There has been no small amount of grumbling about the fact that the big summer festivals in Edinburgh don’t include a visual arts component. Now a high-profile group is attempting to start one. “The summer event – which would be modelled on the lines of the Venice Biennale, Europe’s leading visual arts festival, is likely to involve exhibitions, discussions and book-signings by leading figures in the art world, as well as giving contemporary Scottish artists a showcase opportunity.”
Tag: 09.28.03
Do Book Reviews Matter?
Do book reviews matter one whit to anyone? Okay, maybe the author. But “I believe we are at best traffic wardens. It’s a free-for-all out there. I have seen books praised to the skies that have scarcely troubled the check-out clerks at Borders or Hatchards. I have watched books comprehensively ignored by The Observer, the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph being lugged out of Waterstone’s, Books etc, Ottakars and Menzies by the bagload.”
In Defense of Tough Criticism
After the Akron Beacon-Journal’s music critic blasted the Akron Symphony’s first concert of the season, readers wrote in to protest. Why so harsh, they wanted to know, particularly when the performance got a standing ovation? The Beacon-Journal’s public editor writes that the orchestra must be held to a standard: “If it wants to charge major league prices for tickets, it shouldn’t expect to deliver minor league performances and not be called on it. Readers deserve honest reviews from the music critic, not flattering boosterism.”
Connecting: Words In Translation
Will a new literary translation website “help reconnect America with the rest of the world?” At least it’s an attempt to expose uni-lingual Americans to words written elsewhere in the world. “Words Without Borders (www.wordswithoutborders.org), whose far-flung network of consulting litterateurs includes the Nigerian-born Chinua Achebe and the Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, is predicated on the idea that translation is as thrill-charged as smuggling. ‘Not knowing what the rest of the world is thinking and writing is both dangerous and boring’.”
TV’s New Man – Cad Or Dad
TV’s ability to stereotype is an awesome thing. “Women on television are still sometimes squeezed into demeaning caricatures (or at least inappropriate clothing: surgeons, homicide detectives and high school teachers all wear low-cut tank tops to work). But increasingly, so are men. The new fall season shrinks the number of belittling stereotypes they may occupy to just two: cads or dads.”
Edward Albee’s Third Act
“Ever since Jerry cornered Peter on a Central Park bench in “The Zoo Story” and demanded an audience, Albee has served as ‘an invaluable irritant to the status quo.’ With ‘The Zoo Story’ hitting off-Broadway in 1959 and, three years later, ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ on Broadway, the American establishment had an unnerving new commentator wielding a venomously witty pen. Albee was in, or It, for a good while. Then, by the late 1970s, Albee was out. Since the success of “Three Tall Women” a decade ago, he has been in again.”
Group Think
America’s performing arts service organizations are planning their first-ever joint meeting. “At the First National Performing Arts Convention, to be held in Pittsburgh June 8-13, groups such as OPERA America, Theatre Communications Group, Dance/USA, the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre will hold their own meetings and also gather together to address topics including arts research, audience development, arts education, governance and ethics, arts journalism and new-work development.”
How Denver Got Major Theatre
“In its 24 years and 255 productions, the Denver Center Theatre Company has grown from a civic curiosity in a ghostly part of downtown into the largest regional theater between Chicago and the West Coast. In 1998, it received the Tony Award as the best regional company in the nation.”
The Selling Of (New) Money
The US is about to introduce a new $20 bill. To acquaint the public with the new-look money, the government is spending “$33 million on advertising, marketing and education programs to promote the new bill, and it has hired a public relations firm and, in a first, a product placement firm and one of Hollywood’s top talent agencies to put the $20 bill on the publicity circuit. By the time the new bill joins the currency flow next month, it will have appeared virtually everywhere but on the ballot for California’s recall election.”
The Red/Blue Divide Takes Center Stage
As America’s political divide grows ever wider, with the right wing in control of the government and the left settling into its familiar role as vocal minority, the theater world is struggling with the question of how to engage its audience on a political level. Behind the scenes, many theaters have had to get conservative, slashing expenses in the face of a crippling recession and the decreasing governmental commitment to the arts. “But as the nation and the state have shifted rightward on the political spectrum, local theater people with progressive political agendas are coming off the sidelines and putting their beliefs on the stage.”