“In an unusual move designed to raise the profile and productivity of two respected classical-drama troupes, Seattle Shakespeare Company and Wooden O Theatre have merged their nonprofit operations, a move legally finalized Monday.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Far From Broadway, Letts Is On To The Next Play
When Tracy Letts won a Pulitzer Prize Monday for his Broadway play, “August: Osage County,” the playwright was at work on a new play at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which premiered “August.” “‘It’s in rough shape,’ Letts said of his newest drama. ‘It’s teaching me a lot of humility. Which is good, because I am going to be impossible.'”
Venice Biennale Chooses 2009 Curator
“The Venice Biennale appointed Daniel Birnbaum, the rector of the Staedelschule international art academy in Frankfurt, to curate its 2009 show.”
Charlton Heston, Faithful Pen Pal, Constant Reader
“Charlton Heston, who died Saturday at age 84, was an avid newspaper reader, eager to share his opinions. In addition to writing dozens of letters to the paper over four decades, the ‘Ben-Hur’ star often would telephone Los Angeles Times editors with his comments.” Here’s a sampling from his missives.
The Paradigm Has Shifted: Critics Don’t Matter Anymore
“There was a time when critics were our arbiters of culture, the ultimate interpreters of intellectual discourse. When I was growing up, eager to write about the arts, it was just as important to read Pauline Kael, Frank Rich and Lester Bangs as it was to see a Robert Altman film, a David Mamet play or listen to the latest Elvis Costello album. Critics gave art its context, explained its meaning and guided us to new discoveries. As a flood of stories in recent weeks has shown, those days are going, going, gone.”
In His Mom’s Last Weeks, Critic Sees TV’s Power To Soothe
“A television critic inevitably spends a fair amount of time bemoaning what is on television. My mother, especially after illness made it increasingly hard for her to read novels, was a reminder of the immense gift television can be. She had friends, visitors, and telephone calls, but there was also a continuous visual (she was a painter) and informational thirst that only television could assuage. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without television,’ was a sentence I often heard her utter.”
At Auction, A Tony Nets More Than $5K
“Here’s some good news for producers hard up for cash: The 1991 Tony Award for best musical revival, honoring the producers Barry and Fran Weissler for ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ … was sold at auction in Dallas on Saturday night for $5,676.25.”
Publisher Simon Michael Bessie Dies at 92
“Simon Michael Bessie, who in 1959 left a top editorial position at what was then called Harper & Brothers to help found Atheneum Publishers, perhaps the last major literary house to be started from scratch in the 20th century, died on Monday at his home in Lyme, Conn.”
Side Effect Of An Illness: Artistic Gifts
Maurice Ravel apparently had “a rare disease called FTD, or frontotemporal dementia,” when he was composing “Bolero,” but non-artists stricken with FTD may lose other abilities even as they suddenly become gifted in the arts. “The disease apparently (alters) circuits in their brains, changing the connections between the front and back parts and resulting in a torrent of creativity.”
Tracy Letts, Junot Diaz Among Pulitzer Winners
The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners are …