How hard is it to deal with the economic crisis when your local economy was never any too great to begin with? Just ask Detroit’s arts organizations… “At Michigan Opera Theatre, the worsening economic climate has shaved nearly $1 million off projections for this year’s ticket sales and contributions. Likewise, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is predicting [major] losses this year. And just months before the Detroit Institute of Arts unveils a Norman Rockwell show… the museum has yet to find a corporate sponsor to help underwrite the exhibition.”
Tag: 10.17.08
TBT Still Needs $600K To Keep Season Afloat
“As the Texas Ballet Theater makes its much anticipated 2008-09 season debut at Bass Performance Hall tonight, the financially troubled company will take Fort Worth’s most famous stage still seeking an estimated $600,000 in donations to help it reach its goal of $2 million, the amount it says it needs to bring financial stability for the rest of the year.”
Is Cutting Arts In Schools Shooting Kids In The Foot?
A well-known expert on education is decrying cuts to arts programs in Canada’s schools. “We tend to think arts and sciences work completely differently, but the process is the same… Creativity fosters innovation, an economic necessity. It’s not the flip side of science and business, but a part of it.”
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
A Las Vegas critic recently discovered an online message board partially devoted to eviscerating his reviews of local performances, and (to hear him tell it,) he couldn’t be happier about it. “It’s been a one-sided conversation, favoring the critic, for far too long… So it’s only fair that what I write is subject to criticism itself (after it gets past my editor and the copy editors). And I can take it.”
The WaMu Effect
The effect of the collapse of Washington Mutual on the arts scene in Seattle, where the bank was based, has yet to become fully clear. What is clear is that the effect won’t be small. “WaMu, which billed itself as “the Friend of the Family” in advertising, gave $48.6 million to charity nationwide last year… The bank also matched donations employees made for as much as $10,000 a year.”
Times Square TKTS Booth Finished at Last
“After the longest out-of-town tryout in history, a new TKTS booth opened on Thursday in Duffy Square, eight years later and nine times costlier than originally estimated.”
Switched at Birth?
Or, how a Tuscan merchant tried to pass himself off as heir to the throne of France, forged letters from the King of Hungary, and threw a (little) wrench into the Hundred Years’ War.
Fighting Sharia Censorship in Nigeria
“‘I don’t sell cocaine,’ says the video vendor in Kano’s Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango’s music video CD Bahaushiya.”
Actress Edie Adams, 81
The Juilliard-trained singer found fame on television with husband Ernie Kovacs, on Broadway as Daisy Mae in Li’l Abner, and as the Muriel Cigars spokesmodel who purred, “Why don’t you pick one up and smoke it sometime?”
So This Means George Bush Is Ulysses S. Grant?
One historian suggests that the real antecedent of the current financial crisis isn’t the crash of 1929. “In fact, the current economic woes look a lot like what my 96-year-old grandmother still calls ‘the real Great Depression'” – the Panic of 1873.