Michael Billington: “In my perspective from the stalls, British acting is phenomenally good; and, even if vocal skills occasionally leave something to be desired, young actors today have a physical expressiveness that was foreign to the McKellen generation.”
Tag: 09.27.10
Emma Thompson Asks, Why Can’t the English Learn to Speak?
“We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power. I went to give a talk at my old school and the girls were all doing their ‘likes’ and ‘innits?’ and ‘it ain’ts’, which drives me insane. I told them, ‘Just don’t do it. Because it makes you sound stupid and you’re not stupid’.”
NY Philharmonic CEO To Step Down
“The departure of Zarin Mehta, who has logged three decades in the concert world — running the Montreal Symphony in the 1980s, then Chicago’s Ravinia Festival in the 1990s, before arriving in New York — comes at a moment when uncertainty over the role of orchestras in our society seems to be growing.”
Director Threatens To Pull “Lord Of The Rings” Filming From New Zealand
Executive producer Peter Jackson threatened Sunday to yank the beleaguered production from his home country of New Zealand after several international actors unions called on members to boycott the movies.
Piracy Threatens Porn Industry
“People were willing back then to pay top dollar for porn, now it looks like the majority of users think adult content is free. That is a huge shift in just a few years.”
Chinese Company Buys Stake In Hollywood Company
After months of speculation that a cash-rich Chinese bidder, or one from Bollywood, might pick up a debt laden Hollywood property such as MGM, Chengtian CEO Chen Xiaowei, formerly president of Nasdaq-listed The9 — one of China’s largest online gaming companies — called Chengtian’s partnership with hit-factory Legendary a “match built in heaven.”
This Year’s Banned Authors List (Gotta Love Those American Schools)
Authors including Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut are among those to have faced recent bans in American schools
The Broadway Star Vehicle (The Downside)
“This is the decided downside of Broadway’s dependence on star casting: how do you recast roles that grow to be heavily identified with widely recognized actors?”
New US TV Season: Comedies Rule
Of the seven highest-rated premieres so far, five were comedies.
Stephen Sondheim At 80
“In a career spanning more than 55 years Sondheim has written 17 musicals and countless songs, and it is something of an oddity that there is only one of them that most people – which is to say people who are not fans of musical theatre in general and Sondheim in particular – would immediately recognise.”