A museum dedicated to the work of film producer Federico Fellini is being planned for the town of Rimini. “The five-room museum will display Fellini memorabilia including the director’s personal library, story-boards, sketches and photographs.”
Blog
Is Big Media A Threat Or An Opportunity?
Are our public airwaves and media choices being compromised as consolidation reduces the number of companies controlling media? “Should we totally deregulate the public airwaves and permit the dwindling of major media down to a precious few? Should we reduce choices available to cantankerous individualists who do not want their information and entertainment limited by increasingly massive mass media? ‘Luddite nonsense,’ answer many merging movie mogul and media magnates, as they point to the seemingly fierce competition from the Internet and the proliferation of cable channels.”
Thief Steals Art For Fake Gallery
A man who took art from artists for a gallery that didn’t exist, has been arrested in Florida. He portrayed himself as a Miami Beach gallery owner or lawyer, and “aspiring painters and sculptors sent him their work to be displayed in galleries. Several artists gave Evan Carter their credit card numbers to pay gallery dues or other fees, then noticed unfamiliar charges, police reports said.”
Sorting Out The Power Shift In Big Music/Tech Agreement
Last week’s truce between big music and tech companies concerning digital copying is a marriage of convenience. “Government intervention in product design is every tech company’s worst nightmare, and the specter of septuagenarian senators struggling to understand (let alone legislate) application program interfaces and watermarks was a frightening thought indeed. But the truce actually highlights the fact that a power shift has taken place between the media moguls and big tech. And guess what. Tech won.”
Training Orchestra – Does Toronto Deserve More?
Thirty years ago a young Seiji Ozawa learned to conduct as director of the Toronto Symphony. Now the orchestra has hired another inexperienced conductor in Peter Oundjian. “More than three decades later, we have a right to ask whether our orchestra should still be a learning opportunity for a relatively inexperienced maestro. Ozawa, as things transpired, turned out to be a quick study. But San Francisco and Boston, his next cities of residence, reaped most of the dividends.”
Al Hirschfeld, 99
His signature drawings of performers from the theatre were instantly recognizeable. “Mr. Hirschfeld was the best-known artist in the world of theater and had won a special Tony — an Antoinette Perry award — as a sign that the theater world welcomed him not only as an observer but also as one of its own.”
A New Generation of Russian Playwrights
Since Chekhov died almost a century ago, “the West has heard almost nothing from Russian stage writers. Their fame lies buried beneath the cultural glaciers of the 20th century’s big totalitarian chill. Now, though, a new wave of Russian writers is emerging…”
Going It Alone
Most people like to go to performances with someone else. Indeed, many consider going it alone to be some sort of personal failure. But David MacFarlane has discovered the benefits of single tickets. “Most importantly, going out alone means you can do whatever you want to do when it comes to responding to a performance.”
Wynton Marsalis – Lightning Rod
Wynton Marsalis is at the top of the jazz world. And his various projects animate the field. “The jazz world should love him, as audiences seem to. In fact, Marsalis seems to provoke equal amounts of admiration and loathing. Those who dislike him say he is a reactionary, holding back the progress of jazz and stifling innovation in his attempts to make jazz respectable and establish a canon of the ‘greats’.”
Seattle’s ACT Theatre Cuts Back
Faced with a $500,000 deficit, Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre reduces staff, shifts its schedule out of the summer, and cuts its budget from $5.9 million to $4.9 million. “Our revenues are being outpaced by expenses. We decided to take really decisive action. We want to make ACT a center for new plays, and the next five months will be a really important time for us to solidify this mission.”