Mushrooms and murals put Hungarian Gypsies on the map

Fresco Village Project strives to assist impoverished Roma villagers by decorating their tiny town with art from Roma artists across Europe.

LOS ANGELES TIMES | February 21, 2014 | Diane Haithman

BODVALENKE, Hungary — I’m not sure what I expected to bring back from an eight-day luxury tour of Budapest, Hungary, and environs. Memories, photos of Art Nouveau architecture, a few extra pastry-induced pounds and a lifetime supply of sweet paprika, maybe.
 
I never thought I’d find myself, just a month later, Skyping at 7 a.m. about a storm that had recently hit the village of Bodvalenke, about 150 miles northeast of Budapest, not far from the Slovakian border. Hailstones the size of walnuts had caused flooding and decimated the natural vegetation and local crops, one of the village’s few sources of income. Read the Rest of this Story »

János Gyerekkel Fest

Bodvalenke Main Road

They’re just like family, only hairier

At Tanzania’s Mahale Mountains park,
`chimpers’ get to know the local clan on a first-name basis.

LOS ANGELES TIMES | July 16, 2006 | Diane Haithman

Mahale, Tanzania — At age 16, Orion is a handsome chimpanzee, a primate hottie. Despite his status as a creature of the wild, his glossy black coat looks as if it were combed and fluffed by a personal groomer. It gleams in morning sunlight filtering through towering forest trees. Read the Rest of this Story »

EMMYS: ’30 Rock’ Q&A With EPs Tina Fey & Robert Carlock And Director Beth McCarthy

Deadline Hollywood | August 25, 2011 | Diane Haithman

NBC’s 30 Rock is one of the network’s workplace comedies (including The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Community) with Emmy nominations this year. 30 Rock already has a trio of back-to-back wins in the top comedy category for 2007-2009. But this time the show’s creative team is pushing hard for a directing win for Beth McCarthy for its much-touted live episode. A Saturday Night Live veteran, the helmer sometimes known as McCarthy-Miller is up against the other comedy director nominees Pamela Fryman for How I Met Your Mother and also Michael Alan Spiller, Gail Mancuso and Steven Levitan, all for Modern Family. Deadline TV contributor Diane Haithman talked to creator and star Tina Fey, showrunner Robert Carlock, and Beth McCarthy about their Emmy hopes for 30 Rock this year, whether the Tracy Morgan controversy will be written into the show, and if this will be Alec Baldwin’s final season: Read the Rest of this Story »

EMMYS: ‘Modern Family’s Chris Lloyd

Deadline Hollywood | June 13, 2011 | Diane Haithman

Christopher Lloyd with Steven Levitan

Christopher Lloyd is co-creator and co-showrunner with Steven Levitan (his Q&A here) of last year’s Emmy winner for Outstanding Comedy Series, Modern Family. But Lloyd didn’t go onstage to accept the accolade. This recipient of eight Emmys for his work on comedy series including Frasier and The Golden Girls prefers to stay in the shadows and let his chatty partner bask in all the public limelight. Now, Lloyd breaks his silence and talks to Deadline TV Contributor Diane Haithman for an interview one TV publicist claimed was harder to nab than “a sitdown with Osama Bin Laden”: Read the Rest of this Story »

EMMYS: 10 Dramas Pick Best Episodes

Deadline Hollywood | June 23, 2011 | Diane Haithman

Drama series producers agonize over their selection of up to six episodes for 2011 Emmy nomination consideration. Here’s insight from Deadline TV Contributor Diane Haithman into why these particular episodes were thought to impress Emmy voters: Read the Rest of this Story »

Author Michael Connelly vs Paramount:
How Harry Bosch Was Rescued From
Hollywood Development Hell

Deadline Hollywood | December 17, 2010| Diane Haithman

Stories about rights-holders fall into two categories: either they’re the bully or the victim. Until recently, crime novelist Michael Connelly fell into the latter category. Michael Connelly finally has back his Hieronymous “Harry” Bosch character which appears in 15 of his 22 books. Harry Bosch is a brooding Los Angeles Police Department detective named, appropriately, after an early Dutch painter known for his eccentric visions of hell. And since 1995, Bosch has been in Hollywood development hell. Read the Rest of this Story »

‘Dude’ has L.A. on a string

Gustavo Dudamel doesn’t take the helm of the Philharmonic until 2009, but he’s already a sensation.

LOS ANGELES TIMES | April 06, 2008 | Diane Haithman

On Friday, for the first time ever, the Los Angeles Philharmonic could boast a sellout crowd for an installment of its “Casual Fridays” concert series at Walt Disney Concert Hall — and the appeal was not just the chance to see a cellist or a tuba player wearing blue jeans instead of black tie. Read the Rest of this Story »

OPERA

A wuv affair with arias

Aiming for elegance or playing against it, pop culture has found the high emotion inherent in opera too tempting to pass up. Whether it’s a wabbit mangling Wagner or Beyonce belting out Bizet, it brings lofty music down to earth.

LOS ANGELES TIMES | December 04, 2005 | Diane Haithman

It seeps into your system like some kind of musical secondary smoke: Unless you grew up in another country — or perhaps on another planet — you probably first absorbed some of opera’s most famous arias not in an opera house, but from pop culture.
 
And now, when you actually go to the opera, you can’t get that first listening experience out of your mind — no matter how lowbrow the source or how long ago it occurred. Read the Rest of this Story »

THEATER

What ‘Friends’ is for

His TV job as nice-guy Ross allows David Schwimmer the freedom to play a Hollywood sleazeball in ‘Turnaround,’ a collaboration with some real pals.

LOS ANGELES TIMES | January 19, 2003 | Diane Haithman

David Schwimmer is describing an awkward moment that occurred during a recent rehearsal for “Turnaround” at the Coast Playhouse and the creative suggestion that co-star Jonathan Silverman made on how to break the ice. Read the Rest of this Story »

Gehry, Fund-Raisers Face Showdown on Disney Hall

Culture: Forces of art and finance seek to resolve clash over completing designer’s vision of facility.

LOS ANGELES TIMES | June 05, 1997 | Diane Haithman

The worlds of art and money often collide explosively–and in no discipline do they do so with more public impact than in the world of architecture, where form, function and funding struggle to co-exist.

Los Angeles architects say the battle remains fierce and ongoing. And downtown’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, the planned new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has become that battle’s most visible example–as its design architect, Frank O. Gehry, threatens to withdraw his involvement with the project because of disagreements over who should proceed with architectural and building plans. In a letter to powerhouse business leader and arts patron Eli Broad last Friday, Gehry said he could not continue with the project under the guidelines set up by Disney Hall officials, saying his work was only 75% done. Read the Rest of this Story »