Indigo Books & Music, the publishing giant that has been bankrolling the Canadian industry’s lawsuit against the Amazon.ca, has abruptly pulled the plug on the suit, withdrawing its support and cutting off funding. Industry officials say that they simply cannot afford to continue the legal battle against Amazon, which is being allowed to operate its site without complying with rules governing foreign-owned bookstores, because it has no ground-based Canadian presence.
Tag: 05.27.04
Nonunion Touring At Issue In Theater Talks
“How do you solve a problem like nonunion tours of Broadway shows? The issue is at the center of the current negotiations between Broadway producers and Actors’ Equity… The contract between the union and the League of American Theatres and Producers expires June 27 and the two sides have been meeting regularly since April 1 to resolve the touring matter and other issues, most notably, rising health-care costs. Equity still dominates the road but in recent years, nonunion tours, which are cheaper to produce, have been gaining strength… Last week, the union issued a strike authorization that it called ‘part of normal negotiation practices.'”
Maybe Something Was Lost In The Translation?
The Producers may be Broadway’s biggest smash hit in years, but apparently, the Mel Brooks musical doesn’t hold the same appeal everywhere. Officials yesterday announced that the Toronto production will be closing after only nine months due to slow ticket sales.
Jesus Was All About Senseless Vandalism, Of Course
“The offices of Toronto-based Tapestry Pictures were trashed earlier this week, and the producers fear the vandalism is linked to its coming, controversial film, Prom Queen. In recent weeks, pro-family and anti-gay support groups have been using the Internet to denounce the made-for-TV movie, slated to air on CTV on June 1, about the so-called ‘Cinderfella,’ the media nickname for Marc Hall, a teen from Oshawa, Ont., who won the right in 2002 to bring his partner to a Catholic school dance.” One particularly disturbing online rant against the film accused one of the actors of being a pedophile, and listed the addresses of Tapestry and CTV.
Will Trump Settle For Fourth-Tallest?
Donald Trump is building a new skyscraper in Chicago, in case you haven’t heard. (Yes, this is the building that will be managed by the winner of a reality TV show.) But given The Donald’s famous preference for outdoing all other buildings in the area, the plans for the tower are raising some eyebrows. Specifically, where the original plan called for building the second-tallest building in the U.S., the latest version would be only the fourth-tallest skyscraper in Chicago. That’s still plenty tall, of course (90 stories, in fact), but it all seems very un-Trump-like.
A Call For Elitism
Classical music’s audience needs to get younger, and fast, writes John Bennett, and getting the educated youth into the concert hall will require a controversial tactic. “Classical music has never been, nor should it be, a mass culture staple, but that doesn’t mean its audience has to be doddering. High art has always been created to be enjoyed by those who are educated to appreciate it… So if the classical music establishment wants to lure young listeners, the real task is to reassert the absolute value of the Western art music tradition. In other words, classical music leaders must challenge today’s entrenched post-counterculture relativism that sees a Schubert symphony as the equivalent of the latest White Stripes album.”
SPAC Faces Its Public
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s executive leaders held their annual meeting this week, and the good news was that, after several years of deficits, SPAC finished better than $100,000 in the black this past season. The bad news is that the center’s members and subscribers are furious with the management for dumping New York City Ballet from the roster of guest artists, and several are already making plans to oust board members in next year’s board elections. SPAC officials are sticking to their guns, though, insisting that “attendance ultimately will determine the future of all classical programming, including ballet, the Philadelphia Orchestra and a chamber music festival.”
Third CEO’s A Charm (We Hope)
The troubled Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountain region has hired its third CEO since opening last August. Richard Bryant is tasked with cleaning up the vast mess left by his two predecessors: the center opened to great fanfare and the promise of becoming the summer home of the Pittsburgh Symphony, then went belly up midway through its first year. State legislators are considering a bailout package for the project.
The Australian Orchestra Crisis
As government researchers prepare to mount a major review of Australia’s symphony orchestras, many in the industry have begun anew the old debate of whether such massive ensembles are worth the subsidy they require to stay afloat. The Sydney Symphony may have found a way out of the vicious cycle of deficit – through a combination of layoffs, cutbacks, and musician agreements to perform in hospitals, sports arenas, and commercial advertisements – but for many smaller ensembles without the benefit of Sydney’s tourism draw, there seem to be very few answers.
Publishing Legend Dies at 87
“Roger W. Straus Jr., the brash and opinionated grandee who presided for nearly six decades over the book-publishing company that bore his name, the last surviving representative of the age of independent houses owned privately by gentlemen of literary taste, died Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He was 87 and lived in Manhattan… With its distinguished list of authors and its course set almost entirely at the proprietor’s discretion, Farrar, Straus & Giroux — as it was known for much of its existence — approached uniqueness as the conglomeration boom swept through the publishing trade in the 1960’s and 70’s.”