“It is a case of the UK’s most talked about experimental theatre group joining forces with one of its mightiest opera companies – and the results could be spectacular. English National Opera is to create a version of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi with Punchdrunk, the company that has made waves with its habit of flinging the audience in among its performers, and creating work in atmospheric, abandoned buildings.”
Tag: 03.31.10
Jazz Guitarist Herb Ellis, 88
“In a career than spanned six decades, the Texas-born Ellis was regarded as one of the finest jazz guitar soloists. Innovative guitarist Les Paul paid him the compliment: ‘If you’re not swinging, he’s gonna make you swing’.”
Tour Of ‘101 Dalmatians’ Musical Euthanized
“The national tour of the new musical 101 Dalmatians will come to an end earlier than expected following its upcoming April engagement at Madison Square Garden … The production opened in October in Minneapolis … [and] was supposed to [make] stops in New York, Pittsburgh, L.A., San Diego and other cities.” But the tour “appears to have been a troubled one.”
Paula Vogel Will Take Fall Semester Off To Write A Play
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, who chairs the Yale School of Drama playwriting program, will spend the semester working “on a new play commissioned by Yale Rep through the Yale Center for New Theater.” Doug Wright will join the school as a lecturer.
On Dancing With The Stars, Jocks Rule
“While athletes represent just 18% of the contestants, not counting this season, they’ve won five of the nine competitions, placed second three times and third once more. That works out to a collective success rate of 47%…. The only group that compares is musicians, who’ve managed to claim eight spots on the podium.”
Hollywood Is United In Its Loathing Of Box-Office Futures
“Among those coming out against the proposed markets … are the Directors Guild of America, the Independent Film and Television Alliance, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the National Assn. of Theater Owners. The groups sent a letter to the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] criticizing the idea.”
‘Glee’, Craig Ferguson, Jerome Robbins Doc Among Peabody Award Winners
“ABC’s Modern Family, Fox’s Glee, HBO’s In Treatment, Kermit and company and Craig Ferguson were among the 36 recipients of Peabody Awards.” Other winners include PBS documentaries Jerome Robbins – Something to Dance About and Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times, public radio host Diane Rehm and the websites of NPR and Sesame Street.
When ‘La Fille Mal Gardee’ Feels Like ‘Home Sweet Home’
Alastair Macaulay: “It is a pastoral work about life on a farm. … I come from a farming family, and I grew up less than an hour’s drive from the part of Suffolk that gave Ashton most inspiration. Like the ballet’s heroine, I grew up with a view of a farmyard from my bedroom window, and I was often left alone inside the farmhouse to daydream.”
In Hong Kong’s Macho Cinema, Women Filmmakers Make Headway
“Of the four films chosen to open and close the Hong Kong International Film Festival, three are by local women. The fourth is by a man who goes by the name of ‘Scud.’ Three out of four is a high proportion for any city, particularly one famous for its macho cinema, where the men are gangsters and kung fu masters and the women are merely pretty.”
DIY Plays Bigger Role In Theatre, And That’s A Good Thing
A new crop of artist-led, artist-funded “projects defiantly see themselves as creative opportunities rather than businesses, with an-anything-is-possible attitude that I find cheering. … The shows that we never see because they never got past the grant application stage may have been the ones that would have changed the way we think about theatre.”