Jawole Willa Jo Zollar: “Space is the hardest part about being an artist today. There are times when we’re in a different space every day and that’s hard on the creative process. Apply for those residencies – they’ve become modern dance gold.” (video)
Author: Matthew Westphal
With Theatre Reviews Getting Cut Everywhere, How Will New Talent Get Discovered?
Lyn Gardner: “When reviewing space gets tight it is not the shiny, starry mainstream shows in the West End or at the National or the Royal Shakespeare Company that get cut, but the new, the unknown and the innovative.” Especially if those shows are at regional theatres: for a producer, “schlepping across the country and a night in a hotel may be worth it, if reviews by those you trust have alerted you to a company with a great show you haven’t previously heard of.”
San Diego Symphony Selects Rafael Payaré As Music Director
“The 37-year-old Venezuela native” – like his friend Gustavo Dudamel, a product of El Sistema – “will succeed Jahja Ling, who last year concluded his 13th and final season with the symphony. … Now music director-designate, [he] will formally assume his role as music director July 1, 2019. Payaré will [also] continue … as music director of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Orchestra.”
David Robertson To Head Juilliard’s Conducting Program
“Robertson, whose tenure [as music director] with the [St. Louis Symphony] ends at the close of this season, succeeds Alan Gilbert at Juilliard, perhaps the most important training ground for classical musicians in this country.”
Angels In Charlotte: How A North Carolina Theater Fought, Won, And Lost A Culture War Over Tony Kushner’s Play
Another excerpt from the Dan Kois-Isaac Butler oral history The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of ‘Angels in America’: here, “actors, administrators, and journalists tell the story of one such theater that went to court to fight a local government that wanted to shut the play down – and won.” (Until, that is, the following year.
New York Times Hires And Fires Editorial Writer In Span Of Six Hours
“On Tuesday afternoon, the [paper] announced that it would be hiring Quinn Norton as an editorial board member. Shortly before 10 p.m., the paper fired her. Norton has been a prolific tech journalist – covering issues ranging from bioethics to the Anonymous movement for publications like Wired and The Atlantic – and seemed initially to be a remarkably good pick to become the Times‘ lead opinion writer ‘on the power, culture, and consequences of technology.’ The hours between her hiring and firing were an object lesson in all three.”
Philadelphia Orchestra, Combining Cultural Diplomacy With Fundraising, To Tour Israel
“Spinning the globe for a spot where it can play for a knowledgeable crowd, conduct cultural diplomacy, and woo some important patrons, the Philadelphia Orchestra has put its finger on Israel. The ensemble will perform in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa the first week in June, after another leg of the tour takes them to Vienna, Paris, and smaller European cities. The Philadelphians have been to Israel only once before, in 1992 as Riccardo Muti was ending his tenure as the orchestra’s fifth music director.”
How Montreal Symphony Management Blew It On Charles Dutoit – 15 Years Ago
Robert Everett-Green points out that allegations of Dutoit’s bullying of musicians in rehearsal – allegations repeated in detail last week in two of Montreal’s francophone newspapers – were made very clear by the players in 2002. And when they were, Dutoit abruptly stormed away from his job, and the orchestra’s management was far more concerned with his feelings than those of the musicians. “It’s worth looking at the circumstances that may have led [the board] to brush off the players’ complaints for about 20 years.”
Paris Reveals Final Plans For Grand Palais’s Three-Year, €466M Renovation
“An spokeswoman says that the site will be ‘totally closed from December 2020; the Rue des Palais, Nef [nave] and Grand Galleries will open in the spring of 2023’. During the 2024 summer Olympics, fencing and taekwondo will be held at the historic venue. The closure will, however, cause upheaval in the art fair calendar with three major fairs – Fiac, Paris Photo and La Biennale Paris – forced to relocate to temporary locations for their 2021 editions.”
Ava DuVernay And City Of Los Angeles Launch Program To Increase Diversity Behind The Cameras
“Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined filmmaker Ava DuVernay and producer Dan Lin on Monday to launch the Evolve Entertainment Fund, a public-private partnership aimed at creating new opportunities for communities that have been historically excluded from the entertainment industry. The fund plans to raise $5 million by 2020 to award grants to various entertainment industry organizations.”