In Prague, the opening is going in fits and starts, but theatre companies like the Czech National Theatre are more than ready. “The drive-in theater at Prague’s vegetable market was an ambitious example. To circumvent restrictions on public gatherings, audience members watched plays, concerts and comedy from behind their steering wheels.” – The New York Times
Author: ArtsJournal2
Hey, At Least We’re Not In Tudor England
At that time, says Hilary Mantel, we would have been quarantining more seriously. “Speaking at the Hay literary festival, which is entirely online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Wolf Hall author said the Tudors ‘were very good at quarantine in those days. They took it very seriously. I think he would have locked us down for a bit longer” – The Guardian (UK)
Artists Paint Mural Of George Floyd Near Where He Died
Five artists finished the mural in 12 hours last week after the officers involved in George Floyd’s death weren’t all four arrested and charged with a crime. “The mural has quickly become a memorial site for locals, who come to honor Floyd and mourn his death.” – Hyperallergic
This Club Has Returned To Booking Live Acts, But Audiences Have To Stay Away
The virus has devastated the jazz community in New York. But “there’s a funny thing about jazz: It keeps roaring back to life. Live music returns to Smalls on June 1, in a socially distant way, thanks to Mr. Wilner’s persistence, the club’s shift into full nonprofit mode and a windfall from a celebrity benefactor.” – The New York Times
The Telluride Film Festival Says It’s Going On As Planned
OK, that’s nice and optimistic, but “Telluride organizers promised that safety would be paramount. ‘We are not ignorant of the devastation facing the world,’ festival organizers wrote. ‘We feel the fear and distress too. This is why we are committed to observing all guidance as suggested by the consensus of voices of the scientific community with whom we are consulting now.'” – Los Angeles Times
Fighting Over Who Gets To Use The Term Anglo-Saxon
Racists would love to co-opt the term “for their ethno-historical myths,” but that doesn’t mean historians and archaeologists have to abandon it altogether, argues one. “When researchers and educators today talk about the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, they aren’t discussing a ‘racial’ group. The terms don’t even encapsulate one thing, but rather seven centuries of change and very different kingdoms and communities, from Kent to Cumbria, from East Anglia to the Welsh borders.” (But will facts matter to white supremacists?) – Aeon
The ‘Yesterday’ Writing Credit Kerfuffle Is Exactly How The Film Industry Works
In other words, it doesn’t work very well for writers. The Writers Guild of Great Britain: “‘Things are stacked up, not necessarily in favour of the writer.’ It added that funding, which is much easier to get for a film with an established name onboard, makes it even harder for new writers to break through.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Artist Christo Has Died At 84
Christo, who with his wife Jeanne-Claude created massive art projects requiring dozens of years to pull off, including wrapping the Reichstag and creating The Gates in Central Park, has died. In 1972, he explained, “For me esthetics is everything involved in the process — the workers, the politics, the negotiations, the construction difficulty, the dealings with hundreds of people. … The whole process becomes an esthetic — that’s what I’m interested in, discovering the process. I put myself in dialogue with other people.” – The New York Times
The Chicken Church Of Java
The power of one man’s divine vision … and the internet. – The Guardian (UK)
The Creative Process Of Documentary Theatre [AUDIO]
Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, whose The Exonerated and Coal Country are powerful documentary theatre, talk about how it all works – and why it works. – Slate