Category: issues

“The City of Vancouver secretly approved a bailout of more than $1-million for the struggling Vancouver Playhouse Theatre and the Museum Of Vancouver (MOV), and will provide an annual operating grant to the theatre company, which had been facing bankruptcy without the emergency help.”

“The Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and the Toronto Centre for the Arts all felt a chill on Monday when it was revealed that one of City Manager Joe Pennachetti’s many possible areas to cut costs from the 2012 budget was for the government to step away from active involvement in those three facilities and “attempt to sell, lease or come to some other new arrangement” for the three theatres in question.”

“More than 360 performing-arts centers were constructed in the U.S. alone from 1994 to 2008. But overall, the cultural construction boom in North America has slowed.”

“Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is determined to break the Sydney-Melbourne arts corridor as the state invests millions of dollars into driving cultural tourism. Queenslanders are not seeing enough of taxpayer-funded national companies such as the Australian Ballet and Opera Australia, she says.”

“In a closely watched visual-arts copyright case, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday to permit an appeal by the artist Richard Prince, who was found in March by a lower court to have unlawfully used images by a French photographer to create a series of collages and paintings.”

“United States Artists says that creative folks conducting do-it-yourself fundraising on its website have reaped $1 million from philanthropically minded visitors in the initiative’s first nine months.”

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos never refers to “the Kindle.” Apple won’t allow “the Mac” or “the iPad.” “In Silicon Valley especially, dropping ‘the’ before product names has become an article of faith.” Says one marketing exec, “When you can drop an article, the brand takes on a more iconic feel.”

“The government has published proposals to scrap many of the licensing regulations that campaigners claim are stifling live entertainment in the UK. … Plans involve cutting regulation on sectors including travelling circuses, small-scale live music performances and even licensing for theatre performance with audiences of less than 5,000.”

As Kansas City prepares to open the new Kauffman Center, Scott Cantrell looks at some of the new centers that did – and that didn’t – live up to their hometowns’ hopes.

“Much of San Diego’s cultural life went dark during the [Sept. 8] outage, with restaurants, concert venues and playhouses shutting their doors. Only places with their own backup generators, like area casinos, kept the entertainment wheels turning.