“As an ensemble dancer in The Lion King, India Bolds, age 32, plays nine characters in every show, eight times a week. That’s a lot of entrances and exits, costume changes and choreography to remember. But after five years of dancing in the production, she has the show down pat. Dance Magazine followed her through a performance day to see what it takes to be in Broadway’s third-longest-running production.”
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Intrepid Arts Reporter Braves All Eight Hours Of Max Richter’s ‘Sleep’
“My first mistake was waking up early to get groceries.
Then it was a long Friday at work, followed by a piano recital and finally a sprint downtown – where, exhausted, I was in the worst possible shape to take in one more concert. Except that the performance was Sleep, Max Richters eight-hour soundtrack engineered, with the help of scientific consultants, to provoke a relaxing night. By dozing off, I’d be doing my job.” The hardworking and tireless Joshua Barone reports.
A Great Writer Warned Michael Chabon Never To Have Kids If He Wanted A Successful Writing Career
The unnamed éminence grise warned the young novelist-to-be that human spawn are giant time thieves and that each child would be a book he never wrote. Chabon gives his reply here.
Play Cancelled After Its Own Cast Complains That It’s ‘Racist’
“Originally called The Bold Knights of Britain, The Ununited Kingdom was being produced by theatre company Silent Uproar and was intended to shine a light on the rise of the far right in Britain, by focusing on a teenage girl who joins a gang with racist tendencies. … It was pulled after just two previews at Hull Truck and ahead of a planned run in London.” (And the whole business was even messier that that sounds.)
There Are No Hidden Chambers (And No Queen Nefertiti) In King Tut’s Tomb, Tests Determines
“Recent radar scans of Tutankhamun’s tomb conclusively prove that there are no additional chambers or passages behind the walls of the famed pharaoh’s burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings, Egyptian officials announced today.”
One Of Britain’s Great Wagnerian Sopranos Is At War With The Wagner Society She Heads
“Dame Gwyneth Jones has spoken out for the first time about the long running feud which has riven the Wagner Society, of which she has been president for nearly three decades. In the latest skirmish, … the society found itself at odds over a decision to cancel a sought-after public masterclass to have been held by the award winning soprano.”
The Guardian Cuts Loose Theatre Writer Lyn Gardner After 23 Years
“Gardner’s contract, which ends on June 1, includes 130 reviews a year and 28,000 words of features. The critic and journalist, who is also associate editor at The Stage, was told the contract was being discontinued because the newspaper had decided she was not part of their long-term plans for theatre coverage.”
For First Time Ever, Kennedy Center Rescinds Two Of Its Signature Honors
“Bill Cosby’s fall from grace continues. In a first for the Kennedy Center, the board of trustees voted to rescind the high-profile awards” – the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize – “it has given the comedian, who was convicted on three counts of sexual assault last month.”
Bernini Sculpture Loses A Finger – Just After Being Restored
“The accident reportedly happened as the statue” – a marble of Saint Bibiana – “was being lifted back into place above the altar of Santa Bibiana, the church in central Rome for which Bernini created it in 1626. The newly restored work had been on loan for the first time in its history to the capital’s Borghese Gallery, which recently hosted a major exhibition of the Baroque sculptor’s masterpieces.”
Ermanno Olmi, Director Of ‘Tree Of Wooden Clogs’, Dead At 86
“As he typically explored spiritual conflicts within families, the director Ermanno Olmi … was something of an outsider in his native Italy, where orthodox Catholics thought him too progressive and militant communists considered him too much of a reactionary Catholic. Only after his most acclaimed film, L’Albero degli Zoccoli (The Tree of Wooden Clogs, 1978) won him the Palme d’Or at Cannes did Olmi get recognition at home as well as abroad.”