The Dallas Theatre Center was once an ensemble company and the theatre was successful. But in recent years it has abandoned the ensemble model and hired from out of town. “Truth is, for economic and other reasons, the ensemble model has been slowly evolving at many regional theater companies into a looser collection of regular and guest artists. But the ensemble ideal remains near and dear to many actors’ and directors’ hearts.”
Tag: 03.28.04
What Happened To Dallas Theatre?
There was a time when Dallas was known nationally for its thriving theatre scene. “Sure, there currently is — and has been for decades — lively theatrical activity in the Metroplex. But as the theater communities in cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Seattle grew in the years after World War II, Dallas and Fort Worth stagnated.” The question is why…
The Morality Police Are Out In Force
What’s up with the puritanical morality that seems now to be guiding American TV execs (and politicians)? “A return to the wholesome, old days when married sitcom couples slept in separate beds, Elvis could only be shot from the waist up and Liberace was merely a flamboyant performer who, for some reason, never married is surely upon us. And indeed, American broadcasters have already taken the hint and begun hastily trimming or rewriting any programming that could be construed as triple-X smut stuff.”
Pittsburgh’s Pioneering Public TV Turns 50
Pittsburgh’s WQED was a pioneering experimental TV station infused with loads of community pride when it went on the air in 1954. In a half century the station has enjoyed premiere status as one of the country’s best public broadcasters and sunk to underfunded depths.
Bands: The Internet For Fun And Profit
More and more bands are discovering that the internet is their friend and that digital downloading can help promote sales of recordings and concert tickets. “Whereas once the record industry sold 90 percent of its records to 15 percent of the U.S. population, digital distribution has paved the way for more people to participate in music than ever before, whether making, distributing or consuming it.”
Mark Morris – Of Dance And Music
It’s impossible to separate Mark Morris’s choreography from music. “His extraordinary dance vocabulary is arguably matched only by his breadth of musical tastes. He began, in a way, in two different dance and musical worlds, simultaneously studying Spanish folk arts (after he saw a Jose Greco concert at age 8) and classical ballet. Thus began an eclecticism so vital to his eventual role as versatile post-modern experimentalist, though he, not surprisingly, rejects labels.”
Lessig: Give Artists The Choice About How Their Work Is Used
Lawrence Lessig thinks that a copyright law that declares that millions of people are criminals is wrong. “I think artists should be allowed to decide what the rules are under which their content is made available in a good copyright system. Sometimes that means their content is made available under compulsory license, which means they get paid but not a price that they set, sometimes they’ll give it away. Sometimes their copyright expires, at least that’s what was supposed to happen. And copyrights that expire [go into] the public domain.”
Urban Pioneers With A Stake In The Theatre
The historic 3,600-seat Chicago Theatre is being restored and revived – by a couple of theatre entrepreneurs with an impressive track record. “We are going to be the on-the-ground, in-the-theater general managers of the Chicago Theatre. And if you look at our entire careers — our entire lives, really — you will see people who have been interested in taking old downtown theaters, reviving them and contributing to the after-dark lives of this country’s great and historic cities.”
A Revolution To Transform Music As We Know It
“The music industry stands at an historic crossroads — almost every aspect of the way people consume and listen to popular music is changing, dwarfing even the seismic shift in the 1880s when music lovers turned from sheet music and player pianos to wax cylinders and later, in 1915, newfangled 78 rpm phonograph discs. The one thing all of the experts agree upon is that these changes — which are already under way — will be dramatic, quick and inevitable.”
Media Obscenity: We Object! (Don’t We?)
Linda Winer wonders why the media obscenity crackdown currently underway in the US isn’t being objected to by more people. “The vise is tightening again on freedoms that, at this late date, a grown-up country should not be forced to keep defending. The FCC, temporarily distracted from efforts to allow even further consolidation of Big Brother media companies, is zealously pursuing the revival of standards-and-practice departments – you know, the old in-house decency police – for radio and network TV.”