There’s Eli Broad’s new museum in Los Angeles. Paul Allen’s soon-to-open nonprofit exhibition space in Seattle. The sale by Audey Irmas – her foundation, to be precvise – of her Cy Twombly blackboard. “How can anyone from the outside tell the difference between a collector’s cultural philanthropy and his personal tax strategy?”
What’s The Impact Of Theatre OUTSIDE Your Theatre?
“Every theatregoer has an example of a play that changed their life to a greater or lesser extent. However, the real question I reckon theatres need to ask themselves is not whether what they do impacts on those who go to their shows but whether what goes on in their building really has a significant impact for those who have never stepped inside it?”
Claim: Free Admission Doesn’t Bring In The Audiences You Think They Will
“Free admission days do not usually engage affordable access audiences. In fact, data suggest that free days often accomplish the very opposite of their intended purpose for many cultural organizations.”
The Many Lives Of Rasputin’s Daughter
Peasant child, St. Petersburg society girl, White Russian fugitive, itinerant exile, cabaret dancer, animal trainer, Rosie-the-Riveter-style machinist in California. “From the beginning of her life in rural Siberia to its end in sunny Los Angeles, nothing about Maria’s life would ever be simple or easy.”
Translation Saves Books, And History Too
“Over the course of reading and re-reading those 1,300 pages, I realized that he’d not only accomplished exactly what he’d set out to do, but also ultimately created the repository of a world which had long since died, opening a window onto Libyan history from 1911, when modernity stormed the Libyan coasts in all its brutality—Libya was the first country in history to suffer an aerial bombardment—all the way to the 1960s.”
Time For Theatres To Ask Hard Questions About Their Audiences
“It would be naive to think that seeing a play makes you a better person. If that was true then we critics who go to the theatre almost every night would be paragons of virtue.”
Houston’s Theatre Companies Are In The Middle Of A Building Boom
“Houstonians will shell out $200 for a touring production of Book of Mormon but would dismiss us based on looks. Or they simply didn’t even know we were here because of the lack of attractiveness factor.”
Easy Come, Easy Go: New Bosch Identified, Old Bosches Discredited
“Experts at the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) have confirmed that a drawing previously attributed to one of Hieronymus Bosch’s workshop assistants was actually rendered by the Flemish master himself. … The news closely follows a similar but less celebratory announcement that two other paintings, long believed to be authentic Bosches, were actually imitations.”
Melissa Mathison, 65, Screenwriter Of ‘E.T.,’ ‘Black Stallion,’ ‘Kundun’
“[She] specialized in stories revolving around children. But, as she often said, she made a point of not condescending to them. ‘I go to movies with my children and see fat kids burping, parents portrayed as total morons, and kids being mean and materialistic, and I feel it’s really slim pickin’s out there,’ she [said] in 1995. ‘There’s a little dribble of a moral tacked on, but the story is not about that.'”
Why Humans Need To Believe (What Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, And Even Stephen Jay Gould Get Wrong)
Despite Gould’s split-the-difference approach – science and religion as “non-overlapping magisteria” – “The fact is that religion and science do overlap in people’s minds, in their life choices, in the difficult moral challenges society faces. To strictly deny the power of religion in the world, with billions following a diversity of faiths, is also terribly naïve. The difficult question that needs to be asked is why so many people across every culture need to believe. What is religion providing that so many need to embrace?” Astrophysicist Marcelo Gleiser has some ideas.
Chicago Is Getting A Writers Museum. Because…
Asked why folks on Michigan Avenue would seek out the museum’s second-story space and pay to enter it when much of the information it’ll present is a tap away on their laptops or phones—or available at the, you know, public library—Anway said the museum will provide “context.”
A Plan To Rebuild (And Update) The Ancient Colossus Of Rhodes
“The plan calls for a new statue that’s way taller than the ancient one. At 400 feet tall, the new Helios would be nearly four times the height of the original. The proposal also includes an interior library, museum, cultural center, exhibition hall, and, of course, a crowning lighthouse that’s visible for 35 miles.”
A Record Sales Price For A Violin Bow
The silver and ebony mounted violin bow, made by Francois Xavier Tourte, was purchased on Monday for a world record auction price of US $288,960.
Can You Spot The Difference Between Art Philanthropy And A Tax Write-Off?
“At first you think it’s the holiday spirit and wonderful. Then you realise it’s the end of the year and people are looking for charitable contributions.”
Upheaval At Orlando Ballet: Top Two Execs Terminated After Less Than A Year, Live Music May Be Cut
“For years, the ballet has been dogged by cash-flow problems and a revolving door of leaders – six in the past six years. [Now-former interim executive director] Cundiff took up the top job in March.” Chief fundraiser Julie Gillespie, who started with the company in July, was also let go. The schedule of annual Nutcracker performances, expanded in September, has been reduced, and the board is considering canceling its contract with the Orlando Philharmonic.
Alice Cooper, A Classical Music Evangelist?
Says the veteran rocker, who’s doing the narration for an update of the Prokofiev work titled Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood, “These classical writers were insane, when you think of how crazy they were. These guys were out of their minds. They were just eaten by this music, they were mentally insane over it. They were the rock stars of their time. But I think they would have been a lot crazier than we were.”
American Slave Narratives: The Descendants Of Authors Gather
“They included descendants of famous figures like Dred Scott, the plaintiff at the center of the infamous 1857 Supreme Court ruling, and Solomon Northup, the author of Twelve Years a Slave, … They arrived with photographs, books and rolling bags full of research materials, along with a shared conviction in the importance of taking history into their own hands.”
Why More Actors Should Be Cast Against Type
Matt Zoller Seitz: “Throughout film history, and TV history, casting against type has yielded not just some of the best performances of certain actors’ careers, but some of the defining moments of the show or movie they appeared in. … There might be no better TV example … than Bryan Cranston, who in the mid-aughts was being sent mostly comedic material because of all of his great years on Malcolm in the Middle.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.04.15
What is Audience Engagement? (Part 2)
It’s commonplace to talk about the need for “audience engagement” – but what does the term actually mean? Let’s pick up from yesterday’s discussion. … read more
AJBlog: Audience Wanted Published 2015-11-04
Both Sides, Now
Both Sides, Now: Short-Term Income vs. Long-Term Engagement in the Arts By Jill Robinson, TRG Arts. This post is part of a series of collaborations with TRG … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-11-03
Spectator sport
Georgian theatre going was not for the faint hearted. Dandies in the pit, doxies in the boxes, light fingers filching your pockets. If it wasn’t the fire that got you, it was the riots. … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-11-04
“Masterpiece” Theater: Sotheby’s & Christie’s Tout Megabucks Wares at Auction Preview
Hyperbole is always the order of the day when the auction houses unveil their wares at their press previews for the big evening sales of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art. But the back-to-back presentations by the Big Two auction houses on Friday (“Taxi!”) were even more boastful than usual. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-04
Taubman Was No Havemeyer: Sotheby’s Rough Night
A lot was riding on Sotheby’s “Masterworks” sale from the Taubman Collection tonight, and it was a rough ride. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-11-04
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TV Networks Turn To Neuroscience To Make Ads More Effective
Viacom Inc.’s New York-based laboratory is concentrating primarily on brainwave activity from test subjects who are given media to watch or interact with, and the project’s core objective is to determine the timing of ads. The general notion behind the research which makes use of electroencephalogram (EEG) brain readings, is that scenes which gain emotional response from expectant mothers might be an apposite queue for baby-related items, or that a scene which makes the viewer feel hungry is an obvious point to present a food-related ad (presumably for a deliverable foodstuff which can capitalise on the transient feeling).
Data Dump: UK Theatre Revenues And Attendance Are Up
“Over 6,600 productions were staged across the venues in 2014 – an increase of 2% on 2013 – earning £438.6m in ticket sales. Venues that seat over 500 and principally present, rather than produce, took three quarters of this total – a proportion that appears to be rising. Producing theatres also enjoyed growth though, with larger venues taking 9.6% more at the box office in 2014 and smaller ones 3.5%.”
Colin Welland, 81, Screenwriter Of ‘Chariots Of Fire’
“The success of Chariots of Fire was perhaps as improbable as that of Mr. Welland, who had once abandoned his dreams of acting to teach art. … Among his other credits was the screenplay for the 1989 film A Dry White Season, … [and] with Walter Bernstein, … the 1979 John Schlesinger film Yanks.”