“Just as the Odéon is basks in critical acclaim and its most impressive box office figures in decades, its flamboyant young head, the writer-director Olivier Py, has been unexpectedly sacked by the government” and replaced by veteran director Luc Bondy.
Tag: 04.14.11
End Of The Daytime Soap Opera? ABC Cancels Two Classic Serials
“The demise of one of broadcasting’s oldest institutions, the daytime soap opera, crept closer Thursday as ABC announced it would end two of its long-running daily serial dramas, All My Children and One Life to Live.”
Are Gifted Singers An Endangered Species On Broadway?
Charles Isherwood: “Are we entering an age when being able to sing to a high standard is no longer a requirement for making appearances in even first-class musical theater productions? The unhappy answer is probably yes” – especially because of the perceived need to cast movie or TV stars with wide name recognition.
Making Confession? There’s An App For That
“Since the invention of the printed book, some Catholics have turned to manuals of confession to help them get the most out of what’s called, officially, the Sacrament of Penance. Now … Confession: A Roman Catholic App is an application for the iPhone that lets you keep track of your sins in anticipation of a meeting with your priest.”
China On Trial In Ai Weiwei Case
“Something historically obscene is happening here. It is as if different times exist simultaneously. In one time-stream, democracy is in global demand and artists including Ai Weiwei are revealing the richness of China’s culture to the world. Yet in the sinister second stream it is 1950, and dissidents can be blackguarded and bullied with total impunity by a system that takes Orwell’s 1984 as a handbook.”
State-Owned Newspaper Says Ai Weiwei Is “Confessing” To Crimes
Chinese police say they have “firm evidence” that the detained artist and activist Ai Weiwei avoided tax, and he has begun confessing, a Hong Kong newspaper under Beijing control has said, drawing a denunciation from his sister.
How To Win Over Parisian Audiences? With American Musicals
By some measures, Jean-Luc Choplin’s gamble at the Chatelet Theatre has succeeded. He has increased both the annual number of productions, and the audience. Ticket sales have gone to almost 300,000 in the 2009/2010 season from about 180,000 a year before he arrived. Still, the criticism has on occasion been scathing.
Tribeca Film Festival At 10 (Less Grumbling)
“Nowadays Tribeca is not considered a threat to the status quo but a useful cultural stimulant that has been good for movies and good for New York, particularly the Lower Manhattan neighborhood left broken in the wake of 9/11. Estimates of the economic activity it has generated since its inception exceed $600 million.”
What If Museums Became Intellectual Centers?
“The introduction of new technology and the provision of points of entry for people who are not art critics are only the beginning. Far more intellectually demanding–and interesting–would be if the Met set itself the task of reinventing museums for the 21st century.”
How Abolishing Mandatory Retirement Has Changed America
“Employers liked mandatory retirement because it allowed for an orderly and predictable departure from the payroll. But that certainty is gone at a time that, more than ever, older workers need to find new jobs.”