“During my senior year of undergrad, my voice teacher complimented me on my final Mainstage role by saying: ‘You did great! And you don’t even look African-American on stage!'”
“[The language coach] said, ‘Silly me … no ‘decent’ French ever comes from such big lips anyways … Maybe patois, but not Français.'” – WQXR (New York City)
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Earlier Black Classical Musicians Faced (And Faced Down) American Racism
Shirley Verrett: “Maestro Stokowski called. He was embarrassed, but said that it would not be possible for me to sing with the Houston Symphony because the symphony board did not want to use a Negro singer.” (Stokie made it up to her later in Philadelphia.) And then there was the time Jessye Norman was invited to play a maid in a sitcom … – WQXR (New York City)
John Homans, Longtime Editor At New York Magazine And Vanity Fair, Dead At 62
“Because he was not a celebrity editor, he was not particularly well known outside the publishing universe. But let us assure you, because we saw it firsthand: There was nobody quite like him. A disproportionate number of the best things you ever read in New York came through his hands. .. We’ve invited his colleagues at New York, past and present, to talk about him. Here’s John in their words.” (And here’s a similar piece from his colleagues at Vanity Fair.) – New York Magazine
Washington Ballet Loses Another Executive Director
In a statement that also announced the cancellation of all remaining 2020 performances (including The Nutcracker), the company revealed that Michael Pastreich is departing after 14 months. He’s the third executive director to resign since Julie Kent succeeded Septime Webre as artistic director in 2016. But a pattern of Washington Ballet CEOs quickly coming and going was established quite some time ago, writes Sarah Kaufman. – The Washington Post
First Indoor Play Approved By Actors’ Equity Won’t Be Indoors After All
Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires was all set to go with a production of playwright David Cale’s one-man play Harry Clarke — the union had given the go-ahead, and the theater had had seats removed and the bathrooms and air conditioning system redesigned to meet COVID safety guidelines. But the state of Massachusetts has refused to waive its ongoing ban on indoor performance. The show will go on, however — in a tent. – The New York Times
As COVID Cases Continue To Rise, South Carolina Reopens Performance Spaces And Cinemas
“Venues newly allowed to reopen to customers include movie theaters, auditoriums, stadiums and performing arts centers. Those represent the last of the business restrictions not rolled back two months ago. However, they must keep capacity at 50 percent or 250 people, whichever is less.” – The Post and Courier (Charleston)
Music Of America’s First Known Women Composers Is Headed To Disc
Their names were Sister Föben, Sister Katura, and Sister Hanna, and they were members of the Ephrata Cloister, a radical commune of Pennsylvania Dutch Evangelicals in the mid-1700s. Baritone and musicologist Chris Herbert (of New York Polyphony) has digitized and transcribed the manuscript in which these composers’ hymns (“just devotional, simple music,” he says) were found, rounded up four singers, and recorded the works in the Ephrata Cloister Meetinghouse. – NPR
Australia Is Raising University Tuition For Arts And Humanities Degrees And Lowering It For STEM Degrees
“Education Minister Dan Tehan said the government wanted to ‘incentivise students to make more job-relevant choices’. The next wave of graduates would have to power the post-Covid economic recovery, he stressed. ‘A cheaper degree in an area where there’s a job is a win-win for students.'” Many education professionals are skeptical (to say the least), and evidence suggests that the new pricing won’t change students’ choices. – BBC
At Least There’s One Live Dance Festival Happening In The U.S. This Summer
Kaatsbaan, a Hudson River-side farm that has been offering retreats and workshops for dancers for 30 years, is presenting public performances for the first time this year. (Thanks to COVID, they’ll be outdoors, with a spread-out and masked audience.) Stella Abrera, the recently retired ABT star who’s now Kaatsbaan’s artistic director, is programming the festival with executive director Sonja Kostich and three Black dance artists: Alicia Graf Mack, Lloyd Knight, and Calvin Royal III. – The New York Times
Reese Schonfeld, Co-Founder Of CNN And The Food Network, Dead At 88
“Mr. Schonfeld, who had been expelled from Harvard Law School for gambling, was nothing if not a risk taker. Early in his career he produced newsreels shown in movie theaters, and by the mid-1970s he was running an agency that provided news programming to independent television stations. In that role he met [Ted] Turner, a brash sailor, sports-team owner and cable TV entrepreneur who was looking to make a bigger name for himself.” – The Washington Post