Broadway and Times Square today would not be recognizable to those who last saw it in the mid-’70s or, for that matter, in the late ’20s. Broadway musicals are as popular as ever, but much of the grit and seediness has been washed clean, and the area is now more akin to a family-friendly theme park than a bawdy vaudeville enclave.
Month: October 2015
Switch: Playwright Urges People Not To See His Play
“I literally have had my play stolen from me,” Tommy Smith said in an email sent to colleagues and the press this week.
How Discrimination Works In Publishing
Here is the thing about how discrimination works: No one ever comes right out and says, “We don’t want you.” In the publishing world, they don’t say, “We just don’t want your story.” They say, “We’re not sure you’re relatable” and “You don’t want to exclude anyone with your work.” They say, “We’re not sure who your audience is.”
What’s Wrong With the Group Of Young Choreographers NY City Ballet Is Championing This Fall?
“The problem is far-reaching, especially among companies of NYCB’s scale. And yet, I want to believe that I work in a field that cares about the voices of women and people of color. I want to believe that an art form that fancies itself as progressive, and a company situated in one of the most forward-thinking cities in the world, isn’t complacent about racism and sexism. Unfortunately, I don’t believe any of this yet.”
Finally! Some Real Progress on Arts Education In America (Heh)
“Ms. Alexander is a well-qualified teacher, and we have the utmost confidence that she will provide quality art instruction to our nation’s students as she rotates through each of the 98,000 public schools in this country,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who explained that Alexander will teach a 40-minute studio art course to each of the grade levels at a different school each day, beginning with Colby High School in Denver on Wednesday, until she eventually visits every school in the nation, at which point she will cycle back to the beginning and start again.
Everything These Days Is About “Social”. But What About The Introverts?
Comprising anywhere from one third to about half of the population, introverts sometimes appear shy, depressed, or antisocial, when that’s not always the case. As Susan Cain put it in her famous TED Talk, introverts simply “feel at their most alive and their most switched-on and their most capable when they’re in quieter, more low-key environments.”
Grand Rapids Ballet – How To (Re)Build A Dance Company
Patricia Barker has been “instrumental in preventing the regional company, which is Michigan’s only professional ballet company, from shutting its doors. And, under her direction, both the size of the company and the breadth of the works it performs have grown.”
Playwright Brian Friel, 86
Friel’s diverse output, spanning a 50-year period, was bound together by his passion for language, his belief in the ritualistic nature of theatre and his breadth of understanding.
World’s Clumsiest Art Thief Found Dead In London Canal
Sebastiano Magnanini, 46, was convicted in 1998 of stealing an altarpiece by Tiepolo from a church in Venice. “[He] was 24 at the time, and the theft – characterized as an operatic farce by the Italian news media – alarmed some in the country and fanned debate about how to protect treasured artwork.”
First-Ever Nasher Prize For Sculpture – Worth $100,000 – Goes To Doris Salcedo
“A seven-member international jury made up of artists, curators, and museum directors selected Salcedo, a [Colombian] sculptor and installation artist whose politically charged work, in her words, aims to ‘connect worlds that normally are unconnected, like art and politics.'”