How much do stars earn on Broadway? Not much. “If Arnold Schwarzenegger can make $30 million for the latest “Terminator” flick and cast members of television’s “Friends” each pull in $1 million an episode, what is eight performances a week in a Broadway show worth? Let’s start with the basics. According to the latest Actors’ Equity figures, the minimum salary for a performer in a Broadway play or musical is $1,354 a week and it goes up from there. How high depends on how good a performer’s agent is or how many tickets a producer thinks a star can sell.”
Month: August 2003
Broadway Back After Blackout
Broadway was closed Thursday during the blackout, but Friday was back to business. “Theater box offices were open, as was the ticket agency Telecharge. Ticketmaster was experiencing some technical difficulties. The TKTS half-price ticket booth opened as scheduled Friday afternoon. Lines of would-be ticket buyers snaked a block south of the booth, located on Broadway and 47th Street.”
Coming To America -(The New Creative) Immigrants
A new wave of immigrants is making its mark on Hollywood. “Of course, Hollywood, built by immigrants, always has taken the world’s best: Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Evelyn Waugh, Ernst Lubitsch, to name just a few from the 1930s and 1940s. But this latest wave comes from Asia, Latin America, Australia, as well as from Europe, reflecting contemporary immigration patterns and some of the globe’s hottest movie-making regions. Unlike previous generations, this group tends to be well-educated, show-business-savvy young men and women with a hunger to learn from the world’s leading exporter of entertainment.”
Damien Hirst, Butterfly Killer
Animal rights groups are furious at artist Damien Hirst, who is using the wings of thousands of butterflies for his new project. “The man who made his name sawing up cows, pickling sheep and suspending sharks in tanks of formaldehyde has been busy over the summer plucking the wings off thousands of tropical butterflies. Animal rights activists, who have previously taken a dim view of his stark meditations on life and death, are not amused.”
Tracey Emin Sues Critic
Tracey Emin is suing critic Hensher. “The feud began in the Independent when Hensher wrote a damning critique of Emin, claiming she was too stupid to be a good conceptual artist. ‘Is it possible to be a good conceptual artist and also very stupid?’ he asked. He doubted it. Emin, he wrote, was a half-witted dullard with no inquiring intelligence. She was, he added, too thick to explore the few interesting concepts she had hit on by chance, and concluded: ‘There’s no hope for Tracey Emin. She’s just no good’.”
Booker Nominees
Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood lead the nominations for this year’s Booker Prize. Amis has been nominated “for his novel Yellow Dog – not published for three weeks – while Atwood is recognised for her Orwellian tale Oryx and Crake. Big-name authors such as JM Coetzee and Graham Swift have also been selected, despite speculation that top literary stars would miss out.”
US Senate To Investigate Recording Industry Tactics
A US Senate subcommittee will investigate the tactics of the Recording Industry Association of America’s to go after music downloaders. The committe will “look at not just the scope of that campaign but also the dangers that downloaders face by making their personal information available to others. Senator Norm Coleman said he would review legislation that would expand criminal penalties for downloading music.”
Your Music Future – Coming Soon
The way we get and consume music is changing. Fast. “We are now on the edge of an entertainment revolution. It’s all driven by technology, like the Internet 2.0. First, it established new ways of communication – e-mail and Web sites. The next wave will be about entertainment and its distribution. By year-end, it will be here.”
I’m Feeling All Empty Inside…
Toronto, like many cities, is caught up in the big museum-building craze. But what about what goes on inside, wonders Philip Marchand. “For the past 10 years, at least, there has been a drastic decline in such research and expertise in museums throughout Ontario. This decline has hit historical and regional museums the hardest, but it has also affected institutions such as the AGO. Libeskind’s Crystal and Gehry’s AGO expansion will not solve this problem, and may, in fact, aggravate it.”
Influential Canongate Editor Steps Down
Judy Moir, editorial director of the small but innovative Edinburgh publisher Canongate, has decided to leave. She says “that she was ‘exhausted’ after a decade and a half of working miracles on a shoestring. She also admitted having difficulties with Canongate’s Byronic owner, Jamie Byng, who brought his unique style and taste to the company after bailing it out with a £100,000 loan.”