In just the article we need for a summer Friday at the office, Melissa Dahl offers three suggestions that generally work for her.
Tag: 06.15.17
Free Theatres Get Outpouring Of Threats After Public Theatre “Julius Caesar” Controversy
“It began about two days ago,” Raphael Parry, the executive & artistic of Shakespeare Dallas said. “Some were just telling us ‘I will write to your sponsors to pull your funding,’ or to go to hell. But others said they hoped we’d all be sent to ISIS and killed with real knives.”
‘The Most Puzzling Music Director Departure Of Recent Years’ – The Unanswered Question About Alan Gilbert And The New York Philharmonic
“Many pundits say he did all the right things – modern music, standard repertoire, plus staged operas. In a world that’s being dazzled by high-personality Gustavo Dudamel and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the question is whether Gilbert did them right enough, with the personal magnetism to pull it off. Or with a fighting spirit, which, he suggested in exit interviews, was in shorter supply.” Or, asks David Patrick Stearns, “might the unanswered question be, at least in part, the New York Philharmonic?”
Need To Stage A Sex Scene In Your Play? Call The Intimacy Choreographer
Oh yes, it’s a real job. Laura Collins-Hughes profiles Tonia Sina, who works with actors and directors on performing love and sex onstage in a way that’s both convincing for audiences and (more or less) comfortable for the people doing it.
US Gov’t Wants Rights To ‘Dumb And Dumber’ Sequel, Due To International Corruption Case
“The US Justice Department is seeking to acquire the rights to films, including the comedy sequel Dumb and Dumber To, as part of an effort to recover $540m in assets it says were stolen from Malaysia’s troubled wealth fund.”
Something Old, Something New, Something Astonishing: Programming A Coherent Season At A Regional Theatre Company
“‘Nobody knows how a theatre season is made,’ Paul Miller says cheerily. There is no rule book, no key to artistic or box-office success. Still, nothing made Miller, the artistic director of the resurgent Orange Tree theatre in Richmond, more chuffed than a recent compliment from a fellow director, Ellen McDougall. She said she would recognise an Orange Tree season at a glance, even if the theatre’s name was omitted. So, what gives a programme coherence?”
How New York City Ballet’s School Is Addressing The Company’s Diversity Problem
“Since NYCB preserves its Balanchine legacy by keeping everything in house – dancers are hired almost exclusively from [the School of American Ballet], where they are trained by former members of the company – the school is a logical place to start transforming its image. And it’s working. Presently, the children’s division and intermediate/advanced division boasts 44% and 29% students of color, respectively.”
Hip-Hop Choreographer Rennie Harris Headed Off-Broadway
The semi-autobiographical dance-theater piece Funkedified “reaches back to the music that 53-year-old Harris grew up in North Philly in the 1970s, when funk, psychedelia, and later dance-club music fatefully collided.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.15.17
NEA supports jazz and US arts nationwide
The National Endowment of the Arts, arguably the most misunderstood and beleaguered doing-good office of the federal gov’t (excluding the NEH, EPA, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Civil Rights Division of the Justice Dept., and a few others) has issued its 2017 funding report, highlighting that its monies (monies from we US taxpayers) flow to communities in all 50 states and five territories. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2017-06-15
Wow: Facebook Used AI To Program Its Chat Bots. Within No Time They’d Invented Their Own New Non-Human Language
“The model that allowed two bots to have a conversation—and use machine learning to constantly iterate strategies for that conversation along the way—led to those bots communicating in their own non-human language. If this doesn’t fill you with a sense of wonder and awe about the future of machines and humanity then, I don’t know, go watch Blade Runner or something.”