Musicals are the hot product in London’s West End. “Many top directors, designers and choreographers are moving from opera into high-risk musicals, many of which crash on landing.” But “there is no ignoring the energy that is flowing into stage musicals – to the point where the genre is fast becoming the art form of the decade.”
Tag: 11.15.04
MoMA Party: A Great Collection Of Artists
“Those attending the first of the society soirées, on Tuesday, will be rubbing shoulders with probably the largest assortment of famous and almost-famous living artists ever to sip cocktails under one roof.”
Something Borrowed (Now I’m Blue)
“Words belong to the person who wrote them. There are few simpler ethical notions than this one, particularly as society directs more and more energy and resources toward the creation of intellectual property. In the past thirty years, copyright laws have been strengthened. Courts have become more willing to grant intellectual-propert protections. Fighting piracy has becom an obsession with Hollywood and the recording industry, and, in the worlds of academia and publishing, plagiarism has gone from being bad literary manners to something much closer to a crime.”
Is Gutenberg Not The Father Of Printing?
Is Gutenberg wrongly attributed with having produced the first book in moveable type? A printing expert says that “the 15th-century German printer used stamps rather than the movable type he is said to have invented between 1452 and 1455.”
The Non-Profit On Broadway
A bevy of Broadway bigwigs of the non-profit persuasion gathers to discuss the role of non-profits in a city dominated by commercial Broadway. For one thing, “since Broadway rarely produces new writers these days, the task falls to the nonprofits to provide an outlet for new voices.”
Atlantis Discovered?
An American archaeologist says he’s found the long lost city of Atlantis. “Robert Sarmast said sonar scanning of the seabed between east Cyprus and Syria revealed man-made walls, one as long as 3 kilometers (2 miles), and trenches at a depth of 1,500 meters (1,640 yards). ‘It is a miracle we found these walls as their location, and lengths match exactly the description of the acropolis of Atlantis provided by Plato in his writings’.”
Music To The Max
Composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is 70 this year and being feted in a style befitting a man who has transformed the Scottish music world. “When he announced a few years ago that he had written his final symphony, and that his focus would now be centred on the intimate world of chamber music and a cycle of ten string quartets, many wondered if this was a euphemism for early retirement. In fact, as the quartets roll off the Maxwell Davies production line with remarkable ease and efficiency, a phenomenal rejuvenation process is taking place.”
UK Children’s Theater On The Ropes
London’s Unicorn Theatre, which is constructing a £12.6 million new home on the banks of the Thames, is running out of available cash for the project, and needs to raise £1.6 million immediately if the building is to be completed in time for next year’s planned opening.
No, Virginia, There Is No Oakland Ballet
The impact of a ballet company’s closure can be difficult to measure, but when the holiday season rolls around, it isn’t hard to quantify the loss. “Thousands of children who live in the East Bay from Livermore, Pleasanton, Concord, Fremont, Richmond and most of all, Oakland, have come to the Paramount Theater on Broadway for at least 30 years to get their first taste of a live ballet performance. [But] until there is an Oakland Ballet Company there can’t be an Oakland Nutcracker… Sorry, Virginia, but the world is full of disappointments.”
British, V&A Museums Robbed Within A Single Month
“Within less than a month thieves have stolen Chinese antiquities from two London museums. The Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum both suffered apparently professional thefts of small portable decorative objects from cabinets on public display. It is likely that both thefts took place during museum opening hours.”