Kentucky Opera Hires Non-Union Orchestra; Conductor Quits

The company normally uses the Louisville Orchestra in the pit, but that financially troubled organization is still in a longstanding contract dispute with its musicians. So, for its season-closing production of The Merry Widow this weekend, Kentucky Opera assembled a non-union pit band from local community orchestras – whereupon company music director Joseph Mechavich backed out.

We’re In A Golden Age Of Documentaries (So Why Don’t We Celebrate Them?)

Of the more than 800 feature films released theatrically in America last year, more than 300 were documentaries. (At premiere marketplace festivals like Sundance and Toronto, the ratio is similar.) Yet at the Academy Awards, where the film industry lavishly celebrates itself, all of those films compete for one measly award: best documentary. By comparison, dramatic features get 20 chances for an Oscar.

“Halftime In America – Political Metaphor

Set to music and narrated by the nation’s last living cowboy, “Halftime” has considerably more rhetorical pow than the prosaic platitudes of Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech: “We’re the nation that puts cars in driveways.” Indeed, Eastwood’s manager couldn’t resist representing the spot as a personal statement from his client: “Chrysler just sponsored what he had to say.”

The Agony And Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs Now Available For Free – As Download Or Performing Script

“On Monday, after nearly 200 performances, the monologuist Mike Daisey was to release a theatrical transcript of his latest one-man show … through his Web site, mikedaisey.blogspot.com. It will be free to download and in a rare twist, if an aspiring performer should want to mount a production of the show, Mr. Daisey will not ask for payment.”

Faith Ringgold Removes Her Name From New Harlem Children’s Museum

The artist and author, known for her painted story quilts, had been enthusiastic about the planned Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling attached to an affordable housing development in her old neighborhood. Then, two months ago, she cut all ties with the project, saying that the developers hadn’t provided for art insurance, security or storage. The developers counter that it’s too early in the process – construction hasn’t yet begun – to finalize such arrangements.