The comedy legend talks to David Marchese about what she couldn’t do when she was starting out in comedy, marrying Jane Wagner after more than 40 years as a couple, how she almost came out on the cover of Time in 1975, and the story behind that infamous fight on the set of I Heart Huckabees. – The New York Times Magazine
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Anne Bogart On The Difference Between Looking And Seeing
Children see naturally because they have not already stored up and processed information about how they are supposed to categorize what it is that they are looking at. They puzzle through, notice and work out each detail with a freshness that radiates both spontaneity and play. As we grow older, many of us lose our ability to see and we begin to accept the assumptions that have accumulated while looking. – SITI
Lament For A Shuttered Music School, And For The Too-Rare Opportunity It Offered
“A nonprofit on the East Side that partnered with public schools, the [Turtle Bay Music School] announced in November that it would be forced to close due to a lack of funding. The entire conceit of TBMS, summed up in its mission statement, was that every single person should be able to learn an instrument and enjoy making music. That ‘every single person’ part was key — if you couldn’t afford lessons, tuition assistance could help.” – Gothamist
Why Singing In Choirs Has Become Cool Again
For all of the people running them, a choir is often not just a choir, but also a social club, a community and a charity. For me, it has become a refuge; I can’t check my phone when I am hollering and humming, and holding a note distracts me from the usual clutter of my mind. – The Guardian
Dancing While Deaf: What It’s Like To Move To Music You Can’t Hear
“Dance may be a visual art form, but it’s tightly intertwined with sound. Even as the field strives to be more inclusive, learning to dance without two fully functioning ears remains a challenge. But today, dancers with full and partial hearing loss are becoming more visible, thanks to growing opportunities, high-profile role models and even Instagram.” – Dance Magazine
The Cultural ‘Canon’ Really Is Getting More Diverse
“It’s not so much that canons have been completely obliterated, as [Harold] Bloom and others feared — in any given collection, the old guard and their descendants have remained. But canons have continued to evolve, and new ones have sprung up alongside them.” Aisha Harris looks at some examples. – The New York Times
‘The Four Horsemen Of Asian-American Literature’
That was Ishmael Reed’s nickname for Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Shawn Wong, and Lawson Fusao Inada, who (on top of their own writing) put together the first major anthology of Asian-American fiction (titled Aiiieeeee!) and thereby began a canon. “The Four Horsemen had no interest in being loved,” writes Hua Hsu in this essay, “especially by white people. … When an editor asked [Chin] to tidy some grammatical errors, he called her the ‘great white bitch goddess priestess of the sacred white mouth.'” – The New Yorker
Jack Sheldon, Revered Jazz Trumpeter And ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ Star, Dead At 88
“While the charismatic and hilarious Sheldon boasted an impressive résumé that included serving as the music director and sidekick on The Merv Griffin Show for 18 years; releasing 23 albums as a bandleader between 1955 and 2007; heading his own 17-piece orchestra; … and acting in various movies and TV shows, he is also lovingly remembered as the affable, lackadaisical crooner from the Schoolhouse Rock! cartoons of the 1970s, including ‘Conjunction Junction’ and ‘I’m Just a Bill.'” – Yahoo!
Bach’s Own Church Vandalized On New Year’s Eve
An unknown attacker lobbed heavy stones at the windows of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig on Tuesday. No one was injured, but two 19th-century stained glass windows and nearly two dozen Art Nouveau panels were destroyed. – Deutsche Welle
For The First Time, The Most Influential Person In British Theatre Is An Actor: The Stage 100 For 2020
“Why? Actors are clearly a core part of theatre. But, while individual actors have certainly been influential – Mark Rylance has featured prominently in recent years – it is rare for them to truly wield influence on the whole of theatre. This is, to some degree, a sign of the times … Had we started this list in the 1950s or 1960s, Laurence Olivier would have been in with a fair shout of securing the top spot, probably repeatedly. But the era of the actor-manager has largely passed, meaning that … their influence is often limited in scope and scale.” But this year, the list is topped by an actor — an 80-year-old, no less. (For the complete list and further coverage, click here.) – The Stage