A Bookspan survey of avid readers finds the Bible is the book they most recommend to President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. John McCain’s “Why Courage Matters” and Walter Isaacson’s “Benjamin Franklin” were also favorites.
Blog
Live Performance In A Culture Of Convenience
“Unlimited cultural choice might have evolved with utopian hope that all of us would be better and more diversely informed and entertained. But it’s devolved into a dystopia of cultural myopia, a place where you can find your own little silo of truth, oblivious to the cacophony of ideas blaring around you.” Getting out of the house to attend a live performance can shatter that complacency — and make us better citizens.
A Bumper Crop Of Plays On Broadway
In recent years, the paucity of straight plays on musical-happy Broadway has been a simple fact of life. This season is different, with 10 plays and only three musicals scheduled to open before January. But even when big names are attached, plays have a tougher time making it on the Great White Way.
NY Actors To Get Health Care Subsidy
New York actors, musicians, and performers could keep their health care coverage even when they’re between jobs, under a new bill signed into law by the governor this week. The bill isn’t a panacea for performers – any individual making more than $19,345 per year isn’t eligible, for instance – but it’s being hailed as a major step forward in quality of life for performing artists in the state.
RSC’s Plans For Stratford Unveiled
The Royal Shakespeare Company has gone public with its revised plans for the historic Stratford theater it calls home, months after agreeing to renovate the structure rather than knock it down, as the RSC was originally hoping to do. The new design will incorporate a “thrust stage” which places the audience in the middle of the on-stage action, while maintaining crucial art deco elements of the room. The renovations will cost £100 million, and the RSC is planning to apply for significant governmental aid to assist with the project.
Wasn’t This Supposed To Be A Musical?
The fall theater season has begun in New York – not that you’d notice. In fact, “between now and New Year’s Day there is exactly one new musical scheduled to open” on Broadway, which could put a serious dent in the Great White Way’s ticket sales. “It is musicals, particularly splashy new ones in nice big theaters, that are the engines driving Broadway’s economy, drawing nearly $9 out of every $10 spent on tickets last season.” Eight musicals are slated for spring 2005, but it may be a long, cold winter until they arrive.
Boston’s Underperforming FilmFest
The Boston Film Festival wrapped up this past Sunday, and unless you live in New England, you probably missed it. So what makes festivals in Toronto and New York such a big deal, while other cities struggle for recognition? “What the BFF lacks is a distinct programming sensibility, which is a quality that’s impossible to define yet unmistakable when you’ve got it. A well-curated film festival creates excitement and the feeling you’re getting early access to the movies that matter… Without such a sensibility, you have a group of movies with no collective momentum, and that, year in and year out, is what the Boston Film Festival offers.”
Imagine If They’d Shown Both Breasts
CBS has been fined a record $550,000 by the Federal Communications Commission for its 2-second airing of pop singer Janet Jackson’s right breast during the Super Bowl halftime show last January. The incident touched off months of shrill debate over broadcasting decency standards, and led directly to an FCC crackdown and an increase in the maximum allowable fines for such offenses.
Post vs. McGruder, Round 2
The Washington Post has pulled a week’s worth of installments of Aaron McGruder’s controversial comic strip, The Boondocks, and forbidden one of its editors from linking to the strips in an online forum. The strips in question depict rap mogul Russell Simmons introducing a new reality TV show entitled “Can A N***a Get A Job?” It’s not the first time the Post has pulled McGruder’s strip from its pages – a previous plotline which seemed to question the sexuality of National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was scrapped in 2003.
Speaking Up For The Truly Underpaid Orchestras
The orchestra world is obsessed with wondering whether musicians in some of the top U.S. orchestras will be forced to accept wage reductions this fall. But times are tough throughout the industry, and Drew McManus wonders why no one seems to care about the musicians who really can’t afford the cuts. “It’s those [smaller] ensembles that employ the majority of professional orchestra musicians and bring classical music to that largest segment of the population. If those musicians begin to slip below the waterline of financial sustenance, they’ll need to find a life preserver of non-performance income just to keep from drowning. And if we see that come to pass then it’s a sure sign that the industry is devouring itself from the inside out.”