“Sky Arts is to screen six newly commissioned theatre plays live to air for what is believed to be the first time on British television in a quarter of a century. The project, Sky Arts Theatre Live!, will see six authors make their debuts as playwrights collaborating with directors and actors to create original half-hour plays.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
A.D. Of Sydney’s Company B Announces His Departure
“Theater director Neil Armfield is preparing to ankle the helm of Sydney’s Company B troupe housed at Belvoir St. Theater, where the Broadway production of ‘Exit the King’ at Barrymore Theater was hatched and where he has been artistic director since 1994.”
Brooks McNamara, Architect Of Shubert Archive, Dies At 72
“Brooks McNamara, a theater historian who shepherded a vast and disorganized array of letters, photographs, scripts, sheet music, set and costume designs, business records and other memorabilia into a valuable historical collection known as the Shubert Archive, died on May 8 in Doylestown, Pa.”
Will Broadway Lure The Tourists This Summer?
“Broadway doesn’t have summer sales in the bag just yet. … [I]t’s out-of-towners who fuel summer sales — and with recessionary worries and the recent outbreak of swine flu prompting predictions of a decline in tourism, it’s not yet certain that the usual B.O. boom will ring in as robustly as it has in the past.” Then again, a healthy spring defied gloomy expectations.
Subject Is Clear (Jesus), But Sculptor Isn’t (Michelangelo?)
“The Italian art world is in a messy ‘is it or isn’t it’ debate over a wooden sculpture that may or may not have been made by Michelangelo. Standing just 40cm (16 inches) high, it depicts Christ on the Cross, but leading art experts simply cannot agree who made it.”
In Grip Of Alzheimer’s, A Painter Goes Deeper Into His Art
“Seven years ago, Ken Rabb was a legal aid lawyer and a weekend painter. But at the age of 53, he was diagnosed with young onset Alzheimer’s. … Years ago, he considered himself a hobbyist painter and agonized over his technique. Now, his art is no longer an intellectual process; it is color, form and shape. Every inch of wall space is taken up with abstract oil paintings, painted plates and collages of found objects.”
Analog Faithful Are On A Quest To Resurrect Polaroid Film
“In this small town just across the border from Germany, a small group of Dutch scientists and one irrepressible Austrian salesman have dedicated themselves to the task of reinventing one of the great inventions of the 20th century — Polaroid’s instant film.”
Biography: Jane Austen Was Hot For A Clergyman
Jane Austen’s romantic life has long been an object of speculation, and “now a literary historian claims that her true love was a clergyman named Dr Samuel Blackall, who first caught Austen’s attention in 1798 when he was a guest of their mutual friends, the Lefroys.”
Carless Broadway Makes A More Intimate Times Square
“A large part of the design’s success stems from the altered relationship between the pedestrian and the structures that frame the square. Walking down the cramped, narrow sidewalks, a visitor could never get a feel for the vastness of the place. Now, standing in the middle of Broadway, you have the sense of being in a big public room, the towering billboards and digital screens pressing in on all sides.”
Breaking The Taboo Against Violent Images In Kids’ Books
“There have been many calls to protect the young from violent images, but it’s not often the opposite case is argued, that there aren’t enough aggressive pictures in children’s books. But award-winning children’s author Ted Dewan is conscientiously putting scenes of mayhem and destruction into his latest book, not drawn by an adult but by the children themselves.” They’re the kind of “scenes of slaughter that many boys like to draw.”