The playwright, whose version of “The Liar” is having its world premiere at Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre, says he was “handed a gorgeous, intricate plot with extraordinary comic turns. And so all I had to do really in taking this was turn it up to 11 and increase the dials and increase the comic turns.” But, you know, in rhyming couplets.
Tag: 04.20.10
Bill: No Arts Requirement For Calif. Tech School Students
Proposed “legislation is supposedly designed to boost California’s high school graduation rates. It would allow students to replace the current requirement for a course in visual or performing arts or foreign language with one in career technical education.”
Dear TV Theme Music: What’s Become Of You?
“Even you must admit that you are not what you were. Anyone whose memory reaches back even as far as the mid-’90s, when the theme to ‘Friends’ gave the Rembrandts a brief career in real-world pop, knows that. Recall the effervescent Latin pop of ‘I Love Lucy,’ the dark march of the ‘Dragnet’ theme, the hopeful soft-rock of the theme to ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show.'”
What The NJ Symphony’s New MD Brings To The Job
“Having appeared only once with the NJSO, and in two Metropolitan Opera productions, [Jacques] Lacombe is little known in this country. … What he does have, however, is a sterling reputation as a conductor. Like the Minnesota Orchestra’s Osmo Vänskä, he may be able to raise the quality and profile of the NJSO largely by reinvigorating the classics.”
Babies Just Love Scottish Opera’s New Production
The company’s education director, Jane Davidson, said that “her idea of staging work for six to 18-month-old babies was initially dismissed as madness, and that she was ‘slightly worried’ about their response. ‘I thought they’d just lie there screaming,’ she said. ‘But you’ve never seen such gigantic sets of eyes, they’re just completely fascinated by it’.”
For Shame, Georgia
“Having lived in Atlanta for 14 years until returning home to Manhattan three years ago, I can attest to Georgia’s guiding Red Neck mentality: ‘the arts promote imagination and creativity and are therefore bad for our children, especially with all those homosexuals in high places.'”
The Gods’ Little Joke On Musicians
“When it comes to the tuning of instruments, especially keyboards and fretted instruments, nature drops a giant hairball in our path. Here’s a short course on the arcana of tuning.”
Berkeley Art Museum Is Shopping For An Architect (Again)
The museum “already traveled this path – in 2006, when it selected Toyo Ito to design a new home. The Japanese architect’s response was seductive – an abstract egg crate with thin steel walls – but also prohibitively expensive. Ito and Cal parted ways last fall, and the institution” now intends to “move to the old University of California printing plant.”
Live Event Screenings Broaden Cinemas’ Audience Base
“Although not yet a big money maker for the major chains, theater operators are betting that it will be one day, and are booking more such events on slow weekday nights in hopes of coaxing consumers to leave their homes and pay $20 for a premium ticket.”
Sans Getty Support, What’s The Future Of Art Bibliography?
The Getty Research Institute recently withdrew “financial support for one of its programs, the Bibliography of the History of Art,” a “searchable database” that “is the most trusted and second most used (slightly behind JSTOR) resource of its kind.” Now “an international conclave of art scholars, librarians and art-history devotees is gathering” to brainstorm.