praeceptrix

Don Poynter, creator of the Little Black Box and many other oddities, died of cancer on August 13th. He was 96.

Donald York, Musical Director of Paul Taylor Company, died on June 3rd, at the age of 73. I have had the pleasure of attending many performances of his work. He seemed to really understand composing for dancers, and his (slightly warped) sense of humor meshed perfectly with Paul Taylor's brilliant choreography.

Mario Batali and his former business partner have reached a settlement in their sexual harassment case. They have to pay $600k to "at least 20" former employees. Not nearly enough.

After 145 Years, Bayreuth Festival Has Its First Female Conductor. Oksana Lyniv, 43, will open the festival this Sunday. It took them long enough!

Los Angeles authorities on Tuesday transported Harvey Weinstein to California to face charges of rape and sexual assault in the city where he made his name as a movie producer.

Good question. I'm under the impression that "reality" tv is 99.99% fiction, so it makes sense to me to include them. (Full disclosure: I don't actually watch most of the shows people post about, I just enjoy reading what everyone has to say.)

I'm not familiar with her other work, but I did see Kolja when it came out. I will have to see if I can find the Cinderella film, as well as the 1991 Czech version of The Beggar's Opera she was in.

As many of you have spoken highly of A Black Lady Sketch Show, you might be interested in a free zoom event at Brooklyn College with one of the producers, Deniese Davis. Ms. Davis, a Brooklyn College alumna, will be talking about trying to increase representation in the industry. The event is on June 15th from 12:30 to 2. The link above has more details.

I am NYC born and raised, but I was in graduate school at UCLA at the time, and it was scary as all get out. Not sure if I would want to watch a fictional version of the events.

Today's New York Times has an interesting article about the pandemic shut down of Broadway and how various television shows stepped up to hire the actors. I may have to watch some of the shows mentioned, especially The Gilded Age, whose cast consists of "a company of theater heroes, with enough combined Tonys to crowd a mansion’s mantels."

I wasn't sure where to post this, but here's an interesting article about a voice actor, Bev Standing, suing Tik Tok over unauthorized use of her voice.

Probably. Check out the threads in the Everything Else section. I remember checking out that section way back when TWoP died and I found this site. I kinda forgot about it until the Royals topic got moved there, but have only looked at a few of the threads.

You beat me to it! I was just about to type out a rant on the topic of obviously empty cups! Drives me batty.

We all know that Jessica Fletcher was actually responsible for bumping off 90% of the victims! Add to the list of places with ridiculously high rates of murders and serial killers: Midsomer. I'm up to season 8 and almost every single episode has multiple murders! One of the comments on an episode on YouTube pointed out how rare it was for there to be only a single murder. Then there's the family connection: I get that the series is in the cozy genre and thus steeped in small English village ambiance, but it's still more than a little odd for Tom Barnaby's wife and daughter to be tangentially connected to so many of his cases.

There's an interesting article in today's New York Times about the changes to television productions due to the pandemic and the changing advice/rules for safety protocols.

British-Asian actress Parminder Nagra has said she was once turned down for a role on a well-known US TV show because they "already had an Indian person".

The legal drama continues: A lawyer for Britney Spears says she has requested to speak directly about her conservatorship in court.

Glimmerglass Opera just announced that their Emeritus General & Artistic Director, Paul Kellogg, died today (of natural causes) at the age of 84. The obituary in Broadway World is quite informative. Mr. Kellogg was also the General & Artistic Director for New York City Opera. I'd have to go through my (extensive and completely disorganized) collection of playbills to find out if I ever saw his productions at City Opera; I only attended performances of Glimmerglass long after his retirement.

Opera star Christa Ludwig has died at the age of 93.

I don't pay that much attention to awards shows, so I had no idea that it's been almost a half century since the last time there were two Black women nominated for Best Actress oscars (I still think Cicely Tyson should have won in 1973). The New York Times published an insightful article about how movies portray brilliant Black women musicians. From the article: Both “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” represent the singers more as victims of their social circumstances than virtuosos, potentially obscuring the contributions of two of the most innovative, influential American figures to ever sing onstage. The article does acknowledge that that's a genre problem, that movies about brilliant artists often focus more on personal trauma than artistic talent, and that the problem is amplified when the artist is female. I suspect it's also a case of lazy story telling. When your subject is a complex example of intersectionality -- Black, female, and brilliant in a field few people outside the field understand -- it's simply easier to repeat the trope of the traumatized victim who overcomes their past. The article does provide some hope that there are filmmakers who are willing to go beyond lazy tropes and provide more nuanced portrayals: Ultimately, it is another Oscar-nominated film that offers up the most unencumbered depiction of Black women’s musical virtuosity: “Soul,” the animated Pixar film, with its revered jazz saxophonist Dorothea Williams (coincidentally voiced by Bassett). Partly because we know so little of her back story, she comes across as an icon, and is the musician whom the film’s protagonist, the pianist Joe Gardner, most wants to play with and emulate.

Helen McCrory, 52, has died. She starred in Peaky Blinders and played Narcissa Malfoy in three of the Harry Potter films.

More than 80 actors and entertainment industry professionals including Amy Poehler, Naomie Harris and Jessica Barden have signed an open letter against prejudice and discrimination towards disabled talent in Hollywood. From the linked article: The letter says there's an "urgent need to act on disability inclusion" and urges major studios to appoint permanent disability officers. The number of disabled characters on screen "continues to severely under-represent the actual US population living with disabilities", it says. "Due to years of misrepresentation in the media, social barriers, and chronic ableism, the deaf, hard of hearing, neurodiverse and disabled communities continue to be underrepresented and disrespected in the entertainment industry." How much good it will do remains to be seen, but I think -- hope -- that it will at least raise awareness among non-disabled actors and encourage them to support their colleagues in a more active fashion.

Lena Dunham is expanding her horizons and debuting a fashion line in partnership with 11 Honoré. I've not watched any of her shows or movies, so I can't really comment on her talent or how she presents herself. I do think this could be a good venture, if the prices were more reasonable.

Do you have a citation for the abortion? From the little I know, there were many rumors about Rappe, but nothing conclusive. Her wikipedia entry says that the autopsy proved that the rumor of Ms. Rappe having had a child in 1918 was false, but given the source (an article in the Sausalito News quoting the District Attorney prosecuting Arbuckle) I am not sure how trustworthy it is without seeing the actual autopsy report. The Arbuckle entry states that the autopsy showed that she had never had a child or an abortion, but doesn't provide a citation. It's clear that the media had a field day (and made lots of money selling papers) publishing nasty stories about both Rappe and Arbuckle, but not much in the way of verifiable facts.

French director Bertrand Tavernier, 79, has died.