The Bottom Line, New York’s famous Greenwich Village nightclub, has been ordered to shut its doors by the end of the week, and to pay $190,171 in back rent to New York University. NYU had been seeking to raise the club’s rent by more than 100%, a move which club owners fought in court. Previous reports suggested that NYU may convert the space to classrooms or offices.
Month: December 2003
Insensitivity Alleged at Toronto’s Factory
A Toronto theater has cancelled a production of Chilean playwright Carmen Aguirre’s play, The Refugee Hotel, after Ms. Aguirre complained publicly that director Ken Gass was disorganized, culturally insensitive, and ethnocentric in his casting decisions. Gass insists that he made every effort to find minority actors for the production at the Factory Theatre, but was unable to cast more than one. Aguirre claims that Gass stated flatly that “I want superb actors for your play and actors of colour are not superb.”
Is Disney Headed For A Fall?
“Charges that the Disney company has lost its way under current company head Michael Eisner are not new. But the departure of the final Disney family member from the fabled company has thrown the charges into a new relief… Disney’s core animation and theme-park businesses have been battered by the competition. [Roy] Disney and his fellow departing board members charge that the company is pushing profits over innovation and quality.” Worse yet, the public seems to agree, and the Disney name no longer carries the automatic consumer respect that it once did.
Crackdown? What Crackdown?
“Hollywood’s all-out war against movie piracy is turning into a big-budget bomb, with illegal copies of virtually every new release — and even some films that have yet to debut in theaters — turning up on the Internet… The abundance of bootlegs arrives just as the movie studios have launched their most aggressive campaign yet to protect their business from the rampant downloading that has plagued the record industry… The steps may have made some thievery more difficult, but overall, piracy appears to be up from previous years… In fact, the new security measures seem only to have emboldened some pirates.”
View From The Top – Museum Directors Speak Out
A roundtable of blue chip museum directors talks about the challenges faced by museums. “The more art museums look like multinational corporations and the more their directors sound like corporate CEOs, the more they risk being cast by the public in the same light.”
Steel City Windfall
A gala fundraiser held to mark the opening of Pittsburgh’s new convention center has raised nearly $700,000 for area cultural groups, according to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. “Checks in the amount of $115,000 each were received yesterday by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Symphony and the Cultural Trust.” The amount raised is far in excess of what any of the arts groups had expected to receive from the event.
Looking For A New Paradigm
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the arts in South Florida are on life support, and in serious danger of slipping into oblivion. With the demise of the Florida Philharmonic still sending shockwaves through the arts community, and legislative funding for all arts having been slashed by nearly 80% in one year, local leaders have convened a summit with the intent of finding new, workable business models for the arts. Lobbyists are encouraging supporters to look beyond the traditional model of state funding, which they say may never return to previous levels.
Litton Stepping Down In Dallas
Andrew Litton, who has been music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 1994, has announced that he will leave the post when his current contract expires in 2006. In his time in Texas, Litton has hired nearly 1/3 of the DSO’s musicians, and taken the ensemble to national prominence as one of the top American orchestras. Litton says he intends to devote more time to conducting opera and developing children’s television programs about music. He will also continue to hold his current conducting positions in Minneapolis and Bergen, Norway.
Klass: Classical Music Needs To Be Hipper (Maybe A Leather Jacket?)
Former pop singer Myleene Klass – now trying to make a career in classical music, says classical music has to get hipper, not dumber: “Donning a leather jacket doesn’t just suddenly make you accessible, it is the whole package. I think that’s what the classical world needs to give. Let’s get everything to the same edgy degree that the pop world’s got at, because it looks stronger on the television – none of this soft-focus classical nonsense. Let’s make it edgy, let’s make it current, let’s make it exciting.”
More Lawsuits, Just In Time For The Holidays!
The recording industry has filed another 41 lawsuits against online file-swappers accused of trading at least 1000 songs illegally, and warned an additional 90 individuals that legal action is imminent if they do not stop their file-trading activity. Since this past summer, the industry has sued more than 300 users, settled with 220, and received pledges from over 1,000 that they will delete their illegally-downloaded songs and never download again.