Category: people

Leonard Bernstein’s children have donated the carefully preserved contents of his main composing studio to Indiana University, which has promised to recreate the space.

“The evidence is circumstantial but Professor [Stanley] Wells, the editor for 30 years of the Oxford Shakespeare series and Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Birmingham University, believes it is overwhelming. The portrait is more handsome and animated than the well-known images that have been held to be likenesses of Shakespeare, which were created after his death in 1616.”

“Since opening a schlocky poster shop in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Larry Gagosian, 63, has built a contemporary and modern art empire unlike any other the business has ever seen, with galleries in New York, Los Angeles, London and Rome.”

“Mr. Klein covered theater for the New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island and Westchester County sections of The Times from the late 1970s until September 2004, writing nearly 3,500 reviews and features. […] He reviewed many world premieres at leading regional stages like the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., and the Long Wharf and Yale Repertory theaters in New Haven.”

Daniel Handler: “My father’s side of the family in particular is all mostly German Jews who fled during the Holocaust and left behind people who were decimated; so there was a real sense that life was a strange journey, and that was a subject of much hilarity.”

“Nearly five centuries after his death – and six years after “The Da Vinci Code” hit bookstore shelves (and later, theaters) – the original Renaissance Man has become a major draw for science, flight, and art museums, even though it’s difficult, if not impossible, to display his original works.”

“Actor Robin Williams will undergo heart surgery for an aortic valve replacement, forcing him to cut short his stand-up comedy tour, his representative said on Thursday.” The 57-year-old, who first found fame as a comedian, had cancelled several performances of his Weapons of Self-Destruction show in Florida this week, complaining of shortness of breath.

“Cephas was a big deal in the blues world – one of the very last exponents of true, traditional acoustic blues. In 1987, he and harp player Phil Wiggins won the Handy Award for blues entertainer of the year – an unheard-of honor for a traditional blues act. Two years later, Cephas received an NEA National Heritage Fellowship, a sort of living treasure award for American folk artists.”

The famously acquisitive former First Lady of the Philippines is the subject of a five-photo series, “The Imelda Collection,” on display this weekend at the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair in Manhattan. Sample image: “She lounges in shark-infested waters on an inflatable raft belting out the song on the sheet music in her hand. On the tiny island behind her stands a giant gilt high-heeled shoe.” (Yes, she posed herself.)

“The Chicago director Mary Zimmerman, by several accounts, is having a rough time at New York’s Metropolitan Opera with her production of Vincenzo Bellini’s ‘La Sonnambula.’ … And then last night at the Met, Zimmerman and her team of Chicago designers were met with boos and catcalls when they took the stage during the bows.”