Think you (or your organization) don’t understand the people you are trying to reach? If you are talking about people other than your current attendees/donors and their peers, you are 100% correct; and they understand you even less. (And if you don’t think you don’t understand you are probably deluding yourself.) – Doug Borwick
Tag: 09.17.19
Norman Lear At 97
For Jimmy Kimmel, who produced “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” with Lear, the iconic producer is an inspiration: “To be 97 years old and looking to the future, and trying to make the world a better place, I think is a pretty unselfish thing to do.” – Variety
The Shambolic Ways In Which We Learn To Write
John Warner defines “the writer’s practice” as a set of “attitudes, skills, habits of mind, and knowledge” that writers embody, carry with them, or engage in. He describes the most important writerly attitude this way: “Writers continually build expertise without ever becoming expert. It is like being inside an endlessly right-scrolling game of Super Mario World – except you never get to defeat the big boss.” – Plough
Why Ruben Santiago-Hudson Is Taking August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ On A Coast-To-Coast Tour
“Many audiences haven’t seen August Wilson’s plays done well, so my mission is to go out and do the plays well the way the author intended. The celebration of African American life and the way we navigate this landscape.” – American Theatre
In Rare Show Of Defiance, Russian Celebrities Rally Behind Jailed Actor
Pavel Ustinov, 24, was sentenced to 3½ years in prison for assaulting a police officer, though video shows that he was simply a bystander who was attacked by police at a demonstration. Many of his well-known colleagues are leading public calls for his release despite the risks to their own careers: most of them work in government-sponsored theatre, television and film. – The New York Times
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Admits ‘They’ As Nonbinary Singular Pronoun
“We will note that ‘they’ has been in consistent use as a singular pronoun since the late 1300s; that the development of singular ‘they’ mirrors the development of the singular ‘you’ from the plural ‘you'” noted M-W on its blog, “yet we don’t complain that singular ‘you’ is ungrammatical.” – The Guardian
The Struggle For Control Of The Salzburg Easter Festival Is Over
“The fight has pitted two strong-willed artistic leaders against one another: Christian Thielemann, the principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Easter Festival’s artistic director since 2013; and the man tapped last November as his successor, Nikolaus Bachler, who is nearing the end of his tenure as general manager of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.” Thielemann and his orchestra will be leaving Salzburg after 2022, and Bachler plans “to reinvent the festival.” – The New York Times
Cokie Roberts, Longtime Commentator At NPR And ABC, Dead At 75
“[She] earned three Emmy Awards, was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000 and was named a ‘living legend’ by the Library of Congress in 2008. The consummate Washington insider, she had covered Capitol Hill since the Carter administration” and literally grew up in and around the halls of Congress. – The Washington Post
Getty Trust Commits $100 Million To Conserve Antiquities Around The World
The trust, which operates the Getty Museum, has long focused on ancient Greek and Roman antiquities. This new program, however, is designed to expand the conservation efforts it underwrites to countries where they have not worked before, including Southeast Asia and Central and South America. – The New York Times
Dublin’s Quirkiness Is Being Scrubbed. Why?
The past few years have seen several of Dublin’s murals painted over, street markets canceled, and bars and cultural venues closed. Often, the things replacing them are facilities for tourists. With many fearing that the city’s vitality and character is being permanently stripped away, there’s a growing concern that Dublin risks being totally surrendered to pressures created by developers and the tourist industry. – CityLab