A new paper by the Australian Film Commission says that 1,200 to 1,400 feature scripts have been developed here in the past three years. And the number that reach the screen? About 25 to 30 a year.” – Sydney Morning Herald
“What we are seeing these days is, more precisely, the theatrical version of the hostile takeover. ‘Englut and devour’ – the name that Mel Brooks once invented for a Hollywood studio – is becoming the motto of the American stage. The triumph of American commercialism is hardly a novelty of the millennium. What is different today is the lack of any indignation about it. It seems almost quixotic these days to criticize the relationship between art and commerce, and a little nostalgic even to try to evoke any interest in the question.” – The New Republic
“Seussical,” the much-anticipated musical, opened in Boston this week before its planned fall debut on Broadway. But the show got mixed to bad reviews in Boston, and may need to be reworked before going to New York. “Yesterday, theater sources said ‘Seussical’ would probably lose more than $1 million in Boston. Had the show opened to good reviews, the producers were prepared to add an extra week to the Boston run. That plan has now been abandoned.” – New York Post
“Cats” the musical closes on Broadway this week, the longest-running show in Broadway history. But “it’s not as if the world will suddenly go ‘Cat’-less come Monday morning. You can rent the video version. You can wait for the PBS pledge drive airing of the version available on video. You can wait in the Kaiser Permanente waiting room of your choice, and eventually you will hear the Muzak version of ‘Memory’.” – Los Angeles Times
Archaeologists have found an enormous Maya palace built nearly 1,300 years ago in Guatemala. “Found at the site of Cancuén, which means ‘Place of Serpents’, on the Río Pasion in the Petén region, the three-story palace covers some 270,000 square feet has more than 170 rooms built around 11 courtyards. Its solid limestone masonry walls are six feet thick in places.” – Archaeology
Conductor Daniel Barenboim has given the Berlin Senate an ultimatum: provide $5 million more for the budget of the Deutsche Staatsoper or he will leave at the end of his current contract. “I have said what the Staatsoper needs,” he is quoted as saying. “Either it receives that. Then I will stay. Or it does not receive that. Then I will go.” – Chicago Tribune
