Blog

Cincinnati – The Next Arts Mecca?

Seriously – is there something in the water? From Cincinnati, the city that recently doubled its public spending on the arts, news that the city’s Fine Arts Fund raised $10,003,550 in its 2003 campaign, 7.5 percent more than last year. This while fundraising for the arts in the rest of America has been increasingly difficult

Has Harvard Abandoned The Arts?

“Unlike Yale, Cornell, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard has no independent graduate school of the arts, nor any plans to fund graduate-level work in the practice of art. And ever since spring 2001, when the chair of the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) department was dismissed and Summers was named president, the University’s commitment to the arts has come under fire. Critics argue that Harvard’s archaic reluctance to recognize and incorporate the arts into its academic mission may discourage talented prospective students from choosing Harvard and threaten its prestige.”

Complaints About BBC Double

The number of complaints to the BBC doubled last year. “A total of 1,596 complaints were looked into in the year to March, compared with 794 in the previous 12 months. The corporation?s director general, Greg Dyke, claimed this was due to viewers now being able to email their views, rather than a rise in broadcasts prompting complaints.”

Everything’s Coming Up Knockoffs

Seems like everything’s a sequel these days. “Studios this year are delivering a record 25 sequels or prequels, the big onslaught starting with pre-summer releases of ‘X2: X-Men United’ and ‘The Matrix Reloaded.’ Sequels used to be hasty carbon copies meant to wring out a few more dollars from an earlier success. Studios today have learned that putting more thought and resources into follow-ups can produce franchises with bigger returns.”

Big Business Kids

In America “children’s theatre is big industry, with budgets for some theatres soaring as high as $9 million per year. The number of children who are served by these theatres is in the millions (4.6 million entertained by the New York-based Theatreworks/USA alone) and the companies that are committed to theatre for children and/or teenagers are booming.” So what’s different about doing theatre for kids?

Seeking Saddam

Auditions have been held in London for a Saddam lookalike for a new play. “The show’s organisers were surprised at the turnout, as 14 actors and amateurs donned military fatigues and berets for the open audition at London’s Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith. As the script, by Feelgood author Alistair Beaton, is still being written, the lookalikes were required to do nothing more than wave to imaginary crowds in the manner of the deposed dictator.”

Jazz – A Dying Breed

“As jazz settles into its second century, the number of musicians who qualify as living legends diminishes each year. Even in the 1970s — when the music was arguably at its lowest commercial ebb — many of the greatest names in its history were still rumbling around the five-star circuit. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus: all commanded the biggest stages. Today, it is harder and harder to find those living links with the past. The recent death of the showman Lionel Hampton was another reminder of how few titans are still with us.” Is the era of the jazz concert coming to a close?

Nunn Surfaces With The Serious

Trevor Nunn has been gone from London’s National Theatre only a month, and he’s launched into a new career – directing Ibsen. “No longer having to explain his decisions, he seems unburdened and even unbuttoned in the usual – and successfully youthful – head-to-toe denim (he is 63). He had hoped to do the Ibsen, in a new version by Pam Gems, at the National. But it got endlessly postponed, so when the Almeida asked me it seemed the obvious choice.”