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Outdoor Ballet Screening Fizzles

In Sheffield, so few people came to a free outdoor screening of a performance of the Royal Ballet, that organizers could have bought each member tickets to the performance in London for what it cost for the screening. Organisers hoped that Monday evening’s performance would attract 20,000 people. “But the estimated audience was only 1,000 which, if correct, would mean that the performance subsided each member by nearly £30 – just a few pounds short of the cost of a seat in the stalls at the Royal Opera House to see the same ballet, Manon.”

Kaiser’s Prescription For Bad Times: Do More

The Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser says that in hard times arts organizations need to do more, not less. “When an organization has a little bit of a problem, it is the first reaction of the board and staff that tends to make the problem worse. Their natural reaction is to pull in and say, ‘We have to do less.’ Organizations get into a vicious cycle. They cut back a little bit on art and marketing. They get a little bit less revenue the next year, and they cut back a little more. And they have less. They have less, they have less, they have less.”

Remembering Berio

“Luciano Berio, a composer whose work included orchestral pieces, electronic experiments, a series of famous works for solo instruments, operas and chamber works, viewed music in the broadest of historical perspectives. He used the phrase “remembering the future” to describe his musical philosophy. He made his name as an avant-gardist and he remained a Modernist throughout his career, but he also saw himself as reinventing the past.”

Public TV Station Sells Show To Commercial Television

For the first time, Boston public TV station WGBH, the leading producer of programming for public television, has signed a deal to produce a program for a commercial channel. ”My objective is to make ‘GBH the leading producer of educational programming for kids on TV. ‘We would always try to produce for public television first. But if there is no room on their schedule or money, we’ll go where we need to go.”

Video Games Help Develop Skills

A new study reports that players of video games develop better visual skills than non-players. “Experienced players of these games are 30 percent to 50 percent better than nonplayers at taking in everything that happens around them, according to the research, which appears today in the journal Nature. They identify objects in their peripheral vision, perceiving numerous objects without having to count them, switch attention rapidly and track many items at once. Nor are players simply faster at these tasks. First-person action games increase the brain’s capacity to spread attention over a wide range of events.

Right For The Site

“Site-specific theatre is not new; indeed, it arguably has its roots in the happenings of the 1960s. What’s striking is the number of site-specific pieces on the scene and, more notable, the variety, each work with its own philosophical underpinnings. To wit: An existing play placed in a particular setting and, as such, enhanced or reimagined in some way – in fact, the site may be a part of a play’s revised aesthetic. Or a work fashioned to suggest something about a site, or a site and narrative that inform each other in a theatrical manner.”

Lord Of The Rings Musical To Be Most Expensive

A new musical in London’s West End is expected to be the most expensive show ever to hit London. “An £8 million musical version of ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ is to premiere in London. An adaptation of Tolkien’s trilogy is due to open at the beginning of 2005 and will cost £1.5 million more than ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, until now the biggestbudget musical in the capital. Eventually it is hoped the production will roll out across the world.”

Dance Of The Hobbits

So what will a new “Lord of the Rings” look like? “A singing and dancing cast of 50, playing hobbits, elves, giant trees, wizards, monsters and the other main creatures of the author’s Middle Earth are due to take to the stage in spring 2005. ‘If Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident we can put on the whole of Middle Earth’.”

Washington DC’s Building Boom

Washington is in the midst of a building orgy, as $2.4 billion worth of new museums, theatres and other arts projects go up. “The grandest plans are taking shape at the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum complex, which is adding two new museums — the National Museum of the American Indian, on the National Mall, and an immense hangar-style addition to its popular National Air and Space Museum adjacent to Dulles International Airport in nearby Virginia.”