“Two graffiti artists have painted a series of bright murals on phone and electricity boxes across the area. The brightly coloured illustrations include depictions of local landmarks and references to iconic pieces of literature, such as The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
A Playwright Edits Sweet Bird Of Youth
Tennessee Williams “spent nearly two decades writing and rewriting, long after productions had opened and closed, long after film adaptations and printed texts appeared. There are an eye-watering numbers of performable versions. In some of them characters survive, in others, they don’t. Endings are sometimes hopeful, in others gruesomely tragic.” James Graham writes about sorting through them all for a new production at the Old Vic.
ABT’s Ballet Mistress Remembers Vaganova
Irina Kolpakova: “Vaganova told us to use all parts of our body together at the same time. Not only this movement for the leg, this movement for the arms, this movement you’re supposed to learn how to use for your head, neck. No, all together, all the time.”
ABT Names New Ballet Master
“Keith Roberts, a former principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, has been named a ballet master, Kevin McKenzie, the theater’s artistic director announced Thursday. The appointment is effective this September.”
Why The Distinction Between ‘Less’ And ‘Fewer” Matters
“In fact, far from being a mere linguistic slip, this error does a profound disservice to concepts that are at the very foundation of modern technology. The fundamental distinction that is glossed over in that usage is the one between the continuous and the discrete.”
Evelyn Waugh On Truman Capote
“Of Mr. Capote’s prose it is hard to speak temperately. It is some sort of jargon quite unfamiliar to me. Of the information he seeks to convey, I am no judge. I have a distant acquaintance with a few of the subjects.”
The Books High-Schoolers Read Are Getting Less Demanding
“Research shows that as young readers get older, they are not moving to more complex books. High-schoolers are reading books written for younger kids, and teachers aren’t assigning difficult classics as much as they once did.”
The City That Writers Loved, And That Adores Them Right Back
“Writers fall in love with cities all the time. But ever since Pushkin spent thirteen months here in 1823, Odessa has been a city infatuated with its writers. At the Odessa Literary Museum … docents can tell you the number of days a given writer was here … and who wrote which chapters of their greatest works while in residence … [and] who burned manuscripts written in Odessa.”
A Look At Honolulu’s Theater Scene
“Except for Honolulu Theatre for Youth (HTY) there is no resident professional theater in Hawaii.” And when one local directeor was doing a fellowship at DC’s Arena Stage and was discussing with colleagues the purpose of theater, he surprised them by saying this: “The purpose of the theater is community service.”
The Power of Parting Words
“Goodbye is larger than just a word. It encompasses an entire ritual.” And why do many of us, for instance, end an email message with “Thanks” even when there’s been no occasion for gratitude to the reader?