Author: Laura Collins Hughes

Hold Your Applause ‘Til We Read The Names Of All Winners

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, handing out its awards for 2008, shrugged off the notion of shining the spotlight on a single artist per category. “Take the category of lead performance. They couldn’t just name one winner, they picked six. Three of the five nominees in the director category were named winners. And a trio of shows took the honors for best production (or would that be ‘one of the best productions’?).”

LA Dance Series Hauls In A $20 Million Donation

“In one of the largest such gifts ever to the Music Center or any of its resident companies, Los Angeles philanthropist Glorya Kaufman is donating $20 million to the Dance at the Music Center program. The donation, to be announced today, surpasses all but a handful of contributions to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Center Theatre Group or the Los Angeles Master Chorale.”

More Strike Fallout: Writers Guild West To Cut Staff

“Confronted with a growing budget deficit, the Writers Guild of America, West plans to cut about 20 positions by the end of the month. The guild, which has about 185 employees, notified worker representatives last week that layoffs, which could begin this week, were needed to plug a budget hole of more than $2 million, said two people familiar with the matter. The union, which has 8,000 members, has annual operating expenses of about $25 million. “

$50 Apts, $10,000 Towers In Model Fund-Raising Scheme

The Queens Museum of Art’s “most famous asset is its 9,335-square-foot scale model of New York City, originally built for the 1964 World’s Fair. The Panorama of the City of New York has 895,000 structures, replicating every street, bridge and skyscraper in the five boroughs.” Under the museum’s new “Adopt-a-Building program … the panorama will evolve gradually along with the city — at least, for those who pay.”

How To Get Audiences To Sing Along: Booze On Demand

“Producers of the Broadway jukebox musical ‘Rock of Ages’ will offer an unusual perk starting tonight to attract audiences and loosen them up in a bad economy: in-seat alcohol service during performances. ‘Sometimes theater is perceived as something antiseptic,’ said Carl Levin, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker and a lead producer of the off-Broadway transfer. ‘We find when you have drinking, people are more likely to sing along.'”

Tax Incentives Aside, TV Leaves California To Shoot Pilots

At least half of the new hourlong pilots ordered by the Big Four networks and the CW will be shot outside California, despite that state’s recently passed tax-incentive program. “But that program is seen by many in the TV biz as too little too late, and with too many strings attached. … Producers of gameshows, talkshows, news programs, reality skeins, docus and porn need not apply; those types of productions are not eligible for the credit.”

British Library: We’ve Mislaid 9,000 Books (Not All At Once)

“More than 9,000 books are missing from the British Library, including Renaissance treatises on theology and alchemy, a medieval text on astronomy, first editions of 19th- and 20th-century novels, and a luxury edition of Mein Kampf produced in 1939 to celebrate Hitler’s 50th birthday. The library believes almost all have not been stolen but rather mislaid among its 650km of shelves and 150m items – although some have not been seen in well over half a century.”