“We undertook a major poll – actors, writers, producers, critics, showrunners. Legends like Carl Reiner and Garry Marshall, who sent us his ballot shortly before his death this summer. All shows from all eras were eligible.” Even so, there seem to have been some unspoken limits: the shows chosen are all in English and almost all from the U.S.; there’s only one Masterpiece series (you know which one, so no Upstairs Downstairs, Prime Suspect or Sherlock), no news or documentary shows, and some strange choices and omissions. (Beavis and Butt-Head and not Bugs Bunny or Bullwinkle? Really??)
The Brilliant Astronomer Who Opposed Copernicus And Galilieo On The Grounds Of Science, Not Religion
Johann Georg Locher “argued that Copernicus was wrong about Earth circling the Sun, and that Earth was fixed in place, at the centre of the Universe, like Ptolemy said. … Indeed, Locher even proposed a mechanism to explain how Earth could orbit the Sun (a sort of perpetual falling – this decades before Isaac Newton would explain orbits by means of perpetual falling), but he said it would not help the Copernicans, on account of the other problems with their theory.”
‘Kill Climate Deniers’: The Play That Infiltrated Australia’s Parliament And Became A Breitbart Target
“Over ambient sound came the disembodied voice of the Canberra musician Reuben Ingall. ‘There are plain-clothed police officers patrolling every floor. You’ll be watched on camera for the whole trip and Australian federal police officers are armed with SR16 semi-automatic assault rifles,’ he said. ‘When you head through security, act as normal as possible. How does a normal person act? Be like that.'”
Suzan-Lori Parks, Pultizer-Winning Playwright, On Backlash In The Age Of Obama (And Brexit)
“All I can say is that after Emancipation, when the slaves were freed, there was Reconstruction, which was essentially a lot of blowback. So, after Obama’s eight years, there’s serious blowback. People in America are often encouraged not to think. The basis of politics is to heighten their fears and make them buy something. But, you know, y’all just had Brexit. We were like ‘Whaay! We’re not the only stupid ones!'”
Ravi Shankar’s Only Opera To Get World Premiere, 4½ Years After His Death
“Days before what was to be his final surgery, Shankar outlined his vision for the complete opera” – titled Sukanya – “to his longtime collaborator David Murphy, who, with the help of Shankar’s daughter Anoushka, has since brought the opera to fruition. ‘He’d written the whole piece in outline – the entire raga structure and almost all the melodies, so it was just a matter of filling in the gaps, which were small,’ explained Murphy.”
They’re Training Watson To Recognize Emotion, Personality
And then what? As the artificial intelligence computer gets better at understanding humans it starts to interact with them in more complex ways. For now though, Watson is coming up with movie trailers…
The LA Dance Company That Uses Toys And Architecture To Careen Off
Diavolo’s taste for heights, soaring numbers and gigantic playthings hasn’t changed much since its early days, but the method behind the madness has evolved from freewheeling experimentation to fine-tuned research and development, especially after the company was commissioned to develop a trilogy of dance works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2005.
Jacques d’Amboise – Still Dancing At 82
“I danced for a long time before I asked myself the question,” he says. The question being, “What is dance?” He now thinks it’s “an invention by human beings to express space and time…to express wonder and emotion by losing control in how we move in time.” Needless to say, that’s something everyone should have in life, in some form, at some time or another. It’s so obvious to D’Amboise he never even says that.
Is This The Golden Age Of Playwriting?
“Or … is something else true? Is it actually a bear market? Is our theatre in a moment of peril?”
France Announces $100 Million Fund For Middle East Cultural Preservation
“Besides appealing for sites to be protected, Francois Hollande also called for a strengthened commitment to cultural preservation that might include “intervention”, for which he gave no details. Restoration of damaged sites would also be part of his new mission, he said. So would “asylum” for some endangered works of art, a curious term, given the resistance towards accepting Syrian refugees in Europe and the Gulf States.”
Feel Lonely A Lot? It May Be Genetic
“A large new study published online last week in the Nature journal Neuropsychopharmacology …finds that loneliness appears to be a ‘modestly heritable’ trait. A predisposition to feeling lonely may run in the family, in other words. But there’s a caveat here.”
Staging Death: A Brief History
From Sophocles through Roman spectacles and the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol to Sarah Kane, a look at the means – decorous, horrifying, inventive – playwrights, directors and stage managers have used to depict characters’ ends.
There’s No Need To Fret About Today’s Decline In ‘Proper’ Punctuation
“Punctuation started out as free and easy prosodic units, meant to help the reader read out loud to an audience with all the requisite intonation, tone, pitch and pauses intended by an absent author. … With the more speech-like IM, texts, tweets, punctuation is just getting back to its roots, as a way to convey prosodic and speech cues in the absence of sound and vision.”
Teacher Steps On An American Flag During Free Speech Lesson, Gets Death Threats And Investigation By School District
“The civics teacher from Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville, N.C., was giving a lesson last week about the Bill of Rights that touched on Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court case upholding the constitutional right to burn the American flag. To illustrate the landmark decision, Francis pulled out a full-size Star-Spangled Banner and laid it on the classroom floor. ‘Does anybody have a lighter,’ he asked the class. When no one responded, Francis stepped on the flag several times.”
Marina Abramović’s Ex Wins Intellectual Property Suit Against Her
“Abramović and Ulay, born Frank Uwe Laysiepen, had been lovers and co-creators for more than a decade before their separation in 1988 … Ulay launched a lawsuit last year in which he claimed that Abramović has violated a contract they signed in 1999 covering works they had created together.” On Thursday, a Dutch court agreed.
Battle Bots: Wikipedia Bots Keep Editing And Re-Editing Each Other In Dance Of Futility
“Wikipedia editors sometimes use bots to help them keep on top of changes that users have made to the online encyclopedia. But when two editors task different bots with making incompatible edits, each bot will keep finding that its work has been undone.”
Arts And Technology – A Natural Complement (Until They Go To War)
“It was the assertion of the Romantic movement that art makes us appreciate the beauty, richness and sheer size of the world. And technology, used appropriately, brings us closer to that sublime… Even if that was true in 1939, it’s not true now: not now our drones do our flying for us; not now our technology has got away from us to the point where large portions of nature are being erased; not now we live mired in media and, indeed, have to make special efforts to escape it.”
Communication Isn’t Just About Efficiency. Theatre, For Example…
“Life is both ever-various and surprising, and, at the same time, one long uninterrupted (and, admit it, sometimes awfully boring) conversation with ourselves.”
How Greg Tate’s Criticism Showed Me Being A Critic Could Be Art
Jazz critic Tate’s essays for the Village Voice were poetry. “For a generation of critics, Tate’s career has served as a reminder that diversity isn’t just about a splash of color in the group photo; it’s about the different ways that people see, feel, and move within the world. These differences can be imperceptible, depending on where your eye lingers as you scan the newsroom.”
A Critic Tries To Figure Out The State Of American Theatre (It Isn’t Easy)
Helen Shaw has spent the last 12 years as a theatre critic in New York. She says the state of the field is mixed. “As recently as 2007, critic Robert Brustein could say on a panel that we had 35 ‘really fine’ playwrights; even the hardest-to-please observer would say now that the number has more than quadrupled. Some theatre lovers don’t like to categorize the flood because of the canon’s long history of exclusion.”
The 10 (Really 12) Most-Produced Plays In America 2016-17
Leaving aside Shakespeare and Christmas plays (which you sort of have to do), the leading character on American stages this season is a foul-mouthed sock puppet.
The 20 (Really 21) Most-Produced Playwrights In America 2016-17 (Not Counting Shakespeare Or Sondheim)
“American Theatre started counting the Top 20 playwrights in 2014 and so far, 2016-17 is the most diverse season yet, with 8 playwrights of color and 6 women represented, an increase from last year (with 3 and 5, respectively).”
Suzanne Farrell Ballet To Disband Next Year
“The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, which for the past 15 years has showcased the works of Farrell’s mentor, George Balanchine, and which is bankrolled by the Kennedy Center, will shut down after a final series of performances in December 2017, the center has announced.”
In The Age Of Trump, Can The New African-American Museum Reach The People Who Need To Hear Its Message?
Philip Kennicott: “The basic conservatism of the new museum, its Smithsonian look and feel, and all the trust that name inspires, will help many visitors grapple with the obvious, ugly and manifest truths of racism and its impact on black culture. But … in the years since the museum was authorized by Congress, perhaps the biggest change in American society is how many people have become comfortable with staring at the unpleasant and undeniable and saying, ‘That’s not what I see.'”
When The African-American Museum Presents ‘African-American Music’, What Exactly Will That Mean?, Asks Anne Midgette
“When it comes to musical performance, the Museum’s tacit mandate is to spotlight all of African American music – which is like trying to put a frame around a living person and call it a portrait. It’s tough to pick ‘African American’ music out of the fabric of American musical history, of which it is an essential, even dominant part. Concerts at the Oprah Winfrey Theater could conceivably range from opera to hip-hop, jazz to country, R&B to classical.”