The Producers opens in London to a noisy rapturous recepstion. Creator and director Mel Brooks told the Theatre Royal crowd: “So much for British reserve, you people should be arrested for disorderly conduct.”
Tag: 11.10.04
Irish Arts Council Warns Government About Money
The Irish Arts Council has warned that it needs more money this year to fund its obligations, and if it doesn’t get it “arts centres around the country may be forced to close and theatres could go “dark” if the Government does not provide €68m to fund the arts sector next year.
The Whitbread Shortlists
This year’s shortlists for the Whitbread Prize have been announced. Finalists include The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst’s Booker prize-winning novel. Past winners include Philip Pullman, Ted Hughes, Kate Atkinson and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Axelrod Extradicted From Germany
Herbert Axelrod, millionaire and violin collector, who fled the US after charges of tax evasion, is to be brought back to the US from Germany this week. “In its indictment, the government accuses Axelrod of two counts of fraud — conspiracy and helping an employee cheat the Internal Revenue Service by funneling more than $1 million into a Swiss bank account. The combined charges carry a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.”
Lion’s Gate Profitable On Moore Film
Lion’s Gate is back in the black again. The movie company saw a 205% increase in its motion picture revenue to $202.8 million thanks in large part to Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which it co-distribbed. The picture brought in about two-thirds of its $119 million domestic box office take during the second quarter starting July 1.
A Peek Inside The Screenwriter Mill
“Every year, about 50,000 screenplays are registered with the western division of the Writers Guild of America, with nonmembers paying $20 and members paying $10. Only a few hundred of those are bought or optioned by studios, producers and production companies – usually for relatively paltry sums. Of the screenplays that find a home, a mere fraction end up as finished motion pictures and then, more often than not, only after they have been eviscerated and rewritten by a succession of writers known as script doctors. Nevertheless, an industry has blossomed around the notion that anyone with a good idea and the right skills can rack up a hit.”
Hollinghurst’s Booker Win Breeds Bestseller
Alan Hollinghurst’s win of this year’s Booker Prize has propelled his fourth book “The Line of Beauty,” close to the top of best-seller lists and into the awareness of a vastly wider audience.
Long Lost Kapell Recordings Revealed
A cache of privately recorings from pianist William Kapell’s last tour (he died in a 1953 plane crash in Australia at the age of 31) has surfaced. “The emergence of these more than three hours of recorded music is a tale of serendipity, of a collector’s passion and of a music lover’s act of selflessness. And when the recordings, preserved on three 16-inch acetate discs, are turned over to Kapell’s widow at a New York restaurant tomorrow, a new chapter will begin: the question of whether they will be commercially released.”
The Met’s Most Expensive Acquisition Ever
The Metropolitan Museum has made its most expensive purchase ever – more than $45 million for a painting by the early Renaissance master Duccio di Buoninsegna no bigger than a sheet of typing paper. In reporting the acquisition, the Met would not discuss price beyond confirming that it was the most costly purchase in its history. (In such deals, buyers are often legally bound not to reveal the sale price.) But art experts familiar with the deal, insisting on anonymity for fear of jeopardizing the sale, said the price was $45 million to $50 million. That would top the Met’s previous record purchase, of Jasper Johns’s “White Flag” (1955) for more than $20 million in 1998.”