James Wood: “I’m not looking to make business decisions first. It’s really starting with the impact of the works of art–through conservation, through research, through grants. We have these different areas, but no matter how much money you’ve got, it depends on focus whether you make good use of the money. My focus is really starting with the work of art itself.”
Tag: 12.08.06
Marketing Shows By SMS: Overstepping The Bounds?
Text messages from your favorite (or soon-to-be not-so-favorite) theatre company? Turns out that “marketing theatre by SMS has not only been going on for some time but is, in fact, a hotly contested issue which plummets us straight into all sorts of engagingly troublesome debates about public vs private and intrusion vs information in the digital age. There is no consensus whatsoever, it seems, on whether marketing by text is the new frontier of theatre ticket sales or a noxious further erasure of the boundaries of personal space.”
If He Runs It Like He Runs The ‘Skins, It’ll Be Back To Classical Soon
In what will likely signal an ignominious end for classical radio in Washington, D.C., Daniel Snyder, the notoriously inept (but charismatic) owner of the Washington Redskins football team is buying classical station WGMS, with plans to convert it to sports talk. Washington’s two public radio stations air no classical music (WETA phased it out in favor of news/talk nearly two years ago; WAMU never had it), and WGMS has been the subject of complaints from listeners concerning its weak signal.
Amazon Teams With HP For On-Demand Upgrade
Amazon.com is betting that on-demand publishing will be a big part of its future, installing high-quality digital presses made by Hewlett Packard at several of its distribution centers nationwide so as to make on-demand orders more easily deliverable. “The Indigo digital presses used by Amazon offer quality similar to traditional offset presses, and can print maximum orders of about 5,000.”
Heads Will Roll
“The opera house that dropped a production featuring the severed head of Muhammad over security fears suffered an embarrassing setback shortly before the disputed show resumes: It lost the offending prop. The head of the Islamic prophet as well as those of Jesus, Buddha and Neptune that were used in the three-year-old production of Mozart’s Idomeneo have gone missing.”
Downtown L.A. Too Ritzy For Neon Museum
L.A.’s Museum of Neon Art just over a month away from homelessness, with no prospects for a new home in sight. “At the end of January, a month after the downtown museum celebrates its 25th birthday, the lease runs out on MONA’s home of 10 years… The museum is caught in a bind common among bohemians in booming urban settings: With rents rising, lofts proliferating and redevelopment efforts underway downtown, the 400-member museum, which lives on a $200,000 yearly budget, can’t afford most buildings.”
Austrian Librettist’s Heirs Sue For Strauss Royalties
“A German court on Thursday began considering a lawsuit seeking royalties from the heirs of German composer Richard Strauss for nine works, including opera favourites Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra. In the suit, five heirs of Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal claim they have a right to about a quarter of the royalties from the operas, for which Strauss wrote the music and his partner von Hofmannsthal the libretto, or words. The payments would amount to nearly $1-million a year.”
Nothing Tired About Those Numbers
Sleepy musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone has recouped its full $8 million investment only 30 weeks into its run. “[The show] opened on Broadway May 1 at the Marquis Theatre and has been doing hefty business ever since, with recent weekly grosses topping the $1-million mark.”
Frank Lloyd’s Wrongs
A new play currently running in Chicago dramatizes the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and to an architecture critic, seeing the production provides a stark reminder that some of our greatest artists can also be reprehensible human beings. It’s a tough dichotomy to reconcile: “Does Wright’s art justify his life? Or do we have to set aside his skyscraper-size flaws and ignore the irony that this maker of idyllic homes seemed hell-bent on destroying the domestic tranquility that once existed in his own house?”
Martin Leaving Huntington
Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company is losing its artistic director. 68-year-old Nicholas Martin, who joined the company in 2000, will hang it up in 2008, and assume the title of artist emeritus for two additional seasons. “During his tenure in Boston, the Huntington built two theaters in the South End and launched a play development wing. And Martin’s ties to New York and to Williamstown brought in a stream of both big name and promising young actors as well as national attention.”