“How does an independent theatre producer ever get started?” After all, without a track record, why would investors or creative professionals sign on with you? Stage One is a start-up fund that takes a chance on young producers and their projects.
Author: Matthew Westphal
James Franco On Adapting Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
“When [the characters are] speaking to each other, they speak as early-20th-century farmers. It’s fairly realistic. But underneath, in the inner monologues, … they speak in ways that these characters would never articulate. … Maybe they could feel as deeply but they would never use this diction. So we came up with was the split-screen: that would give the feeling of multiple perspectives.”
In Spain, A Protest Opera Against Austerity
El crepusculo del ladrillo (“Twilight of the Brick”, alluding to the final opera of Wagner’s Ring cycle) “takes on Spain’s ongoing economic crisis, which started to unfold in 2008 after the country’s real estate bubble burst. The story involves a village seduced into property ownership and consumerism before imploding in chaos. Despite the tragic subject matter, the tone is surrealist and often comic.”
The Battalion Of Artists That Tricked The Wehrmacht
The soldiers of the “Ghost Army” were “artists and illustrators, radio people and sound guys. Handpicked for the job from New York and Philadelphia art schools in January 1944, their mission was to deceive the enemy with hand-made inflatable tanks, 500-pound speakers blasting the sounds of troops assembling and phony radio transmissions.”
Making Up Kurt Vonnegut’s Mind After 20 Years
Vonnegut’s play Make Up Your Mind had only one brief staging in 1993, because the author couldn’t settle on a final script. (He left behind a dozen versions.) Now there’s finally a performing edition, courtesy of playwright Nicky Silver, who says that Vonnegut “was the perfect collaborator. He is a genius, and he is dead.”
When Ben Franklin Reinvented The Alphabet
“It was the ultimate test of Franklin’s scholarship and polymathy, a phonetic alphabet designed to have a ‘more natural Order,’ than the existing system. … Franklin was confident that his new alphabet would easier to learn and, once learned, would drastically reduce bad spelling.”
Metropolitan Opera Folds Its Ballet Troupe
“The Metropolitan Opera has decided to disband its resident ballet company, whose roots date back to the opera’s founding in 1883. The 8 remaining dancers of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, down from 16 in 2011, have accepted buyout packages and left the company.”
To What Extent Can Merce Cunningham’s Dances Be Preserved?
John Cage once described his partner’s art as “less like an object and more like the weather” – which doesn’t stick around over time. Lizzie Feidelson, the granddaughter of Merce’s first student, writes about the “dance capsules” assembled by the Merce Cunningham Trust to preserve and license his works – and considers what such documentation can, and cannot, record.
The Manuscripts Of Timbuktu: A Post-Occupation Progress Report
“An unintended consequence of the Islamist occupation of the city has been a renewed global focus on the priceless manuscripts, which although mostly written in Arabic also include centuries-old writings in Greek, Latin, French, English and German. But while the Ahmed Baba Institute is painstakingly working to preserve preserving this history, other manuscripts in Timbuktu are faring less well.”
Did PBS’s Flagship Station Cave To Pressure From A Conservative Billionaire Donor?
Jane Mayer looks into the case of the documentary Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, which focuses on, among others, David Koch – energy magnate, well-known funder of conservative political causes, and board member of New York public television station WNET.