Before the latest lockdown, “it was all looking so hopeful. Reopening theatres after seven months was never going to be easy, but big and small teams across the country had been rising to the challenge and welcoming audiences back with gusto.” Here’s a look at how the ways they went about it. – The Stage
Tag: 11.09.20
Young Opera Singers Are Paying To Audition Via Video. Does Anyone At Companies Actually Watch? We Can Find Out.
Zach Finkelstein, a professional data analyst as well as a lyric tenor, spoke with 15 applicants to young artists’ programs and looked at YouTube Analytics figures for their privately uploaded videos. “The data suggests that some companies rejected those singers without viewing any of their video auditions. YouTube reports also indicate that the average company isn’t considering more than a short section of those singers’ arias — the views registered by the platform last, for most, roughly a minute, less than half of one aria.” – The Middleclass Artist
Strand Bookstore’s Owner And Remaining Staff Aren’t At Each Other’s Throats, Exactly, But …
“Why, they wonder, are their fellow employees still out of jobs while the owner gets a government payroll loan and has the money to invest elsewhere?” (Owner Nancy Bass Wyden spent more than $100K on stock in Amazon this year.) “Bass Wyden … says she needs to spend money to make more money while the Strand isn’t performing, a means to keep it afloat in the long term. The workers … see her putting her personal wealth before the institution. The truth, it seems, lies somewhere in the middle, with both sides wanting the store to live forever and, in true 2020 fashion, having their nerves frayed to the limits.” – InsideHook
Movie Theatres Urge Lame Duck Congress To Pass COVID Relief
The Save Our Stages legislation, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), would allow Small Business Administration grants equaling 45% of a venue’s 2019 revenue or $12 million, whichever is less. Venue operators also would be eligible for a second grant equal to 50% of the first award. Save Our Stages was introduced as a $10-billion program to help venues such as live concert halls. It was later expanded to $15 billion in order to include movie theater operators. – Los Angeles Times
Video Of Alzheimer’s Patient Recalling “Swan Lake” Movement Goes Viral
The Spanish dancer, who reportedly died in 2019 after battling Alzheimer’s disease, has captivated social media since a video surfaced of Marta González, by then confined to a wheelchair, vividly recalling the upper-body choreography of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” — her delicate ballet hands graceful as ever. – New York Post
In Praise (And Condemnation) Of Gimmicks
“Although my calling something a gimmick registers a subjective response, it also demands agreement or invites confrontation, and more brazenly so than other judgments. Should a fan of robot chefs and Roombas question why I harbor such unwarranted suspicions about them, I will feel compelled to convince him that my suspicions ought to be felt universally. But I will also delight in a newfound sense of superiority, my belief that only I am discerning enough to see that these devices are overvalued, too good to be true.” – The New Yorker
Where Did The Expression ‘Peanut Gallery’ Come From? It’s Complicated
Early Boomers would associate the phrase with The Howdy Doody Show, where it referred to the studio audience of kids. In fact, the first known printed use of “peanut gallery” comes from an 1867 review of a vaudeville show in New Orleans, and it refers to the food item unruly patrons would throw at performers they didn’t like. (Warning: the sentence in question is pretty racist.) – The Conversation
Comedian Norm Crosby, Master Of Malapropism, Dead At 93
He was marketing shoes in Boston when he decided to try his hand at comedy, and he ultimately spent nearly fifty years in clubs and on television entertaining people with his (deliberate) misuse of vocabulary. For example: “He’s got a certain inner flux that excretes from this man, there’s an aura of marination that radiates out of him.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Should Britain’s Politicians Quit Bothering To Pretend They Stay Out Of Decisions On Who Gets Arts Funding?
“Indeed, a case can be made for greater government intervention in much of our cultural landscape. … Like it or not, public funding must come with public accountability. But defending the government’s right to interfere in the arts and museums becomes much harder when government funding keeps declining. Minority shareholders don’t get to tell a chief executive how to run their business.” – The Art Newspaper
Keys To: A Long Life In Dance
When it comes to the secrets of longevity in a dance career, Linda Austin and Bobby Fouther had similar thoughts: you do what makes you happy, just keep going, and ignore the pressures to be liked. In an interview for a book called Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond, by Emmaly Wiederhold with photographs by Gregory Bartning, Austin said, “If you are stubborn enough and love it enough, you’ll find a way to keep going. You do need some outside validation from time to time. I’ve always gotten just enough to keep me going but not enough to make me comfortable. The carrot is always just ahead.” – Oregon ArtsWatch