The National Theatre venue’s “drum revolve is an extraordinary, five-storey, computer-operated double lift contraption that enables the stage to be lowered through the floor and spun around. And, because it’s split into two, operators can swap one half for the other without, in theory, the audience suspecting a thing.” Nina Caplan goes backstage “to see the beast in its lair.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Louisville Orchestra Appoints 26-Year-Old Music Director
Teddy Abrams “who will begin a three-year contract as music director in September 2014, has been the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s assistant conductor since 2012. There he has curated the content of the orchestra’s education concerts and concerts intended for families and reached new audiences through neighborhood performances.”
Could New York City Opera Find New Life In The Burbs?
“In one scenario, the new company would rehearse and perform about 30 miles north of New York City at Purchase College, State University of New York.” During the 1980s, the school was the scene of the well-regarded Pepsico Summerfare festival, where Peter Sellars staged his famous reimagining of the Mozart-daPonte trilogy.
When Audience Participation In A Play Does And Doesn’t Work
Lyn Gardner: “Last Saturday afternoon in Newcastle, I watched a very good actor struggle and work incredibly hard to get six people up on stage during Theatre O’s take on The Secret Agent …[The following night] it was easier getting audience members to participate in Piff the Magic Dragon …even though it was a potentially far more daunting situation.”
Maybe Alice Munro Won’t Retire After All
Says the newest Nobel literature laureate, “Every day I have mixed messages to myself over whether I will retire. I have promised to retire but now and then I get an idea.”
How Frank Langella Won It All, Lost It And Earned It Back Again
“I was a terrible pain in the ass: 20s, 30s, 40s, those decades. … My career has been like a Chekhov play – not the normal exposition, plot, conflict, denouement – but all over the map in terms of success, money, fame, wipeout and back again.”
After 40 Years, Sophia Loren Finally Wins Her Tax Evasion Case
“In a verdict she described as ‘a miracle’, Loren, 79 and living in Geneva, was declared by Italy’s supreme court to have been in the right over calculation of tax paid on her 1974 earnings. Her accountants said she should pay 60% while the authorities said 70% was due.”
“Egypt’s Jon Stewart” Is Back On TV – And Back In Trouble
“The Egyptian broadcaster CBC has distanced itself from its star satirist, Bassem Youssef, after he criticised both the army-backed government and the Islamist regime it succeeded in the first episode of his long-delayed new series.”
Royal Ballet Star Edward Watson Does A Pop Music Video
The project is the Metamorphosis star’s “collaboration with the band The Feeling, who asked him to interpret a song from their fourth album, out this month. Shot in an aircraft hangar in north London on Watson’s day off, the arresting video shows him moving and miming to the words of the title track, ‘Boy Cried Wolf’.”
Another Way In Which Video Games Are Bad For Humanity?
“The evidence that playing violent video games promotes aggression, and perhaps even ethnocentrism, seems fairly conclusive. Better, one could conclude, to stick with non-violent games … But wait. Newly published research provides tentative evidence that even that variety of video gaming can have a negative impact, desensitizing players to both their own discomfort and the suffering of others.”