Dancers of the Colorado Ballet have filed a petition to unionize. According to the petition, the ballet “unit” (those joining the union) would consist of “all non-managerial, non-supervisory artists: dancers, choreographers, stage managers and their assistants.”
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Mamma Worldwide
The ABBA compilation musical “Mamma Mia” has become a global phenomenon. There are now “11 productions in six languages around the world. The show has grossed more than $1.4 billion since it opened in London in April, 1999, and some 24 million people have seen it.”
Bush Declares War On Porn
“The Administration has launched a broad assault on sexual content that targets the entertainment industry from Hollywood producers to hotels. The offensive includes creation of a Justice Dept. Obscenity Prosecution Task Force and an anti-porn squad at the FBI, a crackdown on indecent programming by the new Federal Communications Commission chairman, and a wave of indecency legislation. The push aims to pressure companies involved in films such as Wedding Crashers, TV shows such as Hot Properties and Nip/Tuck, and soft-core cable porn to tone down or face a backlash. But while Christian conservatives cheer, business is gearing up to take on the Smut Squad.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, Composer
Turns out that Scotland’s celebrated author Robert Louis Stevenson was also a composer. “Members of the Edinburgh-based Robert Louis Stevenson Club have been presented with the jaunty piece, titled Aberlady Links, and have now had it recorded for the first time. The short composition, thought to be the only one Stevenson invented, was written in Samoa, where he died, for flageolet – a traditional recorder.”
Chicago Theatre Online
The League of Chicago Theatres is launching an online ticket service to serve its 183 members. “The league is considering using software that can capture and massage information about patrons and their theater-going preferences. Such data would be useful for theaters and could guide patrons to other plays they may be partial to, much as Amazon.com does with goods on its Web site.”
Promoters Lobby For Tout Ban
Theatre, concert and sports event promoters want the British government to outlaw ticket touting. “Some unofficial agencies and auctions deceive and defraud fans as well as charging high prices, promoters say. But the government is not convinced a new law is needed and wants promoters to tackle the problem themselves.”
Lit Prizes… Do They Mean Anything?
“Some — by now perhaps all — cultural prizes have had the shine rubbed off them by having been given to undeserving people, an ample number of serious jackasses among them. Everyone knows that the list of writers who did not win the Nobel Prize — Tolstoy, Proust, Henry James, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, W.H. Auden — is much more impressive than the list of those who have. Moreover, there is something about winning the Nobel Prize in literature that makes one posthumous no matter how much longer one goes on to live.”
UK Orchestras Worth Saving
Julian Lloyd-Webber is tired of hearing people dump on orchestras. “What, exactly, is so ‘irrelevant’ about classical music? Its basic precepts of harmony and tonality permeate all the music we hear, whether in films, TV ads, shopping malls or churches. Even some of the most popular mobile ring tones are taken from the classics. Moreover, new collaborations abound…”
The Band That’s Proving The Internet Future?
“The internet has been touted as the future of the music business ever since file-sharing became big news: bands, it was mooted, would cut record companies out of the equation by posting their music on their websites and building up a virtual fanbase. But nothing of the sort happened. Selling music via a website became the province not of hip new bands, but old stagers considered defunct by their labels. They were making a living, but the whole business still carried a slight taint, the modern equivalent of flogging your records from a car boot. Then, three weeks ago, Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys entered the charts at number one with their second single, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.”
Study: Twice As Much Sex On Tv Today
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a study that says that children are exposed to twice as much sexual content on TV as they were seven years ago. “In the slightly more than 1,000 shows scrutinized in the study, nearly 4,000 scenes had sexual content, compared with fewer than 2,000 in 1998, when the foundation started studying TV sex. And yet the rate of teen pregnancy in this country has plunged by about one-third during approximately the same time.”