A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor’s weekly variety show focused on the fictional prairie town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, will shortly be going Hollywood. Director Robert Altman and a cast chock full of Hollywood bigs will be collaborating with Keillor on a movie version of the show, with filming to take place during live performances this winter in St. Paul.
Blog
China’s New Comeback Kid
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is an unlikely hometown hero in a country famous for its purges of artists. Ai’s father, a famous poet, was the victim of such a purge, and the family spent most of Weiwei’s childhood in “reeducation camps” scattered across the Gobi Desert. But this year, the artist has found new fame in China for his contribution to the design of the country’s new Olympic Stadium. But fierce criticism of the design has been emanating from Chinese architecture circles, largely due to the involvement of European design firms.
Politics? That’s So Last Week
Hollywood’s brief dalliance with political filmmaking appears to have been short-lived. As the election season steamrolls towards its conclusion, big-budget studios are turning back to that old Hollywood standby, escapism, to sell tickets. While left-leaning documentaries have done big business this year, “politically oriented films like Paramount’s Team America: World Police, which has taken in only about $23 million so far, and The Manchurian Candidate… with about $66 million in ticket sales, have been disappointments at the box office.”
Music Biz Of The Future (Could It Please Happen Now?)
Clearly, the way of the future is getting music over the internet. And this will be good for the music business. “But the question facing the music industry is when that future will arrive. And the issue is most urgent for the four big companies that dominate the production and distribution of music—Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI.”
Glimmer Of Hope For Endangered Gem
“A group of top Broad way producers, who have backed some of the most important American plays of the last several years, may throw a lifeline to Gem of the Ocean. The producers — Elizabeth I. McCann, Roger Berlind and Scott Rudin — were trying yesterday to figure out a way to get the acclaimed August Wilson play to Broadway this season. Gem of the Ocean is on the brink of collapse because its lead producer, Ben Mordecai, has failed to raise the $2.3 million needed to bring it to the stage.” Still, the trio of producers has no intenion of bailing Mordecai out of his existing debts, so the production must still be considered a long shot.
Congratulations! Now Get Out There And Sell, Sell, Sell!
When an author wins the Booker Prize, as Alan Hollinghurst just did, publishers more or less expect a sales bonanza. But awards are no guarantee of public acclaim, and there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done to meet those high sales expectations. Hollinghurst is discovering that, for the recipient of the Booker, the work has only just begun. Job one: divest the literary press of the notion that he is a “gay writer” and that his book is a breakthrough work of “gay fiction.”
Terra Looks For Extended Life Online
When Chcago’s Terra Museum of American Art closes forever this Sunday, it will represent a major loss for the city’s art scene, but the Terra Foundation’s extensive collection will not simply be dispersed to the winds. “The entire collection is soon to be made available on the foundation’s new Web site, www.terraamericanart.org. And 50 of the major works, as well as the museum’s complete collection of 350 works on paper, will be temporarily loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago in January.”
Organized Crime Unit Recovers Missing BC Violins
“Two violinists from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra have been reunited with their instruments after they were stolen seven months ago.” The instruments, both of which were valuable 19th-century specimens, were taken out of the back seat of a car, and were reportedly recovered by a branch of the Vancouver Police known as the Intelligence Unit for Eastern European Organized Crime.
Chicago Still In The Red, But Improving
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra ran a deficit of $2.3 million on a budget of nearly $58 million in its 2003-04 season. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that the red ink is about $1.7 million less than the CSO had anticipated, and significantly less than the $7 million deficit of a few years ago. Still, the orchestra was forced to withdraw more than $9 million from its endowment in the past year to cover operating costs. The CSO’s management team has pledged a return to balanced budgets by the 2006-07 season.
Major Shakeup At Adelaide
The entire upper management team of Australia’s Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has resigned just a few weeks before the ensemble launches its much-anticipated Ring cycle. Tempers had reportedly flared at Adelaide in recent weeks over the management’s plan to combat persistent deficits by replacing full-time players with part-time freelancers. The orchestra’s outgoing chairman took a shot at the federal government for what he calls the “persistent underfunding” of the ASO.