“Getting everything on-point before going to camera was in line with the keep-it-cheap mantra. Tight scripts make prep easier, faster and less expensive. And it would also help us win over the best cast we could find.”
Harper Lee Starts A Nonprofit To Save ‘Mockingbird’ Play For Her Hometown
“Licensing firm Dramatic Publishing had not extended the performance rights for the production, so Lee stepped in with Mockingbird Company. It will produce the play from 2016, giving proceeds to local communities.”
Mezzo Jamie Barton Adds Another Prize To Her List: $50K Richard Tucker Award
“She previously won both the main prize and the song prize at the 2013 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2007 – a lively competition that was featured in Susan Froemke’s film The Audition.”
Why People Keep Reading Work Emails After Work And On Vacation (They Sorta Like It)
“Email pruning doesn’t enact work so much as it simulates work: It’s a ritual – like a secular, corporate rosary – which we perform in the hopes that it will somehow help us leave the domain of ineffectual work and re-enter the domain of gratifying productivity,”
The Woman Who Shaped The Las Vegas Skyline
“Baron Haussmann was lucky enough to be hanging around Paris at the exact moment Napoleon III thought it could do with a refit. Christopher Wren had the good fortune to be alive at the time of Britain’s worst bakery fire. And Betty Willis happened to be working for a sign manufacturer in Las Vegas when the twin forces of modish Googie architecture and the leisure era came together to cut it a singularly brash neon destiny.”
Four Girls (And Their Director), Revolutionizing French Cinema
“In opting for an all-black cast, Sciamma was deliberately rejecting what some might have seen as a politically correct approach. ‘That would have been more comfortable, wouldn’t it?’ she says. ‘But I didn’t want to get into that overworked logic of balance and diversity. In terms of fiction, it’s a blind alley.'”
Marvel And Disney Get Grief For Ignoring Black Widow In Merchandise Blitz For New Avengers Movie
“Of the 60 items released on the Marvel and Disney websites on Monday, only three featured the female superhero. Unlike her male counterparts, Thor, The Hulk, Captain America and Iron Man, there are no Black Widow costumes, dolls or clothing. She only appears with the other Avengers on a tote bag, in one of the six lego sets and on a men’s T-shirt.”
The Problem With Adam Sandler
“Something has been bubbling beneath the surface of too many Sandler comedies in recent years, a cold, mean-spirited smugness reeking of unexamined white-male privilege.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs For 04.26.15
Almost invisible
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2015-04-26
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Late Night At Rijksmuseum With Rembrandt In A Limited Paradise
Once a week, during a show that attracts about 13,000 people a day, “the museum sells tickets to a late-night showing of the exhibit. A maximum of 1,100 guests are allowed into the vast museum to wander freely through uncrowded galleries for the evening.’
A Pioneer Of Making Buildings Sing At Night
Janet Turner “became a much admired role model for women in the design business at a time when few made it into the boardroom. … She was also a powerful proponent of lighting design as a profession in Britain. Until the late 80s, lighting schemes had generally been the province of architects and lighting manufacturers. The emergence of a new breed of specialist designers and consultancies was something she keenly supported.”
This Kid Was So Very Over ‘Boy Books’ And ‘Girl Books’
“Scholastic has now removed the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ sections on its online Book Wizard which had previously limited questions about sport to boys and those about animals to girls. It has pledged to no longer publish books that declare they are for a particular gender in the title.”
Theatre Of The Community Isn’t Necessarily ‘Community Theatre’
“HartBeat does not look at its Greater Hartford community as potential audience members but rather as an important part of the play-making. Ensemble members regularly spend months researching a subject by interviewing people from whatever the community or neighborhood the subject is about as it develops its works.”
Urban Legends, Filtered Through A Skilled Writer’s Hands
“While the narrator tells of sexual awakening, marriage, and adulthood, the ribbon around her neck (which she will neither remove nor explain) recalls the terrible buried knowingness of childhood. Campfire chillers draw their energy from the fact that everyone knows the ending will be horrible, and the teller knows exactly how.”
Prada Foundation Opens Contemporary Art Museum in Milan
“For more than 20 years, the Prada Foundation has been staging contemporary art exhibitions in abandoned warehouses and disused churches” in Milan. “Recently, however, the Prada Foundation has set its sights on establishing permanent homes to present exhibitions and to show its vast holdings of art, mostly works from the 1950s to the present.”