February 22, 2005

Arts, Briefly

Famed Alabama Recording Studio Closes

The legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, Ala., has shut down. Famous for its house band and gritty Southern appeal, the studio had sessions by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and hundreds of other performers. It closed last month after more than 25 years because of declining business, Rolling Stone reported. The studio was founded in 1969 by a group of R&B session players known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and moved to a larger space in 1978; for the last 20 years it has been owned by Malaco Records, a blues and gospel label based in Jackson, Miss. This year two other big recording studios, the Hit Factory in New York and Cello Studios in Los Angeles, have also closed as digital and home recording technology becomes more widespread and the need for large studios diminishes.

British Charity Rejects 'Jerry Springer' Opera Donation

Bowing to pressure from a conservative religious group, a cancer charity in Britain has decided not to accept £10,000 (about $19,000) raised in a benefit performance on Friday of "Jerry Springer: The Opera," right, the award-winning satire that finished its West End run on Saturday. The group, Christian Voice, has recently become a vocal foe of the musical, protesting a BBC television broadcast. On Christian Voice's Web site, its national director, Stephen Green, calls the show "a gratuitously nasty, hateful, spiteful and blasphemous piece of work." The charity, Maggie's Center, said in a statement, "Maggie's exists to help cancer sufferers, their families, friends and carers, and to risk causing offense to anyone seemed unnecessary." The Christian Voice called the center's rejection a victory, labeling the donation "tainted money." The Avalon company, which produced the musical, declined to comment but has said it would still make a donation to another charity. — PAM KENT

TV: Sleuthing, Medicine and Gay Weddings

"Third Watch" and "Medical Investigation" shared a storyline and characters on Friday night and brought NBC a victory in Nielsen's overnight ratings. "Medical Investigation" had been sinking in recent weeks against CBS's crime investigation show "Numbers," but Friday's episode beat it, bringing in an estimated 11.4 million viewers, the show's best since September. On Sunday CBS edged out ABC in households, but ABC, as usual, was No. 1 in the 18-to-49 demographic because of the strength of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and "Desperate Housewives" in that age group. Sunday's much-anticipated gay-marriage episode of "The Simpsons" drew almost 10.5 million viewers and helped deliver a second-place finish for Fox among 18-to-49-year-olds for the night. In contrast, the CBS lineup - "60 Minutes," "Cold Case" and "Stone Cold," an original movie starring Tom Selleck - skewed so much older than its competition that it placed fourth in the younger demographic, behind both Fox and NBC, despite its overall win. — KATE AURTHUR

Christians vs. Bollywood

Christian groups in India yesterday demanded a ban on a Bollywood movie depicting a sexual relationship between a priest and a woman half his age, Reuters reported. The Hindi-language film, "Sins," is set for release on Friday. "Religion needs to be a personal affair and should not be a subject for entertainment or for commercial use," Joseph Dias, the general secretary of Catholic Secular Forum, said in a statement. He said Christians would demonstrate in front of theaters planning to show the film, and various groups had begun collecting signatures in support of the ban. The director, Vinod Pande, said the film was not intended to offend anyone. "It's about a forbidden love," he said. "There was no agenda whatsoever to hurt anyone." Christians make up about 2 percent of India's population of more than one billion.

Ailing Versailles Sculpture

Versailles began a fund-raising campaign last week to save its deteriorating outdoor statues. The park is seeking about $365,000 from private sources to restore the first batch of 25 items from the its collection of 286 sculptures, cases and marble statues. Donations of $4,000 to $40,000 had already started to come in, encouraged by tax benefits, a spokesman for the Versailles museum and gardens said. Companies and individuals contributing money to the restoration will have their names inscribed on small plaques on the base of each item. The garden park, open to the public since the reign of Louis XIV, receives about seven million visitors each year and is a Unesco World Heritage site, but the sculptures have suffered from natural erosion and from pollution and are in urgent need of repair, the spokesman said. — CAROLE CORM

Theater News

"Thom Pain (based on nothing)," the hit Off Broadway play by Will Eno at the DR2 Theater on East 15th Street, has extended through July 3. The monologue, performed by James Urbaniak, has received some of the strongest reviews for any show this season, and the producers said they had had calls from theaters around the country and are in discussions for a tour starting this fall. ... Neil LaBute may be a downer, but he sells tickets. His new show, "This Is How It Goes," set a box-office record for the Public Theater last weekend, selling $100,000 in tickets in the 24 hours that began Friday at noon. The play, starring Ben Stiller, Marisa Tomei and Jeffrey Wright, will have its world premiere on March 10 at the Public. ... The new Broadway production of "The Glass Menagerie," which begins previews at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Thursday, has had a last-minute cast change. Dallas Roberts is out as Tom, the gentle narrator; the movie star Christian Slater is in. The producer, Bill Kenwright, said the decision was made on Saturday. "It was not really working in the rehearsal room," he said by phone from England, "and the change was decided." Mr. Slater is to begin rehearsals today, and Joey Collins, the understudy, will play Tom until Mr. Slater takes over, perhaps next week, a spokesman said.

Footnotes

The jazz stars Ruth Brown, below, Jimmy Heath, Hank Jones and Billy Taylor will be honored tonight at the New School University's annual Beacons in Jazz Award benefit at the Pierre Hotel on the Upper East Side. The ceremony will also honor Arthur Barnes, a jazz supporter and executive at HIP Health Plans. The Beacons gala raises scholarship money for undergraduates in the New School's Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. ... The Allman Brothers will wrap up their annual run at the Beacon Theater next month with a concert to raise money for their own museum. The show, on March 22, will be the last of the Allmans' 10 concerts at the Beacon, and the tickets - ranging from $75 to $1,000 - will benefit the nonprofit Big House Foundation, which seeks to preserve the group's original home in Macon, Ga. The house, owned by the band's "tour mystic," Kirk West, is filled with Allman Brothers memorabilia, and the group hopes to turn it into an official museum.