- As the Humana Festival for New American Plays – the foremost festival of new theater in this country – gets under way in Louisville, Kentucky, theories are rampant about the true identity of playwright Jane Martin. Martin’s plays (including “Keely and Du”) have enjoyed many productions at Humana, yet no one has ever met her. There is much speculation that she is actually Humana founder Jon Jory, who is stepping down as the festival’s director this year. – NPR [Real audio file]
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THE SOUND’S THE THING
A great many successful Canadian plays started out as projects for CBC radio. “Requiring only some actors, a sound effects technician and a microphone, it has always been a cheap and easy place to make a start or take some risks.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
NOT HERE, NOT NOW
In a rare show of public protest, some of China’s preeminent architects and scholars are voicing their opposition to a government-backed plan to build a modern 2,500-seat opera house near Mao’s mausoleum in downtown Beijing. Critics of the Grand National Theatre – or “big duck egg,” as its glass-and-titanium design is becoming known – cite aesthetic as well as economic rationales. “The structure…is to cover 25 acres that supported hundreds of courtyard houses until they were bulldozed during the past few months.” – Financial Times
COURTING CONTROVERSY
With the inclusion of provocative works by Chris Ofili, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, and others, the 12th Sydney Biennale, which opens in May, seems ready (and eager?) for some Brooklyn Museum-style publicity. Museum of Contemporary Art Director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor said the show will “no doubt attract attention with Guo-Qiang’s naked woman on a horse…Chris Ofili, the artist who uses elephant dung, and Yayoi Kusama’s soft phalluses…it may well create outrage.” Be careful what you wish for. – Sydney Morning Herald
MARRIED TO THE MOB
Scottish painter Peter Howson has come clean about his dealings with Glasgow’s mafia underworld for the last 15 years. Internationally regarded for his “macho figurative paintings,” Howson explains “how his strange relationship with the world of crime began when he was visited in the 1980s by the kingpin of the Glasgow crime scene, the late Arthur Thompson, Sr., who offered cash on the spot for a canvas. Howson found himself supplying paintings to the city’s criminals for a fraction of the price charged by his London dealer. When he tried to renegotiate, he got death threats. Gangsters like art, it seems, but they like it cheap.” – The Guardian
MONEY TO BURN?
“The art trade, the most discontented profession on earth apart from farmers, has been groaning for nine years about lack of buyers. In 1999, as times turned good, it groaned about lack of sellers. For all its moans, it has done well in pulling pictures out for sale.” The Maastricht European Fine Art Fair showcased a stellar body of “hidden treasures” this year. The Fair closed yesterday, but here’s a top-10 list of masterpieces still available for sale. – London Evening Standard
SO LONG, FAREWELL
Nathan Leventhal announced he would step down as president of Lincoln Center after nearly 17 at the helm. His departure “comes at a crucial time for the center, which is considering a $1.5 billion campaign to upgrade its 40-year-old 11-acre campus.” – New York Times
CRIME & PUNISHMENT
As part of Eastern Connecticut University’s “Alternative Restitution Program,” students committing infractions on campus may now choose their course of punishment; community service … or an opera performance. It’s hard to predict what results this program will have on its subjects, but it certainly can’t be the best way to send a positive message about the arts to young people. “This business of opera as punishment may be the worst thing to hit classical music since the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange, which juxtaposed Beethoven with coldblooded violence.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
END OF AN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
The Boston Museum of Art sent out a letter to educators last week saying they would no longer be able to access the museum’s slide library for use in their classes. The slides, which are used in senior and community centers to educate the public about the MFA’s collection, are being stashed while the museum focuses its energies on putting digitized images on its Web site. A discouraged teacher laments, ending “‘rental privileges for slides from the MFA slide collection takes away our most valuable teaching tool, and the loss of this tool will result in the cancellation of many of our courses,”’ and possibly the loss of the 15,000 – 30,000 new MFA customers each year. – Boston Globe
A RESPONSIBLE ACTION?
Despite the fact that much rap music contains lyrics that are violent, degrading to women, Jews, whites and blacks, record labels have stood silently by while they have raked in millions of dollars from top-selling rap artists. Now Universal Music Group has told its “rap recording group the Murderers that it wouldn’t release their new album until they removed anti-police and anti-gay slurs from their lyrics.” If they’re being so responsible, some rappers have pointed out, why don’t they object to the “N-word”? – Los Angeles Times