The Television Academy ruled in March that effective in 2021, programs that have been nominated for an Oscar will no longer be eligible for the Emmys competition.” says the TV Academy in a statement this morning. – Deadline
Blog
Shakespeare’s Work Was Repeatedly Interrupted By The Plague. Where Is It In His Plays?
The theatre historian J. Leeds Barroll III, who carefully sifted through the surviving records, concluded that in the years between 1606 and 1610—the period in which Shakespeare wrote and produced some of his greatest plays, from “Macbeth” and “Antony and Cleopatra” to “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Tempest”—the London playhouses were not likely to have been open for more than a total of nine months. It is all the more striking, then, that in his plays and poems Shakespeare almost never directly represents the plague. – The New Yorker
It Wasn’t Just A Once-In-A-Lifetime Exhibition, It Was A Once-In-History Show. COVID Sank It For Good
Years of preparation — conservation, research and catalog writing, loan negotiations, insurance, shipping arrangements, and more — went into the big Van Eyck show that opened in February in Ghent. And that city’s famous altarpiece, newly restored, was at the heart of the event, the largest-ever assemblage of the artist’s work. The pandemic shut the exhibit down, and journalist Sophie Haigney explains why there’s no hope of postponing or rescheduling it. – The New York Times
An Opportunity To Reinvigorate The Public University
That’s what happened in the depression. “What prompted this public investment in higher education was neither sentimentality about the poor nor a noblesse oblige of good works. It was a vision of culture and social wealth, derived from the activism of the working classes and defended by a member of Britain’s House of Lords.” – The New Yorker
Nancy Stark Smith, Co-Creator Of Contact Improvisation, Dead At 68
“Although [Steve] Paxton is credited with inventing, or initiating CI, it was Stark Smith who became the chief educator and organizer. … Whether springing up out of the floor or boomeranging off another person, she made the pleasure of touch visible. She had a wondrous way of talking/writing about the sensations of momentum that drew people in.” – Dance Magazine
What Will Concert Life Look Like When Things Reopen?
In New York—and likely everywhere—the venues best able to answer these questions are the smallest ones. They are so because they present music often at the edge of economic and cultural viability, and are geared to survive with limited audiences. Reopening for tiny, restricted crowds would be pretty much par for the course. – Van
Spain’s First Movie With Sound To Be Directed By A Woman Discovered In Archive
“[Maria Forteza’s documentary] Mallorca, an eight-minute, black-and-white sweep across the Balearic island inspired by the music of the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz, was donated to the national film archive in 1982 … For 38 years, Mallorca languished in the collection, wrongly identified as a silent 1926 film made by a male director.” – The Guardian
MoMA Slashes Budgets, Staff, Exhibitions
Before the shutdown, the museum had around 960 staff members, director Glenn Lowry said. Through a combination of voluntary retirement packages and general attrition, the new staff count will be about 800. “We will learn to be a much smaller institution,” he said. The museum administration also took what Lowry described as a “chainsaw” to its exhibition budget, cutting it from $18 million to $10 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1 and runs through June 30, 2021. It also cut its publications budget by about half. Overall, the museum will have slashed its annual budget to about $135 million, from close to $180 million. – Bloomberg
Germany And Austria Want Theaters To Start Rehearsing Again. Directors Are Balking
“Performances in front of an audience are still out of the question for now. But on May 18, Austria will become one of the first countries on the continent where theater troupes can return to rehearsal, with detailed restrictions to limit the virus’s transmission. Actors must stay at least three feet apart, government guidelines say, and performers can come closer only if they wear face coverings or masks. In Germany, an insurance body has outlined similar rules. In interviews, leading theatermakers in both countries said rehearsals would be impossible under such conditions.” – The New York Times
The Debate Over Rebuilding Notre Dame
“I thought it was really bad that they called for an international competition,” says another heritage architect, Charlotte Langlois. “The message it sends is we need international architects to have good ideas on how to restore our heritage and in particular our emblematic cathedral. And it’s very demagogical, to let people think that having well-known architects is the only way not to rebuild in the same way. It’s not true.” – Apollo