Pierced, intellectual, and independent, Harlequin Romance’s editor-in-chief Isabel Swift may not seem like your stereotypical romance novel editor. But she may be just the woman to envision a new future for the world’s largest publisher of romance fiction. “She wants to drag Harlequin into the 20th Century, if not the 21st, and she has a plan for getting there. If she succeeds, the Harlequin brand could return to its old, formidable self – like a wilted heroine flowering in the arms of her baron.” – New York Magazine
Author: Douglas McLennan
BRINGING BECKETT TO THE SCREEN
An interview with Michael Colgan, artistic director of Dublin’s Gate Theatre and the producer behind The Beckett Film Project – an ambitious enterprise involving some of the world’s most famous filmmakers to create movies of all 19 of Beckett’s dramas. – CBC
PLAYWRIGHT OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
- Do copyright laws help or hinder culture? Playwright Charles Mee addresses the question repeatedly in his work – all of his plays include text appropriated from another source, and all of them are available for free over the web. “The greatest plays in human history – those by the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare – would never have been written had copyright laws existed to keep the authors from borrowing from the culture around them.” – NPR 08/21/00 [Real audio file]
SMALL FILMS, BIG BOX OFFICE
Low-budget “art house” movies from around the world have developed an overwhelmingly devoted (and high-paying) audience in Tokyo’s teenagers – a niche market that can single-handedly make or break a film’s worldwide gross. “To illustrate the power of the Japanese mini-theaters, take a look at ‘The Virgin Suicides.’ As of the end of July, the box office for the U.S. movie in overseas markets was about $1.5 million. The breakdown works out to $1 million for a run at a theater in Tokyo and $500,000 from every other cinema in the world where it is being shown.” – Yahoo! News (Reuters)
ARTISTS VS DEVELOPERS
A Boston artists’ district has become a popular target for developers, who want to significantly remake the area. Now a coalition of artists is “aggressively attempting to buy warehouse buildings from local developers in the hopes of salvaging the artists’ presence in the bustling arts district.” – Boston Herald 08/21/00
APRIL FOOLING
Hollywood fully expects to be hit with writers’ and actors’ strikes next summer – and predictions are they’ll be long strikes. So production is in full bore now to complete projects before work stops. April 1 is the deadline they’re racing to make. “It’s not a question of if there are going to be strikes. It’s a question of what are you going to do about it.” – Variety
AN EDIFYING EDINBURGH?
As usual, a fair bit of controversy at this year’s Edinburgh Festival. “Founded in 1948 to foster cultural links after the second world war, the international festival has since been surrounded by a clutch of peripheral events, of which the most prominent and controversial is the fringe festival. So how does the international festival now distinguish itself?” And is it doing a good job? The answer, according to some experts is a resounding no. – The Guardian 08/21/00
JUDGING WORK
“Readers and writers of the past – not just the geniuses, either; the intelligent, alert ones who kept current as we all like to think we do – remind us how culture and taste change. And why. What aesthetic, social and intellectual needs do beliefs serve in their time? Which ones serve us now, and why?” – New York Times 08/21/00
BRUSTEIN REVIEWS ALEXANDER
“Jane Alexander probably could have been less of a diplomat with legislators, and more of an advocate for the avant-garde and the high arts. With hindsight, she had nothing to lose by a more forthright stand since, for all of her charm, graciousness, and tact, she failed to save the agency from become a limping animal, disabled by the Congressional axe. But Command Performance is possibly more interesting as a personal bildungsroman than as a history of a crippled government agency – a tale of what befalls a liberal American idealist at the close of the twentieth century.” – The New Republic
THE POWER OF JUNK
The trash hadn’t even been collected from the floor of last week’s Democratic Convention in Los Angeles when two curators from the Smithsonian Museum swept in to see what they could pick up. Trash that is – for the museum. “We’re looking for that one expressive object” that will help tell in a tangible way the story of the campaign and convention. – Yahoo! (Reuters)