Charges Possible In Pops Fight

A court hearing has been scheduled to determine whether either or both of the men involved in the now infamous Boston Pops brawl should be charged with a crime. At the time of the fight, both men were ejected from Symphony Hall, but not arrested. “A few days later the police department reversed its decision not to pursue charges and assigned a detective to investigate.”

“Prostate Pandemonium”: A Theatregoer’s Revenge

“In the western world, middle-aged women are the chief supporters of the arts,” and yet the inexplicable international hit, “Menopause the Musical,” is one of the few theatre pieces that’s ostensibly about them. Germaine Greer muses, “I’m thinking of a moneyspinner called Prostate Pandemonium…. Wouldn’t it be empowering to see ageing men living their urinary chaos out loud, being upfront and honest about their humiliations, dressing in purple, high-kicking and wetting themselves?”

A Longtime A.D. Gets Ready To Wrap It Up

“Richard Hamburger is looking forward to a little peace and quiet. He has been putting final touches on his last show as artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, The Taming of the Shrew, for Tuesday’s opening. He’ll take a few months to wrap up other projects. After that, the rest is silence, at least for a while. ‘I’ve been on call 24/7 for 25 years,’ says Mr. Hamburger….”

Choreographer Michael Smuin, 68

“Choreographer Michael Smuin, a major force in the San Francisco dance world and one of the region’s most prominent and audacious showmen, died of an apparent heart attack Monday morning after collapsing while teaching a Smuin Ballet company class. … Smuin was co-artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet from 1973 to 1985.”

Walking Out On Daisey

“Celebrated storyteller Mike Daisey had barely begun his 90-minute monologue at the American Repertory Theatre when much of the audience suddenly stood up and walked out. One of the put-upon patrons even picked up a glass of water used as an on-stage prop and poured it over Daisey’s papers. The problem? The posse, 87 students and staff visiting Thursday from Norco High School in Southern California, objected to Daisey’s dirty language.”

A Nelson-Atkins Architectural Tribute

Steven Holl’s design for an extension of Kansas City’s Nelson Atkins Museum “initially seems to pay scant attention to the old building, and to be the opposite of everything that the classical vocabulary represents. But Holl has avoided the trap of honoring an older structure by closely echoing its architectural cues, a choice that would surely have resulted in a mass of masonry overwhelming a beautiful setting. Instead, the lightness and softness of his buildings, and their asymmetry, bestow on the classical museum a kind of perpetual gravitas, as well as ceding it pride of place.”

John Adams: Rumors Of Our Death…

He dismisses talk of the so-called “death of classical music” as pretty meaningless. “The world is full of people with creative ideas,” says Adams. “We could, to make things simpler, just forget about the term ‘classical.’ That might make things easier. But I still like to use it, because it reminds me that what I do aims at having a very long shelf-life.”