Author: Matthew Westphal

The ‘Death Effect’ On Artists’ Prices Actually Happens Before They’re Dead (If They Live Long Enough)

“[A pair of research economists] say the death effect – traditionally conceived of as the price bump an artist gets after her death – is actually only observable for living artists, and only in the five years leading up to an artist’s death. In redefining the ‘death effect,’ their research helps explain rising prices for a large cohort of prominent artists reaching advanced ages.”

Angels In America’s Original Prior Walter Will Now Play Roy Cohn

Stephen Spinella originated the role of the young AIDS patient at the center of Tony Kushner’s drama in its 1991 world premiere, and he won back-to-back Tony Awards for it in 1993 and ’94. This spring, in a revival at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California, Spinella will play the part farthest from Prior’s type (and, arguably, Spinella’s own): the furious, ailing, closeted and desperate lawyer who made his name as an anti-Communist hatchet man for Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

A.O. Scott On How A Critic Evaluates The Work Of Harvey Weinstein And Woody Allen After #MeToo

“I still don’t have a programmatic answer about that. I feel like everybody, critics or fans or whatever, figures out where to draw their own lines and how to deal with every case. … I think there is a rush to disown a lot these guys, to make them disappear, and I think that that is certainly warranted morally in a lot of ways, but I think it lets other people off the hook.” (podcast with transcript)

Director Of Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Resigns In Wake Of Harassment/Assault Lawsuit

In a statement issued Thursday evening, Albert Schultz said, “While I will continue to vigorously defend myself against the allegations that are being made, I have made this decision in the interest of the future of the company into which I poured the last 20 years of my life, and in the interest of the aspirations of the artists and administrators of the company.” The board immediately accepted the resignation.

‘No Meaningful Or Sustained Change In 2017’ – Things Are Getting No Better For Women And Nonwhite Directors In Hollywood

“The report, commissioned by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, surveyed 1,100 films made in the last 11 years, and found that just 4% were directed by women – which equates to 22 male directors hired for every woman. … Furthermore, just 5.2% of all directors – male and female – were black or African American, and 3.2% were Asian.”

Maurice Peress, Conductor Who Worked With Bernstein And Ellington, Dead At 87

“[He] spent the last 33 years conducting the student orchestra at the Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music, where he established a master’s degree in conducting. But before settling into that role he led major orchestras, conducted the premieres of important works by Bernstein and others, and helped Ellington orchestrate some of his signature compositions.”

New Director Of Shakespeare’s Globe To Let Cast Pick Roles And Audiences Choose Plays

“Saying she wants to dismantle theatre hierarchies, Michelle Terry announced [that] … none of the actors turning up for rehearsals [for Hamlet and As You Like It] will know which role they are taking, with the whole ensemble choosing who plays whom. In a similar vein, when the plays The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night go on tour, some audiences will be able to choose which one they want to see that night.”

Aharon Appelfeld, 85, Acclaimed Israeli Novelist

“Nearly all of his novels, stories and essays concerned the Holocaust, although Mr. Appelfeld preferred to say that his focus was far broader: Jewish loneliness, immigration and – as he once joked to the New York Times – ‘trivialities,’ the depiction of ‘small, ordinary, unheroic people.’ Unlike Primo Levi or Elie Wiesel, fellow chroniclers of the Holocaust, Mr. Appelfeld rarely ventured into historical analysis or first-person anecdote.”