Author: Matthew Westphal

The Changing Of The Guard At ‘The Band’s Visit’: Tony Shalhoub Hands Off The (Actual) Baton

“‘It was beautiful. You brought your own character to the role,’ Sasson Gabay is telling Tony Shalhoub, who recently won a Tony for starring in the musical The Band’s Visit. Gabay is the Israeli actor who originated the character of the stern and melancholy police officer Tewfiq, playing the role in the 2007 film from which the musical is adapted. ‘I stole your performance,’ Shalhoub replies genially. ‘Acting is thievery.’ … We got the two Tewfiqs together to discuss why such a small film has had such impact and what the actors have learned, and can learn, from each other.”

Reconstructing The Lost Musical Instruments Of Indigenous Communities

When Caleb Byerly was a young Christian missionary in the jungles of the Philippines, the indigenous tribe among which he lived told him about their old, traditional music – which had faded away after a previous generation of missionaries had told them it was profane. “‘I felt that if it was my people who helped destroy this music, my people would be the ones to help redeem it,’ Byerly says. … Based on his restoration work, Byerly and his wife started Evergreen Missions, a non-profit that helps indigenous peoples re-create their lost ancestral music.”

Exploring The Wild Costumes In Ted Shawn’s And Ruth St. Denis’s Touring Trunk

“The modern dance tree has abundant roots, and two of its thickest and oldest belong to Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Their Denishawn company and school in Los Angeles, which lasted from 1914 to ’29, toured the world with a new spirit of dance — barefoot and weighted, exotic and spiritual. They were celebrities of their day. Their costumes were often extravagant and the opposite of Coco Chanel’s dictum: ‘Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.’ That was the cue, at least for St. Denis, to add another bauble.”

A New New Wave Of Queer Cinema

“This year’s strong queer showing [at Cannes] was indicative of a larger watershed moment for LGBT cinema across the industry, as stories and artists once confined to rarefied corners of the arthouse are being gradually welcomed into the mainstream. … The last couple of years, however, have kicked that evolution into fast-forward, helped along by real-world advances in LGBT rights, and the Twitter-assisted revolution in identity politics awareness. The world, in other words, is a very different place for gay and trans people than it was even a decade ago, and cinema is feeling the change.”

Indianapolis’s Phoenix Theatre, Having Gotten A New Building, Dumps Its Founder-Director

“Bryan Fonseca, who founded the Phoenix Theatre in 1983, is leaving the organization after 35 years of serving as the group’s principal director and main artistic force … The stunning move comes in the midst of a major transition for the theater, which just moved into a newly built, $11 million downtown facility.” A press release quotes Fonseca as saying, “The board of directors believe that the institution now needs to redirect its energy to a solid fiscal focus, that there are other leaders more capable of putting their energies into meeting the [company’s] remaining financial demands.”

Are Americans Really Reading Less And Less?

Caleb Crain: “A little more than a decade ago, I wrote an article for The New Yorker about American reading habits, which a number of studies then indicated might be in decline. … I’ll go out on a limb and say that I don’t think that I got this part wrong. But I’ve often wondered whether I was right about the underlying trend, too. Were Americans in fact reading less back then? And are they reading even less today? Whenever I happen across a news article on the topic, I wonder if I’m about to find out whether I was Cassandra or Chicken Little.” So Crain looked into the data.

Sculptor Anish Kapoor Sues NRA For Copyright Infringement

“Anish Kapoor is going after the National Rifle Association (NRA), filing a copyright infringement lawsuit in the US in response to a 2017 NRA ad featuring Cloud Gate, his famed public sculpture [known popularly as ‘The Bean’] in Chicago’s Millennium Park. … The NRA advertisement, titled ‘The Clenched Fist of Truth’ or ‘The Violence of Lies,’ denounced the US media and its “liberal agenda” in an effort to recruit new members and solicit donations.”

Lynn Nottage And Christopher Wheeldon To Create Michael Jackson Broadway Bio-Musical

“The pop singer’s estate, along with Columbia Live Stage, said Tuesday that it had agreed to develop a stage musical about his life, aiming for Broadway in 2020. … The book is to be written by Lynn Nottage, a playwright who has won two Pulitzers, for Ruined and Sweat. And the show is to be directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, the artistic associate of the Royal Ballet in London, who won a Tony Award for An American in Paris.”

Knight Foundation Launches Program To Fund New Performing Arts Work In Miami

“Tuesday, the foundation announced it will invest $500,000 in Knight New Work Miami, an open call for ‘ground-breaking, innovative works of dance, theater and music.’ Choreographers, playwrights and composers based in Miami and those with with strong Miami connections are eligible to apply. The caveat: The works must premiere in Miami.”