5 Things That Definitely Happened in 2013

I'm Still Here I took over the News and Notes column from Joshua Humphrey on September 2 in a mostly peaceful transition of power that barely resulted in anyone losing limbs, eyesight and/or major sections of their torsos. Really, it was hardly worth mentioning, as revolutions go. It's been a crazy four months, hasn't it friends? What with all the shenanigans and goings-on, it's hard to find time to reflect on what happened this year. But when you find yourself thinking, "I wish I had time to do [blank]!" it's important to remember that the only one who can make more [blank]ing time for [blank] is you. If [blank] is really important to you, then you should [blank]ing well get off your [blank] and starting [blank]ing that [blank], because life goes by so [blank]ing fast, and you'll regret not taking the time to [blank]ing [blank] [blank] with your [blank]. So, as a way of looking back on the year (at least the four months of it that I have covered), here's a list, which I have heard the internet likes. It's not a list of the "best" news stories, nor is it even a list of the "most important," but it is a list of the stories that were most interesting and/or weirdly fascinating to me. (5) Legacy Amendment Restrictions Despite my best intentions, I ended up writing an awful lot about money this restrictions on artist travel grants. While I put my two cents in on this issue, my predecessor here at News and Notes, Mr. Humphrey, typed up an impassioned open letter to the legislature to let them know just how badly they are messing this up. (4) The Miss Saigon Protests There is only one thing that I have spilled more digital ink over this year than Miss Saigon (and I'll get to that later). The touring production that spurred protests has come and gone. The local media may have packed the story up and filed it away, but Miss Saigon with all its thorny racial problems continues to be performed around the country and around the world. At the same time protesters in Minnesota were rhetorically arming themselves, the West End revival of the 25-year-old show ended in the red, with a nearly $438,000 deficit and ticket sales dropping by a whopping 50,000 over last season. Many hands have been wrung over the fact that this is the first seasonal deficit at the theater in 18 years. Artistic Director Joe Dowling blamed the deficit on the Guthrie taking risks on new plays. Primrose Path and Nice Fish may not have drawn in the numbers that Shakespeare could have, but the centerpiece of the season, a celebration of playwright Christopher Hampton, didn't exactly grab the audience's attention, either. It's always in vogue to criticize the Guthrie's artistic choices, just as it's always been in vogue for the Guthrie to bat away those criticisms derisively. It's all part of the intricate dance of love and hate that any arts community will have with the biggest guy on their block. But the Guthrie, for all its largess and lethargy, is the cornerstone of the Minnesota theater community. Problems in the big office usually trickle down. Even though there are plenty of valid criticisms to be launched at the Guthrie and its leadership, I am hoping, for the sake of all the rest of us, that this ship will get righted in 2014. I sincerely hope the leadership at the flying G are familiarizing themselves with Michael Kaiser's "Questions for the Future of the Arts". (2) Young People Returning to Theater? TicketMaster (normally cast as the villain in any piece about the arts) released a report that shows actual glimmers of hope on the horizon. young people are more likely to be at the theater. The age groups between 16 and 25 are buying more tickets to shows than any other group, and their attendance has actually being growing drastically (up 71% over the last five years). What's more, these young audiences are showing a taste for new work. Audiences are more likely to buy tickets to brand new work (or relatively new established works) than to long-running classics like the favorites listed above, and significant portions are interested in experimental and immersive pieces. Granted, this information is only for the United Kingdom, which already has high theater attendance overall, and TicketMaster hasn't done any surveys of its American customers, but these are good trends. As the preface to the full report says, "The theatre world has been insecure about its future for years now, but our report shows there is little reason to be cautious." (1) The Absurd Tale of the Spider-Man Musical Hands down, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is the single most referenced thing in all of my columns thus far. Some might see it as just another silly comic book spectacle in a cultural landscape that is now being refashioned in the nerdiest ways, but to me this towering pile of money and hubris was a handy citation for just about any criticism you would ever want to make about what's wrong with big-budget Broadway musicals. On paper, every individual element looked like a winner: a towering comic book icon; an award-winning director/designer who already made the highest-grossing musical in history; a world-famous rock band composing a completely original score; an ambitious, technologically-advanced wire system that could finally do the flying and web-slinging justice in the real world. Spider-Man was a crass experiment in jamming together ALL THE THINGS! in the hopes that they would pummel the audience into submission, but it has been plagued at every turn with every conceivable problem, as if the theater gods looked on it as a modern Tower of Babel to be laid low for its overreaching ambition. Even the injuries, the firing of Julie Taymor, the other injuries, the lambasting by the critics, the further injuries, the juicy tell-all book, the lawsuits, and the ho-hum U2 score that sounds like every U2 song were not enough to stop this behemoth from slouching past 1000 performances. Even after all that, Spider-Man still manages to bring the weird, offstage controversy that befuddles and delights. Did you know the show and the Empire State Building have been having a baffling feud that sounds like two spoiled pre-teen girls fighting over one of them not showing up at the other's birthday party? Yes, it truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Now that a new year is coming, and this show is being tucked away in Las Vegas to live out the rest of its unnatural life, I want to officially retire my constant referencing of it. I vow that in 2014, I will no longer speak, write or think about this amazingly weird tour through human folly and blind ambition. I just have one final question: will Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark supplant Jon Secada's spot on the Vegas strip? But There's Still One More Column Left This Year! Yes, you're right, header title. I still have one more entry left to write this year. Why am I doing my year-end reflections now instead of next week? Because next week, I will be dealing with the future. No more looking back; only my wildly uninformed opinions on what will happen next year. Stay tuned!