Some of the country’s most important – and beloved – buildings sustained terrible damage (and a few were relatively lucky under the circumstances). Here are some of the badly-affected sites, with before and after photos.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Ai Weiwei’s In Alcatraz (Well, His Art Is, At Least)
The trickster artist and Chinese dissident is actually imprisoned in his house in Beijing – so who better for a show at the island prison? “To a site often flattened into a caricature as the onetime home of mobster Al Capone, Ai has layered on a contemporary meditation on political imprisonment, freedom of speech and the power of creativity as a force that can better society.”
Can L.A.’s Small Theaters Afford To Pay Their Actors Better? Can They Afford Not To?
Charles McNulty: “Producers have built flourishing shoestring operations on the backs of virtually unpaid actors. If the majority of performers aren’t complaining, why should their union interfere? … That’s not the way I see it. I believe that the union is concerned about the future of Los Angeles theater, recognizing that institutional growth over the long haul is in the best interest of its membership. Only time will tell whether L.A. is capable of such growth.”
Detroit Symphony Staffers Help Bring Sacramento Philharmonic Back From The Dead
“After a year in the dark, the Sacramento Philharmonic has announced an aggressive return to performing, with a seven-concert season for 2015-16. The return of the 18-year-old orchestra to the concert stage has been largely engineered by a consultancy team composed mostly of staffers from the Detroit Symphony.”
Sitting In On UPenn’s Notorious ‘Wasting Time On The Internet’ Seminar
“There’s something wonderful about this dogged insistence on having nothing whatsoever to show for your time in class, especially given the cultural rage for productivity. … But: With the approval of the UPenn English Department, Goldsmith’s crafted a creative writing course that fails to generate any writing, one that to some extent paints basic college benefits like insight, growth, and learning as passé fantasies of the old guard.”
Off-Broadway’s Very-Long-Running ‘The Fantasticks’ Saved By Anonymous Donors
“The producers of the long-running Off-Broadway staple, who announced last month that they would close the show in early May, said on Saturday that two unnamed fans had contributed enough money to keep it open indefinitely.”
Mezzo Jamie Barton Adds Another Prize To Her List: $50K Richard Tucker Award
“She previously won both the main prize and the song prize at the 2013 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2007 – a lively competition that was featured in Susan Froemke’s film The Audition.”
Why People Keep Reading Work Emails After Work And On Vacation (They Sorta Like It)
“Email pruning doesn’t enact work so much as it simulates work: It’s a ritual – like a secular, corporate rosary – which we perform in the hopes that it will somehow help us leave the domain of ineffectual work and re-enter the domain of gratifying productivity,”
How To Get Boys To Take Up Ballet
Ángel Corella, artistic director of Pennsylvania Ballet and a former star at American Ballet Theater, talks frankly about the bullying and paternal disapproval he suffered while studying ballet as a boy in Spain, the strength and athleticism ballet requires, and the importance of the boys-only classes he has started in Philadelphia.
Hofesh Schechter Gets A Month-Long Festival In London This Fall
Okay, they’re describing it as a “London season” rather than a festival, but they’re calling it “Hofest,” and it “will encompass everything from Shechter’s opera debut to bringing his critically-acclaimed piece Political Mother into the rock concert atmosphere of Brixton Academy.” (And, of course, performances at Sadler’s Wells.)