Theatre & Dance

Beside the seaside: Blackpool and national biography

By Sue Arthur
Memories of your summer holiday may be fading, but the latest update of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography seeks to rekindle the summer—or at least summers past—with one of the new additions from its latest update, published today. For forty years Reginald Dixon (1904-1985) played the Wurlitzer at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool, turning a former cinema organist into a recording star, known worldwide for his signature tune, ‘I do like to be beside the seaside.’ Here Dixon’s biographer, Sue Arthur, describes the man who became ‘Mr Blackpool’, and the interwar resort he helped to make a national attraction.

Editing Shakespeare

By Stanley Wells
In 1979 Oxford University Press appointed me as the founding head of a Shakespeare department. The Oxford Shakespeare, first published in 1891, had been rendered seriously out of date by advances in scholarship.

Have you heard of René Blum?

Well? Have you? If not, it’s probably because René Blum’s lifelong career in the arts has been safely hidden from the history books. Only his brother Léon Blum, the first Socialist and Jewish Prime Minister of France, received enormous attention. But Judith Chazin-Bennahum knows why René Blum deserves to be remembered: because he was an extraordinary man. Chazin-Bennahum’s book introduces the reader to the world of the Belle Epoque artists and writers, the Dreyfus Affair, the playwrights and painters who reigned supreme during the late 19^th century and early 20^th century period in Paris. Below she provides us with just a few of his most impressive accomplishments.

Art, love, and the terror in Norway

By Toril Moi

Like other Norwegians I am in shock at the terrible events in Oslo and at Utøya on 22 July. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.

I was not in Norway when the horror happened. On 22 July, I was giving a talk about Ibsen’s 1873 play Emperor and Galilean at the National Theatre in London. I only learned about the bombing in Oslo and the massacre at Utøya later that night. When I discovered that the terrorist in Norway saw himself as

Congratulations, Zhou Long!

Please join us in congratulating composer Zhou Long, as he has been awarded with the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Madame White Snake. The opera (written by Cerise Lim Jacobs) premiered on February 26, 2010 at Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theatre. Drawing on a Chinese folk tale, this opera blends musical traditions from the East and the West to tell the story of a powerful white snake demon who longs to become human so she can experience love – but she meets with deceit, doubt and distrust.

To have been a muppet in that nightclub…

By Michelle Rafferty

What made Louis Armstrong embarrassed? Why was Cab Calloway on Sesame Street? To learn a little more about these two legends check out the podcast below with BBC Producer Alyn Shipton and the talented interviewer Annie Shipton (yes that would be Alyn’s daughter).

You’ve Been McGuggenized!

By Michelle Rafferty

When my friend sent me a link with the subject line: Carmel in WSJ! I clicked with trepidation. The last time my hometown made national news it involved a sodomy hazing incident and the high school basketball team. Phew. It was only a minor dispute over an expensive new piece of suburban architecture:

Tchaikovsky is No One-Trick Pony

I’d argue our Black Swan fever peaked at Jim Carey’s SNL performance, but we might see a resurgence this weekend at the Oscars. In anticipation I contacted Roland John Wiley, author of Tchaikovsky and Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, for his thoughts on his subject’s recent omnipresence. Turns out Wiley’s a bit of an outsider in the academic community, where the composer hasn’t always been taken seriously. Here, Wiley explains the trappings of music snobbery – and why Tchaikovsky’s popularity among the “muggles” is no reason to discount his brilliance. (Oh, and, he dishes on the original Swan Lake ballerina dra-ma!)

‘Spider-Man’ is little more than spectacle

By Robin S. Rosenberg

I recently saw a preview for the musical Spider-Man: Turn Out the Dark. It’s not really a musical; it’s a spectacle. It succeeds as a spectacle, fails as a musical, and hangs itself as a Spider-Man origin story. It’s easier to find good things to say about the spectacle aspect, so I’ll start by reviewing that aspect of the play.

Doesn’t it make you wanna dance?

The new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Dance, by Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell, informs readers about all things dance, from Fred Astaire and George Balanchine, to Japanese butoh, krumping, and tap dancing. At this time of year, theaters are full of wonderful dance productions from The Nutcracker to Swan Lake (and even Black Swan, in a different way, is making a splash). Here are a few entries about choreographers, works, and dance styles that I especially enjoy – with links to videos of some of the works described to further your dance education. –Hanna Oldsman, Publicity Intern