One young woman who is at “the university of Mickey Mouse” – that is, working in communications for Disneyland Paris – says that fluency in idiomatic English is a must-have for business. If you aren’t fluent, she says, you’re ashamed – and “it makes you feel excluded.” And the laws that help French resist anglicization may be part of the problem. – Le Monde (France)
Tag: 06.07.19
Tharp Times Three
Twyla Tharp revivals bring to mind how we understood her 40 years ago. – Deborah Jowitt
After Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Series On The Central Park Five, The Prosecutor Is Dropped By Publisher
Linda Fairstein published 24 books after retiring as a prosecutor, but the new Netflix series When They See Us shows her “determined to see the boys convicted, regardless of inconsistencies and evidence that suggested their innocence.” That may be dramatized – and she has threatened a lawsuit – but the fallout has been swift. – The New York Times
Dr. John, Back in the Day and Blindfolded
The dazzling, dense, glorious career of the New Orleans musician. – Howard Mandel
The Met Scales (Way) Back On A Production Whose Technological Demands Just Can’t Be Met
The opera will go back to concert productions of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust next year, because, well, the production that was scheduled was way too demanding. The Met “decided not to revive the production after officials realized that they would need to revamp some elements of it to meet newer industry safety standards, refurbish some of its automated mechanical systems, and update video projections that are more than a decade old.” – The New York Times
Our Obsession With Old Diaries And Other ‘Found Texts’
The author, or is that “the author,” of a new book that emerged from a diary found in 2004, says that she learned to write while reshaping the diary into a book, and that there’s a certain cost to that: “By selecting and shaping the material in this way I’ve distorted, misrepresented the ‘real life’ of the diary to suit my purposes—or, as Davis says, I’ve made it into a fiction.” – The Millions
Critic Margo Jefferson On Coming To Terms With Her Writing About Michael Jackson
Jefferson, author of On Michael Jackson: “Am I chagrined and shamed that when I wrote my book I couldn’t push myself to acknowledge that this damaged man was almost certainly a sexual predator? Of course I am. As a critic I’m invested in believing I’m not in the grip of naivety or denial. … [But] the crises that have created #MeToo and similar movements show how little we knew and how little we chose to know.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Backstage ‘Nests’ Of Broadway
Harvey Fierstein (who prefers a riot of color): “Superstition demands that a dressing room cannot be decorated until the reviews are published. It’s the old ‘counting your chicks before they’re hatched’ deal. But some actors take the monastic approach even further.” – The New York Times
Laura Linney On ‘Tales Of The City,’ And Leaving Georgia, And Its Retrograde New Laws, Behind
Re the return of Tales of the City for a Netflix generation, she says, “I hope that it does what the arts do, which is it makes you feel less alone.” And re the show Ozarks, which films in Georgia: “I don’t want to ever stop working in Georgia. But if this law goes forward … I think we’ll have to leave. Because if you don’t stand up for this, then what do you stand up for? What does it take?” – The New York Times
When Theatre Artists Read The Mueller Report Aloud, Did That Qualify As Theatre?
Howard Sherman (who was one of the readers): “It certainly was a performance: the airing of a document with the use of theatrical tools to illuminate a text for others. … If journalism is the rough draft of history, then [the reading] was the first draft of drama based on history.” – The Stage