It was only eight months ago that Chicago’s new $9 million Drury Lane Theatre at the Watertower Place opened in a blaze of publicity. Now the theatre is quitting making original theatre, admitting its mistakes and failure. “It’s an astonishingly rapid turnaround and indicative of eight months on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile that have not gone well at all. There are no current plans for the theater to produce its own shows again.”
Tag: 10.16.05
Hey CBC Workers – Welcome Back! (Sorta)
CBC boss Tony Burman welcomed his troops back last week after a prolonged lockout. He kindly sent all employees a note. But what was he really thinking, behind all the bonhomie? “Have a great week. It’s wonderful you are back where you belong. (At least until the next strike.)
Actors On The Other Side Of The Lens
A perhaps not surprising number of actors have aspirations to make their own movies. And some of them do. “These filmmakers may be actors with longtime careers and considerable name recognition, but that’s not much help within the blockbuster mentality that dominates the film industry, where even stars with high wattage have had difficultly getting pet projects made. So how did these just-regular thespians pull off making their movies?”
When Copyrighters Own The Space Around You
“Today, anyone armed with a video camera and movie-editing software can make a documentary. But can everyone afford to make it legally? Clearance costs – licensing fees paid to copyright holders for permission to use material like music, archival photographs and film and news clips – can send expenses for filmmakers soaring into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Dance – Looking Historical
“Dance revivals come in many forms and get sketchier the further one recedes in time. Music has a long-accepted system of notation; theater has texts. Dance has the memories of the choreographer (if still alive) and his or her disciples, who fan across the country and the world recreating works in which, often, they once danced. So why do them at all? In dance, we live in a time, or so many people fret, of diminished choreography: there just aren’t that many great dance-makers out there, especially in classical ballet. Hence the desire to freshen the repertory by mining the past…”
Lifetime – A Force To Be Lobbied With
The Lifetime Channel is the most-watched network among women. “In recent years Lifetime has promoted its issue-oriented programming by tying it to direct appeals to viewers to improve their lives. In April, for instance, after the broadcast of “Terror at Home,” a documentary about domestic abuse, the National Domestic Violence Hotline had a 7,000 percent increase in calls. But Lifetime’s most surprising experiment has taken place off screen. Through its public affairs office, it has become a political lobbying force – and quite an effective one at that – rallying its audience to back laws about a broad slate of women’s issues.”
Today’s Music: What Sells In Concert Doesn’t Sell On Disc
Oldies bands are big on the road, selling out arenas and fairs. “The concert box office continues to be dominated by white guys old enough to be grandfathers. With all those seats filled, you’d think that all these wizened rockers must be moving boatloads of CDs, too. But the sales figures tell a different story.”
Exit Interview With A “Great Connoisseur”
Sir Timothy Clifford has been director of the Scottish Museums for 21 years. He’s been called one of the world’s great connoisseurs, and has pulled off innumerable art coups. As he “steps down from his position as director general of the National Galleries of Scotland he has revealed how he relied on subterfuge to pull off some of the most ambitious coups in the international art world.”
Scottish Parliament Is Year’s Best Building
The new Scottish Parliament building has won this year’s Stirling Prize for architecture. “The project, designed by the Catalan architect Enric Miralles, who died aged 45 before the parliament could be completed, has been a major embarrassment to the politicians and civil servants who presided over skyrocketing costs that took the price from an initial estimate of £50 million, to a final figure of £431m.”
The Modern According To Perl
Jed Perl has a new book out about art in New York between the 1940s and 70s. “Through the book’s pages pour artists, critics, dealers, museum curators, museum-goers and the views Perl has intently constructed of them, drawing on archival materials, interviews and the old books and art catalogs he’s collected over the years. Most important, perhaps, are his own responses to art, people and institutions. The book — its full title is “New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century” — is essentially a book of ideas, a critic’s analytical meditation on how and why he thinks cultural history evolved as it did.”