Author: Douglas McLennan

THE PLAY’S THE THING?

Seeing how schools have largely abdicated responsibility for arts education, and worried about growing audiences for the future, Broadway producers have stepped up their education and outreach efforts. “But for all the good will and good publicity that education programs may generate, do such tactics really work? Does one Broadway show make a future theatergoer?” – New York Times

HIGH MOCKABILITY FACTOR

The San Francisco Art Institute is in the business of pushing the edges, of encouraging its students to think unconventionally – “It’s high concept, but you bring it down to a raw level.” Sometimes, as in a recent controversial student project that featured sex on stage, the concept gets a bit out of hand. Can this stuff really be taught? Should it be? – Chronicle of Higher Education

WAR GAMES

Long blamed for encouraging misspent youth and mind-numbing violence, now Sony’s hugely popular PlayStation 2 is being accused of inflicting far more damage: the potential to be used to build weapons of war. Japan decided to restrict all exports of the videogame console because it “contains a graphics processing facility quick enough to help guide certain types of missile, such as the Tomahawk, towards their target. – The Age (Melbourne)

THE BILLIONAIRE MUSICIAN

Paul Allen is worth about $46 billion, they say. But what he really likes to do is play guitar. So he started a band. And that band has released its first recording. “It just started off as a bunch of guys getting together to jam and took off from there. “Paul has a very nice little studio, we had enough material, so we decided, let’s make an album.” – BBC

GANTLETS, GAUNTLETS…WHATEVER – FORE!

Vancouver’s art community is furious about the resignation of the Vancouver Art Gallery director and elevation of a board member as temporary director. The man appointed to the job says he’d rather be out playing golf. But: “We have really tough business decisions we have to address,” he says. “They haven’t got time to say we’ll put it all on hold.” So the board decided: “Let somebody handle the business side. Let’s go ask old Joe.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

YES IT’S DRAMATIC, BUT…

Critics call the design for Beijing’s new opera house “extravagant” and culturally insensitive, like a “medieval castle,” or a “glass submarine” which could become a “tomb like the Titanic.” Nonetheless, the French architect who conceived the project predicts his design will get official approval in a few weeks. – China Times

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Independent films are hot: “Suddenly the blockbuster culture, the belief that only big money thrown at big screens can work in a popcorn-eating world, feels threatened by the “indie” insurgents, massing on the skyline as if in a John Ford Western. Should the moguls offer battle or a peace pipe?” – Financial Times 04/17/00

A LUDDITE ART

“As theater artists ponder the future of their form, they return again and again to the idea of longing – and to language that seems to have more to do with the bedroom than the stage. Technology, which promises to bring drastic changes to the arts in terms of style and substance, will affect theater, too, of course. But at root, theater is a Luddite art, one that rests on the same equation as in the days of Sophocles: The theatrical relationship between performer and audience, like the relationship of lovers, depends on being in the same place at the same time.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WE’RE SORRY, YOU’RE FIRED, NOW PLEASE GO AWAY

Alberta Ballet ended its season Friday in controversy. The company fired Barbara Moore its “most senior” dancer. “In what superficially looks like an uncanny replay of the now famous fight between the National Ballet and the soi-disant prima who won’t go away, Kimberly Glasco, Moore, 31, has launched a wrongful dismissal suit against the company that has been her dancing home for the past 15 years.” – National Post (Canada)

  • Also: A CHILLING EFFECT: Fifty prominent Canadian artists sign a letter protesting a judge’s ruling reinstating dancer Kimberly Glasco’s job at the National Ballet of Canada after she was fired. – CBC 04/17/00
  • Previously: WHO’S THE BOSS? A Canadian judge has ordered the National Ballet of Canada to reinstate principal dancer Kimberly Glasco, who was dismissed by the company earlier this season. James Kudelka, the ballet’s artistic director, said that Glasco wasn’t dancing as well as she once did and that she didn’t fit with his artistic vision. Glasco sued for wrongful dismissal, saying she’d been fired for criticizing Kudelka’s plans for a new “Swan Lake.” – CBC 04/10/00