Good news, Hamilton lottery fans: “Beginning Tuesday, 46 seats per performance at the Richard Rodgers Theatre will be available on the day-of, through the musical’s digital lottery.”
Seven Myths Of The Starving Artist
“The starving artist myth is a limiting belief that’s been passed on from generation to generation and it’s about time we put an end to it. Not only is it disempowering to artists trying to promote themselves and their work, it’s also a barrier for many talented teenagers and young adults who will not pursue a career in the arts from fear of not being able to support themselves and later on in life, their families.”
Sydney Theatres Sit Empty 71% Of The Time, While Companies Are Desperate For Affordable Venues
“The Sydney Theatre Report 2015 identified a severe shortage of affordable, suitable theatre venues in Sydney. There are currently no venues available for hire with less than 100 seats or under $2000 per week in rental.”
In Defense Of Instagramming Your Food
“It reflects a very human thing, a thing that has been part of culture, and for that matter of religion, for millennia: the desire to share our meals with other people. … To take a picture of a meal, and to share that picture with friends and family with the help of the World Wide Web – that may be an act of performance, but it’s also an act of invitation. It’s extending, basically, the number of people at one’s table.”
Ted Gioia: Here Are The 40 Musicians I’m Most Interested In Right Now
“These may not be the best—maybe they will never be the best—but they are intriguing. They play by their own rules, and they grab your attention. A week later, a month later, you’re still mulling over their quirks, their eccentricities, and wondering about their potential for greatness.”
Do Galleries Still Matter? Art Basel Director Marc Spiegel Mulls The Future
“No matter what else changes in the world and in the art world, that type of conversation, that vibrant talking, will remain the essential part of what it means to be a great gallerist.”
The Last Time There Were Protests Over The Whiteness Of The Oscars (It Didn’t Go So Well)
“The awards season of 1996 was one of the few times that whiteness made national headlines. There were calls for a boycott, questions about whether a black Oscars host and producer should step down, and disavowals of racism by white Academy members.”
Jean-Louis Martinoty, 70, Author And Opera Director
While the works he staged ranged from Britten to Debussy to Wagner and Gounod (an infamous Faust), his most-admired productions were in the repertoire closest to his heart, that of the 17th and 18th centuries. His most celebrated stagings included a landmark Rameau Boréades at the Aix Festival and a much-traveled Marriage of Figaro. He also had a difficult tenure as general manager of the Paris Opera, presiding over the troubled opening of the new theatre at the Bastille. (in French; Google Translate version here)
Inside Russia’s Version Of ‘Mad Men’
“Ottepel (The Thaw) is one of the more fascinating descendants of Weiner’s show. To watch it is to step into a parallel universe where a lot of Mad Men‘s themes reappear in a different cultural context, with different characters and stakes.”
What Are The Limits Of Hospitality? France, Iran, And The Affair Of The Lunch Wine
“The news that the French President, François Hollande, cancelled a lunch Thursday in Paris with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani … because the Iranians insisted that no wine be served at lunch, is generally being treated in the spirit of what I used to call the Sacre Bleu! Division of the Oh-Là-Là! School of Foreign Reporting from France.” Yet, writes Adam Gopnik, “the dispute touches on a real issue, worth pursuing: what is owed to guests who see the world differently?”
‘The Black Slot’: Tokenism In Regional Theater
Ross Jackson takes on the practice of putting the one African-Amrican-themed show in a theater’s schedule during February (Black History Month); “that one black actor onstage,” often in a subsidiary role; colorblind or nontraditional casting (“the terms are inherently aggressive and inappropriate”); and “dehumanizing” casting of black actors as subservients, animals and/or magical beings.
Work Stoppage Avoided As Fort Worth Symphony Extends Players’ Contract Through July
“The extension, which lasts until July 31, keeps the contract terms the same as the contract that expired last year. … The two parties have been in negotiations since last June and have been far apart on how much musicians should be paid.”
Why Do Humans Love Invented Languages So Much?
“Strangely enough, the more ‘alien’ the language, the more we can learn about our own messy human languages and how ‘weird’ they can seem. Marc Okrand, the creator of Klingon, explains how he deliberately tried to violate human language universals in order to make Klingon seem alien, from the unusual set of sounds in its phoneme inventory to using uncommon syntactic rules, such as the object-verb-subject word order seen only in about 1% of the world’s languages.”
Canadian Stage Announces A Season So White It Gets Its Own Hashtag
“You’d have to have your head in the sand, or perhaps somewhere else, to not anticipate that there would be criticism of this in Toronto in 2016, amid the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and right after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s speech on diversity ‘as a source of strength’ at Davos.”
We Need A Funding System For Artists That Puts Food On The Table And Also Supports Dreaming
“So many artists whose potential is unlimited, and who have already worked on visible, prestige (and in some cases commercial) projects, are still barely scraping by. This is not a new thing, although of course the current funding situation tightens the screws. It reflects the fact that a great deal of the increased funding that went into theatre over the last 20 years found its way into buildings and administrative posts, leaving artists to apparently exist on thin air.”
Ballet Dancers’ Brains Change As They Practice, Scans Prove
“‘We found that in the learning process, our brain function makes an inverted ‘U’ learning pattern from a slow pace at the start, accelerating to a peak at the midpoint, before returning to the original pace, once we have mastered the task,’ says DeSouza.”
Where Is The Literary Black Avant-Garde?
“Appropriation and hybridization are two of the hallmarks of Black art forms (think of sampling in hip-hop) which is also true of experimental art. How come Black art isn’t seen as synonymous with experimentation? And how come the opposite is so often true? Why are Black artists, along with other racial minorities, usually excluded from the so-called avant garde?”
The U.S. Art Industry Has Begun (Re)Invading Cuba
“At 331 Art Space in Havana, visitor traffic has gotten so heavy that it’s cutting into work hours. Adrian Fernandez, who shares the space with two other artists, said that in the past six months the studio has received guests from Facebook, Google, UPS, the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian. ‘At least we try to have the mornings free—then people come in the afternoon—but as we have more demand that has gotten harder,’ said the 31-year-old photographer.”
The Gentrification Of San Diego Killed An Experimental Arts Space, And Hasn’t Replaced It Yet
“‘This will diminish the opportunity for the arts to be present on a continuing basis in the central part of San Diego,’ he said. ‘And that’s the kernel of the issue. Let’s not forget that.'”
The Top Things The Washington Post Learned From Nielsen’s ‘Peak TV’ Numbers
Out of 1400 (fourteen hundred!) TV shows, AMC ended up being one of the big winners: “‘Mad Men’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ are gone, but how would AMC even notice? ‘The Walking Dead’ (19.4 million) is the third-most watched show on all of television. The next-highest cable show? Spin-off ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ (11.8 million).”
Yvonne Chouteau Was One Of The ‘Five Moons,’ Native American Ballerinas Of Oklahoma
“A child prodigy as a dancer — she liked to joke that if one reversed the syllables in her surname, ‘Chou-teau’ became ‘Toe-shoe’ — Ms. Chouteau started dancing when she was 2 1/2 years old. She received early training in Oklahoma and then in New York City, where she attended the School of American Ballet. She was accepted into the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at 14.”
What The Hell Is Going On With The Harold Pinter Estate And The Wooster Group In Los Angeles?
“It is not clear how theater critics will respond to the request that they not review the Los Angeles run, which begins performances on Thursday. An offended actor/playwright, Colin Mitchell, published on the local theater website Bitter Lemons a plea for defiance: ‘Let’s flood the LA Media outlets with writing about this show.’ The theater critic for The Los Angeles Times, Charles McNulty, said Thursday that he was in discussion with his editors.”
Teaching An Old Met Some New, Or Rather Contemporary, Tricks
“The Met Breuer’s debut marks a moment in which Campbell is tweaking one of America’s most venerable institutions so that it might more broadly fulfill its mission of being an encyclopedic museum — and to be generally more accessible to the public physically, digitally and in the stories about art it chooses to tell.”
The Two Newest Breakthrough Stars From This Year’s Sundance
“‘I’m not the boasting type,’ said Mr. Christmas, who lives in Los Angeles. ‘With all these people coming up to me to congratulate me, I started blushing a little bit. I was saying to myself, “Cut it out. Cut it out. Just play it cool.”‘”
Denmark Dancers Fight (Using Ballet, Of Course) To Change Country’s Perception Of Refugees
“It’s very important, especially in Denmark, where a lot of people are afraid of asylum seekers and refugees. I think it’s very important to see that they are human beings and they have all kind of skills and qualifications.”