Monster Mash: Old Globe’s Craig Noel dies; Bill T. Jones mulls merger; Burj Khalifa deck reopens

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-- Theater pioneer dies: Craig Noel, founding director of San Diego’s Old Globe, dies at age 94. (Los Angeles Times)

-- Pas de deux: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theatre Workshop nearing deal to merge. (Crain’s New York)

-- New kid in town: Life is too short -- and a guerrilla street artist is making sure you remember that. (Curbed LA)

-- Taking a back break: James Levine taking leave from New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Boston Symphony Orchestra to have back surgery. (Los Angeles Times)

-- Watch your step: Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, reopens its observation deck, which was shuttered for two months after elevator malfunction left tourists stranded 120 stories above the ground. (Guardian)

-- Prison pals: Edie Falco (‘The Sopranos’) and Alison Pill (‘In Treatment’) to star in off-Broadway production of Chloe Moss’ ‘This Wide Night.’ (Variety)

-- To the rescue: Marco Armiliato takes the baton from ousted Leonard Slatkin to rescue Met’s ‘La Traviata.’ (Associated Press)

-- More, he wants more: Actor John Malkovich challenges court’s $670,000 fraud award in Bernie Madoff case, seeks $2.2 million. (BBC)

-- Tough times: Cleveland Chamber Symphony struggles to stay alive. [Update: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to the Chamber Symphony as the Cleveland Orchestra.] (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

-- Big win: Robert Wilson wins the 2010 Jerome Robbins Award and the $100,000 that goes with it. (Theatre Mania)

-- Meeting the President: Cast of ‘Glee’ performs at the White House. (whitehouse.gov)

-- There’s arts there?: NEA chieftain Rocco Landesman takes his ‘Art Works’ road show to Boise. (Idaho Statesman Journal)

-- This was a joke, right?: ‘Wicked’ in London has a new rule: record the music, get thrown out of the theater. (Guardian)

Also in the L.A. Times: Mark Swed reviews L.A. Opera’s “Götterdämmerung” (“The Twilight of the Gods”), the fourth installment of Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle’; ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ details how theater helped save Disney animation; Charles McNulty reviews Julia Cho’s ‘The Language Archive’ at South Coast Repertory.

-- Lisa Fung

Follow me on Twitter at @lfung

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(bottom) The newly reopened observation deck at Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Credit: Kamran Jebreili / Associated Press