Lately the network has been having a run of trouble making its newest shows successful. Alyssa Rosenberg has five suggestions. Number one: “Stop trying so hard to be important all the time.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Stage’s Top Ten Musical Theatre Composers Of All Time
Mark Shenton’s list includes old Broadway/West End hands, two classical guys, and a rock star. Prepare to agree and/or argue about. (And as you fume about the names missing from the list, don’t forget that this is the final installment of Shenton’s top 50, and there are links to the others toward the end of the page.)
Paris Opera Chief Says This Season Has Been Disastrous, Pleads With Staff Not To Strike
In a letter to company employees revealing that they won’t be receiving incentive bonuses for the previous season, general director Stéphane Lissner lists the problems: revenue off €2 million since the beginning of 2016; plunging ticket sales (reportedly down by €5 million), due partly to the terrorist attacks; performances cancelled due to demonstrations by the intermittents … (in French; Google Translate version here)
Rowdy Children Smash Glass Sculpture In Museum As Parents Capture It All On Video
“Just when you’d thought you’d seen it all when it comes to art-breaking mishaps (selfie seekers, I’m looking at you), along comes this incredible footage from China of two boys fracturing a sculpture in the Shanghai Museum of Glass.”
The Couple That Built The World’s Largest Live Theatre Empire
“If the tale of Rosemary Squire and Sir Howard Panter, the husband and wife team who built a theatrical empire from scratch, was ever turned into a play (and it would make a mighty fine one), then the first act’s set would centre round a little red BMW. Twenty-five years ago, … backstage space was tight and there was no cash left to rent an office. So Squire parked outside the theatre and – with one eye open for zealous traffic wardens – tackled her paperwork from the driver’s seat.”
Why All The Writers Who Signed That Statement Against Trump Won’t Really Make A Difference
Alyssa Rosenberg observes that the statement is really a microcosm of literary culture’s long, fruitless struggle against mass-market television.
Meet Two Young Female Choreographers Breaking Ballet’s Glass Ceiling
“Recently, the ballet world seems to be owning up to the fact that it’s got a female choreographer problem. … The trick now – after years of not particularly encouraging female talent – is finding women choreographers who have the chops to truly intrigue and delight ballet audiences. Two young names have popped out of the crowd.”
An Ideally Kafkaesque Statue Of Kafka
David Černy’s K. “stands ten meters high, and renders the author’s arresting chiseled face … in a constantly-morphing assemblage of metal. His face is both perennially staring over the plaza … and yet never static or fully graspable. This is only exactly like the omnipresent but inscrutable Court that presides over Josef K. in The Trial, knowing exactly where he is and what he’s doing; present in everyone around him from clueless petty officials to teenage prostitutes, and yet unable or unwilling to present him with a formal charge.”
Detroit Symphony’s EVP Leaves For Cleveland Institute Of Music
“Paul Hogle, executive vice president of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra since 2010 and a key architect of the organization’s post-strike resurrection, is leaving to become president of the Cleveland Institute of Music. … Hogle, who grew up near Cleveland and saw one of his daughters, a violist, graduate from CIM last year, ends his six-year tenure in Detroit in early July.”
Skylight Music Theater In Milwaukee Loses Its Artistic Director
Viswa Subbaraman, who began his three-season tenure at Skylight with a daring Bollywood-themed Fidelio, said, “I’ve been wrestling with this for a few months. I love the work here and the Skylight, but I am convinced that my greatest joy and greatest strength is on the podium.”