“It was quite a challenge, even for the crack team of theatrical experts summoned from around the world: less than six months to produce a hi-tech musical extravaganza about one of the most renowned figures in human history. Oh yes, and the title character can’t appear on stage.”
Tag: 03.30.14
Can Comedy Bring About Real Political Change?
From Lysistrata to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show to the satirical banners in Tahrir Square, it can seem that comedy really is that powerful. On the other hand, all those Soviet jokes weren’t what brought down the USSR. (On the third hand, it wasn’t actually Sarah Palin who said, “I can see Russia from my house.”)
Understanding the Frustration Behind #CancelColbert
Jay Caspian Kang: “There’s a long tradition in American comedy of dumping tasteless jokes at the feet of Asians and Asian-Americans that follows the perception that we will silently weather the ridicule. .. Even when you want to be in on the joke – and you understand, intellectually, that you are not the one being ridiculed – it’s hard not to wonder why these jokes always come at the expense of those least likely to protest.”
If You Printed All Of Wikipedia It Would Look Like…
“Nowadays you just use Wikipedia every day without even thinking how large that might be … the English Wikipedia has 4.5 million articles. Nobody can imagine this number. It’s only when you see this in print or in a physical form that you realize how large it really is.”
Needed: Better Definitions For Slang
“Super-geeks (from geek, meaning fool) to a man, slang’s lexicographers tend to be self-appointed guardians who, while cheerfully plagiarising each other in their project to demonstrate the importance and scope of slang, have yet to agree on a definition of what, precisely, slang is, or was – or even its origin.”
Minnesota Theatres – Right Now A Moment Of Greater Diversity
“Some Twin Cities performing arts venues have come in for severe criticism in recent years over issues involving inclusion, diversity and casting — issues that confront the field nationally. Yet at this moment, this last week of March, 2014, the offerings of major stages in the Twin Cities have never been more diverse. (And all the shows are commendable.)”
Why Should You Have To Believe God Exists In Order To Be Religious?
“Richard Feynman, the great physicist, is rumored to have said that he lived among the numbers, that he was intimate with them. However, he had no views about their metaphysical status … Just as a practicing mathematician need not have views about the metaphysical status of numbers, so too religious life does not require a theoretical stance on God’s existence.”
Do the English Stage ‘Hamlet’ Too Often?
Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Observer theatre critic Clare Brennan argue it out.
What Brooklyn Stands For In American Culture (My, How It’s Changed)
A.O. Scott remembers how, in his youth, the popular idea of the borough was what you saw in The Honeymooners, Saturday Night Fever, Welcome Back Kotter, and Spike Lee’s early films. Today it’s Portlandia-East, the scene of Girls – a change that Lee decries but arguably helped bring about.
Why Michelle Williams Is Willing to Try Singing and Dancing in Public
“I’m not good at thinking things through. I get excited about something, and that outweighs everything else. I don’t really carry the vision down the line to see the possibilities of how it might turn out. I think that for my work that’s actually been an O.K. trait. For life, not so good.”