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PLAYING AUSTRALIA
The Minister for the Arts Peter Garrett has announced the projects which have won support from Playing Australia for 2008.
Production to tour include Ngapartji Ngapartji from Big Hart, 'The Fastest Boy in the World' from Patch Theatre in Adelaide and Oz Opera's travelling adaptation of 'Madame Butterfly'.
Minister Garret was speaking at the Long Paddock Forum in Melbourne where he re-assured the audience of the government's commitment to the arts.
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MTC
The Melbourne Theatre Company has announced that its new theatre will be named to honour a leading figure of Australian drama.
The 500-seat auditorium will be known as the Sumner Theatre after the founding director of the MTC, John Sumner. Originally know as the Union Theatre Repertory Company, Sumner founded the company at the University of Melbourne in 1953.
Sumner was in charge until 1987 and was present at the Southbank site for the announcement.
Also present was playwright Ray Lawler, whose 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll' marked a turning point in Australian drama. The play enjoyed both critical and commercial success for its treatment of the working lives of itinerant cane cutters, and upset not a few social sensitivities when first performed at the Union Theatre, by the company, in 1955.
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CRAFT VICTORIA
New appointments now...
Joe Pascoe, formerly of the Australia Council for the Arts, has been appointed as the new Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer of Craft Victoria.
Pascoe has a long association with Craft as a writer, curator and gallery director.
He has more than 25 years' experience with projects as diverse as the Maker to Manufacturer to Market Initiative at the Australia Council and had a hand in the establishment of the prestigious Sidney Myer Fund International Ceramic Award when he was Director at Shepparton Art Gallery.
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HEIDE MUSEUM AND ARTS GALLERY
And Heide Museum and Arts Gallery, once the home of art patrons John and Sunday Reid, has appointed Jason Smith to replace Leslie Alway as director.
Smith was a curator of Australian Art at the NGV for 14 years and moved to the Monash Gallery of Art at Monash University just nine months ago.
Smith stressed that the move did not reflect any dissatisfaction with Monash and was not a decision he took lightly. He said that he had been approached by the board of Heide to take the position.
The Heide Museum in the outer Melbourne suburb of Bulleen is regarded as the birth place of the modernist art movement in Australia, and painter like Sidney Nolan and Bert Tucker were regular guests of the Reids.
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ANDY WARHOL EXHIBITION
In Brisbane now where the exhibition of works by US artist Andy Warhol has attracted a record attendance during a four-month season, attracting visitors from around Queensland, from interstate and overseas.
The exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art at the Queensland Art Gallery averaged more than 1800 visitors daily and the extraordinary popularity prompted the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, USA, home of the exhibition to offer the gallery a two-week extension until 13 April.
The final attendance figures reached 232,000.
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ART AT THE HEART
Registrations have opened for the sixth Regional Arts Australia National Conference to be held in Alice Springs in October.
The national conference is expected to be the largest gathering of arts professionals in Australia this year.
The Australian Government supports the conferences through the Regional Arts Fund and the Australia Council for the Arts supports the artistic program for the conference. The Northern Territory Government is hosting the conference through Arts NT in collaboration with the Alice Springs Town Council.
Registration forms are available at www.artattheheart.com.au.
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AFI AWARDS
Entries are now open for the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards in all categories: Documentary, Short Fiction Film, Short Animation, Feature Film and Television.
There have been a number of changes to the mechanics of submitting entries since last year. These include a paperless entry system, a reduction in some entry fees and a significant change to the television closing date.
The AFI has also made it easier for low budget feature films to be included by allowing films released on DVD or having a single screen release to be entered.
The details of the changes are on the AFI website so for all those considering the submission of film or TV production, visit the AFI website at www.afi.org.au.
The AFI has also announced the appointment of Helene Carter as the new Awards Manager.
Carter has a background in television production, both advertising and broadcast and was the Production Manager of Medal Ceremonies for the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
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