The Playgoer

Theatre Marketing post-WQXR

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:56:00 +0000

Continuing to shed whatever poundage they can, NY Times is selling off their official radio station, WQXR, which they've run for six decades.

WQXR has been known mostly to New Yorkers as the city's last remaining all-classical music station. (Yes, even NYC only has one now.) Under its new management by the quasi-NPR (now just "listener-supported") WNYC, the station will reportedly keep the format.

But, as a "public radio" station, will it continue to be the haven for Broadway and Off Broadway advertising it always was? WQXR was the ideal "niche demographic" venue for those ad companies sorry enough to be stuck with "legit" accounts in the 21st century. It guaranteed an audience of folks just out of touch enough with the mainstream commercial culture--and with, on average, just enough disposable income--to actually go to plays.

And they sure milked it. As a regular listener, I counted at least two campaigns regularly running each week. (Usually in really, really annoying spots aimed either at the retirement-age or bridge & tunnel crowds. I don't know who produces them, but they usually feature two voices: one older man who delivers the hard sell, then an older woman supplying the emotional appeal of the play's storyline.)

Even WNYC promotes sponsors--discreet plugs by announcers, like PBS has--so it's not the end of the line. But imagine anyone who specializes in radio theatre ads in this town is making and receiving a lot of calls today...

(The official NYT story is here. Note the complex terms of the sale, whereby Univision actually buys most of the station in order to take over its prized 96.3 spot on the dial, moving QXR up into the FM stratosphere, to a new call-number that WNYC will administer.)

Tonys getting less "critical"?

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Time Out's Adam Feldman shares some mail he just received:

“After careful consideration,” begins the letter from Tony Award Productions, “the Tony Awards Management Committee has determined that Tony-voting privileges will no longer be extended to members of the First Night Press List, commencing with the 2009–2010 season.” In other words: Critics are hereby purged from the Tony voting rolls. No official reasons for this decision are given, but the letter goes on to note that critics already get to have their say during the year, and that “certain publications and individual critics have historically pursued a policy of abstaining from voting on entertainment awards in general, to avoid any possible conflicts of interest in fulfilling their primary responsibilities as journalists.”

Yes, good thing those pesky critics' conflicts of interest are out of the way now, to make way for the purer judgments of the rest of the Tony Award electorate--mostly, producers!

Someone upset that Shrek didn't get better Tony treatment this year???

Well I suppose it's true that critics do get plenty of opportunities to judge already, including their own awards. But maybe this should heighten the importance (if awards are still "important" at all) of Drama Critics Circle, for instance, or Drama Desk (of which I confess I'm a voting member myself).

(The OBIES is in some ways critic-driven but the committee every year is comprised of different critics and artists--like Cannes! But it also excludes Broadway.)

While it is a shameless move by the Broadway League and American Theater Wing (who run the thing) to take the Tonys even one step further toward blatant infomercial, maybe such clarity puts the spectacle in proper perspective finally. And maybe we'll develop in theatre a "bicameral" awards season like with movies, where you have the Oscars (voted on by industry folks), then the numerous critics awards (National Board of Review, e.g.).

The question is, with a voting pool something like one-tenth the size of the Oscars' (and now getting even smaller!) what's to stop the Tonys from becoming a regular Politburo of Puffery?

Notice the coincidence that the Oscars just increased their number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten, no doubt a similar impulse that the Tonys have shown in finding some reason to at least telecast (if not nominated) scenes from every musical imaginable, good, bad, open, closed, or road tour.

Me Likee Mnouchkine

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:33:00 +0000

...but, alas, not enough this year to shell out the $150 and 7 hours for Les Ephemes (Ephemera) , the latest rare American appearance of her company, Theatre de Soleil.

But that's only because I made my pilgrimmage last time with Le Dernier Caravansereil, and frankly this more domestic epic sounds less interesting to me.

Still, if you've never seen her work (and never seen it live) you owe it to yourself to go to at least one part, if you can manage to get in and still afford to eat over the weekend.

Especially if you are interested in looking to models of theatre collectives that really commune and practially live together, (even if they are ruled by a dominant personality) Theatre de Soleil is a wonderful case study--as can be gleamed from Helen Shaw's nice profile of the queen of collaborative epic theatre. (Mnouchkine on Brook: “I admire Peter Brook immensely...[but] I am not one who can abandon pleasure. Theater has to be nourishing for your flesh: Voilà! I think Peter has become monastic, but I am still too childish.”)

Leave it to the Lincoln Center Festival, of course, to import revolutionary theatre collectives from Europe and price them for only disposable-income Manhattanites to see.

(Time Out also links to some nifty slide shows of Mnouchkine's work.)

Showcase Code Reformed!

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:21:00 +0000

As someone who used to follow this story quite a bit, I was surprised to come across this news item that Actors Equity, back in May, finally did revise the Off Off Broadway showcase code.

Rejoice, downtowners!

The modifications made to the Codes reflect more flexibility in rehearsal time, an increase in budget caps for Basic Showcase to reflect today's economics, and create uniformity in rehearsal time for both Codes....
For the Seasonal Showcase, the annual gross income figure at which producers must use the Seasonal Showcase Code is increased to $60,000. Performances may now be held over six consecutive weeks for all tiers. Language has been added, clarifying the performance schedule of Seasonal Showcase Code productions. Maximum ticket prices for Seasonal Showcase productions have been increased to $25
For the Basic Showcase Code, the maximum budget amount is increased to $35,000. This budget amount now excludes the reimbursement stipends paid to Equity members.

New York Innovative Theatre Awards offers a helpful visual breakdown and summary.

And to recap, the point of the "Showcase" agreements is to allow professional Equity-memeber actors to forego salary under certain strictly regulated conditions in order to allow them to work in lower-budget theatre (like Off Off Broadway) and to allow innovative directors/producers/companies to still work with professional actors even if they can't pay them, or at least pay them Equity-level salaries. (Many of the larger showcase companies, though, do pay Equity actors at least a stipend.)

So, in short, if I understand all the changes correctly, if you're putting up shows individually under the Basic Code, your allowed budget limit just went up from $20,000 to $35,000 (75%). Not bad. But pretty essential given current Manhattan space rentals alone.

Also, under the Basic, you can still only rehearse 128 hours total, but can spread that out over 5 weeks instead of just 4. (Is that much of a help?) Ticket prices are still capped at $18 and performances limited to 16 over 4 weeks.

The Seasonal Code is for permanent companies who want to produce Showcase productions year-round, not just one-off's. Poorer companies can just do a series of Basic Code shows if they want, and now AEA has allowed more companies to do that by raising the income they're allowed to take in (to $60,000--I forget what it was earlier) before being forced to run on a Seasonal contract.

But that Seasonal Code itself now has added benefits, such as allowing you to charge $25 a ticket (instead of just $20) and to run 6 weeks in performance, not 5. (Total number of perf's still capped at 20 for smaller companies, 24 for larger.)

So is everyone happy? A "small but important step," says John Clancy, head of League of Independent Theater New York, "toward their recognition of Off-Off Broadway as a legitimate sector of New York City's cultural landscape."

Other reactions in the "indie" community, so far so good. (Hat tip to bloggers Matt Freeman and Zack Calhoon for getting there way ahead of me on this.) Nick Micozzi over at Innovative Theater Awards has continuing qualms about process and openness. (Indeed, this has taken a long times since the movement really gelled two years ago.) For the record, according to Stage Directions, "These changes were the result of the work conducted by the Equity Off-Off-Broadway Committee, which is comprised of AEA members in good standing who have worked under the code, some of whom have produced Code shows."

Still the arc of history is long, eh?

Details aside, it's a significant development just for reasserting that Showcase productions can continue at all! In the present economy, where making any income off of art just got a lot harder, these contractual concessions are all many theatre artists have in NYC. Let's just hope they find some money elsewhere to eat!

For those who care about this issue, congratulations are surely do to those who campaigned so vigorously over the last few years: John Clancy, Susan Bernfield, Shay Gines, Paul Bargetto, and countless others, I'm sure, who haven't left as much of a paper trail. We always knew that any change would have to come ultimately from within Equity, and that Off-Off producers basically had no leverage. But without the pressure and cogent, reasonable arguments applied by these folks, I doubt Equity would have revisited the matter at all, at least not at this time.

Barack & Rocco Go To...

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:40:00 +0000

According to Politico:

[F]or some in the art world, watching the Obama administration’s approach to the arts so far has been an exercise in keeping expectations in check and a game of wait and see.

They wanted a Cabinet-level “arts czar,” or at least a senior-level White House arts adviser.

What they got was Kal Penn, a 32-year-old actor best known for his role in the “Harold and Kumar” movie franchise about a pair of pot-smoking slackers.

Don't worry, Kumar is not exactly running arts policy. He just "started work Monday [July 6] as an associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement, where he’ll work to connect Obama with arts groups, as well as the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities."

Not that Kal Penn would be so bad! I mean, Americans--even young people--at least know who he is. And one must admit, those movies are funny.

As I've said before, I don't think some arts "czar" is the solution to our cultural problems. (I mean, look how well the Drug Czars have done.) More levels of bureaucracy and, worse, competing bureaucracies (Arts Czar vs NEA Chair) can only mean more potential skirmishes, politically.

The key, I believe, is to make the NEA--the only national thing we've got--a positive and major presence for once. And then to encourage/empower/fund the states as much as possible to foster arts communities at the local level.

That plus a President who expresses consistent interest in the work of artists living and dead and, you know, goes to things. Which is why I'm proud to have .000001 cents of my taxpayer dollars go to sending Barack and Michelle to Joe Turner's Come and Gone. We should consider that a veritable state visit, a diplomatic mission!

Speaking of the NEA, this Politico article is the first source I've seen reporting that Rocco Landesman's nomination as Chair is "virtually a done deal." So let's hurry up and get him in there, Mr Prez.

Murdoch's Makes a Play for NYT Arts Readers

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:40:00 +0000

Rupert Murdoch sees an opening. With only one New York newspaper appointing itself the "Arbiter of Culture"--and, surprisingly, many culture industry people believing it!--he wants his new Wall Street Journal to compete on that front as well as in industry and finance coverage.

New York Observer reports, according to inside WSJ sources,

He [Murdoch] said that The Times’ coverage was lightweight and uninteresting, according to two people present. Mr. Murdoch said if The Journal could strengthen its culture coverage, it would be easy to pluck off Times readers and advertisers.

Lightweight and uninteresting? Holy Cow, I agree with Rupert Murdoch about something!

The revamped WSJ Arts section is still in the works. (Hopefully it will publish on more days than Fridays!). Meanwhile, an indication might be found on their new "culture" blog (entertainment, really), Speakeasy.

While the WSJ may be a conservative paper run by a megalomaniac philistine, I actually hold out hopes for this. I actually hope it remains "conservative" as in old-fasioned and classy, since that inevitably means some theatre coverage! My fear that it will lean more toward the glossy Fox Network/tabloid side of Murdoch, as the Speakeasy blog already does.

Still, bottom line is I'm quite pro-capitalist about this. The monopoly the Times theatre coverage holds over our One-Paper State in this town has got to be broken. In arts coverage, competition is only a good thing.

Theatre Trade Pubs

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:22:00 +0000

My friend Karen McKevitt over at Theatre Bay Area has launched an interesting discussion surrounding some anxious letters-to-the-editor appearing in this month's American Theatre magazine. The question essentially is: can you have honest and open criticism of artists and productions in what is essentially a trade publication?

Karen edits the Theatre Bay Area magazine, which represents and advocates for that region's theatres, so she appreciates the mission of American Theatre (an official publication of the Theatre Communications Group, the trade association of the country's LORT theatre companies) and the fine line it must walk between "cheerleading and relevancy," as she puts it. So good for her for raising the question,
Even though most of us can admit that sometimes our work is not up to par for any number of legitimate reasons or that our risks sometimes fail, do we still think that the job of the industry magazines is to completely disregard these facts and cheerlead instead? Or should the industry magazines paint a more multidimensional picture of the production, the person, etc.?
To me, the issue goes beyond assessing the merits of a particular show, but also must include allowing critical views of the profession itself, of LORT theatre practices, and of the effectiveness and raison d'etre of an org like TCG itself.

Hey, nothing wrong with trade publications. And we hardly expect, say, Cigar Afficianado, to remind us smoking causes cancer, do we. And frankly, this wouldn't be such an urgent question if we had five or ten nation-wide magazines devoted to theatre, all offering different perspectives and missions. But--if the one major national publication (and, no I'm not forgetting you guys at Playbill and Stage Directions)--shies away from self-criticism, then I believe we have a problem.

Karen's initial post led to some fruitful comments, and SF Weekly critic Chloe Veltman follows up as well, so check them out.

The Furlough Option

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:13:00 +0000

One recession coping strategy for theatre companies is the furlough--otherwise known as "mandatory unpaid vacations." Shakespeare Theatre in DC is putting all staff on staggered furloughs this summer, including the boss! (AD Michael Kahn)

Any salary reduction sucks, of course. But might this be among the least bad measures out there? (Especially for companies without summer seasons.)

Punishment by Lecture Tour?

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:06:00 +0000

That's at least what disgraced producer and convicted criminal Garth Drabinsky is selflessly proposing as his punishment in a Canadian court.

Drabinsky would teach theater students “discipline in the craft,” talk about honesty and “avoidance of unethical conduct” in visits to 65 schools across the country, as part of a sentence in which he would avoid jail....
Drabinsky, 59, and [Myron] Gottlieb, 66, were charged by police in October 2002 with lying about finances for nine years at the defunct theater producer Livent Inc. as they raised about C$500 million ($431 million) to buy theaters in Toronto, Chicago and New York and paid for increasingly lavish productions, including “Fosse” and “Phantom of the Opera.” Ontario Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Benotto found both men guilty of two counts of fraud and one count of forging a document on March 25, more than 10 years after police began investigating what they called one of the biggest fraud cases in Canadian history. Each forgery count carries a maximum jail term of 14 years, and the maximum prison sentence for fraud is 10 years.

Wow he really is Max Bialistock, isn't he?

Doesn't look like the judge is buying it, by the way...

Photo of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:32:00 +0000

See the little brown-brick cube in the middle there? With the four white dots between those Art Deco white beams? You might recognize that facade from this old downtown fixture:

Or, as it appeared in more recent years:

Yes, NYU's "renovation" of the Provincetown Playhouse building has begun. Well under way, in fact. I snapped the top pic myself when walking by the site last week. Yes, they're doing what they promised, alright: "We are preserving the cultural significance of the site by preserving the four walls of the Provincetown Playhouse." Still, coming across this empty pit on MacDougal St. was still pretty startling to see for oneself.

So I guess one should be...happy? After all, there's the proof. The four walls are indeed there. And the rest of the building, yes, was never part of the theatre itself and was in fact heavily redone in the 1940s, blah blah blah.

Still. For a theatre lover such a site still bears so much resonance. The onetime home of Eugene O'Neill and the other pioneers of the Provincetown Players, barely standing, in a pit of demolition, the wrecking ball still literally dangling.

In case you're wondering what the sign on the construction site says under "What's Going on Here?" (good question!)

"This project is being brought to you by New York University." Thanks, NYU!

(Brought to me??? Like some TV show for my enjoyment?)

And just to remind you of the NYU plan...

Bowery Boogie also had some snapshots and updates back in May.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:43:00 +0000

“Dated does not necessarily mean bad,” he said. Whether a show is relevant to what is on the front page of newspapers is “completely meaningless,” he said; that’s not where the value of a show lies. “It’s relevant if it moves you...It’s worth reviving because it’s worth reviving.”

-Stephen Sondheim.

Indeed, it takes little skill or insight for a critic to automatically label some play "dated" just because it is old. "Dated" like a carton of stale milk. And conversely, it is equally facile to praise a play of the past for being "relevant" just because some surface detail happens to resemble something happening today. ("Hey, there's a war in this play. And there's a war on now! How prescient...")

Yes, plays that don't seem tailored to our current sensibilities in tone or language are often relegated as expired or extinct. And anything that does miraculously happen to engage us even if it was written before we were born is paid the backhanded compliment of being "ahead of its time."

On the contrary: when we encounter, say, late Victorian exposes of corrupt business practices (The Voysey Inheritance) or studies of mental illness in time of war (Woyzeck) is it not we who are behind their times? Perhaps if we were not so quick to dismiss old texts as "dated" we might learn more from the past and not repeat its mistakes.

Katherine Hepburn On Stage

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:21:00 +0000

Hepburn in the original 1939 play, The Philadelphia Story,
a year before the classic film was made. Playwright Philip Barry wrote the part of the spoiled socialite especially for her.
Photograph by Vandamm Studio. Billy Rose Theatre Division,The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

It's easy to forget that in addition to being one of the 20th centuries most iconic movie stars, Katherine Hepburn was also more than an occasional stage actress. Having started her career the conventional way in bit Broadway parts (beginning in the late 1920s) she continued to return to theatre after her 1932 big screen debut.

As is proudly displayed in the Lincoln Center performing arts library's current exhibit "Katherine Hepburn : In Her Own Files," featuring tons of theatre-related documents and photos from her archives there.

For instance: the part she reportedly got "discovered" for? 1932's The Warrior's Husband--title says it all--in which she entered hoisting a dead stag and fought with swords (see below).

Photograph by White Studio. Billy Rose Theatre Division,The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

That's her on the right, by the way.

If you can't make your way over to the West Side by October 10, then download a brochure or just peruse Judy Samelson's exhaustive summary of the exhibit and of Kate's extensive credits and lovely anecdotes.

Ohio Theatre Update

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:07:00 +0000

No, not the state. The downtown NYC alt-theatre fixture.

After facing near-foreclosure, looks like they're hanging on for at least another year. "Speaking for myself, notwithstanding everything that’s happened in the past year, I’m basically upbeat about things,," he tells Time Out, while also previewing this summer's installment of the always-anticipated Ice Factory festival.

What? A Panel About Theatre Blogging?

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:51:00 +0000

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday!

Another panel discussion of blogging, theatre, and the interwebs. Featuring yours truly, Parabasis' Isaac Butler, and Time Out's Helen Shaw. Moderating us (though not to the point of moderation, I hope) will be the Times' Erik Piepenburg, who I must say has done an outstanding job giving the paper's theatre page a real web presence, with nifty features like the "slideshows."

So come to CUNY next Wednesday, July 8 at 6:30. And be ready to rumble.

Meanwhile, you can check out the latestissue of American Theatre for a transcript of a similarly-themed CUNY panel earlier this year about the future of theatre journalism ("Criticism in Flux"). Lots of talk about blogging. No bloggers on the panel. Hm.

Oh, and the transcipt isn't posted on their website. So you'll have to buy the mag. How apropos, in a way.

Karl Malden

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:11:00 +0000

Malden as Mitch. Definitive.

Not to make this Obituary Central here, but Karl Malden has now passed, and I find it amazing to think what a link he was, at 97, back to a great theatrical heritage. Known from movies, of course (and American Express commercials), remember too that he was the original Mitch in the play Streetcar (not just the film) and also had a brief role in the original 1937 Golden Boy in the Group Theatre, with which he apprenticed.

Rest in peace Mladen Sekulovich of Gary, Indiana...

NEA Update

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:39:00 +0000

House of Representatives has ok'd a nearly-10% increase for NEA funding. (up to a whopping $170 mil.) Now over to the Senate.

Where's Rocco?

And where's Al Franken??? We kinda need that 60th vote now...

Pina Bausch

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:50:00 +0000

German choreographer Pina Bausch, one of the world's foremost figures in dance-theatre (and who basically defined that genre over the last quarter-century) has just died at 68.

Critic Sues Actor

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:24:00 +0000

But not for any reasons you might guess.

You may recall that New Yorker Magazine critic, and prolific author, John Lahr collaborated with Elaine Stritch a few years back on her Tony-winning one-woman show (or "Special Theatrical Event") At Liberty. His official title was not playwright but, "constructed by...", reflecting, I guess, some unique dramaturgical process. To make matters worse, the final Broadway credit (after the downtown Public Theatre permiere) appended the line: "reconstructed by Elaine Stritch."

Well such vagueness has come back to haunt him, it seems, since Stritch (who is now about 102, I think) has continued to play the show periodically. So Lahr is suing for any unpaid royalties due a regular playwright for these subsequent performances.

Yet another risk of critics collaborating with artists. Still, will be interesting to read the next Lahr review of a Stritch appearance! (Or a super "up close and personal" version of one of his signature extended "profile" essays.)

Further details from NY Post.

Post Mortem

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:54:00 +0000

Theatre managers take note. Boston Globe gives the rundown on what went wrong at the now-defunct North Shore Music Theatre.

Seems to me something's wrong when the only thing keeping you afloat is High School Musical 2.

Regionals in the Recession, cont.

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:09:00 +0000

AP's Michael Kuchwara takes a look at yet more theaters around the country (yea, the continent--okay, not Mexico) struggling to keep afloat in trying economic times.

One common problem:

"We are finding that people are waiting to make their decisions," says Antoni Cimolino, Stratford's general director. "People are buying later. It's really created an uncertainty in advance..."

Well, duh.

Indeed a problem for subscription-based companies, founded on that principle and who have no other business model. But is this going to work?

At the Utah Shakespeare Festival, there's an "Early Bard" special to entice theatergoers into buying tickets in advance - the farther in the future, the bigger the discount.

Early BARD, get it?

Hanne Hiob

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Interesting Brecht footnote...

Hanne Hiob, Brecht's daughter from his first marriage (to Marianne Zoff), just died. She was born in 1923, just as Brecht's career was taking off.

She went on to become an actress herself and, after retirement, a peace activist.

Shake-Ups

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:20:00 +0000

Don't want to read too much into this, but couldn't help noticing two high-profile departures of bigtime nonprofit Managing Directors.

Rob Orchard has been at Boston's ART, like, forever. (30 years) And he's probably been the glue that's held that place together through all the many leadership changes since Robert Brustein left a decade ago. And now he's leaving just as a new Artistic Director, Diane Paulus, comes in. All sounds very amicable, but still, quite a changing of the guard.

And here in NY, Second Stage is losing its Exec Direct. Ellen Richard, just as the small troupe has taken on the burden of occupying a Broadway house! (Soon to be the former Helen Hayes.) Richard previously navigated the Roundabout's rise from quaint little rep company to B'way behemoth, so no doubt she was to be instrumental in this transition. Yet another ominous sign over at 2nd Stage that begs the question: why do this?

Bill Ivey

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:26:00 +0000

"The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage--the expressive life of America."

Provocative words from Bill Ivey, NEA Chair under Clinton. (No, not William Ivey Long, the costume designer.)

Douglas McLennan has posted a revealing interview with him about his hopes and fears for the Endowment under Obama. And some behind-the-scenes views of the congressional sausage-making that forever stymies any national arts support.

Meanwhile, take a look, over in France, at a real "culture minister"--a gay activist filmmaker who happens to be the nephew of former President Francois Mitterand!

As if "In My Life" Wasn't Bad Enough

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:58:00 +0000

The world will little note nor long remember the hilariously disastrous vanity musical In My Life that some hack Hollywood songwriter put on Broadway a few years back. (Which didn't prevent NYT Arts & Leisure back then from doing their usual glossy feature.)

Well now one Joseph Brooks is in the news again for quite different reasons, such as 11 counts of rape and/or sexual assault against young actresses he was claiming to be "auditioning."

Sorry, allegedly, of course.

While identifying Brooks as, yes, the Oscar-winning composer of "You Light Up My Life" today's article sadly forgets his onetime contribution to Broadway musical theatre.

Aside from his personal assistant, a young woman herself, being implicated as an accomplice (we all knew those personal assistant jobs could get yucky, still...) the highlight of the police report has got to be:

Lt. Adam Lamboy, the commanding officer of the Police Department’s Manhattan Special Victims Squad...said they [the victims] recounted that Mr. Brooks would have them engage in a role, such as a prostitute, and to enhance their seductive manner, he would ply them with wine.
“At this time, we don’t believe this was an actual movie role he was casting for,” the lieutenant said.

No kidding.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, I wish the victims well in their ongoing recovery and want to remind all young performers out there...please don't answer (let alone fly in for) casting calls on Craigslist.

Review: Axis Company's "Hospital 2009"

noreply@blogger.com (The Playgoer) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Beam me outta here. Axis Company's "Hospital 2009."
Photo: Dixie Sheridan.

I suppose the downtown Axis Company has kind of a cult following, with, among other ventures, their annual "Hospital" staged mini-series. Nice idea. At least I thought until I saw it for this week's Voice.