The Walt Disney Company is apparently serious about becoming a theatrical juggernaut, as evidenced not only by recent successful Broadway adaptations of its animated films, but also by extensive plans for a nationwide blitz of big-budget stage shows. “Ten years after Beauty and the Beast arrived on Broadway, to critical brickbats and audience acclaim, the company feared by rival producers for its cavernous pockets and brand-name product has become a dominant long-term player onstage. In recently published figures not disputed by the company, Disney has earned more than $1.2 billion in worldwide gross theatrical receipts from Beauty, $1 billion from Lion King and $270 million from Aida.”
Tag: 01.25.04
Shades of Gray
In his intensely personal monologues, Spalding Gray talked incessantly about death, and his lifelong obsession with it. With a tone alternately fatalistic and defiant, he spoke of suicide, of incurable illness, and of the various ways in which a human being can slip away from life. Gray always seemed decidedly unbalanced, but his monologues were cathartic in a way which always made one hope that he was exorcising his demons as he laid them before an audience. Now, two weeks after vanishing without a trace from his New York home, the horrible ironies of Gray’s life and work are on display, his uncertain absence a tragically appropriate denouement to a career built on pain.
Is Culture Doomed, Or Are We Just Snobs?
“That deafening seismic discord at the end of 2003 – a low moan followed by a ripping noise and then a heavy crash – was the sound of Western civilization falling apart, its alabaster pillars splitting like Popsicle sticks, its flagstone terraces shredding like saltines in water. Then again, maybe not. If you believe that culture – music, literature, film, the visual and performing arts – is a rarefied realm to which only the work of an exalted few should be admitted, then doom is imminent. If, however, you believe that culture is a wide-open arena that can accommodate a variety of approaches and levels of complexity, then you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about.”
Sci-Fi, Rock ‘n Roll, and Big Macs Rule the Sundance Roost
Primer, a decidedly low-budget sci-fi thriller, has won the top dramatic prize at the Sundance Festival. The film, directed by Shane Carruth with a miniscule budget of $7000, is about two men who invent a time machine. The award for best documentary went to Dig!, which follows the frontmen of two cult bands embroiled in a bitter rivalry. “Morgan Spurlock, who spent 30 days eating only food from McDonald’s and then chronicled its impact on his body in Super Size Me, earned the directing award for his efforts.”
The Semantics of Indie Film
In the last fifteen years, independent film has become big business, thanks in large part to Robert Redford’s Sundance Festival, and to Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Studios. Still, current conventional wisdom holds that, far from elevating indie film to new heights, Sundance and Miramax have in fact dragged much of the indie scene down to Hollywood’s shallow level. But has “independent film” really changed as a genre, or is it merely that we have broadened our definition of the term to such an absurd degree as to encompass directors and films which are in no way independent of Hollywood’s movie machine?
Growing Your Own
America’s ballet scene has never exactly been bursting at the seams with homegrown talent. Indeed, compared with European countries, as well as with the former Soviet Union, the U.S. simply has no serious tradition of intensive dance training for talented young students. Ballet schools abound in the U.S. but few approach the level of the state-sponsored academies overseas. Now, the American Ballet Theater, which has traditionally filled its company with the best talent it can poach from other countries, is starting what it hopes will become America’s definitive school of classical dance.
How To Run A Dance Company
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is a decided anomaly in an age when dance companies nationwide are struggling for survival. Financially secure, well-managed, and respected worldwide, Ailey is preparing to move into a new, 77,000-square-foot home in midtown Manhattan, a testament to the company’s ability to succeed in the hyper-competitive world of New York culture. No one element is responsible for the Ailey’s phenomenal success, but a combination of sound management ideas, diverse artistic goals, and a constant and unwavering eye on the newest trends of the dance world has made the company a dominant force in the industry.