NY Times reviews of “Eclipsed”

Prisoners of War and Sex in Liberia
CHARLES ISHERWOOD – November 3, 2009 – New York Times

Like this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Ruined” by Lynn Nottage, which is set in Congo, “Eclipsed” depicts the harsh realities of women’s lives in a strife-torn African country with both a clear eye and a palpable empathy. Although it is a less skillfully structured drama — partly because the women here are even more powerless than the Mother Courage-like dominant figure in Ms. Nottage’s play — “Eclipsed” presents a complementary, no-less-harrowing portrait of women fighting to retain their dignity and a sense of self-worth under extreme duress.

In War-Torn Liberia, Women Making Do ANITA GATES New York Times October 31, 2009

IF you walked into a room full of sex slaves, you might not expect to find role models. Unless you’ve already seen Danai Gurira’s new drama, “Eclipsed.”

-Tanya

Eclipsed

Yale Repertory Theater

African drama ‘Eclipsed’ at Yale Rep: Mixing fact, fiction in African drama at Yale Rep
By Joe Meyers, Connecticut Post 10/29/2009

-Tanya

See Strawberry Hill

Ring in Halloween with “gloomth” – Mike Gocksch -Yale Daily News October 30, 2009

A recent front-page article in the News informs us that the Yale Center for British Art suffers from a lack of visibility: Many undergraduates, apparently, do not know it exists. There will be some who turn their nose up at the very idea of pre-twentieth century British art, dismissing it as derivative, dull, second-rate. That said, I encourage everyone, teeming undergraduate masses, skeptics and veterans of the British Art Center alike, to investigate “Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill,” a new exhibition that will be running in New Haven through Jan. 3; it may or may not make you a regular visitor to the museum, but it should leave you with a renewed appreciation for the eccentricities of our cousins across the pond.

-Tanya

Constructed Objects

Symposium at Yale Looks at Everyday Things Through Architectural Prism Yale University Office of Public Affairs

“Constructed Objects: Design by Architects in the 20th Century,” a symposium taking place November 12–13 at Yale School of Architecture, will explore ways in which architecture and design infuse and inform the everyday objects we use.

-Tanya

The Museum at the Heart of the Academy

The Museum at the Heart of the Academy – October 29, 2009 – Inside Higher Ed – James Christen Steward

Like libraries that often also find themselves embattled in times of budget cuts (since typically neither museums nor libraries directly generate tuition streams), great university art museums are a “public good,” offering value and possibility to the whole of our university communities as well as to users from outside the walls of the ivory tower. That all university museums do not achieve this centrality of purpose — often, I suspect, for lack of adequate resourcing by their parent institutions in the perpetual fight against the perception that art represents a “luxury” in the logo-and data-centric university — is to be regretted. Without question much work remains to be done to make our museums central to the academic experience.

-Tanya

Most undergraduates don’t know the BAC

British Art Center seeks more undergraduate visitors Alison Greenberg – October 28, 2009 -Yale Daily News

The survey found that undergraduates comprised just 2 percent of visitors to the [British Arts] center. Attendance at gallery events, such as screenings, lectures and concerts, is composed primarily of New Haven residents, visitors and graduate students, with much lower numbers of undergraduates, Meyers said. This means that approximately 2,000 Yale undergraduates visit the center annually, according to the center’s spokesman, Ricardo Sandoval ’06.

-Tanya

New Projection Major At Yale

Wendall K. Harrington Heads New Projection Major At Yale Oct 21, 2009 – Live Design – Ellen Lampert-Gréaux

Projection designer Wendall K. Harrington will head the new projection concentration within the design department at the Yale School of Drama, as announced by Ming Cho Lee and Stephen Strawbridge, co-chairs. The program begins in the fall of 2010, as one of the first graduate theatre training programs of its kind in the United States.

-Tanya

A Shower of Tiny Petals

A Shower of Tiny Petals in a Marriage of Art and Botany – KAREN ROSENBERG – New York Times – October 22, 2009

The fascinating “Mrs. Delany and Her Circle,” at the Yale Center for British Art, celebrates this exemplary woman’s contributions to botany, the decorative arts and English court society. All of these fields had something to do with order, structure and design (in the divine, as well as the human, sense).

-Tanya

Yale moves to drop museum suits

Yale moves to drop museum suits Nora Caplan-Bricker – Yale Daily News – October 27, 2009

The University filed one motion Oct. 5 to dismiss Pierre Konowaloff’s claim to ownership of “The Night Café,” a painting by Vincent Van Gogh housed in the permanent collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, and another on Oct. 16 to dismiss the Republic of Peru’s suit for the return of Inca artifacts housed in the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

-Tanya

Rosenkranz Hall out of place

New building does not fit in Erica Blonde -Yale Daily News October 23, 2009

Rosenkranz Hall appears on Yale’s campus like a Piet Mondrian in a room full of Rembrandts: out of place.

-Tanya

Throwing away the Green House

Chase: Throwing away the Green House and sustainability Thomas Chase – Yale Daily News October 27, 2009

Given my work as an ecologist and environmentalist studying environmental impacts and the built environment, that the school’s gallery was hosting “The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture” should have warmed my heart. However, on a routine salvage visit to the loading dock behind Paul Rudolph Hall, I was surprised to find the entire exhibit, eight-foot-tall stands, display boards, tables and all, in a dumpster awaiting its one-way trip to the landfill. So much reusable material was being discarded that an extra dumpster, in addition to the one normally present, was on-site to receive it.

-Tanya

Expansion Plans Put Yale Alums at Odds

Expansion Plans Put Yale Alums at Odds – Architectural Record C. J. Hughes – October 26, 2009

“Bob Stern is a talented architect, and I’m sure whatever he does will be wonderful. But does it require a wholesale bulldozing?” says [William] Moore, adding that saving the buildings would mesh with Yale’s stated eco-friendly mission.

-Tanya

The Shakespeare Lady

MICHELLE NICOLE LEE, an alumni of the Yale Drama School, has written an essay for The New York Times on mental illness and her encounters with New Haven’s famous Shakespeare Lady.

When Madness Is in the Wings October 23, 2009 New York Times

-Tanya

Sol LeWitt @ the new Smilow Hospital

Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing 692″ @ Mass MoCa

Smilow’s interior features modern art – Lauren Motzkin – Yale Daily News – October 22, 2009

In a collaboration between the Smilow Hospital and the Yale University Art Gallery, “Wall Drawing 692” by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt has been installed in the lobby of the hospital, providing patients and visitors with a colorful welcome to the building.

-Tanya

Smilow Cancer Hospital’s design met criticism

Smilow Cancer Hospital’s design met criticism Amir Sharif Yale Daily News October 22, 2009

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Smilow Cancer Hospital Wednesday, nothing about the festive atmosphere and teary-eyed attendants suggested the controversial design process of the building — a process that involved extensive negotiations between hospital administrators, the building’s architects and city officials.

-Tanya