The Royal Shakespeare Company reports that it lost £1 million last year, “bringing its cumulative loses to £2.4 million. The company’s experimental season at London’s Roundhouse was “a financial disaster even though artistically it had its moments.” And this is the company with ambitious reorganization plans. “for the first time the staggering costs of the company’s reorganisation have become clear. Its administrators are budgeting on spending at least £9.2 million.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
You Don’t Exist Outside Of London
Do London editors and critics ignore the rest of the country’s theatre endeavors? At least one director thinks so. “In other European countries, places like Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh would be all considered to be centres of endeavour. We are not really given that credit, and it makes people resentful; we do not need these divisions.”
Ooh Baby Baby…
Wendy Perriam has won “one of the least coveted prizes in literature” – the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, awarded by the Literary Review. The prize is for the worst literary description of sex in a novel, and some of the literary world’s best-known authors have been nominated. “Robert Posner of the Literary Review said Perriam’s book stood out from the rest because ‘they had never before heard of pin-striped genitalia’, although he admitted the committee of judges were confused as to what it actually meant.”
Downpour In Philly
The Philadelphia Orchestra was rehearsing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with incoming music director Christoph Eschenbach yesterday in its beautiful new concert hall, when strobe lights began to flash and dust started to drift down from above. Then, the downpour began. A high-powered sprinkler system, set off by construction work elsewhere in the building, engaged, and showered the musicians, their instruments (many valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars,) and the new stage with enough water to fill the $75,000 Steinway grand that sat on the stage. The extent of the damage is not yet known, but most musicians managed to shield their instruments from severe damage.
Headed For A Showdown In Houston
It simply is not possible to be further apart in negotiating stands than the musicians and management of the Houston Symphony are at the moment. Musicians want a five-year-deal, a salary jump to the level of the nation’s major orchestras, and more benefits, while management wants to cut 6 or 7 weeks off the season in order to bring costs under control. The scene is familiar to orchestras across the country, but unlike most symphonic negotiations, which take place under closely guarded secrecy, this conflict has exploded into the open.
And The Survey Says… We Like Music
Britons are big music consumers, says a new poll of more than 10,000 people by the digital music channel Music Choice. The average respondant in the poll spends “three hours 11 minutes and 55 seconds a day – or 48 days a year – listening to our music collections.” The poll also indicates sizeable investments in music. “The average Briton owns 100 CDs, 51 records, 50 cassettes, 28 MP3 files and eight minidiscs worth more than £3,000.”
New Opera Company In Sydney
A new opera company debuts in Sydney. It’s called the Pinchgut Opera, named after the old convicts’ name for Fort Denison in Port Jackson. With a startup budget of $500,000 and ambitions to produce chamber opera, the name was chosen “partly as a reminder of the company’s humble beginnings.”
Guggenheim Gift With Big Strings Attached
“Peter B. Lewis, the philanthropist who recently stunned Cleveland, his hometown, by announcing a boycott of charitable contributions there, this week gave the beleaguered Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum a $12 million gift, but only after forcing the institution’s ambitious director to accept a pared-down budget. Mr. Lewis, who is chairman of the museum’s board of trustees and its largest benefactor, said he had presented Thomas Krens, the museum’s flamboyant and controversial director, with a ‘tough love’ choice: he could either bring the museum’s tangled financial affairs in order, or start looking for another job.”
English Heritage In Peril
“According to some of our top art conservators, Britain’s heritage is slowly deteriorating, mouldering away in museums, stately homes and churches. Some of the nation’s treasures will be lost within a couple of years unless they are properly treated. Britain’s heritage is being exposed to the ravages of time, humidity and pollution because public institutions simply cannot afford to pay for its proper upkeep.”
Trying To Save What’s Left of the Bamiyan Buddhas
Efforts are underway to preserve what’s left of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban last year in Afghanistan. “Scaffolding will be erected to prevent the final collapse of the caves in which the giant statues stood for centuries. Local guards are on duty to combat further looting. And several countries are offering money and assistance to the international venture.” According to UNESCO, “damage extends beyond the statues and artwork in the niches that housed them. In about 25 of 700 nearby caves, are remnants of Buddhist murals – but only an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of what existed in the 1970s.”