“Continuing the emphasis on international touring that has been an early hallmark of the Riccardo Muti era, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will make its debut in Mexico next season as well as visit Taiwan and Korea for the first time as part of an extensive Far East tour.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The English Civil War (About Language) – Descriptivists Vs. Prescriptivists
“For a long time, many English speakers have felt that the language was going to the dogs. All around them, people were talking about ‘parameters’ and ‘life styles,’ saying ‘disinterested’ when they meant ‘uninterested,’ ‘fulsome’ when they meant ‘full.’ … To others, the complainers were fogies and snobs. The usages they objected to were cause not for grief but for celebration. They were pulsings of our linguistic lifeblood, proof that English was large, contained multitudes.”
Roman Polanski To Make Dreyfus Affair Film
“Roman Polanski, a director who has had extensive personal experience with a justice system he and supporters believe wronged him, will make a movie about another exceptionally high-profile trial: the Dreyfus affair” – a story he has reportedly wanted to film for many years. (Please tell us Polanski doesn’t identify.)
Broadway’s Leap Of Faith Never Had A Prayer
“The musical, about a phony evangelist who experiences a spiritual conversion during his latest con, struggled from its first preview performance, on April 3, with the creative team meeting daily to concoct changes to overcome some toxic word of mouth.” Despite harsh reviews, Leap of Faith received a Best Musical Tony nomination – but even that wasn’t enough …
British Playwright Wishes UK Theatre Were More Like Germany’s
Simon Stephens: “British playwrights have tended to fall into two camps in the past 15 years: the type that succeeds on Broadway and the type that succeeds in Berlin. This is a gross simplification, of course … [but] I suspect there is something in it. Over the past decade my failure to have work produced in New York has been only consoled by the fact that I’ve managed to work in Germany. Something about this makes me happy.”
Even Nihilism Ain’t What It Used To Be
“One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, nihilism was born. Its midwife was the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, whose greatest work, Fathers and Sons, appeared in the spring of 1862 and heaved the immense figure of Yevgeny Bazarov into the world. Doctor by vocation and nihilist by avocation, Bazarov today would scarcely recognize what has become of the philosophy he launched. Nihilism is not what it once was and we are marking the most meaningless of anniversaries.”
What’s Hatching In Baryshnikov’s Dance Incubator?
“What would be the biggest wish of a choreographer about to start a company? There’s something even more valuable than a blank check: the support of Mikhail Baryshnikov. And this month two choreographers are lucky enough to have it.”
Ex-Royal Academy Of Music Staffers Admit Embezzling
“A former finance director and head of IT at the Royal Academy of Music have been charged with stealing more than £630,00 between them in unrelated deceptions.”
Americans Have Gotten Used To Gay Characters On TV
“On Glee this spring, a transgender character named Unique is competing in a sing-off. On Grey’s Anatomy, Arizona and Callie are adjusting to married life, having been pronounced ‘wife and wife’ last year. On Modern Family, the nation’s most popular television show, Cameron and his partner Mitchell are trying to adopt a second child. What’s missing? The outrage.”
How Did Limp Wrists Come To Be A Gay Stereotype?
In a sermon last month (in the lead-up to the referendum on marriage equality), North Carolina pastor Sean Harris, ‘Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist.’ Why do we associate a limp wrist with male homosexuality?”