Lord of the Rings is closing in London. It’s considered one of the most expensive failures in London theatre history. “This could spell the end of the age of the musical behemoth. Theatre audiences can be equally content with the more modest virtues of good stories that are well told.”
Tag: 03.20.08
City Council Enlists Artists To Combat Permit Fraud With Art
A London municipal council is trying to combat fake parking permits. “The council have used specially commissioned drawings by illustrators of local landmarks and events, which have been printed onto the permits making them difficult to fake.”
Are Art Funds An Alternative To Failing Hedge Funds?
“Over the last five years, managers of art investment funds, which buy and sell a pool of works for a set management fee and a share of any profit made, have been keen to promote art as an alternative asset class. So far, the Fine Art Fund, started in 2004, is the only one of these vehicles that has remained conspicuously active in the West.”
Online Fake Art Fraudsters Busted In Space
“Spanish police and the FBI have dismantled a multimillion-dollar international art forgery ring which duped hundreds of customers into buying counterfeit prints of works purporting to be by artists including Picasso, Warhol and DalÃ.”
Royal Ballet Says It Won’t Cancel China Tour
“Some Tibetan demonstrators have called for a boycott of the Olympics following China’s recent crackdown on protests in the region. Dancers from Covent Garden are due to travel to Beijing in June, where they will perform Sleeping Beauty at the opening ceremony of the Cultural Olympiad. They will also perform Manon in Beijing and Shanghai before touring Japan.
Author Jon Hassler, 74
Considered one of Minnesota’s leading contemporary novelists, Hassler died early Thuesday from complications of a degenerative neuromuscular disease that had ravaged him for more than a decade.
Directing – A Tale Of Two Coasts
Jerry Patch, who will be leaving San Diego’s Old Globe for New York’s Manhattan Theatre Club on June 1, acknowledged that there are a lot of similarities between MTC and his longtime employer, Costa Mesa’s South Coast Repertory.
The “Un”Culture
“Perhaps we’ve reached the point at which there are no good titles left to copy, when networks are so starved for inspiration they’re even naming comedies after programs that failed. More likely it has something to do with the first two letters: “Un-,” it bears pointing out, is the most powerful prefix in pop culture. Everybody uses it.”
New Play Generates Chicago Heat
A new play by a Chicago writer that focuses on a brutal heat wave in the city that killed more than 700 people in 1995 has premiered in the very neighborhood hit hardest by the tragedy. The production is prompting a reexamination of the “social fault lines” that led to so many dying so quickly.
Canadian Video Award To Vancouver Artist
“Stan Douglas has won the $10,000 Bell Award in Video Art for 2008, the Canada Council has announced. The prize has been awarded annually since 1991 for exceptional contribution by a video artist or artists to the advancement of video art in the country.”