The Afternoon Report, October 14, 2008

This information, called The Afternoon Report, is provided by a daily email blast from the publicity firm of Boneau Bryan-Brown, which maintains this blog.

Denver Center Announced Programming for New Play Summit
“The Denver Center Theatre Company’s fourth Colorado New Play Summit is continuing to receive heightened national attention due to the success of new plays premiered at last season’s event. - With additional funding from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development Bruce K. Sevy and Dramaturg and Literary Manager Douglas Langworthy are insuring the future of the Colorado New Play Summit by developing one of America’s most ambitious new play commissioning programs, building a collection of new works to be featured at Summits and eventually at the Denver Center and other national stages in full productions.”
Personal note -- I know Doug slightly and he's a prince. A real gem to the business and to the art form.


Banned Play Gets CPTV Airing
Hartford Courant, By Roger Catlin
“A student written play from Wilton High on the Iraq war that was canceled at school but went to off-Broadway in the wake of its controversy last year will get its widest audience yet when the production is shown on Connecticut Public TV next month. Drawn from interviews, letters and essays by Iraqi civilians and American soldiers, "Voices in Conflict" was initially canceled, deemed as "educationally inappropriate" by the Wilton High School principal Timothy Canty after a single complaint from a student whose brother was serving in Iraq, who claimed the work was not balanced. The subsequent controversy, and an article in the New York Times, led to the show being invited to play off-Broadway at the Public Theater in New York.”
Such a great story. Borne, of course, out of such utter inanity and fear, led by the crouching principal.


Arts as key to learning as the 3 R’s
Denver Post, By Dwight Jones and Elaine Mariner
“A first-of-its-kind study by the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Council on the Arts reveals that more arts education is linked to more successful students. The new data released last week associates arts education with higher scores at high schools on the Colorado Student Assessment Program in reading, writing and science and lower dropout rates, regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic status. The arts are as integral to learning as reading, writing or math. Sound far-fetched? It's not. In a global economy, graduates with skills such as imagination, creativity and innovation will be heavily sought after by employers.”
Well, of course it's "linked." But glad to see this story in any event. The whole question is how to get this in front of politicians in a meaningful way.

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