While seemingly nobody was looking, Los Angeles has become fertile ground for cutting edge art. “Today, seemingly all of a sudden, theater, dance, music and strange hybrids thereof are cropping up all over the Los Angeles basin. Many of the attractions are well known at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and around the country, although their proliferation represents a decided plus for Southern California. What is really exciting, though, is the steady evolution of an arts sensibility distinctive to this part of the country.”
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Amid Funding Challenges, PBS Says It’s Poised To Succeed
“Despite concerns about diminished corporate and government funding, PBS President Pat Mitchell insisted Friday that public television’s structure – as a loose confederation of independent stations – will be an asset in the face of a rapidly consolidating media landscape.”
TV Programming As Ads (Or Is It The Other Way Around?)
So viewers are skipping TV ads with their Tivos? Okay, let’s just do away with the pretense that programming is anything more than filler between commercials. The WB network is planning a new show in which the ads will be built right into the show itself – product placement on steroids…
Grandage Takes Over Donmar
Michael Grandage is succeeding Sam Mendes running the Donmar Theatre. A scary prospect following a legend? No. “There’s a myth that it’s better for a director to inherit a theatre on its knees and build it up so that, when you leave, you can say ‘Look what I’ve done!’. But to inherit a theatre with an international brand name and a legacy of excellence means that the sky’s your limit. We already have an audience and actors wanting to come. I could never put on Camus in the first season in an unsuccessful theatre, but here I can, and that’s brilliant.”
Mackintosh To Invest £20 million In London Theatres
Producer Cameron Mackintosh says he’ll invest £20 million in fixing up West End theatres in London. “We have a unique treasury of Edwardian and Victorian theatres designed by great architects and we are committed to improving the UK and overseas public’s experience of visiting our theatres and the West End. These are important buildings.”
Getting A Handle On The Financial Choreography
Do dance company artistic directors need to know their ways around the balance sheets? Absolutely, says the new generation of AD’s. If not, you risk being under the thrall of the business side of the operation. “The infrastructure demands ballets that sell enough tickets to pay the salaries of the staff who sell the ballets. To break that cycle, an artistic director has to have a vision and a strategy. Otherwise, you’re trapped into doing 95 Romeo and Juliet’s to pay for one new work.”
Violent, Violenter, Violentest
A new genre of movie features extreme violence and gore. “The Big Disturbing Set-Piece Scene Of Violence has become its very own raison d’être, irrespective of its place in any supposed narrative order. It’s the one scene that will have them running for the exits, the one that will kick-start the controversy, and the one that will ultimately immortalise the movie. ‘We’ve reached a point where there is excessive pressure to show us what we haven’t seen before, with or without – but increasingly, without – dramatic or narrative support’.” What’s behind it?
The Right Sort Of Audience (How Absurd!)
National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner thanks the British government for its generous funding. But it’s time to stop asking artists to do the heavy lifting for social good, he writes. “There’s evidently a thing called the young audience and everybody accepts that it’s a good thing. And there’s also a white, middle class, middle-aged audience and it’s a very, very bad thing indeed. Until recently, the National Theatre’s audience was getting worse reviews than some of its shows. Then somebody noticed some kids in the house with studs through their noses, and the reviews looked up. We have to call a halt to this. There’s nothing inherently good about any particular audience. We mustn’t judge the success of an artistic enterprise by its ability to pull in an Officially Approved Crowd.”
Does BBC Play Music Encouraging Violence?
Does the BBC play music that “glorifies the gun, homophobic aggression, male chauvinism and drug culture?” The founder of a London recording studio thinks so. “There is no programme of positive black awareness, and there are no music programmes reflecting the large influence roots, lovers’ rock, jazz and dub had on Britain.” He added that “the producers of certain music shows should share some of the guilt every time a black youth dies by the gun in Britain”. The BBC denies the charges.
HipHopping To Ubiquity
“Hip-hop is everywhere these days, dictating fashion and music, rewriting opera and hawking products from Sprite to Budweiser on TV. Even the Pillsbury Dough Boy tried rapping out a beat in a recent commercial. The mass media is now so full of hip-hop idioms like ‘stankin’ (which means good) and ‘mo betta’ (sex) and beeper codes like ‘1812’ (war) that the average Joe is having a real hard time, basically, getting jiggy wit it all.”