“‘Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative’ is a high-tech support service through which arts administrators can talk to the center’s personnel about the challenges of shrinking income, budget-conscious audiences and other difficulties in keeping the doors open. … ‘This is the first time we are saying to any organization, “We are there to help,” ‘ said Michael M. Kaiser, the center’s president. ‘We have never reached out to everyone.'”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Ford’s Theatre Reopens In Time For Lincoln Bicentennial
“As Ford’s Theatre emerges from an 18-month, multimillion-dollar renovation and prepares to formally reopen its doors in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial with a new play that began previews yesterday, theater officials can relax knowing they will have soon dodged what could have been the historic building’s fourth disaster.”
NYPD Nabs Poster Boy, Unless It Isn’t Him
“While most other street or graffiti artists concentrate on adding their own imagery, illegally, to parts of the subway system, Poster Boy, a kind of anti-consumerist Zorro with a razor blade, a sense of humor and a talent for collage, has made his outlaw presence known all over the city by cutting and pasting the images that are already there in the form of ads.” Now police say they’ve caught him — but have they?
Protesting Proposed Tax, Broadway Goes To Albany
“There was no flashy choreography as grim-faced Broadway industry leaders pleaded bluntly and plainly with New York legislative budget writers on Tuesday to reject Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposed tax on theater tickets, which would raise prices about 8 percent. … They warned that the tax would set off a chain reaction that would deplete tourist business for restaurants and hotels and work for scenery carpenters, costume-makers, dry cleaners and others who contribute to theater productions.”
Degas Sculpture Breaks Record As Other Lots Go Unsold
“A Degas sculpture last night fetched a record 13.3 million pounds ($19.2 million), while other high- value works were rejected, at the first international auction- house test of the art market in 2009. … This month’s evening auctions of contemporary art at Sotheby’s and Christie’s International are estimated by the auction houses to fetch at least 31.6 million pounds, a decline of 78 percent” from last year.
Dallas Library Puts Some Books, DVDs Behind Pay Wall
“The Dallas Public Library has launched a new program called the StreetSmart Express that lets people check out popular books and DVDs for $5 each. Other items can still be checked out by Dallas residents at no cost.”
Tracing The Sad Decline Of The Art Of Critical Invective
“Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.” “Strauss has hitherto reveled in the more or less harmonious exploitation of the charnel house, the grave, and the gnawing worm.” Vicious indictments, yes, but in hindsight, they’re evidence of the good old days, when passionate engagement with the music was the norm.
Reversing The ‘Posthumous Assassination’ Of Mendelssohn
Two centuries after Felix Mendelssohn’s birth, the exhumation of his work continues.
Suggestion Box: Pay Hollywood CEOs As New Media Would
“Disney and Time Warner were hot companies in the nineties. Now they are being overshadowed by newer ones like Amazon and Google. Part of the reason is that those companies have a better idea where the media business is headed in the digital age. How much are their CEOs paid? Nowhere close to the old media guys.”
As Rescue Plans Take Shape, Brecon Jazz Fest Sits Out ’09
“Plans to stage a jazz festival in Brecon have been postponed for a year but it will return in 2010, according to a group overseeing its future. The Arts Council of Wales said to organise a successful event in just six months was ‘too big a hurdle to leap’. It was hoped the festival would go-ahead this August even though the firm behind it ceased trading in December.”