The San Antonio Symphony, which announced two weeks ago that it didn’t have enough money to make its payroll or pay more than $400,000 in past-due bills, says it has raised $200,000 since then, enough to pay musicians for the delayed payroll and cover some of the payroll due today. The musicians agreed to continue playing, and most staffers remained on the job. “The symphony has collected about $200,000 in individual gifts and proceeds from benefits hastily organized by other organizations concerned for the orchestra’s survival.”
Tag: 03.14.03
Cutting Back The Arts In The Twin Cities
Minneapolis/St. Paul arts institutions are cutting back their operations in response to a downturn in funding. “The Guthrie Theater said it plans to pare its core staff by 10 percent or more within a few weeks. The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts said it has eliminated eight of its 68 jobs, half through layoffs. The Minnesota Opera Company will shorten its coming season, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will start closing earlier on Fridays next week. Last month, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra cut 10 administrative positions from a staff of 45. Other leading arts groups, including the Minnesota Orchestra and the Walker Art Center, have reduced staff size through attrition and job consolidation.”
Court Battle Over Nazi-Looted Picasso May Shift From LA To Chicago
“The legal battle over ownership of a $10 million Picasso masterpiece looted by the Nazis during World War II may shift from Los Angeles to Chicago if a tentative ruling issued Thursday by a California judge becomes final and survives appeals.”
Robert Hughes On Trial Remotely
When art critic Robert Hughes goes on trial next month in Australia charged with dangerous driving in a 1999 accident, he won’t be in the courtroom. Instead he’ll attend through a video link from the US. “Hughes’ lawyer proposed the video appearance in January, telling the court it was uncomfortable for Hughes to travel because of injuries suffered in the accident.”
Cutting Out The Middleman – Harry Potter Goes Direct To Schools
Booksellers are protesting that the Scholastic, the publisher of the Harry Potter books, has been taking orders for the book directly from schools, bypassing the booksellers. “Publishers have an obvious motive to sell direct: They keep more of the money. Scholastic has been selling books, including the earlier Potter works, at fairs for years. But this is the first time a Potter book has been pre-sold, offered before publication. And some retailers say they can’t afford to lose any sales during a difficult economic time.”
Making The Case For Arts & Humanities
Chairmen of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities go to the US Congress to plead their cases for funding. “We cannot defend what we do not understand. But even as our country prepares for a possible war, numerous polls, studies and reports indicate that many students at both the secondary and university levels lack even a basic understanding of their country’s past. From my perspective this is a national emergency.”
Theatre – Political Action Reasserts
After a period in which political theatre seemed to have disappeared for awhile, politcal theatre is back in America. “Indeed, responding to a number of political exigencies — among them the elevation of George W. Bush to the presidency by the Supreme Court, the Sept. 11 attacks, the looming war in Iraq and more generally the perceptible shift to the right in national perspective — American stages have been reasserting the theater’s traditionally liberal bias with an almost vengeful fervor.”
2002 – Year Of The Woman In Hollywood
It’s been a great year for women in Hollywood. “Not just the sheer number of good women’s roles, but their breadth and range in terms of age and ethnicity, made this a watershed year. A genuine one, not the phoney annus mirabilis of a decade ago when a defensive Hollywood gave itself undeserved brownie points by declaring 1992 ‘The Year of the Woman’ – an especially hollow gesture in a mediocre year in which the best woman’s role went to a man: Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game.”
Unreal – Why “Reality” TV Can’t Last
Can the “reality TV” sensation survive? “Simple economics dictates the phenomenon will run its course. TV executives, apparently forgetting the law of supply and demand (not to mention the flameout of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’), have scheduled a record 42 new ‘unscripted dramas’ to bow before September. Nor can they afford to feed the phenomenon long-term: Studios make their real money in syndication fees, and no one wants to watch reality reruns.”
No Humans Were Used In The Creation Of This Screenplay
New screenplay-writing software is so sophisticated, you just plug in a few sentences and the computer does the rest. “I mean, how hard can it be when the very first ‘story box’ in the program, which asks what your movie is about, offers this reassurance: ‘If you do not yet know what your story is about, leave this question blank and return to it later’?”