Vit Horejs Envisions Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as Puppets at the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater

NYTimes.com: "The puppeteer who controls a marionette is called a manipulator, and the latest theatrical rendition of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg atomic bomb spy case, a “musical tragedy” staged by the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater, is fundamentally about manipulation. Someone is always pulling the strings, whether the actors are real people or puppets."

Forget Citigroup and Lehman, Puppet Show Needs a Bailout

NYTimes.com: "There are many ways to measure California’s tanking economy: an 8.2 percent unemployment rate; a multibillion-dollar state budget gap; threatened endowments of the city’s museums, causing some cultural institutions to nearly default on mortgages; and the continued weakening of the Hollywood studio system. But the meltdown of the marionettes may say it all."

American Musical Theatre of San Jose Cancels Productions of 42nd Street, Tarzan and Closes Doors

Playbill News: "Michael Miller, CEO and executive producer of AMTSJ, said in a statement, 'We received a telephone call a few days ago from our co-producer for Tarzan, which was the Theater of the Stars in Atlanta, Georgia basically telling us that they had used all of the funds that we had paid them towards the production for other things. In essence, they cancelled the show without giving us any warning, and we discovered that the funds we had paid for Tarzan were spent on another production of theirs, which lost a significant amount of money.'"

Low budget TV production looking for crew

Craigslist: "RLS Entertainment is looking for various crew members for a TV comedy shoot for this coming weekend."

Bargains begin on Broadway

Variety: "Producers are hawking discounted tickets, which in recent years have become de rigueur for perfs during the traditional winter slowdown. Stepped-up efforts are aimed at persuading ticket buyers, potentially gun-shy due to the state of the economy, to pull out their wallets."

'Joe Turner' gets Broadway revival

Variety: "Lincoln Center Theater will produce a Broadway revival of August Wilson's play 'Joe Turner's Come and Gone,' to be helmed by Bartlett Sher ('South Pacific') in the spring."

Jacqui O'Hanlon: Shakespeare's labours must not be lost in schools

guardian.co.uk: "As the RSC's director of education, I know from many years of working with teachers and students that studying Shakespeare can be life-enhancing if taught well. That's why, along with most educationalists around the country, we were delighted with the government announcement in October that KS3 tests were being removed. We know countless teachers who wanted to work actively with Shakespeare in their classrooms but who felt that the test encouraged a reductive approach that filled them with as much dread as their students."

Shrek Set Box Office Record at Broadway Theatre

BroadwayWorld.com: "SHREK is already breaking box office records on the Great White Way. While still in preview performances, before an official opening at the Broadway Theatre on December 14, SHREK THE MUSICAL grossed a massive $1,052,975 for the 8-performance week ending November 30, and set a single performance house record grossing $184,320 for the Saturday, November 29 matinee."

How a Theatrical Angel Cultivated Martha Clarke’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’

NYTimes.com: "The economy has dropped faster than a falling angel, and investors for live performances are growing ever more scarce. But what Ms. Clarke’s nearly-four-year fund-raising experience demonstrates is how difficult finding a producer can be even in the best of times."

Ivo van Hove Stages ‘Opening Night’ With Filmmaker’s Eye at Brooklyn Academy

NYTimes.com: "THE Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove swears he has never seen “Opening Night,” the classic 1977 backstage film by John Cassavetes, but that didn’t stop him from adapting the film for the stage. His innocence helped rather than hindered him, he said, in imagining his stage version based on Cassavetes’s original screenplay."

Nothing but His Songs - ‘Irving Berlin’s White Christmas’ at the Marquis Theater

NYTimes.com: "IF you didn’t know better, had never been taught the proper technique, you might approach a piano with your hands flat and fingers splayed, as if instead of striking the keys you were going to dribble them. This may be why Irving Berlin, who never studied music except with his ear, favored the ebonies over the ivories when he first started playing. His melodies found their home among the black keys, making excursions as necessary to the white, with the result that the tunes all emerged in the absurd six-sharp thicket of F-sharp major or its corresponding D-sharp minor."

In ‘Billy Elliot’ on Broadway, Dance Is Metaphor

NYTimes.com: "THE Broadway triumph of “Billy Elliot” is in many ways a triumph of paradox. This is a successful socialist musical about a failure of socialist action, a work of working-class realism that often operates by unrealistic methods and a sentimental tear-jerker that remains tough-minded about the loss of community and ideals. Whereas stage-musical adaptations of recent films are usually tepid at best, this one surpasses the writer Lee Hall’s and the director Stephen Daldry’s original, because they themselves have radically retold it."

Broadway welcomes 3 new musicals for holiday season

Post Gazette: "The new Broadway musicals include one probable blockbuster, one seasonal sure thing and one oddity that has already announced a Jan. 4 closing -- but it will go on forever in the schools."

American Gothic as Sitcom; Jumpy Tenor: London Stage

Bloomberg.com: Arts and Culture: "The publicity promised whip-smart lines, gallows humor and enjoyable punch-ups. Those things are certainly present in the London transfer of the Tony-winning Broadway play “August: Osage County.” Whatever quality made it a hit, however, must have got lost in the Atlantic."

South Coast Rep Presents A CHRISTMAS CAROL 11/29 Thru 12/27

BroadwayWorld.com: "Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Orange County’s beloved holiday tradition, returns to South Coast Repertory for its 29th season. Adapted for the stage by Jerry Patch and directed by John-David Keller, Dickens’ classic tale runs on the Segerstrom Stage from Nov. 29 through Dec. 27. Low-priced previews begin this evening Nov. 29. Opening night is Dec 5."

Sydney Opera House architect Utzon dies at 90

Reuters: "Utzon was famous for the design of the impressionist Opera House, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site last year, but he also designed the National Assembly of Kuwait and several prominent buildings in his native Denmark."

Budgeting and the artistic product

Arts Marketing: "I had the pleasure of hearing Karen Hopkins speak at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Houston. During her speech, she said several things that caught my attention. Because the conference centered around how marketing and development departments could work together to maximize revenue, she outlined the revenue breakdown between earned vs. contributed sources"

Autodesk University 2008 coming up next week!

Core77: "If you haven't heard already, here's what next week is all about:Autodesk University starts up next Tuesday, Dec. 2, and Core77 is headed to Las Vegas to cover it live. We go to lots of fairs and conferences, but are getting especially excited about this one, given the raw amount of technical geekery we expect to absorb."

CMU artist insists 'Sky' isn't falling

Post Gazette: "Engineers will visit Carnegie Mellon University next week to find out why 'Walking to the Sky,' a sculpture in front of Warner Hall, swayed alarmingly in the wind Tuesday.
But contrary to rumors, 'Walking to The Sky' is not falling to the ground, according to the artist and a university spokesman."

How a Theatrical Angel Cultivated Martha Clarke’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’

NYTimes.com: "The economy has dropped faster than a falling angel, and investors for live performances are growing ever more scarce. But what Ms. Clarke’s nearly-four-year fund-raising experience demonstrates is how difficult finding a producer can be even in the best of times."