NPR: The RSC In NYC: 41 Actors, Five Plays, Six Weeks One week before the first performance, the Dri
NPR: The RSC In NYC: 41 Actors, Five Plays, Six Weeks
One week before the first performance, the Drill Hall of the armory is filled with steel and timber, costumes, sets, props and workers scurrying around. Michael Boyd, the artistic director of the RSC, eagerly shows off the intimate 975-seat theater, which was packed in 46 shipping containers and is still being assembled, kind of like a huge IKEA kit. (You can see a time-lapse video of the theater being constructed, along with clips from all five plays, at the RSC’s YouTube page.)
“Millimeter for millimeter, it’s pretty much the same as what we’ve built in Stratford,” Boyd says. That’s Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace and the RSC’s permanent home for the past 50 years. “It’s now Wednesday afternoon,” Boyd continues. “By Friday morning, a technical rehearsal with actors is theoretically going to start!”
The RSC has come to America to do what it does best. The six-week residency, which kicked off last week, features productions of five Shakespeare classics: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale, and King Lear. And all of the actors play at least two or three different roles. Sam Troughton, who plays Romeo and Brutus in Julius Caesar and understudies Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale, says seeing Shakespeare in repertory is a great way to be immersed in the variety of the Bard’s work.
See previous: Enter a Royal Ensemble, Preceded By Its Stage
∞ July 14th, 2011
The Royal Shakespeare Company is performing a summer repertory season of five plays here in New York City, in association with Lincoln Center Festival. This tour is not so much about what they’re performing as much as it is about where they’re performing.
THE Royal Shakespeare Company doesn’t travel light. In mid-June a convoy of 46 shipping containers began to arrive at the Park Avenue Armory, having made the journey by truck and boat from Stratford-Upon-Avon to the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
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One container was filled with flat-packed hoop skirts and World War I uniforms. Another held a life-size model of a wild boar and a 12-foot bear suit with glowing eyes. A third stored 20 wigs, 15 mustaches and several cans of litchis to serve as Gloucester’s savaged eyeballs in “King Lear.” But that was just for starters.
As it happens, the company also packed a million-dollar theater.
For its six-week stint at the armory beginning Wednesday, co-produced by the Armory and the Lincoln Center Festival in association with Ohio State University, the company will perform five plays in repertory (as well as two plays for young audiences) on an almost exact replica of its new main stage in Stratford. Exploiting almost every inch of the Armory’s 65 feet of usable height, this three-tier auditorium seats 975 and boasts a thrust stage that extends far out into the audience, allowing for greater interplay between actors and spectators. The portable theater’s ingenious design incorporates most of the shipping crates to raise and support the stage and to create a backstage storage area. The original Stratford stage took more than two years to build; the armory one must be assembled in just two weeks.
(via the new york times)
Enter a Royal Ensemble, Preceded by Its Stage
∞ July 12th, 2011
A stunning timelapse video of the sunset and fireworks on the Hudson River on July 4th, 2011. It was shot by John Huntington from Pier 66 on Manhattan’s west side.
(via Pat Kiernan)
∞ July 9th, 2011
The New York Times is reporting that, in certain areas of Manhattan, up to 30% of apartments are rented or owned, yet empty.
In one part of that stretch, between East 53rd and 59th Streets, more than half of the 500 apartments are occupied for two months or less. That is a higher proportion than in resort and second-home communities like Aspen, Colo.; Palm Beach, Fla.; Virginia Beach; and Litchfield, Conn.
It can be see as an advantage or disadvantage to the other occupants in an sparsely inhabited building:
“Some people might feel they rather live in a building with more of a social environment,” said Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats, a real estate brokerage firm. “Other people might say, ‘Less people in my building means less wear and tear on the facilities.’ ”
Among the latter is Michael Gross, who wrote the book “740 Park,” about one of those apartment buildings, he explained, where every owner “has five homes” someplace else.
“It’s lovely,” said Mr. Gross, who lives on a block of West 58th Street where about 1 in 6 people lives only part time. “A fully staffed building, empty elevators and you never run out of hot water.”
(via @NewYorkology)
the lights are off and no one is home
∞ July 7th, 2011
theatlantic: The Creative Process Behind New York’s Iconic High Line James Corner is one of the prem
A short film shot entirely on a Nokia N8 mobile phone. Winner of the Nokia Shorts competition 2011.
∞ June 29th, 2011
92y: Have you ever read the story about the tunnel-boring machine that went missing in 1971? After d