Disney is rehearsing a new theatrical venture, and it’s decidedly different from the usual Disney fare. “On the Record represents an entirely different kind of project for Disney Theatricals — it’s cheap to do. And it relies utterly and completely on the public’s love for existing Disney songs such as “Under the Sea” or “A Spoonful of Sugar.” That affection — and familiarity — is both global and also widely found in smaller and midsize American cities that might never get to see “The Lion King” in all its glory. It’s a growing market for Disney Theatricals, which had tended to stay concentrated in the major theatrical centers. But that’s not how Wal-Mart made its money — ubiquity is profitable.”
Tag: 11.28.04
Broadway’s Crosscultural Experiment
It’s only fitting that with “Pacific Overtures,” which opens Thursday at Studio 54, Amon Miyamoto becomes the first Japanese citizen ever to direct a Broadway production. Like him, the show is an unusual and rather startling crosscultural experiment…
A Portrait Of Chicago Arts
Chicago is a city of the arts. But what does the arts community look like? A new survey takes the measure of what the arts in Chicago look like.
Maybe Competition Is Good For Nutcracker?
So the traveling Rockettes booted Boston Ballet from its traditional home for the Nutcracker. But maybe that isn’t so bad. “Bring on the Rockettes. Competition makes everyone stronger. If the ballet has to retool its show to draw audiences, isn’t it likely to make it fresher and better? Beyond that, having to go up against everything from the Rockettes to ”The Lion King” to a hundred local ”Christmas Carol” productions may force the Ballet to think more deeply, more precisely, more artistically about just what its mission is.”
Arts Community Protests NYT Ax Of Sunday Listings
Waves of protest have greeted the New York Times’ decision this fall to discontinue the comprehensive Sunday arts event listings that had been featured for decades. The Times’ public editor takes up the case: “Editors reacted to the petition, I soon learned, the way editors almost always react when readers rise against a long-planned, well-intended innovation: a little dumbfounded, a little defensive, a little dismissive…”
Chicago Artist Paschke, 65
Artist Ed Paschke, a supremely influential Chicago artist who helped lead the city’s surrealist/pop-based art movement of the 1960s, died this past week. “His visual world was rooted in a variety of American subcultures (as captured in commercial art and magazines), and it also was powerfully influenced by the electronic media.”
Playwrights Who Always Have Each Other’s Back
Boston playwright Patrick Gabridge has started “a 30-day online networking/marketing support group for playwrights” which encourages the participants to pool their knowledge of the business. “The Binge aims to create a sense of community. The group will tell their peers that this theater is amateurish, that director is hot. If a playwright can’t travel to another city to see the production of his or her play, other Bingers who live in that city will attend and report back. Aside from the information, contacts, and encouragement, the group provides the best kind of peer pressure: seeing other people get their plays done because they’ve taken the footsteps.”
The Broadway Factory You’ve Never Heard Of
Music publisher BMI is the force behind Broadway’s most successful creative workshop, but the group flies so far below the cultural radar that even most theater aficionados are unaware of its existence. “The workshop is little known except among music-makers, but to those in that rarefied world, it is the Harvard of show tunes, helping develop a string of hits that include A Chorus Line, Nine, Little Shop of Horrors and Urinetown… Every year, 30 to 40 aspiring lyricists and composers are selected for the highly competitive two-year course devoted to fundamentals. The third year (which students take again and again) is devoted to projects in development and is by invitation only.”
Tapping A Diverse Array of Pocketbooks
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre is known far and wide not only for the skill of its dancers, but for the fundraising acumen of its management and board. The company’s annual gala alone raised 11% of its annual budget last year, and this year’s event is expected to do at least as well. “The Ailey company’s success at raising funds is due in part to its special cachet. Ailey always insisted on having a multicultural group of dancers, even as his works celebrated his own African-American heritage. So the Ailey has always been both an ethnic institution and a colorblind one.”
Come See The Music
Classical music aficionados are a notoriously conservative bunch, particularly in Philadelphia, where attempts to modernize the concertgoing experience have nearly always been met with overt hostility. Video screens, in particular, have always been most unwelcome guests in the concert hall, even when the music demands their presence. “The issue is crucial among many who care about the future of classical music: The rationale is that visualizing this centuries-old art form could compensate for dwindling music-education programs in public schools, and could help cultivate a new, under-40 audience… Success often rests on two factors: Suitable visual content and the technical coordination with the music.”