“The strange reality of the Web is that it’s harder to display a novel font than it is to embed a video. In this realm, at least, print media are still way ahead. … Compared with the typical issue of Cosmo, Slate and every other online magazine look like something out of the 1800s. Typeface designers and font fanciers have new reason for optimism though.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
90-Minute Plays Are For Pikers: Theatre Gets Supersized
“Brevity has become an increasingly compelling selling point in today’s legit landscape, but a number of this season’s incoming productions — following the Tony-winning revival of play trilogy ‘The Norman Conquests’ — are bucking the trend and hoping auds still have an appetite for the epic.” Among the outsize events on the horizon in New York: “‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle,’ nine Horton Foote plays condensed into a three-part marathon running, yes, nine hours.”
Adrian Noble To Be A.D. Of Old Globe’s Shakespeare Fest
“The Old Globe Theatre has hired the distinguished British director Adrian Noble to lead its 2010 Summer Shakespeare Festival, taking the place of Darko Tresnjak, who is leaving the theater. Noble, who was artistic director of England’s renowned Royal Shakespeare Company for nearly 13 years, will initially be on a one-year contract to direct the festival, whose 2010 edition coincides with the Globe’s 75th anniversary.”
Kennedy Center’s Arts Evangelist Kicks Off Recession Tour
Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser, “the turnaround king,” embarks on a tour to all 50 states. He aims to talk financially strapped arts organizations out of trying to save their way to health — and tell them why they shouldn’t believe old chestnuts are a safer bet than adventurous programming.
Female Film Directors Having An Unusually Strong Summer
“Of all the films you saw last year, it’s statistically likely that fewer than 10 percent were directed by women. … It’s worth mentioning that no woman has ever won an Oscar for directing. A grand total of three have been nominated during the award’s eight decades of history. All that said, an unusually high number of films made by women are in distribution in theaters around the country right now — which is to say, there are seven.”
Man Sues, And Wins, Over Musical’s Lack Of Live Music
“Last week, Manchester County Court was the scene of an extraordinary victory. A man called Adrian Bradbury had taken his family to see a professional staging of The Wizard of Oz at the Lowry Theatre” and “felt that if you had paid to see what was billed as a ‘magical family musical’ you were entitled to expect live musicians. So he sued under the Trade Descriptions Act. And, astonishingly, he won.”
The Life Of Palin, In Libretto
“Why should Governor Palin concern herself with the travails of Mary Poppins or Roxie Hart, when her own life is so rich in material? So I present a two-act treatment for a new musical based on her extraordinary rise. Entitled simply Palin! the Musical, I will be faxing it to her advisers as soon as Alaskan office hours begin.”
Carol Ann Duffy Funds Poetry Prize With Laureate Stipend
“[T]he prize, known as the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry, will be awarded annually throughout Duffy’s 10-year term as laureate. … The prize, worth £5,000, will go to a UK poet working in any form – including poetry collections for adults and children, individual poems, radio poems, translations and verse dramas – who has made the ‘most exciting contribution’ to poetry that year.”
With Letters, Royal Academy To Show Intimate Van Gogh
“A major exhibition of letters and paintings by the artist Vincent van Gogh will go on show at the Royal Academy of Art early next year. … Curator Ann Dumas hopes they will show a more balanced view of the artist, who is often regarded as an eccentric genius.”
Nicholas Serota: Few Pols Could Be Decent Culture Sec’y
“The Tate’s Sir Nicholas Serota has spoken out against what he believes to be a lack of passion for the arts in Westminster, saying he could not think of even a handful of politicians who could perform the job of Culture Secretary effectively. But he added that the latest Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Ben Bradshaw, was an exception.”