“In the Theatre Guild Archive of the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas survives a script, marked ‘as broadcast,’ of Miller’s adaptation of Jane Austen for radio. Miller’s radio play, with Joan Fontaine as Elizabeth Bennet, aired on Thanksgiving eve, 18 November 1945.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Tag: 11.28.19
Reports Of ‘The Simpsons’ Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
Composer Danny Elfman, who wrote the theme music for the long-running series, told an Irish podcaster that “from what I’ve heard, it is coming to an end. … I don’t know for a fact, but I’ve heard that it will be in its last year.” The Guardian picked the news up, and rumors spread quickly until showrunner Al Jean shut them down: “No disrespect to Mr. Elfman but we are producing season 32 starting next year and have no plans to end after that.” – Metro (UK)
Boston Children’s Theatre Abruptly Closes After Accusations About Artistic Director
The collapse of the organization came quickly, just a few weeks after a group of former students accused longtime artistic director Burgess Clark of inappropriate behavior. The explosive allegations, including accusations by some students of touching and kissing during private lessons or while they were at his second home in Vermont, rocked the theater group and has triggered an investigation by police. No charges have been filed. – Boston Globe
People Who Make Moral Claims In Public Are Not, For The Most Part, Merely Signalling That They’re Virtuous
In other words, there’s little hypocrisy to be seen – and the accusation of “virtue signalling” itself might be a signal from those who make the accusation to like-minded others. That’s because “the accusation does exactly what it accuses others of: it moves the focus from the target of the moral claim to the person making it. It can therefore be used to avoid addressing the moral claim made.” – Aeon
Depressed? You Could Do Worse Than Watch Cheesy Holiday Movies On Netflix
Maybe not 29 movies in a row, of course. But. One writer explains that she opened Netflix in the depths of a serious depression and started watching Christmas Prince. “The movie was terrible. But it was also wonderful. Within a few minutes, I felt something bubbling in my chest. Something I hadn’t felt in weeks. A small spark of happiness. Soon it had grown enough that it actually burst from me in a smile, which became a laugh. I was actually laughing. Half an hour before that I’d been, to quote Anne Shirley (as I always try to do), in the depths of despair, and now I was laughing.” – BuzzFeed
What Does Music Mean?
In Portland, Oregon ArtsWatch’s Matthew Neil Andrews is writing a series about classical music and meaning. For instance: We know music can help people process trauma (think of the Boston Symphony playing Beethoven’s Funeral March from the Eroica the afternoon JFK was murdered) – but what if it’s designed to do that? Does that change the experience? And “the main question is whether using music to address these issues is appropriate and effective. What good do these shows do, in terms of actually stimulating change?” – Oregon ArtsWatch
Can Dance Make a More Just America? Donald Byrd Is Working on It
“The choreographer’s commitment to dance as a catalyst for social change can be seen at a museum show in Seattle and in a new work for the Alvin Ailey company.” – The New York Times
Pink Martini’s Thomas Lauderdale Once Wanted To Be Mayor Of Portland, But Rally Music ‘Really Sucked’
Because of the music, Lauderdale “had become the de facto social director of Portland’s underground political scene, staging rallies, parties and functions at coffeehouses, private homes and auditoriums citywide. In 1994, he called a vocalist he had met at Harvard named China Forbes and the die was cast to improve the quality of political rally music in Portland.” And that is how the now-ubiquitous Pink Martini came to exist. – Monterey County Weekly
Marion McClinton, Vital Interpreter Of August Wilson, Has Died At 65
McClinton, who was mourned on actors’ Instagram feeds and Twitter posts as soon as word spread that he had passed, was “a noted director who was a favorite of the playwright August Wilson and took two of his plays to Broadway.” McClinton was also an actor and a playwright who did some of his best work in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. “‘London and New York have the glamour and money,’ he told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2007, when he was directing Samm-Art Williams’s Home at the Pillsbury House Theater in Minneapolis. ‘But when you are working on Broadway, you are as much a director as a manager solving people’s problems. Here, I get to concentrate on the art, without distractions.'” – The New York Times