“The Charlotte Symphony’s work to overcome its financial troubles became more urgent and more difficult today when the [Charlotte-Mecklenburg] Arts & Science Council cut more than $1 million from its support to the orchestra – and said the orchestra won’t even get the reduced amount unless it delivers a restructuring plan the ASC deems viable.”
Tag: 05.20.09
The (Welcome) Return Of The Tall Ceiling
Witold Rybczynski: “Certain features are taken for granted in today’s residential market: granite countertops, glass-walled showers, and, judging from this recent ad for a new Upper West Side condo, very tall ceilings. Not so long ago, 8-foot ceilings were the norm. What changed?”
The 15-Second Film Festival
“Peter Johnston wants to alert the world to what he believes is the antidote to the bloated, self-indulgent arthouse movie: the 15-second film. He has commissioned or made 62 of these nano-films for his online gallery, 15 Second Film Festival.”
Salinger Lawyers Called In On Catcher Sequel
“JD Salinger’s US literary agency is consulting lawyers after the publication of an unauthorised sequel to his seminal book The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger’s US agent, Phyllis Westberg at Harold Ober Associates, said: ‘The matter has been turned over to a lawyer,’ but refused to comment further.”
Best-Show Tonys Honor Producers, Not Writers. Why?
“[M]any theater people are increasingly concerned that writers, especially writers of nonmusical plays, are getting the bum’s rush at the Tonys. ‘Why doesn’t the playwright accept the award by himself?’ wonders composer and lyricist Maury Yeston…. ‘The bookwriter does, the lyricist does, the orchestrator does, even the person who runs the sound system does.'” But when the Tonys for best play and musical are announced, the stage is swarmed with producers.
To Get Brilliant Public Art, Let Artists Indulge Themselves
“The public artist’s lot in modern Britain is similar to that of the portrait painter. In this century, we’ve fallen in love with public art; every city wants its Angel of the North. But just as the British portrait has been restricted for centuries by the tastes of the commissioning classes, public art is never going to be great art so long as it has to conform to the prejudices, enthusiasms and assumptions of the majority.”
Playwrights’ Center’s Polly Carl Moving To Steppenwolf
“Polly Carl, who has served as artistic director of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis for seven years, will leave the Twin Cities in September to take a job with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. … The Minneapolis-based service organization serves as both midwife and research-and-development lab for new plays.”
More Challenging Fare Could Help Ballet To Thrive
“We’re in a recession that may prove a depression. One way for ballet to survive is to keep shoveling out ever more fouetté turns and grandes pirouettes and multiple entrechat-six and circuits of turns or jumps on the assumption that audiences can’t get enough of them. Another is for those in charge to help audiences become more intelligently interested.”
Artists Find The Upside Of Straitened Circumstances
When The New York Times posted a request on its website, asking artists to say how the economy is affecting them, hundreds responded. “Perhaps most striking about the comments was the considerable number who were defiantly upbeat despite grim circumstances. … There was a determination to many of the messages, a conviction to push through this rough patch and make the most of it.”
‘Signed Copies’ Of Authors’ Books Were Forger’s Handiwork
“An Exeter Township man pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to making more than $300,000 over six years by forging the signatures of famous authors in books and selling the books online.” Investigators said that Forrest R. Smith III “forged the names of authors, living and dead” — including Tom Clancy, Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut and Anne Rice — “and sold the books on eBay.”