“Entertaining their parents, for the King children, was part job, part enrichment. At bedtime, they were the ones expected to tell their parents stories, instead of the other way around.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Shirley Jackson’s Son Explains How So Much Of His Mother’s Unpublished Work Has Turned Up
“Years ago a shabby box appeared on my porch with no return address, and after hours of suspicious avoidance I opened it to find the manuscript of one of my mother’s novels, lots of notes, and half a dozen of her unpublished stories.”
Gliding Ballerinas And The Army Behind Them: Backstage With The Bolshoi At Covent Garden
The company’s London tour and technical manager and English technical interpreter explain some of the logistics of getting Russia’s biggest ballet onto the Royal Opera House stage.
Who Was Russia’s Shakespeare? (No, Not Pushkin)
“‘What a pity people can’t fly like birds.’ These lines from a monologue by Katerina, the heroine of the play The Storm, are known to everyone in Russia, as is the name of the author, Alexander Ostrovsky, a dramatist and theater reformer.”
New York City Allots $50M To One Not-Yet-Built Arts Venue With Ties To Mayor
“It is New York City’s biggest cultural capital grant this year – and an unusually generous contribution to an arts group that has yet to hire staff members, stage a performance or set a construction budget.”
San Antonio Symphony CEO Leaves After Only Three Months
“The San Antonio Symphony on Wednesday said its president and CEO, Jack Downey, has left after less than three months on the job following a budget dispute with organization’s board chairman. … Downey’s departure and [David] Green’s interim role means the symphony’s top administrative position has been held by four different people since late November.”
Campaign To Free Major Syrian Artist Arrested By Assad’s Forces
“An online campaign has been launched in Syria calling for the release of jailed artist Youssef Abdelké. According to his friends and family who have launched a Facebook campaign, the 62 year old internationally acclaimed artist was arrested last Thursday at a security checkpoint in the port city of Tartus.”
Kiev Museum Head Accused Of Censoring Work – With Daubs Of Black Paint
“Volodymyr Kuznetsov’s large-scale mural Koliivschina: Judgment Day was initially part of the exhibition ‘Great and Grand’ (until 22 September), which opened last week at the [Mystetskyi Arsenal complex]. ‘I did not have time to finish it, because the exhibition curator [and venue director] Nataliia Zabolotna decided to cover it with her own hands,’ the artist says.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer Lays Off One-Third Of Newsroom Staff
“The cuts, part of owner Advance Publications’ shift to a ‘digital-first’ strategy, gutted the newspaper of about 50 experienced journalists.” Among the writers losing their jobs is longtime classical music and dance critic Donald Rosenberg.
Tom Stoppard Wins 2013 PEN/Pinter Prize
“The prize, which was launched in 2009 by the freedom of expression charity English PEN, is given to a writer that shows, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel literature prize acceptance speech, a ‘fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’.”