Sophia Kishkovsky looks into the history of Soviet ceramicist Oksana Zhnikrup and the Kiev workshop-factory where she created the figurines – to which, by the way, Koons did, in fact, purchase rights.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Lack Of Productions By Female Playwrights No Longer An Issue, Says (Male) Manager Of Major Company
Chris Campbell, literary manager of London’s Royal Court Theatre: “Diversity [in terms of] men and women has improved so drastically during my time working in theatre it is almost laughable. … I can’t remember the last time we sat down and talked about gender diversity in theatre. And that’s quite often because I’m the only man in the room.”
There’s Now A Play About DC’s Notorious ‘Peeping Rabbi’ – And His Victims Are Furious
A.J. Campbell wrote and staged Constructive Fictions at the Capital Fringe Festival without actually interviewing either Rabbi Barry Freundel – who was arrested in in 2014 for secretly filming women undressing and preparing for the mikvah at his Georgetown synagogue – or those he spied on. Said one victim, “Our pain is there for public consumption in a way that no one had any say in”; says the playwright, “I would totally love to meet with them. It didn’t occur to me.”
Irina Ratushinskaya, Last Of The Imprisoned Soviet Dissident Poets, Dead At 63
“[She] was among the last political prisoners of the Brezhnev era, and among the first to be released under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.” (He freed her immediately before the 1986 Reykjavik summit.) “Her three years in [a labor] camp … nearly killed her, but resulted in an acclaimed memoir, Grey Is the Colour of Hope (1988), and more than 250 poems that bore witness to an undiminished optimism.”
Taking Papyrus Off The Faces Of Mummies: More Concerns About The Hobby Lobby/Museum Of The Bible’s Purchase Of Antiquities
Last week the company was fined $3 million for having purchased cuneiform tablets and other ancient items (which will be returned) apparently looted from Iraq for the museum’s collection. Here, Noah Charney writes about different allegations: that the Green family (Hobby Lobby’s owners) acquired papyrus fragments used to bind Egyptian mummies that had been removed from the bodies in order to get at early Scriptural texts written on the fragments.
Another Replacement In The Met’s ‘Tosca’ – But This One Is James Levine (!)
The new production by director David McVicar, which opens at the Met’s New Year’s Eve gala, has already lost its original star tenor (Jonas Kaufmann) and soprano (Kristine Opolais). Now its planned conductor, Andris Nelsons (Opolais’s husband), has withdrawn as well – and he’s being replaced by a maestro who is certainly available and knows his way around the house and the score. (But with Levine’s fragile health and this production’s bad luck, we can only hope he actually makes it.)
Osmo Vänskä Will Stay With Minnesota Orchestra Until At Least 2022
“The orchestra announced Monday morning that the longtime music director has signed a new, three-year contract through its 2021-22 season. The extension came early – Vänskä’s current contract expires at the end of the 2018-19 season. … The new contract would extend his total tenure to 19 years, matching the orchestra’s two longest-serving music directors, Emil Oberhoffer and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski.”
Author Who Died This Year Wins Library Of Congress’s Prize For American Fiction
Denis Johnson, author of the story collection Jesus’ Son and the National Book Award-winning novel Tree of Smoke, did live long enough to learn that he won the prize: he was notified in March and passed away in May at age 67.
Vancouver Opera Asks All Staff And Contractors To Take Pay Cuts
“The company is looking for a 2-per-cent rollback [in compensation] across the organization. … The atmosphere among staff has been described by someone with knowledge of the situation as ‘a bit of a revolt.'”
Unknown Maurice Sendak Discovered (And At The Publisher)
“Lynn Caponera, president of the Maurice Sendak Foundation, was going through the late artist’s files last year … when she found a typewritten manuscript titled Presto and Zesto in Limboland, co-authored by Sendak and his frequent collaborator, Arthur Yorinks. … Not only is the manuscript complete, so, too, are the illustrations.”