“They have advanced degrees, even doctorates, from major universities and conservatories. They can put together interesting programs, master difficult scores and rehearse efficiently. They can talk to audiences and schmooze donors. Smartly coiffed and dressed, they look good on TV, posters and season brochures. But can they conduct an interesting phrase?”
Tag: 05.10.14
Have Our Students Become Too Critical?
“In campus cultures where being smart means being a critical unmasker, students may become too good at showing how things can’t possibly make sense. They may close themselves off from their potential to find or create meaning and direction from the books, music and experiments they encounter in the classroom.”
Hong Kong Cancels Anthony Gormley’s Men-On-Rooftops Piece Because It Hits Too Close To Home
Event Horizon, which features statues of the sculptor standing near the edge of rooftops, has already inspired emergency calls from people who thought they were seeing a suicide in London, New York, and São Paulo. But the lead sponsor of the installation in Hong Kong withdrew after one of its own employees threw himself from the offices’ rooftop earlier this year.
Competitive Punning Is Now A Spectator Sport
At poetry slam-like events with names such as Pundemonium and Punderdome, contestants lob word-play back and forth before (and often at) a cheering/groaning audience.
How ‘The Velocity Of Autumn’ Met The Ferocity Of Broadway Reality
The new play had an entertainingly over-the-top premise (elderly Mom booby-traps her apartment with Molotov cocktails to Sonny can’t send her to a nursing home), two skilled stage actors (Stephen Spinella and the 86-year-old Estelle Parsons), and excellent audience and critical response from its run at Arena Stage in D.C. Yet it closed after a month, despite a Tony nomination for Parsons.
Moviemaker Ken Loach Is So Completely NOT Retiring At 77
“So what can film-makers do? Film-makers have got to ask the big questions really – not just look at the symptoms, not just go: ‘Oh, there’s a victim, let’s tell their story.’ You’ve got to look at the big questions.”
A French Film Star, Beneath The Makeup And The Making Up
Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose,” “Rust and Bone”), of appearing in “Anchorman 2”: “I’m a big fan of America comedies, especially Will Ferrell and all his team. And they have known that I was a fan, so they asked me if I would be a part of it, and of course I said yes right away. But I never question how people could see me.”
Boston’s Celebrity Series Gets Random, Regular People To Become Highly Choreographed Dancers
“‘Le Grand Continental’ strives to include a cross-section of the community, and I saw little competition among the 59-year-old white male demographic. Ten days later I received notice to report to Boston Latin.”
The Music Director Of Britain’s Royal Opera: This Elitist Label Is Bullshit
“Opera is so visceral, so emotional – and so incredibly thrilling when it’s good.”
The Ineffable Something That Keeps (Some) Writers Famous Long After They Die
“The only reliable judge of a novel’s merits, as Martin Amis once declared, is that grim and exacting arbiter, posterity, and, set against the reckonings of the future, present applause is only a little light murmuring heard a long way off.”