“There have been comic playwrights who were more daring (George Kelly), more witty (S. N. Behrman), more rebarbative (S. J. Perelman), and more up-to-the-minute (George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart), but no playwright in Broadway’s long and raucous history has so dominated the boulevard as the softly astringent Simon.”
Tag: 04.26.10
Measuring Scotland’s Arts Institutions
“Scotland’s five national performance companies achieved audiences of more than a million on a combined turnover of £70.3 million in the last two years, according to a Scottish Government report published this week.”
Are Video Games Art? The Debate Continues
“If you want to see videogames considered seriously as true art, all you have to do is not die. Videogames are right on the cusp of being recognized as something that might be art sometimes. Another 75 years and all videogames will be considered art.”
Publishing Industry Weighs Losses After Volcano-Afficted London Book Fair
“Agents and publishers are weighing up the damage in terms of cancelled meetings and lost opportunities as flight restrictions prevented many foreign visitors from reaching Earls Court. Normally the major publishing event of the year, at which deals are done, international rights are negotiated and titles are pitched by agents, it was eerily quiet when I attended this week.”
Context Looks To Push The Frontiers Of Music And Technology
“An idea to allow people to create their own “satellite symphony” through an iPhone app has been shortlisted for a new music prize.Other shortlisted concepts include recycling existing sounds – music will be collected and filtered by a portable structure resembling a fairground organ. Another design aims to create automatic musical instruments which can be played by audience members.”
Indie Film In A Rebuilding Mode
The “new austerity has decimated the indie film business, ending with the collapse or downsizing of distributors like New Line Cinema, Picturehouse, Warner Independent Pictures, ThinkFilm and Miramax, all in the last few years. There are, however, signs of life…”
Classical Music Radio On The Rebound?
“Just 19 commercial classical stations remain on the air nationwide, by one count, down from about 50 in the early 1990s. But as ad-supported programmers also decide that the classical format is no longer practical, the music has started to find a new savior. And, to the surprise of many, it is public broadcasting.”
Are Arts Execs Paid Too Much?
“Compensation for executives at cultural organizations has long been something of a delicate subject. On the one hand, the executives are often highly educated people running important institutions that face complex problems. But they are also at the helm of nonprofit organizations that depend on the generosity of others and, often, on government support. And, as a group, the leaders are expected to be more concerned with elevated matters of beauty and the spirit.”
Joni Mitchell Calls Bob Dylan A “Fake”
Joni Mitchell, the Canadian singer-songwriter, has lambasted Bob Dylan as a ”plagiarist” and a ”fake”. In a rare interview, Mitchell, 66, attacked her fellow folk musician after an interviewer for the Los Angeles Times casually noted that both had changed their names, in Dylan’s case from Bobby Zimmerman. ”Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake,” she said.
Could The iPad Be Publishing’s Savior?
“Publishing exists in a continual state of forecasting its own demise; at one major house, there is a running joke that the second book published on the Gutenberg press was about the death of the publishing business.” Threatened now by Amazon’s tough-guy tactics, the business is looking to Apple and even Google as allies.