Watch Prince Appear on the Muppets Tonight Show & Reveal His Humble, Down-to-Earth Side (1997)

in Comedy, Music, Television | September 7th, 2021

From Frog to Prince: We will always love your music and you. Our hearts are yours. Thanks for being a friend.
– Ker­mit the Frog, April 21, 2016

There was a time when shar­ing the screen with the Mup­pets was the ulti­mate celebri­ty sta­tus sym­bol.

Prince nev­er appeared on The Mup­pet Show – 1999, the 1982 album that made him a house­hold name, was released the year after the series con­clud­ed its run — but he got his chance fif­teen years lat­er, with an appear­ance on the short­er lived Mup­pets Tonight.

In a trib­ute writ­ten short­ly after Prince’s death, Mup­pets Tonight writer Kirk Thatch­er recalled:

We were very excit­ed that Prince had agreed to do our Mup­pet com­e­dy and vari­ety show but had been told by his man­agers and sup­port staff before we met with him that we must nev­er look at him direct­ly or call him any­thing but, “The Artist” or just, “Artist”. As the writ­ers of the show, we were won­der­ing how we were going to work or col­lab­o­rate with some­one you can’t even look at, espe­cial­ly while try­ing to cre­ate com­e­dy with pup­pets!

His staff sent an advance team to make sure the work­ing envi­ron­ment would be to his lik­ing, spe­cial food and drink was laid in at his request, and the scripts of sketch­es that had been writ­ten for him were sent ahead for his approval. 

The Mup­pets’ crew grew even more ner­vous when Prince asked for a meet­ing the night before the sched­uled shoot day. Thatch­er had “visions of him trash­ing every­thing and forc­ing us to start over,” adding that it would not have been the first time a guest star would have insist­ed on a total over­haul at zero hour.

Instead of the mon­ster they’d been brac­ing for, Prince — who Thatch­er described as “only half again big­ger than most of the Mup­pets” —  proved a game if some­what “bemused” and “qui­et” col­lab­o­ra­tor:

He had fun addi­tions and improvs and loved play­ing and ad-lib­bing with the pup­pets and was very easy to talk to and work with. The whole sit­u­a­tion with his advance team and man­age­ment remind­ed me of the rela­tion­ship I had cre­at­ed between Ker­mit and Sam the Eagle in Mup­pet Trea­sure Island. Sam had con­vinced every­one that Ker­mit, play­ing Cap­tain Smol­let, was a furi­ous and angry tyrant, beset by inner demons and out­er tirades. But when we meet him, he was just good, old, sweet-natured Ker­mit the Frog… just in a cap­tains out­fit. The same for Prince. He was just a nice, fun, cre­ative guy who had built this per­sona around him­self, and had a team there to rein­force it, prob­a­bly to pro­tect his art, his per­son­al life and even his san­i­ty.

The episode riffed on his estab­lished image, shoe­horn­ing Mup­pets into a “leather and lace” look that Prince him­self had moved on from, and crack­ing jokes relat­ed to the unpro­nounce­able “Love Sym­bol” to which he’d changed his name four years ear­li­er.

Nat­u­ral­ly, they plumbed his cat­a­logue for musi­cal num­bers, hav­ing par­tic­u­lar fun with “Starfish and Cof­fee,” which fea­tures a pro­to-Prince Mup­pet and an alter­nate ori­gin sto­ry.

(The actu­al ori­gin sto­ry is pret­ty great, and pro­vides anoth­er tiny glimpse of this mys­te­ri­ous artist’s true nature.)

The show also afford­ed Prince the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chart some unex­pect­ed ter­ri­to­ry with Hoo Haw, a spoof of the coun­tri­fied TV vari­ety show Hee Haw.

If you’ve ever won­dered how The Pur­ple One would look in over­alls and a plaid but­ton down, here’s your chance to find out.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch Blondie’s Deb­bie Har­ry Per­form “Rain­bow Con­nec­tion” with Ker­mit the Frog on The Mup­pet Show (1981)

Watch a New Director’s Cut of Prince’s Blis­ter­ing “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps” Gui­tar Solo (2004)

Prince’s First Tele­vi­sion Inter­view (1985)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Philosophy vs. Improv: A New Podcast from The Partially Examined Life and Chicago Improv Studio

in Comedy, Philosophy, Podcasts | August 24th, 2021

The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast has been shar­ing read­ing-group dis­cus­sions on clas­sic phi­los­o­phy texts for well over a decade, with over 40 mil­lion down­loads to date.

How­ev­er, inter­ac­tive con­ver­sa­tions about texts you prob­a­bly haven’t read can be dif­fi­cult to fol­low no mat­ter how much we try to make them acces­si­ble, and a decade of his­to­ry means that many names that might be dropped that those new­ly check­ing in may or may not be famil­iar with.

I’m one of the hosts of that pod­cast, and while I’m very hap­py with the for­mat and thrilled to have reached so many peo­ple with it, I also appre­ci­ate the dynam­ic of a one-on-one tutor­ing inter­change, and I stand firm­ly behind one of the orig­i­nal rules of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life: No name-drop­ping.

As we read more com­pli­cat­ed texts, our inter­est becomes fig­ur­ing out what the philoso­pher meant, and only sec­on­dar­i­ly whether that mean­ing actu­al­ly relates to some­thing in peo­ple’s actu­al lives. Yes, we are crit­i­cal (some say too crit­i­cal) of the sub­ject-mat­ter, but we’re also big fans; we could bask in the lit­er­ary glow of Hegel or Pla­to or Simone de Beau­voir or Han­nah Arendt all day, and have often done so.

My newest pod­cast, Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv, is rec­i­p­ro­cal tutor­ing real­ized as com­e­dy (or at least per­for­mance art?). As some­one who stud­ied phi­los­o­phy for many years in school and has then been host­ing The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life for so long, I’m in a good posi­tion to come up with par­tic­u­lar philo­soph­i­cal points worth teach­ing to a new learn­er.

My Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv co-host is Bill Arnett, founder of the Chica­go Improv Stu­dio, author of The Com­plete Impro­vis­er, and the for­mer train­ing direc­tor at Chicago’s famed iO The­ater. He has appeared repeat­ed­ly on the Hel­lo From the Mag­ic Tav­ern improv com­e­dy pod­cast as a char­ac­ter named Meta­more who leads the show’s hosts (who are all fan­ta­sy char­ac­ters a la Tolkein or Nar­nia) in a table-top role-play­ing game called Offices and Boss­es. This and oth­er shows ignit­ed in me an urge to learn the fun­da­men­tals of improv com­e­dy, and so each Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv episode, Bill comes up with some trick of the trade to try to teach me.

There are two rules of engage­ment: First, we can’t just state up front what the les­son is. We can ask each oth­er ques­tions, go through exer­cis­es, and oth­er­wise dis­cuss the mate­r­i­al, but the les­son should emerge nat­u­ral­ly. Sec­ond, we don’t take turns in try­ing to teach each oth­er. As he’s mak­ing me act out scenes, I’m try­ing to set up those scenes or have my char­ac­ter react in such a way to exem­pli­fy my philo­soph­i­cal point. As we’re dis­cussing phi­los­o­phy, Bill is relat­ing it to com­pa­ra­ble points about improv. Of course, we’re both inter­est­ed in learn­ing as well as teach­ing, so the “vs.” in the show’s title is not so much com­pe­ti­tion between us as between which les­son ends up more near­ly pro­duc­ing its intend­ed effect in the oth­er per­son.

It is sur­pris­ing how smooth­ly these duel­ing lessons often fit togeth­er, as lessens about ethics in par­tic­u­lar, about the art of liv­ing, are very much rel­e­vant to the impro­vi­sa­tion­al skills of being present, pre­sent­ing your­self, dis­cov­er­ing the real­i­ty of a sit­u­a­tion, and explor­ing truths of char­ac­ter. Fic­tion is often a very effec­tive vehi­cle for address­ing phi­los­o­phy, whether the char­ac­ters them­selves are talk­ing philo­soph­i­cal­ly (even if they’re ani­mals, cave men, or oth­er­wise in a non-typ­i­cal sit­u­a­tion for dis­cus­sion), or per­haps we’re embody­ing some polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion or thought exper­i­ment that we’re sub­ject­ing to philo­soph­i­cal analy­sis.

Like­wise, back to the days of Pla­to, a dose of irony in dis­cussing phi­los­o­phy can be use­ful, and this for­mat allows us to not just be our­selves on a pod­cast dis­cussing phi­los­o­phy, but at any point to launch into some com­e­dy bit, and in this way show the absur­di­ty of views we’re argu­ing against or just play with the ideas in a man­ner that I think enhances men­tal flex­i­bil­i­ty, which is essen­tial both for impro­vi­sa­tion and for philo­soph­i­cal cre­ativ­i­ty.

Lis­ten to the lat­est episode (#7), enti­tled “Mer­i­toc­ra­cy Now!”

Start lis­ten­ing with Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv episode 1.

For more infor­ma­tion, see philosophyimprov.com.

Mark Lin­sen­may­er is the host of four pod­casts: Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, Naked­ly Exam­ined Music, The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, and Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv.

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How The Pink Panther Painted The Mona Lisa’s Smile: Watch the 1975 Animation, “Pink Da Vinci”

in Animation, Comedy | July 23rd, 2021

Just a lit­tle fun to send you into the sum­mer week­end. Above, we present the 1975 ani­mat­ed short, “Pink Da Vin­ci,” which IMDB frames as fol­lows:

Anoth­er bat­tle of the paint­brush between the Pink Pan­ther and a diminu­tive painter, who this time is Leonar­do Da Vin­ci, paint­ing his mas­ter­piece, the Mona Lisa. The lit­tle Da Vin­ci paints a pout­ing mouth on the Mona Lisa, but the Pink Pan­ther decides to covert­ly replace the pout with a smile. When the smile wins the appre­ci­a­tion of an art patron, Da Vin­ci is enraged and repaints the pout. The Pink Pan­ther repeat­ed­ly changes the pout to a smile while the lit­tle painter is not look­ing, and ulti­mate­ly it is the Pink Pan­ther’s ver­sion of the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Lou­vre.

If this whets your appetite, watch 15 hours of Pink Pan­ther ani­ma­tions here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Orig­i­nal 1940s Super­man Car­toon: Watch 17 Clas­sic Episodes Free Online

Watch 15 Hours of The Pink Pan­ther for Free

Watch La Lin­ea, the Pop­u­lar 1970s Ital­ian Ani­ma­tions Drawn with a Sin­gle Line

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What’s the Role of a Director in Constructing Comedy? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #100

in Comedy, Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | July 22nd, 2021

What makes for a good com­e­dy film or show? Fun­ny peo­ple read­ing (or impro­vis­ing) fun­ny lines is not enough; an good direc­tor needs to cap­ture (or recre­ate in the edit­ing room) com­ic tim­ing, con­struct shots so that the humor comes through and coach the actors to make sure that the tone of the work is con­sis­tent.

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Heather Fink to dis­cuss the role of the direc­tor in mak­ing a com­e­dy (or any­thing else) actu­al­ly good. Heather has direct­ed for TV, film, and com­mer­cials and spent a lot of time doing sound (a boom oper­a­tor or sound util­i­ty) for pro­duc­tions like Sat­ur­day Night Live, Get Out, The Morn­ing Show, and Mar­vel’s Dare­dev­il.

We talk about main­tain­ing com­e­dy through the tedious process of film­ing, putting actors through sex scenes and oth­er hard­ships, not telling them how to say their lines, come­di­ans in dra­mas, direct­ing improv/prank shows, and more. We touch on include Bad Trip, Bar­ry, and Ted Las­so, and more.

Watch some of Heather’s work:

  • Alleged, a short about dra­ma­tiz­ing accu­sa­tions against Steven Segal
  • Inside You, a film she wrote, direct­ed, and (reluc­tant­ly) starred in
  • The Focus Group, a short Heather direct­ed writ­ten by and star­ring Sara Ben­in­casa

We used some arti­cles to bring var­i­ous direc­tors and tech­niques to mind:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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A Side Splitting Medieval TikTok Account: Get a Laugh at Medieval Yoga Poses & Much More

in Art, Comedy, Fashion, History | June 11th, 2021

@greedypeasant🧘‍♀️ Medieval Yoga 🧘 #medievaltik­tok #yoga #yogalover #peace­with­in #fyp #fory­ou #fory­oupage♬ orig­i­nal sound — Tyler Gun­ther

Tik­Tok, the short-form video-shar­ing plat­form, is an are­na where the young dom­i­nate — last sum­mer, The New York Times report­ed that over a third of its 49 mil­lion dai­ly users in the US were aged 14 or younger.

Yet some­how, a ful­ly grown medieval peas­ant has become one of its most com­pelling pres­ences, breezi­ly shar­ing his yoga reg­i­men, above, his obses­sion with tas­sels and ornate sleeves, and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Tran­sit Authority’s plans to upcy­cle his era’s tor­ture devices as New York City sub­way exit gates.

30-year-old Brook­lyn-based artist Tyler Gun­ther views his cre­ation, Greedy Peas­ant, as “the man­i­fes­ta­tion of all the strange medieval art we now enjoy in meme form”:

Often times medieval his­to­ry focus­es on roy­als, wars, popes and plagues. With this peas­ant guide, we get to expe­ri­ence the world through the lens of a queer artist who is just try­ing to make sure every­one is on time for their cos­tume fit­tings for the East­er pageant. 

Ear­li­er, Gunther’s medieval fix­a­tion found an out­let in comics that he post­ed to Insta­gram.

Then last Feb­ru­ary, he found him­self quar­an­ti­ning in an Aus­tralian hotel room for 2 weeks pri­or to per­form­ing in the Ade­laide Fes­ti­val as part of The Plas­tic Bag Store, artist Robin Fro­hardt’s alter­nate­ly hilar­i­ous and sober­ing immer­sive super­mar­ket instal­la­tion:

My quar­an­tine plans had been to work on a mas­sive set of illus­tra­tions and teach myself the entire Adobe Cre­ative Suite. Instead I just wan­dered from one cor­ner of the hotel room to the next and stared at the office build­ing direct­ly out­side my win­dow. About 4 days in, Robin texted, “Now is your time to make a Tik­Tok.” I had avoid­ed it for so long. I always had an excuse and I was gen­uine­ly con­fused about how the app worked. But with no alter­na­tives left I made a few videos “just to test out some of the fil­ters” and I was instant­ly hooked. 

Now, a green screen and a set of box lights are per­ma­nent­ly installed in his Brook­lyn stu­dio so he can film when­ev­er inspi­ra­tion strikes, pro­vid­ed it’s not too steamy to don the tights, cowls, wigs and woolens that are an inte­gral part of Greedy Peasant’s look.

@greedypeasant🕷🕷🕷 (to be con­tin­ued) #medievaltik­tok #fyp #fory­oupage #fory­ou #spi­der­man♬ orig­i­nal sound — Tyler Gun­ther

One of Gunther’s most eye pop­ping cre­ations came about when Greedy Peas­ant answered an ad post in the town square seek­ing a Spi­der Man (i.e., a man with spi­ders) to com­bat a bug infes­ta­tion:

As a for­mer cos­tume design stu­dent, I’m intrigued by how super­hero uni­forms fit with­in the very con­ser­v­a­tive world of West­ern men’s fash­ion. We’re sup­posed to believe these col­or blocked body­suits are ath­let­ic and high tech. These man­ly men don’t wear them just because they look great in them, they wear them for our pro­tec­tion and the greater good.  But what if one super­hero did val­ue style over sub­stance? Would he still retain his author­i­ta­tive qual­i­ties if his super suit was embroi­dered and bead­ed and drip­ping with tas­sels? This medieval­ist believes so. 

About that tas­sel obses­sion…

To me tas­sels rep­re­sent orna­men­ta­tion for ornamentation’s sake at its peak. This dec­o­ra­tive con­cept is so maligned in our cur­rent age. 21st cen­tu­ry design trends are so sleek and smooth, which does make our lives prac­ti­cal and effi­cient. But soon we’ll all be dead. Medieval arti­sans seemed to under­stand this on some lev­el. I think if iPhones were sold in the mid­dle ages they would have 4 tas­sels on each cor­ner. Why? Because it would look very nice. A tas­sel looks beau­ti­ful as a piece of sta­t­ic sculp­ture. It adds an air of author­i­ty and pol­ish to what­ev­er object it is attached to. If that were all they pro­vid­ed us it would be enough. But then sud­den­ly you give your elbow a lit­tle flick and before you know it your sleeve tas­sels are in flight! They are per­form­ing a per­son­al bal­let with their lit­tle strings going wher­ev­er the chore­og­ra­phy may take them. It’s a gift.

@greedypeasant(not) FACTS. ##medievaltik­tok ##nyc ##newyorkc­i­ty ##nychis­to­ry ##fyp ##fory­ou ##fory­oupage♬ orig­i­nal sound — Tyler Gun­ther

Gunther’s keen eye extends to his green screen back­grounds, many of which are drawn from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art’s online image col­lec­tion.

He also shoots on loca­tion when the sit­u­a­tion war­rants:

Espe­cial­ly in New York City, where it seems like every neigh­bor­hood has at least one build­ing dressed up to look as if it sur­vived the Black Plague. I love this bla­tant­ly false illu­sion of a hero­ic past. We American’s know it’s a façade. We know the build­ing was built in 1910, not 1410, but some­how it still pleas­es us. Even when I went home to Arkansas to vis­it fam­i­ly, we were con­stant­ly scout­ing film­ing loca­tions which looked con­vinc­ing­ly medieval. Our great­est find were the back rooms and the choir loft of a beau­ti­ful goth­ic revival church in our town.

While Gun­ther is obvi­ous­ly his own star attrac­tion, he alter­nates screen time with a group of “reli­quary ladies,” whose main trio, Brid­gette, Aman­da and Susan are the queen bees of the side aisle. Even before he used a green screen fil­ter to ani­mate them with his eyes, lips, and a hint of mus­tache, he was drawn to their hair­dos and indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties dur­ing repeat vis­its to the Met Clois­ters.

“As reli­quar­ies, they embody such a spe­cif­ic medieval sen­si­bil­i­ty,” he enthus­es. “Each housed a small body part of a deceased saint, which peo­ple would make a pil­grim­age to see. This com­bi­na­tion of the sacred, macabre and beau­ti­ful includes all my favorite medieval ele­ments.”

@greedypeasantWill the real St. Catherine’s low­er jaw please stand up. ##medievaltik­tok ##his­to­ry­tok ##fyp ##fory­ou ##fory­oupage ##reli­quary ##peas­ant ##arthis­to­ry♬ orig­i­nal sound — Tyler Gun­ther

Get to know Tyler Gunther’s Greedy Peas­ant here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

160,000 Pages of Glo­ri­ous Medieval Man­u­scripts Dig­i­tized: Vis­it the Bib­lio­the­ca Philadel­phien­sis

A Free Yale Course on Medieval His­to­ry: 700 Years in 22 Lec­tures

Killer Rab­bits in Medieval Man­u­scripts: Why So Many Draw­ings in the Mar­gins Depict Bun­nies Going Bad

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Mistake Waltz: Watch the Hilarious Ballet by Legendary Choreographer Jerome Robbins

in Comedy, Dance | June 4th, 2021

So often mis­takes are the most mem­o­rable part of live per­for­mance.

In Jerome Rob­bins’ The Con­cert (or The Per­ils of Every­body), they’re built in.

The por­tion set to Chopin’s Waltz in E Minor, above, has earned the nick­name The Mis­take Waltz. It’s an anthol­o­gy of screw ups that will be famil­iar to any­one who’s attend­ed a few ama­teur bal­let pro­duc­tions and school recitals.

When the entire ensem­ble is meant to be trav­el­ing in the same direc­tion or syn­chro­niz­ing swan­like ges­tures, the one who’s egre­gious­ly out of step is a guar­an­teed stand­out… if not the audience’s flat out favorite.

Rob­bins gen­er­ous­ly spreads the clown­ing between all six mem­bers of the corps, get­ting extra mileage from the telegraphed irri­ta­tion in every indis­creet­ly attempt­ed cor­rec­tion.

Per­formed well, the silli­ness seems almost impro­vi­sa­tion­al, but as with all of this leg­endary choreographer’s work, the spon­ta­neous beats are very, very spe­cif­ic.

It only works if the dancers have the tech­ni­cal prowess and the com­ic chops to pull it off. Les Bal­lets Trock­adero de Monte Car­lo aside, this can present a siz­able cast­ing chal­lenge.

Rob­bins also felt that The Con­cert should be pre­sent­ed spar­ing­ly, to keep the jokes from becom­ing stale.

Indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies have some agency over their cos­tumes, but oth­er than that, it is exe­cut­ed just as it was in its 1956 debut with the New York City Ballet.

For­mer NYCB lead dancer Peter Boal, who was 10 when he played Cupid in Rob­bins’ Moth­er Goose, has made The Con­cert part of Pacif­ic North­west Bal­let’s reper­toire. He revealed anoth­er side of the exact­ing Rob­bins in a per­son­al essay in Dance Mag­a­zine:

He had the unique abil­i­ty to become kid-like in the stu­dio, gig­gling with oth­ers and often laugh­ing robust­ly at his own jokes. He was cer­tain­ly his own best audi­ence for The Con­cert. How many times had he seen those gags and yet fresh, spon­ta­neous laugh­ter erupt­ed from him as if it was a first telling.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Bal­let Dancers Do Their Hard­est Moves in Slow Motion

Radio­head Bal­lets: Watch Bal­lets Chore­o­graphed Cre­ative­ly to the Music of Radio­head

The Dance The­atre of Harlem Dances Through the Streets of NYC: A Sight to Behold

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety show hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

 

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The Airline Toilets Theatre Company: Watch One Man Stage Comical Shows in Airplane Bathrooms

in Comedy, Creativity, Theatre, Travel | June 1st, 2021

When COVID 19 struck, the­ater lovers were faced with a choice.

Let go entire­ly, or expand our def­i­n­i­tions of what con­sti­tutes “the­ater.”

We’ve had 14 months to get used to the idea of per­for­mances staged in clos­ets, in pod­cast form, or as phone calls hing­ing on audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion.

We’re sick of Zoom, but we no longer con­sid­er it manda­to­ry for the play­ers to inhab­it the same space as each oth­er or the audi­ence.

This is all old news to Peter Brooke Turn­er, a mem­ber of the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain and the founder of the Air­line Toi­lets The­atre Com­pa­ny.

The ATTC’s reper­toire con­sists of great works of lit­er­a­ture, song and dance… per­formed exclu­sive­ly in air­craft lava­to­ries, a true feat when one con­sid­ers that Turn­er, impre­sario and sole com­pa­ny mem­ber, is 6’8”.

2015’s inau­gur­al pro­duc­tion, above, remains among the company’s most ambi­tious —  a 50th anniver­sary recre­ation of Bob Dylan’s 1965 pro­mo­tion­al film clip for Sub­ter­ranean Home­sick Blues, shot on var­i­ous flights through­out the Ukulele Orchestra’s US tour.

Before long, Turner’s car­ry-on was stuffed with props and cos­tumes — a toga, three self-adhe­sive Abra­ham Lin­coln beards, a fat suit, a plas­tic cig­ar, card­board face masks of Jimi Hen­drix and Queen’s Bri­an May, and a num­bers of inflat­a­bles, includ­ing a woman, a horse, and a not par­tic­u­lar­ly real­is­tic hand­gun.

Stag­ing solo, site spe­cif­ic mini pro­duc­tions struck Turn­er as a far more amus­ing prospect than remain­ing in his seat, watch­ing a movie:

I don’t like pas­sive con­sumerism — I’d rather make my own movie than watch some CGI block­buster on a plane. 90% of tour­ing is NOT per­form­ing but sit­ting around on a plane/train/bus star­ing into space — I’m just try­ing to do some­thing cre­ative to make the time pass. 

With advance plan­ning, the sim­pler pro­duc­tions can make it into the can on a sin­gle take.

The James Bond Trib­ute, below, which called for cos­tume changes, pup­pets and card­board masks of Sean Con­nery, Roger Moore, and Daniel Craig, was shot in seg­ments — Lon­don to Frank­furt, Sin­ga­pore to Auck­land, and Sin­ga­pore to Lon­don.

Rather than pro­ject­ing for the ben­e­fit of folks in the non-exis­tent back row, Turn­er prefers to lip synch pre­re­cord­ed lines, fed to him via ear­bud. This helps dial down the sus­pi­cions of flight atten­dants and fel­low pas­sen­gers. Once the “occu­pied” light comes on, he reck­ons he has between 7 to 10 min­utes to take care of busi­ness. Should any­one ques­tion the length of his stay, or his large bag of cos­tumes and props, his excuse is that “I suf­fer from haem­or­rhoids and need to change my pants. (Believe me, this is a con­ver­sa­tion no one wants to take fur­ther.)”

Watch a playlist of the Best of the Air­line Toi­lets The­ater Com­pa­ny here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Drift: Pas­sen­ger Shoots Strik­ing Short Film Out of Air­plane Win­dow

Pre-Flight Safe­ty Demon­stra­tion Gets Per­formed as a Mod­ern Dance: A Cre­ative Video from a Tai­wanese Air­line

Artist Nina Katchadouri­an Cre­ates Flem­ish Style Self-Por­traits in Air­plane Lava­to­ry

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Art Historian Provides Hilarious & Surprisingly Efficient Art History Lessons on TikTok

in Art, Comedy, History, How to Learn for Free | May 31st, 2021

@_theiconoclassIf youse come at me again for my Aus­tralian pro­nun­ci­a­tion I swear 😂 #arthis­to­ry #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #baroque♬ orig­i­nal sound — AyseD­eniz

Art His­to­ri­an Mary McGillivray believes art appre­ci­a­tion is an acquired skill. Her Tik­Tok project, The Icon­o­class, is bring­ing those lack­ing for­mal art his­to­ry edu­ca­tion up to speed.

The 25-year-old Aus­tralian’s pithy obser­va­tions dou­ble as sur­pris­ing­ly stur­dy mnemon­ics, use­ful for nav­i­gat­ing world class col­lec­tions both live and online.

Some high­lights from her whirl­wind guide to the Baroque peri­od, above:

If it looks like the chaos after black­out where every­one is stum­bling around in the dark under one soli­tary emer­gency light, it’s a Car­avag­gio.

If there’s at least one per­son look­ing to the cam­era like they’re on The Office, it’s a Velázquez.

If there’s a room with some nice fur­ni­ture, a win­dow, and some women just going about their every­day busi­ness, it’s a Ver­meer.

Rather than the tra­di­tion­al chrono­log­i­cal pro­gres­sion, McGillivray mix­es and match­es, often in response to com­ments and Patre­on requests.

When a com­menter on the Baroque Tik­Tok took umbrage that she referred to Artemisia Gen­tileschi by first name only, McGillivray fol­lowed up with an edu­ca­tion­al video explain­ing the con­ven­tion from the 17th-cen­tu­ry per­spec­tive.

@_theiconoclassReply to @rajendzzz her dad was hot, com­ment if you agree #baroque #artemisia #arthis­to­ryclass♬ Guilty Love — Lady­hawke & Broods

At the urg­ing of a Patre­on sub­scriber, she leaps across four cen­turies to dis­cov­er an unex­pect­ed kin­ship between Cubism and Renais­sance painters, using George Braque’s Man with a Gui­tar and San­dro Botticelli’s Four Scenes from the Ear­ly Life of Saint Zeno­bius. One is attempt­ing to escape the shack­les of per­spec­tive by show­ing sur­faces not vis­i­ble when regard­ing a sub­ject from a sin­gle point. The oth­er is using a sin­gle space to depict mul­ti­ple moments in a subject’s life simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

@_theiconoclass#arthis­to­ry #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #renais­sance #cubism #medievaltik­tok♬ orig­i­nal sound — Fin­ian Hack­ett

McGillivray is will­ing to be seen learn­ing along with her fol­low­ers. She’s open about the fact that she prefers Giot­to and Fra Angeli­co to con­tem­po­rary art (as per­haps befits an art his­to­ri­an whose face is more 1305 than 2021). Artist Dominic White’s wear­able, envi­ron­men­tal sculp­ture Hood­ie Empa­thy Suit does­n’t do much for her until a con­ver­sa­tion with the exhibit­ing gallery’s direc­tor helps ori­ent her to White’s objec­tives.

@_theiconoclassWant to see me tack­le more con­tem­po­rary art? Big thanks to @mprg_vic ❤️🪶#arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #arthis­to­ry #con­tem­po­rar­yart #art­gallery♬ orig­i­nal sound — Mary McGillivray

She tips her hand in an inter­view with Pedes­tri­an TV:

I’m not very inter­est­ed in decid­ing what is art and what isn’t. The whole “what is art” ques­tion has nev­er been very impor­tant to me. The ques­tions I pre­fer to ask are: Why was this image made?

She rec­om­mends art crit­ic John Berg­er’s 1972 four-part series Ways of See­ing to fans eager to expand beyond the Icon­o­class:

It’s got all the things you would expect from a 1970s BBC pro­duc­tion – wide col­lared shirts, long hair, smok­ing on tele­vi­sion – plus some of the most influ­en­tial insights into how we look at art and also how we look at the world around us.

Watch Mary McGillivray’s The Icon­o­class here. Sup­port her Patre­on here.

@_theiconoclassWant a part two? 😏😘 #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #arthis­to­ry­ma­jor #learnon­tik­tok♬ Rasputin (Sin­gle Ver­sion) — Boney M.

via Bored Pan­da

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Free Art & Art His­to­ry Cours­es

One Minute Art His­to­ry: Cen­turies of Artis­tic Styles Get Packed Into a Short Exper­i­men­tal Ani­ma­tion

An Intro­duc­tion to 100 Impor­tant Paint­ings with Videos Cre­at­ed by Smarthis­to­ry

Steve Mar­tin on How to Look at Abstract Art

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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