“The new Fringe Society structure is expected to be in place in time for next year’s festival. [Edinburgh’s] Fringe Society was set up in the late 1950s, when a constitution was drawn up, setting out the policy of not vetting or censoring shows. … However in 1959 there were 19 companies attending the Fringe; this year there are more than 2,000 shows.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Organizers: Wales’ Brecon Jazz Fest On Solid Footing
“The new Brecon Jazz festival has been hailed a success and organisers say its future is secure. Musicians from around the world entertained more than 20,000 visitors during three days in the Powys town. … Its future had been in doubt after poor summer weather in 2008 forced a company running it into liquidation.”
Pee-wee Herman Gears Up For An Onstage Comeback
Paul Reubens’ Hollywood stage show “will feature the same story line as the original: Pee-wee, a nerdy man-child with a colorful menagerie of anthropomorphic friends, is granted a wish to learn to fly but gives the wish away, much to his eventual regret. Reubens said he has revised parts of the story to include new songs as well as characters from his popular CBS television series, ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse.'”
A Westchester Farm Becomes A Colony For Composers
“Under a multimillion-dollar public-private partnership, Copland House will offer composers’ residencies, workshops, and public concert series. The mansion–still furnished with the original four-poster beds, fainting chairs and free-standing bathtubs–will provide the living quarters, while the farm buildings are given over to artists’ studios. A unique characteristic of the program will be its emphasis on collaborative residencies….”
For Tech-Evangelist Lawyer, Downloading Defeat Is A Blow
“As co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, Professor [Charles] Nesson is renowned for his early interest in bridging technology, law and culture, and his ability to inspire generations of students to see the Internet as a force for positive change, not just cables and computers. But when Professor Nesson, 70, took on the recording industry in an eagerly anticipated civil case here over sharing music online, the champion stumbled.”
Scrap The Fringe! Centralize Edinburgh’s Festivals.
“[I]t is time to scrap the Fringe. And the International Festival. And the Mela. And the Book Festival. And the TV Festival. And the Art Festival. And the Jazz and Blues Festival.” In their place? The Edinburgh Festival. “Most people outside Edinburgh make no distinction between the various components of what they already call the Edinburgh Festival. It is merely a recognition of reality to say we should end the differences and call them all by one name.”
With Charles Gwathmey’s Death, NY Five Is Now NY Three
“More than 40 years ago, a group of young Manhattan architects with a shared interest in the aesthetics of old-fashioned Modernism began getting together to talk about their work, their lives and the state of the field. And in the decades that followed, even as their styles grew apart — and as they became celebrities in and beyond the world of architecture — they continued talking.”
Arena Stage To Launch New Play Institute With $1M Grant
“Arena Stage has received a $1.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create the American Voices New Play Institute, an initiative to help further new play development within American theater. … The institute will become a center for research and development of practices, programs and processes for new play development, Arena said.”
Rule 1 Of Public Art: People Will Climb On It
“Once sleekly sculptural,” architect Ben Van Berkel’s Millennium Park pavilion “now resembles a beaten-up jungle gym.” Zaha Hadid’s pavilion is also showing wear and tear. “It’s easy to point fingers at Van Berkel and Hadid for creating dazzling pieces of sculpture that failed to anticipate how people would behave. Yet it is also true that star architects need tough clients to say no, when they come up with designs that are beautiful but impractical.”
Berlin Hotel Asks Artists To Pay In Art (No Locals, Please)
“A five-star hotel in Berlin has opened its doors to cash-strapped artists, asking them to pay for bed and board not with money but with a work of art. The offer from the Hotel Marienbad in Auguststrasse is open to painters, sculptors or conceptual artists willing to ‘subject the hotel to permanent change’ with their efforts.” The bad news: They do pick and choose their guests from a voluminous waiting list.