“What is disappearing, some say, are the light classics that once were staples of mainstream classical concerts that, around the middle of the last century, migrated to pops” and which pops orchestras have now abandoned in favor of classic rock and the like. Says conductor John Mauceri, “If you’re going to do a Mahler symphony as the centerpiece of a concert, you don’t have any room for von Suppé or Offenbach.”
Category: AUDIENCE
Are Pay-What-You-Will Nights Good For Theater Companies?
Charleston’s theater community is one of many where the debate continues. Says one artistic director, “People are driven by ticket costs. The reason we do it is to eliminate a barrier to participation.” Another argues that pay-what-you-will “devalues the art.”
Leslie Jones, Anatomy Of A Troll Attack
“The horrific hack, which happened more than a month after peak Ghostbusters backlash, just goes to show the depths of racism and misogyny reserved for black women in the public eye.”
The World’s Biggest Viral Video Star Is A Grumpy Young Chinese Woman
“Jiang Yilei is the girl next door who rants about dieting and nagging parents in the living room of her cluttered apartment here. … She is also one of China’s most sudden and popular online celebrities, better known as Papi Jiang. In less than a year, her business partners say, she has accumulated 44 million followers, across multiple platforms, with her fast-talking satirical videos.”
Oxford Dictionaries Begins Search For World’s Most Disliked English Word
“Kicking off what it hopes will be the largest global survey into people’s language gripes, the dictionary publisher is inviting English speakers around the world to answer a range of language-related questions under the #OneWordMap initiative, starting with the quest to find the least popular English word.” (includes current leading contender)
Italy To Give Every 18-Year-Old €500 To Spend On Culture
“In a scheme that gets underway on September 15th, every Italian resident [born in] 1998 will be given a ‘culture bonus’, which they can use to buy books, concerts tickets, theatre tickets, cinema tickets, museum visits and even trips to the country’s national parks.”
Why Hollywood Thought Remaking ‘Ben-Hur’ Was Ever A Good Idea (And Why That Was Wrong)
“In 2004, Mel Gibson’s biblical film The Passion of the Christ hit theaters after a months-long, small-scale ad campaign that focused on church groups and evangelical leaders … After opening on Ash Wednesday, it became the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, earning $611 million worldwide.” The new Ben-Hur, on the other hand, “opened this weekend to a pitiful $11.4 million at the box office.”
Report: Consumers Are Mostly Not Buying Or Renting Digital TV Shows
“46 percent of consumers have ever bought or rented a digital movie or TV show, according to GfK’s recent Home Technology Monitor. In contrast, 86 percent of consumers have rented or bought a DVD or Blu-ray in the past, and 78 percent have done so with a VHS tape.”
Bad Puppy! The Alt-Right Clique That Tried To Hijack Sci-Fi’s Hugo Awards
The Hugo awards ceremony “only represents tiny, insular, politically motivated cliques taking turns giving their friends awards,” Larry Coreia, a ringleader of the Puppies, argued in 2015. Because of this supposed conspiracy — for which there continues to be no real evidence — he felt justified in helping organize an actual conspiracy of his tiny, insular, politically motivated clique to flood the ballot with conservatives.
‘No Hugging, No Learning’: How ‘Seinfeld’ Really Changed Television
“Anti-hero sagas like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Shield, and Californication may not appear to have much in common with a sitcom about four nebbishy New Yorkers. But Seinfeld‘s immense popularity proved to network executives that audiences could get on board with a show that didn’t necessarily end with a lesson and a group hug – and characters that reveled in their flaws instead of working to overcome them.”