Disneyland turns 50 this year. “From the start, there would be no denying the world’s infatuation with Disneyland, a rite of passage for millions of vacationing families. In the 50 years since Walt Disney leveled Anaheim orange groves, the park has left an oversized imprint on American culture, influencing family entertainment, shopping malls, corporate branding and more. Indeed, no one has masterminded — and capitalized on — fantasy and illusion like the Walt Disney Co., a $30-billion entertainment powerhouse that has transformed theme park rides into top-grossing movies and a hockey flick into a sports franchise.”
Blog
The $27-Million Musical Is Underway
It’s six months until the massive new Lord of the Rings musical opens in Toronto, and casting and set-building are well under way. “At $27-million, LOTR is the most ambitious and expensive musical production in theatre history…”
No Doubt, The Play’s A Hit
One of the biggest surprises on Broadway this season was the box office success of “Doubt.” “In the surprisingly brief space of four months, “Doubt,” by playwright and “Moonstruck” screenwriter John Patrick Shanley, is in the black, a condition that most Broadway productions never achieve. In mid-June, its producers announced the play had made back the $2 million spent to get it to Broadway. Now their talk is about how best to widen “Doubt’s” reach. Plans are already in the works for a national tour — another rarity for a non-musical. A London run, naturally, is being discussed, and there’s early buzz about a movie.”
Kirov Reaches For Rebel American
Why is the classically pure Kirov Ballet turning to a maverick like William Forsythe? “The Kirov has already added works to its repertory by the St Petersburg-born George Balanchine, who died in 1983, but Forsythe’s work, with its conscious deconstruction of the ballet conventions held so sacred at the Kirov, is a much wilder departure. It was the Kirov who courted Forsythe, rather than the other way round, and it took some persuasion. Forsythe has said that traditionally trained dancers, unused to his work, can be “horrible to watch” in his pieces.”
When Do You Turn Children On To Art?
Have we become too protective introducing children to difficult art? “I do worry about exposing children to literature, films and theatre before they are ready – and I am particularly jumpy about violent films. But how do you decide when a child is ‘ready’ for a film? It is fascinatingly ambiguous. The extraordinary thing is that works of art – especially books – change according to age. A book read at 18, reread at 48, may seem entirely different. Age is part of what we bring to a work of art.”
Why PBS Takes So Much Abuse
After all the bluster and argument, is PBS still worth the money the government puts into it? After all, many have argued that niche cable channels do most of what PBS does without the need for public subsidy. Robert Lloyd disagrees, but points out that the very nature of PBS’s existence makes it an easy target: “Though often described by its critics as elitist — a combined Google search of the terms ‘PBS’ and ‘elitist’ gets 33,500 hits — quite the opposite is true: PBS is a generalist network. It tries, often to its peril, to provide something for everybody. (Which means there is something for everyone not to like.)”
From Low Shelf To Top Drawer
“A 650-year-old Chinese vase that survived for generations on a low shelf, at constant risk of being dashed to the floor by the tails of boisterous dogs, sold for nearly £3m at auction yesterday. The unique 50cm double-gourd vase, bought for £10 in 1900, was snapped up by an overseas buyer, for a new record price for an antique sold at a British provincial auction house.”
Will DVD Sales Go The Way Of The Box Office?
Even as box office receipts continue to fall, Hollywood has been able to take some solace in the continuing strong sales of DVDs. But now, there are indications that even the DVD boom may be starting to fade…
Success Is Relative
“When it comes to the health of theater in Colorado, it all depends on whether you see the mask as half-comedy or half-tragedy. On the smiley side, Colorado theaters drew 1.7 million patrons and generated $54 million in ticket revenue in 2004… But then there’s the tragic frown: Nearly half of those who attended the theater anywhere in Colorado went to a show at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. That’s great news for the largest performing-arts center between Chicago and Los Angeles. It is not such good news for the nearly 100 other theater companies in Colorado fighting over the other half.”
Looking For A Summer Solution
Ticket sales for the Chicago Symphony’s summer season at Ravinia have been down for the better part of a decade now, and while the numbers certainly don’t indicate a crisis, they might point to a general malaise. “The apparent defection of a segment of Ravinia’s core audience over the last 15 years strikes at the artistic heart of America’s oldest music festival even as it tests the goodwill and durability that have marked the Chicago Symphony’s long relationship with Ravinia. Business partners during the summer who lead largely independent lives during the rest of the year, Ravinia and the CSO now find themselves in circumstances that call for something they haven’t much done before, cooperative problem-solving.”