Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater “gets pigeonholed as a ‘mom-and-pop’ operation. But now this family has a big, newly renovated house up at the historic Biograph Theater that just emptied the piggy bank by $11.7 million (and counting). And it’s facing a whole different set of economic realities. So, will the family values stay the same? Only to a point, say the parents.” One of the coming changes may be a raising of the bar for the theatre’s stable of affiliated playwrights — an ensemble whose existence sets Victory Gardens apart from most American theatres.
Tag: 10.15.06
Miami’s New Performing Arts Center Debuts
Miami’s new Carnival Performing Arts Center is badly needed. But “it’s a shame a price tag variously quoted between $446 million and $518 million hasn’t bought better architecture. But no architectural practice has been more uneven than the 80-year-old Argentine-American’s, now called Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.”
Back To The 60s
There’s a revival of musicals from the 60s and 70s. Why now? “After raiding much of the Rodgers-Hammerstein canon of 1950s and 1960s hits during the past decade, and much of the ’80s Fosse and Sondheim output, too, a voracious Broadway revival market needs more new (old) blood.”
The Well-Connected Choreographer
Michael Clark is “the most extraordinary and extraordinarily well-connected dancer in modern Britain. Draw a circle between the Young British Artists, the more frayed edges of rock music, high fashion (Kate Moss is a patron) and serious classical dance (his other patron is Mikhail Baryshnikov), and you can find Michael Clark open-mindedly ensconced at any point.”
Hi, I’m Julie, I’ll Be Your Museum Shadow
A growing number of museums are spying on their patrons, trying to better understand how visitors interact with the museum. “Known collectively as ‘visitor studies,’ the movement has its own experts, its own literature, its own conferences. Spying is only part of the equation.”
Denver Mobs Its New Museum
Thirty-five thousand people showed up for the opening weekend of the new Denver Art Museum. “The large weekend crowds resulted in the museum running out of free tickets to enter the new $110 million wing less than 24 hours into the event.”
Steven Holl Busts On Denver Project (But The Reasons Are Instructive)
When architect Steven Holl was selected to design a new Denver courthouse in December, “it was a celebratory moment for a city anticipating a building with his signature way with light. But in August and September the terrain between city and architect turned from tension to termination.”
Understanding The Gross-out Movie Phenomenon
“American males under 25 are the world’s most lucrative filmgoing demographic. With its ready stream of sight gags to plaster on trailers and posters, this is not a hard genre to market; the less sophisticated the movie, the better. But does grosser necessarily mean funnier?”
Music Industry Question Digital Rights Policies
“The major record labels by and large insist their music must have some sort of digital rights management protection before they’ll license it for digital distribution. Increasingly, the wisdom of this stance is coming under scrutiny. DRM, they say, simply forces consumers to buy hardware with proprietary technology that enriches software companies rather than artists or labels.”
Ticket Prices Decline
Ticket prices for pop concerts have been going down in the past year. “Nationally, the average ticket price for the top 100 tours tracked by Pollstar magazine dropped to $50.27 last year, from $53.55 in 2004.”