Interviews News

dramas missing in action

November 5, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Boston Globe, British Lad, British Playwrights, Climate Change, Dearth, Don Aucoin, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Metaphors, Missing In Action, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Steed, Theatre Critic, Tony Award, Tonys, War Horse, World War I

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Kellie Gutman writes:

With War Horse coming to the end of its run in Boston, the theatre critic for the Boston Globe, Don Aucoin remarks on the dearth of war dramas on stage. Â He writes:During a decade when the United States was mired in two wrenching, costly, and divisive wars, the only combat drama to win a Tony Award as best play was a heartwarming, puppet-driven tale about a British lad and his beloved steed in World War I: War Horse… In fact, if you scan the list of plays, musicals, and performances nominated for Tonys in the past ten years, you’d barely know we were at war at all.

Until recently, much the same could be said about plays on climate change.

See british playwrights have “blithely ignored” climate change

miniature horse meets war horse

October 24, 2012Ashden DirectoryAnimal Cruelty, Animal Rescue League, Basil Jones, Boston Globe, Broadway Production, Climate Change, Cruelty Case, Dedham Massachusetts, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Miniature Horse, Play Date, Puppet Company, Puppeteer, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Twitter, War Horse, Windsor Castle

Celeste and Joey, courtesy the Boston Globe

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Kellie Gutman writes:

War HorseÂ opened in Boston on October 10 for a two-week run. Â The traveling Broadway production, which originated at the National Theatre a few years ago, is getting all sorts of press. Â The day before the opening the main characters – the horse Joey, his owner and his puppeteer – went to the Animal Rescue League in Dedham, Massachusetts to have a play date with Celeste, a miniature horse who had been involved in an animal cruelty case earlier in the year. Â Joey is a well-traveled steed. Â He has also been to Windsor Castle where he apparently won over the heart of the Queen. Â The Handspring Puppet Company cofounders Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, who designed the War HorseÂ puppets, were featured in a long article about their puppets in the Boston Globe.

the family and the world heat up in Nick Payne’s play

October 12, 2012Ashden DirectoryArtistic Director, Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Domestic Drama, Dr Faustus, Father Daughter, George Monbiot, Global Issue, Gutman, Interviews News, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joan Marcus, Mother Father, New York Times, Nick Payne, Polemicist, Robert Butler, Roundabout Theatre, Roundheads And Cavaliers, Twitter, Vanishing Act

Photo: Joan Marcus

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Kellie Gutman writes:

If There Is I Haven’t Found it Yet, with Brian O’Byrne and Jake Gyllenhaal, opened in New York’s Roundabout Theatre in September and runs through 25 November. Â It was written by Nick Payne, and inspired by his reading of HeatÂ by George Monbiot, about decreasing one’s carbon footprint. Â Payne saw that many authors of environmentally-themed books had dedicated them to their children, and it gave him the idea of a father trying to save the planet in order to make the world a better place for his children, and beyond. Â But the father is so wrapped up in his work that he fails to notice the problems within his own family. Â The New York TimesÂ review is here.

Artistic director Todd Haimes writes:

On one level, we are watching a domestic drama play about a mother, father, daughter, and uncle. Â But the play also takes on a much bigger global issue. Â We all want to do the right thing for both the world at large and for the world of our own family, but maybe that’s impossible.

More George Monbiot on ashdenizen:
roundheads and cavaliers
the negotiator and the polemicist
vanishing act
George Monbiot finds Dr. FaustusÂ the classic text for climate change

The golden glow of arts funding

September 26, 2012Ashden Directory, Open CallsArt Competition, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Copper Mining, Core Principles, Core Values, Direc, Features Interviews, Gold Operation, Gold Website, Golden Glow, Interviews News, Leach, Metaphors, Mining Companies, Open Pit Heap, Residencies, Respect For The Environment, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Yamana Gold

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Wallace Heim writes:

Wooloo.org is the organisation in Copenhagen that came up with the idea of housing artists and activists in people’s home for the climate talks. Their website lists open calls for artist’s awards, residencies and other opportunities.

This week’s Special Call is for Passion to Perform – Art Competition 2012, for paintings, photography, sculptures and drawings, with prizes of Canadian $6,000, $2,500 and $1,000.

It’s not exactly an ‘open’ call.

The sponsor is Yamana Gold, one of the world’s leading gold and copper mining companies, with operations throughout the Americas, primarily Argentina and Brazil. They are asking for artworks that are inspired by the company’s core principles: “sustainability, dependability, respect for the environment and our communities, safety of our colleagues.”

“Passion to Perform is a competition which celebrates the success of Yamana Gold, and we are looking forward to engaging creatively in a way that reflects our company’s diversity and core values.”

Other views about Yamana Gold’s principles are here and here.

Photo above of the Gualcamayo open pit, heap leach gold operation in the San Juan province of Argentina, courtesy of the Yamana Gold website.

The first river to have legal rights

September 24, 2012Ashden DirectoryAffections, Aotearoa New Zealand, Associate Editor, Awa, Climate Change, Court Cases, Features Interviews, Grievances, Interviews News, Jem, Legal Entity, Legal Voice, Phil Robinson, River Aire, River Exe, River Frome, Robert Butler, Shipley, Southam, Twitter

The Whanganui River, Aotearoa / New Zealand, photo: Phil Robinson

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Wallace Heim writes:

For the first time, a river has been given a legal voice. The Whanganui Riverin New Zealandhas become a legal entity, and will be recognised as a person in law in the same way that a company is, giving it rights and interests.

The status of the river as Te Awa Tupua (an integrated, living whole) is a step in the resolution of historical grievances and court cases between the Whanganui iwi, the Maori peoples and nations living along the river, and the Crown. Two guardians, one from the Whanganui Riveriwi, and one from the Crown will be given the role of protecting the river.

In the UK, â€˜rightsâ€™ generally means the right to access for humans to rivers, or the right to flood protection.

But many artists are negotiating the relations between human use and the free-running of rivers, navigating the values and affections towards rivers. Just now, among these are Multi-Story Water on the River Aire in Shipley and the River Frome in Bristol, and River Runs on the Thames near Oxford. Jem Southam is exhibiting photographs of the River Exe, investigating what makes or defines a river. Earlier this year, Flow turned the Tyne into music in Newcastle. And two decades ago, Still Waters uncovered the buried rivers of London.

Weather presenter freaks out

September 19, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, blog, Climate Change, Colleague, Comedy, Features Interviews, Flowers, Freaks, Interviews News, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Strays, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, United Kingdom, Weather Climate, Weather Presenter

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http://youtu.be/TmfcJP_0eMc

A colleague has emailed us this clip. A weather presenter strays into climate reporting, comedy and reality.

stagereads features Caridad Svich

September 11, 2012Ashden Directory15 September, 3 April, Artistic Associate, Associate Editor, Bp Oil Spill, Catastrophes, Cities In The United States, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Fishing In The Gulf Of Mexico, Goodman Theatre In Chicago, Gulf Of Mexico, Gutman, Henry Godinez, Interviews News, Lifetime Achievement, Obie Award, Playwrights, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Twitter

photo: stagereads, Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico

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Kellie Gutman writes:

A new website, stagereads, is publishing plays by emerging playwrights, which are e-readable on mobile devices. They are available by subscription, with a 155 discount for those subscribing before 15 September. Â The first featured playwright is Caridad Svich and her recent play The Way of Water.

Svich received the 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Â The Way of WaterÂ has been traveling since 3 April, 2012, and has had readings in fifty cities in the United States as well as in the UK and beyond. Â The play, written after the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, tells the story of two fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, who have to deal with the after effects of the spill. The introduction to the play is written by Henry Godinez, Resident Artistic Associate at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

He writes in his final paragraph:

Many a great play has been written about corporate negligence and devastating catastrophes, but what makes The Way of Water so compelling is the way it exposes the after effects of such sensational evens in the most real of human terms.

Jonathan Jones faces the empty museum

September 10, 2012Ashden DirectoryAnimals And Plants, Art Critic, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Foundations, Human Culture, Imaginations, Interviews News, Jonathan, Jonathan Jones, Meaning Of Life, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Sixth Extinction, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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GuardianÂ art critic Jonathan Jones on the sixth extinction:

“Human activity endangers entire species, yet human culture is profoundly rooted in nature. The loss of a species is also a loss of the images, stories, symbols and wonders that we live by â€“ to call it a cultural loss may sound too cerebral: what we lose when we lose animalsÂ is the very meaning of life…The range of animals and plants threatened by the sixth extinction is such that it menaces the foundations of culture as well as the diversity of nature. We are part of nature and it has always fed our imaginations. We face the bare walls of an empty museum, a gallery of the dead.”

Speedier spring

July 11, 2012Ashden DirectoryApril 4, Associate Editor, Atlanta Georgia, Climate Change, Daffodils, Eastern Seaboard, Features Interviews, Fort Kent, Gutman, Interviews News, Metaphors, Miles Per Hour, Northernmost Point, Paideia School, Robert Butler, Route 1, Six Ways, sustainability, Twitter, Warm Spring

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‘Progress of Spring’ final report

Kellie Gutman writes:

The Â fourth and fifth grade class at the Paideia SchoolÂ in Atlanta, Georgia, has completed their year-long project documenting the progress of spring, as defined by the first blooming daffodil reported along the length of Route 1, from Florida to Maine. Â Their results confirm the general impression that this was a very warm spring on the eastern seaboard. Â At the northernmost point, Fort Kent, Maine, daffodils were spotted on April 4, 2012 – nearly a month earlier than last year, and the earliest in the twenty-two years that the class has been keeping records. Â The rate that spring advanced, 1570 miles in 93 days, was approximately 17 miles a day, or .7 miles per hour, which is about average.

Taking a book for a walk

July 9, 2012Ashden DirectoryBook Of Revelations, Buttermere, Divine Comedy, Friend Charles, German Poetry, Heddon, Hucks, Interviews News, John Keats, Nan Shepherd, Night Cap, North Wales, Oilskin, Peripatetic, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Butler, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Twitter, Werner Herzog, Writing Group

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Wallace Heim writes, with thanks to Dee Heddon

What book would you take for a walk…?

In 1794, John Hucks and Samuel Taylor Coleridge walked to North Wales. Hucks carried with him the poems of Thomas Churchyard.

In 1802, Coleridge walked through Cumberland, carrying with him ‘a shirt, a cravat, two pairs of stockings, tea, sugar, pens and paper, his night-cap, and a book of German poetry wrapped in green oilskin.’ He apparently read the Book of Revelations in Buttermere.

In 1818, John Keats travelled the Lake District and up to Scotland with his friend Charles Brown. Keats’ carried Dante’s Divine Comedy, Brown the works of John Milton.

In 2012, during August and September, Dee Heddon and Misha Myers are joining the Sideways Festival, walking from the west to the east of Belgium. For the length of the walk, they will carry a walking library – rucksacks filled with books that are good to take on a walk. The library will support a peripatetic reading and writing group.

Dee and Misha are in the process of building the library. So far, they will be carrying Werner Herzog’s Of Walking in Ice, Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost and more.

They welcome suggestions of books to take on a walk, including details of books taken on a walk by illustrious walkers/writers.

Email suggestions to Dee Heddon.