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Broadway Finishes Another Record-Breaking Season

“A rapping Hamilton and a (quietly) rocking Boss propelled Broadway’s box office to new heights over the past year, as rising demand and even faster-rising ticket prices shattered industry records. Over all, the 67 shows that ran over the last season brought in $1.7 billion from 13.8 million patrons, according to figures released Tuesday by the Broadway League.”

Jeff Koons’s Tulips Will Not Be Going In Front Of The Eiffel Tower Or The Palais De Tokyo

“After a year and a half of negotiations and controversy, the city of Paris has still not found a site for the controversial sculpture the American artist gifted to the city in memory of the victims of the 2015 terror attacks. The French Culture Minister has now publicly stated that the work will not be installed at the Place de Tokyo square in front of the Eiffel Tower, as the artist had initially proposed.”

Artists Try Out Ideas To Rebrand The EU

“The German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has teamed up with a friend, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, to encourage artists and other creative people to brainstorm ways for Europe to better present itself to the public. They put out a call in March for rebranding proposals, asking: ‘How can the European Union be valued by its citizens and be recognized as a force for good, rather than as a faceless bureaucracy?’ They requested ideas ‘for communicating the advantages of cooperation and friendship amongst people and nations.’ More than 400 proposals from 43 countries poured in.”

With Record-Breaking Production, Australian Ballet Posts $5.5 Million Surplus

While the company had its challenges this year – most notably, having to find an alternative venue for its Sydney season, with the Sydney Opera House’s Joan Sutherland Theatre under renovation – its staging of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, sold 75,840 tickets over 41 performances in Sydney and Melbourne.

Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.29.18

Odd ducks and different buds
‘You must have been quite an odd duck as a boy,’ I said to Barry Humphries, as the entertainer described his unusual devotion to Berlin cabaret artists, fostered in stuffy suburban Melbourne. … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-05-29

From stage to screen
Time was when hit plays on Broadway and London’s West End were routinely turned into big-budget films. Most of the time, alas, the plays in question were recast and “adapted” within an inch or two … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-05-29

 

Why Are So Many Jobs So Useless? (There’s A Reason)

In an age that supremely prizes capitalist efficiency, the proliferation of pointless jobs is a puzzle. Why are employers in the public and private sector alike behaving like the bureaucracies of the old Soviet Union, shelling out wages to workers they don’t seem to need? Since bullshit jobs make no economic sense, David Graeber argues, their function must be political. A population kept busy with make-work is less likely to revolt.

Study: Loud Music In Restaurants Promotes Unhealthy Ordering

Dipayan Biswas, a marketing professor at the University of South Florida, conducted the study at a cafe in Stockholm, where various genres of music were played on a loop at 55 decibels and 70 decibels at different times, for several days. When the music was louder, researchers found 20 percent more customers ordered something that was not good for them, compared to those who dined during the lower-volume times.

Miami Theatre Says It Will End Black-Face Portrayal

The play “3 Viudas en un Crucero” (Three Widows on a Cruise), which has been showing since January, featured light-skinned actress Marta Velasco smeared with dark makeup, exaggerated red lips, thick, drawn-in eyebrows and an Afro wig. A trailer of the play posted on YouTube shows Velasco pounding her chest, with her legs wide open while saying “Bailar, tomar y gozar como tres gorilas” (to dance, drink and have fun like three gorillas).

Barbara Ehrenreich Critiques Boomers’ Culture Of Wellness

Ehrenreich contemplates with some satisfaction not just the approach of her own death but also the passing of her generation. As the boomers have aged, denial of death, she argues, has moved to the center of American culture, and a vast industrial ecosystem has bloomed to capitalize on it. Across twelve chapters, Ehrenreich surveys the health care system, the culture of old age, the world of “mindfulness,” and the interior workings of the body itself, and finds a fixation on controlling the body, encouraged by cynical and self-interested professionals in the name of “wellness.”