Tag: 11.21.06

Philly Tries To Protect Eakins; University Strikes Back

“Thomas Jefferson University said yesterday that efforts by the city to stall removal of Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece The Gross Clinic, which the university has agreed to sell, are an inappropriate, misguided attempt to ‘restrict the University’s control over its own property.’ … On Friday, Mayor Street nominated The Gross Clinic, owned by Jefferson since 1878, for protection as a ‘historic object’ under the city’s historic-preservation ordinance.”

More MoMA To The Max?

What’s next for the Museum of Modern Art? How about another major expansion? “Several developers are in preliminary discussions with MoMA, [says director Glenn Lowry], “about the possibility of constructing a mixed-use building that would combine private commercial functions with more space for MoMA, probably to be used as galleries.”

RSC Reduces Shakespeare, Orders New Works

“The Royal Shakespeare Company, keeper of the flame of the greatest playwright ever, plans to ‘knock Shakespeare off his podium’, according to artistic director Michael Boyd, by increasing the proportion of new plays it stages to half of its total work.” In addition to commissioning plays, “writers will be ’embedded’ within the company. The first of these, Adriano Shaplin, will be working with the actors who are preparing Shakespeare’s history plays, all eight of which will be in the repertoire by spring 2008. The idea is for authors to write plays with a specific ensemble in mind, just as Shakespeare did.”

Mozart In Multicultural Vienna, By Way Of Peter Sellars

In the current New Crowned Hope Festival, “Vienna has entrusted Peter Sellars, the festival’s director, with creating a four-week event within the official Mozart Year 2006 festivities and has given him a budget of nearly $13 million with which to do so. The opera and theater director, who has previously created festivals in Los Angeles and Adelaide, Australia, that were more ambitious than those cities could accept, has now been allowed to think on the scale he has always wanted. And, as before, he has thought globally and controversially.”

Murdoch, Regan Almost Had It Both Ways

Rupert Murdoch and Judith Regan have backed away from O.J. Simpson’s blood-soaked book and TV special, but let’s not be too quick to hand out the gold stars. “Like Mr. Simpson himself, they were hoping to have it both ways. The conceit of selling Mr. Simpson’s hypothetical guilt is despicable, as is Ms. Regan’s argument that this was her way of eliciting his ‘confession’ and giving herself closure for her own history as a victim of abuse. Even the American obsession with ‘closure’ as a therapeutic concept can’t begin to justify ‘If I Did It.’ “

Trinity Rep Names Executive Director

“Michael Gennaro, who announced last week that he would be leaving his positions as president and chief executive of the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J., will become the executive director of Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I. He is to succeed Edgar Dobie, who is leaving in January to focus on his duties as executive producer of the new musical ‘The Pirate Queen.’ ” Gennaro’s move to Trinity means a reunion with his former Steppenwolf Theater Company colleague, Curt Columbus, now Trinity’s artistic director.