Ticket scalping is illegal in many cities. This is wrong Scalpers more often than not provide a useful service. “At show time, they set up an instant bazaar where the actual value of tickets is haggled into shape; they’re basically stock traders in a secondary market without a dress code. Most of them spend their nights scooping up seats from fans who, for a variety of reasons — friends have bailed, spouse took ill — need to unload them. The scalper then turns around and sells it at the largest markup the market can bear, which is often below face value.”
Tag: 12.05.02
Dead Woman Mistaken For Art
Visitors to a Berlin art space mistook a dead woman for a performance art piece. “Authorities said the 24-year-old woman, who apparently leapt from a window, discussed suicide in a videotaped interview with a group of artists the day before.”
So Much for Greedy American Musicians
The musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have taken an unprecedented step in an effort to help the organization stay fiscally solvent, offering up $100,000 of matching money to be applied against donations from orchestra subscribers. The musicians originally had planned to donate the money to the PSO outright, but agreed with management that a challenge grant would offer greater opportunity to involve the public.
$86 Million In The Service Of Art
Largely overlooked when Ruth Lilly gave $100 million to Poetry magazine a few weeks ago was another one of her gifts – $86 million to the arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts. There’s been much speculation about what Poetry might or might not do with the money. But how about Americans for the Arts?
The ABC’s Of Critical Writing
Judges who don’t read the books they’re pronouncing on, movie critics who don’t see the films they’re writing about… it’s the new form of criticism, writes Alex Beam. “I am partaking in a hot new reviewing trend: Abstinence-Based Criticism (A-BC). At the key moment of critical engagement, just say no. Resist the temptation! Why read the book, see the movie, or, for that matter, eat the food? I can do it from here!”
White Like Me
British theatre is an overwhelmingly white experience. “The facts are scandalous. Of 2,009 permanent staff in regional theatres, only 80 are from black and Asian communities; of 463 board members, only 20 are from what we term “ethnic minorities”. And Leicester Haymarket is the only producing theatre with a black artistic director, Kully Thiarai.” The Arts Council is working on some initiatives to help, but “the key question is whether these initiatives are enough to combat the racism – more, I suspect, a result of indifference than malice – that has become an entrenched part of British theatre.”
Different? You Did Wanted Different, Didn’t You?
Wasn’t it just yesterday the press was beating up on Trevor Nunn and his choices running London’s National Theatre? Well, his successor hasn’t wasted any time signaling his split from the past. Jerry Springer – The Opera, a cheeky, irreverent, and joyously filthy musical theatre satire on the TV chat show no one likes to admit to watching, will be Nicholas Hytner’s first big production when his reign begins in April. As a first choice it sends an unmistakable message that the years ahead are likely not only to be risky and exciting but revolutionary in a way that Sir Trevor Nunn’s were not.”
How To Build A Company From Scratch
Want to start a dance company? Former Martha Graham company principal dancer Jeanne Ruddy is doing it in Philadelphia. She’s building a company, a home and a school. All for $3.5 million. And an aggressive entrepreneurial business plan…
Made In Afghanistan
The first movie to be made in Afghanistan since the Taliban is being made by an Iranian woman. “People here don’t understand the meaning of real cinema. They think it’s all like Indian movies: musicals, love stories, fighting and action. If we can make a film here and show them it’s something of a mirror, we can put the mirror of cinema in front of the people’s souls so little by little they can change themselves.”
Finding Out What’s In The Hermitage
The Hermitage Museum “reportedly has three-million paintings, sculptures, drawings and decorative objects on its six-block site. But it’s not entirely sure of that number or precisely where among its 400-plus rooms all that stuff is located, since it’s never done a complete inventory in its 250-year history.” Now a consortium of foundations is helping the museum to audit its holdings and bring the Hermitage into the modern age, more or less, and on a footing equal, more or less, to that of the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the British Museum.”