“Wicked” has been a huge hit in Chicago. Can its success be repeated? “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” hopes to do just that. “In Chicago, at least, “Spelling Bee” and “Wicked” have some notable similarities. Both musicals currently are successful — and profitable — on Broadway. Both share a New York-based producer in David Stone. Both will have open-ended, dedicated, sit-down Chicago productions (as distinct from mere stops on a tour) that hope to be around for years.”
Month: March 2006
The Little Station That Could
“In this big-money era of consolidated station ownership and homogenized program formats, smaller, independent stations like Chicago’s WVON – with its tiny audience of mostly older listeners, weak broadcast signal and modest revenues-face oblivion. Yet the station perseveres, in large part because it fills a niche no general-market station would: providing a venue for its mostly African-American listeners to express their anger, hurt and pride and to share information about which politicians to believe in-a short list-or when to show up to protest a school closing or how to break off a little piece of the American Dream. WVON is more than a radio station; it’s a family business that has become a community trust.”
Do Buildings Build Jobs? Not What The Economists Say…
“For a decade and a half, the belief that sports teams were economic drivers helped persuade cities and states to shower billions of dollars on major league sports teams, most of it to build state-of-the-art stadiums.” But “a small community of economists who have taken up and methodically rejected many of the claims made about the economic benefits of major league sports teams: that they create jobs or bring money to local businesses or otherwise spur economic growth.” So why are cities still falling for these arguments?
Boston’s MFA Dances With Italian Government
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is in a high-stakes dance with the Italian government over art the Italians claim has been looted. “The Italian investigators sit on one side of the table, their cards held close to the vest. Just what have they got? Can their hand prove what so many have said for years: that the MFA bought art looted from Italian archeological sites?”
Tate – If Not A Museum, Then…
The Tate is not oficially registered as a museum. “The gallery is currently in the anomalous position of not being among the 1,800 museums accredited to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). It is the only nationally-funded museum without this status. The reason for Tate being outside the MLA scheme is simple: it refuses to accept its guidelines on deaccessioning, which are part of a much broader set of standards.”
Band Sells Shares To Its Fans
When Leeds band Four Day Hombre went looking for a record deal, they were unable to get the creative and financial control they were looking for. So they turned to their fans and recruited 30 investors to fund their debut album, which is out on Monday. The investment could be about to pay off, with the band being described as “somewhere on the radar between Coldplay and Radiohead.”
Glyndebourne Goes Hip Hop
Glyndebourne is staging a hip hop version of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutti. “In putting on School 4 Lovers, organisers at the venue in Sussex, South England hope to attract more young people to Mozart’s work – and opera in general – in the 250th anniversary year of his birth.”
Lawyers Wrap: Brown’s Da Vinci Code Ideas Not Original
The lawyers defending Dan Brown from plagiarism charges wrapped up their case: “The ideas are of too general a nature to be capable of copyright protection. Many of the ideas complained of were not original to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. They were merely copied from others. The claimants were doing themselves exactly what they complain of in Mr Brown.”
British Museum Breaks Ticket Sales Record
The British Museum has broken a record for advance sales for a show, selling almost 11,000 tickets. “Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, overtook the previous record holder, 2005’s Persia exhibition, which had 3,670 advance sales. The Michelangelo show opens on Thursday and features 90 drawings.”
Putting Teeth Behind A Definition Of Indecency
So the FCC has fined CBS $3.6 million for “obscene” scenes in “Without a Trace.” “For reasons that baffle the rest of the world (in this case, they don’t hate us, they pity us), the United States is far more prudish about sex than violence on television. But as long as sexually explicit material is officially taboo, then the episode did seem to meet the test: the scene of teenagers holding an orgy in a suburban house was quite blue. The camera lingered on writhing bodies and sweaty threesomes just a little longer than was strictly necessary to make the point that sexually transmitted diseases are a growing problem in high school.”