Category: people

After a career spent largely in Toronto, most recently running the city’s Opera Atelier, Barretto came to the Harris as a marketer in 2015 and became CEO in 2017. One of her “singular achievements … was her ability to marry the needs (and the calendar) of the Harris’ fleet of resident companies, part of the original mission of the initially troubled theater, with her wish to expand the so-called Harris Theater Presents series of high-profile but risky [international touring] presentations.” – Chicago Tribune

Co-founder of the firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Cobb did have well-known buildings in other cities: Place Ville-Marie (Montreal), Fountain Place (Dallas), the U.S. Bank Tower (Los Angeles), Torre Espacio (Madrid), the International African American Museum (opening next year in Charleston). But he made his biggest mark in his hometown, with the Moakley Courthouse, Harbor Towers, One Dalton, and, most famously, the John Hancock Tower. – The Boston Globe

His various art “actions” (as he calls them), along with his apparently high pain threshold, have earned him international notoriety and a good deal of sympathy. Yet he seems to have squandered quite a bit of that sympathy in France, where his actions haven’t gone down so well. Valeria Costa-Kostritsky talks to associates and observers of Pavlensky in Russia and France and tries to unpack it all. – Apollo

The show featured an A-list roster of Hollywood and Broadway royalty, including Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Robin Williams, Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg. In exchange for their appearance, Mr. Lipton provided a relatively safe space for sometimes guarded celebrities to reveal themselves more personally before a live audience. – Washington Post

“Since the early 1970s, Ulay created performances and photographs that made frequent use of his own body. Having worked collaboratively for more than a decade with Marina Abramović, his former partner and currently the world’s most widely known performance artist, it was not until the later stages of his career that Ulay’s solo work achieved its own sort of notoriety.” – ARTnews

“If you are not sure what you think about something, the most useful questions are these,’ she says. ‘Are you being kind? Are they being kind? That usually gives you the answer.'” – The Guardian (UK)

Krone was a theatre producer and manager who joined with Douglas Turner Ward, an actor and playwright, and Robert Hooks, an actor and producer, to found the company in 1967. The company won a special Tony after two years of existence, and sent three plays to Broadway. “In 1981 it staged, Off Broadway, the premiere of Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play, with a cast that included Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson; the play won the Pulitzer Prize.” – The New York Times

Hall and her husband created two mainstays of daytime TV – the soap operas The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. Yes, many people laugh at them, “the dramas have attracted millions of viewers while tackling difficult topics like incest, alcoholism and teen pregnancy.” – The New York Times

“There is no western counterpart to Umm Kulthum, no artist as respected and beloved as she is in the Arab world.” She sang everything from the most complex classical Arabic music to nationalist hymns; her sold-out performances ran for five hours or more; her monthly live concert broadcasts had entire nations glued to their radios. (It was said that Umm Kulthum was the only thing that unified the Arab world.) You still hear her voice in cafes and taxis throughout the Middle East and the Arab diaspora. And she lived an extremely unusual life for a woman of her time and place. – The Guardian

“One of the most mysterious aspects of Poe’s legacy is his untimely death at the age of 40 after being found ‘delirious’ and in ‘great distress’ on the streets of Baltimore. The author was incoherent, rambling, and wearing someone else’s clothes when he was discovered, and after a few days spent in a local hospital he passed away. Many believe that the authors death was a deliberate act, but researchers at Lancaster University are challenging the notion that Poe killed himself.” – Study Finds