“Flush from the global returns of ‘Mamma Mia!,’ Universal Pictures is tuning up another stage musical transformation. The studio has acquired rights to turn the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical ‘In the Heights’ into a feature.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
At Fall Auctions, Things Aren’t Looking Any Better
“French billionaire Francois Pinault attended his company Christie’s International’s New York auction of impressionist and modern art last night, and watched from a sky box as almost half the lots failed to sell. Buyers passed on 44 percent of the 82 pieces offered. Sales tallied $146.7 million, against the low estimate of $240.7 million. It’s the week’s third evening auction that missed estimates and a sign the global financial crisis continues to undermine demand for the most-expensive art.”
$2M Grant Funds Regional-NY Network For New Musicals
“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will dole out $2 million to Off Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons, with the money earmarked for the development of new tuners.
Grant will fund the commissioning of at least four new tuners and the full production of three or four works, each staged both at Playwrights and at a regional partner. Seven-year program aims to create a network of nonprofit regionals to develop and produce legit musicals.”
The Uncategorizable Richard Alston, Indifferent To Fashion
“This autumn Richard Alston celebrates both his 60th birthday and his 40th anniversary as a choreographer. … If Alston now ranks as one of the great survivors in British modern dance, he was once one of its original rebels.”
Fringe Theatre Has Lost Its Bite
“The fringe grew up to provide space for new and experimental forms of work; theatre that could not be staged under the nose of the Lord Chamberlain; theatre that challenged the status quo; theatre that asked unpalatable questions of society; theatre that made aesthetic choices that outraged audiences – disquieting theatre; disruptive theatre.” Today, “the fringe now often seems to be less forward-looking in terms of staging and material than the Lyttleton or the Gielgud.”
In Humor Sweepstakes, Conservatives Have The Edge
“While Americans choose their next president, let us consider a question more amenable to science: Which candidate’s supporters have a better sense of humor?” Hint: Not the ones who are personalizing that hilarious MoveOn video.
The Economic Death Knell Tolls Through Dickens
“The economic crisis has people nervous. But imagine living during the time of Charles Dickens when the Bank of England was on the verge of collapse and financial ruin was sudden.”
A Northwestern Gaudí, Please, For Seattle
“Being careful what we pray for, because we just might get it, today’s cautious wish is that architecture in Seattle weren’t so damn serious. And growing still more so. We are cultivating an almost unwavering devotion to mainstream modernism, conventional respectability and generic anonymity.”
Milwaukee Shakespeare Dies, Victim Of Wall Street Turmoil
“Milwaukee Shakespeare’s lightning-quick demise last week has a bitterly ironic parallel with the financial market forces that caused it. Just as several venerable Wall Street firms suddenly collapsed with virtually no warning, Milwaukee’s 8-year-old Shakespeare troupe made an abrupt and shocking exit from our arts community.”
Election Results Won’t Put Dissident Writers Out Of A Job
Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the election: “It has been a long idealist dream that someday society life on earth would evolve in such a way that dissident writers and intellectuals would no longer have to be dissident. There are similarities between Obama and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but they do not point to any real political or social revolution.”