“This has nothing to do with lack of respect for actors; just a lack of respect for the language they learn – perhaps at acting school – to describe what they do.” There are the verbs, like “nourish,” and the nouns, like “craft” and “journey.” “Does anyone else on the planet talk about their jobs like this?”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
A First In Britain: A Black Otello
“[N]o black tenor has ever sung the role of Otello in a professional British production of Verdi’s opera – until now. Trinidad-born, Guildhall-trained Ronald Samm is to take the role in December for Birmingham Opera Company….”
UK Arts Council Chief To Conservatives: Funding Is Key
Alan Davey, chief executive of Arts Council England, told a Conservative arts conference that “he had been alarmed to hear old arguments against arts funding resurrected recently; those that say the best art is produced by starving artists in garrets, and that arts funding only subsidises the pleasure of the rich.”
In Developing Countries, TV Can Further Women’s Rights
Economist Charles Kenny “says that a village getting satellite or cable TV ‘goes along with higher girls’ school enrollment rates and increased female autonomy.'” Evidence also suggests “that strong female [TV] characters help women … begin to challenge the power relations between men and women.”
Bailed-Out Banks Own Some Great Art. Let’s See It.
“Last week, the Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to display its corporate art collection to the public, following pressure by Parliament and the art world. … We wondered: Shouldn’t bailed-out U.S. banks do the same? And what, exactly, would they show?”
Behemoths’ Price War May Do Most Damage To Booksellers
Target, Wal-Mart and Amazon are duking it out, offering ever-lower book prices in a contest that “could be particularly damaging to booksellers,” who, unlike their mega-retailer competitors, can’t afford to “sell the books at a loss.”
Norman Foster Designs An Art Gallery
“[A]rchitects often say the possibilities of a building lie in its limitations, and Mr. Foster was drawn to the challenge of designing what is essentially a vertical art gallery on New York City’s former skid row, a landscape dominated by restaurant supply stores.”
Gail Harrity Named Philadelphia Museum President
The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s chief operating officer since 1997, “Harrity served as interim chief executive for more than a year, since the death of Anne d’Harnoncourt, while the museum’s board of trustees searched for a new director.”
AP Says Fairey Is Lying In Confessing Hope ‘Mistake’
“In an amendment to its countersuit filed today in a New York court, the AP claimed that ‘it is simply not credible that [Shepard] Fairey somehow forgot in January 2009 which source image he used to create’ the work in question.”
At Frankfurt, Chinese Books Found Eager Foreign Buyers
“China’s delegation to this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair are starting to trickle back home after the event closed Sunday and they are bringing with them news of a world that is waking up to the charms of their nation’s long literary traditions.”