“Three nervous consignors congregated in the Ritchies Auctioneers parking lot in Toronto yesterday, hoping to collect unsold items and money owed to them from the auctioneer, which unexpectedly closed its doors last week following its split with Sotheby’s. The consigners and a company delivery man left empty handed. … Meanwhile, a new account of the company’s difficulties has surfaced. “
Tag: 08.11.09
Star Roles Caused Spike In Straight-Play Audience
“[A]ttendances at straight plays in the first half of 2009 are up by 19% on the previous year,” and the reason is obvious. “Audiences are hungry for new plays that deal with big issues and provide fat lead roles. I am not anti-ensemble, and I always hesitate to tell dramatists what to do. But history proves that the plays that endure are those that provide rich gifts for actors.”
Pee-wee Herman Gears Up For An Onstage Comeback
Paul Reubens’ Hollywood stage show “will feature the same story line as the original: Pee-wee, a nerdy man-child with a colorful menagerie of anthropomorphic friends, is granted a wish to learn to fly but gives the wish away, much to his eventual regret. Reubens said he has revised parts of the story to include new songs as well as characters from his popular CBS television series, ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse.'”
For Tech-Evangelist Lawyer, Downloading Defeat Is A Blow
“As co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, Professor [Charles] Nesson is renowned for his early interest in bridging technology, law and culture, and his ability to inspire generations of students to see the Internet as a force for positive change, not just cables and computers. But when Professor Nesson, 70, took on the recording industry in an eagerly anticipated civil case here over sharing music online, the champion stumbled.”
Scrap The Fringe! Centralize Edinburgh’s Festivals.
“[I]t is time to scrap the Fringe. And the International Festival. And the Mela. And the Book Festival. And the TV Festival. And the Art Festival. And the Jazz and Blues Festival.” In their place? The Edinburgh Festival. “Most people outside Edinburgh make no distinction between the various components of what they already call the Edinburgh Festival. It is merely a recognition of reality to say we should end the differences and call them all by one name.”
With Charles Gwathmey’s Death, NY Five Is Now NY Three
“More than 40 years ago, a group of young Manhattan architects with a shared interest in the aesthetics of old-fashioned Modernism began getting together to talk about their work, their lives and the state of the field. And in the decades that followed, even as their styles grew apart — and as they became celebrities in and beyond the world of architecture — they continued talking.”