“Transita, which plans to publish two paperbacks a month aimed at its target readership, declares itself to be the first publisher devoted to producing fiction for women aged over 45 and over. According to its founder and director, Nikki Read, the idea is to give women of this age-group storylines they can relate to and fictional characters with whom they can empathise. But Read appears to have opened up a veritable Pandora’s box, with critics of the imprint claiming that it is patronising to define women readers in this way.”
Tag: 05.03.05
Broadway Takes A Turn For The High-Minded
“The traditional view of Broadway is that it’s the greatest place in the world for razzle-dazzle musicals, but a desert when it comes to high culture. That’s certainly not the case this year.” In fact, this year’s crop of New York theatre hits reads like a list of great American drama.
Wasserman Quits LA Times Book Review
Steve Wasserman has resigned as editor of the LA Times Book Review. “Wasserman has been instrumental in building the prestige of the Times Book Prizes and Festival of Books, and at last month’s festival he was treated by many visiting authors and publishing industry figures as something of a celebrity. At USC, he is co-founder of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, which gathers local intellectuals, literati and journalists twice each month for discussions.”
Mostly Mozart Reconfigures
This summer, the Mostly Mozart Festival will reconfigure its home at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. “One goal of the new structure was to break down the formality of the concert hall and enhance the personal and musical connection between players and listeners. “We’re eager to bring back the populist feeling of our origins,” Lincoln Center executive Jane Moss said, citing the festival’s early days, when all tickets sold for $3. The project is also intended to provide an acoustical setting more appropriate to the sound of an 18th-century orchestra.”
Plenty Of Hard Feelings After D.C. Tour Cancellation
When Washington Ballet cancelled its planned tour of Italian summer festivals over a pay dispute with its dancers, it left a slew of Italian promoters and festival organizers in the lurch, having promoted the company as their centerpiece. Most of the festivals will not be able to secure comparable replacement companies, since most ballets are booked well in advance. The dispute between the company and its dancers centered around the amount of meal money to be paid during the tour.
Houston’s Grand Operatic Secret (Pay Attention, San Francisco)
Opera may be hot again, but precious few American cities can boast of having a truly world-class opera company. One of the lucky few is Houston, where the Grand Opera marked its 50th birthday last weekend, and Joshua Kosman says that you don’t have to look very hard to see how the company has achieved its success. “To speak of the Houston Grand Opera is to speak of David Gockley, the visionary general director who has led the company since 1972 and made it what it is today.” Gockley will shortly be leaving Houston to take up the reins of the San Francisco Opera, and Kosman says that the Bay Area can realistically hope for a newly reinvigorated company under his leadership.
Eakins Biography Gets Down ‘n Dirty
An exhaustive new biograophy of 19th-century Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins contains enough bombshells to keep the art world arguing for some time. Author Henry Adams has crafted a portrait of “a severely troubled individual with a catalog of psychoses, including a castration complex, sexual inadequacy and trauma, and a propensity to drink more milk than perhaps is healthy.” And as if that weren’t enough, Adams is also taking some pointed shots at the Eakins scholars who came before him, accusing them of ignoring the seedier side of the artist’s life.
Broadway Catering To The Under-12 Crowd
“Young audiences are big business for Broadway. Last year the group accounted for 1.3 million tickets sold, 11.2% of all tickets. And 30% of those 1.3 million were sold to kids younger than 12, according to surveys… Young people are such a presence at Broadway shows that the League of American Theatres and Producers has launched a kid-targeted Web site, generationbroadway.com, for children age 8 to 12.”
Minneapolis’s Hensley Wins Primus Prize
“Michelle Hensley, artistic director of Minneapolis-based Ten Thousand Things Theater Company, has won the 2005 Francesca Primus Prize, a national award recognizing outstanding accomplishments by female artists in theater… She is the first non-playwright to win the award… Hensley founded Ten Thousand Things in Los Angeles in 1990, and moved to the Twin Cities in 1993. The company’s repertoire includes everything from Shakespeare to Brecht to its current production of the musical Ragtime. Using actors with credits on the Twin Cities’ major stages, Ten Thousand Things’ productions are a perennial part of local critics’ annual best-of lists. Though the company does paid public performances of its work, its core patrons are those in prisons, urban community centers, senior high rises and other audiences not generally exposed to theater.”
Colorado Ballet: How Did It Come To This?
Colorado Ballet seems to be in freefall, cancelling a major world premiere for lack of funds to pay choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, and attempting to dig out from under the weight of some major upper management resignations. And yet, only recently, the company was thought to be at the top of its artistic and financial game, and was looking forward to moving into Denver’s new opera house. So what happened? No one outside the company is entirely sure, but botched negotiations with Wheeldon seem to have been the catalyst for nearly all the subsequent problems, and its likely that more resignations are yet to come.