Mark Boyle was one of the great unsung British artists of the late 20th Century. “Outside such circles, the Boyles have never fully achieved the degree of popularity merited by their art, although an important retrospective staged by Edinburgh’s Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2003 did much to redress this oversight.”
Tag: 05.10.05
Frankfurt Hires Paavo Järvi
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony has signed up Paavo Järvi as its new music director. Järvi is also music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The Estonian-born conductor has signed a three-year contract, effective with the 2006-07 season.
Sydney Theatre – Jumbo Jet On A Card Table
The Sydney Theatre Company posts a small surplus. But it’s not enough says the company’s director. “When you make a profit of $12,000 on a turnover of $22 million, you are landing a jumbo jet not so much on a tennis court but a card table. The fine line between survival and the awful alternatives is becoming finer, and to be only able to do that when we have, in fact, played through our highest ever box office and raised our largest ever amount from private support is a worrying trend.”
Two New Names On Broadway
The Shuberts rename two of its Broadway theatres for two longtime lawyers for the company. “In an industry in which having one’s name placed on a marquee is considered the highest of honors – usually reserved for playwrights, impresarios, owners and composers – the decision to rename the theaters was met with skepticism from the Broadway community, a tough crowd if ever there was one.”
The Mystery Of Hollywood’s Missing Audiences
Hollywood is starting to wonder what happened to its audience. It’s been “11 weeks in a row of declining movie attendance and revenue compared with last year, adding up to the longest slump since 2000 and raising an uncomfortable question: Are people turning away from lackluster movies, or turning their backs on the whole business of going to theaters?”
Play Factor – Competing For the West End
A new British TV reality series aims to find a young playwright and get his or her work in the West End. “The programme, called The Play’s The Thing, will be in the spirit of Operatunity and Musicality, previous reality arts shows from Channel 4. Novice playwrights are invited to submit scripts, which will be whittled down by Sonia Friedman, an agent and a director. The series will follow the winning writer as he or she develops the play, and go behind the scenes as the production is prepared from raising the investment to opening night.”
Celebrating Arthur Miller
Theatre world lumninaries gather on Broadway to celebrate the life of playwright Arthur Miller, who died in February at the age of 89. “Some of the most poignant words spoken at the memorial were, not surprisingly, Mr. Miller’s own. Daniel Day-Lewis, who is married to Mr. Miller’s daughter Rebecca, read from an essay in Mr. Miller’s collection “Echoes Down the Corridor,” and Estelle Parsons read the speech Linda Loman gives at her husband’s funeral in “Death of a Salesman.” Joan Copeland, Mr. Miller’s sister, read from “The American Clock,” a Miller play inspired by Studs Terkel’s “Hard Times,” in which she starred on Broadway in 1980.”
Billionaire Cancels Plans For Paris Museum
“François Pinault, a billionaire who is France’s wealthiest art lover, announced Monday that he was abandoning plans to build a $195 million contemporary art museum on the outskirts of Paris and would instead present part of his vast collection in the Palazzo Grassi, an elegant exhibition space on the Grand Canal in Venice that he recently acquired.”
Hall: An Honest Opera House
Peter Hall is directing at Glyndebourne: “I think this is a much more honest opera house now than Covent Garden. I just went to see Rheingold and paid £175 for my ticket. That’s a disgrace. This is our national subsidised opera. They should have double the subsidy and cheaper prices. Here, it’s a private enterprise and people pay what it needs to charge, but no one’s making money out of it. The artists work here for less than they normally get because the conditions are the best.”