It looks like the O’Neill Playwrights Conference is close to nameing a successor to James Houghton, who left as artistic director last week. “Mr. Houghton left the O’Neill after discovering that its board had decided to centralize control to reduce costs without consulting him. In a telephone interview on Tuesday, he said he would have cooperated with the centralization and would never have changed the submissions policy if he had known about the board’s cost-cutting plans in advance.”
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An Old Theatre’s History
The Milwaukee Theatre began life as the Milwaukee Auditorium, nearly a century ago. “Enrico Caruso sang there before 6,800 people in 1910, a few months after the Auditorium opened Sept. 21, 1909. Doughboys used it for a barracks during World War I. John Philip Sousa and his band played in 1929. The first Milwaukee Sentinel Sports Show was held there in 1940. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there in 1964.”
Man Attempts To Slash Renaissance Painting At National Gallery
A man has attempted to slash a priceless Renaissance painting – Bronzino’s Allegory With Venus And Cupid – at London’s National Gallery in front of horrified museum visitors. He was caught before the painting could be damaged.
New Jersey Opera Festival Calls It Quits
The well-regarded Opera Festival of New Jersey, a summer music fiestival, has announced it is closing because of financial pressures. “The festival, which was founded in Lawrenceville, N.J., 20 years ago and has been praised by critics as a highlight of the region’s summer classical music season, has been troubled by debt since it moved to the McCarter Theater in Princeton five years ago. A spokesman said the festival ended its 2003 fiscal year just under $700,000 in debt.”
A Music Museum For Washington DC?
Plans for a $200 million music museum to be built in Washington DC, were unveiled this week. “Supporters want a 155,000-square-foot museum included in the 10-acre redevelopment of the old D.C. Convention Center site six blocks east of the White House. The museum would contain three theaters, with 3,200, 750, and 250 seats for different types of performances. It would have 50,000 square feet of exhibit space for memorabilia and artifacts, many contributed by the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress.”
The Ballet Boyz With Unexpected Tastes
George Piper Dances (or the Ballet Boyz, as they are also known) have “an unexpected taste for austere, ostensibly cerebral choreography”. But here are a couple of things to know, writes, Tobi Tobias, “if you believe the folks who say that GPD represents the future of classical ballet, an art they claim is dying on its feet: (1) Classical ballet is a technique that can serve anywhere. (2) Classical ballet is also an art form that, like opera, is most itself when it can operate with a goodly number of performers in a sizeable house.”
Why Did James Houghton Leave The O’Neill?
James Houghton’s departure as artistic director of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s Playwrights Conference took many by surprise. “The sudden resignation took the theatre community by surprise, coming just five weeks after Houghton’s decision, announced publicly Mon., Sept. 15, that the O’Neill would ‘suspend’ indefinitely its longstanding policy of open submissions, a move that quickly provoked discord in the national playwriting community. The resignation also came following the O’Neill’s receipt of a letter, written by a three-time Playwrights Conference alum, questioning Houghton’s claim that the decision was largely based on the state of the institution’s finances.”
Congress Increases NEA Budget To $122 Million
“House and Senate conferees last week agreed to increase the NEA monies by $7 million over the amount in the original appropriations bill for the Interior Department, whose budget contains the arts-endowment funding. ‘This special budget increase marks a new era at the NEA,’ said Dana Gioia, the NEA’s chairman.”
We The Network
Should we stop thinking of ourselves as individuals and ponder our place in networks? It’s a “move from virtual reality – the old 90s idea of the net as a separate, alternative realm – to ‘augmented reality’ (AR), in which ubiquitous computing and mobile wireless networks are used to reconnect us to the real world. One theorist suggests “we should no longer think of ourselves as “fixed, discrete individuals”, but as nodes in a network. ‘I am part of the networks and the networks are part of me. I am visible to Google. I link, therefore I am’.”
Finding Nemo Sells At Record Pace
Finding Nemo has become the fastest-selling DVD and tape of all time. “The film sold more than eight million copies in the first day of US release, beating the record held by Spider-Man. Nemo is the most profitable cartoon in US cinema history and the biggest hit of the year at US box offices.”