Sure, people like to go to the theatre – but the Scots are fleeing the symphony and opera in dire numbers. (Or maybe it’s just that the companies were touring? Sure, that’s it.)
Month: April 2012
Author Anne Tyler’s First Broadcast Interview In 35 Years
The Baltimore-based author of books like The Accidental Tourist and Breathing Lessons talks to NPR. “I don’t have that much to say, so I figure about every 35 years will do it, right? It does make me very self conscious when I go back to writing, after I talk about writing.”
Corporations, Getting in Touch With Their Identities Through Art
“Organizations that buy art are investing in themselves — and in more than a monetary sense. Art speaks to culture, self-expression and creativity,” says a corporate art advisor. “When organizations buy artwork, they are supporting the arts. That can mean buying from local artists, but it extends beyond that. Art touches lives.”
Time To Cash-Mob The Performing Arts?
Yes. It’s important to provide discounts for younger and less educated audiences, but, says an arts marketer, cash mobs could resist the culture of Groupon and day-of-show discounts, and say “This is important. This has value.” (And help the arts at the same time.)
Stop Calling Copyright Infringement ‘Theft’
Pirating a book or movie is not the same as stealing one, but “seeing it as theft makes it easier to steamroll right over issues like ‘fair use,’ which is an incredibly important principle and one that is unique to copyright law.”
Today’s Fools: Homer Simpson Fits Right Into Shakespeare
“It was never about bright clothes, eccentric hats and slippers with bells on them. Shakespeare’s fools were the stand-ups of their day and liked to expose the vain, mock the pompous and deliver a few home truths – however uncomfortable that might be for those on the receiving end.”
The U.S. Used To Make Great Action Movies. Not Anymore.
“Action films meant something. As surely as the film noir communicated anxiety over postwar urban upheaval or as alien-invasion films helped us work out our cold-war agita, the action films of the golden age were a post-’70s, poststagflation collective national fantasy: one in which America was strong, independent, unstoppable and perpetually kicking much butt.” That’s over.
Baltimore’s Newest Artistic Director Takes On Some Tough Plays – His Own
“In the insular and collegial-but-touchy world of American theater, his decision to stage both ‘Clybourne Park’ and his as-yet-unwritten response play, ‘Beneatha’s Place,’ is most assuredly not the norm. But the garrulous, opinionated, 45-year-old Kwame Kwei-Armah seems unwilling to let all of his passions take a back seat to his regard for artistic diplomacy.”
With Two New Movies, Snow White’s Never Been More Popular. Why Now?
“After decades of the cold shoulder, why is Snow White suddenly white hot? Maria Tartar is a Harvard professor with an expertise in fairytales. ‘It may be that there is something about the boomer anxiety about aging that is renewing our interest in Snow White,’ she says. ‘In the Disney film, there’s that terrible moment, that terrifying moment when the Wicked Queen drinks the potion, turns into an old hag, and we see the aging process.'”
That Opus You Wrote At Age 13? Now It Would Be (Self-)Published
Parents paying for their children’s self-published books aren’t worried about promising the young writers too much. “They are simply trying to encourage their children, in the same way that other parents buy gear for a promising lacrosse player or ship a Broadway aspirant off to theater camp.”