“The chief reason was financial, said Jack Rouse, chairman of the board. Despite generous donors in recent years, the competition was unable to raise the $300,000 needed to continue to exist.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Broadway Box Office Take Sets Another Record (Thanks To Insane Ticket Prices)
“Box-office grosses, which have been climbing since 2013, rose 5.5 percent, to $1.449 billion, a new high, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Broadway League … There are bargains available for all but the buzziest shows, but still: The average price paid for a Broadway ticket during the 2016-17 season was a record $109, up from $103 the previous season.”
Italian Government Is Giving Away 103 Historic Buildings – Yes, For Free
“Old houses, inns, farmhouses, monasteries and ancient castles are all up for grabs – and you won’t have to pay a penny.” And yes, there’s a catch: “Those who take up the offer will have to commit to restoring and transforming the sites into tourist facilities, such as hotels, restaurants, or spas.”
Police Raid Moscow’s Leading Avant-Garde Theatre, Detain Director
Kirill Serebrennikov, famous in Russia as both a stage director and a filmmaker, was taken into custody and held for interrogation following a raid of the Gogol Center (of which he’s artistic director), his apartment, and 15 other addresses. (He was released late in the day and said he was questioned as a witness.) Authorities claim that the issue is suspected embezzlement of state arts funding at the Gogol, but Serebrennikov is a well-known critic of the Kremlin’s policies on freedom of expression, LGBT rights, and Crimea, and several of the theatre’s more controversial stagings have been investigated for violating morals laws.
How Two Guys Built A Successful Opera Festival From Scratch In A London Park
“The essence, I think, is as little bullshit as possible – an emotional approach but with real seriousness. We agree that the audience comes first and that you carry them with you rather than forcing things down their throats.” Reporter George Hall talks to Michael Volpe and James Clutton about Opera Holland Park, which puts on up to half a dozen productions every summer.
Deutsche Bank Plans New Culture Forum In Central Berlin
“The arts centre, expected to open in mid-2018, is located in the Prinzessinnenpalais at 5 Unter den Linden – the boulevard leading up to the Brandenburg Gate. … The building will house both permanent and temporary exhibitions as well as hosting concerts, readings, talks, workshops, sporting events and a café.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.23.17
Doomsday Scenario: President Trump’s Bludgeoned Budgets for NEA, NEH, IMLS
William “Bro” Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and an Obama appointee, clearly knew what was coming when he precipitously resigned his position yesterday, effective today. Short notice, Bro! … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-05-23
The hole story
Georg Büchner died in 1837 with his masterpiece unfinished – a masterpiece because it’s unfinished, perhaps. The text of Woyzeck is incomplete, the scenes disordered. … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2017-05-23
Helping Them Get Started
A friend of mine in grad school, a cellist, was close to graduation when his teacher suddenly died. “What am I going to do?” he asked me. “There is nobody to help me get started in my career!” … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-05-22
Never such innocence again
We huddled from the rain under a small platform shelter at Hackney Wick the other night. Which was great, because it meant eavesdropping without strain on the couple arguing about This Beautiful Future, the play we had just seen at the Yard Theatre. … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2017-05-22
Colm Tóibín Explains How, And Why, He Rewrote The Oresteia
“For any student of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, no event was isolated. Each murder or set of murders seemed to have been inspired by a previous one, each atrocity appeared to be in retaliation for something that had occurred the week before.”
Art Is Not #Content: Why Techbros Should Stop Trying To Improve TV And Film
Jason Bailey works over some of the bad ideas that Silicon Valley types have been coming up with to mess up “hack” the viewing experience.
Theatre, Race, And The Albee Estate – Whose Wishes Should Rule?
News broke last week that Edward Albee’s estate had denied permission for the casting of a black actor as Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, reigniting yet again the debates on non-traditional casting. Alexis Soloski looks at the good-faith issues in the debate: “Part of the difficulty has to do with whether we perceive theater as a collaborative form in which a play is made new each time a director and actors put it on, or whether plays exist as blueprints for a single ideal staging that each production will realize to greater and lesser extent.”