A week before its scheduled opening, the New Jomandi theatre in Atlanta announced that it was canceling its entire 25th anniversary season. “Saying it had been unable to raise enough money for its four-show 2003-2004 program, the theater said it would spend the year in ‘redevelopment,’ then start up again in 2004. Since 2000, Jomandi, one of the few remaining major black theaters in the country, has suffered financial difficulties, canceled shows, and changed its name.”
Tag: 08.28.03
Movie Business In Danger
The movie industry is in danger of being cannibalized by pirates. And, say some obervers, the industry isn’t doing nearly enough to protect itself. “Already as many as 600,000 movie files are shared each day on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as Morpheus and Grokster, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). That number is likely to soar as more households get broadband internet and compression technology cuts download time.”
Ripping Off A 93-Year-Old Author (Then Offering Money)
A critic discovers a book re-published without securing rights from the original publisher or author. After tracking down the 93-year-old author, the critic contacts the publisher. “Two weeks ago, it wrote, effusively, to Miss Lovett saying that 7,588 copies of her book had been sold, and that, should she be willing to give retrospective permission, a cheque for $4,530.04 was on its way.”
Why The BBC Is Making It Free
The BBC is planning to “digitise and offer for download, for free, as much of its back catalogue of programmes that it can legally do, from the earliest radio reels to nature documentaries to educational programmes. Anyone will be allowed to re-use, re-edit and mix this material with their own, provided it’s for non-commercial use.” But why? Because it is in the public broadcaster’s interests…
Shakespeare’s New Houses
Shakespeare gets ever more popular. New theatres devoted to the Bard are being built in Europe. “In the past month an Italian version of London’s Globe theatre has sprung up in the Villa Borghese park in the heart of Rome. In Poland, efforts are underway to reconstruct a Shakespearean theatre that thrived in the Baltic port city of Gdansk almost 400 years ago, but has since been replaced by a carpark.”
Jazz’s European Home
“For the past ten years or so, Italy has been arguably the strongest jazz nation in Europe. One continues to discover major players who are almost unknown anywhere else. Although jazz is certainly historically American, its most current developments are no longer any one nation’s monopoly.”
Who Stole Leonardo
Who stole the Leonardo painting in Scotland? “His fee, measured in millions, will in all likelihood fund an international drugs deal. Serious Crime Squad detectives, drafted into Dumfries-shire in the wake of yesterday’s theft, believe the Madonna was stolen to order. The theft had all the hallmarks. The thieves bypassed other masterpieces in the Duke of Buccleuch’s Drumlanrig Castle to steal the smaller but infinitely more valuable Da Vinci.”
Following Leads
Scottish police have found the getaway car used by the brazen art thieves who swiped a Leonardo yesterday, but are still looking for the thieves themselves. The car was found abandoned in the woods near Drumlanrig Castle, and authorities are searching for a second car. The stolen painting is, of course, impossible to sell, and it has been added to Interpol’s database of major artworks which are missing or stolen.
Children’s Book Draws Fire
“A pile of about 300 copies of a book in a Bolton warehouse, which tells the story of a young Palestinian boy living under Israeli military occupation on the West Bank, is at the centre of an international controversy. A Little Piece Of Ground, written by award-winning children’s writer Elizabeth Laird, is the subject of a campaign calling on the publisher to reconsider putting out the novel.” The content of the book is fairly intense for the genre, but the author and her supporters insist that it is all too familiar to Palestinian children growing up under the Israeli occupation.
53 Ways To Slim Down For The Rapture
A newly released edition of the New Testament is taking a bizarre tack in trying to interest the youth market. “Revolve” is the first edition of the Bible ever to be published in a magazine format, according to its creators, and it looks more like an issue of “Teen Cosmo” than a religious text. “Its tips are wholesome but perky. On skin care: ‘As you apply sunscreen, use that time to talk to God. Tell him how grateful you are for how he made you. Soon, you’ll be so used to talking to him, it might become as regular and familiar as shrinking your pores.'”