“It is now relatively easy to produce and distribute content. But it also proves a challenge to find one’s way around in a zone that is somehow expanding, crowded, and borderless, all at once. With such difficulties in mind, then, I want to propose a kind of public-works project. The time has come to create a map. In fact, it is hard to imagine things can continue much longer without one. At very least, we need a Web site giving users some idea what landmarks already exist in the digital space of academe.”
Tag: 07.12.06
The British Museum’s Pragmatic Reconfigure
Neil McGregor has transformed the fortunes of the British Museum in his four years at the top. Now he’s planning a major show, and, to get enough room to show it, is taking over the historic Reading Room. “Few, however, expect the plan to pass uncontested. Curators at the BM are resistant to disturbance and backwoods traditionalists and backbench MPs will doubtless rally in support of the dodo. Stand by for a tabloid outcry, the anti-literate in defence of the unread, before the Reading Room is finally submersed.”
The Movie Reporter Becomes Playwright
“Retired New York Times Hollywood correspondent Bernie Weinraub this week won the NYC Stellar Network’s competition, 2006 PLAYS IN PROGRESS, an opportunity for emerging playwrights to gain exposure among top theater industry professionals.”
Talk About Suffering For Your Art…
“The body of the world’s most famous castrato singer, Farinelli, has been exhumed to try to find out how his virtuoso voice developed. Scholars in the northern Italian city of Bologna will measure his skull and bones and perform DNA tests… In 17th and 18th Century Italy, up to 4,000 boys a year, often from poor families, were castrated from the age of eight upwards. They became opera singers and soloists in church choirs and royal palaces. Very few actually went on to achieve success, but those who did became the pop stars of their day, and they behaved as such.”
Changes Afoot In Chicago
The League of Chicago Theatres has undergone twin shifts in recent weeks, shutting down production of its four-year-old program book, Chicagoplays. Then, at the end of June, the League’s CEO quit after less than a year on the job, saying that with the demise of the program book, “an executive with technical and marketing expertise would better serve the organization as it refocuses on its longtime primary missions of selling tickets and marketing.”
Disney Slashing Production, Jobs
Disney is slashing jobs and reducing the number of movies it produces in a year from 18 to 8. “Disney’s move reflects a trend in Hollywood to cut costs amid increasing overhead, production budgets and marketing bills. Disney has said for some time it was going to cut its total number of films and concentrate on Disney-branded offerings, which make more money that those released on the studio’s Touchstone label.”
Spring Awakes (And So Does The Musical)
John Heilpern has seen a new musical he believes will change Broadway. “If we’re very lucky, once in a generation an unexpected new musical comes along and changes everything. That is the thrilling achievement of ‘Spring Awakening’, which has been brilliantly directed by Michael Mayer, at the Atlantic Theater Company.”
Study Say LA Gained Movie Jobs In 2005
The number of movie jobs in Los Angeles increased for the second year in a year last year. “In Los Angeles, the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County and three smaller, nearby cities, ‘production days’ on feature films rose from 8,707 in 2004 to 9,518 last year, according to a midyear update from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. Until 2004, location production days had fallen for seven years in a row, a function of runaway production.”
Oscar Invites 83 Countries To Compete
Hollywood has invited films from 83 countries to compete for this year’s foreign-language Oscar. The countries “include the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, who have received their first invites this year. A recent rule change means that films entered for the award need no longer be in the country’s official language.”
COC Bumps Two Ringers
The Canadian Opera Company is shuffling the cast for its upcoming production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. “Bass-baritone Peteris Eglitis, who held the key role of Wotan/the Wanderer with the COC during recent Ring-opera performances, has been taken off the bill, and soprano Frances Ginzer has been moved into second-cast position as Brunnhilde, the god’s favourite daughter… Eglitis was seen by many as a question mark in the COC’s Ring plans. His appearances in Siegfried and Die Walkure, which the company produced in 2004, showed an artist of great persuasive presence, but also ‘a voice in serious decline,’ as The New York Times’ Bernard Holland put it.”