Amelia Parenteau: “Of the seven contemporary theatremakers I spoke to for this piece, not one was happy with the term ‘documentary theatre’ to describe their work. … And yet each of these artists is undeniably engaged in creating some kind of documentary theatre, meaning that they draw from factual source material to craft their work and tell engaging stories in direct conversation with our present reality. Above and beyond holding a mirror up to society, as all art is charged to do, these theatremakers are finding ties to specific communities and stories, proving the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction.”
Tag: 08.22.17
Four Leading ‘Documentary Theatre’ Artists Talk About How It’s Done And How It’s Changed
Steve Cosson of The Civilians (This Beautiful City and The Great Immensity), The Laramie Project head writer Leigh Fondakowski, KJ Sanchez of American Records (ReEntry and X’s and O’s (A Football Love Story)), and veteran Ping Chong join Amelia Parenteau for a roundtable.
Anna Deaveare Smith On Race In American Theatre (And In America)
In this speech, delivered at last year’s Theatre Communications Groups national conference, the pioneer of verbatim theatre recounts the time she moderated an onstage debate between August Wilson and Robert Brustein (which organizers had wanted to turn into a verbal boxing match), performs excerpts from her Notes From the Field: Doing Time in Education (about the “school-to-prison pipeline”), and channels Margaret Mead and James Baldwin.
Art Forger Who Made £30,000 From His Fakes Ordered To Repay £1
Richard Pearson … was jailed in January for selling 14 faked drawings and pictures … he claimed were by the renowned ‘pitman painter’ Norman Cornish … to a gallery in Northumberland. He admitted fraud and forgery charges and was sentenced to three years and seven months.”
In Provincetown, Listening For What Marks Some Pop Music As ‘Gay’
“‘Edge of Glory’ is gay music? But plenty of straight people love that song.’ When a bewildered straight friend said that to musicologist Chris White about the Lady Gaga hit, he was struck. “The musical gayness that is so obvious to me is invisible to him. I wonder whether there are reliable characteristics of music that can make a song obviously appeal to my particular sexual expression, while still ‘passing’ for mainstream music. What makes music sound gay to me? So, I took an audio recorder to Provincetown to record how places would signal this particular kind of gayness through particular kinds of music.”
Can Twitter Be An Engine For Fan-Sourced Movies?
“At their core, these Twitter-generated film concepts evince a desire for representation beyond Hollywood’s limited, predominantly white imagination. But while Black Twitter continues to be an unprecedented vehicle for creativity—and, increasingly, a reliable form of audience focus-testing for Hollywood—can a viral fancasting phenomenon like this realistically change the industry’s status quo?”
‘The Davos Of Classical Music’: A Reporter Watches The Grandees At The Salzburg Festival
Michael Cooper sees Peter Gelb lunching with William Kentridge, Riccardo Muti at a reception for his new vinyl LP (yes, in 2017), the classical chief for Apple Music listening to Daniil Trifonov play, and Anna Netrebko on the front page of the newspapers (even the tabloids).
What Ever Happened To The Librettist Of ‘Nixon In China’ And ‘The Death Of Klinghoffer’?
In the wake of the fame (or notoriety) of those two founding works of the genre now called “CNN opera,” composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars went on to the heights of the opera world. Yet librettist Alice Goodman didn’t rise along with them; instead, she moved to Britain and became an Anglican priest. Thomas May catches up with her. (Notably, both Adams and Sellars, whose collaboration with Goodman ended in long-lasting acrimony, have very warm words for her here.)
Mark Swed: Dudamel Is In Tough Political Position Over Venezuela’s Fraught Politics
“As bad as things are right now in Venezuela, a failed coup before the presidential election next year might lead to martial law. Maduro takes care of the police and army, so despite a few defections, they continue to support him for their own well-being. Against this background, Dudamel may deserve more credit for not speaking out.”
Mark Wahlberg Tops This Year’s List Of Highest-Paid Movie Actors
The Boston native recorded his highest-ever payday thanks to soaring fees for movies such as Transformers: The Last Knight and the forthcoming Daddy’s Home 2. The former may have scored a miserable 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the lowest gross of the franchise to date, but Wahlberg need not worry–fixed compensation means he benefits even when movies don’t do well.