Any doubt modern publishing is big business? In 1975, the year’s best-selling book, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime sold 232,000. By 2000, John Grisham’s The Brethren exceeded the sales total of “Ragtime” by twelvefold. So what do the big-time authors make? A New York Magazine survey does the math: Tom Clancy gets $45 million for two books, which works out to an advance of $42,694 per page, or $133 per word. See what some of the others make…
Tag: 11.24.02
After 2000 Years – He Has A New Book Out
For much of the past 2,200 years, the Greek poet Posidippus was at best a footnote in history. But scolars found a collection of his work on papyrus that had been cut up for scrap as a mummy casing. And now there are conferences on his work, and – after 2000, a new book of his work…
Et Tu, Saatchi?
Charles Saatchi is probably the biggest collector of contemporary art in Britain. But he’s down on the Turner Prize and its judges (Like a lot of others are these days). He says the real art is going on outside of the Turner world and that he prefers “something that gives real visual pleasure and makes you sit up and think, not the pseudo-controversial rehashed claptrap that Turner judges actually believe is cutting-edge art.”
GalleryWalk
What is America’s Second City of art (after New York, of course)? “Despite its endemic sprawl and persistent inferiority complex, Los Angeles is the nation’s second city for the visual arts, and commercial galleries are a vital part of the scene. With nearly 100 that present public exhibition programs and keep their doors open during regular hours, Los Angeles is second only to Manhattan and well ahead of Chicago, its closest competitor, which has about 60 comparable galleries.”
Line, Please!
Everyone forgets a line now and then. But a Philadelphia performance of a Tom Stoppard play last week spiralled out of control when one of the actors missed a line, then another and another. Finally, a script was deposited onstage and the poor actor made his way through recovery. “To anyone who has been onstage with much to do, not knowing what to do next, the experience is like the centipede stopping to think which of its many legs it should move – and becoming paralyzed. Quick recovery is possible. Or not. An actor spooked by the experience is cast out of the world of that character and into the cold, with no protection.”
Lockout
Time was when aspiring movie biz hopefuls would hang out on the studio lots and watch. The storyu goes that “Steven Spielberg’s professional movie career began the day he decided to jump off a tour bus at Universal Studios Hollywood and wander around the back lots. While exploring the buildings, he found an abandoned janitors’ closet and turned it into his office. He would go to work there everyday, wearing a business suit and tie, walking past the security officers. After some time, the security guards had seen him so often they would wave him through the gates, no questions asked.” But now, studio security locks down the lots to outsiders.
Going One At A Time
Fewer people are buying season tickets to the theatre. That’s got theatre people anxious. “But a drop in subscriptions nationwide doesn’t translate that fewer people are going to the theater. Actually, more people than ever are going. A recent survey by Theatre Communications Group showed that 22.5 million people attend nonprofit theaters, a slight rise from the previous year. But the safety net that a large subscription base affords is now becoming increasingly frayed, making theaters vulnerable to the downturns in the economy, increasing competition for the leisure dollar and fickleness of audiences.”
Beyond Broadway
Linda Winer finds herself watching great theatre by theatre people who never play on Broadway. And why aren’t these talented performers and writers there? “Broadway isn’t hip enough, doesn’t pay enough, doesn’t reach a broad enough audience to be worth eight hard performances a week. For others, however, the problem is the theater that has defined many of the brightest sensibilities out. Also, unlike England, this country has forced many of its most gifted actors to make life-altering choices between making movies on one coast and making theater on another.”
A Life In Dance
New York City Ballet dancer Robert La Fosse is retiring after 16 years. He “has performed here with, and for, most of the great ballet names for a quarter century, and he was one of the last of a handful of dancers still onstage who were central figures in the dance boom of the 70’s and early 80’s.”
Top Of The Game
Brian Stokes Mitchell is at the top of the acting game in New York. “No other actor can match his singing voice. No other singer can claim his acting range or experience. No other man — at least, no one who works in the theater regularly — can say, ‘I want to play Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha’ and bring it about. Mr. Mitchell has reached a rare perch in the American theater: he can make his dreams come true with other people’s money.”