Matthew Westphal – Page 1762 – ArtsJournal Wayback

The Two Dancing Men Blazing Across The Broadway Stage

Alastair Macaulay: “Both men are playing roles associated, in the film versions of these shows, with Gene Kelly; neither suffers from the comparison with that Hollywood legend. And each gives the most remarkable performance in his musical.”

Why It’s No Good Blacklisting Theater Critics From Shows (According To A Theater Critic)

Lyn Gardner: “While the producers of any show may argue that as it’s their party, they can invite whoever they want, the principle of extending invitations across the board to established newspapers and reviewing outlets is a sound one. Trying to exclude particular reviewers is not – if for no other reason that it makes that individual critic seem more important than they are and hints at, if not outright censorship, than at least an over-developed desire to manipulate coverage and ensure good reviews all round.”

Banning A Critic From A Show Never Works Anyway (Says Another Theater Critic)

Mark Shenton allows as how a banned critic will probably get to see the show somehow and write about it anyway.

Lost Songs From “My Fair Lady” To Be Performed For First Time Since 1956

“The numbers were removed from the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical after the show’s first preview in February 1956 on Broadway. They were discovered, alongside a ballet penned for the musical, in boxes at the Library of Congress.”

Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project To Play Cannes Festival

“When the luminaries of world cinema convene at the Palais des Festivals next week to open the annual Cannes Film Festival, they will be treated to a performance by a dance company from Los Angeles.”

Why Militant Atheists Who Insist We Choose Science Over God Are Doing It Wrong

“Does God have to be part of our understanding of the universe? No. But if scientists tell the public that they have to choose between God and science, most people will choose God … Meanwhile, many of those who choose science find themselves without any way of thinking that can give them access to their own spiritual potential. … What if we thought this way about God? What if we took the evidence of a new cosmic reality [i.e., dark matter and dark energy] seriously and became willing to rule out the impossible? What would be left?”

So What Concept Of God Can Be Compatible With Science? Emergence Can

“Almost everything we humans do collectively spawns an emergent phenomenon. … Economies, governments and the media are all emergent phenomena – like an ant colony. They follow new and complicated rules that often cannot be derived from the behavior of the parts that make them up. They are real and have immense power over us, but they are not human or humanlike, even though they arise from human activities.”

But What’s The Point Of Taking Emergence And Calling It ‘God’?

If “something new has to have emerged from the staggering complexity of all humanity’s aspirations, interacting”, then what phenomenon, exactly, “just has to have emerged. Human life and culture? What do we gain (a leg up in the religion wars?) by calling that God?”

Great Dead Comedians To Take The Stage Again – As Holograms

“The National Comedy Center, which is scheduled to open next year in Jamestown, N.Y., is to unveil plans for a comedy club that will feature holograms of stand-ups and comic actors from various eras.”

Author: Matthew Westphal