“I WANT to blow you all. A kiss,” trilled Sarah Joy Miller (pictured, in a pink confection), who played the title role in “Anna Nicole”, a New York City Opera production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The opera depicted the life of Anna Nicole Smith, a Playboy model who, at the age of 26, married a Texan oil billionaire of 89. She went on to become a reality-show diva and tabloid queen. The bawdy comic libretto (she ordered her plastic surgeon to “Supersize me”) gave way in the second half to a dark verismo. The final aria, during which she dies, was as wrenching as the death of Violetta, the consumptive courtesan-heroine of “La Traviata”. It is also a reminder of how she died in real life: with an audience watching. The curtain went down on “Anna Nicole” on September 28th. Three days later, a metaphorical curtain fell on the New York City Opera. Crippled by financial problems going back at least three decades, the 70-year-old company announced on October 1st that it was shutting down and would file for bankruptcy.

Last month, it had warned that unless it could raise $7m by the end of September, Chapter 11 was likely. Pleas for money reached a crescendo when the company took its appeal to Kickstarter, an online platform for crowdfunding. In all, it raised only about $2m, not including $301,000 on Kickstarter. The New York City Opera was established by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1943 to bring high culture at low prices to ordinary New Yorkers. Tickets are subsidised by donations. But opera is expensive, with its lavish sets and 73-piece orchestras. Those choruses of Hebrew slaves, not being real slaves, demand to be paid. The “People’s Opera” has struggled to break even. For the whole of the 2008-2009 season it was dark (ie, it staged no shows). To save money, it cut the number of productions. In 2011 it moved out of the expensive Lincoln Centre. All this “did not generate much confidence among donors”, says Marc Scorca of OPERA America, a network of American opera companies. The business model doesn’t seem to be working, observed Michael Bloomberg, New York’s art-loving mayor.

“Anna Nicole” was an attempt to reach a broader audience. (Not everyone likes Schoenberg.) City Opera had a history of reaching out. It used American singers such as Brooklyn-born Beverly Sills. It celebrated new works, especially American ones, and avant-garde music. For decades it was an alternative to a stodgy Metropolitan Opera, but then the Met loosened up and smaller companies started to compete for New Yorkers’ ears. When Mr Scorca first saw “Anna Nicole” during its London run, he thought it would be perfect for City Opera. Paradise Moving Services Inc CalgaryBut like the real Anna Nicole’s showbiz career, the fun didn’t last long. Stihl Se 60 Vacuum CleanerIt ain’t over till the well-proportioned lady sings. Bathtubs For Sale Louisville Ky

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s 2014-15 Theater Season is here. Thirteen exciting new events, including The Two Cities Project, and returning ones, such as the Francis Ford Coppola One Act Marathon, will be hosted by the School’s Department of Theater. “I am, once again, overjoyed and very impressed by the brilliant season our Department of Theater faculty have curated for the 2014–15 season at TFT,” says UCLA TFT Dean Teri Schwartz. “From classics to groundbreaking new works, this upcoming season is a ‘wow’ by any measure and one that I am really looking forward to. I can’t wait to see our amazing students’ work and that of our distinguished faculty and visiting artists, as well.” Dec. 5–6, 9–13: The season kicks off with “The Revenger’s Tragedy,” written by English playwright Thomas Middleton in 1606 and directed by Lisa Wolpe, artistic director of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company. In this vivid, violent Jacobean tragedy of lust and ambition, featuring MFA and undergraduate actors from the theater department, a young man plots revenge on a depraved duke for his lurid offenses.

UCLA TFT’s Freud Playhouse. Dec. 9–13: “The Laramie Project” chronicles the 1998 murder of gay teenager Matthew Shepard and closely examines hate and homophobia in our society, as told by published news reports, friends, family and inhabitants of Laramie, Wyoming. Featuring undergraduate actors, “The Laramie Project” was written by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project. Directed by MFA director Bryan Puckett. UCLA TFT’s Little Theater. Dec. 11–13: The New Play Festival features MFA playwright Nicholas Johnson’s “The Other Town,” in which Stevie, struggling to make ends meet in the foggy redwoods of California, cares for her sister and emotionally frayed mother while watching her own dreams float away. Performed by undergraduate actors and directed by alumnus Richard Martinez. Feb. 13, 15, 20, 22: Presented in collaboration with Opera UCLA and UCLA Philharmonia, the West Coast premiere of Saverio Mercadante’s recently rediscovered bel canto masterpiece “I Due Figaro” kicks off Winter Quarter 2015, as part of L.A. Opera’s “Figaro Unbound” celebration.

This sequel to “The Marriage of Figaro,” with libretto by Felice Romani, is made possible in part by the generous support of the Max H. Gluck Foundation. Directed by UCLA Opera head professor Peter Kazaras and conducted by Joseph Colaneri, all aspects of this production are executed by students enrolled in UCLA Department of Theater courses in scenery, costuming, lighting, sound and advanced theater laboratories. Feb. 25–28: Project III, a collection of plays performed by undergraduate actors, helmed by MFA directors Darcie Crager and Brendan Hartnett. This will be held in Melnitz Hall’s Theater Lab. March 6–7, 10–14: The ghosts of German-occupied Poland are invoked by the tortured soul of a young soldier returning from Iraq in Magda Fertacz’s “Trash Story” (translated by Benjamin Paloff). Directed by alumna Monica Payne, “Trash Story” features MFA actors from the Department of Theater. March 10–14: Written and directed by MFA director Zhou Xiao Wei, “Begonia,” which features undergraduate actors, is an adaptation of a popular Chinese novel about a young woman who sets forth on an epic journey to find her destiny.

May 6–9: Spring Quarter begins with associate professor Joe Olivieri directing undergraduate actors in Joe Sutton’s explosive and harrowing drama “Voir Dire.” A jury of six is left to decide the fate of a prominent African American arrested for buying crack. Theater Lab in Melnitz Hall. May 7–9, 12–16: The Ray Bolger Musical Theater Production for the 2014-15 academic year is “Bat Boy: The Musical.” Based on the sensational half-bat/half-boy story from the Weekly World News, “Bat Boy: The Musical” examines hypocrisy, racism and revenge all to the tune of Laurence O’Keefe’s catchy score. Directed by adjunct associate professor Jeremy Mann, the musical features undergraduate actors and a book by alumnus Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming. May 29, June 5: Actors from the UCLA Department of Theater Undergraduate Program and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) will perform new work in real time in London and Los Angeles via broadband internet connection as part of The Two Cities Project.

Two distinguished playwrights travelling from London to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to London will provide the focus for this exciting acting and playwriting experiment. Associate professor Thomas O’Connor will direct the Los Angeles performance. “As the host of the LAMDA auditions in Southern California for more than 30 years, we have had a strong friendship with our friends in London,” says Department of Theater chair Michael Hackett. “This new venture promises to be an exciting collaboration between our two schools and between our UCLA and LAMDA students.” June 4–6: An Evening of Devised Work, which showcases projects created and performed by first-year MFA actors, directors and playwrights. Date TBD: The Francis Ford Coppola One Act Marathon, established in 1998 and named after the UCLA TFT alum and world-renowned filmmaker, pairs graduate film directors from the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media with new works by Department of Theater playwrights.

The one acts are performed by UCLA TFT undergraduate and graduate actors. June 6: The 2014–15 theater season ends with Design Showcase West. Held at UCLA TFT each year, DSW is the only national entertainment design showcase on the West Coast featuring the work of students graduating from the nation’s top university design programs, including UCLA; California Institute of the Arts; University of Missouri, Kansas City; the University of Texas, Austin; and the North Carolina School of the Arts. Exhibits range from costume design to set, sound and lighting design. Entertainment producers, directors and A-list designers looking for new talent regularly attended DSW. In addition to the UCLA TFT Department of Theater, Design Showcase West is hosted by the Costume Designers Guild, Local 892, the United Scenic Artists, Local 829, the Set Decorators Society of America and the Art Directors Guild, Local 800. A full schedule for the 2014-15 season is available on UCLA TFT’s theater season website www.tft.ucla.edu/theaterseason.