Kennedy Center Makes Plans

Washington’s Kennedy Center has approved a $650 million plan for a “four-block plaza, to be built over existing roadways and flanked by the new glass-and-steel buildings, one housing rehearsal and office space and the other for an educational center and interactive exhibits on the performing arts. ‘It puts us in reality where we were supposed to be all along, as a monument in Washington’.”

And About Time, Too!

Benjamin Forgey is wondering what exactly took the Kennedy Center so long to unveil the new plan to remake its architecturally embarrassing digs. But better late than never: “From opening day 31 years ago right up to the present, the big box on the Potomac has remained a huge urban faux pas — an outpost of culture separated from the city by a deep moat filled with speeding cars. The plan unveiled yesterday, conceived by architect Rafael Viñoly, does a lot to correct the mistakes.”

Renewal And Renovation In Ottawa

The National Arts Centre in Ottawa today will kick off a major renovation project for its 900-seat theatre, which plays host to a variety of dance and theatrical productions. The venue has often been overlooked in the NAC’s larger plans, because the centerpiece of the complex, the NAC Orchestra, performs in the larger Southam Hall. The renovation is expected to cost CAN$3 million, $2 million of which must still be raised from patrons and donors, and the project will be completed by 2006.

Orange County Gets Creative

“Leaders of the Orange County Performing Arts Center [outside Los Angeles] are mulling large-scale borrowing, in the form of a bond issue, as a way to ensure completion of a $200-million concert hall in time for its scheduled opening in the fall of 2006. Fund-raising has been stalled at about $100 million for more than a year, but… bond issues often have been used by other nonprofit arts organizations, and incurring debt has been in OCPAC’s playbook of potential financing maneuvers since its capital campaign began in 1999.”

Everybody’s Gay! (Everybody Famous, That Is)

A new film claims Hitler was gay, based on evidence sketchy enough that historians (even gay ones) are laughing it off. A yet-to-be-released book claims that Abe Lincoln was gay, and the book’s author insists that he has evidence that George Washington, General Custer, and either Lewis or Clark (he forgets which) all were, as well. All of which begs the question: isn’t this 2003? Haven’t we gotten past the breathless whispering over men sleeping with men that dominated the gossip sheets of the 1980s? Or is there still something so exotic about homosexuality that even the suspicion of it in a historical figure warrants an entire cottage industry?

Who Let All These Kids In Here?

Sundance long ago came of age, and now, some critics think it may be experiencing a bit of a midlife crisis. How else to explain the sudden influx of films that make a point of displaying their youth bent? This year, it seems that nearly every film is either another “generic teenage wasteland” or a “Sundance afterschool special.” This is not to say that any of these films are bad, you understand, just that for Sundance to feature quite so many of them at once seems not unlike the 40-year-old account executive who fights off ennui by buying a Ferrari.

Haydn Librettos Surface In Hungary

“Hungary’s National Library recovered Wednesday 39 original opera librettos from operas of the 18th-century Austrian composer Joseph Haydn that were believed to have been destroyed during World War II, officials said. Curators working for the government had bought the librettos from an antiquarian who had bought them from a private individual… Curators working for the ministry of national cultural heritage formally handed them over to the library where they will be ‘under lock and seal’ until they are digitally reproduced for research work.”