“We need to recognize that the business of the arts is not like an automotive assembly line that regularly turns out new homologated “products” for eager consumers. The play is not the thing. The skilled actors, directors, playwrights-in-residence, choreographers, dancers, musicians, designers and technicians of all kinds are the thing and always have been the thing. It is their daily labour that fashions and molds this creative art form we call the theatre.” – AisleSay
New York Is A Cultural Capital. Right Now That Future Is In Doubt
According to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s timetable, theaters and concert halls will be part of the fourth and last phase of reopening, but even the brand-name institutions wonder how easily they can pick up where they left off. – New York Magazine
What’s Changed For LGBTQ Authors In India Since The End To An Anti-Gay Law?
Before the virus hit, there was Rainbow Litfest in December. “Drawn by the promise of themes long pushed under the rug — non-normative sexualities in religion and mythology, history and politics, film and television, fiction, politics and the workplace, and, of course, the law — queer people came to Delhi’s Gulmohar Park from cities, small towns, and villages across the country.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
When Events (Even Beyond A Pandemic) Overtake Your Book Launch
Bakari Sellers’ new book is about race in the United States. Sellers: “When I wrote the book, I thought: This can be the spark to conversations about race. I didn’t know I was going to be starting a spark when the country was on fire.” – The Washington Post
Writing In The Time Of Endless Pandemic Distraction
Our brains, working at home: “The kitchen is a mess. How can I concentrate when I know that two rooms over, the kitchen is a mess? The sink is filled with plates and glasses that couldn’t fit into the dishwasher the night before, so now we have a lag in the dishwashing. There is no end to the dishwashing. There is no tabula rasa. It doesn’t help that the pans all have special requirements, they need so much individualized care they might as well be hothouse orchids.” – LitHub
The Artist Making Seattle’s Boarded-Up Sites His Canvas
Malcom Procter, street artist and clothing designer, as he paints the plywood covering Nordstrom’s in downtown Seattle: “Never did I think I’d get a canvas like this. … This is a dream spot for sure. I’m going to bring my grandma out.” – Los Angeles Times
What The Horrifyingly Endless Videos Of Black Pain Mean
Writer Elizabeth Alexander: “Seeing is important, and helps you understand. But I think the repetition of that image without thought to who’s watching it and how it affects them is something that we could work on a little bit.” – The New York Times
Why Werner Herzog Loves So-Called Trash TV
The director in lockdown says he reads and watches everything: “WrestleMania. The Kardashians. I’m fascinated by it. So I don’t say read Tolstoy and nothing else. Read everything. See everything. The poet must not avert his eyes.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Uncounted Lives That ‘Rocky Horror’ Has Saved
Sorry, Cats!, “It’s the ultimate cult movie. The first. The biggest. The one cult movie to rule them all.” And despite the Covid-19 shutdowns, Rocky Horror Picture Show devotees have found ways to be with their found families across the globe. – BBC
The “Bernie Madoff Of The Art World” Had Settled Into Vacation Life
Bemused locals were left to digest the fact that the pleasant newcomer to their island paradise, who had been helping out at the local animal shelter, was in fact a fugitive art dealer who stands accused of, among other things, selling millions of dollars worth of overlapping shares in valuable pieces of art, in one of the greatest art scams this century. – The Daily Beast
AMC Theatres Backtracks, Will Require Audiences To Wear Masks
The theater chain’s CEO, Adam Aron, had previously said that the company’s plan to reopen locations would not require patrons to wear masks as they “did not want to be drawn into political controversy.” – The Daily Beast
Actor Ian Holm, 88
On stage, he enjoyed a dazzling early period and triumphant later years, most especially in Shakespeare and Pinter; but, if there was a prolonged period when Holm was absent from the theatre, it was because he suffered a temporarily paralysing form of stage fright. The theatre’s loss, however, was the cinema’s gain. He transferred the vocal precision, technical skill and impish mischief he had displayed on stage to the screen, enjoying a new, late-flowering career in scores of movies including, most notably, the Lord of the Rings cycle. – The Guardian