“It is saddening for me to say this, but I doubt that he ever wrote anything which could make a novice reader feel that the theatre (or film, or literature, or music) was an art worth pursuing, or worth attending to, as having some value for civilization. John published many books collecting his reviews, and I read through most of them, but I don’t recall them offering me any insight on why I should care about a given work, or about the art as a whole. I gave them away.” – American Theatre
Tag: 11.25.19
Still Trying To Pin Down The Effects On The Brain Of Studying Music
“Current research implies — implies, not concludes — that studying music can help children develop spatial reasoning and listening skills and improve their concentration, but more study is needed to fully understand this relationship.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A New Theatre Company Especially For Trans And Non-Binary Actors
“Performer Harrison Knights is behind the venture, called Trans Voices Company, which aims to help address a lack of casting opportunities for non-cisgender actors.” – The Stage
Metropolitan Opera Will Keep Peter Gelb Through 2027
“The five-year extension [of his contract as general manager] … will give Mr. Gelb at least a 21-year reign at the opera house, the largest performing arts organization in the United States. The only Met general managers with longer tenures than that have been Giulio Gatti-Casazza (who held the post for 27 years beginning in 1908) and Rudolf Bing (1950-72).” – The New York Times
Boris Johnson Promises Conservatives Will Spend £250 Million On Culture (One Quarter Of What Labour Promises)
“The Conservative Party election manifesto, launched yesterday afternoon by the UK prime minister Boris Johnson, pledges the establishment of a £250m fund ‘to support local libraries and regional museums’. The Tories describe this as ‘the largest cultural capital programme in a century’.” Last week, the Labour manifesto released by Jeremy Corbyn included a pledge to budget £1 billion for arts and culture. – The Art Newspaper
After Five Years, Are We Really Sure We Know Who Hacked Sony Pictures?
“The massive cyberattack just before Thanksgiving 2014 crippled a studio, embarrassed executives and reshaped Hollywood. The FBI blamed a North Korea scheme to retaliate for the comedy The Interview, but many whose lives were upended have doubts.” – The Hollywood Reporter
StubHub Sold To Viagogo For $4 Billion
“Campaign groups have urged regulators to protect music and sports fans from the threat of rip-off prices after eBay agreed to sell StubHub, its ticketing business, to the Swiss ticket reseller Viagogo in a $4bn (£3.1bn) deal.” – The Guardian
Netflix Buys Manhattan’s Last Single-Screen Movie Theatre
On Monday, Netflix announced that it has reached an agreement to continue leasing the Paris Theater space and keep it open for special events, screenings, and theatrical releases. “After 71 years, the Paris Theatre has an enduring legacy, and remains the destination for a one-of-a kind movie-going experience.” – New York Magazine
Longtime Theatre Critic John Simon, 94
He was to theatre criticism as pigeons are to statues, William F. Buckley once observed. “In a style that danced with literary allusions and arch rhetoric — and composed with pen and ink (he hated computers) — he produced thousands of critiques and a dozen books, mostly anthologies of his own work.” – The New York Times
Jeremy Corbyn Pledges New UK Charter For The Arts And Funding Of £1 Billion
Corbyn said: “The arts are a common inheritance that make our society culturally richer and put a smile on all our faces. We must cherish them and protect them. “Labour’s national strategy for the arts will embrace our rich cultural heritage from William Shakespeare to Ben Okri, Mary Quant to Tim Berners-Lee, delivering a national cultural renaissance.” – The Stage