At Livent founder turned convict Garth Drabinsky’s sentencing hearing this week, “his lawyers produced letters of support from E.L. Doctorow, Christopher Plummer and Hal Prince, among others. … It’s appalling but not surprising that all these artistic types are still under Drabinsky’s spell. Although he cheated investors out of millions, the flashy ‘impresario of the old school’ sure knew how to treat talent.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Screening Broadway In 3-D: A Key To Audience Expansion?
“Fugobi Broadway 3-D, which hopes to bring no fewer than five musicals to global audiences within the next year and a half, was formed to address what [entrepreneur Dale Smith] calls a crisis in the current Broadway model. While there were a record number of musicals in New York this season, he says, fewer people saw these shows, many of which took years and millions of dollars to develop, than watch an average episode of television.”
Tiny Nonprofit Goes Big-Budget (How Avant-Garde Is That?)
Issue Project Room’s new Brooklyn space “will become a home for all kinds of experimental music, theater, dance, literary readings and film. ‘A Carnegie Hall for the avant-garde,’ Suzanne Fiol, the group’s founder and creative director, said. … Whether the idea of a big, official institution like Carnegie Hall is antithetical to the spirit of the avant-garde is an open question.”
Plagiarism As Passive Event: My Unconscious Did It!
“[C]ould some alleged plagiarists–like Maureen Dowd, Chris Anderson, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and even [Kaavya] Viswanathan, who all either deny the charge, or blame their copying on unconscious mistakes–be guilty of psychological sloppiness rather than fraud? Could the real offense be disregard for the mind’s subliminal kleptomania? And if it is real, is unconscious copying (or ‘cryptomnesia’ to those who study the phenomenon) preventable?”
Frenzy Of 3-D Hype Fails To Bring Box-Office Bonanza
“As more movies play in digital 3-D, there’s evidence that audiences are becoming less interested in the ballyhooed format that many in Hollywood have predicted will stem the long-term erosion of theater attendance. … There’s certainly no sure evidence that films are consistently doing better as a result of 3-D.”
Damien Hirst Designs Lance Armstrong’s Tour Bike
“Armstrong, just off the pace after five of 21 [Tour de France] stages, wrote on his Twitter social-networking feed he was ‘speechless’ after seeing Hirst’s design on the bike’s frame. He didn’t give details. The artwork features butterflies” and “will be used for the final stage of the race, which ends July 26 in Paris.”
Even In A Bad Economy, The Arts Are Not A Frill
“I know times are tough and charities have a lot of demands. But I would argue that the arts are essential — and they are under threat. … Why should we care? Because experiencing and creating art is a crucial part of developing young people who can understand the world’s complexity and tackle its problems with a full range of tools.”
OCMA’s Secret Sale Raises Eyebrows For Good Reason
“A questionable deal is a lot like art. No one can define it, but people know it when they see it. What everybody knows is that at least a couple of the paintings recently sold by the Orange County Museum of Art were stellar examples of California Impressionism. Yet no one except the museum’s director and a few others know why they were sold so secretly, for such an apparently low price, or to whom.”
Fear Faded, U.S. Rediscovers Passion For Iconic Structures
“I don’t want to get too serious about what is essentially a tourist attraction. But perhaps there’s a shred of significance in these wow-inducing glass boxes near the top of the nation’s tallest building, especially when you pair them with the news that the crown atop the Statue of Liberty … reopened to the public Saturday for the first time since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Could it be that America is rediscovering the sky?”
NEA Awards $29.78 Million In Grants
“More than 600 arts organizations around the country can each look forward to receiving a big fat check in the coming weeks thanks to the latest round of grants announced today by the National Endowment for the Arts. The grants represent part of the $50 million in federal aid to the NEA from President Obama’s economic stimulus package.”