The “dramatic imagining of events taking place before and after Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun … was produced at New York’s Playwrights Horizons in 2010 and at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco produced the play this year.”
Tag: 04.18.11
The Royal Ballet’s Next Director Won’t Be Christopher Wheeldon (He Says So)
“It’s something I would love to do in the future but it’s an enormous commitment and it’s not just a creative commitment. It’s an enormous managerial commitment. … [At] this point in my career, it’s a bit too early to take on the pressures of managing [more than 100] dancers.”
Zhou Long’s Madame White Snake Wins 2011 Music Pulitzer
The piece, about a demon that transforms itself from a snake into a woman in order to experience love, was Chinese-American composer Zhou’s first opera and the first commission made by Opera Boston.
Is Piss Christ A Genuine Work Of Religious Art? Jonathan Jones Thinks So
“The passion of Christ has always been associated with bodily fluids – it is true that artists traditionally stressed blood rather than urine, but they scarcely stinted on the revulsion of Christ’s fleshly death. Piss Christ can be legitimately compared to the horrible sores and green pus on the body of Grunewald’s Christ in the Isenheim altarpiece.”
Martin Amis’s Latest Rant: Britain’s ‘Moral Decrepitude’
Speaking to France’s Le Nouvel Observateur, the author decried “our state of moral decrepitude: a huge reward for no effort. You can have no talent, no ambition, and you win all the same. … Celebrity is the new religion.” (Yet he says he “adores” the English as a people.)
Foreigners Scoop Russia’s Golden Mask Awards
“2011 will go down as the year when the Golden Mask truly went international. Non-Russian artists have won awards in the past, but this year was something special. More than two dozen foreign artists – singers, choreographers, conductors, directors and designers – received nominations for work completed during the 2009-10 season. Of them, five walked away with the coveted plaque.”
Berlin’s Reunification Monument Will Be A Giant Communal See-Saw
“The 55-metre, 330-tonne glittering steel wing can hold up to 1,400 people at any one time, but it needs at least 20 people to get it moving. The monument to unity is called Citizens in Motion, and is apparently all about people coming together. If you want to make it move, you have to get a group together and all go in a particular direction.”
Sympathy for Pharaoh (A Passover Meditation)
“Towards the beginning of the story, Pharaoh hardens his own heart (or it ‘is hardened’ in the passive voice). Following the sixth plague, however, Pharaoh seems to lose his nerve and God steps in, hardening his heart for him. ‘And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh,’ Exodus 9:12 reads.” If God hardened Pharoah’s heart, was it fair to drown him in the Red Sea?
Battle For The Bottom – Views For Rebecca Black YouTube Video Surpasses Bieber
“Many critics have described her heavily auto-tuned track as the worst ever but it’s helped her YouTube channel reach 112 million views. Just over half a million more than Bieber’s channel on the video sharing website. But both performers are way ahead of the competition.”
Mansion That Inspired “Great Gatsby” Is Being Torn Down
“Demolition of the mansion known as Land’s End began Saturday. It’s being replaced by five houses priced at $10 million each. The 13-acre property faces the Long Island Sound.”