Nicholas Hytner’s tenure at the head of the UK’s National Theatre has not been without difficulty, but at the moment, he is presiding over an institution widely thought to be at the top of its creative and popular game. “In the last financial year he made a small profit, even with a slash in ticket prices, instead of the $900,000 loss that was predicted. He has filled 90 percent of the 2,300 seats, many with first-timers (as credit cards receipts attest). And he has staged new, risky work and venerable classics – from “Jerry Springer – the Opera” to Euripides’ “Iphigenia at Aulis” to David Hare’s “Stuff Happens,” a docudrama about the Iraq war – while sometimes dazzling audiences and critics.”
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Dorfman Dance, Act II
“With resources diminishing and costs rising, even established troupes are in a fierce struggle for survival, and only the most popular choreographers… are financially secure.” So when a once-celebrated choreographer finds himself at the wrong end of the fiscal stick, what options are left to him? For David Dorfman, the answer was to go back to where it all began – his alma mater, Connecticut College – and rediscover the simple magic of the form.
Put Down The Camera. Seriously. Now.
Thanks to the advent of digital video technology, it’s cheaper than ever to produce and shoot a film, and wannabes across the U.S. are taking their shot. But so few of these films will ever actually be seen by a paying audience that it often seems a terrible waste of talent and resources. “[Even] if you successfully navigate Hollywood’s gauntlet and your movie is made and released, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see real money from it. A studio movie costs on average $64 million to produce and $62 million to market, for a total average investment of $128 million per film… and, after the theaters take their share, only about 50 percent of the box-office gross revenue comes back to the studio.”
Confrontational Filmmaking: Not Just For Whackos Anymore
Michael Moore and Mel Gibson may be on opposite sides of the American socio-political divide, but both men made movies that transformed the Hollywood landscape in 2004. “Both generated the kinds of complicated discussions mainstream Hollywood normally tries to avoid… You could literally feel the audiences at these screenings connecting with these films… and the resulting theater-lobby conversations, while heated, were not nearly as simplistic or confrontational as the films’ attackers predicted.”
Is Pop Killing British Culture?
The managing director of the London Philharmonia is sounding the alarm about what he views as an unstoppable erosion of British high culture under the juggernaut of commercially-driven pop. “Thanks to a relentless diet of pop and dance music, television theme tunes and a growing cultural ignorance, most of his potential audience only hears classical music at the cinema. If it were not for foreign visitors and tourists, he claims, most classical concerts in Britain would be played to almost empty halls.”
PBT On The Brink
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre is in financial trouble again. One possible solution? The company is considering merging with another area arts group. Disappointing holiday sales and slumping subscriber renewals have exacerbated PBT’s situation, and the company has been without a managing director since last May.
U.S. Troops Decimate Babylon
“Troops from the US-led force in Iraq have caused widespread damage and severe contamination to the remains of the ancient city of Babylon, according to a damning report released today by the British Museum… The ancient city has been used by US and Polish forces as a military depot for the past two years, despite objections from archaeologists.”
London Gallery Accused Of Prejudice
London’s Hayward Gallery is being accused of racial discrimination in a £65 million lawsuit brought by a Harvard-educated Pakistani painter who says that the gallery lost or damaged 300 of his works. “The lawsuit might sound nearly as quixotic as his approach to selling his art – Geoffrey prices his work according to the relative wealth of his clients – but it is likely to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on the London art world’s treatment of foreign artists.”
Keeping Up With Ontario
Ontario’s decision to bail out its floundering film industry with a new round of tax credits and incentives has put the rest of Canada’s movie-hungry cities in a tight spot. On the other end of the country, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell is planning to get personally involved in attempts to rescue his province’s Hollywood fortunes.
Minority Fest Gains Status In Boston
Boston’s African-American Theatre Festival has been around since 2001, but it’s barely registered as a blip on the radar screen of one of the country’s top theatre towns. But “this year the festival has gotten a major boost in visibility and cachet. The Huntington Theatre Company is hosting the festival in the larger of its two new theaters at the Calderwood Pavilion in the South End.”