Category: people

“Malaysian authorities scrapped a concert by American singer Erykah Badu on Tuesday after she angered Muslims with a photo in which she sports body art including the Arabic word for ‘Allah’.”

In the 1850s, Cleveland newspaperman Charles Farrar Brown began writing satirical columns as the character Artemus Ward, “a mostly literate showman of twenty-two years experience as a ‘base exhibiter of depraved monkeys and unprincipled wax works’.” By the end of the decade, “he added the ‘e’ to his last name, climbed onto a stage in Connecticut and made people laugh for an hour or so.” No performer had tried anything like that in a theater before.

“[He] was a coal miner-turned-classical trumpeter who brought style, sophistication and glamour to what had previously been a Cinderella area of performance; his combination of golden, silk-like tone and a captivating personality made him the instrument’s first big star.”

“[He] was widely regarded as Bergman’s most frequent surrogate onscreen: a modern man in all his psychological and moral complexity – intelligent, lustful, self-centered, introspective and outwardly self-confident.”

“[As] a founder of the influential Circle in the Square, [Mann] was a driving force in the rise of Off Broadway theater in the 1950s … [and] had a hand in discovering or nurturing many stage actors who would go on to celebrated careers.”

“With all the people hanging around, the place feels a little bit like a very comfortable, more wholesome version of Andy Warhol’s Factory except that Chinese state security agents are waiting just outside the walls and could burst in again at the first hint of subversive behaviour.”

“The issue isn’t really one of authenticity. Streep can be piercing in grief, as her searing Oscar-winning performance in “Sophie’s Choice” attests. But her characterizations are so well calculated that they call attention to their own artistry. The dancer is always distinguishable from the dance.”

“His organic and geometric forms, use of vibrant colors and provocative installation motifs speak of a thorough knowledge and embrace of critical aspects of ceramic history and its shifting place in art’s continuum. Price’s exquisitely crafted art, often leavened by erotic wit, simply accepted clay’s sculptural bona fides.”

Mann, who founded the Circle in the Square theatre and its acting school, altered the landscape of theatre in New York and revived the reputation of Eugene O’Neill.

“A friendly, often bemused and droll man whose silver curls and precise, deliberate manner of speech made him indelible to anyone he met, Kissel was chief theater critic at the News for 20 years. … Kissel was the only person to chair both the New York Drama Critics Circle and the New York Film Critics Circle — reflecting the fact that even in the sometimes tense world of high culture, he got along with everyone.”