Other good news from last season includes new contracts with the musicians and stagehands, the engagement of Stéphane Denève to succeed David Robertson as music director, and an uptick in box office revenue, with a third of attendees at core classical concerts being new to the orchestra’s home concert hall.
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Three Decades Have Changed ‘M. Butterfly’ (And Vice Versa)
“[The character Song Liling’s] true gender was the meant-to-shock big reveal of the original Broadway production … [But] by now, the play has been in the repertory for nearly 30 years. As [actor B.D.] Wong said by phone recently, ‘The cat is out of the bag.’ Yet here’s the thing, as I saw when I bought a ticket and went to an early preview: [David Henry] Hwang has made a new cat, and [Julie] Taymor has put it in a very different bag.” The playwright talks with Laura Collins-Hughes about that brand new bag.
How ‘M. Butterfly’ Changed My Life: Five Asian-American Theater Artists Speak
Laura Collins-Hughes talks with actors B.D. Wong and George Takei, playwrights Julia Cho (Office Hour) and Jason Kim (KPOP), and National Asian American Theater Company co-founder Mia Katigbak.
Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra Loses 20% Of Subscribers As It Moves To Temporary Venue
While the Tonhalle itself undergoes a major renovation, “the exiled orchestra can be seen in action for the next three years at the Maag Hall, part of an industrial complex in Zurich West … CHF10 million has been invested in the acoustics, but there are 300 fewer seats than in the Tonhalle, and one in five orchestra subscriptions has been cancelled.”
George Saunders’s ‘Lincoln In The Bardo’ Wins Man Booker Prize
“Saunders is the second American in a row to win the Booker prize, after last year’s winner Paul Beatty. Saunders’ win falls four years after eligibility rules were changed to allow writers of any nationality writing in the English language and published in the UK. There has been fierce criticism of the rule change.”
Russia Extends House Arrest For Leading Theater/Film Director
Kirill Serebrennikov, chief of Moscow’s Gogol Center and best-known in the West as director of the Bolshoi’s off-again/on-again ballet Nureyev, “was placed under house arrest in August on charges of embezzling 68 million rubles ($1.1 million) in government funds in a case widely seen as political. … The judge denied Serebrennikov’s request to be released for five days to complete the filming of a movie about rock legend Viktor Tsoi and to visit the Bolshoi Theater Dec. 9-10. The director will remain under house arrest until Jan. 19 next year.”
Oklahoma City Ballet Gets Brand-New Home And $2 Million Gift
Up to last year, the company was based in a cramped building with three studios and a leaky roof. In February they acquired a former fitness center, which has now been renovated into a spacious, light-filled, multi-studio headquarters. To celebrate, the family of the company’s founding donor has made a major new gift.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.17.17
Excellence and Engagement: II
Last time I began a discussion of excellence in community engagement … This time I continue with a consideration of three potential categories of excellence that are often not part of our discussions in the arts. … read more
>AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-10-17
Warhol Effect: Can Leonardo’s Strange Bedfellow Make Christie’s Bidders Salivate for Salvator Mundi?
It seems Christie’s couldn’t resist the chance to pair Leonardo da Vinci‘s Jesus with one (or, more accurately, 60) by art-market megastar Andy Warhol, whose 32-foot-long Sixty Last Suppers (riffing on the Italian Renaissance master’s … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-10-17
Not just for rich white people
In which I tell orchestras in the US — or at least the National Symphony — that maybe they should stop taking so much time to thank donors (and other upper-crust supporters) — at their opening galas. They should greet the community instead. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-10-17
A Song as Halloween Approaches
Like many of our holidays, Halloween has morphed into something far from its origins. Now it is a time for children to dress up as just about anything, and ask for candy, and for adults to put on masks and behave very badly. … read more
AJBlog: OtherWorldly Published 2017-10-17
Want To Be A Know-It-All? The ‘Very Short Introduction’ Books Are Here For You
“Some of these books are concise introductions to topics you might later wish to pursue in greater depth: Modern India, say, or Shakespeare’s Tragedies. Others, like Teeth, contain pretty much everything the average layperson would ever want or need to know. All of them, however, take their Very Short commitment seriously. The length of each book is fixed at thirty-five thousand words, or roughly a hundred and twenty pages. … Never mind that the Roman Empire got some four thousand pages from Edward Gibbon, and that was just to chronicle its demise; here it gets the same space as Circadian Rhythms, Folk Music, and Fungi.”
Doing Stand-Up Comedy In East Asia Means Getting Your Act Past The Censors
“In Asia, where a youthful stand-up comedy scene is still developing, comedians in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia are finding creative ways to tell jokes about sex and politics, while coming up against cultures of censorship and taboos.”