Tag: 04.15.09

Ticket Sales Poor, Stratford Festival Puts 30 Perfs ‘On Hold’

“Thumped by the uncertain economy, Ontario’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival has removed 31 performances from the season’s schedule. One April performance of West Side Story has been officially cancelled, while 30 other performances that were selling poorly are ‘on hold’ as the festival’s administration waits to see if ticket sales pick up and economic conditions improve. Ticket sales are down 15 per cent from last year at this time.”

As More Nonprofits Merge, The Stigma Fades

“Those involved in the nonprofit sector say [mergers] have increased in the last decade, but are accelerating now as organizations face a drop in donations and cuts in funding due to the recession.” In the past, “there was the perception that nonprofits merged simply to stay afloat, signaling that their business practices might not be sound. … That attitude seems to be changing.”

Listening To Seamus Heaney, And To Silence

“In a recent interview, Heaney said he was often asked what the value of poetry was during times of economic recession. The answer, he explained, is that it is at just such moments of crisis that people realize that they do not live by economics alone. ‘If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness,’ Heaney said.” And if we did fortify our inner lives? “What a turn that would be,” Tim Rutten writes, “a process that would involve periods of silence and moments when we turn things off.”

Librarian Judith F. Krug, Foe Of Book Banning, Dies At 69

“Judith F. Krug, who led the campaign by libraries against efforts to ban books, including helping found Banned Books Week, then fought laws and regulations to limit children’s access to the Internet, died Saturday…. As the American Library Association’s official proponent of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech since the 1960s, Ms. Krug (pronounced kroog) fought the banning of books, including ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ‘Mein Kampf,’ ‘Little Black Sambo,’ ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and sex manuals.”

D.C.’s African-American History Museum Gets An Architect

“The long-awaited National Museum of African American History and Culture took an important step forward yesterday with the selection of an architectural and design team. The Smithsonian, which is overseeing the $500 million project on the Mall, chose Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup as the firm that will design the signature building across the street from the Washington Monument.”

In A Lebanese Prison, 12 Angry Men And A Female Director

“At Roumieh, Lebanon’s biggest penitentiary, in the mountains above Beirut, something unprecedented in the history of the country is happening. Every Sunday for four months, inmates from the all-male prison are performing a play…. What’s more, they’re doing it in front of an audience from outside, many of them women. The play’s director is a woman from outside, a noninmate.” The play? “Twelve Angry Men,” in Arabic.

Via AAMD Loophole, Another Museum Monetizes Collection

“Opened in 1914, the small, neoclassical Montclair [N.J.] Art Museum has long boasted an impressive collection of American art…. In the stewardship of its permanent collection, however, Montclair has left a more questionable legacy. The museum has often treated its record of local philanthropy as trade-in art.” Now the museum is exploiting a loophole in the Association of Art Museum Directors guidelines, selling works from its collection as part of its new “financial security plan.”