parterre box

Before we start our daily Steelathon, La Cieca wants to ask you, cher public: which nickname should your doyenne use in future for the NYCO’s new honcho: “Two-Face” or “The Man of Steel?”

Okay, so our first story of the day is an editorial in the New York Times welcoming, well, you know who to town, though warning he “has his work cut out for him.” (Oh, Gray Lady, how you do turn a phrase!) Perhaps a more subtly ominous note is sounded in the final graf, when the Royal Editoral We admonish Steel, “His task will be not just to raise money and inspire his company. As he begins to take the measure of the board that hired him, we suspect he may also see the necessity of strengthening that board.” No names, please — as if any were needed!

“All that is needed now is for Mr. Steel to get the company back onstage. Even a limited comeback season would be a triumph.” [NYT]

La Cieca tries to be charitable, especially to members of her own gender, but she has come to the conclusion that it is time for Susan Baker to shut the hell up. NYCO’s new General Director has been chosen and is about to take office, and the more Baker yammers, the more she makes George Steel come off like an ineffectual lapdog, which goodness knows La Cieca hopes he’s not going to be. (Bad enough that some in the media are calling him “Two-Face.”) Back away from the press conferences, ma’am, and please just let your hired hand do his job.

Oh, and one other thing. If you must talk to the media (and La Cieca thinks you really mustn’t, but who listens to La Cieca?) — anyway, if you must talk to the media, please, please, please stop saying things like you hope to announce a season in mid-March. That’s just deadly, because you’ve just set yourself up for two months of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, and then, when (as likely will happen) you don’t announce a season in mid-March, that’s yet another brick in the wall of failed NYCO promises, e.g.:

At the moment, our thinking is that if we have to be dark in the State Theater for part of the ’08-09 performance season, what we would do is have some non-traditional season in other venues,” [Baker] said.

Go on a vacation or something, Ms. Baker, but please do hush.