Month: March 2006

PEN To Tap Chernow As New Leader

The PEN American Center is expected to name Ron Chernow, the best-selling biographer of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, as its next president. “Chernow will succeed the novelist Salman Rushdie, who has served as the group’s leader for two years. Mr. Rushdie, who is credited with having helped to reshape the PEN American Center’s role in defending freedom of expression and open cultural exchange after Sept. 11, proposed Mr. Chernow as his successor.”

Peter Shaffer At 80

Playwright Peter Shaffer is 80. “Shaffer hasn’t had a play open at the National for 21 years. But during the 1960s and 1970s he was responsible for four of the theatre’s biggest successes: The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Black Comedy, Equus and Amadeus. Hits were his department. It is said that during the dark days of the early ’80s, revenue from his plays kept the National in business.”

A Public Broadcasting Endowment?

The US is planning a major auction of broadcast bandwidth, which could mean a bonanza for public broadcasting. “The auction, now scheduled for 2009, is being made possible by the switch from analog to digital broadcasting technology. Digital broadcasting requires less bandwidth than analog, meaning parts of the spectrum can be freed up for sale to cell phone companies, wireless Internet firms and others.the auction could generate anywhere from $500 million to $5 billion that could be used to set up a permanent trust fund for public broadcasting.”

Latino Theatre Company Wins Management Of Theatre Center

The Latino Theatre Company has been granted money to manage the Los Angeles Theatre Center in downton LA. “The awarding of the management agreement brings to a close a drawn-out — and often contentious — battle over who should run the historic venue, which served as a home to the Latino Theater, Will & Company, Moving Arts and Playwrights’ Arena theater companies.”

New Life For Old Sounds

“Curators at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Donald C. Davidson Library have digitized 6,000 late 19th-century and early 20th-century wax and plastic cylinder recordings — precursors to the flat record. The audio, which includes ragtime hits, vaudeville routines and presidential speeches, encapsulates history with crackles and hisses, but archivists say preserving the sounds now is vital because the cylinders are deteriorating.”

Movie Theatres Stuck In Digital Divide

The movie theatre industry has been promising a switch to digital for years, but it still hasn’t happened. “Digital cinema promises to slash distribution costs associated with shipping heavy tins of 35-mm prints to thousands of theaters worldwide. That will give cinema owners new choices and flexibility in booking movies and other kinds of entertainment content, like live concerts or sporting events. But cinema owners still worry that the digital equipment might require constant upgrades, be more complicated to operate, or break down more often than what they’ve got in their projection booths today.”

Pirates Change Ending Of Oscar-Winning Movie

The South African movie Tsotsi recently won an Oscar. But back home, a pirated version of the movie features a different ending. “While the theatrical version ends ambiguously, with the fate of the young tsotsi left unknown, the pirated version ends in violence.” The director “believes that the pirated DVD was created from an early, rough version of Tsotsi stolen while the film was being edited. The version lacks sound and technical refinements found in the completed feature.”