A theatre company whose artistic director “generated an outcry” by choosing only one woman director for its 2010 season “is devoting its annual industry forum to a discussion about the absence of women in key creative roles in Australian theatre. It has pulled together a panel of women, none of whom is in a key decision-making position.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Texas Ballet Theater Using Taped Music In Fort Worth, Too
“About 100 members of the major local musicians union picketed outside Dallas’ Winspear Opera House during the ballet’s performances of The Nutcracker there Friday through Sunday. They handed out leaflets and carried signs saying, ‘taped music is tacky.'”
To Combat DVD Sales Decline, Big Studios Put Clips Online
“Movieclips.com, which launches on Thursday, allows users to watch 12,000 clips free and embed them on blogs and websites such as Twitter and Facebook. … The studios will hope the site stimulates interest in their film libraries.” That is, they’re hoping the clips will generate sales.
Louvre, Versailles Close On Paris Museum Strike’s 9th Day
“A strike by French museum workers widened today with the Louvre and Versailles Palace joining a host of other tourist attractions to shut down as employees protested against planned job cuts. … Unions say the government’s plan to replace only one out of every two retiring civil servants will cripple museums, as will its plan to cut some subsidies.”
Salonen, Boulez, Alsop Among Crop Of Grammy Nominees
“True, you won’t likely see any classical-music stars thanking their agents on Grammy night — that’s because the classical categories are usually relegated to off-air time, heaped together with other presumably unpopular genres.” But there are plenty of nominees filling the 13 classical categories.
Well Done, Grammy Jazz Voters
“Grammy voters might have made some baffling choices this year (seriously, Hall & Oates?), but not when it came to the jazz categories.”
Brainstorming A Redesigned Los Angeles
“Our lovely sprawl is stocked with colorful neighborhoods, … but public transportation is another story. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Subway to the Sea. That is, until more innovative solutions are found for making it happen. Which is the point of the L.A. 2.0 conference this weekend.”
In An Unnerving Market, Sundance Gets Real
“Even amid the accelerating collapse of the specialized film business … several 2009 Sundance premieres enjoyed commercial and critical acclaim, buoying the hopes of 2010’s sellers.” Festival programmers “say the coming Sundance lineup is in part designed to reflect the upheaval within the art film world.”
A Convergence Of Oboists In NY, Lured By Albrecht Mayer
“Oligarchs of the oboe world gathered on Monday for a private dinner” that “drew players from the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. … The event was the equivalent of a gathering of National Football League quarterbacks, with [Albrecht] Mayer cast as Brett Favre.”
Dance Still Suffers From The Absences Wrought By AIDS
“Not so long ago, I was chatting with a friend who is a dance critic. We talked about all the talented dancers and choreographers … who’d been lost to AIDS. As she saw it, there is a void in dance choreography because so many young men didn’t make it out of the plague. … What if they’d all lived?“