“Good and evil are back on the table again as serious issues requiring serious contemplation by all of us — not just theologians, philosophers, essayists, politicians and talk-show hosts. Not just “experts” such as President Bush or Bono or Elie Wiesel or Dr. Phil, to whom we outsourced some of our thorniest moral dilemmas. These people were only too happy to do a lot of the heavy moral lifting for us. (And God bless ’em for it.) But it’s time to shoulder the load ourselves. This latest surge of terrible events reminds us that, in the end, we’re all on the hot seat to decide: What is evil? What is good? What constitutes justice?”
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Why NPR Canned D’Arcy
Arts journalists have been buzzing about NPR’s decision to sever its relationship with arts reporter David D’Arcy. Why is D’Arcy out? “An NPR spokesman who asked not to identified said the reporter was fired not for the substance of his report but for failing to observe two of the network’s reportorial guidelines: He allegedly interviewed Lauder on one topic — the general issue of art seized by the Nazis — then used it in a piece about another specific issue, the Schiele case. Moreover, according to the spokesman, D’Arcy made no direct effort to secure MOMA’s response to “specific attacks on its integrity that he intended to broadcast in the piece. NPR requires that the most strenuous efforts be made to do just that and he didn’t do it.”
Movies Race To DVD
The time between theatreical release to DVD is getting shorter for movies. “These days the turnaround time from cineplex to DVD is 4 1/2 months, on average, with movies becoming available for rental and sale on the same day. A few recent films made the trip in fewer than 90 days. (Five years ago, the typical Hollywood flick didn’t show up on home video for at least six months.) It’s no secret that movie studios, which generally earn more money from home video than box office returns, are eager to capitalize on DVD dollars as soon as they can.”
Canada’s Oscars – Does Anybody Care?
The Genie Awards, Canada’s film-industry equivalent of the Oscars, are held this week. “But is, as some would suggest, the “brightest and best in Canadian filmmaking” an oxymoron? Should we just engrave beer steins and hand them out at a Frick & Friar pub? Or should we just not bother? After a quarter of a century in business, the Genies still have a branding problem.”
Charitably Speaking – Theatre Drama Of The Year
Will “Sweet Charity” be a hit? It’s currently in try-outs on the road, and it’s probably too early to tell. But one thing is already clear: “A so-so revival of a 1966 musical, doing fairly good business at the box office in its first two tryout cities (Minneapolis and Chicago), has now become the backstage drama of the year.”
Regions Of Dance
John Rockwell takes a tour of four American regional dance companies. “To be sure, brief stops at the San Francisco Ballet, the Boston Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago don’t provide enough evidence with which to pronounce on the state of dance in this country. Nor to make sweeping judgments about the companies’ current quality. My visits were partly serendipitous – accidents of travel, not an attempt to set up some spurious battle of the bands. Still, in this sampling, Philadelphia and Chicago came out handily on top of Boston and San Francisco. And all four programs attested to the paradox that everything old can be new again.”
The Non-Dance Choreographer
Is Jérôme Bel a choreographer or a threatre artist? Bel, who has “become an international cult figure in the dance world by challenging its conventions” like working in the cracks of movement. “The question became, always, ‘How do I produce a show without dance?’ In France, we call my work conceptual, where the idea is more important than the realization. I’m not producing dance. I’m working at the borderline of dance.”
RSC Chooses Architects For Stratford Renovation
“An architectural partnership which has designed only one previous theatre was yesterday appointed to the £100m transformation of the art deco Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Bennetts Associates, whose Hampstead theatre, north London, opened in 2003, will convert the 1,400-seat end-on auditorium into a 1,000-seater with an improved relationship between actors and audience.”
The Great Big Art FAQ
There’s no need to be intimidated by the arts, no matter how off-putting some of the self-importance that surrounds them might be. But just in case you’re still a bit uncertain about how to act, dress, applaud, or appreciate the art event of your choice, the populist critics of the Chicago Tribune are here to help…
Urban Planning, University-Style
“Cities used to be planned by professional city planners. But the planning profession as we know it arose, to a large extent, as a response to the urban renewal legislation of the 1950s and ’60s, when federal funds poured into cities. Now federal money has dried up. Planning agencies in most cities are underfunded and weak. They react to proposals, rather than initiating anything themselves… So who’s doing serious planning? Look around. Harvard is planning a whole new neighborhood in Allston. Columbia, already the third-largest landowner in New York, has hired noted architect Renzo Piano to help mastermind its expansion into an area called Manhattanville. The University of Pennsylvania, the largest employer and largest landowner in Philadelphia, is reaching out to revitalize the city.”