“Expert librarians whose skill has been treasured for decades by choirs, dramatic societies and researchers face the loss of a centralised system in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, which makes loans from an unrivalled lending collection of 500,000 music scores and 90,000 playscripts.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
English Heritage Agency Tells Playwright To Cut Nazis And Jews From Script
“Rod Tinson, whose Hallowe’en play was due to be staged at Pendennis Castle in Falmouth, Cornwall, … said English Heritage asked him to tone down parts of the script, including a young Jewish character expressing fears about his family in occupied Poland, over concerns that visitors would be ‘offended’ by the material.”
New York Is, Briefly, The Capital Of Australian Dance
“The first week of November has turned into unofficial Australian dance week in New York as three of the country’s leading companies” – the Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, and Chunky Move – “find themselves there at the same time.”
Roof Caves In At Zimbabwe’s National Ballet Centre
“The National Ballet centre [in Harare] was on Sunday morning seriously damaged after the roof caved in leaving the building unsafe and unusable.” The 35-year-old building “had housed and trained the national dancing community for decades.”
Meet Iran’s Evangelist Of Jazz
Nat Hentoff introduces readers to “Ehsan Khoshbakht, 29, a young Iranian dissident and jazz aficionado whose blog, ‘Take the ‘A’ Train,’ is dedicated to spreading the jazz gospel as a voice for freedom inside his native country.”
Britain’s Repertory Theatres Make A Comeback
“For the last few decades it looked – with a handful of exceptions, such as Dundee Rep – as if the old rep system was pretty much on the way out. But with the introduction of ‘mini-rep’, things seem to be changing.”
Architect Selected For American Revolution Museum
“After years of debate, two rejected sites and immeasurable frustration, plans for the Museum of the American Revolution are finally under way, with the announcement Tuesday that the architect chosen to design the museum is – again – Robert A.M. Stern.”
Terrence Malick To Shoot Two Movies In One Year (Terrence Malick?)
He’s released about half a dozen films in nearly 40 years, but the director has announced production plans for two movies to be made back-to-back in 2012, both starring Cate Blanchett and Christian Bale. “Lovers of long, lyrical meditations on the universe, nature, and the meaning of life, your cup runneth over.”
Can Dancers In The Tate Britain Really Illuminate Picasso?
“Picasso’s work in ballet was an important part of his biography and he created some powerful stage images, especially in Parade. But how much does it help, in trying to understand his paintings, to have [English National Ballet’s] dancers in the gallery?”
Museum Of Mathematics Coming To Manhattan
“As a devout numbers geek, Glen Whitney was bothered that the cultural landscape offered no museum celebrating the field of mathematics. So he left his job as an algorithms specialist and manager at [a hedge fund] and created the nonprofit Museum of Mathematics. This year, he found a 19,000-square-foot space on East 26th Street in Manhattan and plans to open the doors in 2012.”