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Wicked Good Box Office

“Wicked” is in Chicago for an extended stay. It’s earning more than $1.1 million a week at the box office. “Ponder for a moment the astonishing appeal of “Wicked.” Many people think “The Producers” was a hit. Yet its tours have dribbled into decline. Overly dependent on its original stars and with a limited urban audience, “The Producers” was a solid performer, for sure, but its New York staying power actually is turning out to be nowhere near what many people predicted. “Wicked,” which got lousy reviews compared to “The Producers,” is a genuine popular hit. And those come around about as often as a tornado hits Oz.”

The State Auditor And The Theatre Taxes

A random audit of a small theatre in Seattle earlier this year led the State to rule that actors should be paid as employees rather than contractors. That means theatres have to make deductions and pay new taxes… and where does that come from? Actors’ pay. “I don’t think there’s any producer in town who wants to screw [over] actors—it’s just a matter of what you can afford to do. It sounds weird to [debate whether] actors should get minimum wage. Well, they should—but they weren’t getting anything before, so the theaters that are actually trying to pay something are being told, ‘Unless you can pay them the whole amount, don’t pay ’em.’ That’s pretty much what’s being said.”

Children’s Book Writers In Poverty

With the mega-success of JK Rowling and her Harry Potter series, many believe children’s book writers are raking in the dough. “Waterstone’s had reported that 10 times more new children’s books were being released every month now compared with 2000, and it found that publishers were spending much more on marketing the genre.” But a new survey says that children’s book writers earn barely subsistance wages – a full third of them earn less than the national minimum wage of £8,827 a year.

Claim: Pinault Plans For Paris Museum Have “Harmed” French Art World

Jérôme Sans, co-director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, has criticized billionaire François Pinault for his aborted plans to build a major museum oustide Paris. “For a start, nobody really knows what was going into Mr Pinault’s museum. The contents of his collection are unknown to most people. The entire episode was a little like someone saying yes, ‘I’ll marry you’ and then at the last minute leaving the bride at the altar”. He stressed that “this illusion [that Mr Pinault was to open a museum in Paris] has harmed rather then helped the French art world”.

Aussies Fight Back At Lebrecht

Australian artists have hit back at critic Norman Lebrecht’s recent story wondering why so many Australians have gained power running London arts organizations. “It seems just a little bit rich to assume that we are some secret cabal trying to take over the world and run down the quality of British arts.”

A Plan To Reunite Iconic Cuban Artists

In 1981 a group of Cuban artists got together for a controversial exhibition that “placed the 11 young artists on the map, set the course for contemporary Cuban art, and created an identity for a new generation of artists. When they gathered for Volume One, the young artists still dreamed of carving a niche in Cuba’s art scene. And though they are scattered, they achieved that. Many would become internationally known while living in Cuba in the 1980s.” Now they are scattered across several countries, but there is a plan to bring them together…