Is there something odd about dancing in a wheel chair? “When you think about it, theatrical dancing is a pretty odd thing all by itself, remaking and deploying the body in ways it wouldn’t intuitively go. Physical comics, mimes, acrobats, masks, and surrealism have always been at home on the dance stage – along with, more recently, flying bodies, moonwalkers, and okay, wheelchairs. All these exaggerations and ultra-specializations of human behavior can enrich that peculiar ability dance has to superimpose the imaginary on the real before our very eyes.” – Boston Phoenix
Tag: 06.20.00
WHO WON WHAT
Want to see who won what this year in the theatre? Here’s an aggregation of lists of all this year’s theatre awards and who won what. – Curtainup
BETTER TO JUST COME IN LATE?
Movie trailers: They can have a kind of rough poetry (think the blood splashing out of the elevator for Kubrick’s “The Shining”) or can enticingly juxtapose key visual moments from the upcoming feature. But they’ve really gone down hill lately. “Today, they’re infuriatingly generic, manically edited, and ruined by plot spoilers.” – Salon 06/20/00
FLINGS WITHOUT STRINGS
Virtual casting for movies is catching on. “Dismissed in their early days, a mere three or four years ago, as one more way of exploiting desperate movie wannabes, Internet talent showcases are being embraced by the industry” who find them an easy way to screen talent. – San Francisco Examiner (Reuters) 06/20/00
NEW MASTERS, OLD METHOD
New York’s legendary Actor’s Studio – the workshop founded in 1947 by Lee Strasberg to champion his Method acting style – will now be led by Al Pacino, Ellen Burstyn, and Harvey Keitel. All three will donate their time and teaching. – CNN
GARTH DRABINSKY TO STAGE COMEBACK
The discredited flamboyant theatre producer says he’ll produce a play in Toronto. – CBC
THE GOOD OLD DAYS
When Garth Drabinsky’s Livent North American theatre empire crashed and burned two years ago a lot of theatre people lost their jobs. A lot of theatres went dark too, and many of them still have not recovered. The arts economy in Toronto still has not recovered. “Livent made Toronto so much more attractive for anyone on an arts level. Livent did a lot, but talked about it even louder. They made Toronto shine.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
DIFFERENT OARS OF THE SAME BOAT
“Commercial theater relies on nonprofits to develop material, and commercial success can give those projects a much more lucrative shelf life – not only on Broadway but later in productions that rely on the cachet of Broadway success.” So why shouldn’t the two work together to help each other out? A theatre summit explore how. – Los Angeles Times
RAGS TO RICHES
Scottish painter Jack Vettriano’s life story reads like Horatio Alger: a miner’s son, he only started painting at 21 and was rejected from art school repeatedly. But now he’s Britain’s most commercially popular artist, with original work selling for up to £40,000 and posters of his work outselling those of Monet. – The Telegraph (UK)
NEW YORKER STILL RULES
Even before the issue is off the newsstands, two of the four debut short story writers published in the current New Yorker fiction issue have signed book deals. – Inside.com