“Most of us became critics because we love the theatre and, while battling the meretricious or shoddy, are thrilled when we’re able to chronicle a promising career, point to achievement and, maybe, discover greatness. And, yes, we possess the knowledge to do so with some authority. Think of us as educated and experienced audience members, not some snooty elite from another planet.”
Tag: 04.23.10
Toni Bentley Gets Her Hip Replaced — And Keeps The Bone
“Once back from the hospital I gingerly opened the container: nothing in there looked remotely like anything from an anatomy book. Now, … if I wanted to preserve my ‘souvenir’ on dry land I needed to have a taxidermist extract the fatty tissues from the bone so it wouldn’t go rancid. One hundred thousand dollars of medical bills and I still needed a taxidermist.”
Shouldn’t Our Financial Meltdown Translate Into Art?
“In our Law & Order, ripped-from-the-headlines times, why has the American entertainment machine been slow to turn the financial drama of 2008 into prime drama in 2010?”
The Colossus That Controls America’s Music
“To say this new conglomerate has inspired fear in the live-concert business doesn’t capture the extent of the quaking. A coalition of consumer groups and independent promoters lobbied hard against the merger, warning that Live Nation Entertainment could quietly threaten venue owners by hinting that if they dropped Ticketmaster, they would have a hard time booking Live Nation tours or Front Line talent.”
Long Wharf Theatre Pioneer M Edgar Rosenblum, 78
“Rosenblum, who as the Long Wharf”s executive director was involved in virtually every aspect of its operations, came to the theater in 1970, when it was just five years old. There he forged an extraordinary 26-year partnership with the theater’s artistic director, Arvin Brown, one of the longest-tenured leadership tandems in the last half-century of regional theater.”
A Plan To Promote Books In Argentina
“Lovers of literature have been meeting in the cafe at the Hotel Castelar in the centre of the Argentine capital for decades. Great writers of the Spanish-speaking world, among them Federico Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda and Julio Cortazar, visited here. The cafe has now been chosen with 14 others, all connected with what is considered the richest period in Argentine literature, for a new city government scheme to promote reading.”
Class Warfare Moves To Britain’s Stages
“At the moment, the battle is being waged in a most entertaining fashion on two of London’s stages: In Sloane Square, where the hair and hedges seem to be cut daily with manicure scissors, the Royal Court Theatre has a huge hit with Posh, Laura Wade’s new play about aristocratic bully boys whose capacity for moaning over the lost land of privilege is outstripped only by their capacity for drink.”
Legendary French Dealer’s Collection To Be Sold
“The works – under the title Trésors du Coffre Vollard – constitute the remnants of a vast collection of 600 pieces assembled by legendary Paris art dealer Ambroise Vollard, an early champion of several once-unknown painters who became titans of the modern art world.”
Midgette: The New Metropolitan Opera – What Really Ails It
It’s “not that the company engages unusual directors, but that it doesn’t let them actually do what they’re good at. Peter Gelb seems to me to have the same micromanaging side that Joe Volpe did: the side that would see something unusual in a new production, get nervous about it, and try to rein it in. As a result, the work of directors who are quite good in other fields is, at the Met, muted or just plain bad.”
Coma Victim Wakes Up Speaking Different Language
“After 24 hours in a coma, a Croatian girl woke up speaking only German, according to reports that spread across the Internet last week. The 13-year-old had been studying German in school and watching German television shows on her own, according to various versions of the story, but she was not fluent until after the incident. Meanwhile, she lost the ability to speak her native language.”