This summer the New York Times is serializing fiction – starting with The Great Gatsby. “Unlike the way newspapers usually dabble with literature, the Times’ plan originated in the paper’s marketing sector, not among its editors. Each 16-page installment – sandwiched between the book’s cover art and a full-page ad for the series’ sponsor – comes as a tabloid-sized pullout.”
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Why The Miami Quartet Left Florida
Why did the well-regarded Miami String Quartet give up its Florida residency to move to become quartet-in-residence at Kent State? There are various stories. But one thing is clear, writes Laurence Johnson: “Though a much less public affair than the bankruptcy of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, the loss of the Miami String Quartet is a comparable blow to the local music scene.”
What’s Happened To The Joffrey?
The Joffrey Ballet returned to New York last week to participate in the Ashton celebration. “In the old days,” writes Tobi Tobias, “even when you weren’t feeling much admiration for it, you often still felt affection for the engaging personalities of its dancers and the troupe’s overall feisty spirit. My own happy acquaintance with several Ashton ballets comes solely from their Joffrey Ballet productions. Looking at Les Patineurs, A Wedding Bouquet, and Monotones I and II this past week I could only wonder, What happened? Not one of the stagings was as good as it should be—and had been.”
Ingmar Bergman In The 21st Century
Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman doesn’t have the cachet he once had. “It is perhaps frivolous to speak of a great artist ‘falling from fashion.’ But many of the values that are so highly prized in artworks of the early 21st century — irony, multiculturalism, a certain breeziness of affect — are quite different from those that Bergman offers. He is an unapologetically “high culture” European modernist, from a very specific time and place, one deeply influenced by the Lutheran faith (which he abandoned but not without a struggle), by psychoanalysis and existentialism, and by the dreamlike chamber plays of his great countryman August Strindberg. To this heritage, he has added his own filmic innovations, his own anxieties and obsessions, and a matchless linear intensity.”
Touring Theatre Moves On…
The days of the sell-em-out touring mega-musicals is over and the business of touring theatre has changed substantially. Eight years ago Equity actors logged 44,000 tour-weeks of work. By last season it was 21,000. More shows are hiring non-union actors, and more venues are vying for the shows that are out there. It all makes current negotiations on a new union actors contract a dicey affair…
Who Will Run CBC TV?
The CBC is looking for a new executive to run its English-language TV netork. The “job isn’t quite the plum it was even 10 years ago. The television universe is more crowded, competitive and confused than ever. Even with the continued popularity of Hockey Night in Canada, the CBC, like most traditional broadcasters, has lost audience share to the sundry cable and satellite-delivered services out there. Then, of course, there’s the constant insecurity over just how much the CBC can expect each year from its parliamentary appropriation.”
No Mystery Here – Uncompromising Filmmakers Make Hits
AO Scott ponders the phenomena of Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11’s success at the box office. “It was clear long before anyone had seen a frame of either “Passion” or “Fahrenheit” that what audiences would witness was the uncompromised, unfiltered vision of a strong-willed, stubborn and bloody-minded director. Is it too idealistic of me to think that this freedom from compromise is part of what attracted audiences? Perhaps more than ever before, the movie studios are ruled by timidity, anxiously tailoring their releases to avoid giving offense. Yes, they sometimes engage in the mock-provocations of sex and brutality, but these tepid buttons are pushed much less forcefully than they were 30 years ago. For the most part, movies, intent on maintaining an illusion of consensus, tread cautiously around the thornier thickets of our civic life.”
PBS On The Rocks?
About a third of PBS’ corporate underwriting has disappeared in the past three years, including ‘the considerable loss of ExxonMobil’s sponsorship of Masterpiece Theatre, which has yet to be replaced.” So is the public broadcaster a sinking ship?
City Ballet Struggles With Saratoga Residency
New York City Ballet used to draw 80,000-90,000 people in its Saratoga summer residencies. Now it’s more like 55,000. Both City Ballet and Saratoga want to keep the company performing in the upstate New York town, but they differ how to boost attendance…
Can Cleveland Theater Bloom Anew?
The Cleveland Play House has fallen on hard times both artistic and financial in recent years, but the arrival of new artistic director Michael Bloom seems to be generating real excitement for the future of theater in the city. Bloom talks less about reinvigorating the Play House as he does about reinvigorating the city, with theater as a focal point. “There has been what I would call a ‘standard repertory vision’ that just kind of assumes people are going to know why you are doing a play. You can’t assume that.”