The play, written by two young Englishmen (Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson) who went to live for several months in the camp and set up a makeshift-but-busy performing arts center there, shows what happened in the winter of 2016 after French authorities issued an order that the southern half of the camp — by that point, home to 3,500 people, several mosques and churches, restaurants, and a school — was to be evacuated and destroyed. – The New York Review of Books
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Baritone Lucia Lucas Becomes First Transgender Woman To Sing Lead Opera Role In U.S.
Lucas, who is based in Germany and has her career largely in Europe, began rehearsals this week for the title role in Don Giovanni at Tulsa Opera. And this is not her first time playing Mozart’s antihero. – Tulsa World
This Director Made A Film About Young Lesbians In Kenya, And Her International Career Is Soaring. At Home, She Gets Death Threats.
Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki won raves at Cannes and beyond, and she’s now become the first African woman to get a major Hollywood studio deal. In Kenya, “Kahiu has been trolled on social media, threatened with arrest and suffered endless offensive comments, sometimes from members of her own family. ‘I have seen the vilest of comments come out of people I love,’ she says.” – The Guardian
These Depression-Era Murals About George Washington Feature Fraught Imagery. Should They Be Removed?
“In the debate over the 13 murals that make up The Life of Washington, at George Washington High School [in San Francisco], one side, which includes art historians and school alumni, sees an immersive history lesson; the other, which includes many African-Americans and Native Americans, sees a hostile environment. … [The muralist] depicted Washington, accurately, at a time when that was rarely acknowledged, as a slave owner and the leader of the nation that annihilated Native Americans.” – The New York Times
Folger Shakespeare Library Plans Underground Expansion
“Inside the new space, the North Hall would feature a vault for the library’s 82 Shakespeare first folios, the first collections of Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623. In addition, four immersive galleries would … introduce visitors to Shakespearean themes. … Another new exhibition hall would display the library’s treasures” — it holds the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare-related materials — “as well as provide room for changing exhibitions.” – The Washington Post
Guggenheim Museum Faces Complicated Questions About Conceptual And Minimalist Art — And Even ‘Decommissions’ Some Works
“For nine years, [the museum] has been foraging for answers to some of the most confounding questions raised by Minimalist and conceptual art from the 1960s and ’70s: What makes a work genuine? If an artist decides he prefers an earlier or later iteration of his original work, which one should have pride of place in a museum? If an artist disowns a work altogether, how should the museum label and classify it?” The issues arise from the Guggenheim’s famous Panza Collection, acquired from 1990 to ’92. – The Art Newspaper
Why Geoffrey Rush Won His Defamation Lawsuit Against A Sydney Tabloid
Here’s a selection of quotes from the Australian federal judge’s decision against The Daily Telegraph that explain why the allegations, published by the tabloid, of “inappropriate behaviour” by Rush toward an actress playing Cordelia to his Lear were not deemed credible. – The Guardian
Charles Van Doren, Center Of 1950s Quiz Show Scandal, Dead At 93
A tall, handsome Columbia University professor with advanced degrees in both English and mathematics, Van Doren became a genuine TV star with a months-long winning streak on the prime-time quiz show Twenty-One. The discovery that he had been provided with questions and answers in advance caused a national uproar that led to Congressional hearings. – The Washington Post
4,000-Year-Old Circle Of Standing Stones Vandalized
Sometime last weekend, someone carved graffiti into one of the 36 surviving stones in the Ring of Brodgar, part of a UNESCO Neolithic World Heritage Site, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. – The Herald
Germany Recovers Huge Trove Of Antique Books Lost In World War II
The works, which had belonged to the University and Regional Library of Bonn and “which were thought to have been irretrievably lost, included rare medieval manuscripts, early 15th-century prints, historical maps and the 19th-century illustrated bird books from the library of the celebrated German ornithologist and explorer Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied.” – The Guardian