In performance news 12.02.10

The Bush Fellowship has supported 2,200 artists since its inception, by their count. No more, however -- the organization announced the end of their fellowships on November 24, detailed in a story by MPR's Euan Kerr. There must be some appropriately pithy way to respond to this, some neat turn of phrase that sums it up ... oh yes: That kinda sucks. There was a discussion on Minnesota Identity and The Arts Tuesday night. If you missed it, well, we've got some good news -- MnSpeak offers a video recap of the event. MnOrginal was one of the partners in the event, and they offer videos of many of the participants doing the art that they do. Mermaid Twang offers up an eyewitness account. If you're a professional actor or semi-professional actor, you've probably had some pretty interesting conversations with people who didn't really understand the business. Xtranormal sums those conversations up, republished by Parabasis. Endowments -- they're a good idea, yes? Well, apparently not if you're a small to midsized arts organization, at least according to Rick Moyers, vice president of programs and communications at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in Washington. I'll summarize his argument, but my summary will be idiotically reductive, so read the article: It just takes too many resources, too much planning, and the money in an endowment doesn't actually prvide what an organization needs. The opening of the Spider Man musical on Broadway has brought a fair amount of criticism, but if the on-the-spot report from the New York Times can be trusted, at least its first preview performance was memorable:

After a few minutes, as some audience members were stretching, a woman in the audience suddenly shouted, “I don’t know how everyone else feels, but I feel like a guinea pig today — I feel like it’s a dress rehearsal.” She was met with a chorus of boos.

New York audiences can be so picky. Steve Martin used to complain that during the height of his stand-up career, people treated him like a rock star, mouthing his jokes in time with him; the challenge was gone. Well, the challenge has returned, as demonstrated by the fact that the 92nd Street Y felt compelled to refund everybody who attended an interview with Mr. Martin that was, according to the New York Post, "boring."