“Singapore plans to spend S$8 million ($5.6 million) over the next five years to help fund commercial cultural projects such as a heritage television station and private museums. … The program ‘aims to be the tipping point for individuals and companies to embrace heritage as a business idea….'”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Tiny NYC Street, An Extra In Rock History, May Go Private
“The back door of CBGB, the punk rock monument that closed in 2006, opened onto Extra Place, and the street is perhaps best known as the setting for the cover photograph of the Ramones’ album ‘Rocket to Russia.'” Now a developer wants to buy the street, and the neighborhood wants the city to keep it.
For Gay Actors, How Candid Is Too Candid?
“Hollywood, with its depictions of cowboy lovers and lesbian neighbors, has done much to make gay men and women part of mainstream American life. … Yet for most gay actors, Hollywood is not a warm and fuzzy episode of ‘Will & Grace.’ Today, it is certainly more acceptable to be openly gay. But these actors must still answer wrenching questions: Just how candid do you want to be? Would you be happy appearing only in comedies, or being pigeonholed as a character actor? And what does the line ‘You’re just not right for the role’ really mean?”
Marian Griffiths, Former Sculpture Center Director, 86
“Marian Griffiths, who was for two decades the director of the Sculpture Center in its original Manhattan location, transforming it into a dynamic exhibition center that helped draw public attention to the medium, died at her home in Manhattan on Sept. 8. She was 86.”
LACMA Gets $45 Million For Pavilion
“In a move that will significantly bolster the ongoing expansion and refurbishment of the region’s largest public art museum, a Los Angeles philanthropic couple will give $45 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and be honored with a new exhibition pavilion bearing their names.” Lynda and Stewart Resnick, “longtime art collectors, have also promised LACMA unspecified gifts of art valued at $10 million.”
Talking Strategies For A Regional Arts Fund
“The region’s crowd-pleasing cultural organizations deserve a standing ovation for hosting 15 million visitors each year. Beyond the applause, though, what they’ve really earned is a hand up. That’s the message at center stage in the latest study by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. Box-office growth plus economic impact should equal a regional approach to better fund the arts.”
Now In Women’s Lingerie: The Philadelphia Orchestra
“Philadelphians sometimes need reminding by outsiders: Though they’re used to having the world’s largest pipe organ in the downtown Macy’s department store, virtually no similar establishment, possibly worldwide, has everyday organ concerts from Bach to Broadway raining down from the women’s lingerie department.” On Saturday, the Philadelphia Orchestra will give a concert with the store’s Wanamaker organ for “roughly 1,200 listeners seated on the main floor and two successive tiers – and paying $100 to $5,000 a ticket.”
What Says Broadway Like American Psycho?
Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 best seller is headed to the Great White Way — maybe. “Graphically bloody novel, which juxtaposes Reagan-era decadence and gruesome killings, includes prominent references to bands of the era, a fact that contributed to the idea of musicalizing the story. … Current economic woes have prodded producers to put the tuner on the fast track.”
Greenwich Village Theatre To Get New Life In Reality TV
“Filmmaker Lawrence Page has bought and renovated downtown venue The Actors’ Playhouse with the intention of producing a reality TV skein about thesps putting on dueling legit shows. … The TV skein would eventually culminate in full stage shows to play at the Playhouse, with a cash prize going to the offering that draws the biggest crowds.”
Up Next At The UK’s Arts Council: TBA
“The closing date for applications to be the Arts Council’s new chair, to succeed Sir Christopher Frayling, is tomorrow. So sharpen those pencils, potentials! Names being bandied about include Richard Eyre, apparently favoured by his successor at the helm of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner; and Genista McIntosh, also formerly of the National Theatre, who so thoroughly whipped ACE into shape in her report into the debacle over the last funding round.”