03.20.14 – Page 2 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Here’s Why to Fund UK Theatre: Plays Are a Major Export

And not just productions, but also scripts. “If you’re sitting anywhere else on planet earth, you know that this country is the country that produces. Wherever you are, you’ll see more British plays than anything else – apart from maybe Neil Simon. On the whole, British plays have a better build quality.”

High-School Theaters Turn to Product Placement

“In one scene from a Cleveland-area high-school production of Grease, the character Kenickie … carried a pizza box from Guys Pizza, a local place, though the script calls for a bag lunch. Later the restaurant owner’s father briefly appeared as a burger restaurant worker who happens to be wearing a large button with a Guys Pizza logo.” (The fee: $500.)

Holding a Candle to It – 100 of Them, In Fact: Lighting at Shakespeare’s Globe’s New Indoor Theatre

A reporter shares the secrets of the lighting at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: what types of candle provide the right light, how to keep them from going out while actors walk, how to prevent drips and pools of wax – and how the company’s management convinced their insurers and the London fire department to go along with the whole thing.

Khushwant Singh, One of India’s Most Beloved Writers, Dead at 99

Best known for a wicked sense of humor and a (manufactured) persona as a dirty old man, Khushwant edited three of India’s top English-language periodicals, penned countless columns, and wrote or compiled more than 80 books, from a multi-volume history of the Sikhs to a famously irreverent memoir to the great novel of partition, Train to Pakistan.

Meet the Muslim Woman Revolutionizing Superhero Comics

G. Willow Wilson “was a white kid with no religious upbringing, but converted to Islam during the height of the War on Terror. She’s lived in Egypt, done foreign correspondence for the New York Times, penned a memoir, written an acclaimed novel” – and created a female Muslim superhero who’s a commercial and popular success.

Embattled Minnesota Orchestra CEO Steps Down (But Not Till August)

“Henson, who joined the orchestra in 2007, oversaw the $50 million Orchestra Hall renovation, but became a divisive figure during the bitter, 16-month labor dispute that ended in January.”

New Study: All-Nighters May Cause Permanent Brain Damage

Concern about brain changes from lack of sleep has mounted in recent months with the publication of several other key studies. In January, sleep researchers at the University of Surrey linked sleep loss with disruptions in gene function that could affect metabolism, inflammation, and longterm disease risk to body and brain.

Are Opera Education Programs A Waste Of Time?

Considerable amounts of money, effort, resources and curriculum time are expended on these projects but to what end? Certainly not the development of new audiences and a future stock of those all-important punters who are freely prepared to part with good money to see a show. Thirty years into the “opera in education” mission and I have never encountered anyone who said to me: “I was turned on to opera by a school education programme.”

Here’s The Biggest-Selling Author Every Year Since 2001

“To call James Patterson prolific would be an understatement. The ad man-turned-author has put his name to 130 novels, 15 of which have publish dates in 2014 alone. But even when you divide his estimated 300 million booksales by that number, it still results with a healthy 2.3 million copies sold per title.”

Tag: 03.20.14