- Being the chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts is a no-win job – the criticisms come from all sides. Jane Alexander’s big accomplishment in her time heading the Endowment was that it managed to survive. But her naivete and growing anger about the battles that had to be fought took their toll. Her memoir of her term is a sad chronicle. – New York Times Book Review
Category: issues
DO WE HAVE TO MENTION THE SPONSOR?
The Roundabout Theatre sold its name to American Airlines. The Winter Garden almost had “Cadillac” above the marquee. The arts love those corporate dollars. But at what price? – Newsday
PATRONAGE AMERICAN STYLE
American internet investor and opera lover Alberto Vilar has donated $2 million to Milan’s La Scala – the largest private non-European donation in the opera house’s history. “He is now waging a sort of one-man campaign to bring U.S.-style arts patronage to Europe at a time when governments are scaling back their arts spending.” – Yahoo! News (Reuters)
WHAT ABOUT THE HISTORY THAT NEVER HAPPENED?
“Provisional history, standby history, or simply outtakes: whatever the name, it denotes an existential sphere that is vast and growing. Think of all the newspaper stories that editors have decided to spike; the millions of words that have been cut out of books; the miles of footage yanked by directors from their movies. Think of all the caps, manufactured but never sold, proclaiming the Buffalo Bills to be the champions of Super Bowls XXV, XXVI, XXVII, and XXVIII.” – The Atlantic
THE BIG ORANGE
The Orange County Performing Arts Center posts a record $700,000 surplus. “This is a phenomenal thing to happen to a nonprofit performing arts center. We’ve had the most performances we’ve ever had and incredible quality. To finish this far ahead is extraordinary. We won’t get these numbers again.” – Orange County Register
THE POPULARIZATION OF JAPAN
“Pop culture is big business in Japan, with domestic ‘J-Pop’ alone racking up sales of nearly ¥40 billion ($373 million) a year. The most popular artists achieve sales of nearly 10 million copies per album. Volumes of manga (comics) as thick as telephone directories are read by children and balding salarymen alike. The best loved, ‘Shuppan Shonen Magajin’, sells 4 million copies a week.” Now the rest of Asia is catching the Japan-pop bug. – The Economist
RIGHT TO ALTER
When Charles M. Schulz retired from drawing “Peanuts” he said no one else would ever draw the cartoon. But some recent repeats of the strip have been altered adding current events references. So when is it okay to change the work of a deceased artist? – Intellectual Capital
USHERING IN THE TRUTH
Want to know the real theatre scoop? Talk to the people who see it all – the ushers. “Indeed, perhaps no one has seen the changes in theatre-and by extension, some of the cultural shifts in the society at large-more vividly than those doughty black-clad ushers who’ve been moving up and down the aisles, flashlights in hand, for the long haul. – Backstage
REAL REALITY?
“Though it was never a part of the show’s design, ‘Big Brother’ is broadcasting in prime time many of the unresolved fears that stretch across the nation’s racial divide. The series already is being labeled groundbreaking television, with the raw footage captured by the cameras that film around the clock generating heated discussions in cafes and Internet chat rooms across the country.” – Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON DEBUT
Newly-named Kennedy Center director Michael Kaiser “was presented to the press, patrons and politicians yesterday, capped by a bipartisan dinner in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall hosted by the four leaders of Congress. The accolades were lavish; in turn, the new arts center president promised to stay in the job for at least five years, which would be ‘longer than I’ve ever been anywhere.'” – Washington Post