Category: issues

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.”

Chicago’s new $53-million, 1,500-seat Music and Dance Theater Chicago is under construction despite a shortfall of $13 million. The theatre is designed to be a home to many of the city’s mid-size arts groups, but there’s some debate about how many of them will really use it. “Many of the groups lack the financial resources to make a go of it in this new space without a lot of new financial help. Some of them have struggled to pay their bills at the Athenaeum, which charges about as much per week as the new theater will charge per day.” Says one critic: “I don’t think we need that theater. But it’s not about need. It’s about being downtown and building a monument. So what can you do?”

Boston mayor Thomas Menino has announced a plan where the city’s Cultural Affairs office will raise money privately and redistribute it to arts groups. “The mayor described the campaign as a ‘two-pronged’ public-private partnership that would ‘streamline distribution of Boston resources, generate new revenues to support arts and culture, and raise the visibility of the arts in the city’ at a time when public funding for the arts has been slashed in Boston, throughout Massachusetts, and across the country.” Critics wonder if this now means the city will be in competition with them to raise money for the arts…

In Los Angeles, a number of decaying old movie palaces are being restored, thanks in large part to a private investor with a passion for old films. And the redevelopment has another big city 3,000 miles away paying attention. In Philadelphia, where downtown is bustling and decrepit old buildings are being torn down at a record rate to make way for new structures, time is running out on the one remaining classic movie palace in town. But will the city consider a one-screen throwback worth saving?

A startling new report from an Illinois group reveals a near-total lack of planning on the part of arts organizations nationwide for replacing their top executives. “Three out of four non-profit arts organizations report having no succession plans, even though nearly three-quarters of their aging top managers say they plan to quit within five years.” And while it may be true that arts groups don’t have the budgets to carefully groom successors from within, as is the norm in the corporate world, the recent rash of hasty executive departures from orchestras and museums points up the lack of foresight.

Only four of the organizations on Worth’s list reside west of Chicago, and the list of 24 is heavily populated with New York area institutions. “Did Worth’s conclusions reflect an East Coast-centric view of the arts world?”

A week ago Kennedy Center chief Michael Kaiser wrote a piece in the Washington Post warning of the current perilous state of the arts in America. This week, Lincoln Center chief Reynold Levy responds, citing healthy signs of arts activity all over America, and concluding by urging Kaiser to “leave the predictions of Cassandra and the wailings of Jeremiah backstage.”

A new exhibition in New York shows artists who have purposely sampled and copied other artists’ work. “All of the pieces either have run afoul of copyright owners in the past or could be expected to in the future.” It makes the point that current copyright laws are overly restrictive of artists who use other artists work in their own.