“The Academy ballroom renovation, overseen by Philadelphia interior designer John Trosino of KlingStubbins, strips away a scheme installed in the 1950s, replacing it with cues taken from an 1860 photograph magnified to reveal minute details. Planners say it’s nothing less than an authentic reproduction of an entire room – not the familiar grand main auditorium, but the more modest space whose windows face Broad Street.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
George Weissman, Who Led Lincoln Center, Dies at 90
“George Weissman, who helped transform Philip Morris from a midlevel tobacco company to a diversified conglomerate known for contributions to the arts, and who then led Lincoln Center for nearly a decade,” has died. Weissman pushed Philip Morris “to become a major donor to arts groups, particularly experimental undertakings,” and “installed a branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art on the ground floor of the company’s new Park Avenue headquarters.”
Out Of The Theatre, Into The Woods (Or Boat Or Car)
“[T]here’s something about a certain kind of summer theatergoing … that makes you look differently at the city and at the conventions of the stage. This year there are shows on boats, in cars, on the streets and in many public places, from ‘Joan of Arc’ in Fort Tryon Park to ‘Measure for Measure’ in a Lower East Side parking lot. These productions are blurring the boundaries between the created and the real worlds through immersion, interactivity and site-specificity.”
At Dallas Museum, Soundtracks Complement The Art
“If you could hear a painting, what would it sound like? The Dallas Museum of Art and UT Dallas have created a new interactive program to answer that question. A sound design class at UT-Dallas has created a series of soundtracks to accompany specific works in the DMA collection. … Visitors use iPhones and other Internet-enabled devices to access the bonus features.”
HBO Scores Highest In Tally Of GLBT Content
“In its third annual Network Responsibility Index, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation found that of HBO’s 14 original prime-time series, 10 included content reflecting the lives of gay, bisexual and transgender people. That totaled 42 percent of the network’s programming hours…. By contrast, on NBC and CBS only 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively, of prime-time hours included them, the report said.”
Demystifying Merce Cunningham’s Work
From the Guardian archives, a quick and easy guide to “the Zen master of modern dance.”
SF Ballet Artistic Director Taps Two Number 2s
“Leading the country’s third-largest ballet company requires serious backup. Now instead of one right-hand man, San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson has two.” Bruce Sansom and Ricardo Bustamante, “both 46, have just stepped into the ‘ballet master and assistant to the artistic director’ position vacated when Ashley Wheater became artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet in 2007.”
Hollywood’s 20th Century Props Falters In The Early 21st
“One of the largest movie prop shops in the world is closing. Since the 70s, 20th Century Props has been supplying set decorations for films from Moulin Rouge to Blade Runner. The economy, the last writers strike and productions leaving Hollywood for cheaper locations are all reasons why the shop is closing.”
Performing In The Nude: A Naked Actor Speaks Out
“I’d never been naked on stage before and, like most people, the thought of volunteering for that universal nightmare of full-frontal nudity before a jeering audience scared the bejesus out of me. But I’m an actor, and we’re nothing if not an ambitious lot, so with the help of a gym membership and some hair removal cream, I found myself at an audition…. A week later, I was offered the job. (A day after that, I moved into the gym and began an affair with rice crackers and beansprouts).”
Attacked By Fundamentalists, Arts In Pakistan Persevere
Since the bombing last November of Pakistan’s Lahore International Arts Festival, “targets have included a cafe belonging to the Peerzada family who stage the festival, and theatres across the city in co-ordinated overnight raids.” Despite the sense that “every time people go out for the evening, there is a danger that was not there a couple of years ago,” the arts are persevering in Lahore, with both artists and audiences united against the fundamentalists who seek to stop them.