Tag: 04.20.05

Will Toronto Arts Be On The Chopping Block For Conservatives?

Canada’s ruling Liberal government is in trouble, hanging on to power by a thread and likely to be forced into new elections by year’s end. And while Prime Minister Paul Martin and company might have many residents of Canada’s largest city exasperated, Martin Knelman warns that an electoral victory for the Conservative party and its leader, Alberta’s Stephen Harper, would be a death knell for Toronto’s arts scene. “Alberta’s well-known resentment of Toronto’s presumed cultural superiority could find expression in a big chill for local arts funding.”

The Ushering Game

How can you see all the theatre you want without spending a cent? Just show a few people to their seats, stuff a few Playbills, and wait for the lights to go down. Welcome to the world of New York’s Off-Broadway volunteer ushers, a strange and wacky collection of eccentrics, elderly fans on a budget, and hypercompetitive prima donnas.

Is Papyrus “Breakthrough” Credible?

Last weekend London’s Independent newspaper published a story telling of a major brakthrough in deciphering a trove of ancient texts. The story smells fishy to other papyrus researchers. “As of right now, the rest of the papyrological community is waiting to hear Dirk Obbink at Oxford either back up for disavow the claims made in the article. At the very best, the Independent’s reporters are covering some kind of new imaging breakthrough in an extremely hyperbolic fashion. And at the worst, they’re trying to make a major story out of 20-year-old news.”

Can 9/11 Ever Be Sold As Entertainment?

It has been more than 3-1/2 years since the 9/11 attacks, which apparently is long enough for Hollywood to start making movies about one of the worst tragedies in American history. “Are Americans ready yet to watch, let alone pay to watch, a re-enactment of some of the most searing events in their lives? When will enough time have passed? How do you make use of the stories of the victims and survivors without being seen as exploiting them? Then there is perhaps the most basic creative dilemma: Do you show the airplanes crashing into the twin towers? On this, there is unanimous reluctance.”

Tony Unlikely To Reward Denzel

“As the Tony Award races start to come into focus, it looks as if the biggest star on Broadway this spring may find himself shut out of the nominees’ circle. Critics and theater insiders have greeted Denzel Washington’s turn as ‘Brutus’ in the wrong-headed revival of Julius Caesar at the Belasco with, at best, indifference and, at worst, disappointment… [Still,] the competition for the five slots for Best Actor in a Play is fierce — and there is no shortage of big names to spice up the category.”

Getty Trust Gets Stark Sculptures

“The late Hollywood power broker and producer Ray Stark and his wife have donated 28 masterpiece sculptures to the J. Paul Getty Trust to establish a sculpture garden at the Getty Center. The 20th-century sculptures include the works of Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Aristide Maillol, Joan Miro, Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi.”

Orchestras Can Switch Cities?

It’s a heck of a way to leave town: the departing principal conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra made waves this week wen he suggested that the RSNO should move from Glasgow to Edinburgh, so as to take advantage of what he called “the best venue in Scotland.” As a national orchestra, the RSNO performs regularly in both cities, but has always been officially based in Glasgow. Orchestra management says it has no plans to move.