Category: people

Capobianco was with the opera from 1983 to 2000. In that time, he “brought the company from an operating budget of $900,000 to $5 million, added an endowment of $6 million and founded the training program for young singers now known as the Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artists Program. He saw the move from Heinz Hall to the more spacious stage accommodations of Benedum Center. He introduced the use of supertitles by the company, and created the Pittsburgh Opera Orchestra, to replace the awkward scheduling required by the previous use of the Pittsburgh Symphony.”

Williams was dyslexic but instead of getting tested, she was told she was lazy and stupid. She dropped out of school and got addicted to drugs – but when a psychologist gave her the learning disability diagnosis, her life changed. Then, “becoming fascinated by how the written word could convey a story, she went on to publish her first book at 28 and eventually landed a $1 million contract to write a mystery series about a tough female private investigator named Keye Street.”

And Chloë Sevigny is making that move. But “will we ever allow her to be known first as an actress and second as a downtown personality — the epitome of cool”?

Rolly Crump has a reputation as one of the park’s consistent critics – but for good reason. For deacades, the designer “has offered blunt assessments of Disney designs as well as his former peers — a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is artist who is offended at the suggestion that others would be offended by his critiques. At the same time, Crump is fiercely possessive of Disneyland’s ideals and believes strongly in the theme park as a place of living art.” (Don’t miss the detail about the poster he had on his Disney door that said “Smoke marijuana.”)

When Joyce Maynard published her memoir At Home in the World, about when, 25 years earlier, she dropped out of Yale to go live with the 53-year-old author (and got abruptly dumped seven months later), she endured a wave of criticism for kissing-and-telling that to this day hasn’t entirely abated. Here she writes, “Though I believe that if the book I wrote 20 years ago were published today it would be received differently, it does not appear that enlightenment concerning the abuses of men in power extends retroactively to women who chose to speak long ago, and were shamed and humiliated for doing so.”

Known for a wry, self-mocking persona and for doing his own stunts (and, offscreen, for a quick temper, hard living, and a tempestuous love life), Reynolds appeared in dozens and dozens of films and TV shows (and directed more than a few) over the decades; from 1978 to 1982, he was the number-one box-office draw. He was most popular in action films and romantic comedies, but he won greatest critical acclaim for performances in Deliverance and Boogie Nights.

“I once told a friend associated with Taylor’s company that I was thinking of writing an essay about Taylor as one of America’s great playwrights, continuing the themes of Eric Bentley’s famous essay projecting a similar role for Taylor’s mentor Martha Graham. I will never write that piece now (unless this is it), but several points that would have gone into it seem to have stuck in my head.”

Madani Younis will be in charge of the Southbank Centre’s literature, dance, performance and free programmes, working in a new management structure alongside the director of music, Gillian Moore, and the director of the Hayward Gallery, Ralph Rugoff. His arrival follows the departure of one of the UK’s highest-profile arts leaders, Jude Kelly, who was artistic director for 12 years. The centre stressed that Younis was not replacing Kelly and would be taking a new role.

The Mary Boone Gallery’s 2012 tax forms reported a false business loss for the previous year of about $52,000 although the gallery actually made a profit in 2011 of about $3.7 million, according to documents filed by the United States attorney’s office.