Category: issues

Chicago’s new theatre for mid-size arts companies had its debut over the weekend. It’s not the warmest space to be in, reports Sid Smith. But “on the plus side, the seats are comfortable, and a steep rake, especially in the balconies, makes for superb sightlines, particularly for dance. The well-equipped stage is wide and deep, but flexible, able to accommodate both the large corps de ballet from George Balanchine’s ‘Serenade’ and the natural intimacy of duets during Saturday’s inaugural gala.”

You buy your ticket, and a message with concert details and a bar code is sent to your cell phone. At the concert you whip out your phone, and a bar code scanner reads your ticket information.

“The US government typically gives the wealthiest private universities, which often serve the smallest percentage of low-income students, significantly more financial aid money than their struggling counterparts with much greater shares of poor students.
Such disparities have been a sore point among universities for years, leftovers from an era when federal money was given to colleges on an individual, almost negotiable basis. Now, for the first time in more than two decades, the nation’s financial aid officers are calling for the imbalances to be wiped away, replaced by a system that steers financial aid toward the universities that poor students actually attend, rather than those with the biggest reputations.”

“Does federal financial aid simply give colleges an excuse to raise tuition higher and faster than they otherwise would?” Some are asking the question as the US federal deficit balloons. “Whether from necessity or principle, some Republicans now argue that holding the line on aid might be just the ticket to keep college costs down.” Most higher-education economists reject the idea as “simplistic and ideologically convenient.”

The Chicago Humanities Festival saw attendance soar by 45 percent this year; 50,000 came in the first weekend… “The festival’s popularity is one sign of an American public that is becoming more deeply engaged in serious issues, such as national identity. In the late 1990s, networking clubs were means for aspiring entrepreneurs to find someone else’s money to spend. The current wave of discussion clubs offers instead a vehicle to get clever, not rich, quick.”

The newly-revived 4,200-seat Milwaukee Theatre is opening. Supporters say the theatre will attract new shows to the city. But managers of Milwaukee’s other theatres are unhappy. “Nothing different will come here. Everyone’s fighting for the same shows, and that causes artists’ fees and ticket prices to go up. There are fewer shows out there and more venues.”

The Milwaukee Theatre began life as the Milwaukee Auditorium, nearly a century ago. “Enrico Caruso sang there before 6,800 people in 1910, a few months after the Auditorium opened Sept. 21, 1909. Doughboys used it for a barracks during World War I. John Philip Sousa and his band played in 1929. The first Milwaukee Sentinel Sports Show was held there in 1940. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke there in 1964.”

“House and Senate conferees last week agreed to increase the NEA monies by $7 million over the amount in the original appropriations bill for the Interior Department, whose budget contains the arts-endowment funding. ‘This special budget increase marks a new era at the NEA,’ said Dana Gioia, the NEA’s chairman.”

Voters in Fort Worth, Texas may get a chance to vote of whether they want to continue setting aside 2 percent of bond-issue construction projects for public art. The city’s mayor proposed slashing the public art share to one percent earlier this year, but dropped the plan when many protested.

“Digital cameras in cell phones are a huge hit – more than 80 million have been sold so far. But with so many people snapping away pictures, “what are the rights of the person being photographed, and should controls be put into place to limit where and how camera cellphones may be used?”