posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
Yesterday, UApresents, the university’s arts-presenting unit, announced that for the first time in years it was ending the season in the black. The surplus is $98,878, to be exact. The press release went on to promote events in the upcoming season.
What was missing from the announcement? First, mention that the surplus was made possible by raking in $500,000 from special fund-raising efforts, a feat that might not be replicated in the future. Without that money, the organization would have dug itself another $400,000 into the hole this year. Second, there’s the depth of that hole. Last September, UA president Robert Shelton temporarily forgave the organization its $1.2 million accumulated deficit, but stipulated that the money must eventually be repaid. Which means that even with the nearly $100,000 surplus this season, UApresents still has $1.1 million to go, besides meeting its annual budgets to come. No longer booking touring musicals was a good start—Broadway in Tucson takes care of that nicely, without losing tens of thousands of dollars on each show—but will UApresents ever be able to issue a press release celebrating the repayment of all its old debts?
tucson-arts,
July 25th 2007 at 8:08 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
After reading yesterday’s confession by yours truly, another broadcaster—not one who works here—sent this message:
The first time I ever filled in for the afternoon shift at KBAQ, I had to juggle underwriting credits for both news and traffic. My first break involved a very funny aligning of two UW credits—one for "Fiber-Con" and the other for "Preparation H." I kid you not. I made it through the break like a champ, and proceeded to giggle like a 6th-grader for several minutes afterward.
radio-life,
July 25th 2007 at 7:48 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
Every time I read the underwriting credit that mentions "mobile phlebotomists," I have a barely suppressed urge to giggle. "Phlebotomists" is a funny word to begin with, and making them "mobile" is somehow hilarious. Beyond that, if you know what phlebotomy refers to, and you conceive of it as a mobile service, there arises the image of vampire bats on the loose. For the sake of my dignity and the phlebotomists', I hope this contract expires before I lose control.
radio-life,
July 24th 2007 at 7:30 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
Believe it or not, even without the blanks filled in, the classical-music-review template provided by Jeremy Denk, a pianist with way too much time on his hands despite his summer performance schedule, would be a tremendous improvement over most of what we get hereabouts. Take a look, and don't forget to read the comments, too.
Classical Music,
July 24th 2007 at 7:25 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
Everybody this week in the classical-music world is talking/writing/blogging about the appointment of Alan Gilbert as music director of the New York Philharmonic. With all the chatter elsewhere, I haven’t found it necessary to toss in my possibly redundant comments, but I’d like to point you to the one post you should read if you’ve been overwhelmed by it all and have just skipped the topic entirely. Terry Teachout says much of what should be said here, and rightly criticizes the inanity and irrelevance of what little has come out about Gilbert (he’s 40, both his parents were members of the Philharmonic, blah blah blah). Terry’s a bit off base, though, with this comment:
Far more important, I suspect, will be whether Gilbert proves to be an effective communicator--and whether he can find new ways of getting his message out to a new generation of listeners that is largely indifferent to classical music.
What’s
most important, rather, is whether or not this guy is an imaginative interpretive artist. Hardly anybody has heard this guy's performances, and those who have seem quite reserved in their appreciation. The last thing a major orchestra like the New York Philharmonic needs is yet another dull Kappelmeister (like Kurt Masur and the post-L.A. Zubin Mehta). Why should anybody pay to hear a conductor leading a highly paid orchestra through sleepwalking exercises? The orchestra’s current music director, Lorin Maazel, has rightly been criticized for his staid programming, but wrongly criticized by the superabundance of dullards in the New York press for daring to have ideas about the music he leads, and for persuading the orchestra to express those ideas faithfully. Maazel’s performances can sometimes seem wrong-headed, but they’re always exceptionally interesting. The fact that the
New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini, who has been one of Maazel’s noisiest detractors, has
soiled himself over Gilbert’s announcement is not a good sign.
Classical Music,
July 20th 2007 at 10:08 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
In the latest Tucson Weekly, I review a musical about singing canines:
Bark! is a recent show with music by David Troy Francis, words by a lot of other guys and performances by six singer-actors assuming the roles of dogs. Kevin Johnson's Arizona Onstage Productions always takes big chances with its material, and on every opening night, Johnson wonders if this will be the show that bites him in the ass.
Despite all the dogs on stage, this isn't it.
Bark! doesn't sniff around the dark corners that most of Johnson's productions--including the comedies--do, and it's way too slight a show to be as life-changing, gut-wrenching or merely thought-provoking as most Arizona Onstage fare. Yet the writing is sufficiently clever and the production sufficiently polished that it's pleasing entertainment you shouldn't be embarrassed to admit you've enjoyed ... even though you spend an hour and a half watching six grown men and women singing about chewing socks, peeing and discovering the benefits of being neutered.
Read the rest
here. Performances are selling out very quickly, so if you want to see this, you’d better not stop and sniff the hydrants on your way to the box office.
Otherwise, some poetry news of interest:
Pity the poet: Appreciated by few. Scorned by some. Ignored by many. Tortured. Solitary.
But now that's changing. At least you can scratch the word "solitary."
Oh, the torture, scorn and limited appreciation remain, especially for slam poets, those brave souls who get up on a stage and compete for audience approval and, in their dreams, valuable cash prizes. These days, however, slam poetry is becoming a team sport, and Tucson is sending its first-ever team to the National Poetry Slam next month in Austin, Texas.
Traveling to the National Slam, of course, requires money. These are poets we're talking about, so money is a problem. Or it would have been, had the local team not had the bright idea to raise funds this weekend with a three-hour event offering poetry, music and a collaboration between a border poet, a Mexico City video jockey and Tucson alternative-entertainment troupe Flam Chen.
My full preview of the event lies
here. I’m also mentioned in
Tom Danehy’s column this week; he was obviously desperate for material.
tucson-arts,
July 19th 2007 at 7:44 —
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