According to today's NY Times, the Ford Center will be renamed the Hilton Theatre (thankfully, not in honor of Paris). It will be effective by the time Chitty Chitty Bang Bang begins performances. The option on the name remains in place for 10 years.
While all the corporate naming of theatres is generally soulless, at least the Hilton Theatre rolls off the tongue easier than the Ford Center for the Performing Arts. Ford Center renamedUpdated On: 11/17/04 at 08:30 AM
The first thing I thought of when I started to read that was "oh God... they are NOT naming a theatre for Paris." Thankfully, my thought process is the mass-media induced one of an American teenager, and this isn't the case, though it's just as weird.
"Noah, someday we'll talk again. But there's things we'll never say. That sorrow deep inside you. It inside me, too. And it never go away. You be okay. You'll learn how to lose things..."
Brooks Brothers Atkinson Theatre Imperial Margarine Theatre P C Richard Rodgers Theatre Virginia Is For Lovers Theatre Cadillac Winter Garden Theatre...oh, wait a minute....
"If my life weren't funny, it would just be true. And that would be unacceptable."
--Carrie Fisher
"There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who wait for things to happen, and those who wonder what happened." ANONYMOUS
That name is even worse than the current name of that theatre. I think corporation names plastered onto broadway theatres takes away the integrity of the place.
"Chicago is it's own incredible theater town right there smack down in the middle of the heartland. What a great city! I can see why Oprah likes to live there!" - Dee Hoty :-D
A name change from Ford to Hilton is really just a lateral move. Questions of "better" or "worse" are really irrelevant, I think.
Interesting that we have theatres named for real estate magnates, corporations, theatre owners, WIVES of theatre owners, and two theatre critics, but when it comes down to names of the actors, writers, directors of musicals, only ten Broadway theatres out of nearly 40 bear the name of those who CREATED theatre (Neil Simon, Eugene O'Neill, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Helen Hayes, Edwin Booth, George and Ira Gershwin, John Golden, David Belasco, Richard Rodgers, George Broadhurst).
Again, where it the Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein II, Stephen Sondheim, Ethel Merman... et al.
It makes sense to me. Frankly, the Hilton name, though recently tarnished with Paris's video, has always been associated with prime real estate and success. I mean, The Ford Center? You guys honestly think that Ford having a theatre named after it is better than Hilton? Ford = cars Hilton = five-star hotels It looks better to me this way. But I DO think the possibility of companies that have nothing to do with entertainment or the arts encroaching on Broadway is a real one. Hell, FORD is a prime example. On a side note, it is terribly unfortunate that the first show in the newly renamed Hilton Theatre has the last two words of its title: Bang Bang *shudders*