“This month the New End theatre in Hampstead, north London, is conducting an ambitious experiment. For the duration of the four-week run of Where’s Your Mama Gone?, every ticket will be sold on a ‘pay what you can’ basis” (Recommended price: £15) “[T]hese tickets are also bookable in advance and available to anyone, regardless of their circumstances.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
A Latter-Day Bayeux Tapestry?
“A stitched tapestry narrating 350 years of social history will go on display at Ely Cathedral from January next year. The idea of brilliant embroiderer Anne Wynn-Wilson following a remark from a boy in her Sunday school in 1981, the Quaker Tapestry is made up of 77 embroidered panels made by 4,000 men, women and children from all over the world.”
Three Mark Morris Dancers On Three Mark Morris Dances
Maile Okamura, Noah Vinson and Laurel Lynch give an inside view of Renard, Socrates and Festival Dance.
Joffrey Ballet Hires New Ballet Master, Dancers
“The Joffrey Ballet has brought a new ballet master on board, as well as eight new dancers from Chicago and around the globe. Nicolas Blanc, who has served as ballet master of the Scottish Ballet since 2009, … will replace Chartel Arthur, who retired after years as both a Joffrey dancer and longtime ballet mistress with the company.”
Sordid Saga Of Bolshoi’s Restoration Finally Ending
“It has been a long, embarrassing and complex process, with deadlines set and missed since the theater closed for renovation in 2005 and with soaring costs, financed by the federal government, that have reached $760 million.” Officials point out that, before this renovation, the Bolshoi building was literally near collapse.
Pittsburgh Symphony Music Director Takes Same Pay Cut As Musicians
“On the heels of the Pittsburgh Symphony musicians taking a 9.7 percent pay cut for their new contract, PSO music director Manfred Honeck announced today he will take a 10-percent reduction in his salary.”
Staid Old Philadelphia’s Opera Company Becomes ‘Haven’ For New Work
“In roughly five years, the company has morphed from a conservative, standard-repertoire-based organization to a haven for new opera with a speed that astounds even those who made it happen. ‘Think about it: We have four [operas] under active commission and two others that we’re working on,’ said general director David Devan. ‘We have a composer-in-residence program’.”
Is There Anything Even Left For Biographers To Reveal? (Yes)
A boomlet of books about Coco Chanel “raises the crucial question: what does it take to justify a biography today? What makes a publisher think that a dead person’s life is worth the general reader’s attention again? What makes it worth joining a herd of other authors writing about the same life?” (Quite a bit, actually.)
The Pitfalls Of Shakespeare For Children
Actor Tim Crouch: “The introduction of Shakespeare to young people is often advocated out of a sense of reactionary paranoia about a slipping of standards or an eroding of national identity: Shakespeare as warm beer or red phone boxes. … [But a] child knows when they are on the receiving end of a didactic exercise.”
Architectural Geniuses With Feathers
“Birds are exceptionally skilled architects. And, unlike humans, they do not require expensive schooling to obtain their skills. … Take a look through the gallery for a window into the skyscrapers, tract housing, and luxury condos of the bird world.”