Monster Mash: David Hallberg in Moscow; space shuttle Endeavour

New in town: American dancer David Hallberg talks about his new job at the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. (Los Angeles Times)

New home: The California Science Center near downtown L.A. is welcoming the retired space shuttle Endeavour this week. (Los Angeles Times)

Historical figure: Composer Huang Ruo's opera "Dr. Sun Yat-Sen" continues to cause controversy in China. (New York Times)

Recovered: A painting looted from a Berlin Jewish family by Nazis has been found by U.S. authorities in a museum in Zurich. (Agence France-Presse)

A star is born: Talks are reportedly underway to bring the stage musical based on the life of Susan Boyle to the U.S. (Deadline)

Please remit: Organizers of the Downtown Art Walk have received an $8,800 bill to cover the services provided by the city. (The City Maven)

Award: Pop star Usher is to be honored by the National Civil Rights Museum. (Associated Press, via USA Today)

Desperate: Officials at the Detroit Science Center said the museum will reopen its doors this month if it can raise $5 million in emergency contributions in the next two weeks. (Detroit Free Press)

Passing: Ruth Currier, a star and the director of the José Limón Dance Company, has died at 85. (New York Times)

Also in the L.A. Times: Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne on the planned film museum on the LACMA campus.

-- David Ng

Photo: David Hallberg in Moscow. Credit: Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times

Hancock among honorees at California African American Museum

Jazz musician Herbie Hancock is one of three recipients of the annual lifetime achievement award from the California African American Museum, organizers have announced. Hancock will be honored alongside choreographer Donald McKayle and visual artist Betye Saar.

The award ceremony is scheduled to take place Oct. 15 at the museum. Hancock will be presented with the museum's Lifetime Achievement Award, Musician & Composer. The musician currently serves as the creative chair for jazz at the L.A. Philharmonic, and recently performed with the orchestra at its season opener at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Hancock won an Academy Award for his score to the 1986 Bertrand Tavernier film " 'Round Midnight."

McKayle, who has choreographed for the stage, television and the movies, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, Dancer & Choreographer. In 2010, he stepped down as chair of UC Irvine's dance department.

Saar, the L.A.-based artist who specializes in assemblage, will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award, Visual Artist. One of her best-known works is "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima," which depicts the popular figure holding a shotgun. Her works will be featured in Pacific Standard Time exhibitions. Her children Alison and Lezley are also artists.

Previous lifetime honorees at the museum include Muhammad Ali and the artists William Pajaud and Artis Lane.

RELATED:

Gustavo Dudamel, Herbie Hancock hit L.A. Phil's 'Blue' gala

African American Museum toasts the arts

Donald McKayle opens his memory bank

-- David Ng

Photo: Herbie Hancock. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Monster Mash: More on movie museum plan; 'Funny Girl' on Broadway

Action: More details on the planned movie museum, a partnership between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (Los Angeles Times)

High hopes: The upcoming revival of "Funny Girl" will land on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre, with an opening set for some time in April. (Los Angeles Times)

Looking ahead: The Philadelphia Orchestra, still in bankruptcy proceedings, could be close to a contract with its musicians. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Helping hand: Placido Domingo is making a large donation toward earthquake relief in Christchurch, New Zealand, as part of a benefit concert this week. (Radio New Zealand)

Honored: Modern-dance choreographer Trisha Brown has been selected to receive a lifetime achievement honor from the New York Dance and Performance awards. (New York Times)

Commanding presence: A review of actor John Lithgow's new memoir by theater critic Charles McNulty. (Los Angeles Times)

Fixer-upper: Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are working on the restoration of the Park Avenue Armory in New York. (New York Times)

Brand new: A closer look at the new Soka Performing Arts Center in Orange County. (Los Angeles Times)

Dropped: An orchestra in Israel has removed a female singer from its lineup after pressure from Orthodox subscribers. (Haaretz)

In the works: Two new museums are being planned for the cities of Bihar and Kolkata in India. (The Art Newspaper)

Shut in: A Chicago resident has been selected to spend 30 days living at the city's Museum of Science and Industry. (Chicago Tribune)

Moving ahead: The San Antonio Symphony has decided to start the 2011-12 performance season without a contract with its musicians. (San Antonio Express-News)

Also in the L.A. Times: Music critic Mark Swed reviews composer Georg Friedrich Haas' Green Umbrella premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall; theater critic Charles McNulty reviews "Somewhere" at the Old Globe in San Diego.

-- David Ng

Photo: LACMA West, the site of the planned movie museum. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Gustavo Dudamel named artist of the year by Gramophone

Gustavo Dudamel has won one of the highest honors in classical music: the "artist of the year" award from Gramophone magazine. The 30-year-old conductor was one of 10 nominees for the annual prize, which was announced Thursday in London.

The award recognizes the "most outstanding recording artist of the past year," according to Gramophone, the British monthly that organizes the prize.

Dudamel serves as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is prinicpal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden and is affiliated with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in his home country of Venezuela. He guest conducts internationally with many orchestras and had a number of recordings released in the past year.

Because Dudamel is in L.A. at the moment to conduct the Phil, he accepted the award at the 2011 Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony via a video.

The other artist-of-the-year nominees were Alison Balsom, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Iván Fischer, 
Alina Ibragimova, 
Jonas Kaufmann, 
Lang Lang
, Andris Nelsons, Jordi Savall and 
Mitsuko Uchida. Gramophone said that the Berlin Philharmonic's nomination this year marks the first time that an ensemble was up for the big award.

Unlike other awards handed out by Gramophone, the artist of the year is voted on by the general public.

Past winners include Joyce DiDonato, Hilary Hahn, Julia Fischer, Yo-Yo Ma and Michael Tilson Thomas.

RELATED:

Gustavo Dudamel to host L.A. Phil cinema broadcast

L.A. Phil, Bard, Longy launch El Sistema-based music initiative

Gustavo Dudamel is Gramophone magazine's cover boy

— David Ng

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel conducting the L.A. Philharmonic. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.

Lisa D'Amour, Melissa James Gibson win playwright award

Lisa D'Amour, the playwright of the Broadway-bound "Detroit," and Melissa James Gibson, the writer of "This," are winners of the prestigious Steinberg Playwright Award, which honors achievements by playwrights every two years.

The awards, nicknamed "the Mimi," will be handed out at a ceremony Nov. 14 at Lincoln Center Theater in New York. Both playwrights will receive a cash award of $50,000 along with a statuette.

Previous winners of the Mimi include Tony Kushner, Bruce Norris, Tarell Alvin McCraney and David Adjmi. The award was established in 2008 and is organized through the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

Gibson's "This" recently ran at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City in a production from New York's Playwrights Horizons. Her other stage work includes "[sic]," "Current Nobody" and the musical "Brooklyn Bridge."

"Detroit," by D'Amour, is expected to makes its Broadway bow this season following a staging at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, directed by Austin Pendleton. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, losing out to Norris' "Clybourne Park."

RELATED:

Theater review: 'This' at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

Eisa Davis stars in 'This' at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

'This' opens in Culver City with Kirk Douglas watching

-- David Ng

Photo: A scene from "This" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, with Saffron Burrows, right, and Eisa Davis. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Monster Mash: Holocaust Museum gets big gift; Wallis Annenberg and MOCA

Donation: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said it received its largest single gift ever -- $17.2 million from the estate of Eric F. Ross. (Washington Post)

Philanthropist: Wallis Annenberg has joined the board of L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art. (Los Angeles Times)

Sign on the dotted line: Plácido Domingo has signed his first exclusive recording contract in 40 years with Sony Classical. (The Classical Review)

Work in progress: A revised version of the musical "Little Miss Sunshine" had a reading in New York with Raul Esparza and Sherie Rene Scott. (Broadway World)

Dysfunctional family: Laurie Metcalf and David Suchet will star in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" in London. (Playbill)

Have the lambs stopped screaming?: "Silence! The Musical" -- a stage parody of "The Silence of the Lambs" -- has settled in for an open-ended run at New York's P.S. 122. (Theatermania)

Honored: "The Book of Mormon" and "Follies" on Broadway were among the honorees of the 27th Annual Artios Awards from the Casting Society of America. (Broadway World)

Big sound: The Kennedy Center is getting a new organ as a gift worth an estimated $2 million. (Washington Post)

Leading lady: Australian actress Robyn Nevin will play the title role in Shakespeare's "King Lear" next season in Melbourne. (The Australian)

Also in the L.A. Times: Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne reviews the new public library in West Hollywood.

-- David Ng

Photo: The Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Contemporary. Credit: Ringo H.W. Chiu / For The Times

Shakespeare Center L.A. honors Hollywood figures, professor

 
 
When does an awards ceremony have the potential to turn into yet another skirmish (presumably a quite friendly one) in the long-running and probably never-to-be resolved debate over who wrote William Shakespeare’s plays?

Perhaps on Oct. 4 at Sony Studios, when the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles presents the latest round of its Crystal Quill awards. Artistic director Ben Donenberg says the honor is for “scholars, patrons and artists whose work and philanthropy advances appreciation of the immediacy of Shakespeare’s plays.” The event doubles as a $250 per ticket fundraiser for the Shakespeare Center's play productions and educational programs.

This year's winners include Bert Fields, a prominent entertainment lawyer, and film director Roland Emmerich, whose “Anonymous,” opening Oct. 28, is a tale of political intrigue in Elizabethan England that revolves around the theory that Shakespeare was merely a front for a powerful nobleman who was the actual Bard.

Monster Mash: No plans yet for 'Book of Mormon' movie

On hold: Trey Parker, one of the creators of "The Book of Mormon," said there were no immediate plans to turn the hit Broadway musical into a movie. (Hollywood Reporter)

Canceled: A Pennsylvania school district has decided not to stage the 1953 musical "Kismet" about a Muslim street poet after community complaints. (Associated Press)

New leader: The downtown L.A. arts high school has found a new principal. (Los Angeles Times)

Saved, for now: The financially imperiled American Folk Art Museum in New York has decided to continue operating at its current location at Lincoln Square with help from trustees and the Ford Foundation. (New York Times)

Missing masterpiece: Police in Houston are looking for a Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting believed stolen from a local home. (Houston Chronicle)

Scholarly trove: Photographer Elliott Erwitt's archive is being housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin for the next five years. (Associated Press)

Commission: Architect Zaha Hadid's firm has won a bid to design a new $12.5-million Miami Beach municipal parking garage. (Miami Herald)

Apply within: The Grand Rapids ArtPrize is expanding its competitive field to include composers. (Detroit Free Press)

Decline: Cultural participation by Californians continues to drop, though less so than at the national level. (Los Angeles Times)

Remembrance: A memorial service for the late artist Cy Twombly was held this week at New York's Museum of Modern Art. (Art Info)

Step right up: The National Pinball Museum is scheduled to open this fall in Baltimore. (Reuters)

Vanished: A popular rooster sculpture has been stolen from Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. (Miami Herald)

Also in the L.A. Times: Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne on the cityscapes in the new movie "Drive."

-- David Ng

Photo: Audiences outside New York's Eugene O'Neill Theatre, home to "The Book of Mormon." Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

MacArthur 'genius' grants go to cellist, architect, jazz musician

 

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday announced new MacArthur fellows for 2011. The arts honorees include architect Jeanne Gang of Chicago, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, jazz musician Dafnis Prieto and choral conductor and composer Francisco Nunez, all of New York.

Each of the so-called "genius" fellows receives $500,000 in "no-strings-attached support over the next five years," according to the foundation. The money comes "without stipulations or reporting requirements," and is intended to give the fellows a wide berth for creative freedom.

Weilerstein, 29, is a cello virtuoso was performing in Jerusalem when she received the news about being made a MacArthur Fellow:  “This is an incredible and unexpected honor and completely overwhelming.  My first response was an expression of total shock and amazement and I still cannot believe it.”

Weilerstein manages her heavy touring schedule while being a diabetic. The foundation noted that she combines "technical precision with impassioned musicianship in performances of both traditional and contemporary music and expanding the cello repertoire through collaborations with leading composers."

When she played Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto at Disney Hall earlier this year with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Times music critic Mark Swed wrote: "[I]n the intense Weilerstein, the players met their match. She tore into the concerto with a ferocity that all but left the orchestra stunned."

Gang, 47, is an architect whose most notable work is the Aqua skyscraper in Chicago. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne wrote in 2010 that "the building, with its undulating concrete-and-glass skin, does suggest a fresh direction for skyscraper design."

The foundation described Gang's work as "integrating conventional materials, bold yet functional designs, and ecologically friendly technology in a wide range of striking structures."

Prieto, 37, is a Latin jazz percussionist with a number of compositions and recordings to his credit, including "Taking the Soul for a Walk" and "Absolute Quintet." The foundation wrote that Prieto infuses "Latin jazz with bold new energy and sound, dazzling technical abilities, and rhythmically adventurous compositions."

Nunez, 46, is involved with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and was cited for "shaping the future of choral singing for children by expanding access from inner-city to elite schools, redefining the artistic and expressive boundaries of the youth choir."

Past genius fellows in artistic fields include visual artist Jorge Pardo, violinist Leila Josefowicz, playwright Lynn Nottage and theatrical lighting designer Jennifer Tipton.

The full list of 2011 fellows is on the MacArthur website. This year's recipients in health-related fields include specialists in viruses, parasites and stem cells.

RELATED:

Jazz review: Dafnis Prieto at the Jazz Bakery

Jeanne Gang brings feminine touch to Chicago's muscled skyline

Cello virtuoso Alisa Weilerstein is always at the head of her class

Music review: St. Petersburg Philharmonic begins U.S. tour with Alisa Weilerstein

-- David Ng

Photo: Alisa Weilerstein in February. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

 

New York-based Ms. Weilerstein, 29, was performing in Jerusalem when she received the news about being made a MacArthur Fellow:  “This is an incredible and unexpected honor and completely overwhelming.  My first response was an expression of total shock and amazement and I still cannot believe it.”

Ovation Awards nominations announced for 2010-11 season

This post has been corrected. Please see note below for details.

The nominations for the 2011 Ovation Awards were announced Monday night, with the Reprise Theatre Company receiving 17 nods, the most of any theater company. The Ovations are L.A.'s biggest theater award, recognizing excellence in stage productions around Southern California.

The most recent season featured 388 productions from 173 companies, according to the L.A. Stage Alliance, which organizes the Ovations. The awards ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 14 at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown L.A.

Reprise's production of "Kiss Me, Kate" received 14 nominations, the most of any show. The new musical "Venice" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre has 11 nominations, while "A Wither's Tale" by the Troubador Theater Company, has 10 nods.

Among the notable acting and directing nominations are Raul Esparza in "Leap of Faith" at the Ahmanson Theatre, Phylicia Rashad for directing "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Ebony Repertory Theatre, Laurie Metcalf for "Voice Lessons" at the Sacred Fools Theatre, and French Stewart, who received two nods for "Voice Lessons" and "Watson" at Sacred Fools.

Here is the full list of the 2011 Ovation nominations: