DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Review: This ‘House of Bernarda Alba’ Is on Fire
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Matt Wolf | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The ground is breathing fire, we’re told, in “The House of Bernarda Alba,” the Spanish classic by Federico García Lorca that opened Tuesday at the National Theater in London in a ferocious new version by Alice Birch. The show runs through Jan. 6. Directed by Rebecca Frecknall and starring Harriet Walter from “Succession” in the imperious title role, it really is scorching. Lorca’s play about a tough-as-nails matriarch and her five unmarried daughters in 1930s Andalusia is regularly revived in theaters in England, but I’ve never seen an ensemble so fully committed to the play, which races toward its tragic finish with genuinely shocking force. As Frecknall has demonstrated in work including that of Tennessee Williams and the Broadway-bound revival of “Cabaret,” she has a gift for reinvigorating familiar titles as though they were brand new.

Persons: we’re, Bernarda Alba, Federico García Lorca, Alice Birch, Rebecca Frecknall, Harriet Walter, I’ve, Frecknall, Tennessee Williams, ” Organizations: National Theater Locations: The, London, Jan, Andalusia, England

☆ ‘Infinite Life’ Review: Is There a Cure for Pain and Desire?
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Jesse Green | More About Jesse Green | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

But if you think you see where that’s going, you will be both right and wrong; Baker’s structures are so strong and yet open that, within them, anything or its opposite may happen at any moment. “Infinite Life” (a co-production with Britain’s National Theater) gets that and more from James Macdonald, who has notably staged plays by Baker in London and by the British playwright Caryl Churchill here in New York. Indeed, “Infinite Life” most closely reminded me of Churchill’s great “Escaped Alone,” in which four women sit in a garden chatting into the apocalypse. They are all expressions of Baker’s refusal to reduce the world to a unitary lesson; “Infinite Life” offers moral philosophy but no moral. Which, by the way, is what “Daniel Deronda,” past page 152, is about — and “Infinite Life” is always.

Persons: James Macdonald, Baker, Caryl Churchill, “, Macdonald, Tennessee Williams, Albee, Nielsen, Ásta Bennie Hostetter, Birdsong, Bray, Isabella Byrd’s, ” Sofi, Daniel Deronda, Linda Gross Organizations: Britain’s, New York, Linda, Linda Gross Theater Locations: London, British, New York, Tennessee, Manhattan

☆ How Merve Emre became the hottest — and most reviled — name in literary criticism
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Last winter, the 37-year-old literary critic and Wesleyan professor Merve Emre stood in front of a microphone in Rachel Comey's Soho boutique. While the others had largely opted to pull boldfaced names from the Review's archives — like a 1985 Gore Vidal piece about Tennessee Williams — Merve Emre would be reading Merve Emre. Emre has penned so many introductions for new anthologies and reissues that one fan joked on Twitter: "every new baby in 2024 comes with an introduction by merve emre." Courtesy of Merve Emre. Over her cocktail, Merve Emre told me what my profile on Merve Emre should be about.

Persons: Merve Emre, Rachel Comey's, Emily Greenhouse, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams — Merve Emre, Emre, Diane Williams, who's, Everyone's, Elena Ferrante, Jonathan Franzen, Rachel Cusk, Susan Sontag, Michael Roth, Reading Emre, merve emre, John Guillory, Dorothy Parker, Christopher Hitchens, Jon Fosse, Stephanie LaCava, Batuman, Lawrence, Alison Roman, Frank Gehry, Jason Stanley, someone's, they're, Anna Shechtman, Anne, Maggie Doherty, doesn't, Emre Emre, Roald Dahl's, Matilda, Myers, Briggs, you've, I've, Bain, Chris Bierly, I'd, Amy Lombard, Ferrante, She's, Christian Nakarado, Leo Carey, Jason, Nakarado, hasn't, Emre's, Altan, Emre lasered, Ara Osterweil, McGill, Beyoncé, Osterweil, Al Jazeera, sensitively, Ivy pricks, she's, Michael Berube, He'd, he'd, James Joyce, Simone de Beauvoir, Merve, Sarah Chihaya, —, Mary Butts, Leonora Carrington, Susan Taubes, Taubes, Durga Chew, Christian Lorentzen, Orhan Pamuk, Lena Dunham, Chew, Bose, Yale's, it's, she'd, Taylor Swift, Elif Batuman, Swift, Janet Malcolm, Charlie Kaufman, Roth, we're, What's, Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, It's, Elizabeth Morache, Rebecca Zisser, David Bergman Organizations: The New York, McGill, Times, New York Magazine, The, Yorker, Wesleyan University, Reading, Twitter, McGill ,, Wesleyan, Ivy League, Yale, Shapiro Center, Creative, NBA, Harvard, Bain & Company, Insider Yale, HBO, Congress, NPR, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New York, Yahoo, Oxford, Oxford . McGill, University of Oxford, Penn State, Fordham University, Boston, Intelligence Squared, Yale Science, University, Whitney Museum, Netflix Locations: Rachel Comey's Soho, McGill , Oxford, Columbia, Norwegian, New Haven , Connecticut, New Haven, Adana, Turkey, New York, Cambridge, Montreal, United States, chiseling, Turkish

☆ How Merve Emre became the hottest — and most divisive — name in literary criticism
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

☆ The Fight Over the Dune Shacks of Cape Cod: No Power, No Water — but Eugene O’Neill Was Here
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( Jenna Russell | More About Jenna Russell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Among those inspired by the solitude and natural wonder they found there were the playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams, painters Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, novelists Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer and poets E.E. “A grand place to be alone and undisturbed,” O’Neill once said of his hideaway there. “I’m ashamed that the Park Service would try to capitalize on it, without realizing the point of the shacks was to get away from civilization, from capitalism.”The Park Service set no limit on financial offers from bidders. The structures’ use must be private and residential, not commercial; modern upgrades are not allowed, and lease holders will bear the full costs of their upkeep. The agency declined to say how many bids were submitted by the July deadline, or when it will notify the winners.

Persons: Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, E.E . Cummings, Mary Oliver, “, O’Neill, ”, Salvatore Del Deo, John F, Kennedy Organizations: Service, Coast Guard

☆ Review: In London, a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ That Feels Startlingly New
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Matt Wolf | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Is love a tender thing?” Romeo asks early in the Shakespeare tragedy to which he and Juliet give their names. Not so much, according to the raw and riveting new production of “Romeo and Juliet” that opened Wednesday at the Almeida Theater here. It’s no surprise that the courtship between the noble Romeo — here played by the sweet-faced Toheeb Jimoh, from TV’s “Ted Lasso” — and the teenage Juliet will end in calamity. Her “Romeo and Juliet,” performed without an intermission, begins with the cast clawing feverishly at a stage wall, onto which are projected crucial lines from the prologue. But as if in haste to get straight to the meat of the play, the wall soon collapses to reveal the citizenry of Verona mid-combat.

Persons: Romeo, Juliet, Juliet ”, It’s, Romeo —, Toheeb Jimoh, Ted Lasso ” —, Rebecca Frecknall, Olivier, —, “, ” Frecknall, Tennessee Williams, ” Organizations: Almeida Locations: British, New York, Verona

☆ Read Your Way Through Los Angeles
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Héctor Tobar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Read Your Way Around the World is a series exploring the globe through books. Outsiders often think of Los Angeles as an anti-intellectual place, all Hollywood glitz and no substance, but writers have always been drawn to my hometown. In David L. Ulin’s “Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology,” I read about Simone de Beauvoir’s 1947 journey to L.A.’s Eastside, where she learned about the city’s anti-Mexican prejudice and admired Dia de los Muertos skulls. It’s no accident that two very different, canonical works of L.A. literature climax with riots, even though they were written more than a half century apart: Nathanael West’s 1939 novel “The Day of the Locust,” and Anna Deavere Smith’s play “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.”Is there a book, or a writer, who captures the essence of Los Angeles? With her iconic 1960s and ‘70s essays about Los Angeles and the West, in collections such as “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Didion helped invent New Journalism.

☆ 'My Neighbour Totoro,' Paul Mescal, Jodie Comer win at Olivier awards
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Marie-Louise Gumuchian | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] Jodie Comer poses with the award for Best Actress for "Prima Facie" accompanied by Paul Mescal at the Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Britain, April 2, 2023. It won best entertainment or comedy play as well as the director, set, lighting, sound and costume design category prizes. It won best revival, best actor for Paul Mescal for his role as Stanley Kowalski and best actress in a supporting role for Anjana Vasan, for her portrayal of Stella. "Killing Eve" star Jodie Comer won best actress in one-woman play "Prima Facie," in which she portrays a barrister who defends men accused of sexual assault before herself being assaulted. won best musical revival and best actor in a musical for Arthur Darvill.

☆ In the spotlight: London hosts Olivier Awards for theatre
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Marie-Louise Gumuchian | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Paul Mescal arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar party after the 95th Academy Awards, known as the Oscars, in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., March 12, 2023. The London theatre community will gather at the Royal Albert Hall for the annual ceremony, named after the famed British actor Laurence Olivier and which celebrates the best productions in the capital. These include nods for best entertainment or comedy play, choreography, directing, costume design and music, as well as a best actress nomination for Mei Mac, who plays younger sibling, four-year-old Mei. Paul Mescal, who was nominated at this year's Oscars, has been recognised in the best actor category for playing Stanley Kowalski in a revival of Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”. "Killing Eve" star Comer is up for best actress in one-woman play "Prima Facie", in which she portrays a barrister who defends men accused of sexual assault before herself being assaulted.

☆ ‘Arthur Miller’ Review: Only Truth for Sale
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Willard Spiegelman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Growing up in Philadelphia, I had from childhood heard the story about the pre-Broadway opening of “Death of a Salesman” in 1949. The playwright, the 33-year old Arthur Miller, at first didn’t know what to think. A biography is a “life” that re-creates a life. Any individual existence moves forward, but the written version must be assembled retrospectively, from a distance, with whatever wisdom hindsight can provide. His book “Arthur Miller: American Witness” begins with the triumph of “Salesman” before traveling back to the playwright’s Depression-era youth.

☆ Unicorn indie-film studio A24 is in talks to buy the Cherry Lane Theatre, New York's oldest off-Broadway theater
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Cherry Lane Theatre was put back on the market in 2021 after a previous sale fell through. The purchase comes as Hollywood increasingly looks to the theater world for IP and talent. A24, the Oscar-winning studio behind indie hits like "Uncut Gems," "Midsommar," and "Moonlight," is in talks to buy the Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City's oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Cherry Lane was put back on the market in November 2021 after a deal to buy the theater for $11 million fell through amid disagreements over the price. Representatives from the Cherry Lane Theatre and A24 declined to comment on any prospective sale.

☆ Leslie Jordan loved Instagram and it loved him right back
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Lisa Respers France | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Scrolling through Leslie Jordan’s Instagram account could make you smile, laugh, and, now, cry. Instagram brought Jordan more fame and offered his audience a platform to connect with a sassy, funny, uncle-type many needed during a dark time. Jordan told the Washington Post in 2020 that he had returned from California to his native Chattanooga on family business and decided to stay to shelter in place with his loved ones. Jordan grew an Instagram following of nearly 6 million people over who reveled in his jokes, observations and stories. You’ve got to help one another.”Jordan’s final post before he died, posted Sunday, gave some chills in light of what was to come.

☆ Opinion | Frustrated With Polling? Pollsters Are, Too
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Quoctrung Bui | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +18 min

But what’s really troubling pollsters going into this election is that it’s unclear how much more error these problems will add during this cycle. Just because you put the right ingredients in a bowl, doesn’t mean you’re going to end up with a cake. I think a lot of that has been swept under the rug because the move to online polling seems so inexorable. Pollsters don’t know what people are seeing, hearing and reading. I know at FiveThirtyEight you can search by A-rated or B-rated, but I don’t know how they’re coming up with these ratings.

Search resuls for: "Tennessee Williams"

13 mentions found