Canada’s annual Siminovitch Prize is awarded to directors, playwrights and designers on a three-year cycle. This year’s finalists include Trevor Schwellnus of Toronto’s Aluna Theatre, Bretta Gerecke of Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre, and Montreal-based designers Nancy Tobin and Anick La Bissonnière.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Career Transition For Dancers Merges With The Actors Fund
“The services of Career Transition For Dancers will be integrated into the ongoing programs of The Actors Fund, it was announced Sept. 21. … The Actors Fund’s full range of services are also available to the dance community and will serve to complement those of Career Transition For Dancers.”
Michael ‘Lord Of The Dance’ Flatley To Retire From Stage After Four Decades
“Michael Flatley’s starring role in Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games will mark more than one milestone for the 57-year-old who founded two major Irish dance franchises. It will be his Broadway debut – and his farewell.”
Play Directed By Cynthia Nixon Gets Called Off At Last Minute
“Citing serious financial trouble, the Culture Project on Tuesday abruptly canceled the premiere of a new play, backed by Rosie O’Donnell and directed by Cynthia Nixon, that was to have begun performances on Thursday.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.22.15
Memories of Marlon Brando
It doesn’t happen often because it can’t. The taste of the madeleine that unleashes a torrent of memories and associations, the thing that makes you stop what you’re doing and plunges you into unexpected reverie. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-09-22
Monday Recommendation: Gabriel Alegría Sextet
Trumpeter Gabriel Alegría’s resourceful band of Peruvians and New Yorkers (Newyoruvians?) continue to meld Latin and North American traditions. Their stimulating fifth album alternates between the continents and blends musics … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-21
Lookback: on applauding between movements
From 2003: I continue to see obviously excited concertgoers shamefacedly sitting on their hands at the very moment when they ought to be raising a ruckus. What’s more, the concert halls of New York are full of spine-starched prigs who delight in … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-09-22
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UK’s National Theatre To Cut Back Sunday Performances And Number Of Actors On Roster
“Rufus Norris is planning to scale back Sunday openings at the National Theatre and reduce the number of actors employed on its main stage as part of measures to make the organisation ‘leaner’. The NT director also spoke for the first time about the sudden departure of Tessa Ross from the theatre as executive director, claiming the theatre should be run by an ‘artist’.”
‘Yellowface’ Concerns Lead New York Gilbert And Sullivan Players To Cancel ‘Mikado’
“The Mikado poses special problems: it has some of the most beautiful music and wittiest lyrics of any Gilbert and Sullivan work, but its use of a fictional Japanese setting to satirize British culture presents staging challenges if it is not to come off as a jumble of ugly caricatures and stereotypes. A production last year in Seattle was criticized as ‘yellowface’ by a columnist in The Seattle Times, setting off a wide-ranging discussion of the work.”
Missouri Politicians Use Thomas Hart Benton Mural As Writing Surface, And It Goes Viral
“The vice chairwoman of the Missouri Republican Party apologized Sunday for what she described as a ‘thoughtless act’ that involved her writing on a business card atop a Thomas Hart Benton painting in the Missouri Statehouse.”
Italian Gov’t Declares Cultural Sites ‘Essential Services’ After Unions Lock Tourists Out Of Colosseum
“Unionized workers at the Roman amphitheatre held a 2½ meeting in the morning, keeping the gates locked until they had finished their discussions. They said the stoppage was within their rights, but confusion reigned outside the Colosseum.” In response, the Cabinet put cultural sites alongside hospitals and transit on the list of essential services in which work stoppages are restricted.
‘Litchat’ – And How It Distorts Everything We Think We Know About A Writer
Laura Miller: “Much of a writer’s rep emerges informally, in the conversations that writers, readers, and critics have amongst themselves. Whether another writer is spoken of respectfully, whether you get the impression that ‘everyone’ is reading his or her new book enthusiastically, or how well people think he or she comes across in interviews – these and a dozen other imponderable factors constitute a reputation during a writer’s lifetime, particularly in the early part of a career. This stuff – let’s call it litchat – may be ephemeral, but it absolutely shapes the formal reception of a writer’s work.”