“Though we are still miles and months away from a resuscitation, who would have guessed that, in the meantime, the savior of the stage might turn out to be its perpetual enemy, the screen? … To sort out this new world, Scott Heller, the New York Times theater editor, convened a virtual conversation with Ben Brantley and Jesse Green, the chief theater critics, and Maya Phillips, the Times‘s arts critic fellow.” – The New York Times
Tag: 07.08.20
‘Digital Theater Isn’t Theater. It’s a Way to Mourn Its Absence.’
Laura Collins-Hughes: “All that frenzy of streamable online activity — the virtual readings and talk shows, the archival videos and topical new plays — is part of keeping the candle lit. … But theater’s primary public face wears a show-must-go-on smile, so there’s a weird and self-defeating disconnect, as if being supportive means pretending that these works are just as exciting as live stuff would be.” – The New York Times
Big Blowback Against Letter Supporting Free Speech Signed By Prominent Artists
The letter—whose endorsers included everyone from Noam Chomsky to Gloria Steinem to Margaret Atwood to Salman Rushdie to Wynton Marsalis—applauded “powerful protests for racial and social justice [and] police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society.” But it also decried “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.” – The New York Times
‘He Was More Than One Of The World’s Great Soundtrack Composers — He Was One Of The World’s Great Composers, Period’: John Zorn On Ennio Morricone
“For me, his work stands with Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Ellington and Stravinsky in achieving that rare fusion of heart and mind. … His meticulous craftsmanship and ear for orchestration, harmony, melody and rhythm resulted in music that was perfectly balanced; as with all master composers, every note was there for a reason. Change one note, one rhythm, one rest, and there is diminishment.” – The New York Times
Re-imagining Manhattan Without Cars
The Brooklyn Bridge, for example, was originally built for trains, bicycles and pedestrians. More than 400,000 people a day on average once crossed it. Then it was “modernized” for cars. Now it handles less than half that number of people. As recently as the 1950s, overnight street parking was still illegal in New York. Some 11,000 miles of New York City streets are now given over to parked cars, 10 times the space devoted to bike lanes. – The New York Times
Venice, Toronto, Telluride And New York Film Festivals Join To Form ‘A United Platform’
“The prominent fall events, all positioned six weeks from each other, [will] collaborate rather than compete in a spirit of post-pandemic solidarity. The statement announcing this alliance provides scant details of what concrete form it will take. … But what appears clear is there will be a truce when it comes to the usual frenzied jockeying for world premieres.” – Variety
What Does The Public Want From Art In A Post-COVID World? Here Are Five Takeaways From A Massive New Study
“In what’s billed as one of the largest arts and culture studies ever done in the US, the new report Culture and Community in a Time of Crisis has surveyed some 124,000 people to take a look at their thoughts on the role of culture in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results don’t look good, but it’s good data to look at, to get a sense of the challenges the sector faces.” – Artnet
How To Make Performance Venues Safe In A Time Of Contagion: A Roadmap
For months now (starting before COVID), American Repertory Theater head Diane Paulus and professor Joseph Allen of Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health have been working on this issue, and they’ve now put a guide online for other venues’ use. “Although the Roadmap for Recovery and Resilience for Theater is not meant to be comprehensive or prescriptive, it offers several insightful factors to consider.” – Dance Magazine
Can We Make Online Learning Work Better?
I think it can, and here’s a suggestion for how to do it: Schools could embrace an older style of teaching used by British universities — the tutorial system — and adapt it for the online world. – The New York Times
Are You Paying Attention?
The Mellon Foundation’s announcement that its grant-making will focus entirely on social justice is not a wakeup call. The alarm has been sounding for years. Business as usual (that is, we decide what we want to present and ‘they’ should come) is not tenable. – Doug Borwick