Andrew Lloyd Webber’s back on top. “One of this year’s most important developments, if not its most important, was the emergence of reality TV as a means of casting theatre shows.”
Tag: 12.28.06
What Becomes A Critic?
“I would not call criticism a vocation in the Weberian sense; nor would I call it a calling, as if it were a summons you could not refuse without disgracing yourself or violating your own deepest nature. But the greatest critics, the ones who animate and advance the discussion, do seem to have a certain need or urgency to communicate in this form that comes from within.”
Online Verdict: That Show’s Jumped The Shark
What do the ratings tell us about the popularity of TV shows? Not much, it turns out, if you check in with websites where the rabid fans cluster…
The Working Non-Profit
A significant number of Americans work in the non-profit sector. “The report by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies found that U.S. charities had 9.4 million paid workers and another 4.7 million “full-time equivalent” volunteers, for a total workforce of 14.1 million as of mid-2004, the latest date for such information. That paid employment represented 7.1 percent of the country’s total.”
An Opera Less Exalted (If You Believe The Critics)
The reviews of Tan Dun’s new opera “The First Emperor” at the Metropolitan Opera last week were pretty negative. But Frank Oteri wonders whether the reviews tell more about the reviewers than the piece…
iTunes Swamped Over Holidays
“Swarms of online shoppers armed with new iPods and iTunes gift cards apparently overwhelmed Apple’s iTunes music store over the holiday, prompting error messages and slowdowns of 20 minutes or more for downloads of a single song.”
The Death Of Independence
“According to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, retail sales at bookstores — independent and chain stores — were below 2005 levels in October for the fourth month in a row. At the end of October retail sales were down 1.8 percent for the year.”
Downtown Dance? It’s Not So Downtown Anymore
“Most of the downtown choreographers (who generally loathe that label) have long since fled Manhattan for affordable housing and rehearsal space in Brooklyn or one of New York City’s other boroughs.”
At Last Chinese Treasure Museum Gets An Update
Taiwan’s National Palace Museum, home to the best of the 1,000-year-old art collection of China’s emperors, is often compared to leading Western institutions like the Louvre, the Prado and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After a major makeover, the museum finally has a building suitable for the art…
Protests Over Impending Move Of Famous Art College
“A huge campaign to stop Dartington College of Arts, one of the world’s most celebrated breeding grounds for cutting edge artists, being forced from its bucolic home on the Dartington Estate will gather force this week with a series of meetings and protests.”