“Culture secretary Andy Burnham and work and pensions secretary James Purnell have unveiled a scheme to create up to 10,000 entry-level jobs for young people looking to start work in the cultural industries. The positions … will primarily take the form of apprenticeships or on the job training for people aged between 18 to 24 who have been out of work for up to a year.”
Tag: 05.12.09
Shakespeare Testing Gone, And With It Work For Theatres
“No sooner had the government announced last October that testing would no longer be compulsory at year 9 than phones began to ring at the RSC.” With cancellations, that is. “Less well known has been the devastating effect on smaller theatre companies that have been working in schools to make Shakespeare more accessible to 21st-century teenagers.”
Citing ‘Character Assassination,’ Walcott Drops Oxford Bid
“Nobel prize winner Derek Walcott has withdrawn from the race to become Oxford’s professor of poetry following an anonymous letter campaign. The campaign saw up to 100 Oxford academics sent photocopied pages from a book detailing a sexual harassment claim made against Walcott by a Harvard student in 1982.”
When Fakes (Nefertiti?) Worm Their Way Into Prominence
“‘Nefertiti’ does not look much like any other ancient Egyptian sculpture. On the other hand, it does have an early 1900s feel: somewhere between Art Nouveau and Art Deco, just right for the moment it was first seen publicly, in 1924. … Do such worries matter? After all, scientific tests support the authenticity of Nefertiti….”
Video On Demand May Be Indie Film’s White Knight
“For years, filmmakers flocked to the Cannes Film Festival to sell their independently financed movies, confident they’d soon see their work exhibited in movie theaters.” That’s grown less and less likely. “But there’s a potential savior on the horizon called video on demand — and it may be hiding somewhere inside your cable television box.”
At Lincoln Center Theater, Remembering Horton Foote
“The playwrights Edward Albee and Romulus Linney, the actors Robert Duvall and Harris Yulin, and Foote’s children were among those who recalled his pungent wit and wry humor, his stubbornness and his courtly gentleness.” Albee told the assembled: “Horton never wrote a character in any of his plays. Horton only wrote people.”
Salonen’s Back Goes Out, So His NY Phil Dates Are Off
“The New York Philharmonic said that Esa-Pekka Salonen, … the outgoing music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, had withdrawn from a series of concerts scheduled for Wednesday through Saturday with the New York orchestra because of back trouble.” David Zinman will step in.
Lincoln Center Is Named After … Abe? Maybe, Maybe Not.
“Surprisingly, after five decades, the origin of the word ‘Lincoln’ in Lincoln Center ‘is a mystery,’ said Judith Johnson, Lincoln Center’s corporate archivist. ‘It is one of those questions that should have an answer — because so many other places in New York have a reason for their naming. But that’s not true here.'”
The Berlin Wall: A Piece Of The Past Too Efficiently Erased?
“[A]s Germany prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the wall’s collapse on Nov. 9, many Berliners wish they had left more of the structure intact as a memorial.” The director of the city’s tourism bureau put it this way: “One mistake was to take away too much of the wall. We did the job in a very German way — very organized — and we finished it off, almost completely.”
Internet Pirates Find Their Next Target: Books
“‘I thought, who do these people think they are?’ [Ursula K.] Le Guin said. ‘Why do they think they can violate my copyright and get away with it?’ This would all sound familiar to filmmakers and musicians who fought similar battles – with varying degrees of success – over the last decade. But to authors and their publishers in the age of Kindle, it’s new and frightening territory.”