“Theatre should never be about quotas, but it is odd that people who are neighbours, family and workmates – whether of European descent, or Aboriginal, Chinese, Vietnamese or Indian – are so rarely seen on stage. A nation as multicultural as Australia – the population comprises people from 250 different ancestral backgrounds – is conspicuously monocultural in the mainstage theatre.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Berlin Artists Wanted By Icelandic Police For ‘Nature Terrorism’
“Giant words were found spray-painted on the landscape in the Myvatn region of north-east Iceland in April. It is unclear who was behind the spray-painting, which the Environment Agency of Iceland described at the time as ‘nature terrorism’.” Then Julius von Bismarck and Julian Charrière had a photo exhibition of the spray-painting at a Berlin gallery. Hm.
Hirshhorn Museum Loses Board Chair For Second Time In A Year
“In a strongly worded letter obtained by The Washington Post, Constance Caplan painted a picture of a board, a museum and the larger Smithsonian Institution roiled by a lack of transparency, trust, vision and good faith.”
Staging Shakespeare’s Histories On The Battlefields Where They’re Set
Director Nick Bagnall “has edited the three parts of Henry VI into a series of two-hour dramas, each of which can be seen independently and will tour the country before a run at the Globe in London. But it is the battlefield days, in which all three plays will be presented in order, that are the biggest challenge.”
Of Dance, Freedom, And Fundamentalism
Deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi seemed to have a special animus against dance in general and ballet in particular; members of his Muslim Brotherhood had been forcibly breaking up dance performances. Islamic fundamentalists (not unlike their Christian counterparts) usually disapprove of the entire genre. Yet women in some Muslim countries have used dancing as a vehicle for protest and a means of personal liberation.
Timbuktu Lost 10% Of Its Manuscripts In War, Says UNESCO
“Islamic radicals destroyed 4,000 ancient manuscripts during their occupation of Timbuktu, according to the findings of a United Nations expert mission. The damage amounts to about one-tenth of the manuscripts that were being stored in the fabled northern city.”
Why Warner Bros. Is Picking A Fight With Harvey Weinstein Over A Generic Movie Title
“Everyone knows that you can’t copyright a title (except in Germany) … which is why the dispute between the Weinstein Company and Warner Bros. over the title of the forthcoming film The Butler (scheduled for release on August 16th) is so surprising.”
Who’s The Man Who’s Going To Try To Tame The Snakepit At The Bolshoi?
“Vladimir Urin, the man who was appointed Tuesday as the new Bolshoi Theatre director, … won respect from colleagues by quietly revamping Moscow’s 90-year-old Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre to prominence over the past decade by attracting international talent while also popularising contemporary ballet in Russia before the trend caught on in the Bolshoi.”
The Book That Will Destroy Any Link In Your Mind Between Boozing And Great Writing
Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend “terrorized several early readers, all of them writers and all drinkers. ‘I hate the goddam book almost as much as I hate my own inflamed conscience,’ wrote the novelist William Seabrook.”
Meet The First Black Woman To Direct In London’s West End
Paulette Randall, whose staging of August Wilson’s Fences is now at the Duchess: “It’s my biggest achievement, ‘course it is, but you never know what’s around the corner, do you? I’m nowhere near done. … But I am still so disappointed that there aren’t more of me out there.”