“When the creative self is unjustly maligned, it sometimes feels the need to respond in a way that might well be even more interesting than the work (or the meal) under debate. That might not be good for business, but it’s good for the cultivation of celebrity status. Heck, it’s good for the creative vitality of a city and its myriad art forms.”
Theatres Owe A Big Thank-you To The Churches That Host Them
“The idea of sticking a theater inside a church or synagogue offers benefits for both sides. Impecunious theaters get cheap space (often in prime locations) and can avoid a whole variety of licensing and other costs by producing within the footprint of a church. Many churches have more space than they need … and arts groups bring in people who might just end up going to services.”
Should Playwrights Be Nicer To Audiences?
“Nobody intends to drive audiences away, and one of the problems with theatre is that while nobody sets out to make work that is just so-so, an awful lot of that which ends up on our stages is exactly that.”
Olympic Peninsula Orchestra Fires Seattle Conductor Because He Was Too Ambitious
“Stern’s goals of ‘how to make the symphony effective for our community’ differed from the board majority who voted to end his contract. Stern’s goal was to make the symphony ‘a world-class orchestra. And we wanted a community orchestra,’ Whitney said.”
When Performers Turn Into Co-Creators
“It was clear from the start that musicians would need to contribute movement ideas because the musicians knew what their bodies were capable of doing while playing their instruments, and our goal was to create movement that was as natural and uncontrived as possible.”
What If We Added A Sex Scene To Moby Dick?
“Translation is assumed to be faithful, whereas the substitution of adjectives is clearly a game. Likewise, when we rewrite the book from memory, we are assumed to be doing so faithfully, to the best of our paltry ability.”
San Diego Opera CEO Would Not Have Gotten Big Payout If Company Shut Down, Says Contract
“[Ian] Campbell’s original 2006 employment agreement said he would receive his annual salary through 2017, even if the opera shut down. KPBS obtained a signed copy of an amendment to that employment agreement, dated June 26, 2010, stating that after 2013 the board could terminate Campbell’s contract with 30 days’ notice.”
Was It Unfair Of La Scala To Fire Alexander Pereira Before He Arrived?
“His plan was to bring four Salzburg productions to La Scala over the next three seasons, up to 2017, with further collaborations in the future … Pereira’s La Scala predecessor Stéphane Lissner did exactly the same: he put on four productions from Salzburg in his last four seasons. And by buying in shows from Salzburg, Pereira would have been saving La Scala money.”
British Equity To Develop Code Of Ethics For Casting Process
“The code of ethics will develop industry-wide standards to tackle perceived issues within what [Equity member Lubna] Kerr described as a ‘degrading casting process’, such as lack of communication and feedback, as well as bad treatment and last-minute changes.”
UK Tax Breaks For Theatre Could Bring In £120M
“Tax breaks for the theatre industry to be introduced this autumn could bring in £100 million for commercial theatre and £20 million for touring productions in coming years, Arts Council England’s chair Peter Bazalgette has said.”
Manga About Fukushima Cleanup Become Hit In Japan
“As an insider’s account, 1F: The Labour Diary of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, has proved popular among readers seeking an antidote to patchy information from the government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), and at times wildly speculative media reports.”
Monologuist Mike Daisey May Have Found His Perfect Subject
And it’s the big, volatile, controversial, and, er, colourful mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. (audio)
Who’s The Best Blanche DuBois In 15 Years? L.A. Times Theater Critic Says It’s Renée Fleming
Charles McNulty writes of the soprano’s performance in André Previn’s operatic adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, “Fleming is quite simply the best Blanche I’ve seen since Elizabeth Marvel brutally assayed the role in Ivo van Hove’s brilliant deconstruction at New York Theater Workshop in 1999.”
Minnesota Orchestra Names New Top Officials
Kevin Smith, who in 25 years at the helm of Minnesota Opera expanded its season, doubled attendance and sextupled the budget, will become the orchestra’s interim CEO as of Sept. 1. Dianne Brennan, who served for 16 years as the Guthrie Theater’s development director, will be the orchestra’s new Vice President for Advancement.
Looted Egyptian Antiquities Now Recovered And On Display In Cairo
“Around 200 stolen artefacts, recovered since Egypt’s 2011 revolution, are now on show at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in an exhibition that runs for three months. Most of the objects were recovered abroad, while some 60 were seized in Egypt before they could leave the country.”
Chinese Museum Shut Down Over Thousands Of Fake Items
“Police shut down the Lucheng Museum, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, after finding that almost a third of the 8,000 items on display were not genuine.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.22.14
The fast and the spurious
AJBlog: The Artful Manager | Published 2014-05-22
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AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-05-22
Ballet on Ripper Street
AJBlog: Performance Monkey | Published 2014-05-22
Arts Entrepreneurshp, A Story, Part II
AJBlog: State of the Art | Published 2014-05-22
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Former Ballet Stars Band Together To Try To Improve The Art Form
“I discovered that there were many former dancers of great repute who were under-utilized, not necessarily by choice. I rounded up a nice group of greats who wish to give back to the art form. They form my Artistic Advisory Board. Each of them have a voice and had great careers and were notable for either their musicality, presence, dramatic qualities or purity.”
Note To PJ O’Rourke: Anti-Intellectualism Isn’t So Cool
“P.J. O’Rourke has offered us the gallows but not the humor, the misstated problem and its ludicrous solution.”
After 35 Years, Cannes Film Festival President Steps Down
Gilles Jacob is widely credited with not allowing commercial pressures to weigh too heavily on the films selected for competition. “My formula is art cinema for a wide audience, or intelligent popular cinema,” he said. “They’re the same thing.”
Powered By Classics, Broadway On Course For Record Season At The Box Office
“Heading into the final weekend of the 2013-14 calendar of show openings, Broadway musicals and plays are on track to set a record total gross of $1.27 billion for the season, an increase of 11 percent, the biggest bump since the 2008 recession.”
Manuscript Of Rachmaninov Second Symphony Sells For £1.2 Million
“The 320-page score was presumed lost after its premiere in St Petersburg in 1908, until it was discovered in a private collection in 2004. It is thought to be the only surviving handwritten manuscript of the symphony in existence.”
Matthew Warchus Chosen To Replace Kevin Spacey As Leader Of Old Vic Theatre
Warchus, who is credited with having directed more than 70 shows in London and on Broadway, said he was honoured to be following Spacey’s “galvanising tenure”.
Unions Say More Than 2000 Performers Haven’t Collected Streaming Royalties
“After conducting an extensive crosscheck between their two databases, SAG-AFTRA and SoundExchange identified nearly 2,000 union members who are potentially eligible to receive royalties but haven’t registered to collect their money.”
The International Digital Library Is Here (But There Are Issues)
“All over the country research libraries are canceling subscriptions to academic journals, because they are caught between decreasing budgets and increasing costs. The logic of the bottom line is inescapable, but there is a higher logic that deserves consideration—namely, that the public should have access to knowledge produced with public funds.”