Magazine publisher Conde Nast, known for its consumer magazines, wants to get into the art magazine business. The company has “developed a prototype of a luxe and glossy fine arts magazine that he hopes to begin publishing in 2006.” The magazine is designed “to bring visual art, or at least a magazine about it, to the masses. The magazine has no name yet, no business plan and no publication schedule. It does, however, have an editor.”
Tag: 08.06.04
PBT Names Ballet Master
“Steven Annegarn, a former principal dancer with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, has been named ballet master for the company. He replaces Roberto Munoz, who was promoted to director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School this spring.”
Hey, It’s Not Quite As Geeky As Chess Camp
So your teenager wants to be a Broadway star, but you’re going nuts listening to him belting out Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes up in his room? Pack him off to Camp Broadway! The teen-oriented summer program began as an informal seminar created by a theater vet to entertain her nieces, and “has grown into a national organization, working year-round in cities across the country, including Tempe, Ariz.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Detroit. For the price of admission… the campers get classes in singing, dancing and acting; workshops with Broadway professionals… a ticket to a Broadway show and a private discussion after the show with its stars.”
Republicans Are Apparently Bad For Ticket Sales
“Citing poor ticket sales during the week of the Republican National Convention, two more Broadway shows have announced that they will close to avoid a dismal week of business. ‘Caroline, or Change,’ the new musical by Tony Kushner, which was nominated for six Tony Awards this year, will close on Aug. 29, the day before the start of the convention, and ‘Frozen,’ a play by Bryony Lavery that was nominated for four Tonys, will end its run on Aug. 22, the shows’ producers said yesterday.”
Carnegie Hall Plucks A New Leader From London
The managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra has been appointed as the next chief executive of New York’s Carnegie Hall. Clive Gillinson “has run the LSO for 20 years. Before that, he played as a cellist with the orchestra for 14 years.” He will not start his new job until July 2005, which will allow him to preside over the LSO’s centenery next season.
A Sound Artistic Choice
Carnegie Hall’s decision to hire Clive Gillinson as its next executive director is a clear sign that the venue wanted a leader whose focus would be on the artistic side of the operation. Not that Gillinson doesn’t have fundraising ability (he does), but he has been most celebrated for his collaborations with conductors and soloists, and his willingness to work with difficult personalities to develop engaging and original programming ideas. Still, Carnegie had to be impressed with Mr. Gillinson’s budget-balancing skills as well: when he took over the London Symphony, the orchestra was nearly bankrupt. Today, it is the UK’s most financially stable ensemble.
Minnesota Fringe Continues Explosive Growth
“As it begins its second decade, the Minnesota Fringe Festival finds itself in fine financial fettle, bigger than ever, a popular launching pad for new shows and an institutional fixture in the Twin Cities theater scene. It might be difficult to recall that in 1994, 4,630 tickets were sold to 315 performances. That meant an average show was attended by barely 15 people. The 10-day event was put on for $35,000. Last year, the Fringe sold 40,500 seats to 783 performances, an average of about 52 people per show. Debt-free, the organization operates on an annual budget of $550,000, including an anticipated box office this year of $250,000.”
Opera As Compelling Theater? What A Concept!
Natalie Dessay isn’t your average opera star. Ask her about the challenges of the profession and she won’t speak of the difficulties of melisma, or the necessity of being fluent in multiple languages. Rather, Dessay believes that an opera singer’s primary job is to communicate the emotions of a character to the audience: in other words, to act. It’s a quality that is sorely lacking in most opera singers, and grossly undervalued by directors. “Dessay even says with diva-worthy bravado that she refuses to return to the Metropolitan Opera unless it agrees to mount a new production for her – a desire born not of vanity but her unrelenting desire to deliver compelling theater.”
Cultivating A Bigger, Better Onion
The Onion, America’s satirical newspaper known for pushing the comedy envelope and treading the knife edge of good taste, is expanding. The paper, which is based in Manhattan these days after years in Wisconsin, recently introduced a local edition for the Minneapolis/St. Paul market, (it already publishes local editions fro Chicago, Madison, Boulder, Denver, and New York) and plans other offshoots in large cities around the country. The Onion currently has print circulation of around 320,000 and its web site gets a whopping 3.6 million unique visitors every month.
Beware The Concert Fool
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fan of classical music, pop, rock, hip-hop, or whatever. If you attend live performances, you are in ever greater danger of having your evening out ruined by… The Concert Fool. “There is no escaping the Concert Fool. He (and every once in a while, she) is the chronic carbuncle on the rear of rock. The Concert Fool is either unglued by music, or drunk, or unaware of the invisible line that separates civilization from anarchy. Or aware of the line but past caring about it.”