“Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater has made a name for itself as a presenter of dark, edgy, groundbreaking theater.” This season, after losing half a million dollars last year and slashing its budget, the company’s offerings look different — which is to say, frothier and more mainstream. “But in moving from dark drama toward light farce, from the fringe toward the center, WHAT is hardly alone this year among New England’s summer theaters.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Brooklyn Ballet To Open Its Downtown Digs
“The Brooklyn Ballet will officially open its new headquarters on June 16 on the ground floor of the Schermerhorn House, the company announced on Monday. The 11-story building in downtown Brooklyn, which also houses low income artists and the formerly homeless, is a collaboration between a real estate development company and a nonprofit affordable housing project.”
Without Tonys To Save It, Neil LaBute Play Will Shutter
“‘Reasons to Be Pretty’ became the first post-Tony Awards casualty on Broadway, with the struggling play — which came away empty-handed from the kudocast — announcing its final perf would be Sunday. The well-reviewed Neil LaBute play was the season’s most notable illustration of the difficulty of attracting auds in an unusually crowded Broadway slate.”
Anthony Browne Is Britain’s New Children’s Laureate
“Illustrator Anthony Browne, whose picture books have become famous for their brilliantly realised, surreal images of gorillas, was this morning named children’s laureate. Browne is the sixth children’s author to hold the role, and takes over from the poet Michael Rosen.”
In Suburban Home, Stolen Italian Artifacts Worth Millions
“Berwyn Police Chief William Kushner said he had never seen a home like this in 33 years on the force. ‘There was stuff all over the house in boxes. The most valuable stuff from the Vatican was on the second floor in the attic,’ he said. ‘It just goes to show you, you never know what you’ll find in a bungalow.'” The FBI said the treasures will be sent back to Italy.
Why Is Drama Of Rock ‘n’ Roll Life So Often Lost Onstage?
“Can theatre and rock music ever mix? It’s a question that rears its poodle-haired head every few years or so. Whether the answer is to be found in anything other than a greatest-hits medley hung on a paint-by-numbers plot is another matter. The new play this time is Nevermind, a fringe piece at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington, North London about a manic depressive music journalist visited by the ghost of Kurt Cobain.”
The Top 200 Artists Working Since 1900 (At No. 1: Picasso)
“At first glance, the results of this poll may seem rather predictable — but the longer you look, the more telling the quirks and anomalies become. This is precisely its point. It’s not there to agree with. It is there to argue against.” Let the mud-slinging begin.
High Line Revives The Romance Of Industrial Brawn
“The High Line emulates Paris’s Promenade Plantée, a magical arbor that runs nearly three miles atop a disused railway viaduct, from the Bastille Opera to the city’s edge. But for now, the New York version goes hardly anywhere. At 20th Street, it hits a chain-link fence separating the current park from its future extension. You can stroll the entire open length in less than ten minutes.”
Sans Gehry, Arena Will Create Black Hole In Heart Of B’klyn
“The recent news that the developer Forest City Ratner had scrapped Frank Gehry’s design for a Nets arena in central Brooklyn is not just a blow to the art of architecture. It is a shameful betrayal of the public trust, one that should enrage all those who care about this city.” Gehry’s design was “thoughtful architecture,” but the “colossal, spiritless box” that’s to replace it “embodies the crass, bottom-line mentality that puts personal profit above the public good.”
Lincoln Center Names A Chairwoman: Katherine G. Farley
“Katherine G. Farley, a senior managing director at the real estate company Tishman Speyer and head of Lincoln Center’s redevelopment project, has been appointed the chairwoman of Lincoln Center. Ms. Farley, 59, will serve for a year in tandem with the current chairman, Frank A. Bennack Jr., the chief executive of the Hearst Corporation, who will step down next June after five years in the job.”