“Few observers expected such a seeming downer of a show to survive on Broadway, let alone pack in audiences for more than a year.” (With video.)
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Quiz: How Well Versed Are You In Fictional Elections?
“7. The novel Primary Colors, following the presidential campaign of one Jack Stanton, became notorious for its clear inspiration from the real career of Bill Clinton. It was first published under the excitingly cloak-and-dagger byline ‘Anonymous’. Can you name the actual writer?”
A Good Problem To Have: 1 Actor, 2 Overlapping Plays
“Even a well-established actor who embodies all sorts of characters can’t be expected to be in two places at once – and for a few performances, these two very different plays will be running at the very same time,” in theaters a mile apart.
Oakland, A Haven For Artists, May Halve Its Arts Grants
“Under the proposed budget, arts grants would be cut by 50 percent, leaving around $490,000. … More than 580,000 people – including 7,195 public school students – attended activities funded by this year’s arts grant budget of $974,647. The money provided for more than 19,000 events.”
MPAA Ratings Chair Attempts To Demystify What She Does
“A few years ago,” she says, “the Los Angeles Times ran a cartoon featuring a man in overalls at a dreary desk with a long-dead plant. The caption read: ‘Housed deep within the bowels of the Motion Picture Assn. of America is a man named Wallace McEntyre, and he, and he alone, understands what may or may not be appropriate for children under 13.'”
CBC, Radio-Canada Get Millions Less In Production Funds
“Heritage Minister James Moore announced last week that the fund for creating Canadian content for TV and new media had been boosted to $350 million. But funding for English-language programming at CBC is to fall by $8.9 million in the 2010 broadcast year,” while “[f]unding for Radio-Canada programming is down $3.7 million.”
Art Gallery Of Ontario’s Big Bonuses Stand Alone
Last year, AGO “paid about $665,000 to CEO Matthew Teitelbaum as a bonus for the completion of [its $300 million Transformation AGO] project, and another $250,000 to six other members of its senior management team.” Concurrently, other major Toronto arts projects appear to have gone ahead with no similar deals.
Does The Pompidou’s New Outpost Live Up To Its Heritage?
“Just as the original Pompidou was designed to reinvent a large area of central Paris, so the Pompidou-Metz forms the centrepiece of … a district formerly given over to industry. It is, by any standards, an important building: much cultural pride rides on its curving shoulders, locally and nationally.”
Alan Bennett’s Habit Of Art To Be Broadcast To Cinemas
“The play, Bennett’s first since the hugely successful History Boys in 2004, opened at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre on November 5. It is directed by National chief Nicholas Hytner and stars Richard Griffiths as [W.H.] Auden alongside Alex Jennings as [Benjamin] Britten.”
German Choir’s Mission: Bring The Unemployed Together
“Three quarters of the men and women in the choir are jobless, and half have been unemployed for more than five years. … For many, the rehearsals provide the structure and human contact they miss from being on the job.”