“From the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band’s Dance-Along Nutcracker to the New Bedford Ballet’s historical whaling production, A New England Nutcracker” – not to mention a hip-hop version and a “MeshugaNutcracker” for Chanukah – “the message of ‘anyone can watch’ is echoed throughout performances that interpret Tchaikovsky’s score in new – and distinctly American – ways.”
Tag: 12.16.17
The Pop-Up Theatre From The Calais Refugee Camp Is Popping Up Again In Paris
“When the tent in Calais that housed the Good Chance Theatre came down in the spring of last year, as the refugee camp known as ‘the Jungle’ was cleared, the two 25-year-old British playwrights who set it up pledged that the story would not finish there.” And they’re as good as their word.
The Lincoln Plaza Cinema Is Going To Close, Alarming Art Movie Lovers
It would be hard to overstate the impact the art house’s owners, Daniel and Toby Talbot, have had in shaping art film reception in New York. The building it’s in, and the theatre itself, need upgrades, but there’s also this: “Moviegoers increasingly want ‘the experience,’ [an assistant manager] said, such as reclining seats and huge screens. ‘We don’t have that stuff. … Here, it’s all about the movie.'”
The Christmas Carol Composer
Does John Rutter care that people know him mostly through his carols? “‘I used to think that was a problem,’ Mr. Rutter said, surveying from his kitchen window the absurdly perfect village he calls ‘idyllic, if a bit Miss Marple.’ He worried that people wouldn’t take his other music seriously. ‘But I’m not unhappy to be associated with Christmas: better than famine, flood or war,’ he said.”
The Cleveland Orchestra’s Principal Trombonist Files A Lawsuit Against ‘Detractors’ Online
The lawsuit is against two other people for posts alleging that the trombonist, Massimo La Rosa,”had engaged in a pattern of professional misconduct, criminal wrongdoing and morally repugnant behavior.”
So The Royal Court Cancelled A Play Because Of Sexual Harassment Claims But Reinstated It Because Of Censorship Claims, But It’s Complicated
Let’s follow the story:
A. First, the Royal Court Theatre cancelled a production of Rita, Sue, and Bob Too after the co-director stepped down in a flurry of “misconduct” allegations. (Here’s that story.)
B. Then a lot of people are upset that a play by a woman was cancelled because of the bad behavior of a man (Here’s that story) and/or because of the idea of censorship (here’s one of those opinion pieces).
C. Now the play has been restored after artistic director Vicky Featherstone said she had “been rocked to the core by accusations of censorship and the banning of a working-class female voice.”
The Internet-Era Way To Track Down A Missing Monet: Google
As the curator for a new Monet exhibition noted, after he found a painting he’d only seen in tiny reproductions in a couple of catalogues, “I’ve done my time buried away in archives and libraries. Every now and then one has to use other options.”
Charles Dickens May Have Invented The Christmas Feast, But Many Of His Literary Food Sources Are ‘Unclean’ And Meant To Inspire Social Action
The morality of food is a battlefield now, and it was 150 years ago, when Dickens published A Christmas Carol, as well: “Dickens’s most abiding influence is his conviction that everybody has the right to sit down together and enjoy the same food. Crucially, the Cratchits’ Christmas was not part of any ecclesiastical or charitable space but enjoyed by a poor family in their own home. Dickens was challenging a culture that regarded food as necessarily exclusive. These are conflicts in a war for status and control, in which food is deployed to show that ‘you are what you eat.'”