“New figures reveal that Edinburgh has been overtaken by Glasgow as Scotland’s cultural capital. In the most comprehensive attempt to map changes in Scotland’s cultural employment in the first years of devolution, researchers found Edin burgh was undergoing a massive brain drain of creative talent.”
Tag: 12.21.03
Why Recording Labels And Download Companies Can’t Get Together
So with all the money to be made in online downloading, why don’t recording labels and the downloading networks just get together and be content making their fortunes? Answer – they don’t like each other. “Label executives continue to hold hush-hush meetings with leading distributors of file-sharing software, trying to find common ground. But they also seethe at the companies’ refusal to change their software in ways that might deter piracy, using words like “extortion” and “rape” to describe their situation.”
Star Turn For Scotland’s National Theatre?
Finally Scotland has its National Theatre. Should it cast big movie stars to make itself successful at the box office? “It is not Hollywood names that bothers many in the theatre establishment, but the idea that the National Theatre is seen as a means of getting them, of making theatre ‘sexier’. Is that what they were lobbying for all these years? You don’t need a national theatre for that…+
The Global Movie
“Increasingly Hollywood studios are aiming to open their potential blockbusters simultaneously, or nearly so, around the world. If the phenomenon is beginning to make seeing the Hollywood blockbuster a global experience for the most avid movie fans, the reasons for it have little to do with those fans. Instead the trend is being pushed by the threat of movie piracy and the harsh realities of marketing costs, combined with ever-briefer theater stays as highly promoted films quickly saturate their markets.”
Tower Out On The Street
London’s “Tower Theatre had a 155-seat auditorium, two bars and rehearsal rooms, all housed in a fifteenth-century tower and hall in Canonbury, north London, rented from the Marquess of Northampton. Here they put on 20 full-scale productions a year, opening a new show every three weeks. But an alleged slip on the part of their lawyers led to the loss of their protected tenancy, and in March they became homeless. The financial consequences were disastrous.”
Fort Worth Wonders – Can We Afford Bass Hall?
Bass Hall is the cultural capital of downtown Fort Worth. “In its five-year history, the hall has easily fulfilled its promise, becoming a grand symbol of Fort Worth’s commitment to the performing arts and a striking monument to the private and proud family for which it is named. But over the past year, as the recessionary economy ravaged arts institutions everywhere, the hall’s seemingly impregnable facade has begun to show cracks.” With revenue and attendance down, “the current economic hardships hint at a deeper problem – one that has persisted since the early days of the hall and now prompts the fundamental question: Can Fort Worth still afford Bass Hall?”
Who Can Stand For This?
“Go to nearly any Broadway house, any night, and you can catch a crowd jumping up for the curtain call like politicians at a State of the Union address. And just as in politics, the intensity of the ovation doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the performance. The phenomenon has become so exaggerated, in fact, that audiences now rise to their feet for even the very least successful shows.”
Theatre – Year Of The Woman? (Playwright, That Is)
Do women make good playwrights? There seems to be some prejudice in the industry suggesting they don’t. “There is no question that most of our celebrated playwrights are male and that female writers are responsible for only a small minority of the plays produced in this country. But these historical trends are starting to change — and the proof is in the listings. Almost all the talked-about plays Off Broadway this fall were written by women.”
The Art (Against) Reagan
Ronald Reagan is revered by his conservative followers as a great president. But “the art of the Reagan era – not just art about Reagan, but art made during his presidency – reflects a more complex memory of the man. The most potent artistic forces unleashed in the Reagan years were overtly political, and little of this overtly political art was or is kind to the old man. The plague of AIDS, and protests of AIDS activists, would create a new and volatile visual language that refreshed the graphic arts; punk rock emerged, in this country, as an angry and anarchic force, often explicitly in opposition to what musicians saw as a geriatric retrenchment into imperial self-satisfaction; and performance art came into its own, defining a new, anti-commercial, wildly independent form of drama. One summary of the Reagan years is that they were immensely productive, artistically, even if much of the art was vehemently opposed to the man.”
Still Dancing At 65
“Dudley Williams is still dancing onstage at 65. Having joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1964, Mr. Williams is the longest active member of the company, perhaps one of the longest active professional dancers anywhere.”