“The container is not just the set, but the theatre itself; the audience of 28 will sit on boxes inside as the action goes on around them, and the only lighting will come from torches carried by the actors. A few extra ventilation holes will be drilled; the Young Vic doesn’t want the audience passing out. Recreating the smell of excrement would have been too overwhelming, says [director Tom Wright], but the heat, darkness, smell of sweaty bodies and claustrophobia will make the experience real enough.”
Tag: 07.07.09
Drabinsky’s Sentencing Proposal: I’ll Go On Tour
Livent founder and former Broadway producer Garth Drabinsky, convicted of fraud and forgery, “would teach theater students ‘discipline in the craft,’ talk about honesty and ‘avoidance of unethical conduct’ in visits to 65 schools across the country, as part of a sentence in which he would avoid jail, his lawyer Edward Greenspan told a judge at a sentencing hearing in Toronto today.”
Are Humans Hard-Wired For War? Maybe Not.
A number of researchers believe that organized war is a product of socialization rather than inborn aggressive tendencies. They cite as evidence the lack of fossil records indicating warfare before the rise of settled agriculture; the existence, even today, of societies which rarely or never engage in organized combat; and the fact that the death rate from war and homicide in Europe is now one-tenth of what it was in the Middle Ages.
Alice Tully Hall Will Get Its Organ Back In 2010
“The instrument, a personal gift of Ms. Tully, was removed for the hall’s renovation and was originally to have been restored along with it. But delays left Tully Hall organless when it reopened in February, with no timetable or money designated for the instrument’s return.”
New Leadership At Pittsburgh’s Dance Alloy
“Pittsburgh’s Dance Alloy Theater has appointed Greer Reed-Jones as artistic director and Susan Sparks as director, replacing executive artistic director Beth Corning, who left effective July 3.”
The Yeomen Of The Guard, On Site At The Tower
“Paul Nicholas is to take the lead role of Jack Point in three special performances of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard, which will be staged at The Tower of London to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry VII.”
Real-Life Bookseller Of Kabul Sets Up Business In Britain
“The man who inspired Asne Seierstad’s smash hit The Bookseller of Kabul, Shah Muhammad Rais, is to start selling Afghan books into the UK, including the memoir he penned as an angry response to Seierstad’s book.”
A Directors’ Conclave Honors Jerzy Grotowski
The Polish director, one of the most influential theater artists of the 20th century, “developed the concept of the ‘poor theater’ – theater that has been stripped down to its most essential parts.” A two-week festival in his hometown of Wroclaw last month “drew master directors like Roberto Bacci, Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook and [Richard] Schechner, among others. … All were staging performances and giving workshops and talks as part of the extensive program.”
Opera House Head To Be Cultural Olympiad ‘Ringmaster’
“Royal Opera House chief executive Tony Hall is to be appointed as the new ‘ringmaster’ for the Cultural Olympiad. Hall is in the process of being appointed to the board of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
In Hyde Park, A Resonant And Well-Gauged 7/7 Memorial
“The achievement of the memorial that is to be unveiled to the victims of the bombings in Hyde Park today is that it communicates a sense of collective loss while also honouring the individual tragedies that took place. Designed by the young architects Carmody Groarke, it comprises a field of 52 closely spaced columns, which have been cast in stainless steel.”