“Canada’s richest theatre award has gone to an artist from one of its poorest provinces. Jillian Keiley, 34, the founding artistic director of the St. John’s-based Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, was named the recipient of the 2004 Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. The prize comes with a $100,000 cheque, of which the winner keeps $75,000 and gives the remainder to a protégé of her choice: in this case, fellow Newfoundland director Danielle Irvine.”
Tag: 10.27.04
Reading About Vietnam, Thinking Of Iraq
With U.S. forces embroiled in Iraq, thousands of people in Philadelphia will be reading and discussing a novel about the Vietnam War, written by a Vietnam veteran. Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is this winter’s timely choice for the One Book, One Philadelphia program.
British Museum Appeals To EBay
The British Museum has appealed to EBay to remove potentially important archaeological items found in the UK from the auction website. “The Treasure Act of 1996 stipulates that finders have a legal obligation to report potential treasure finds such as gold and silver objects more than 300 years old. Roger Bland, the British Museum’s head of treasure, called for eBay to remove potential treasure items from its website.”
Per-Capita Spending Falls in NYC Arts Education
The New York City public schools’ revised arts curriculum has yet to reach all students. “The Education Department has a spanking-new arts and music program this fall – but nearly 200 schools lack a full-time arts teacher and more than 500 do not have a music room, it was revealed yesterday. Meanwhile, arts funding has dropped to $57 per student from $63, school officials said yesterday after a City Council hearing on arts education.”
Lilian Kallir, 73
“Lilian Kallir, a pianist known for her elegant Mozart performances, both as a soloist and in duet recitals with her husband, the pianist Claude Frank, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan.”
Two Broadway Shows In Danger Of Closing
The opening of “Gem of the Ocean,” the new August Wilson play set to open in November, is in danger after a major investor pulled out. Meanwhile, “Brooklyn the Musical,” the new $7 million show that opened to mediocre reviews on Thursday and has relatively small advance sales of $1.5 million, is also in danger of closing…
ABT Cuts Operations
American Ballet Theatre slashes costs in an attempt to turn the company’s budget upright. “About 50 staff members will take a one-week furlough without pay, and many will not receive raises this year. Thanksgiving-week performances at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in California were canceled because of the high cost of putting on shows during a holiday. And the company’s general manager was dismissed in a move that the troupe said was among cost-saving measures imposed even as the company has grown in dancers, number of performances and time spent touring.”
Jack Valenti, Mogul Wrangler
Jack Valenti is 82, and he still runs the Motion Picture Association of America with consummate skill, just as he’s done for 37 years now. “What’s remarkable is he’s managed to hold all the companies together even though we’re often fractious among each other and competitive and have heavily divergent issues — some of us have networks, some have cable companies, some have theme parks, some have the Internet. We’re all often truly impossible to deal with. Jack has held us together.”