A dedicated stage and screen performer – and an African-American woman who earned degrees from Bard College, London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and the Univ. of Minnesota in the 1960s – she won the Emmy for playing Matilda, the wife of Chicken George in the Alex Haley miniseries. She was nominated for a second Emmy for Backstairs at the White House and co-starred in the Oprah Winfrey production The Women of Brewster Place.
Author: Matthew Westphal
How A 16th-Century Legal Document Ended Up In A Copy Of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ In Rural Australia
“Lorraine Smith’s detective story began at her second-hand bookshop in Warrnambool, Australia, when a customer came to her with what looked like a piece of paper. It had been hiding in an old copy of Alice in Wonderland, the customer said, that she had paged through while browsing in the back of the store. … Smith grew determined to discover what this manuscript was and where it had come from. What was that obscure writing? Who was the document’s original owner? And how did it end up in Australia?”
Three Ballerinas Explain How They Actually Pull Off Those 32 Fouettés In ‘Swan Lake’
“You’ve done your variation, you run offstage, you have a moment to collect yourself, and you just go. If you were to give yourself time to think, ‘I have to do 32 fouettés now,’ I don’t think you’d go back out on stage.” Elizabeth Murphy, Lesley Rausch, and Laura Tisserand, principals at Pacific Northwest Ballet, explain how they do it, physically and mentally. (includes video)
Pacifica Radio Gets $2 Million Loan, Dodges Bankruptcy
Last fall, a judge ruled that the Pacifica Foundation was in default for $1.8 million in unpaid fees for New York station WBAI’s use of transmitters on top of the Empire State Building. Scrambling to keep the creditors from seizing Pacifica’s assets, the foundation has essentially mortgaged the building of its Los Angeles station.
Trump Asks Guggenheim To Lend A Van Gogh For White House; Guggenheim Offers The Solid Gold Toilet Instead
The White House asked to borrow van Gogh’s Landscape with Snow for Donald and Melania Trump’s private quarters. Curator Nancy Spector denied the request – but she did offer, with the artist’s support, the notorious “interactive sculpture” titled America, Maurizio Cattelan’s auriferous commode that was in use for a year in the Guggenheim’s fifth-floor public restroom.
Pianist Angela Hewitt Injured In Fall Before Concert, Performs Nevertheless
“[The Canadian pianist] took a tumble down a flight of stairs before her concert in Oxford last night, twisting her ankle. But she still managed to carry on with the show. Giacomo Panico reached her in England for the rest of the story.” (podcast)
Christo To Float Pyramid In London’s Serpentine Lake
The artist will create on of his Mastaba sculptures – a large group of colored barrels stacked into a pyramidal shape – to float on the man-made lake in Hyde Park as a centerpiece of a show this summer at the Serpentine Galleries.
Harassment And Bullying Are Rife In UK Theatre: Survey
In the wake of the Weinstein and Spacey scandals, “The Stage carried out a survey to determine the scale to which harassment and bullying has affected, and continues to affect, theatre and performing arts professionals.” Here is an extended presentation and analysis of the survey results. Among the leading stats, 43% of respondents had experienced bullying in the course of their theatre work, and 31% had experienced sexual harassment.
Rijksmuseum’s Branch At Amsterdam Airport Closes Due To Roof Leaks
“A water leakage at the Rijksmuseum’s branch at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport continued for nearly a week, initially dripping down a glass showcase with 17th-century Golden Age paintings. … Water entered through the roof during building work.” The museum has removed the ten Golden Age paintings at the satellite and will return them once construction is complete this summer.
Goodspeed Cancels Woody Allen’s ‘Bullets Over Broadway’
“The storied Connecticut nonprofit that launched Annie and has been a prominent showcase for musical theater talent for more than four decades, announced this afternoon it was canceling an upcoming production of Bullets Over Broadway in response to the resurgence of allegations that Woody Allen had inappropriate sexual contact with Mia Farrow’s daughter Dylan.”