“William Griswold, the museum’s ebullient and well-liked director and president since August, 2014, says his goal is to engage a larger and more diverse audience. And he sees no reason why the museum can’t achieve annual attendance of 1 million – a sizable increase over the average of 650,000 over the past three years, and the 707,000 visitors the museum drew in 2015-16, which included its centennial year.” Griswold tells Steven Litt how he plans to do it.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Barbara Cook, Broadway And Cabaret Legend, Dead At 89
The classic Broadway ingenue of the 1950s and ’60s, she made her name as the original Marian the Librarian in The Music Man and Cunégonde in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. After a difficult period of alcoholism and weight gain, she reinvented herself as a cabaret star – one of whom no less than Stephen Sondheim said, “No one sings theater songs with more feeling for the music or more understanding of the lyrics than Barbara.”
Following Casting Kerfuffle, Broadway’s ‘Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet Of 1812’ To Close
“The Broadway musical that had more Tony Award nominations than any other last season will close on Sept. 3 after struggling to overcome a recent casting controversy, the show’s producers announced on Tuesday.”
Septime Webre, Late Of Washington Ballet, Talks About His Plans For His New Gig In Hong Kong
Just a week into his term as artistic director of the Hong Kong Ballet, Webre says he’s impressed with the dancers’ technical standards and classical rep, and wants to inject “a higher level of sophistication into the [new] work made for the company.” He wants to create dances reflecting the city’s culture, and says he’s being inspired by Hong Kong films and Cantonese opera.
First Actor To Play Godzilla, Haruo Nakajima, Dead At 88
“Nakajima played [the mutant dinosaur] in the 1954 original and 11 subsequent films, donning the suit that he said weighed about 220 pounds and wreaking havoc on model cities and rival monsters. But he began his career in samurai films, including a small role in Akira Kurosawa’s legendary 1954 film Seven Samurai.”
The Zombie Radio Station: No One’s Running It, But It’s Been Broadcasting Since 1982
“Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades, it’s been broadcasting a dull, monotonous tone. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn. Then the drone continues. Once or twice a week, a man or woman will read out some words in Russian, such as ‘dinghy’ or ‘farming specialist’. And that’s it. Anyone, anywhere in the world can listen in, simply by tuning a radio to the frequency 4625 kHz.” Zaria Gorvett susses out some possible purposes of this Russian station – purposes that have their roots in the Cold War.
John Hockenberry Is Leaving Public Radio’s ‘The Takeaway’
Hockenberry, who co-created the WNYC-Public Radio International co-production and hosted or co-hosted it since its launch ten years ago, said in a statement, “Ultimately, in every challenging career, there comes a time when it is important to know when to move on.” His final show airs on Friday, Aug. 11.
Country Music Superstar Glen Campbell, 81
“The sweet-voiced, guitar-picking son of a sharecropper … became a recording, television and movie star in the 1960s and ’70s, waged a publicized battle with alcohol and drugs and gave his last performances while in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.08.17
The Board’s Role in Community Engagement: Part I
The board of directors of a nonprofit arts organization can and should play an important role in planning for and adopting community engagement as a crucial mission strategy. There is a tendency on the part … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-08-08
Twitter Vigilantes Poison Social Media Discussion Of Young Adult Novels
“Led by a group of influential authors who pull no punches when it comes to calling out their colleagues’ work, and amplified by tens of thousands of teen and young-adult followers for whom online activism is second nature, the campaigns to keep offensive books off shelves” – often waged by people who haven’t read the novel they’re condemning – “are a regular feature in a community that’s as passionate about social justice as it is about reading.”