The £106 million Wales Millenium Centre in Cardiff may be the most maligned new performing arts center ever to receive public funding, but on its opening weekend, organizers were giddy with excitement, and promised that the center, which has been derisively referred to a “beached whale” and a “sea slug”, will finally fulfill the dream of a uniquely Welsh performance venue.
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Chicago Artist Paschke, 65
Artist Ed Paschke, a supremely influential Chicago artist who helped lead the city’s surrealist/pop-based art movement of the 1960s, died this past week. “His visual world was rooted in a variety of American subcultures (as captured in commercial art and magazines), and it also was powerfully influenced by the electronic media.”
Playwrights Who Always Have Each Other’s Back
Boston playwright Patrick Gabridge has started “a 30-day online networking/marketing support group for playwrights” which encourages the participants to pool their knowledge of the business. “The Binge aims to create a sense of community. The group will tell their peers that this theater is amateurish, that director is hot. If a playwright can’t travel to another city to see the production of his or her play, other Bingers who live in that city will attend and report back. Aside from the information, contacts, and encouragement, the group provides the best kind of peer pressure: seeing other people get their plays done because they’ve taken the footsteps.”
The Broadway Factory You’ve Never Heard Of
Music publisher BMI is the force behind Broadway’s most successful creative workshop, but the group flies so far below the cultural radar that even most theater aficionados are unaware of its existence. “The workshop is little known except among music-makers, but to those in that rarefied world, it is the Harvard of show tunes, helping develop a string of hits that include A Chorus Line, Nine, Little Shop of Horrors and Urinetown… Every year, 30 to 40 aspiring lyricists and composers are selected for the highly competitive two-year course devoted to fundamentals. The third year (which students take again and again) is devoted to projects in development and is by invitation only.”
Tapping A Diverse Array of Pocketbooks
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre is known far and wide not only for the skill of its dancers, but for the fundraising acumen of its management and board. The company’s annual gala alone raised 11% of its annual budget last year, and this year’s event is expected to do at least as well. “The Ailey company’s success at raising funds is due in part to its special cachet. Ailey always insisted on having a multicultural group of dancers, even as his works celebrated his own African-American heritage. So the Ailey has always been both an ethnic institution and a colorblind one.”
KC Center Gets Three Big Anchor Tenants
Kansas City’s new $300 million performing arts center will be home to three of the city’s biggest arts groups when it opens in 2008. The Kansas City Symphony, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Kansas City Ballet have all signed letters of intent, promising to take up residence in the PAC for at least 20 years, and have agreed to rental terms with the center’s management. “The commitments let the Missouri Development Finance Board add $12.5 million each year over 2005-2006 to the annual allowable tax credits. The board currently has a $10 million annual cap.” The PAC suffered a funding setback this November, when voters rejected a bistate tax which would have created a significant new source of arts funding.
When Concert Halls Attack!
The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s glittering new home may be glittering just a bit too much for its neighbors. “The world-famous Walt Disney Concert Hall — crown jewel of downtown Los Angeles’ revival — must lose some of the luster from its polished stainless-steel exterior before somebody goes blind, according to a new report. The brilliant rays blind drivers, pedestrians and nearby residents, and create sauna-like conditions in condominiums and businesses. Temperatures on the sidewalks surrounding the hall have been measured at up to 138 degrees.” Los Angeles County officials are considering a plan to sandblast the shimmering stainless steel walls of Disney Hall to dull the glare.
Come See The Music
Classical music aficionados are a notoriously conservative bunch, particularly in Philadelphia, where attempts to modernize the concertgoing experience have nearly always been met with overt hostility. Video screens, in particular, have always been most unwelcome guests in the concert hall, even when the music demands their presence. “The issue is crucial among many who care about the future of classical music: The rationale is that visualizing this centuries-old art form could compensate for dwindling music-education programs in public schools, and could help cultivate a new, under-40 audience… Success often rests on two factors: Suitable visual content and the technical coordination with the music.”
Newspaper: SPAC Must Change Its Corporate Culture, And Fast
The blistering audit of New York’s Saratoga Performing Arts Center that was released this week offered stunning revelations of mismanagement and near-criminal conduct by those in charge of the popular summer venue. Still, SPAC cannot be allowed to wither further on the vine, says its hometown newspaper: “The public trust has been understandably shaken. But to turn away from SPAC would be a grave mistake. SPAC is too wonderful a venue and too valuable to the community.”
Gardner Museum Plans Major Expansion
Boston’s Gardner Musweum is announcing a major expansion. “If successful, the project would triple the Gardner’s special exhibitions space, move the cafe and administrative offices out of the ornate “Palace,” and create a new main entrance. It would mark a dramatic leap for the museum, which has long wrestled with ways to modernize its operation without violating the strict, legal limits Isabella Stewart Gardner created to maintain the museum’s distinctive atmosphere.”