“On Tuesday, Theatre Philadelphia, which administers the Barrymores, announced it was switching to gender-neutral awards. Instead of a best actor and best actress, there will now be awards for best performance in categories that used to be gender specific, and two awards will be given.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why We Made The Barrymore Awards Gender-Neutral: Theatre Philadelphia’s Director
Leigh Goldenberg: “Theatre Philadelphia now recognizes a change like this one is more than just about nomenclature, and is certainly more than a question about language or even about a shiny statue handed to a select few. It’s about who we lift up and who we leave out in the process.”
What It’s Like To Play Violin In Simon Rattle’s Amateur Orchestra
“Simon Rattle is looking straight at me, eyes flaring, fist shaking. I am straining with every fibre of my being to give him what he wants. I would die for this man right now. I’m desperate to shape the phrase just as he’s showing, sustaining the long note and getting louder over the arpeggio. But I over-push the sound, my notes crack, I lose my focus and have to break eye contact to look at the music, ashamed of myself. I’m reminded why I decided not to become a professional musician.”
David Goldblatt, 87, Penetrating Photojournalist Of South African Apartheid
“[He] spent his entire career in his native South Africa, portraying black and white citizens in some of their most intimate and vulnerable moments. He ventured underground to photograph workers in the country’s gold mines, entered dusty black shantytowns and the segregated white churches and towns of Afrikaner hardliners.”
40-Foot Keith Haring Mural Uncovered In Amsterdam After Three Decades
“A mural by Keith Haring was revealed in Amsterdam last week, some 30 years after the US artist completed the commission, which was his gift to the Dutch city. The 40-foot-tall mural was painted by Haring in 1986 while he was in town for his exhibition at [the Stedelijk Museum]. It was covered a few years later when the entire facade of the brick building, which was then the Stedelijk’s art storage depot, had weatherboarding added to improve its climate controls.”
‘Beast Jesus’ Redux: Second Spanish Church Suffers Art Restoration Fail
“Five hundred years in an alcove of a Spanish church is likely to leave any statue looking a bit cracked and faded, and the 16th-century wooden figure of St. George at St. Michael’s Church in Estella, a town in northern Spain, was no exception. But after the church asked a local workshop to give the statue a makeover, the results horrified the town’s authorities, scandalized professional restorers and set social media alight with indignation.”
Building A New Cultural Center In The West Bank (Now There’s A Challenge For You)
“Despite the [constant] political tumult, a major Palestinian cultural foundation” – A.M. Qattan Foundation, currently based in London – “is preparing to open its new headquarters to the public on 28 June in Ramallah … Construction on the AMQF building began in 2012 and was scheduled for completion in 2016, but the constraints of working in the region have caused a series of setbacks. The local construction industry is not used to this level of complexity and detail, … [and] it was difficult to transport materials across the Israeli border and to find skilled workers, as many are tempted by the higher salaries in Israel.”
Trying To Catalog Every Language In India (There Are 780 So Far)
“[Ganesh] Devy, a former professor of English from the western state of Gujarat, launched the People’s Linguistic Survey of India in 2010. … With single-minded ambition, he put together a team of 3,000 volunteers from all parts of the country. Since 2013, the PLSI has published 37 volumes, featuring detailed profiles of each of India’s languages. The project is expected to be completed by 2020 with 50 volumes.” Sunaina Kumar reports on how Devy and his team do their work and what they’ve discovered.
How I Directed ‘Macbeth’ In Kyrgyz, Which I Don’t Speak (And The Actors Didn’t Speak English)
Sarah Berger, who directed the first-ever Kyrgyz translation of “the Scottish play” at Kyrgyzstan’s national theatre: “I worked with 30 Kyrgyz actors who spoke no English. I don’t speak Russian or Kyrgyz. To add to the mix, I took two British actors with me, Claire Cartwright and Steve Hay, who performed in English with the rest of the cast speaking Kyrgyz. … There was also a fully Kyrgyz performance that was filmed and screened on state TV. So I had to deliver three different versions of the production in just over three weeks, as we performed four premieres with the cast variations.”
Leonard Bernstein Wrote A ‘Peter Pan’ Musical (Who Knew?)
“[The original] production — which starred the unlikely combo of Jean Arthur as Peter and Boris Karloff as Captain Hook — closed in 1951 after a respectable 321 performances, but then essentially disappeared. … According to most sources, Bernstein was originally commissioned to compose only instrumentals, but became so enamored with the play he volunteered songs, for which he also penned the lyrics. Unfortunately, there was a hitch: Jean Arthur wasn’t much of a singer. This is likely the reason only Wendy and Hook have solos.”