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The Art Of Advertising Broadway

How do you advertize a Broadway show? “Theater has lagged behind other industries in tapping ways to attract audiences. The reason it is slow is because there’s a ceiling on how much money we can make. The rule of thumb for what a Broadway show should spend each week on advertising is about 10 percent of a production’s weekly potential gross. For “Wicked,” which has a gross potential of more than $1.15 million each week, that would translate into more than $100,000.”

A Free Night At The Theatre

The Theatre Communications Group is coordinating a free night at the theatre in three cities on October 20. One of theatres’ “biggest concerns was how to reach people we can’t now reach. Subscription patterns are at a perilous moment, in part because we don’t live that way anymore. We thought, ‘What can we do collectively to bring in new audiences?’ That’s when someone said, ‘How about a free night of theatre?’ “

Comedy – Dumbing Up The Fringe

Has comedy dumbed-down the Edinburgh Fringe, ruining what used to be a great theatre festival? Stewart Lee (writer of Jerry Springer, The Opera)says not: “Comedy can respond to events with a speed that theatre cannot match. And even apolitical absurdity is an appropriate response to mass panic. We laugh in the face of death.”

Art Out Of Doors

New York City’s Percent for Art program “has become the largest public art program in the city since the Great Depression. There have been more than 200 projects completed in schools, parks, police precincts and branch libraries. Incrementally, usually without much fuss, they have enlarged the city’s visual topography.”

2005’s Lit Hits: MIA

Where are this year’s literary hits? “The big books have been thrillers, such as “The Da Vinci Code” and “The Historian,” and the fantasy blockbuster “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Not only have established literary authors disappointed critics, no major new literary voices have emerged. ‘I think a lot of editors will tell you that 2004 and 2005 haven’t been very good for fiction acquisitions. There weren’t a lot of huge auctions or books that publishers got really excited about’.”

Harry Discounts Hurt B&N Financials

Booksellers were expecting a blockbuster summer with a new Harry Potter in play. But Barnes & Noble reports disappointing sales “The company’s sales rose just 6 percent, to $1.17 billion. Analysts had been expecting sales of $1.18 billion on a bigger boost from the sixth volume of the Harry Potter saga, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” The new book about the boy wizard sold more than 8.9 million copies in the first 24 hours it was on sale in the United States and Britain, becoming the fastest-selling book in history, according to publishers. But retailers cut heavily into their profits on the book, selling it at discounts of more than 50 percent to lure customers into stores.”

Identity Crisis – What Makes The Modern Museum Director?

Fifteen major American museums are currently searching for directors. Should those directors be art scholars or CEO’s? “The current empty posts — as well as the evolving director’s role — put many high-profile institutions at a crossroads. To be sure, any candidate considered at a top museum will have at least some experience in both management and art scholarship, but the museum world remains divided over the appropriate balance.”

Getty Calling

Are some making too much of the rich Getty Museum soliciting support in the community? “When they are talking about working with collectors to give fabulous collections a public home, how could one argue with that? That’s a worthy thing. Having collections of art in the public domain is something that every museum should be doing. The fact that these objects would be preserved and exhibited and interpreted would be a net gain.”

Rare Violin Returned

A rare 18th Century violin has been returned to its owner a year after having been stolen. “The violin, which is dated to around 1740, was recovered when an unsuspecting dealer took it in to Bonhams auction house, which checked it against an insurance company list of stolen items.”