The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut has temporarily suspended its search for a new director and will concentrate for now on hiring someone to run its annual National Play Conference, “one of the most esteemed professional development programs in the nation.”
Tag: 10.28.04
D.C. Curator Fired For Bad-Mouthing Public Art
“Curator Philip Barlow’s policy on automatically excluding PandaMania and Party Animals participants from consideration for Washington Project for the ArtsCorcoran’s 2005 Options exhibition has cost him his position. The survey of emerging Washington area artists will now be curated by Libby Lumpkin, an art historian and critic who lives in California. The move came after [the Washington Post] reported Sept. 23 that Barlow did not regard the city-funded sculpture projects as art… WPAC Executive Director Annie Adjchavanich issued a statement last week announcing Barlow’s resignation and condemning his stance as a violation of ‘basic ethical norms of curatorial practice.’ Barlow calls the statement a ‘complete distortion.'”
A Prairie Home Blockbuster?
A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor’s weekly variety show focused on the fictional prairie town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, will shortly be going Hollywood. Director Robert Altman and a cast chock full of Hollywood bigs will be collaborating with Keillor on a movie version of the show, with filming to take place during live performances this winter in St. Paul.
China’s New Comeback Kid
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is an unlikely hometown hero in a country famous for its purges of artists. Ai’s father, a famous poet, was the victim of such a purge, and the family spent most of Weiwei’s childhood in “reeducation camps” scattered across the Gobi Desert. But this year, the artist has found new fame in China for his contribution to the design of the country’s new Olympic Stadium. But fierce criticism of the design has been emanating from Chinese architecture circles, largely due to the involvement of European design firms.
Politics? That’s So Last Week
Hollywood’s brief dalliance with political filmmaking appears to have been short-lived. As the election season steamrolls towards its conclusion, big-budget studios are turning back to that old Hollywood standby, escapism, to sell tickets. While left-leaning documentaries have done big business this year, “politically oriented films like Paramount’s Team America: World Police, which has taken in only about $23 million so far, and The Manchurian Candidate… with about $66 million in ticket sales, have been disappointments at the box office.”
Music Biz Of The Future (Could It Please Happen Now?)
Clearly, the way of the future is getting music over the internet. And this will be good for the music business. “But the question facing the music industry is when that future will arrive. And the issue is most urgent for the four big companies that dominate the production and distribution of music—Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI.”
Glimmer Of Hope For Endangered Gem
“A group of top Broad way producers, who have backed some of the most important American plays of the last several years, may throw a lifeline to Gem of the Ocean. The producers — Elizabeth I. McCann, Roger Berlind and Scott Rudin — were trying yesterday to figure out a way to get the acclaimed August Wilson play to Broadway this season. Gem of the Ocean is on the brink of collapse because its lead producer, Ben Mordecai, has failed to raise the $2.3 million needed to bring it to the stage.” Still, the trio of producers has no intenion of bailing Mordecai out of his existing debts, so the production must still be considered a long shot.
Congratulations! Now Get Out There And Sell, Sell, Sell!
When an author wins the Booker Prize, as Alan Hollinghurst just did, publishers more or less expect a sales bonanza. But awards are no guarantee of public acclaim, and there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done to meet those high sales expectations. Hollinghurst is discovering that, for the recipient of the Booker, the work has only just begun. Job one: divest the literary press of the notion that he is a “gay writer” and that his book is a breakthrough work of “gay fiction.”
Terra Looks For Extended Life Online
When Chcago’s Terra Museum of American Art closes forever this Sunday, it will represent a major loss for the city’s art scene, but the Terra Foundation’s extensive collection will not simply be dispersed to the winds. “The entire collection is soon to be made available on the foundation’s new Web site, www.terraamericanart.org. And 50 of the major works, as well as the museum’s complete collection of 350 works on paper, will be temporarily loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago in January.”
Chicago Still In The Red, But Improving
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra ran a deficit of $2.3 million on a budget of nearly $58 million in its 2003-04 season. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that the red ink is about $1.7 million less than the CSO had anticipated, and significantly less than the $7 million deficit of a few years ago. Still, the orchestra was forced to withdraw more than $9 million from its endowment in the past year to cover operating costs. The CSO’s management team has pledged a return to balanced budgets by the 2006-07 season.