HOLLYWOOD NORTH

Toronto is crawling with movie projects this summer. “In the first half of 2000, the value of production in Toronto was $352.8 million, according to agency data. That’s an increase of 15.2 per cent, from $306.2 million in the first six months of last year, and it doesn’t include the millions of dollars spent on TV commercials, animation and special effects.” Sixty-one percent of the projects come from the US. – Toronto Star 07/26/00

BOSTON STRONGARM

Do Boston teamsters shake down Massachusetts movie producers to ensure they use union crews on locations? “Local film producers and officials said yesterday the Teamsters’ heavy hand has been felt in Massachusetts movie-making for decades and is a main reason major studios and independents avoid shooting in the Bay State.” The FBI is investigating. – Boston Herald 07/26/00

WHO OWNS A DANCE?

Increasing sophistication about preserving the legacy of dance is creating a welter of problems for dance companies wishing to revive older choreography. “There was a time when the chief impediment to reviving dances was that the work was out of fashion. Now, death and the notion of ownership have seemingly created even more insurmountable problems.” – New York Times

ISRAEL’S THEATRES GAIN NEW FANS, LOSE OLD LOYALS

While audience numbers for Israeli theater are up, intellectuals are increasingly staying away.  Says one disheartened theater-goer, “theater had started to become as gray and unappealing as an office, that everything had become technical, that everything I was seeing in the theater was losing its spark of creativity, that it had become a musty bureaucratic mechanism, that the theater was a place where nothing real was happening anymore.” – Haaretz (Israel)