When Poetry magazine was given $100 million to promote poetry last year, naturally everyone wanted to know what was to be done with the money. Just as naturally, everyone has ideas about what would put the money to best use in promoting the cause of poetry…
Tag: 05.11.03
The “Great” Books We Hate?
“We are all impressed, and a little cowed, by great reputations; so when we confront the works themselves but fail to appreciate their achievement, their technical skill and their freight of wisdom, we assume that the fault must lie in ourselves in our limited grasp, our philistine blindness. But sometimes we hit back and allow ourselves the luxury to say, ‘No, no, it’s this damn book that is wrong; it’s this crappy plot and its flat-as-a-flounder characters, and this dismal dialogue’.”
“Hairspray” Likely To Sweep Tony Nominations
Tony award nominations are due out Monday. Early betting is that “Hairspray, the smash musical hit based on the cult John Waters film about a chubby high school girl, is likely to sweep the 2003 Tony Award nominations.
Critic: Surviving The Middle
Dominic Papatola says the toughest thing about being a critic is surviving the middle. “Working the edges is the most satisfying part of this gig: Any critic who tells you there isn’t perverse fun in writing a really nasty review is either lying to you or so generous he really shouldn’t be in the business. And the experience of a truly sublime night of theater is worth enduring 50 bad ones. But what of those nights that are neither black nor white — the scores and scores and scores of shows that run in a spectrum from pretty bad to pretty good? Those are the ones that will kill you — or burn you out, anyway — and there are lots of them.”
Trailer Fatique
Has anyone noticed there seem to be more trailers at the movies these days? Yes. “It’s the strongest marketing tool at a studio’s disposal. They’ve done surveys that indicate that moviegoers absolutely love trailers. But there is a point at which it becomes too much. What is that point? What number of trailers is optimal, and what number results in trailer fatigue?”
Censored In America
Think censorship isn’t alive in America? Just look around, writes Linda Winer – a movie of an opera doesn’t make it to TV, an talented actress gets blackballed for her political views, a movie about Castro gets canned…
Mid-Size Threat – Mid-Size Arts Take Biggest Public Funding Hit
If states like New Jersey eliminate their arts funding it will be inconvenient for large arts groups. Most small groups won’t notice because they’re small, have small budgets, and don’t count on public funding. But for mid-size groups… it’s a life-threatening situation.
A New Take On Dracula And Films About Dance
A new black-and-white silent film of a dance set to the story of Dracula captures movement on screen in a fresh way. “Made for the CBC, ‘Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary’ adapts choreographer Mark Godden’s ballet as a black-and-white silent melodrama, and happily, it marks a frenzied, hallucinatory departure from what viewers have come to expect from both Dracula and dance movies.”
Broadway’s British Invasion
British directors seem to have taken over Broadway. “No fewer than eight major British directors have been gainfully employed this season on Broadway. And three of them — Jonathan Kent, David Leveaux and Sam Mendes — are reviving the kinds of time-honored Broadway musicals that were once the sole province of American creators. The transatlantic shift in directorial talent hasn’t happened overnight.”
O’Neill Center Director Resigns
Howard Sherman resigned as executive director of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut to become more involved in full-scale theatrical producing elsewhere