Orchestras worldwide are having a white-knuckle ride due to shifts in the global economy and their Australian counterparts are looking on with trepidation.
Tag: 06.06.11
Arthur Conan Doyle’s First Novel Finally To Be Published
“Conan Doyle sent it to a publisher but it was lost in the post and he then had to reconstruct it from memory. It was never finished. The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, was printed three years later.”
Disney Studios Expected To Layoff Five Percent Of Workforce
“Over the last several years, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert A. Iger has restructured the studio, scaling back the number of movies it produces and releases. Disney sold off its Miramax Films specialty movie label last year and consolidated the Burbank studio’s marketing and distribution operations.”
Florida Stage, Now Bankrupt, Shuts Down (Blame Bernie Madoff)
“Less than 24 hours after the closing of its most recent production, Florida Stage shut down Monday morning and announced plans to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing factors including a $1.5 million debt and a downturn in contributions from victims of financial swindler Bernard Madoff.”
Peter O’Toole: ‘I Don’t Approve Of Theatre Directors’
“Like these clowns, Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn and all this bunch of clowns. I won’t speak to them. When you’ve earned your living on the stage for 10, 15 years, then come and tell me how to earn mine.”
New York Times Architecture Critic Stepping Down
“According to an in-house memo, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff is ‘moving on’ at the end of this month … ‘to write a book about the architectural and cultural history of the last 100 years’.”
US State Department to Back Merce Cunningham Company’s Russia Debut
“The State Department will provide financial and logistical support to Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s first set of performances in Russia … The performances will be presented June 14-16 by the International Chekhov Festival in Moscow.”
The Collective-Farm Ballet Suppressed By Stalin Himself
“On Thursday, and for almost a week thereafter, American Ballet Theatre is fielding something rich and strange: The Bright Stream, a comic ballet about a Soviet collective farm … Soon after its première, [the work] was snatched off the stage, on Stalin’s orders. … Then, in 2003, the Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky put it back together for the Bolshoi Ballet.”
Is Teen Lit Too Dark And Ugly? (The Latest Raging Debate)
“Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece claiming that fiction at least nominally aimed at readers under 18 – young adult or ‘YA’ fiction, that is – is entirely too dark. … Unsurprisingly, the commentary has come under intense criticism – it’s not in any way a new complaint.”
Quiet Zones In Central Park? (It’s A Threat To Musicians)
“Several musicians said the money people gave them in the park was their sole source of income. An alto saxophonist, Rakiem Walker, estimated that musicians could earn from $20,000 to $120,000 a year by playing there full time.”