Reportedly, the front of the DPAC will show ads for a variety of products, except on performance nights, when it will camouflage the front of the building with “an undiverse populace streaming in and out” to make visitors from Raleigh more comfortable in Durham. The board of Downtown Durham Disintegrated (DDD) were staunchly non-committal regarding the plan.
And, in other Durham news, the County will reportedly unveil a landmark deal next week with the RDU Airport Authority, in which the county agrees to dedicate a “large surface parking lot, extending from the Downtown Loop to the Durham County Line” that will serve as Park-n’-Ride Lot F.
Sources were less clear on what the airport planned to contribute, but, at the insistence of County Manager MR Pufnstuf appeared “nearly almost ready” to commit to, once a month, compelling flight attendants to say “Welcome to Durham” when a plane lands.
The rest of the no-holds-barred roundup–available on Gary Kueber’s award-winning, and typically more low-key blog about the parcel-by-parcel demolition of Durham’s history–is a must-see.
In a letter to the Duke Chronicle published today, Duke University senior Abby Alger blasted a recent editorial weighing the pros and cons of the newly-opened Durham Performing Arts Center, arguing that the piece contained “little research, no analysis and vague platitudes about arts and community.” Meanwhile, Alger writes:
Durham suffers from blight and poverty, aging public infrastructure, overburdened courts, perpetual crime and woefully under-performing schools. But $46 million is awarded to a yuppie’s dream “arts center”-and the board doesn’t even give a damn.
Phil Szostak, a developer for DPAC and the building’s architect, issued a bizarre response this morning:
Abby; I hope it makes you feel better to know thatthe City Council felt as you do and did not contribute money to the theater. After paying off the bonds the City will own the theater. The theater is paying for itself, even allocating money from each ticket for future capital improvements.
The $46.8M theater was paid with monies from an hotel occupancy tax and naming rights (which we have sold between $2-$3million dollars work)and a $7.5extraordinary gift from Duke to help benefit the American Dance Festival.
The City will continue to make additional money from the theater with Parking revenue and a share of the profits, if the theater is successful. [emphasis added]
Monday night, a sizable crowd turned out for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Durham Performing Arts Center. Politicos mingled with the hoi polloi, who wandered through the facility, munching on crudités and sipping soda and hot cider.
The evening’s announced highlight, as it were, was the ignition of the “Sleep No More” light sculpture by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Prior to flipping the switch, Capital Broadcasting CEO Jim Goodmon, who is a patron of Plensa and the bequeather of the art piece, told the crowd that he didn’t know why Plensa chose ominous passages from Macbeth to accompany his piece, but that he did know that the goings-on inside DPAC were so important that he wants to turn the light on every night the facility is open for business.
JP Trostle, a designer with the Indy production department, attended the event with his video camera. Here’s his video. That’s the voice of Raleigh theater stalwart Ira David Wood III leading the countdown, and Trostle’s own voiceover commentary at the end.
From a Friday press release issued by the City of Durham, announcing new details for a Dec. 1 “community open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony” at the Durham Performing Arts Center:
The Durham Performing Arts Center is a $44 million, state-of-the-art performing arts venue under construction at the corner of Mangum and Vivian Streets in downtown Durham.
In fact, as the Indy reported in November 2007, the theater is budgeted at $46.8 million. In that story, we rounded down to $46, but explained the exact figure in a sidebar. (Read this week’s cover package on DPAC, for which the City refused to provide an up-to-date budget that would explain actual costs.)
The City’s press release, authored by Public Affairs Director Beverly Thompson, might explain why The News & Observer also used the incorrect figure of $44 million in a Friday blog post about the opening ceremony. In a Sunday print story, the N&O used the correct figure of $46.8 million. (A clip search reveals that, over the past year, the N&O has alternated, erroneously, between $44 and $45.8 million -finally getting it right in September 2008). Meanwhile, the Herald-Sun has stayed away from dollar signs altogether when mentioning DPAC (except to quote a vague “economic impact” estimate provided by Alan DeLisle, the assistant city manager for Economic Workforce and Development). In fact, despite mentioning the theater in 46 articles, news briefs and opinion columns over the past nine months, the last time the paper cited DPAC’s budget was in February 2008. That number, according to the H-S? $44 million.
In other words, the H-S has never told its readers exactly what DPAC will cost. The City’s PR department has done a better job, give or take a few million dollars.
And he’s got the deets: Relatively inexpensive at about $100,000 (excluding the commissioning, construction and maintenance costs), it’s going to be a “sculpted disc” that will project light up into the air–so much of it, in fact, that the operators of DPAC will have to keep the operators of Raleigh-Durham International Airport apprised of the lighting schedule.
The weird part is that the disc will contain snippets of dialogue from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which—if you spend any time around actors you know this—is the infamous, accursed “Scottish play,” not to be mentioned by name. Here are the lines, as quoted in an Oct. 16 memo to City Manager Thomas Bonfield.
MACBETH: I heard a voice cry. ‘Sleep no more!’
LADY MACBETH: What do you mean?
MACBETH: Still it cried ‘Sleep no more’ to all the house:/ ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor/ shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’
We love the Scottish play, but this could be a heavy curse burden to place upon a 2,800-seat box that’s counting on bringing the kids and the grandparents into things like Wicked and Legally Blonde: The Musical.
For the record, the quotations are from the Scottish play, Act II, Scene ii, 46-55.
Jaume Plensa's 9-foot-tall glowing "Tattoo," which was displayed at Duke's West Campus Plaza from October 2006 through May 2007
Remember Jaume Plensa, the Spanish artist whose proposed light-and-water installation for downtown Raleigh was ignominiously scrapped two years ago?
Well, BCR unearthed a building application for the Durham Performing Arts Center site that has Plensa’s name on it, in the form of something called the “Plensa Vault.”
The potential connective tissue could be Jim Goodmon, owner of much of land adjacent to DPAC. Goodmon offered $2.5 million to support the doomed Raleigh installation, and he’s also given three Plensa pieces to the N.C. Museum of Art. However, BCR notes that Goodmon doesn’t seem to be on the building permit.
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