Some sad news for those who enjoy the arts in Second Life. A few days ago, Ina Centaur announced in the SL Shakespeare Company Blog that their sims would be shutting down on October 29 “or thereabouts,” and with them the Globe Theater.
Begining in February 2008, the SL Shakespeare Company held performances in it’s Globe Theater. Things went well to the final performance in December 2011. Then in 2012, things went bad. With the discount for nonprofit sim teirs gone, Ina posted in May that they could raise only enough money to cover the costs for two of their sims. Fortunetly, the sims had been paid for in advance for some months, but due to $3,200 in unpaid fees elsewhere, her account was frozen and locked out of the Grid, bringing the long-term future of the Globe Theater in doubt. Hopes were raised when she negotiated to possibly gain preservation status for the theater, like Svarga. But the Linden she made the deals with was dismissed from the Lab, and Ina found it “impossible” to talk to her replacement. She began to conclude that the end was just a matter of time.
On October 22, she posted in her own blog and the Shakespeare blog that the end was finally coming. She thanked the patrons of the Globe, beginning with those “who could no longer be with us.” She also made one particularly bold claim, saying in the past after doing some fundraising, “the avatar of someone rich and famous in RL contacted me. The patron criticized me for paying too much for SL and attempting to do everything myself, but helped donate enough (through several alt’s) to help save the Shakespeare and Primtings sims.”
“In early 2009, I received a mysterious package by mail in RL — an iPhone 3G. It was rather anonymized, but I thanked the patron by IM — and, he told me that that was what I should be putting my time into. He also said that he created iTunes so that independent creators could share their creations and even turn it into a viable business ...”
“Was it really Steve Jobs?” Ina stated she respected “the privacy of our patrons, so I did not inquire further.” But she did want to meet him in real life, and was saddened when the Apple co-founder died from cancer, “I knew two weeks ago, when he passed away, that this SL dream was over… But, it was beautiful while it lasted.”
And so, another valued piece of land is set to depart from the Grid. But this one was especially a treasure to those in the art community
“We thank you for having witnessed the short duration of this virtual miracle. Adieu.”
Source: InaCantaur.com, SL Shakespeare Company Blog, Daniel Voyager’s Blog
Bixyl Shuftan
The Globe Theater when being built, and a future of plays and drama, the good kind, ahead of it.
1 hour ago
No comments:
Post a Comment