Street Artists Do What They Do For LA Show. Police Upset About It

“Several artists featured in the exhibition have moved beyond the gallery confines and marked up walls and urban furniture in surrounding streets with their trusty spray-paint cans, and even posted videos online showing them tagging a wall in Hollywood. The police are accusing the gallery of glorifying vandalism, and forcing them to remove graffiti from the streets.”

Does Documentary Theater Distort Its Material? How Could It Not?

“[A play’s] subjects agree to testify for one reason: to set the record straight. And somewhere during the process from recording to page to rehearsal to stage, that record is bound to get distorted.” The problem is more than just selective editing. “[J]ust as an actor can never give the same performance twice, so too is it impossible to remain completely faithful to the play’s original subjects.”

So Commercially Successful Writers Aren’t Subsidizing The Literary Writers. And So…

“In effect the industry has called a halt to taking the money it makes from commercial writers and pumping it into underwriting their more literary cousins (while sneering at the mass market in the process). There is no question that this change in tack has already had a huge effect and to some degree a bad one.”

Of Non-Fiction And Fictional Warning Labels

“Although novels routinely include a notice claiming that all their characters and incidents are fictional, non-fiction books carry no equivalent guarantees of accuracy. Unlike many newspaper or magazine articles, non-fiction is rarely checked for accuracy before publication – and when challenged, proponents often invoke more exalted definitions of truth.”

What’s The Next Act For Intiman Theatre?

“[L]ast weekend [Intiman’s board] canceled the rest of the long-standing Seattle theater’s 2011 season because of ongoing financial troubles. Soon the board, with input from local theater artists, supporters and funders, must answer the big existential question: Should Intiman continue to exist? Or work to settle its remaining $500,000 debt and call it quits?”