Author: ArtsJournal2

Look, Blockbuster Shows Don’t, And Can’t, Solve Museum Attendance Problems

A blockbuster strategy has two basic, and massive, problems, one being that people who come for blockbusters simply don’t return for anything else. (The other is, basically, marketing costs.) What’s the way forward for museums like Britain’s National Portrait Gallery, museums that have relied on blockbusters in the past but can’t really sustain that now?

Saturday Was Independent Bookstore Day, But Then, So Is Every Day If You Care About Books

Writer Celeste Ng explains the Gen X bookstore experience, including those joys of the mall: “I grew up haunting the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks in the mall. So my first indies—the long-gone Booksellers in Beachwood, Ohio and the redoubtable Mac’s Backs in Cleveland Heights—were revelations; they carried such a wide array of books, including niche titles that a more mainstream retailer wouldn’t have. I discovered many of my favorite authors just by browsing their shelves.”

‘Hair’ Is Fifty, And The Nude Scene Is Still A Big Deal

Parliament had to intervene so the show could be produced in London – yes, it took an act of government to allow the actors to be naked onstage. Back on Broadway, during previews in 1968, show co-writer Gerome Ragni explained that the rules about nudity were flexible in the production: “Anybody who feels like it can take his clothes off. Everybody wants to now, even the stagehands. We turned them on.”

In A Los Angeles Neighborhood Suffering From Longterm Lack Of Investment And Few Parks, Residents Take To The Streets To Play

In Boyle Heights, there’s a delicate balance to maintain – the city knows Boyle Heights residents are not interested in a threatening wave of gentrification. So a one-day “play street” plan might actually be a good solution. “What a play street is not is a replacement for permanent parks. … But it bridges the gap in a way that’s really needed.”

This University Used To Ban Dancing On Campus, But Now It’s Adding A Musical Theatre Dance Track

Abilene Christian University spent many years quashing college students who wanted to dance on campus; the first on-campus dance was held a mere six years ago. But now a donor has stepped up to pay for a full-time dance instructor – and the head of the department says dance classes fit well within the university: “It’s missional because we’re helping students grow their God-given gifts.”

Opera Houses: Tools Of Cultural Imperialism, Or What?

That’s one theory, anyway, but it’s a bit more complicated in practice. Look at the history of Cairo’s opera house, where Arabic-language works gradually came to coexist with European repertoire. “In the late-19th century, a hybrid Arabic and Turkish (and Greek, Armenian, French and Italian) cultural economy of musical theatre developed. Arabic music made European acting acceptable and contributed to the acceptance of the new performance genre. Arabic operetta developed in ‘low’ and ‘high’ versions that remain alive today.”