The narration begins, “You were too young to lose your mum, and we were too young to organize a funeral. So because we were in Yorkshire, with nowhere else we wanted to be and nothing else we wanted to be doing, we decided to go and look for David Hockney.” – Aeon
Tag: 10.17.19
Russell Thomas is much more than a black tenor. Now, he’s tackling ‘Otello’ and the field’s stereotypes.
“‘I am not an Otello,’ Thomas says … [Yet] suddenly, it seems that Otello is all anybody wants to hear from him. … The problem [is] that there are very few tenors, white or black, who are able to sing the role. Thomas, now, is one of them, and the opera world is eager to seize on him, not only as an Otello but also as a representative of the diversity that the field claims to be desperately seeking.” – The Washington Post
Fans Protest WNYC Cancellation Of “New Sounds”
For music fans, the news last Thursday that WNYC will end New Sounds, a show hosted by John Schaefer since its debut in 1982, has provoked a deep sense of mourning and nostalgia for both the show and the city’s eroding arts and culture scene. Over four decades, the eclectic music program had come to be seen as a proud local institution that reflected New York City’s sophistication and idiosyncratic personality. – Gothamist
Architecture Critic And Historian Charles Jencks, 80
Mr. Jencks was an architectural historian who, with a landmark book, put himself at the forefront of the debate over what architecture should do. – The New York Times
The “Slow Fire” That’s Destroying Our Books
It’s called a “slow fire,” this continuous acidification and subsequent embrittlement of paper that was created with the seeds of its own ruin in its very fibers. In a 1987 documentary on the subject, the deputy Librarian of Congress William Welsh takes an embrittled, acid-burned book and begins tearing pages out by the handful, crumbling them into shards with an ease reminiscent of stepping on a dried-up insect carcass. – Literary Hub
More Theatres Are Experimenting With Different Performance Times
The conventional wisdom on curtain times has long been broken, and it’s proving beneficial to producers and audience. More show-by-show tinkering can only continue to evolve theatregoing practice, which is essential in an era when most entertainment can be scheduled on demand. – The Stage
Are We Seeing A New Theatre Construction Boom In America?
Some see other current trends—the conversion of old structures, the blurring of boundaries between disciplines, the increasing move of visual artists into performance, the popular interest in all things digital – will be reflected in future theatre design. “We are still in the supposed old ways of thinking. But yeah—change is on its way.” – American Theatre
How Do You Reconstruct A 140-Year-Old Ballet? Carefully
“It’s controversial in Russia to reconstruct ballets — original Russian ballets — but on the notation that was removed from Russia. In recent years, “La Bayadère” has raised questions over cultural stereotypes and insensitive depictions of India. – Los Angeles Times
Goose Gone Wild: A New Video Game Lets You Be An Angry Waterfowl Running Amok
Untitled Goose Game “sees you play as a single-minded goose making her terrible way through a village. Your palette of interactions is limited yet sufficient: you can grasp at objects, flap your wings, or honk. Through this trinity, you terrorize the villagers, partly in pursuit of a goal that is revealed only in the game’s final moments, and partly just for the sheer hell of it.” Simon Parkin makes the case that this game is just the thing for a time of moral crisis. – The New Yorker
American Theatre’s New Hot Topic: Recovery And Sobriety
“With overdoses at troubling heights and recovery no longer a sotto-voce secret, a new wave of plays dealing with the realities of rehab and the challenges of sobriety have started to emerge, often created by playwrights who have dealt with such problems themselves. And part of their mission, the writers say, is to destigmatize these struggles.” – The New York Times