As AJ’s own Amanda Ameer blogged last week, Patti LuPone – in her next-to-last Broadway performance in one of the crowning roles of her career, as Mama Rose in Gypsy – stopped in the middle of her big 11 o’clock number and blew her stack at an audience member taking pictures. Now there’s live audio on YouTube.
Tag: 01.20.09
National Ballet Of Canada Lures Hometown Hero From Stuttgart
“Toronto-born Jason Reilly studied at the city’s National Ballet School before jetting off to the Stuttgart Ballet for a 12-year stint, where he leapt from the corps de ballet to demi-soloist to principal dancer.” He begins as a principal dancer in Toronto as of the 2009-10 season.
As Obama Ascends To Office, Contemporary Chamber Music Plays
“So President Obama’s administration was ushered in with a new chamber music work by a living American composer. Classical singers have performed for inaugurations in recent decades. But to have a new instrumental piece played was most unusual, something that should gratify classical music lovers.”
Susanna Foster, 84, Star of 1943 Phantom Of The Opera
She could mimic Jeanette Macdonald at age 3, was groomed for child stardom at MGM alongside Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, turned down the role in National Velvet that went to Elizabeth Taylor, played the prima donna in the first talkie version of Phantom, and did musicals and operetta with her husband, baritone Wilbur Evans.
Publishers RSVP ‘No’; BookExpo Canada May Be Canceled
“Reed Exhibitions hasn’t called the whole show off yet, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely that BookExpo Canada will be happening this year. Last Friday, The Globe and Mail reported that Penguin Canada and HarperCollins Canada have joined Random House of Canada in deciding not to attend a 2009 show, and now other publishers are coming forward to say the same thing.”
Cerny’s EU Sculpture, Now With Toilet Discreetly Veiled
“A depiction of Bulgaria as a toilet in an artwork at the European Union headquarters in Brussels was covered up following a complaint by the government in Sofia. The section of the ‘Entropa’ avant-garde installation showing Bulgaria as a Roman or ‘Turkish’ toilet was draped with a black cloth last night, said Jan Vytopil, a spokesman for the Czech presidency of the EU.”
Pete Seeger As Measure Of Progress For A Nation
“Moments of historical symbolism do not rate higher than Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington today. Yet on Sunday, with Obama listening, Washington witnessed another small sign of the mood of change and hope that will swathe the US Capitol today. More than 50 years ago, the leftwing folk-singer Pete Seeger was – a bit like many African-Americans – a second-class citizen in his own land.”
How A Symbol Of Freed Slaves Didn’t End Up On DC Statue
“When Barack Obama takes the oath of office as president of the United States, Thomas Crawford’s ‘Statue of Freedom’ will preside over the event from its exalted perch atop the Capitol dome. Metaphorically, at least, the nation’s first African American president will complete something the statue’s artist originally planned to evoke.”
A School For Troubled Young Adults Uses Arts As Anchor
Hollywood Media + Arts is “a nonprofit school aimed at offering skills and a haven to young adults who have no anchor, among them foster children who have aged out of the system, runaways from abusive families and people … who feel abandoned by their families.” Its free classes, in areas like music theory, fashion illustration and film history, are taught by volunteers.
The Getty Grows Up
James N. Wood, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, “agrees that calling the Getty an underachiever is a ‘fair characterization,’ but he wants to concentrate on the future. ‘We are an institution that is entering young adulthood,’ he says. ‘It’s been a hell of an adolescence: rich, painful and with fighting among siblings.'”