“[The] innovative theater that has been a major cultural player in Brooklyn for nearly 30 years must find a new home now that its 14,000-square-foot space in Dumbo is scheduled to be turned into an apartment complex and school.” Fortunately, the developers are longtime friends of the theater and “are committed to helping St. Ann’s find a new space.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Robert Colescott, 83, Gleefully Satirical Painter
“[H]e was well known for pitting the painterly against the political to create giddily joyful, destabilized compositions that satirized, and offended, without regard to race, creed, gender or political leaning.” He was also, in 1997, the first African-American to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale.
Luc Besson To Build A French Cinecittà
The well-known director and a partner are joining forces “to launch the e30 million ($42 million) Paris Studios, France’s first modern megastudio. […] With nine soundstages, including one at 23,680 square feet, Paris Studios will be part of the ambitious La Cité du Cinema film complex, located at a former power station in Saint Denis, northern Paris.”
Emir Richard III, Scourge Of The Gulf
Ben Brantley has high praise for an Arabic-language adaptation of Shakespeare’s ferocious history play now appearing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Playwright-director Sulayman Al-Bassam has moved the royal power struggles to a modern-day Persian Gulf state – with an American Henry Tudor and with Richard’s opening soliloquy replaced with a furious introduction by Queen Margaret.
More Obama Arts News: Michelle Launches White House Music Series
“The first installment, set for Monday [June 15], will feature members of the Marsalis family (father Ellis and two of his sons, Wynton and Branford), who will play jazz for about 150 students. The White House also said that country and classical events will be scheduled.”
A Rescue Fund For Russian Films
“Pledging a ‘calm and straightforward’ process by a company with a reputation for transparency and Western standards of corporate governance, [a Russian World Studios official] said that up to eight projects [suspended due to the recession] would be chosen for support in the next 18 months, with finance averaging $2.5 million per project.”
Fela! Headed To Broadway
Bill T. Jones’s widely praised musical about Nigerian singer-activist Fela Kuti moves to the Eugene O’Neill Theater this October. The show had a very successful Off-Broadway run in 2008 and won Lucille Lortel Awards for outstanding musical, choreography and costume design.
How Obituaries Became Obituaries
“By the 1850s, newspaper stories about death were becoming more organized – and writers were striving to convey the reality of death without having to state the unpleasant truth that somebody had actually died. So readers learned of decedents who had been scathed by the wing of the destroying angel, or erased by the omnipotent author. What changed that? The Civil War.”
Ten Inventions That Changed The World
“To mark its centenary, the Science Museum in London had its curators select the ten objects in its collection that made the biggest mark on history.” Among the items on the list are the electric telegraph, the Model T Ford, the Pilot ACE computer, and Dr. Fleming’s sample of penicillium mold.
Creative Writing Workshops: A Bad Idea Run Amok?
Louis Menand: “The workshop is a process, an unscripted performance space, a regime for forcing people to do two things that are fundamentally contrary to human nature: actually write stuff (as opposed to planning to write stuff very, very soon), and then sit there while strangers tear it apart. […] Kay Boyle once published a piece arguing that ‘all creative-writing programs ought to be abolished by law.’ She taught creative writing for sixteen years at San Francisco State.”