“Mr. Willis was a theatergoing phenomenon. Before he broke his hip in a fall in 2002, he saw everything he could, attending an average of eight live performances a week, 50 weeks a year — which over a half-century adds up to 20,000 shows. (He took off two weeks each June to visit his home in Bean Station, Tenn.)”
Tag: 06.29.10
Playwrights’ Center Taps Jeremy Cohen As Artistic Director
“Cohen spent six years as director of new play development at Hartford Stage,” while his predecessor at the Playwrights’ Center transformed that institution “from an organization with a local focus on developing scripts into one that invites national writers to have their work staged in the Twin Cities.”
Contemplating The Origins Of The Sad Minor Third
“So which came first, the sad minor third in music or the sad minor third in speech? Have centuries of music in minor keys conditioned us to the sound of sadness, or has music through the ages drawn from the cadences of our speech and heightened its emotional power?”
In This Economy, Sanctimony About Sponsorship?
“If supporting Tate is meant to associate BP with cool art, it is a failure. I must have seen the BP logo a thousand times on press releases and it never lodged in my mind. I have never thought Tate=BP, let alone Tate=BP=oil is good.”
MoMA Draws Record Number Of Visitors In FY 2010
“Despite a slow economy and MoMA’s relatively high ticket price of $20, a number of exhibitions generated heavy traffic,” while “[m]embership also rose, to an estimated 134,000 in the 2010 fiscal year. Despite the upswing, the museum cautioned that the contributing factors are ‘not necessarily reproducible.'”
A Movie Critic Pleads: Actors, Come Back From The Stage
“If theater is being treated as a rejuvenating sabbatical away from the deadening effects of Hollywood, it’s hard not to see adult moviemaking (films made for, by, and about grown-ups — although not called ‘Grown Ups,’ please) as chopped liver. Worse, actually: the greasy deli wrapping some chopped liver comes in.”
Spanish Govt.: Rail Tunnel Near Gaudi Church Will Proceed
The Spanish government is ignoring a non-binding vote in its parliament that would suspend construction of a high-speed rail tunnel 13 feet from Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia “as a cautionary measure while independent experts devise an alternate train route that would link Barcelona with the French border without jeopardising the work of ‘God’s architect.'”
The Upside Of A Wandering Mind
“A wandering mind can protect you from immediate perils and keep you on course toward long-term goals. Sometimes daydreaming is counterproductive, but sometimes it fosters creativity and helps you solve problems.”
Group Of Libraries Unveils Digital-Borrowing Program
They “are joining forces to create a one-stop website for checking out e-books, including access to more than a million scanned public domain books and a catalog of thousands of contemporary e-book titles available at many public libraries.” Also on tap: “scans of a few hundred older books that are still in copyright, but no longer sold commercially.”