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Nice piece about C’est Duckie in the Sunday New York Times Arts & Leisure section.

 

 

Great reviews from Variety and New York mag’s blog

Last night’s Kiki & Herb concert was as stunning as ever- Kiki got a standing ovation on her entry, and the audience never let go. Of course, it’s already on You Tube. It still amazes me how fast that happens.

Here’s today’s Variety article about both Kiki & Herb’s Carnegie Hall show and C’est Duckie – full story here.

l’m a huge “His Dark Materials” fan, and fantasized that the National Theatre’ s production would make it to New York. That was always unlikely – the scale is massive and the London reviews were only okay – but the movie’s release will certainly kill it. Seems like a stinker! Today’s New York magazine blog has a fascinating comparison of Tom Stoppard’s and Chris Weitz’s early screenplay drafts. Was Tom Stoppard’s Original Script a Masterpiece?

FROM BBCNEWS.COM:  Springer opera court fight fails

A Christian group has lost its High Court battle to prosecute the BBC’s director general over the screening of Jerry Springer – The Opera in 2005. Christian Voice director Stephen Green had hoped to overturn a previous ruling by a judge which forbade him from prosecuting Mark Thompson. Two judges ruled that broadcasters and theatres staging live productions could not be prosecuted for blasphemy. The BBC called the ruling an important decision in defence of free speech.

FULL STORY HERE

Actually, BOTH the DVD of the London Palladium show and the CD of the Carnegie Hall show are being released today!

Is this is a trend or a coincidence? It seems "big" producers have returned to Off Broadway and, either way, it’s good news for a healthy and diverse producing environment.

In the last few years, there’s been few established Broadway producers Off Broadway. Off the top of my head, I can think of Marc Routh / Myumana and Kevin McCollom & Jeffrey Sellers’ In the Heights.

But right now, there are several well-financed producers:

* Fuerzabruta is produced by Concert Productions International, owned by Live Nation and run by legendary rock promoter Michael Cohl.

* Jump is produced by CAMI.

* Die Mommie Die is produced by two of Broadway’s biggest producers, Bob Boyett and Daryl Roth

We’ve just finished booking David Strassman’s 2008 UK tour:

Wednesday 13 February………..Leicester Comedy Festival
Thursday 14 February…………….Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon
Friday 15 February………………….Malvern Theatres
Saturday 16 February……………..Dorking Halls
Monday 18 February……………….Epsom Playhouse
Tuesday 19 February……………..The Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent
Thursday 21 February……………Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham
Friday 22 February…………………Broadway Theatre, Peterborough
Saturday 23 February…………….Pavillion Theatre, Worthing
Tuesday 26 February…………….Bristol Hippodrome
Wednesday 27 February……….Hackney Empire, London
Thursday 28 February…………..Alban Arena, St Albans
Friday 29 February………………..North Wales Theatre, Llandudno
Saturday 1 March………………….Winter Garden, Eastbourne
Sunday 2 March……………………Bloomsbury Theatre, London

I’ve just started reading Ken Davenport’s blog, and stumbled on his October 21 bet AGAINST a strike – $100 paying 10:1. He says “Why am I so confident? Because of a man named Mr Trocchio, my high school history teacher taught me that to determine the course of the future, you must look at the events of the past.” Because there’s been only two strikes since 1975, he says, there wouldn’t be a strike now.

Unfortunately Mr Trocchio cost Ken some money; the past is a dangerous way to predict the future.

Think about the turkey you ate today. To quote Nassim Taleb again “Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for his best interests’. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexepcted will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.”  This is the “narrative fallacy”, creating a story so that an event seems to have a cause.

Unlike the poor turkey, the unexpected event is a producer’s friend. Tassim’s Black Swan ponders the impact of highly improbably events. On the dark side, think 9/11 or financial meltdowns that threaten the entire economy. 

But the positive black swans are what I dream of, Mr Trocchio, megahit shows that no-one sees coming, like Blue Man Group, Stomp, Rent and Wicked.