Friday, January 20, 2006

The Stranger - Slog:

Your neighborhood supplier of corporate theater (the touring productions of The Graduate and The Lion King at “Broadway in Seattle at the Paramount”) changed hands recently. The infamous Clear Channel Communications got rid of its theater and concert division—which produced 12,000 theater productions, 10,000 concerts, and 600 “motor-sports events” last year—and the new company, called Live Nation, went public. Guess what happened? Clear Channel stock shot up, and Live Nation’s promptly plummeted. The lesson? There is no money in theater.