“I’m not suggesting that size alone matters, obviously. But if the American theater is to remain an aesthetically robust enterprise, a vital step may be removing the invisible shackles from the imaginations of playwrights, making it natural — making it possible — for them to dream huge once again.”
Tag: 06.01.08
Sounds Good – Tonys Honor Sound Design
“This year, for the first time, sound designers will compete in two Tony categories: best sound design of a play and best sound design of a musical. That’s a serious gesture from the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing, which present the awards.”
Pittsburgh Festival Puts Its Galleries In Shipping Containers
In their place will be 10 huge shipping containers — a hot unit that’s turning up all over in applications as varied as exhibition spaces to pre-fab homes and apartment buildings.
The Kimmel Center Debacle – A Fixup (But Where’s The Outrage?)
“Six and a half years after opening night, more than $300 million later, Philadelphia didn’t get what it was promised. At least the Kimmel’s current leaders are now acknowledging failure, even if they carefully avoid the word. That’s progress. For years after opening night, top Kimmel and orchestra officials sneered at critics who said Verizon’s sound varied in quality from seat to seat, or that the sound in general didn’t have enough presence or impact.”
The Twyla Tharp Phenomenon
In the three decades since Deuce Coupe Twyla Tharp has “created and dissolved several incarnations of her own company, made pieces for ballet companies and ice skaters, worked in theater, film and television, written books and choreographed and directed on Broadway. Her impulses seem to be to diversify and conquer — and often she does.”
The Hidden Costs Of Free Art
London’s museums are famously free to the public, and the scrapping of admission fees has resulted in waves of new visitors. “The new reality is that art and heritage have taken on a central place in a leisure economy previously dominated by sport and Thorpe Park. In that role, for good or ill, art finds itself playing by different rules.”
Music Director Salaries Still Rising
The economy may be in the dumps, with smaller orchestras struggling to survive, but the salaries paid to music directors of America’s top orchestras continue to spiral upwards. Incoming Chicago Symphony director Riccardo Muti may be getting more than $2m per season, and even mid-level orchestras are paying their MDs in the high six figures.
The Power Of The Prize
“The Tony is probably the country’s best-known and most eagerly sought theater prize, and the one with the highest stakes: results can make or break a Broadway show. But it is not alone. Everywhere actors and audiences gather, it seems, awards are handed out. And the fallout, much like that after the Tonys, is not always pretty.”
A Young Orchestra Looks To The Future
The New York-based Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas may not have the pedigree of a major orchestra, but it has something more important: a mission: “to explore the largely virgin territory of symphonic music from the New World, to draw a popular audience and to open doors for performers on the threshold of their careers.”
Naipaul Mugged By A Poem
“Last week the St Lucia poet Derek Walcott used his talent in the pursuit of less lofty ideals as he reignited a simmering row with VS Naipaul by unveiling a stinging attack on the author – in verse… Walcott attacks what he sees as the Trinidadian-born Naipaul’s rejection of his Caribbean heritage in order to win acceptance from the British literary establishment.”