Helga Davis: “That was the hardest part for me. There’s nothing for you to grab on to in the way that we need logic to communicate. There’s nothing. It was maddening. … [But] when we got into rehearsal, the language got attached to movement, and suddenly I didn’t have any problem at all. Connecting the text to the body was the key.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center Faces Big Layoffs, Cuts
“An austere 2013 budget has been proposed that calls for eliminating 17 staff positions, about 10 percent of the center’s jobs … Programming and advertising costs for 2013 will be reduced by roughly $2.5 million to around $3.5 million.”
Atlanta Symphony Ratifies Two-Year Musicians’ Contract, Ending Lockout
“After going without pay for a month, the musicians of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra accepted a new collective bargaining agreement Wednesday, barely averting a postponement of the fall season. The deal will cost players $5.2 million in compensation over two years, change their pay structure, and cut their numbers significantly.”
Broadway’s Rebecca Ready To Start Rehearsals (Money Must Have Come From Somewhere)
“The producers of the troubled Broadway musical Rebecca notified cast members on Wednesday that rehearsals would begin on Monday morning, yet it remained unclear if the producers had closed the $4.5 million gap in the show’s $12 million budget that they had deemed necessary for rehearsals to start.”
Doug Varone On Starting His Own Dance Company
“What’s really fascinating is when you are in a dance company for so many years you are taken care of as a dancer. You are told where to go, you are given money to do it, you take your classes and then go to the theater. Your life is laid out for you in a very particular way. So, when I left and began the process of having a group of dancers that worked for me I realized how much of life I had missed as an adult.”
San Sebastián Film Festival Hit By General Strike
“Movie screenings were canceled and souvenir stands closed at the San Sebastián film festival Wednesday due to a general strike in Spain’s Basque Country against goverment austerity measures. Only seven movies [were] shown compared to about 70 on other days of the festival.”
Philadelphia’s (Perhaps Final) Barrymore Award Winners
“The Philadelphia Theatre Company and Wilma Theater are the big winners of this year’s Barrymore Awards, in what may be the final curtain for the theater honors that recognize work on the region’s stages.”
Palm Beach Opera’s Conductor Walks Out
“Conductor Bruno Aprea has left Palm Beach Opera. The Italian maestro, who restored luster, vitality and musical consistency to the West Palm Beach company in the chaotic years following the death of longtime artistic director Anton Guadagno has abruptly left the company he led for the past seven years after rejecting his contract for the upcoming season.”
Is Protest Fiction Spent? (Nope)
“Novelists have often thought of novels as vehicles not merely for raising questions but for staking out positions and demonstrating the awfulness of a political regime or ideology.” (James Baldwin called it “protest” fiction – “novels of Negro oppression”.) “Does anyone today write protest fiction, novels designed to mobilize sentiment and influence events? Do they find a ready and enthusiastic audience? The answer, in both cases, is most definitely, and of course.”
Tickling Makes Us Human (Heck, It Makes Us Mammals)
“Pick a mammal. Squirrels engage in play that looks a lot like tickling. So do – of all species – elephants. So do rats … But only chimpanzee and human mothers gaze deeply into the eyes of their infants – and then tickle them. … It’s a social dance: Tickling is the way we and the chimps establish, without words, that we’re in this thing together.”