grand mal seizure, all at the same time. We’re lucky to have Croods 2." Yikes. (And here's a list...

Claude Bolling, Jazz And Classical Pianist, 90

Bolling's fusion of jazz and classical made him the most popular pianist, composer, and bandleader in Europe for a time. "A devotee since childhood of Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and other eminences of American jazz, Mr. Bolling grew up listening to their music on the radio until World War II intervened. 'Jazz was all but banned by the Nazis...

The Busiest Composer In The Bleakest Year

Tyshawn Sorey has had numerous - as in, numerous - premieres and commissions this year. The composer, who straddles jazz and classical, "has been on everyone’s radar at least since winning a MacArthur 'genius' grant in 2017, but the shock to the performing arts since late winter brought him suddenly to the fore as an artist at the nexus of...

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