Tag: 02.19.06

Can Hip Hop Save Theatre?

“Of course, to say hip-hop can save the day doesn’t mean it will. Already it has been around for a quarter century and registered barely a flicker on the New York theatrical radar. Whether its potential will ever be realized depends a great deal on what’s going on right now at New York Theatre Workshop, where the playwright Will Power has written a hip-hop adaptation of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes.”

A Longer, Finished Porgy

The version of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess known to the world may not be the version he intended to be the final one. “It turns out that Gershwin, during rehearsals for the New York premiere at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre, made extensive cuts and additions to his 700-page score. Since the composer died only two years later, in 1937, that edited but unpublished version represents, in effect, his final word on the subject.”

Seven Wonders Of The Modern World

What would they be? “In the past few years, voters nominated a number of manmade sites, and the 77 top vote-getters advanced. They were narrowed to 21 in January by a panel of world-famous architects (seven of them). Results will be announced Jan. 1, 2007. The only remaining U.S. site in the top 21 is the Statue of Liberty, though at least the Golden Gate Bridge, Empire State Building and Mount Rushmore made the list of 77 finalists. Even so, it’s an interesting glimpse at which of humankind’s architectural accomplishments still have the power to inspire.”

Springer Into The Future

Jerry Springer, The Opera, has had a rough ride on its UK tour. There have been protests, and ticket sales are slow. “So what does the future hold for Jerry Springer: The Opera? Producer Jon Thoday hopes to stage it in Australia, and has not given up on the idea of a Broadway production, although the controversy around the show has previously made it difficult to attract sufficient funding in America, where the Christian lobby is so powerful.”

Wanted: Detroit’s New Music Director

The Detroit Symphony is looking for a new music director. What kind of person should that be? “Every music director brings his own agenda, his own interests. They are all conductors first. Thirty years ago, that was enough. Now we expect them to be ambassadors as well, and in many different ways, raising money, speaking before concerts, meeting the public after performances. We have to realize that a conductor is a human being with his own strengths and weaknesses.”

English National Opera Gets Some Private Help

Lord Laidlaw, one of Scotland’s richest men, is helping to bail out English National opera, with a £2 million donation. Laidlaw, “who has almost single-handedly kept the Scottish Conservatives afloat since 1997, is to help to finance a number of productions over at least two seasons at the Coliseum in London’s West End. His intervention will be a huge relief to the opera company, which has been beset by a wave of financial and managerial problems.”