A Denver production of a play about murderer Charles Manson is having a poster problem. No sooner do posters for the play go up in local businesses when they’re taken down. “The average poster life is about 48 hours, we’re finding. They’re either coming down because somebody’s offended or because they’re hanging them on their wall.”
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Online Pirate DVD Factories Offering Latest Blockbusters
Movie studios are trying to shut down slick new internet sites operating out of Malaysia that are offering pirated DVD copies of all the latest Hollywood fare for $13.99 a disk. “Pirated DVDs have been available on the streets of New York and other U.S. cities as well as on the Internet for years, but Temple said Web sites attempting to mass-market bootlegs were a relatively rare and recent phenomenon.”
Do Automated Radio Stations Degrade Local News?
Instant news response has always been one of radio’s greatest strengths. However, with consolidation of ownership in the radio industry, many radio stations are automated, programmed from miles away. So when big news happens, it’s often impossible for “local” radio stations to report on it. “This debate is particularly acute now, because the FCC is considering whether to let companies own even more stations.”
End Of The National’s Musicals
So Nicholas Hytner decrees London’s National Theatre won’t be producing the big flashy musicals anymore. “This seems, at first blush, somewhat dog-in-the-mangerish of him. As a guest director, he was responsible a few years ago for a production of ‘Carousel’ that ranks as one of the National’s most successful and enlightening musical revivals. It’s as if, having had his fun, he’s all set to stop other directors – not to mention other audiences – having theirs. He has a point or two, though.” These big musical revivals – do they really work artistically?
More Title Squeamishness
Producers of a production of “The Vagina Monologues” in Moncton, New Brunswick are finding a chilly reception there. “People get all giggly and squeamish when they hear the word. But worse, we’ve had companies very reluctant to support us, people who wouldn’t return our phone calls. One person I spoke to wouldn’t send out our e-mail poster to their 700 employees because he didn’t think his boss would think it is a good idea.”
“Chicago” Leads Oscar Nominations
“Chicago,” the musical, leads Oscar nominations with 13. “Other best-picture nominees for the 75th annual Oscars were the 1860s vengeance epic `Gangs of New York’; the Virginia Woolf-related drama `The Hours’; the fantasy adventure `The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’; and the Holocaust saga ‘The Pianist’. Nominations were announced Tuesday morning
Phillips Collection To Expand
Washington’s Phillips Collection is expanding. “The Phillips has bought an adjoining four-story, 15-unit apartment house on 21st Street NW fashioned in the early 20th century out of two town houses. The museum will keep that building’s cream-colored facade while gutting the interior. The museum bought the apartment house for $1.4 million two years ago, and it has budgeted $20 million for the expansion, a figure that museum officials expect to rise.”
2002’s Most Popular Museum Shows
What were the most popular art exhibitions of 2002? The Art Newspaper does its annual survey. This year “Van Gogh and Gauguin” was the top show on both sides of the Atlantic. At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam the show drew almost 7000 visitors a day – for a total of 739,117.
Fixing The 70s…What To Do With Those Ugly Buildings?
What to do with all those ugly (usually) concrete buildings of the 1960s and 70s? “Demolition is cathartic and the idea of a blank piece of paper seductive. But though developers can make a profit tearing down 1960s office buildings, elsewhere comprehensive redevelopment has proved hellishly expensive. That sort of money is never going to be available for the arts, though,” so how to make arts buildings of that period work?
Opera – MIA On PBS?
Opera is disappearing from American television. “The prospect is not a pretty one for full-length opera on PBS. Shadowed by ever-diminishing ratings, opera telecasts are being chased even from the not-for-profit airwaves. This coming season, the most familiar, and once constant, ‘content providers’ – the Metropolitan and New York City Operas, respectively – find their programming plans in disarray. After twenty-five years of televising three to four operas a year, the Met has only one scheduled for 2002-2003.”