There’s Little Gain In Resurrecting Bard’s First Theatre

The plan “to raise a new stage on the bones of Shakespeare’s first theatre in Shoreditch, almost certainly the first purpose-built theatre in Britain,” is misguided. “We already have a replica Elizabethan theatre, of course, and – given that the Globe was built from the skeleton of the Theatre – it surely can’t have been that different from the original, at least in its basic form. If the plan is to build something along Elizabethan lines, it’s difficult to see the point.”

Eye On DC, MPAA Shuns News Of Healthy Box Office

“Usually around this time the Motion Picture Assn. of America formally issues, with much fanfare, its annual entertainment industry report on the prior year.” So why no report yet on 2008, which was a record-breaking year? “Turns out that’s the problem –insiders say MPAA topper Dan Glickman doesn’t want to publicly tout the health of the box office during the economic crisis. Nor does he want to give Washington politicos ammunition.”

Gehry Thinks His Brooklyn Mega-Project Is Dead

“Asked by a trade paper about ‘unrealized commissions’ he most wishes had been built, famed 80-year-old architect Frank Gehry brought up Atlantic Yards. ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen,’ he told the Architect’s Newspaper… Gehry’s Los Angeles-based design firm laid off all two dozen employees working on the Atlantic Yards project in November.”

For 30 Years, Publisher Has Sought To Capture A Culture

“This is a year for celebrations, from the centennials of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin to the 30th anniversary of The Library of America. While those black-jacketed books with their simple, elegant type didn’t appear until 1982, the nonprofit publisher with the lofty goal of republishing the literature of a nation began in 1979 with seed money from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.”