Writer Heather O’Donovan looks at the challenges of both translations for singing (fitting new words to the music) and supertitles (fitting the words onto that little screen). – WQXR (New York City)
Tag: 06.21.19
In Times Like These, Are Jewish Jokes Still Funny? Let’s Ask The Comics Who Tell Them
“As anti-Semitic rhetoric and hate crimes resurge, is it still funny for us to be our own punching bags? Is it safe? In joking about money, neuroses, and the demasculinized Jewish man, are we subverting stereotypes or playing into them? We spoke with 13 Jewish comedians about telling Jew jokes in the age of Trump and how to turn cultural punch lines into sources of power.” – Vulture
Is Upright Citizens Brigade Circling The Drain?
Just three years ago, it seemed (at least to the outside world) that the company was turning into an improv empire: multiple locations in NYC and LA, a TV deal, corporate workshops, thousands of paying students, and hundreds of comic actors willing to perform for free. Now some of those locations are closing, staff are being laid off, and the owners signed a lease on a new flagship space without knowing that the company was running at a deficit. Writer Seth Simons looks at whether UCB can be saved and whether it should. – Slate
Oregon Bach Festival’s Executive Director Out, Two Years After Firing Of Artistic Director Matthew Halls
A Friday afternoon announcement said that Janelle McCoy would be leaving after this year’s festival (which begins Friday) and that her job is being eliminated due to budget cuts. In 2017, she was behind the dismissal of Halls, ostensibly for a racist remark made to a singer who insisted that the remark wasn’t racist and he wasn’t offended (except by the firing). – Eugene Weekly
David Esterly, Self-Taught Master Wood Carver, Dead At 75
He’d completed a doctorate in literature at Cambridge and wasn’t sure what to do with himself next when, on a visit to London, he saw the 17th-century woodcarvings by Grinling Gibbons in St. James’s Church, Piccadilly. He was so amazed by them that he taught himself the craft, and he got so good that he was eventually commissioned to recreate some of Gibbons’s own work, lost in the 1986 fire at Hampton Court Palace. – The New York Times
Other Buyers May Be Ready To Pay More Than $2.66 Billion For Sotheby’s
“The 275-year-old auction house — which agreed … to sell itself for $2.66 billion to French telecom tycoon Patrick Drahi — could soon get at least two counteroffers from rival investors, The Post has learned.” – The New York Post
UK Arts Orgs Get Together To Reduce Their Carbon Footprints
Baseline carbon emissions measurements are now being produced at major institutions including the National Theatre, Royal Opera House and Serpentine Galleries with an eye to creating “ambitious but achievable” targets and more sustainable infrastructures by 2023. – Arts Professional
In 2008, A Fire Destroyed Master Recordings – The News Finally Leaked Last Week, And Now Musicians Are Suing
And what was Universal Music Group doing in the 11 years between the fire and the news of the fire? Hmmmm. The lawsuits claim UMG was reaping hundreds of millions of insurance damages in confidential settlements.- at least half of which money is due to the musicians, they say. – Los Angeles Times
Students At The Suddenly Shuttered Phoenix Art Institute Are Stranded, With Insurmountable Debt
When the parent company for 18 different Art Institutes closed without warning earlier in 2019, students were supposed to get their loans discharged under the Closed School Discharge program. But wait: “Students at the Art Institute of Phoenix have received denial letters from their loan companies, which state that they cannot discharge the loans because the Art Institute of Las Vegas is still open.” – Hyperallergic
Did Singing Evolve As A Way To Bond Human Groups Together?
Possibly! Studies certainly show that singing in groups forms cohesion quickly and increases warm feelings toward strangers both quickly and strongly. Even group singing across hundreds or thousands of people can increase in-group bonding. – Aeon Magazine