Kevin Fallon: “Trying to sell the classic variety show to toda’’s TV audience is a bit like trying to sell a beeper to someone who already owns an iPhone. But if there’s anyone who can convince me that it’s a good idea to buy a beeper it’s Maya Rudolph.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
‘Imagine A Cross Between ‘Opera News’ And BuzzFeed’
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra musicians’ website, full of interesting, varied, and playful stuff, “was recently overhauled by a group of its web-savvy younger players: an Internet start-up born in the orchestra. But right now it is as notable for what it does not dwell on as for what it does” (meaning the contract negotiations).
This Actor Plays Any And Every Ethnicity Hollywood Throws At Him
“Over the course of his career, [Cliff] Curtis, a Maori from New Zealand, has played just about every non-white ethnicity: African-American, Arab, Latino, Indian, even a lord of the Fire Nation in The Last Airbender.” He talks to June Thomas about how he does it (and about the role he really wants to play in Lord of the Rings).
Michael Gambon Is Not Retiring From The Stage (Whatever You May Have Heard)
“I find it difficult to remember lines. When I’m doing a long speech for television, I sometimes have an earpiece with someone feeding me the text. But I can get by in the theatre if I study hard for a couple of months.” (His current favorite role is in Beckett’s Eh Joe – no lines!)
Terry Gilliam On Monty Python Reunion: ‘I Find It Depressing We’re Getting Back Together Again’
“It’s like, we worked so hard to get careers beyond it, to get to this stage, and now we’re being dragged back again. … It’s harder to do comedy now anyway: we’re older, we’ve become the Establishment we took the piss out of.”
The First Children’s Picture Book
“Originally published in 1658 in Latin and German,” Orbis Sensualium Pictus – or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses drawn in Pictures, as it was rendered in English – “with its 150 pictures showing everyday activities like brewing beer, tending gardens, and slaughtering animals, is immediately familiar as an ancestor of today’s children’s literature.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.20.14
If Culture Isn’t Quantified, Does it Exist? And, Tech News
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-05-20
Arts Entrepreneurship: A Story, Part I
AJBlog: State of the Art | Published 2014-05-20
What to do about no-shows
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-05-20
Kara Walker Tangents: Sexual Sphinx
AJBlog: Aesthetic Grounds | Published 2014-05-20
Griswold’s Toughest Task As Cleveland’s New Director
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-05-21
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‘Fun Home’, Estelle Parsons Winners At 2014 Obie Awards
‘Fun Home’, the musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, won two prizes, for musical theater and for its ten-year-old co-star, Sydney Lucas. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins earned best new American play honors for two different scripts, and the 86-year-old Parsons took home a Lifetime Achievement award.
This Year’s Cannes Scandal? ‘The DSK Film’
Welcome to New York, “Abel Ferrara’s graphic and barely fictionalized film about the sexual assault case involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn” starring Gérard Depardieu, has already occasioned an unusually outrageous premiere party, a lawsuit threat from Strauss-Kahn’s attorneys, and an outraged column from DSK’s ex-wife, newscaster Anne Sinclair.
Osipova And Vasiliev Join Ranks Of Ballet-Star-Slash-Impresarios
“It started off as a novelty and now it’s becoming a trend, as Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev have joined the list of top-flight ballet dancers who are opting to expand their performing (and earning) potential by presenting their own independent projects. In recent years that list has included Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta and the all-male Kings of the Dance ensemble, all of whom have moonlighted from their home companies to present and star in programmes of works they’ve personally selected or commissioned.”