Christie's sets Repin record in Russian art sale

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Participants inspect a painting called 'A Parisian Cafe' by artist Ilya Repin during the Fine Art Auction House Christie's Moscow exhibition, April 1, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

LONDON | Mon Jun 6, 2011 10:33am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Christie's claimed a new auction record for Russian artist Ilya Repin on Monday when his 1875 canvas "A Parisian Cafe" fetched 4.5 million pounds ($7.4 million) at the start of Russian art week in London.

The large-scale canvas, depicting a bustling cafe crowded with well-heeled customers, had been expected to fetch 3-5 million pounds and fetched one of the highest prices of any painting at a specialist Russian sale.

That record is held by Russian art auctioneer MacDougall's, which raised around seven million pounds with Russian-American artist Nikolai Fechin's "The Little Cowboy" last year.

Christie's holds a single Russian art sale in London this week on Monday, while its rival Sotheby's has three separate auctions ending on Wednesday. MacDougall's holds four sales on Wednesday and Thursday with an overall low estimate of 15 million pounds.

"We were optimistic going into the week and that optimism has been confirmed by the Christie's result," MacDougall's director William MacDougall said.

"The oil price is going up and there are more billionaires in Moscow," he added, referring to the kind of wealthy tycoons who can compete for the top lots during Russian art week.

"The Russian economy didn't suffer as badly as some economies in the (financial) crisis and is clearly in a recovery, and the art market has been in recovery since April 2009."

MacDougall's top lot on offer this week is a 1911 portrait by Boris Kostudiev of his daughter Irina which is expected to fetch 1.2-1.8 million pounds.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

Participants inspect a painting called 'A Parisian Cafe' by artist Ilya Repin during the Fine Art Auction House Christie's Moscow exhibition, April 1, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

LONDON | Mon Jun 6, 2011 10:33am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Christie's claimed a new auction record for Russian artist Ilya Repin on Monday when his 1875 canvas "A Parisian Cafe" fetched 4.5 million pounds ($7.4 million) at the start of Russian art week in London.

The large-scale canvas, depicting a bustling cafe crowded with well-heeled customers, had been expected to fetch 3-5 million pounds and fetched one of the highest prices of any painting at a specialist Russian sale.

That record is held by Russian art auctioneer MacDougall's, which raised around seven million pounds with Russian-American artist Nikolai Fechin's "The Little Cowboy" last year.

Christie's holds a single Russian art sale in London this week on Monday, while its rival Sotheby's has three separate auctions ending on Wednesday. MacDougall's holds four sales on Wednesday and Thursday with an overall low estimate of 15 million pounds.

"We were optimistic going into the week and that optimism has been confirmed by the Christie's result," MacDougall's director William MacDougall said.

"The oil price is going up and there are more billionaires in Moscow," he added, referring to the kind of wealthy tycoons who can compete for the top lots during Russian art week.

"The Russian economy didn't suffer as badly as some economies in the (financial) crisis and is clearly in a recovery, and the art market has been in recovery since April 2009."

MacDougall's top lot on offer this week is a 1911 portrait by Boris Kostudiev of his daughter Irina which is expected to fetch 1.2-1.8 million pounds.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

Participants inspect a painting called 'A Parisian Cafe' by artist Ilya Repin during the Fine Art Auction House Christie's Moscow exhibition, April 1, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

LONDON | Mon Jun 6, 2011 10:33am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Christie's claimed a new auction record for Russian artist Ilya Repin on Monday when his 1875 canvas "A Parisian Cafe" fetched 4.5 million pounds ($7.4 million) at the start of Russian art week in London.

The large-scale canvas, depicting a bustling cafe crowded with well-heeled customers, had been expected to fetch 3-5 million pounds and fetched one of the highest prices of any painting at a specialist Russian sale.

That record is held by Russian art auctioneer MacDougall's, which raised around seven million pounds with Russian-American artist Nikolai Fechin's "The Little Cowboy" last year.

Christie's holds a single Russian art sale in London this week on Monday, while its rival Sotheby's has three separate auctions ending on Wednesday. MacDougall's holds four sales on Wednesday and Thursday with an overall low estimate of 15 million pounds.

"We were optimistic going into the week and that optimism has been confirmed by the Christie's result," MacDougall's director William MacDougall said.

"The oil price is going up and there are more billionaires in Moscow," he added, referring to the kind of wealthy tycoons who can compete for the top lots during Russian art week.

"The Russian economy didn't suffer as badly as some economies in the (financial) crisis and is clearly in a recovery, and the art market has been in recovery since April 2009."

MacDougall's top lot on offer this week is a 1911 portrait by Boris Kostudiev of his daughter Irina which is expected to fetch 1.2-1.8 million pounds.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Cost aparat dentar

First Conan Doyle novel to be published

birou notarial

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON | Tue Jun 7, 2011 10:04am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle's debut novel is to be published for the first time in September, nearly 130 years after it was written.

"The Narrative of John Smith" was unfinished and differed radically from the Sherlock Holmes stories that made him famous, but experts said it offered a window into the mind of Conan Doyle as he started out as a young doctor and author.

"What is interesting about it is not the story for its own sake but as a look inside the mind of this very young man -- a struggling physician who is struggling even harder to become a published writer," said Jon Lellenberg, one of the book's editors and a Conan Doyle expert based in Chicago.

To be published by the British Library which owns an extensive Conan Doyle collection, the book was written in 1883 and 1884, a few years before the publication of "A Study In Scarlet," the first story to feature the character of Holmes.

Through the character of John Smith, a 50-year-old man confined to his room by an attack of gout, Conan Doyle sets down his thoughts and opinions on subjects including literature, science, religion, war, and education.

Lellenberg said that while Smith was not a precursor to Holmes, other characters bore more than a passing resemblance to future personalities in the detective stories including his sidekick Dr. Watson.

"He's clearly thinking about characters who would become major figures (in the Holmes novels)," Lellenberg said.

"IMMATURE" WORK

According to the introduction to the novel, The Narrative of John Smith is not what modern readers might call a "page turner."

"There is very little in the way of plot or characterization: the work is essentially a series of lengthy reflections on contemporary debates occupying the young Conan Doyle in his early twenties," it reads.

"The Narrative is not successful fiction, but offers remarkable insight into the thinking and views of a raw young writer who would shortly create one of literature's most famous and durable characters, Sherlock Holmes."

Conan Doyle himself once remarked that he would rather the story never saw the light of day, according to Lellenberg.

"It's not because of the issues in there as he was never afraid to tackle controversial issues. But I think he recognized how immature the work was."

Conan Doyle was in his early 20s when he wrote his first novel, although he had already had a number of short stories published in literary journals of the time.

They had been published anonymously, and the doctor living in the southern English city of Portsmouth realized he would have to move into novels to establish himself as a writer.

The original manuscript of The Narrative of John Smith was lost in the post on the way to the publisher, and Conan Doyle had to rewrite it from memory.

British comedian and actor Stephen Fry said the publication of the early Conan Doyle work would add to people's understanding of the breadth of his knowledge and curiosity.

"He was the first popular writer to tell the wider reading public about narcotics, the Ku Klux Klan, the mafia, the Mormons, American crime gangs, corrupt union bosses and much else besides," he wrote in a statement.

"His boundless energy, enthusiasm and wide-ranging mind, not to mention the pitch-perfect, muscular and memorable prose is all on display here in a work whose publication is very, very welcome indeed."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON | Tue Jun 7, 2011 10:04am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle's debut novel is to be published for the first time in September, nearly 130 years after it was written.

"The Narrative of John Smith" was unfinished and differed radically from the Sherlock Holmes stories that made him famous, but experts said it offered a window into the mind of Conan Doyle as he started out as a young doctor and author.

"What is interesting about it is not the story for its own sake but as a look inside the mind of this very young man -- a struggling physician who is struggling even harder to become a published writer," said Jon Lellenberg, one of the book's editors and a Conan Doyle expert based in Chicago.

To be published by the British Library which owns an extensive Conan Doyle collection, the book was written in 1883 and 1884, a few years before the publication of "A Study In Scarlet," the first story to feature the character of Holmes.

Through the character of John Smith, a 50-year-old man confined to his room by an attack of gout, Conan Doyle sets down his thoughts and opinions on subjects including literature, science, religion, war, and education.

Lellenberg said that while Smith was not a precursor to Holmes, other characters bore more than a passing resemblance to future personalities in the detective stories including his sidekick Dr. Watson.

"He's clearly thinking about characters who would become major figures (in the Holmes novels)," Lellenberg said.

"IMMATURE" WORK

According to the introduction to the novel, The Narrative of John Smith is not what modern readers might call a "page turner."

"There is very little in the way of plot or characterization: the work is essentially a series of lengthy reflections on contemporary debates occupying the young Conan Doyle in his early twenties," it reads.

"The Narrative is not successful fiction, but offers remarkable insight into the thinking and views of a raw young writer who would shortly create one of literature's most famous and durable characters, Sherlock Holmes."

Conan Doyle himself once remarked that he would rather the story never saw the light of day, according to Lellenberg.

"It's not because of the issues in there as he was never afraid to tackle controversial issues. But I think he recognized how immature the work was."

Conan Doyle was in his early 20s when he wrote his first novel, although he had already had a number of short stories published in literary journals of the time.

They had been published anonymously, and the doctor living in the southern English city of Portsmouth realized he would have to move into novels to establish himself as a writer.

The original manuscript of The Narrative of John Smith was lost in the post on the way to the publisher, and Conan Doyle had to rewrite it from memory.

British comedian and actor Stephen Fry said the publication of the early Conan Doyle work would add to people's understanding of the breadth of his knowledge and curiosity.

"He was the first popular writer to tell the wider reading public about narcotics, the Ku Klux Klan, the mafia, the Mormons, American crime gangs, corrupt union bosses and much else besides," he wrote in a statement.

"His boundless energy, enthusiasm and wide-ranging mind, not to mention the pitch-perfect, muscular and memorable prose is all on display here in a work whose publication is very, very welcome indeed."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON | Tue Jun 7, 2011 10:04am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle's debut novel is to be published for the first time in September, nearly 130 years after it was written.

"The Narrative of John Smith" was unfinished and differed radically from the Sherlock Holmes stories that made him famous, but experts said it offered a window into the mind of Conan Doyle as he started out as a young doctor and author.

"What is interesting about it is not the story for its own sake but as a look inside the mind of this very young man -- a struggling physician who is struggling even harder to become a published writer," said Jon Lellenberg, one of the book's editors and a Conan Doyle expert based in Chicago.

To be published by the British Library which owns an extensive Conan Doyle collection, the book was written in 1883 and 1884, a few years before the publication of "A Study In Scarlet," the first story to feature the character of Holmes.

Through the character of John Smith, a 50-year-old man confined to his room by an attack of gout, Conan Doyle sets down his thoughts and opinions on subjects including literature, science, religion, war, and education.

Lellenberg said that while Smith was not a precursor to Holmes, other characters bore more than a passing resemblance to future personalities in the detective stories including his sidekick Dr. Watson.

"He's clearly thinking about characters who would become major figures (in the Holmes novels)," Lellenberg said.

"IMMATURE" WORK

According to the introduction to the novel, The Narrative of John Smith is not what modern readers might call a "page turner."

"There is very little in the way of plot or characterization: the work is essentially a series of lengthy reflections on contemporary debates occupying the young Conan Doyle in his early twenties," it reads.

"The Narrative is not successful fiction, but offers remarkable insight into the thinking and views of a raw young writer who would shortly create one of literature's most famous and durable characters, Sherlock Holmes."

Conan Doyle himself once remarked that he would rather the story never saw the light of day, according to Lellenberg.

"It's not because of the issues in there as he was never afraid to tackle controversial issues. But I think he recognized how immature the work was."

Conan Doyle was in his early 20s when he wrote his first novel, although he had already had a number of short stories published in literary journals of the time.

They had been published anonymously, and the doctor living in the southern English city of Portsmouth realized he would have to move into novels to establish himself as a writer.

The original manuscript of The Narrative of John Smith was lost in the post on the way to the publisher, and Conan Doyle had to rewrite it from memory.

British comedian and actor Stephen Fry said the publication of the early Conan Doyle work would add to people's understanding of the breadth of his knowledge and curiosity.

"He was the first popular writer to tell the wider reading public about narcotics, the Ku Klux Klan, the mafia, the Mormons, American crime gangs, corrupt union bosses and much else besides," he wrote in a statement.

"His boundless energy, enthusiasm and wide-ranging mind, not to mention the pitch-perfect, muscular and memorable prose is all on display here in a work whose publication is very, very welcome indeed."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Cost aparat dentar

Ancient Greek comedy gets "Glee"-style update

birou notarial

By David Rooney

Mon Jun 6, 2011 1:25am EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - There's an obscene amount of fun being had in a church gymnasium on Washington Square South in "Lysistrata Jones," a sassy new quasi-teen musical running through June 19.

Book writer Douglas Carter Beane's ingenious reinvention of "Xanadu" was Broadway's giddiest surprise a few seasons back, and his sharp rewrite helped redeem "Sister Act" on its path to New York.

The show is an update on Aristophanes' bawdy comedy from 411 B.C., "Lysistrata," in which the title character rallied the women of ancient Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their men, thereby forcing them to negotiate a peaceful end to the Peloponnesian War.

The motives of Lysistrata's modern-day counterpart (Patti Murin) are less noble, but her commitment is no less passionate. A transfer student to Athens U., she dates Mick (Josh Segarra), the captain of the Spartans basketball team, which hasn't won a game in 30 years. Appalled that nobody seems to care, Lysistrata persuades her fellow cheerleaders to stop giving it up until the guys get their game on. "It's Your Duty: No More Booty" becomes the girls' mantra.

Off Broadway company the Transport Group, which specializes in site-specific shows, has found a perfect fit with a full-size gymnasium in the process of being converted to a performance space in the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. Presenting the show on an actual basketball court adds excitement to the sports sequences but also brings a more visceral dynamic to director-choreographer Dan Knechtges' highly athletic staging.

This could easily transfer to a commercial run in a more conventional Off Broadway space, become a popular touring show for young audiences, and also be a natural candidate for retooling as a screen property.

While the characters are at college, the cast is sufficiently young and fresh to pass for high-schoolers, and strictly speaking, this is the stage-musical equivalent of a teen comedy. Beane clearly knows his stuff in that area.

"Clueless" remains the benchmark for a teen pic teased out of classic literature, with its witty reinterpretation of Jane Austen's comedy of manners. But others such as "10 Things I Hate About You," which riffed on Shakespeare, have also struck a keen balance between honoring the original material's details while finding resourceful equivalent situations. More often, however, movies like "Cruel Intentions" and "Easy A" twist themselves into contrived knots trying to force-fit period-specific literary conceits onto contemporary models. Beane and composer-lyricist Lewis Flinn keep it loose and make it look effortless.

They signal their approach from the outset as Hetaira raps, "Some play by Aristophanes/He's dead, so we do what we please/Something that's old and so arcane/So sue us, it's public domain." A luscious plus-size diva with a whole lot of voice, Liz Mikel's Hetaira is the show's one-woman Greek chorus, towering resplendently over the cute, ethnically assorted kids in her red and gold goddess-wear.

Despite the constant volley of sly topical references (Dominique Strauss-Kahn even sneaks in), raunchy double-entendres and snappy one-liners, a major virtue of Beane's writing here is that it doesn't try to be knowingly smarter than the characters. Nor does the material condescend to its audience. While it trades in familiar stereotypes it does so with amusing tweaks and contagious affection.

Unlike the standard popular girl, feisty Lysistrata is a not-so-dumb blonde who is willing to shake up the status quo with some radical action. Mick is a jock dreamboat who reads Robert Frost and quotes Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Robin (Lindsay Nicole Chambers) is a brainy slam poetess in the fashion-challenged gender-studies tradition, but she's not above celebrating her acceptance into the cool clique. "Oh my God! I just used 'like' and not as a simile but as an odd verbal tick," she exclaims in a key crossover moment. And Xander (Jason Tam) is a left-wing blogger who needs to get his head out of his laptop and find a life.

While the eventual social shifts are pointedly telegraphed, there's a Shakespearean playfulness to the way the couples are either confirmed or reconfigured.

Latino Uardo (Alexander Aguilar) and his spitfire girlfriend Cleonice (Kat Nejat) are clearly destined to endure any conflict the story throws at them, as are African-American beauty Mhyrinne (LaQuet Sharnell) and Cinesius (Alex Wyse), a lily-white pseudo homeboy who's all posturing gangsta attitude. Asian Lampito (Katie Boren), on the other hand, seems merely part of the upward mobility package of black dude Tyllus (Max Kumangai). And the obsession of nerdy Harold (Teddy Toye) with superhero movies makes his true proclivities evident to the audience before they are to him.

Flinn's songs are catchy, dipping into a broad spectrum that covers pop, disco, hip-hop, rap, sports cheers and reggae. They tend toward the generic, with the ballads generally less effective than the upbeat numbers, but they do the job. The show might benefit from some streamlining, perhaps dropping a song or two and losing the intermission.

However, the performers are so winning it hardly matters. Knechtges' high-energy staging seems to be running on raging hormones and off-the-charts adrenaline. His choreography of the basketball games is especially vigorous, with Aguilar busting some wild old-school '80s breakdance moves at one point.

The show had a tryout last year at the Dallas Theater Center under the title "Give It Up!" which is also its Bacchanal toga-party closing number. The name change no doubt was prompted by its similarity to "Bring It On," an obvious inspiration here and yet another movie on its way to becoming a stage musical. But "Lysistrata Jones" manages to invoke a whole gamut of popular teen fare while remaining a spirited original. The show scores on its own terms.

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By David Rooney

Mon Jun 6, 2011 1:25am EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - There's an obscene amount of fun being had in a church gymnasium on Washington Square South in "Lysistrata Jones," a sassy new quasi-teen musical running through June 19.

Book writer Douglas Carter Beane's ingenious reinvention of "Xanadu" was Broadway's giddiest surprise a few seasons back, and his sharp rewrite helped redeem "Sister Act" on its path to New York.

The show is an update on Aristophanes' bawdy comedy from 411 B.C., "Lysistrata," in which the title character rallied the women of ancient Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their men, thereby forcing them to negotiate a peaceful end to the Peloponnesian War.

The motives of Lysistrata's modern-day counterpart (Patti Murin) are less noble, but her commitment is no less passionate. A transfer student to Athens U., she dates Mick (Josh Segarra), the captain of the Spartans basketball team, which hasn't won a game in 30 years. Appalled that nobody seems to care, Lysistrata persuades her fellow cheerleaders to stop giving it up until the guys get their game on. "It's Your Duty: No More Booty" becomes the girls' mantra.

Off Broadway company the Transport Group, which specializes in site-specific shows, has found a perfect fit with a full-size gymnasium in the process of being converted to a performance space in the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. Presenting the show on an actual basketball court adds excitement to the sports sequences but also brings a more visceral dynamic to director-choreographer Dan Knechtges' highly athletic staging.

This could easily transfer to a commercial run in a more conventional Off Broadway space, become a popular touring show for young audiences, and also be a natural candidate for retooling as a screen property.

While the characters are at college, the cast is sufficiently young and fresh to pass for high-schoolers, and strictly speaking, this is the stage-musical equivalent of a teen comedy. Beane clearly knows his stuff in that area.

"Clueless" remains the benchmark for a teen pic teased out of classic literature, with its witty reinterpretation of Jane Austen's comedy of manners. But others such as "10 Things I Hate About You," which riffed on Shakespeare, have also struck a keen balance between honoring the original material's details while finding resourceful equivalent situations. More often, however, movies like "Cruel Intentions" and "Easy A" twist themselves into contrived knots trying to force-fit period-specific literary conceits onto contemporary models. Beane and composer-lyricist Lewis Flinn keep it loose and make it look effortless.

They signal their approach from the outset as Hetaira raps, "Some play by Aristophanes/He's dead, so we do what we please/Something that's old and so arcane/So sue us, it's public domain." A luscious plus-size diva with a whole lot of voice, Liz Mikel's Hetaira is the show's one-woman Greek chorus, towering resplendently over the cute, ethnically assorted kids in her red and gold goddess-wear.

Despite the constant volley of sly topical references (Dominique Strauss-Kahn even sneaks in), raunchy double-entendres and snappy one-liners, a major virtue of Beane's writing here is that it doesn't try to be knowingly smarter than the characters. Nor does the material condescend to its audience. While it trades in familiar stereotypes it does so with amusing tweaks and contagious affection.

Unlike the standard popular girl, feisty Lysistrata is a not-so-dumb blonde who is willing to shake up the status quo with some radical action. Mick is a jock dreamboat who reads Robert Frost and quotes Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Robin (Lindsay Nicole Chambers) is a brainy slam poetess in the fashion-challenged gender-studies tradition, but she's not above celebrating her acceptance into the cool clique. "Oh my God! I just used 'like' and not as a simile but as an odd verbal tick," she exclaims in a key crossover moment. And Xander (Jason Tam) is a left-wing blogger who needs to get his head out of his laptop and find a life.

While the eventual social shifts are pointedly telegraphed, there's a Shakespearean playfulness to the way the couples are either confirmed or reconfigured.

Latino Uardo (Alexander Aguilar) and his spitfire girlfriend Cleonice (Kat Nejat) are clearly destined to endure any conflict the story throws at them, as are African-American beauty Mhyrinne (LaQuet Sharnell) and Cinesius (Alex Wyse), a lily-white pseudo homeboy who's all posturing gangsta attitude. Asian Lampito (Katie Boren), on the other hand, seems merely part of the upward mobility package of black dude Tyllus (Max Kumangai). And the obsession of nerdy Harold (Teddy Toye) with superhero movies makes his true proclivities evident to the audience before they are to him.

Flinn's songs are catchy, dipping into a broad spectrum that covers pop, disco, hip-hop, rap, sports cheers and reggae. They tend toward the generic, with the ballads generally less effective than the upbeat numbers, but they do the job. The show might benefit from some streamlining, perhaps dropping a song or two and losing the intermission.

However, the performers are so winning it hardly matters. Knechtges' high-energy staging seems to be running on raging hormones and off-the-charts adrenaline. His choreography of the basketball games is especially vigorous, with Aguilar busting some wild old-school '80s breakdance moves at one point.

The show had a tryout last year at the Dallas Theater Center under the title "Give It Up!" which is also its Bacchanal toga-party closing number. The name change no doubt was prompted by its similarity to "Bring It On," an obvious inspiration here and yet another movie on its way to becoming a stage musical. But "Lysistrata Jones" manages to invoke a whole gamut of popular teen fare while remaining a spirited original. The show scores on its own terms.

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By David Rooney

Mon Jun 6, 2011 1:25am EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - There's an obscene amount of fun being had in a church gymnasium on Washington Square South in "Lysistrata Jones," a sassy new quasi-teen musical running through June 19.

Book writer Douglas Carter Beane's ingenious reinvention of "Xanadu" was Broadway's giddiest surprise a few seasons back, and his sharp rewrite helped redeem "Sister Act" on its path to New York.

The show is an update on Aristophanes' bawdy comedy from 411 B.C., "Lysistrata," in which the title character rallied the women of ancient Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their men, thereby forcing them to negotiate a peaceful end to the Peloponnesian War.

The motives of Lysistrata's modern-day counterpart (Patti Murin) are less noble, but her commitment is no less passionate. A transfer student to Athens U., she dates Mick (Josh Segarra), the captain of the Spartans basketball team, which hasn't won a game in 30 years. Appalled that nobody seems to care, Lysistrata persuades her fellow cheerleaders to stop giving it up until the guys get their game on. "It's Your Duty: No More Booty" becomes the girls' mantra.

Off Broadway company the Transport Group, which specializes in site-specific shows, has found a perfect fit with a full-size gymnasium in the process of being converted to a performance space in the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. Presenting the show on an actual basketball court adds excitement to the sports sequences but also brings a more visceral dynamic to director-choreographer Dan Knechtges' highly athletic staging.

This could easily transfer to a commercial run in a more conventional Off Broadway space, become a popular touring show for young audiences, and also be a natural candidate for retooling as a screen property.

While the characters are at college, the cast is sufficiently young and fresh to pass for high-schoolers, and strictly speaking, this is the stage-musical equivalent of a teen comedy. Beane clearly knows his stuff in that area.

"Clueless" remains the benchmark for a teen pic teased out of classic literature, with its witty reinterpretation of Jane Austen's comedy of manners. But others such as "10 Things I Hate About You," which riffed on Shakespeare, have also struck a keen balance between honoring the original material's details while finding resourceful equivalent situations. More often, however, movies like "Cruel Intentions" and "Easy A" twist themselves into contrived knots trying to force-fit period-specific literary conceits onto contemporary models. Beane and composer-lyricist Lewis Flinn keep it loose and make it look effortless.

They signal their approach from the outset as Hetaira raps, "Some play by Aristophanes/He's dead, so we do what we please/Something that's old and so arcane/So sue us, it's public domain." A luscious plus-size diva with a whole lot of voice, Liz Mikel's Hetaira is the show's one-woman Greek chorus, towering resplendently over the cute, ethnically assorted kids in her red and gold goddess-wear.

Despite the constant volley of sly topical references (Dominique Strauss-Kahn even sneaks in), raunchy double-entendres and snappy one-liners, a major virtue of Beane's writing here is that it doesn't try to be knowingly smarter than the characters. Nor does the material condescend to its audience. While it trades in familiar stereotypes it does so with amusing tweaks and contagious affection.

Unlike the standard popular girl, feisty Lysistrata is a not-so-dumb blonde who is willing to shake up the status quo with some radical action. Mick is a jock dreamboat who reads Robert Frost and quotes Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Robin (Lindsay Nicole Chambers) is a brainy slam poetess in the fashion-challenged gender-studies tradition, but she's not above celebrating her acceptance into the cool clique. "Oh my God! I just used 'like' and not as a simile but as an odd verbal tick," she exclaims in a key crossover moment. And Xander (Jason Tam) is a left-wing blogger who needs to get his head out of his laptop and find a life.

While the eventual social shifts are pointedly telegraphed, there's a Shakespearean playfulness to the way the couples are either confirmed or reconfigured.

Latino Uardo (Alexander Aguilar) and his spitfire girlfriend Cleonice (Kat Nejat) are clearly destined to endure any conflict the story throws at them, as are African-American beauty Mhyrinne (LaQuet Sharnell) and Cinesius (Alex Wyse), a lily-white pseudo homeboy who's all posturing gangsta attitude. Asian Lampito (Katie Boren), on the other hand, seems merely part of the upward mobility package of black dude Tyllus (Max Kumangai). And the obsession of nerdy Harold (Teddy Toye) with superhero movies makes his true proclivities evident to the audience before they are to him.

Flinn's songs are catchy, dipping into a broad spectrum that covers pop, disco, hip-hop, rap, sports cheers and reggae. They tend toward the generic, with the ballads generally less effective than the upbeat numbers, but they do the job. The show might benefit from some streamlining, perhaps dropping a song or two and losing the intermission.

However, the performers are so winning it hardly matters. Knechtges' high-energy staging seems to be running on raging hormones and off-the-charts adrenaline. His choreography of the basketball games is especially vigorous, with Aguilar busting some wild old-school '80s breakdance moves at one point.

The show had a tryout last year at the Dallas Theater Center under the title "Give It Up!" which is also its Bacchanal toga-party closing number. The name change no doubt was prompted by its similarity to "Bring It On," an obvious inspiration here and yet another movie on its way to becoming a stage musical. But "Lysistrata Jones" manages to invoke a whole gamut of popular teen fare while remaining a spirited original. The show scores on its own terms.

Cost aparat dentar

Carey Mulligan on NY stage in Bergman adaptation

birou notarial

By David Rooney

Tue Jun 7, 2011 6:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With four characters in a single setting and action unfolding over 24 hours, Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film "Through a Glass Darkly" is a natural fit for stage adaptation, at least physically.

The result -- running through July 3 at the New York Theater Workshop -- is dour and short on insight, but it provides a powerful role for the talented Carey Mulligan to harness her dueling forces of strength and fragility.

Mulligan's last appearance on a New York stage was in the superb 2008 Broadway revival of "The Seagull," opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. That was before her breakout performance in "An Education," which has led to steady screen work. It's admirable to see this young actor continuing to test herself, and stepping into Harriet Andersson's shoes as one of Bergman's psychologically anguished heroines certainly qualifies as a challenge.

The material was adapted by Jenny Worton, an artistic associate at London's Almeida Theater, where the play premiered last summer in a different production to mixed critical response.

Director David Leveaux has done a fine job summoning the stark emotional terrain of the film. There's no substituting the atmospheric effect of landscape in the work of Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist. But set designer Takeshi Kata and lighting chief David Weiner have crafted an austerely beautiful canvas on which to plot the descent into madness of Karin (Mulligan).

While critic Stanley Kauffmann described the film as "a study in varying shades of gray," Kata's bleached-wood set expands that color palette to include murky yellows and washed-out blues. Weiner's lighting is soft and shadowy, acquiring harder edges as the drama darkens.

The setting is a remote Baltic island on which a family has gathered for its annual summer holiday, in the hope of mending frayed bonds. Fresh from a stint in a psych hospital, schizophrenic Karin proclaims it "the most wonderful place on Earth," insisting, "Everything will be perfect this holiday." Yeah, right.

Her widowed father, David (Chris Sarandon), is a successful but second-rate novelist whose convivial demonstrations of warmth can't mask his cold self-involvement. Her sexually confused 16-year-old brother, Max (Ben Rosenfield), grasps for his father's approval by aping the role of tortured artist, writing plays that David criticizes without even reading them. And her loving but ineffectual husband, Martin (Jason Butler Harner), is a doctor who knows his optimism concerning Karin's condition is unfounded.

While Karin strives to be the knot that holds the family together, her unraveling begins when she reads David's diary. His account of her late mother's illness mirrors her own state. Yet David confesses, with shocking candor, that first-hand observation of the spiral of madness might provide the inspirational spark his books are lacking.

At that point, the voices in Karin's head start growing louder, drawing her to a wall in the attic. Behind it she believes is a way station between worlds, where people await God's arrival and look to her to make it happen.

There are four compelling performances here. In the Chekhovian role of the writer incapable of fully experiencing life or feeling real emotion, Sarandon's characterization is a somber study of guilt without shame. Harner's Martin is wrenching in his helplessness, firing up in a terrific scene in which he rips into David and points up parallels in the writer's personal and artistic failings. Newcomer Rosenfield is particularly strong, pummeled internally by the raw confusion of adolescence and the pain of non-communication.

But the play belongs to Mulligan's Karin. Rarely still for long, she goes from bursts of manic activity to violent mood swings to catatonic spells and moments of exalted serenity. The performance is volatile yet restrained, poignantly underscored by a hopeless yearning to recreate the perfect family that exists only in her head. She weighs the damage she is causing to the people who love her against the spiritual release she intuits beyond the attic wall, and when her choice fails her, a crushing look of defeat clouds Mulligan's face.

Worton stumbles in the climactic scene, however. In place of Andersson's shattered account in the film of seeing God as a stony-faced spider, the writer keeps plugging away at familiar dysfunctional-family notes. Bergman's film was part of a trilogy about loss of faith, but in this context, Karin's religious hysteria remains merely a vestige of her madness, stripped of metaphysical meaning. The attempt to explain away her illness as a hereditary condition fed by the family's history of denial and withheld affection seems banal.

If the bleak play is more affecting in individual scenes than as a whole it's no fault of the production. But even when the writing lets her down, Mulligan's haunting performance is riveting.

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By David Rooney

Tue Jun 7, 2011 6:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With four characters in a single setting and action unfolding over 24 hours, Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film "Through a Glass Darkly" is a natural fit for stage adaptation, at least physically.

The result -- running through July 3 at the New York Theater Workshop -- is dour and short on insight, but it provides a powerful role for the talented Carey Mulligan to harness her dueling forces of strength and fragility.

Mulligan's last appearance on a New York stage was in the superb 2008 Broadway revival of "The Seagull," opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. That was before her breakout performance in "An Education," which has led to steady screen work. It's admirable to see this young actor continuing to test herself, and stepping into Harriet Andersson's shoes as one of Bergman's psychologically anguished heroines certainly qualifies as a challenge.

The material was adapted by Jenny Worton, an artistic associate at London's Almeida Theater, where the play premiered last summer in a different production to mixed critical response.

Director David Leveaux has done a fine job summoning the stark emotional terrain of the film. There's no substituting the atmospheric effect of landscape in the work of Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist. But set designer Takeshi Kata and lighting chief David Weiner have crafted an austerely beautiful canvas on which to plot the descent into madness of Karin (Mulligan).

While critic Stanley Kauffmann described the film as "a study in varying shades of gray," Kata's bleached-wood set expands that color palette to include murky yellows and washed-out blues. Weiner's lighting is soft and shadowy, acquiring harder edges as the drama darkens.

The setting is a remote Baltic island on which a family has gathered for its annual summer holiday, in the hope of mending frayed bonds. Fresh from a stint in a psych hospital, schizophrenic Karin proclaims it "the most wonderful place on Earth," insisting, "Everything will be perfect this holiday." Yeah, right.

Her widowed father, David (Chris Sarandon), is a successful but second-rate novelist whose convivial demonstrations of warmth can't mask his cold self-involvement. Her sexually confused 16-year-old brother, Max (Ben Rosenfield), grasps for his father's approval by aping the role of tortured artist, writing plays that David criticizes without even reading them. And her loving but ineffectual husband, Martin (Jason Butler Harner), is a doctor who knows his optimism concerning Karin's condition is unfounded.

While Karin strives to be the knot that holds the family together, her unraveling begins when she reads David's diary. His account of her late mother's illness mirrors her own state. Yet David confesses, with shocking candor, that first-hand observation of the spiral of madness might provide the inspirational spark his books are lacking.

At that point, the voices in Karin's head start growing louder, drawing her to a wall in the attic. Behind it she believes is a way station between worlds, where people await God's arrival and look to her to make it happen.

There are four compelling performances here. In the Chekhovian role of the writer incapable of fully experiencing life or feeling real emotion, Sarandon's characterization is a somber study of guilt without shame. Harner's Martin is wrenching in his helplessness, firing up in a terrific scene in which he rips into David and points up parallels in the writer's personal and artistic failings. Newcomer Rosenfield is particularly strong, pummeled internally by the raw confusion of adolescence and the pain of non-communication.

But the play belongs to Mulligan's Karin. Rarely still for long, she goes from bursts of manic activity to violent mood swings to catatonic spells and moments of exalted serenity. The performance is volatile yet restrained, poignantly underscored by a hopeless yearning to recreate the perfect family that exists only in her head. She weighs the damage she is causing to the people who love her against the spiritual release she intuits beyond the attic wall, and when her choice fails her, a crushing look of defeat clouds Mulligan's face.

Worton stumbles in the climactic scene, however. In place of Andersson's shattered account in the film of seeing God as a stony-faced spider, the writer keeps plugging away at familiar dysfunctional-family notes. Bergman's film was part of a trilogy about loss of faith, but in this context, Karin's religious hysteria remains merely a vestige of her madness, stripped of metaphysical meaning. The attempt to explain away her illness as a hereditary condition fed by the family's history of denial and withheld affection seems banal.

If the bleak play is more affecting in individual scenes than as a whole it's no fault of the production. But even when the writing lets her down, Mulligan's haunting performance is riveting.

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

By David Rooney

Tue Jun 7, 2011 6:42pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - With four characters in a single setting and action unfolding over 24 hours, Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning 1961 film "Through a Glass Darkly" is a natural fit for stage adaptation, at least physically.

The result -- running through July 3 at the New York Theater Workshop -- is dour and short on insight, but it provides a powerful role for the talented Carey Mulligan to harness her dueling forces of strength and fragility.

Mulligan's last appearance on a New York stage was in the superb 2008 Broadway revival of "The Seagull," opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. That was before her breakout performance in "An Education," which has led to steady screen work. It's admirable to see this young actor continuing to test herself, and stepping into Harriet Andersson's shoes as one of Bergman's psychologically anguished heroines certainly qualifies as a challenge.

The material was adapted by Jenny Worton, an artistic associate at London's Almeida Theater, where the play premiered last summer in a different production to mixed critical response.

Director David Leveaux has done a fine job summoning the stark emotional terrain of the film. There's no substituting the atmospheric effect of landscape in the work of Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist. But set designer Takeshi Kata and lighting chief David Weiner have crafted an austerely beautiful canvas on which to plot the descent into madness of Karin (Mulligan).

While critic Stanley Kauffmann described the film as "a study in varying shades of gray," Kata's bleached-wood set expands that color palette to include murky yellows and washed-out blues. Weiner's lighting is soft and shadowy, acquiring harder edges as the drama darkens.

The setting is a remote Baltic island on which a family has gathered for its annual summer holiday, in the hope of mending frayed bonds. Fresh from a stint in a psych hospital, schizophrenic Karin proclaims it "the most wonderful place on Earth," insisting, "Everything will be perfect this holiday." Yeah, right.

Her widowed father, David (Chris Sarandon), is a successful but second-rate novelist whose convivial demonstrations of warmth can't mask his cold self-involvement. Her sexually confused 16-year-old brother, Max (Ben Rosenfield), grasps for his father's approval by aping the role of tortured artist, writing plays that David criticizes without even reading them. And her loving but ineffectual husband, Martin (Jason Butler Harner), is a doctor who knows his optimism concerning Karin's condition is unfounded.

While Karin strives to be the knot that holds the family together, her unraveling begins when she reads David's diary. His account of her late mother's illness mirrors her own state. Yet David confesses, with shocking candor, that first-hand observation of the spiral of madness might provide the inspirational spark his books are lacking.

At that point, the voices in Karin's head start growing louder, drawing her to a wall in the attic. Behind it she believes is a way station between worlds, where people await God's arrival and look to her to make it happen.

There are four compelling performances here. In the Chekhovian role of the writer incapable of fully experiencing life or feeling real emotion, Sarandon's characterization is a somber study of guilt without shame. Harner's Martin is wrenching in his helplessness, firing up in a terrific scene in which he rips into David and points up parallels in the writer's personal and artistic failings. Newcomer Rosenfield is particularly strong, pummeled internally by the raw confusion of adolescence and the pain of non-communication.

But the play belongs to Mulligan's Karin. Rarely still for long, she goes from bursts of manic activity to violent mood swings to catatonic spells and moments of exalted serenity. The performance is volatile yet restrained, poignantly underscored by a hopeless yearning to recreate the perfect family that exists only in her head. She weighs the damage she is causing to the people who love her against the spiritual release she intuits beyond the attic wall, and when her choice fails her, a crushing look of defeat clouds Mulligan's face.

Worton stumbles in the climactic scene, however. In place of Andersson's shattered account in the film of seeing God as a stony-faced spider, the writer keeps plugging away at familiar dysfunctional-family notes. Bergman's film was part of a trilogy about loss of faith, but in this context, Karin's religious hysteria remains merely a vestige of her madness, stripped of metaphysical meaning. The attempt to explain away her illness as a hereditary condition fed by the family's history of denial and withheld affection seems banal.

If the bleak play is more affecting in individual scenes than as a whole it's no fault of the production. But even when the writing lets her down, Mulligan's haunting performance is riveting.

Cost aparat dentar

UK's Royal Academy gives Ai Weiwei honorary title

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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses for a photograph with his new installation entitled 'Sunflower Seeds', at its unveiling in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern gallery, in London October 11, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

LONDON | Wed Jun 1, 2011 4:47pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Royal Academy has made detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei an honorary member alongside Danish painter Per Kirkeby, the prestigious London art institution said on Wednesday.

The title of Honorary Academician goes to artists not living in Britain, and they do not take part in the governance of the Royal Academy. The 80 full Academicians, who are all practicing artists, vote in up to two new honorary members each year.

The Royal Academy called Ai, detained in China since he was seized at Beijing's international airport on April 3, "one of the most significant cultural figures of his generation in China and internationally."

It made no mention of Ai's detention, which has sparked an international outcry in the art world and beyond. Supporters say he is the victim of a crackdown on dissent, while Chinese authorities have said he was suspected of "economic crimes."

The 54-year-old artist has a high profile in Britain, especially after his giant commission for the Tate Modern gallery in London called "Sunflower Seeds" in which he covered the floor of the cavernous Turbine Hall with millions of handmade porcelain seed replicas.

The same gallery hosted a retrospective of Kirkeby's work in 2009 focusing on his painting, although he is known also for his works on paper, small and large scale bronze sculptures, brick structures and architecture.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

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Baloane

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses for a photograph with his new installation entitled 'Sunflower Seeds', at its unveiling in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern gallery, in London October 11, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

LONDON | Wed Jun 1, 2011 4:47pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Royal Academy has made detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei an honorary member alongside Danish painter Per Kirkeby, the prestigious London art institution said on Wednesday.

The title of Honorary Academician goes to artists not living in Britain, and they do not take part in the governance of the Royal Academy. The 80 full Academicians, who are all practicing artists, vote in up to two new honorary members each year.

The Royal Academy called Ai, detained in China since he was seized at Beijing's international airport on April 3, "one of the most significant cultural figures of his generation in China and internationally."

It made no mention of Ai's detention, which has sparked an international outcry in the art world and beyond. Supporters say he is the victim of a crackdown on dissent, while Chinese authorities have said he was suspected of "economic crimes."

The 54-year-old artist has a high profile in Britain, especially after his giant commission for the Tate Modern gallery in London called "Sunflower Seeds" in which he covered the floor of the cavernous Turbine Hall with millions of handmade porcelain seed replicas.

The same gallery hosted a retrospective of Kirkeby's work in 2009 focusing on his painting, although he is known also for his works on paper, small and large scale bronze sculptures, brick structures and architecture.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses for a photograph with his new installation entitled 'Sunflower Seeds', at its unveiling in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern gallery, in London October 11, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Stefan Wermuth

LONDON | Wed Jun 1, 2011 4:47pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Royal Academy has made detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei an honorary member alongside Danish painter Per Kirkeby, the prestigious London art institution said on Wednesday.

The title of Honorary Academician goes to artists not living in Britain, and they do not take part in the governance of the Royal Academy. The 80 full Academicians, who are all practicing artists, vote in up to two new honorary members each year.

The Royal Academy called Ai, detained in China since he was seized at Beijing's international airport on April 3, "one of the most significant cultural figures of his generation in China and internationally."

It made no mention of Ai's detention, which has sparked an international outcry in the art world and beyond. Supporters say he is the victim of a crackdown on dissent, while Chinese authorities have said he was suspected of "economic crimes."

The 54-year-old artist has a high profile in Britain, especially after his giant commission for the Tate Modern gallery in London called "Sunflower Seeds" in which he covered the floor of the cavernous Turbine Hall with millions of handmade porcelain seed replicas.

The same gallery hosted a retrospective of Kirkeby's work in 2009 focusing on his painting, although he is known also for his works on paper, small and large scale bronze sculptures, brick structures and architecture.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

Cost aparat dentar

Canada's Leonard Cohen wins Spanish literary prize

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Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (L) performs at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California April 17, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

MADRID | Wed Jun 1, 2011 11:55am EDT

MADRID (Reuters) - Canada's Leonard Cohen won Spain's top award for authors who do not write in Spanish for his decades of exploring great human issues in song and verse.

The jury of the Principe de Asturias Foundation said the 76-year-old singer-songwriter, poet and novelist was one of the most influential writers of modern times.

He won "for a literary work which has influenced three generations around the world by creating a sentimental imagery in which poetry and music are melded into an unchanging worth," the jury citation read.

Cohen beat a field of 32 from countries including Argentina, France, Austria, Mexico and Britain. Past winners include German Nobel Laureate Guenther Grass and U.S. playwright Arthur Miller.

The Asturias Foundation awards eight prizes every year for fields ranging from science to the arts. Winners are due to collect 50,000 euros ($71,870) each at the awards ceremony in October, and a statue by catalan artist Joan Miro.

(Reporting by Raquel Castillo; writing by Martin Roberts)

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Baloane

Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (L) performs at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California April 17, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

MADRID | Wed Jun 1, 2011 11:55am EDT

MADRID (Reuters) - Canada's Leonard Cohen won Spain's top award for authors who do not write in Spanish for his decades of exploring great human issues in song and verse.

The jury of the Principe de Asturias Foundation said the 76-year-old singer-songwriter, poet and novelist was one of the most influential writers of modern times.

He won "for a literary work which has influenced three generations around the world by creating a sentimental imagery in which poetry and music are melded into an unchanging worth," the jury citation read.

Cohen beat a field of 32 from countries including Argentina, France, Austria, Mexico and Britain. Past winners include German Nobel Laureate Guenther Grass and U.S. playwright Arthur Miller.

The Asturias Foundation awards eight prizes every year for fields ranging from science to the arts. Winners are due to collect 50,000 euros ($71,870) each at the awards ceremony in October, and a statue by catalan artist Joan Miro.

(Reporting by Raquel Castillo; writing by Martin Roberts)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (L) performs at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California April 17, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

MADRID | Wed Jun 1, 2011 11:55am EDT

MADRID (Reuters) - Canada's Leonard Cohen won Spain's top award for authors who do not write in Spanish for his decades of exploring great human issues in song and verse.

The jury of the Principe de Asturias Foundation said the 76-year-old singer-songwriter, poet and novelist was one of the most influential writers of modern times.

He won "for a literary work which has influenced three generations around the world by creating a sentimental imagery in which poetry and music are melded into an unchanging worth," the jury citation read.

Cohen beat a field of 32 from countries including Argentina, France, Austria, Mexico and Britain. Past winners include German Nobel Laureate Guenther Grass and U.S. playwright Arthur Miller.

The Asturias Foundation awards eight prizes every year for fields ranging from science to the arts. Winners are due to collect 50,000 euros ($71,870) each at the awards ceremony in October, and a statue by catalan artist Joan Miro.

(Reporting by Raquel Castillo; writing by Martin Roberts)

Cost aparat dentar

"Social Network" star Eisenberg now a playwright

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Actor Jesse Eisenberg arrives at the premiere of the film ''Rio'' at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California April 10, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Redmond

By David Rooney

Thu Jun 2, 2011 6:52pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Jesse Eisenberg, the Oscar-nominated star of "The Social Network," will make his professional New York debut as a playwright with an Off Broadway production of "Asuncion" in the fall.

The play centers on two friends who view themselves as open-minded liberals -- one blogs about American imperialism; the other is finishing a PhD in Black Studies -- and how those self-perceptions are challenged when a young Filipina becomes their new roommate.

Eisenberg also will appear in the play, directed by Kip Fagan. Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater as part of its 2011-12 season, but running off-site at the Cherry Lane Theater, the production will begin previews October 12 for an official October 27 opening.

Prior to playing Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network," Eisenberg appeared in such films as "The Squid and the Whale," "Roger Dodger" and "Zombieland." His last New York stage appearance was in Lucy Thurber's "Scarcity" at Off Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company in 2007.

In addition to "Asuncion," Eisenberg has written another play, "The Revisionist," as well as writing the score and lyrics to a musical titled "Me Time!"

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Baloane

Actor Jesse Eisenberg arrives at the premiere of the film ''Rio'' at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California April 10, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Redmond

By David Rooney

Thu Jun 2, 2011 6:52pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Jesse Eisenberg, the Oscar-nominated star of "The Social Network," will make his professional New York debut as a playwright with an Off Broadway production of "Asuncion" in the fall.

The play centers on two friends who view themselves as open-minded liberals -- one blogs about American imperialism; the other is finishing a PhD in Black Studies -- and how those self-perceptions are challenged when a young Filipina becomes their new roommate.

Eisenberg also will appear in the play, directed by Kip Fagan. Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater as part of its 2011-12 season, but running off-site at the Cherry Lane Theater, the production will begin previews October 12 for an official October 27 opening.

Prior to playing Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network," Eisenberg appeared in such films as "The Squid and the Whale," "Roger Dodger" and "Zombieland." His last New York stage appearance was in Lucy Thurber's "Scarcity" at Off Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company in 2007.

In addition to "Asuncion," Eisenberg has written another play, "The Revisionist," as well as writing the score and lyrics to a musical titled "Me Time!"

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

Actor Jesse Eisenberg arrives at the premiere of the film ''Rio'' at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California April 10, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Redmond

By David Rooney

Thu Jun 2, 2011 6:52pm EDT

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Jesse Eisenberg, the Oscar-nominated star of "The Social Network," will make his professional New York debut as a playwright with an Off Broadway production of "Asuncion" in the fall.

The play centers on two friends who view themselves as open-minded liberals -- one blogs about American imperialism; the other is finishing a PhD in Black Studies -- and how those self-perceptions are challenged when a young Filipina becomes their new roommate.

Eisenberg also will appear in the play, directed by Kip Fagan. Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater as part of its 2011-12 season, but running off-site at the Cherry Lane Theater, the production will begin previews October 12 for an official October 27 opening.

Prior to playing Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network," Eisenberg appeared in such films as "The Squid and the Whale," "Roger Dodger" and "Zombieland." His last New York stage appearance was in Lucy Thurber's "Scarcity" at Off Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company in 2007.

In addition to "Asuncion," Eisenberg has written another play, "The Revisionist," as well as writing the score and lyrics to a musical titled "Me Time!"

Cost aparat dentar

Book Talk: Madison Smartt Bell on gods and demons

birou notarial

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO | Thu Jun 2, 2011 1:09pm EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Mae is a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, working amid the rattle of dice and whisper of cards, roaming the desert with a rifle in her time off.

When planes crash into the World Trade Center, she revels in the anarchy of the destruction. And she sees, in television footage, the face of an old lover, screaming as the towers fall.

"The Color of Night," by Madison Smartt Bell, follows Mae as 9/11 sends her back through a past shadowed by abuse and her years in a 1960s cult that commits a horrifying crime, and ultimately she tracks down her lover again.

Bell, a National Book Award finalist who has written extensively about Haiti, spoke with Reuters about his book and the origins of his compelling, if unusual, heroine.

Q: What was your intention with this book?

A: "It just popped into my head. I heard that voice talking to me and then I started writing it down. When you say my intentions, it's more like her intentions. I think she wants to make her case, that she's a divine being sort of walking around, having been purified and refined through suffering, and forged in the fire, she just walks through all the mundanity and ordinary suffering of mortal life. That's her position.

"Particularly if you sign in to her world view, she's extremely powerful and even if you don't, she's got a certain amount of power. And I think that's attractive."

Q: So you heard a voice and you went on from there?

A: "Without her voice, there'd be nothing. I'd done a project a long time before, maybe four or five years before, for a series of retelling contemporary myths... I wrote about 100 words worth of proposal. I had an idea that wasn't quite the same, but there was a little germ and some part of it stuck in my mind. I think it just came out of that, like a seed.

"It was an idea of setting a Dionysius/Orpheus myth in the atmosphere of 60s terrorism and having somebody remember it. Those elements were in it. But then I basically forgot it, and when it came back it had just simmered in my unconscious for four to five years and just kind of matured there without my thinking about it, really."

Q: Was it easy or hard to write?

A: "It was incredibly easy to write, and I felt -- and I still feel like -- it was the best thing I'd done in a long time. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the ease of composition. It was mostly just typed straight onto the keyboard with minimal revision. Like automatic writing."

Q: The use of 9/11 was unusual. What was behind that?

A: "It gave the other end of the story. The front end, chronologically, is all the other stuff that happened back in the 60s. It's all reawakened by 9/11. The device of having her see her old lover in 9/11 footage and the idea that she'd just been in suspended animation all that time in between... As if you could just turn her off. That event turns her back on."

Q: And because of who she is, her response to it would be different from a lot of people.

A: "Well, sure. Everybody in the United States thought it was really terrible. So did I... I didn't feel celebratory about it at all. Yet I knew a few people in this country who did. That stuck with me and that became part of it."

Q: You said this book came to you in Mae's voice. Where do you get your ideas -- was this typical?

A: "I've said with some seriousness that my work is dictated to me by demons, and I feel that that's true. There's two ways of looking at it. If you want to take a reductive view, and there's nothing here in the universe aside from us, then it comes from your unconscious mind. I sort of teach in those terms. But I actually believe that there's a lot more in the universe than just us, and whenever I have inspiration it means a spirit is trying to express itself through me, which takes a lot of the difficulty out of writing a book because you just have to do what you're told.

"A lot of times it's not that simple. With these long historical novels there's just a lot of work that you've got to do that's kind of laborious. But this book was easy, because there's just one voice and it was very strong, and it was very clear. And all I had to do was write it down."

(Editing by Steve Addison)

Birou Notarial Bucuresti

Baloane

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO | Thu Jun 2, 2011 1:09pm EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Mae is a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, working amid the rattle of dice and whisper of cards, roaming the desert with a rifle in her time off.

When planes crash into the World Trade Center, she revels in the anarchy of the destruction. And she sees, in television footage, the face of an old lover, screaming as the towers fall.

"The Color of Night," by Madison Smartt Bell, follows Mae as 9/11 sends her back through a past shadowed by abuse and her years in a 1960s cult that commits a horrifying crime, and ultimately she tracks down her lover again.

Bell, a National Book Award finalist who has written extensively about Haiti, spoke with Reuters about his book and the origins of his compelling, if unusual, heroine.

Q: What was your intention with this book?

A: "It just popped into my head. I heard that voice talking to me and then I started writing it down. When you say my intentions, it's more like her intentions. I think she wants to make her case, that she's a divine being sort of walking around, having been purified and refined through suffering, and forged in the fire, she just walks through all the mundanity and ordinary suffering of mortal life. That's her position.

"Particularly if you sign in to her world view, she's extremely powerful and even if you don't, she's got a certain amount of power. And I think that's attractive."

Q: So you heard a voice and you went on from there?

A: "Without her voice, there'd be nothing. I'd done a project a long time before, maybe four or five years before, for a series of retelling contemporary myths... I wrote about 100 words worth of proposal. I had an idea that wasn't quite the same, but there was a little germ and some part of it stuck in my mind. I think it just came out of that, like a seed.

"It was an idea of setting a Dionysius/Orpheus myth in the atmosphere of 60s terrorism and having somebody remember it. Those elements were in it. But then I basically forgot it, and when it came back it had just simmered in my unconscious for four to five years and just kind of matured there without my thinking about it, really."

Q: Was it easy or hard to write?

A: "It was incredibly easy to write, and I felt -- and I still feel like -- it was the best thing I'd done in a long time. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the ease of composition. It was mostly just typed straight onto the keyboard with minimal revision. Like automatic writing."

Q: The use of 9/11 was unusual. What was behind that?

A: "It gave the other end of the story. The front end, chronologically, is all the other stuff that happened back in the 60s. It's all reawakened by 9/11. The device of having her see her old lover in 9/11 footage and the idea that she'd just been in suspended animation all that time in between... As if you could just turn her off. That event turns her back on."

Q: And because of who she is, her response to it would be different from a lot of people.

A: "Well, sure. Everybody in the United States thought it was really terrible. So did I... I didn't feel celebratory about it at all. Yet I knew a few people in this country who did. That stuck with me and that became part of it."

Q: You said this book came to you in Mae's voice. Where do you get your ideas -- was this typical?

A: "I've said with some seriousness that my work is dictated to me by demons, and I feel that that's true. There's two ways of looking at it. If you want to take a reductive view, and there's nothing here in the universe aside from us, then it comes from your unconscious mind. I sort of teach in those terms. But I actually believe that there's a lot more in the universe than just us, and whenever I have inspiration it means a spirit is trying to express itself through me, which takes a lot of the difficulty out of writing a book because you just have to do what you're told.

"A lot of times it's not that simple. With these long historical novels there's just a lot of work that you've got to do that's kind of laborious. But this book was easy, because there's just one voice and it was very strong, and it was very clear. And all I had to do was write it down."

(Editing by Steve Addison)

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By Elaine Lies

TOKYO | Thu Jun 2, 2011 1:09pm EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Mae is a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, working amid the rattle of dice and whisper of cards, roaming the desert with a rifle in her time off.

When planes crash into the World Trade Center, she revels in the anarchy of the destruction. And she sees, in television footage, the face of an old lover, screaming as the towers fall.

"The Color of Night," by Madison Smartt Bell, follows Mae as 9/11 sends her back through a past shadowed by abuse and her years in a 1960s cult that commits a horrifying crime, and ultimately she tracks down her lover again.

Bell, a National Book Award finalist who has written extensively about Haiti, spoke with Reuters about his book and the origins of his compelling, if unusual, heroine.

Q: What was your intention with this book?

A: "It just popped into my head. I heard that voice talking to me and then I started writing it down. When you say my intentions, it's more like her intentions. I think she wants to make her case, that she's a divine being sort of walking around, having been purified and refined through suffering, and forged in the fire, she just walks through all the mundanity and ordinary suffering of mortal life. That's her position.

"Particularly if you sign in to her world view, she's extremely powerful and even if you don't, she's got a certain amount of power. And I think that's attractive."

Q: So you heard a voice and you went on from there?

A: "Without her voice, there'd be nothing. I'd done a project a long time before, maybe four or five years before, for a series of retelling contemporary myths... I wrote about 100 words worth of proposal. I had an idea that wasn't quite the same, but there was a little germ and some part of it stuck in my mind. I think it just came out of that, like a seed.

"It was an idea of setting a Dionysius/Orpheus myth in the atmosphere of 60s terrorism and having somebody remember it. Those elements were in it. But then I basically forgot it, and when it came back it had just simmered in my unconscious for four to five years and just kind of matured there without my thinking about it, really."

Q: Was it easy or hard to write?

A: "It was incredibly easy to write, and I felt -- and I still feel like -- it was the best thing I'd done in a long time. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the ease of composition. It was mostly just typed straight onto the keyboard with minimal revision. Like automatic writing."

Q: The use of 9/11 was unusual. What was behind that?

A: "It gave the other end of the story. The front end, chronologically, is all the other stuff that happened back in the 60s. It's all reawakened by 9/11. The device of having her see her old lover in 9/11 footage and the idea that she'd just been in suspended animation all that time in between... As if you could just turn her off. That event turns her back on."

Q: And because of who she is, her response to it would be different from a lot of people.

A: "Well, sure. Everybody in the United States thought it was really terrible. So did I... I didn't feel celebratory about it at all. Yet I knew a few people in this country who did. That stuck with me and that became part of it."

Q: You said this book came to you in Mae's voice. Where do you get your ideas -- was this typical?

A: "I've said with some seriousness that my work is dictated to me by demons, and I feel that that's true. There's two ways of looking at it. If you want to take a reductive view, and there's nothing here in the universe aside from us, then it comes from your unconscious mind. I sort of teach in those terms. But I actually believe that there's a lot more in the universe than just us, and whenever I have inspiration it means a spirit is trying to express itself through me, which takes a lot of the difficulty out of writing a book because you just have to do what you're told.

"A lot of times it's not that simple. With these long historical novels there's just a lot of work that you've got to do that's kind of laborious. But this book was easy, because there's just one voice and it was very strong, and it was very clear. And all I had to do was write it down."

(Editing by Steve Addison)

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Detained artist Ai headlines Beijing art show with blank wall

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Fei Xiaosheng, an organizer of the Third Incidental Art Festival gestures in front of the wall left blank in support of detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei, during the opening ceremony in Beijing June 1, 2011. Organisers of an art show in the Chinese capital have left an empty space on a gallery wall for detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei in a rare gesture of open defiance over the case. The exhibition comes at an especially sensitive time, as China braces for Saturday's 22nd anniversary of the government's deadly mobilization of the military to clear pro-democracy protests focused on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Credit: Reuters/Petar Kujundzic

By Michael Martina

BEIJING | Wed Jun 1, 2011 10:33am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Organizers of an art show in the Chinese capital have left an empty space on a gallery wall for detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei in a rare gesture of open defiance of the authorities.

A small tag with Ai's name adorns a blank wall among 19 other artists' work at an annual photography show that opened Wednesday, almost two months after police seized Ai Weiwei at Beijing's airport, igniting an international outcry.

The organizers' gesture of support for China's most politically controversial artist is a rare public display from mainland China's artistic community, which has largely stayed silent about Ai's detention.

"We feel regret because his voice can't be heard," said Lin Bing, a photographer who helped organize the show at the gallery CCD300, in Beijing's Caochangdi art area.

"It has made us think about when an artist loses the possibility of expressing himself."

Shi Yong, the owner of the gallery, said the exhibition was normal and legal, but Lin said he received phone calls from the police bureau after the show opened asking him to come in for a discussion. Organizers could not be reached by phone later.

China's state media and foreign ministry have said Ai is being investigated for tax avoidance and related charges. His family have said they have not been formally told about such charges and reject them as smears intended to silence him.

Ai had supported the Incidental Art Festival -- now in its third year -- and exhibited art at past shows, said Lin. If it were not for the "special situation," he said, his work would have been included again.

Chinese police told state media last month that a company Ai controlled, The Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., had evaded a "huge amount" of taxes and destroyed accounting documents.

But family members and supporters say the outspoken 53-year-old artist is a victim of a crackdown on political dissent.

Beijing's alarm about dissent intensified after overseas Chinese websites in February spread calls for protests across China inspired by the "Jasmine Revolution" of anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world.

Ai's career encompasses protests for artistic freedom in 1979, provocative works in the 1990s and a role in designing the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The exhibition comes at an especially sensitive time, as China braces for Saturday's 22nd anniversary of the government's deadly mobilization of the military to clear pro-democracy protests focused on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

One man with the surname Xie who came to see the exhibition took a photo in front of the white wall with Ai's name tag.

"He doesn't have his freedom, but his honor is being defended," he said, pointing to the wall.

Ai's wife Lu Qing told Reuters that after almost 60 days since his detention she has still not been notified by authorities regarding his charges and has been able to meet with him only once to discuss his health.

"There was no way to have a piece of his work hung for the show, but I think the fact that there is a blank wall in its place gives his voice extra force," she said of the exhibition.

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Fei Xiaosheng, an organizer of the Third Incidental Art Festival gestures in front of the wall left blank in support of detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei, during the opening ceremony in Beijing June 1, 2011. Organisers of an art show in the Chinese capital have left an empty space on a gallery wall for detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei in a rare gesture of open defiance over the case. The exhibition comes at an especially sensitive time, as China braces for Saturday's 22nd anniversary of the government's deadly mobilization of the military to clear pro-democracy protests focused on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Credit: Reuters/Petar Kujundzic

By Michael Martina

BEIJING | Wed Jun 1, 2011 10:33am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Organizers of an art show in the Chinese capital have left an empty space on a gallery wall for detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei in a rare gesture of open defiance of the authorities.

A small tag with Ai's name adorns a blank wall among 19 other artists' work at an annual photography show that opened Wednesday, almost two months after police seized Ai Weiwei at Beijing's airport, igniting an international outcry.

The organizers' gesture of support for China's most politically controversial artist is a rare public display from mainland China's artistic community, which has largely stayed silent about Ai's detention.

"We feel regret because his voice can't be heard," said Lin Bing, a photographer who helped organize the show at the gallery CCD300, in Beijing's Caochangdi art area.

"It has made us think about when an artist loses the possibility of expressing himself."

Shi Yong, the owner of the gallery, said the exhibition was normal and legal, but Lin said he received phone calls from the police bureau after the show opened asking him to come in for a discussion. Organizers could not be reached by phone later.

China's state media and foreign ministry have said Ai is being investigated for tax avoidance and related charges. His family have said they have not been formally told about such charges and reject them as smears intended to silence him.

Ai had supported the Incidental Art Festival -- now in its third year -- and exhibited art at past shows, said Lin. If it were not for the "special situation," he said, his work would have been included again.

Chinese police told state media last month that a company Ai controlled, The Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., had evaded a "huge amount" of taxes and destroyed accounting documents.

But family members and supporters say the outspoken 53-year-old artist is a victim of a crackdown on political dissent.

Beijing's alarm about dissent intensified after overseas Chinese websites in February spread calls for protests across China inspired by the "Jasmine Revolution" of anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world.

Ai's career encompasses protests for artistic freedom in 1979, provocative works in the 1990s and a role in designing the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The exhibition comes at an especially sensitive time, as China braces for Saturday's 22nd anniversary of the government's deadly mobilization of the military to clear pro-democracy protests focused on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

One man with the surname Xie who came to see the exhibition took a photo in front of the white wall with Ai's name tag.

"He doesn't have his freedom, but his honor is being defended," he said, pointing to the wall.

Ai's wife Lu Qing told Reuters that after almost 60 days since his detention she has still not been notified by authorities regarding his charges and has been able to meet with him only once to discuss his health.

"There was no way to have a piece of his work hung for the show, but I think the fact that there is a blank wall in its place gives his voice extra force," she said of the exhibition.

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Baloane

Cost aparat dentar

Fei Xiaosheng, an organizer of the Third Incidental Art Festival gestures in front of the wall left blank in support of detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei, during the opening ceremony in Beijing June 1, 2011. Organisers of an art show in the Chinese capital have left an empty space on a gallery wall for detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei in a rare gesture of open defiance over the case. The exhibition comes at an especially sensitive time, as China braces for Saturday's 22nd anniversary of the government's deadly mobilization of the military to clear pro-democracy protests focused on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Credit: Reuters/Petar Kujundzic

By Michael Martina

BEIJING | Wed Jun 1, 2011 10:33am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Organizers of an art show in the Chinese capital have left an empty space on a gallery wall for detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei in a rare gesture of open defiance of the authorities.

A small tag with Ai's name adorns a blank wall among 19 other artists' work at an annual photography show that opened Wednesday, almost two months after police seized Ai Weiwei at Beijing's airport, igniting an international outcry.

The organizers' gesture of support for China's most politically controversial artist is a rare public display from mainland China's artistic community, which has largely stayed silent about Ai's detention.

"We feel regret because his voice can't be heard," said Lin Bing, a photographer who helped organize the show at the gallery CCD300, in Beijing's Caochangdi art area.

"It has made us think about when an artist loses the possibility of expressing himself."

Shi Yong, the owner of the gallery, said the exhibition was normal and legal, but Lin said he received phone calls from the police bureau after the show opened asking him to come in for a discussion. Organizers could not be reached by phone later.

China's state media and foreign ministry have said Ai is being investigated for tax avoidance and related charges. His family have said they have not been formally told about such charges and reject them as smears intended to silence him.

Ai had supported the Incidental Art Festival -- now in its third year -- and exhibited art at past shows, said Lin. If it were not for the "special situation," he said, his work would have been included again.

Chinese police told state media last month that a company Ai controlled, The Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., had evaded a "huge amount" of taxes and destroyed accounting documents.

But family members and supporters say the outspoken 53-year-old artist is a victim of a crackdown on political dissent.

Beijing's alarm about dissent intensified after overseas Chinese websites in February spread calls for protests across China inspired by the "Jasmine Revolution" of anti-authoritarian uprisings across the Arab world.

Ai's career encompasses protests for artistic freedom in 1979, provocative works in the 1990s and a role in designing the Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The exhibition comes at an especially sensitive time, as China braces for Saturday's 22nd anniversary of the government's deadly mobilization of the military to clear pro-democracy protests focused on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

One man with the surname Xie who came to see the exhibition took a photo in front of the white wall with Ai's name tag.

"He doesn't have his freedom, but his honor is being defended," he said, pointing to the wall.

Ai's wife Lu Qing told Reuters that after almost 60 days since his detention she has still not been notified by authorities regarding his charges and has been able to meet with him only once to discuss his health.

"There was no way to have a piece of his work hung for the show, but I think the fact that there is a blank wall in its place gives his voice extra force," she said of the exhibition.

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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