Conference suggests ways Broadway can be better

NEW YORK (AP) — A conference on how to make the Broadway experience better for theatergoers has come up with some prescriptions: Be brave in the stories that are told onstage and embrace youth and technology.

“Broadway, I don’t think, has boldly gone where it needs to,” said “Star Trek” actor George Takei, riffing off his old show’s motto. “I have a sense that Broadway hasn’t entered into the 21st century.”

The second TEDxBroadway conference on Monday brought together 16 speakers — producers, marketers, entrepreneurs, academics and artists — to try to answer the question: “What is the best Broadway can be?”

“We use the word ‘best’ because the goal of today is to go right past better all the way to the extent of what is possible, even if it seems a little bit outlandish,” said co-organizer Jim McCarthy, the CEO of Goldstar, a ticket retailer.

TEDx events are independently organized but inspired by the nonprofit group TED — standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design — that started in 1984 as a conference dedicated to “ideas worth spreading.” Video of the Broadway event will be made available to the public.

While the health of Broadway is good, with shows yielding a record $ 1.14 billion in grosses last season, some speakers noted that total attendance — 12.3 million last season — hasn’t kept pace, meaning Broadway isn’t always attracting new customers.

Three speakers — one the sister of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg — argued that new technology means the stage experience doesn’t need to be confined to the four walls of the theater and so can grow new audiences.

David Sabel, who has helped drive the National Theatre of Great Britain into the digital age, pointed out that broadcasts of his stage shows on movie screens across the world haven’t dampened demand at the box office and have actually have themselves become profitable.

“I think in our business, digital is uniquely not a threat but an opportunity,” he said. “What if we could open it up and invite a much greater audience in to speak with us?”

Randi Zuckerberg said the Broadway community could increase visibility by having auditions for minor parts via YouTube, have live tweeters backstage, offer crowd funding to knit people to productions, give walk-on parts for influential figures or even make the Playbills electronic.

“Why should Broadway be limited by physical space? By ticket prices? By the same shows, over and over?” she asked. “Instead of having just a small sliver of the world come to Broadway, why not bring a small piece of Broadway to the entire world?”

And Internet guru Josh Harris said producers need to open the entire process to the outside world, including video cameras backstage to capture actors getting ready and even having the orchestra pit filled with people interacting with the audience via their electronic devices.

The annual gathering centered on Broadway is the brainchild of three men: McCarthy; Ken Davenport, a writer and producer; and Damian Bazadona, the founder of Situation Interactive. It drew 400 people to the off-Broadway complex New World Stages and into the theater where “Avenue Q” usually plays.

Takei in the past few years has grown 3.3 million Facebook friends and leveraged them into audience members to “Allegiance,” his new musical about Japanese-Americans during World War II,

“If I can do it, Broadway certainly can,” the 65-year-old said. “Broadway is at its best when it embraces all of the technological advancements of the time and starts making a lot of friends on social media. Then, as we say on ‘Star Trek,’ Broadway will live long and prosper.”

Thomas Schumacher, the president of the Disney Theatrical Group, slammed the pretentious way some in the theatrical community look at more mainstream shows and scoffed at their disdain for making the audience experience more fun.

“Populism has its own manifest destiny and we need to embrace that,” said Schumacher, who called for a big tent of theatrical options on Broadway and especially shows for children who will return as adults. “What I ask you to do is embrace this audience and maybe even embrace the sippy cup.”

Terry Teachout, drama critic at The Wall Street Journal, soberly pointed out that 75 percent of all Broadway shows fail and then asked that more producers roll the dice on quality.

“If you can’t count on getting rich, then forget playing it safe. Why not take a shot at being great?” he asked. “If there’s ever a time for you to shoot high, this is it. Don’t start out settling for safe. Gamble on great.”

Kristoffer Diaz, the playwright of the Pulitzer Prize finalist “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” urged producers to embrace different voices, as they did with “In the Heights” and “Rent.”

“Women, writers of color, transgender, lesbian, gay and bisexual — we need to keep hearing these stories. We need to hear them on Broadway,” he said. “It becomes a lot harder to dismiss somebody out of hand if you’ve spent a couple of hours investing in their story.”

Two speakers with specialty knowledge outside Broadway urged the community to not just focus on putting on a great show.

Susan Reilly Salgado, who has worked with famed restaurant owner Danny Meyer, said his success is not only about creating tasty dishes. Meyer, she said, makes the whole evening fun.

“To say that, in a restaurant, it’s all about the food discounts everyone else who touches the customer experience,” she said. “The best way to get people to come back to you over and over is to create an all-encompassing experience.”

Erin Hoover, the vice president of design for Westin and Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, said Broadway theaters could take a page out of the innovations brought to hotel lobbies, which are now comfortable, inviting and offer new sources of revenue. “The experience for the show really starts at the door.”

Customer service was also a theme touched on by Zachary A. Schmahl, an actor-turned-baker who created Schmackary’s Cookies in his apartment and has watched it grow into a thriving business.

“Customer service is something that people are missing in New York,” he said. “It’s so important in our single-serving culture to be that business that has a heart and a soul alongside a quality product.”

One returning speaker was Vincent Gassetto, the principal of a high-performing public middle school in a tough area of the Bronx, who urged those in attendance to make sure Broadway was on the radar of his best and brightest students.

“It’s in everybody in this room’s best interest that they have an awareness of this industry or we’re never going to win that talent war,” he said. “We’re all going to be competing for them.”

Though the speakers came from different backgrounds and emphasized different prescriptions, they did seem to agree with Daryl Roth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning producer of seven plays, including “Clybourne Park.” She challenged the crowd to think of Broadway in more than just dollars and cents.

“If we share the deep belief that theater matters, that theater can change us and ultimately change the world, then isn’t that the best Broadway can be?” Roth asked.

___

Online:

http://www.goldstar.com/tedxbroadway

___

Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Personal Health: Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.

Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.

But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have blood pressure that remains too high to be healthy. (A normal blood pressure is lower than 120 over 80.) With a plethora of drugs available to normalize blood pressure, why are so many people still at increased risk of disease, disability and premature death? Hypertension experts offer a few common, and correctable, reasons:

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Jane Brody speaks about hypertension.

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¶ About 20 percent of affected adults don’t know they have high blood pressure, perhaps because they never or rarely see a doctor who checks their pressure.

¶ Of the 80 percent who are aware of their condition, some don’t appreciate how serious it can be and fail to get treated, even when their doctors say they should.

¶ Some who have been treated develop bothersome side effects, causing them to abandon therapy or to use it haphazardly.

¶ Many others do little to change lifestyle factors, like obesity, lack of exercise and a high-salt diet, that can make hypertension harder to control.

Dr. Samuel J. Mann, a hypertension specialist and professor of clinical medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, adds another factor that may be the most important. Of the 71 percent of people with hypertension who are currently being treated, too many are taking the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages of the right ones.

Dr. Mann, author of “Hypertension and You: Old Drugs, New Drugs, and the Right Drugs for Your High Blood Pressure,” says that doctors should take into account the underlying causes of each patient’s blood pressure problem and the side effects that may prompt patients to abandon therapy. He has found that when treatment is tailored to the individual, nearly all cases of high blood pressure can be brought and kept under control with available drugs.

Plus, he said in an interview, it can be done with minimal, if any, side effects and at a reasonable cost.

“For most people, no new drugs need to be developed,” Dr. Mann said. “What we need, in terms of medication, is already out there. We just need to use it better.”

But many doctors who are generalists do not understand the “intricacies and nuances” of the dozens of available medications to determine which is appropriate to a certain patient.

“Prescribing the same medication to patient after patient just does not cut it,” Dr. Mann wrote in his book.

The trick to prescribing the best treatment for each patient is to first determine which of three mechanisms, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible for a patient’s hypertension, he said.

¶ Salt-sensitive hypertension, more common in older people and African-Americans, responds well to diuretics and calcium channel blockers.

¶ Hypertension driven by the kidney hormone renin responds best to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as direct renin inhibitors and beta-blockers.

¶ Neurogenic hypertension is a product of the sympathetic nervous system and is best treated with beta-blockers, alpha-blockers and drugs like clonidine.

According to Dr. Mann, neurogenic hypertension results from repressed emotions. He has found that many patients with it suffered trauma early in life or abuse. They seem calm and content on the surface but continually suppress their distress, he said.

One of Dr. Mann’s patients had had high blood pressure since her late 20s that remained well-controlled by the three drugs her family doctor prescribed. Then in her 40s, periodic checks showed it was often too high. When taking more of the prescribed medication did not result in lasting control, she sought Dr. Mann’s help.

After a thorough work-up, he said she had a textbook case of neurogenic hypertension, was taking too much medication and needed different drugs. Her condition soon became far better managed, with side effects she could easily tolerate, and she no longer feared she would die young of a heart attack or stroke.

But most patients should not have to consult a specialist. They can be well-treated by an internist or family physician who approaches the condition systematically, Dr. Mann said. Patients should be started on low doses of one or more drugs, including a diuretic; the dosage or number of drugs can be slowly increased as needed to achieve a normal pressure.

Specialists, he said, are most useful for treating the 10 percent to 15 percent of patients with so-called resistant hypertension that remains uncontrolled despite treatment with three drugs, including a diuretic, and for those whose treatment is effective but causing distressing side effects.

Hypertension sometimes fails to respond to routine care, he noted, because it results from an underlying medical problem that needs to be addressed.

“Some patients are on a lot of blood pressure drugs — four or five — who probably don’t need so many, and if they do, the question is why,” Dr. Mann said.

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How to Measure Your Blood Pressure

Mistaken readings, which can occur in doctors’ offices as well as at home, can result in misdiagnosis of hypertension and improper treatment. Dr. Samuel J. Mann, of Weill Cornell Medical College, suggests these guidelines to reduce the risk of errors:

¶ Use an automatic monitor rather than a manual one, and check the accuracy of your home monitor at the doctor’s office.

¶ Use a monitor with an arm cuff, not a wrist or finger cuff, and use a large cuff if you have a large arm.

¶ Sit quietly for a few minutes, without talking, after putting on the cuff and before checking your pressure.

¶ Check your pressure in one arm only, and take three readings (not more) one or two minutes apart.

¶ Measure your blood pressure no more than twice a week unless you have severe hypertension or are changing medications.

¶ Check your pressure at random, ordinary times of the day, not just when you think it is high.

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DealBook Column: Mary Jo White, Nominee for S.E.C.'s 'New Sherrif,' Has Worn Banks' Hat

“You don’t want to mess with Mary Jo.”

That’s what President Obama said about his pick to run the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White. The nomination of Ms. White, a former prosecutor who took on the terrorists behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the Mafia boss John Gotti, was meant to signal that the S.E.C. would be getting tough on Wall Street. CBS called her “Wall Street’s new sheriff.” The Wall Street Journal said she would be “putting a tougher face on an agency still tainted by embarrassing enforcement missteps in the run-up to the financial crisis.” The New York Times said her appointment represented a “renewed resolve to hold Wall Street accountable.”

Hold on.

While Ms. White is a decorated prosecutor, she has spent the last decade vigorously defending — and billing by the hour — Wall Street’s biggest banks, as a rainmaking partner at the white-shoe law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. The average partner at the firm was paid $2.1 million a year, according to American Lawyer; but she was no average partner, very likely being paid at least double that. Her husband, John W. White, is a corporate partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He counts JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse and UBS as clients. The average partner at Cravath makes $3.1 million. He, too, was a former official at the S.E.C. — he left Cravath to run the corporate division of the S.E.C. starting in 2006 just in time for the run-up to the financial crisis. He left in November 2008, a month after the bank bailouts, to return to Cravath.

It seems Mr. and Ms. White have made a fine art of the revolving door between government and private practice.

So how conflicted is Ms. White? Let’s count the ways.

They are well documented: she was JPMorgan Chase’s go-to lawyer for many of the cases brought against it relating to the financial crisis. She was arm-in-arm with Kenneth D. Lewis, Bank of America’s former chief executive, keeping him out of trouble when the New York attorney general accused Mr. Lewis of defrauding investors by not disclosing the losses at Merrill Lynch before completing Bank of America’s acquisition of the firm. (And empirically, Mr. Lewis did keep crucial information about the deal from investors.)

This is what she had to say about Mr. Lewis, in a court filing submitted on his behalf: “Some have looked to assign blame for every aspect of the financial crisis, even where there is no evidence of misconduct. This case is a product of that dynamic and does not withstand either legal or factual scrutiny.” It was a refrain she often made about her clients related to the financial crisis.

And then there was Senator Bill Frist, the Republican from Tennessee, whom she successfully represented when the S.E.C. and the Justice Department started an investigation into whether he was involved in insider trading in shares of HCA, the hospital chain. She persuaded them to shut down the investigation.

She also worked with Siemens, the German industrial giant, when it pleaded guilty to charges of bribery, paying a record $1.6 billion penalty.

And then, of course, there was John Mack. She worked for the board of Morgan Stanley during a now well-publicized 2005 investigation into insider trading that ended soon after she made a phone call to the S.E.C. Using her connections at the top of the agency, she dialed up Linda Thomsen, then the commission’s head of enforcement, to find out whether Mr. Mack, who was being considered for Morgan Stanley’s chief executive position, was being implicated. He ultimately wasn’t. As the Huffington Post pointed out in a recent article about Ms. White, Robert Hanson, an S.E.C. supervisor, later testified, “It is a little out of the ordinary for Mary Jo White to contact Linda Thomsen directly, but that White is very prestigious and it isn’t uncommon for someone prominent to have someone intervene on their behalf.”

All of Ms. White’s previous engagements create not only an “optics” problem, but a practical, on-the-job problem. She will most likely need to recuse herself from just about anything related to her previous work.

“I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts,” is the language in an ethics pledge that she will have to agree to follow.

Some appointees, including Mary L. Schapiro, the former chairwoman of the S.E.C., recused themselves from any involvement in work that was related to a previous employer even after the two-year moratorium. Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, recused himself from the investigation into MF Global because of his previous employment at Goldman Sachs, where Jon Corzine was the firm’s head, even though it had been years since the two had worked together.

And then there is the issue of Mr. White’s husband, who will have a continuing role at Cravath, one of the most pre-eminent firms in the country, whose clients include some of the nation’s largest corporations.

“This president has adopted the toughest ethics rules of any administration in history,” said Amy Brundage, a White House spokeswoman, “and this nominee is no exception. As S.E.C. chair, Mary Jo White will be in complete compliance with all ethics rules.”

None of these conflicts gets at another potential problem for Ms. White. The job of chairwoman of S.E.C. isn’t simply about enforcement; she has a deputy for that. The biggest challenge anyone who takes the job will have to confront over the next several years will be executing and enforcing provisions of Dodd-Frank and working to regulate electronic trading — something that even the most sophisticated financial professionals, let alone a lawyer, often have a tough time understanding. She has zero experience in this area.

Of course, there can always be a value to inviting a onetime rival onto the team.

“I believe she is one of those people who will understand that her public role will be very, very different than her role as a defense lawyer,” Dennis M. Kelleher of Better Markets, a watchdog group, told me. “I don’t think she’s going to be like so many others who don’t get that they have a very different role when they hold high public office.

“No question, she’s said some things that are controversial and questionable,” Mr. Kelleher said. “Moreover, I hope and expect that she will be asked publicly about them in the confirmation process and that she will have convincing answers.”

Of course, if she is confirmed, we must all hope that she can put her previous client relationships behind her and work for her new client — us.

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Live updates: 'Argo' wins top SAG Award; Day-Lewis, Lawrence win

Ben Affleck's “Argo” seems to be unstoppable. The film about a CIA plot to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980 won the 19th Screen Actors Guild Award on Sunday night for ensemble in a motion picture.

The win came hours after the film, which also stars Affleck, took the Producers Guild Award on Saturday night — an honor that is one of the leading indicators of Oscar gold. Two weeks ago, “Argo” won the Golden Globe for best dramatic motion picture, one of the many honors it has recently picked up this season.

 “Argo” heads into next month's Academy Awards with momentum — and seven nominations, including best picture, supporting actor for Alan Arkin, and adapted screenplay. (Shockingly, Affleck was not nominated for a directing Oscar, even though he received a Directors Guild of America nomination and won the Golden Globe for director.)

PHOTOS: SAG Awards red carpet

The outlook seems equally golden for Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway, whose Golden Globe awards two weeks ago were followed Sunday night with SAG awards.

Day-Lewis won the trophy — and a standing ovation — for lead actor as the nation’s 16th president in “Lincoln.” Lawrence won her award for female actor playing a young widow in the quirky romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.” Hathaway took the SAG award for female actor in a supporting role as the tragic Fantine in “Les Miserables.”

Tommy Lee Jones won his first major award of the season for male supporting actor for “Lincoln.” Jones is also nominated for an Academy Award for supporting actor.

SAG 2013: Winners | Show highlights | Complete list | Red carpet

The SAG movie wins offered a rare moment of clarity as the highly unpredictable awards season enters its final stretch, culminating with the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. 

A SAG win does not guarantee Oscar gold, but history suggests it's nearly impossible to win an Academy Award in the acting categories without a SAG nomination.

 On the television side of the awards ceremony, it was a three-peat night for Claire Danes, Julianne Moore, Kevin Costner and the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.”

FULL COVERAGE: SAG Awards 2013 

The performers made it a clean sweep by winning the Emmy, the Golden Globe and the SAG award.

Danes won for female actor in a drama series for Showtime’s political thriller “Homeland.” Moore’s uncanny performance as 2008 Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin in HBO’s “Game Change” earned her female actor in a television movie or miniseries. And Costner nabbed male actor in a television movie or miniseries for History’s “Hatfields & McCoys.”

“Modern Family,” meanwhile, earned its third consecutive SAG award for ensemble in a comedy series.

PHOTOS: SAG Award nominees & winners

 Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey earned a great parting gift when they won for their lead roles in a comedy series for NBC's “30 Rock.” Fey used the win to ask people to tune in at 8 Thursday night for the series’ one-hour finale, opposite the highly rated CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

“Just tape ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for once, for crying out loud!” Fey pleaded.

Bryan Cranston won for male actor in a drama series for “Breaking Bad.” “It is so good to be bad,” purred Cranston as he picked up the honor. And PBS’ “Downton Abbey” won for ensemble in a drama series.

SAG 2013: Winners | Show highlights | Complete list | Red carpet

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‘Argo,’ Lawrence, Day-Lewis win at SAG

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The CIA thriller “Argo” continues to steamroll through awards season, winning the top honor for overall cast performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

SAG’s lead-acting honors Sunday went to Jennifer Lawrence won for her role as a troubled widow in a shaky new relationship in the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook” and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War epic “Lincoln.”

The supporting film awards Sunday went to Anne Hathaway of “Les Miserables” and Tommy Lee Jones of “Lincoln.”

“It occurred to me — it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln,” said Day-Lewis, a solid front-runner to join an exclusive list of three-time acting Oscar winners. “And therefore, somehow it is only so fitting that every now and then an actor tries to bring him back to life again.”

The SAG cast win came a day after “Argo” claimed the top honor from the Producers Guild of America, whose winner often goes on to claim best picture at the Academy Awards. “Argo” also was a surprise victor two weeks ago at the Golden Globes, where it won best drama and director for Ben Affleck.

The award momentum positions “Argo” for a rare feat at the Feb. 24 Oscars, where it could become just the fourth film in 85 years to be named best picture without a nomination for its director.

“To me this has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who were in this movie,” said Affleck, who also stars in “Argo” and accepted the SAG prize alongside his cast.

It was a brisk, businesslike and fairly bland evening as the actors union handed out honors to a predictable lineup of winners who generally had triumphed at earlier Hollywood ceremonies or past SAG shows.

“Now I have this naked statue that means some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling,” ”Silver Linings” star Lawrence said after explaining she earned her SAG card at age 14 by filming a spot for MTV.

Hathaway won for her role as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution in the adaptation of the stage musical based on Victor Hugo’s epic novel. Her win came over four past Oscar recipients — Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman and Maggie Smith.

“I’m just thrilled I have dental,” Hathaway said. “I got my SAG card when I was 14. It felt like the beginning of the world. I have loved every single minute of my life as an actor. … Thank you for nominating me alongside incredible women and incredible performances.”

Jones, who was not at the show, won for his turn as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens in the Civil War epic. The win improves his odds to become a two-time Academy Award winner. He previously won a supporting-actor Oscar for “The Fugitive.”

On the television side, with “30 Rock” ending its run, its stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin won the SAG awards for best comedy performers. It was Baldwin’s seventh-straight win, while Fey earned her fifth SAG prize.

“Oh, my God. It’s ridiculous,” Baldwin said. “It’s the end of our show, which is sad. Everybody is sad about that. It was the greatest experience I’ve ever had.”

Fey gave a plug for the show’s finale airing Thursday, noting that it’s up against “The Big Bang Theory.”

“Just tape ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for once, for crying out loud,” Fey said.

“Modern Family” won for best overall cast in a TV comedy show. Accepting for the cast, “Modern Family” co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson offered thanks to the makers of “30 Rock” and another departing series, “The Office,” saying “you all have set the comedy bar so high.”

Ferguson joked that if the “30 Rock” or “The Office” stars need jobs, they should contact the “Modern Family” casting director.

The TV drama acting awards went to Claire Danes of “Homeland” and Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad.”

“It is so good to be bad,” Cranston said.

“Downton Abbey” won the TV drama cast award.

Julianne Moore’s turn as Sarah Palin in “Game Change” earned her the TV prize for best actress in a movie or miniseries. Kevin Costner won for best actor in a movie or miniseries for “Hatfields & McCoys.”

Fey, who memorably spoofed Palin herself in “Saturday Night Live” sketches, said backstage that Moore’s performance was “incredible. She really disappeared into the character, she did a real film acting job. You wouldn’t want a sketch acting job in that movie.”

Earlier, the James Bond adventure “Skyfall” and the fantasy series “Game of Thrones” picked up prizes for best stunt work, honors announced on the red carpet before the official SAG Awards ceremony.

JoBeth Williams and Scott Bakula announced the winners, noting the value of stunt players, who often are overlooked for their contributions to film and television.

“The stunt men and women of our union are critical to the work that gets done,” Bakula said. “They keep us healthy, they keep us alive, they keep us working. They keep our shows working.”

The SAG honors are the latest show in a puzzling Academy Awards season in which Hollywood’s top prize, the best-picture Oscar, looks up for grabs among several key nominees.

Honors from the actors union, next weekend’s Directors Guild of America Awards and Saturday night’s Producers Guild of America Awards — whose top honor went to “Argo” — typically help to establish clear favorites for the Oscars.

But Oscar night looks more uncertain this time after some top directing prospects, including Affleck for “Argo” and Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty,” missed out on nominations. Both films were nominated for best picture, but a movie rarely wins the top Oscar if its director is not also in the running.

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” would seem the Oscar favorite with 12 nominations. Yet all of the triumphs for “Argo” leave the Oscar race looking like anybody’s guess.

The SAG honors at least should help to establish solid front-runners for the stars. All four of the guild’s individual acting winners often go on to receive the same prizes at the Academy Awards.

The SAG cast prize has a spotty record at predicting the eventual best-picture recipient at the Oscars. Only eight of 17 times since the guild added the category has the cast winner gone on to take the best-picture Oscar. “The Help” won the guild’s cast prize last year, while Oscar voters named “The Artist” as best picture.

Such past guild cast winners as “The Birdcage,” ”Gosford Park” and “Inglourious Basterds” also failed to take the top Oscar.

Receiving the guild’s life-achievement award was Dick Van Dyke, who presented the same prize last year to his “The Dick Van Dyke Show” co-star, Mary Tyler Moore.

After waiting on stage for a prolonged standing ovation to end, Van Dyke said, “That does an old man a lot of good.”

___

Associated Press writers Beth Harris, Christy Lemire and Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

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Dave Purchase, Who Led Needle-Exchange Movement, Dies at 73

Dave Purchase, a bearded biker who 24 years ago began handing out sterile syringes to prevent AIDS among drug addicts on the streets of Tacoma, Wash., and went on to become a national leader of the needle-exchange movement, died on Jan. 21 in Tacoma. He was 73.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his son, Dylan.

With a borrowed television tray and a folding chair that he set up on a downtown street steps away from a heroin den, Mr. Purchase began handing out syringes, bottles of bleach, cotton swabs and condoms in the summer of 1988. Within five months he had exchanged 13,000 clean needles (most of them bought at his own expense) for dirty ones — and was gaining wide attention from the news media.

“How does this work?” a toothless addict asked him, The New York Times reported in January 1989.

“You give me an old one, I give you a sterile one, and it keeps your butt alive,” Mr. Purchase responded.

Mr. Purchase would trade as many as 10 needles at a time, while also handing out cookies and mittens.

By 1993 he had founded both the Point Defiance AIDS Project, with support from the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, and the North American Syringe Exchange Network. The network, which buys syringes wholesale and sells them at cost to programs across the country, now distributes more than 15 million syringes annually.

Articles over the years have cited Mr. Purchase’s 1988 street-corner operation as the first exchange in the nation. Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which promotes alternatives to harsh legal treatment of drug users, could not confirm that.

“Whether or not he was literally the first to hand out syringes to stop AIDS, he was undoubtedly the godfather of needle exchange in America,” Mr. Nadelmann said in an interview. “He was a mentor and adviser to activists and public health workers around the world.”

In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when many critics argued that needle exchanges encouraged drug use, Mr. Purchase “was able to get political acceptance in Tacoma and obtain public funding,” said Don Des Jarlais, the director of research for the Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan.

When Mr. Purchase set up shop, he was without official government sanction or financial backing and, he said, was prepared to go to jail for 90 days for the misdemeanor offense of possessing drug paraphernalia. But he soon received support from the Tacoma police chief, Ray Fjetland, who suspended enforcement of the syringe law.

Mr. Purchase also worked closely with the county health department. The program became something of a model.

By 2011, according to a survey by Dr. Des Jarlais, there were 197 known needle-exchange programs in 36 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. That year, those exchanges distributed more than 36 million syringes.

“Given that over the course of the epidemic there have been several million people who injected drugs,” Dr. Des Jarlais said, “the efforts of Dave and people like him have literally saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

In a way, David Joe Purchase found his calling on a Harley-Davidson. Born in Tacoma on Aug. 29, 1939, to Kenneth and Bernice Purchase, he was something of a rebel as a youngster. He worked at several jobs after dropping out of college.

“My dad was a biker, with the big beard, the black leather jacket,” Mr. Purchase’s son said. “Because of that look, he started assisting a friend who was a drug counselor who would send him around town when clients went missing — into bars, down an alley.”

Mr. Purchase was nearly killed in 1983 when a drunken driver crashed into his motorcycle. After a long rehabilitation, he returned to work as a drug counselor and soon realized that many of his clients were dying of AIDS. He used $3,000 from a settlement from the accident to buy syringes and set up his table.

Mr. Purchase’s marriages, to Sally Riewald and Sue Powers, ended in divorce. Beside his son, he is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Rebecca Ford; two stepsons, Blake Barry and Kelly Powers; a stepdaughter, Krista Townsend; a sister, Karen Robinson; and three step-grandchildren.

In 2006, Mr. Purchase told The News Tribune in Tacoma that he would never consider giving up his work.

“I’d have to live with that,” he said. “This is life and death. There were unnecessary deaths, unnecessary and preventable deaths.”

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DealBook: Beneath the Calm, SAC Works to Contain Fallout From an Inquiry

At last month’s Hurricane Sandy benefit concert, Steven A. Cohen sat near the Madison Square Garden stage, grooving to performances by Bon Jovi and Billy Joel.

Last week, he flew a private jet to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, rubbing shoulders with world leaders and Fortune 500 chieftains. And on Monday, he will show up at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for one of the year’s biggest hedge fund conferences and, if he can squeeze it in, a round of golf.

For a man who has emerged as the Justice Department’s great white whale in its insider trading investigation — a Wall Street version of Captain Ahab pursuing Moby-Dick — Mr. Cohen, the billionaire owner of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, does not appear concerned.

But inside the offices of SAC’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters, and at Midtown Manhattan law firms, Mr. Cohen’s employees and lawyers are working hard to contain the fallout from the investigation.

His executives have offered financial incentives to Mr. Cohen’s staff members to stay with SAC. Marketing officers are trying to persuade investors to keep their money at the fund. And defense lawyers are working furiously to persuade federal securities regulators not to file a civil fraud lawsuit against the firm.

“This has always been a stressful place to work,” said an SAC employee who requested anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak publicly about the fund. “Now it’s just more stressful.”

Neither SAC nor Mr. Cohen has been accused of any wrongdoing.

The main question now looming over the firm is whether its clients will stand by the fund, or its legal and regulatory problems will cause investors to head for the exits. Under the firm’s rules, SAC clients have until Feb. 15 to ask for their money back, and then cannot make another so-called redemption request for another three months.

Mr. Cohen’s fund was dealt a blow last week when a Citigroup unit that manages money for wealthy families disclosed that it was withdrawing its $187 million investment. The move by the bank was the most prominent client departure since November, when the multiyear investigation into SAC’s trading practices entered a more serious phase.

Citigroup’s withdrawal represents a tiny percentage of SAC’s $14 billion in assets under management. The fund has said it expects total investor redemptions for the first quarter of up to $1 billion, a number that an SAC spokesman has said will not adversely affect its business.

SAC is largely insulated from the potentially devastating effects that client defections can have on a hedge fund in part because of Mr. Cohen’s extraordinary wealth. Unlike other hedge fund managers who rely almost entirely on outside investors, Mr. Cohen has the comfort of knowing that about $8 billion of SAC’s fund belongs to him and his employees.

Still, the Citigroup decision stung, say people close to SAC’s business, because of the longstanding and lucrative relationship between the bank and the fund. Another concern, said these people, is that the move could influence other large SAC investors currently weighing whether to keep their money at the fund.

For Citigroup, its withdrawal of money from SAC carries substantial business risk. The bank has a vast relationship with SAC, earning revenue by providing the fund with financing and trading services.

SAC could exact retribution on Citigroup by terminating, or at least scaling back, its broader relationship with the bank. An SAC spokesman declined to comment.

Citigroup’s move came two months after federal authorities arrested Mathew Martoma, a former SAC portfolio manager, in what they described as the most lucrative insider trading case ever uncovered. The Martoma indictment represented the first time that the government had brought charges stemming from a trade in which Mr. Cohen had been involved. The Securities and Exchange Commission has warned Mr. Cohen that it might file a civil fraud action against SAC related to the case.

In addition to Mr. Martoma, at least seven former SAC employees have been tied to insider trading while at the fund. Three have pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Citigroup issued a statement that its decision “should not be construed as a statement on the merits of any outstanding legal proceedings or potential regulatory action.” But the bank specifically cited the Martoma case, explaining that “in the event these legal and regulatory matters are resolved favorably for Mr. Martoma and SAC, Citi Private Bank expects to reconsider admission of SAC’s funds to its hedge fund platform.”

Mr. Martoma has pleaded not guilty and rejected requests by federal agents to cooperate against his former boss. Mr. Cohen has told his employees and clients that he is confident that he has acted appropriately at all times.

Yet the heightened government scrutiny has caused skittishness among SAC’s top ranks, forcing the fund to lavish even richer financial incentives on a group of employees that is already among the most highly compensated in the hedge fund industry.

This month, SAC told its stable of portfolio managers that it would increase year-end bonuses by three percentage points. SAC portfolio managers — the fund’s most senior traders, given the authority to make their own investment decisions and also feed Mr. Cohen their best ideas — are paid, on average, 20 percent of the profits they generate for the fund.

“The program is intended to retain our most valuable resource, our investment professionals,” said Jonathan Gasthalter, the SAC spokesman.

Another valuable resource is SAC’s outside investors, which account for about $6 billion, or 40 percent, of the fund’s assets. That money accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, which SAC uses to finance one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated hedge fund operations, with more than 1,000 employees and 125 teams of traders and analysts. Its operation is also one of the most successful, posting average annualized returns of about 30 percent since 1992.

Those results have in the past kept SAC’s customers satisfied, but the government scrutiny has made many of them uneasy. The firm’s marketing team has reached out to the fund’s investors to address their concerns and reassure them that the insider trading inquiry will not affect its performance.

Despite those efforts, several investors in addition to Citigroup, including Titan Advisors and a unit of Société Générale, have notified SAC that they are withdrawing money. Other clients, like Chapwood Investments and SkyBridge Capital, have said they will continue to invest with the fund.

SAC executives continued the charm offensive with major clients on Sunday, holding an annual golf outing in Palm Beach on the eve of a hedge fund conference at the Breakers sponsored by Morgan Stanley. The conference — a matchmaking event that connects top managers with the world’s richest investors — is considered an important stop on the hedge fund money-raising circuit.

Since Morgan Stanley does not invite the news media to its conference, there is not expected to be the same paparazzi-like reports on Mr. Cohen that emerged last week from Davos. Bloomberg News filed a dispatch that Mr. Cohen sat in on a panel discussion on data security called “The Digital Infrastructure Context.” And Henry Blodget, the editor of the financial Web site Business Insider, wrote a Twitter post on a sighting of Mr. Cohen.

“Steve Cohen was hanging in Davos lounge yesterday,” he wrote. “Didn’t look worried.”

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L.A. mayoral candidates sound off on pot dispensaries

As Los Angeles voters face the possibility of as many as three medical marijuana initiatives on the May ballot, several mayoral candidates have begun to outline their own plans to deal with the proliferation of pot dispensaries — an issue that has ensnared the City Council in countless legal tangles.

At a mayoral forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters last week, four of the five leading candidates argued for paring back the hundreds of pot dispensaries around the city. But Councilman Eric Garcetti said his first goal would be to persuade the federal government to reclassify marijuana as a medicine: "I will advocate that as mayor," he said.

Garcetti, who presided over many of the battles on the issue as council president from 2006 to 2012, said he would also urge state lawmakers to set regulations governing the distribution of medical marijuana.

"The courts say wildly different things because there has not been clear guidance from the state or federal level," he said. At the city level, Garcetti said, he would try to "keep access" while limiting the number of dispensaries. "You charge a fee so you have an enforcement mechanism, and where possible collect taxes" — steps that, he said, would free up law enforcement officers to focus on more serious crime.

City Controller Wendy Greuel called for "compassion" but placed a greater emphasis than Garcetti on tightening regulations on the locations of pot shops in the city.

"I think when people voted in the state of California to allow medical marijuana, they thought they would go to their local CVS pharmacy and get it. They didn't think about the impact it would have on neighborhoods," said Greuel, who is targeting many of the more conservative San Fernando Valley voters. "The bottom line is we have a right to regulate where marijuana clinics are in the city of Los Angeles…. The public is demanding that the government actually do their job."

After the forum, aides to Greuel told The Times she also would support classifying marijuana as a medicine at the federal level.

The city has struggled for years to regulate the placement of pot shops. A loophole in the city's 2007 moratorium allowed hundreds of additional shops to open. The council's efforts to limit the proliferation led to more than 100 lawsuits against the city. In response to complaints from neighborhood activists, the council enacted a ban on storefront marijuana sales last July. But it retreated in October, repealing the ban after a well-organized coalition of marijuana activists mounted an effort to overturn it at the ballot box.

Kevin James, a former federal prosecutor and the sole Republican among the major contenders, said the confusion and legal wrangling illustrated the dysfunction of the council.

"More pot clinics than Starbucks? Unbelievable," James said at Thursday night's forum. "Only this City Council could put a moratorium on 180 or so pot clinics — and it skyrockets to over 1,000."

The five mayoral candidates were pressed to say how many dispensaries should be allowed across the city. James said he favored about 10 in each of the 15 council districts. Garcetti said the original number of dispensaries — approximately 100 — was "about right."

Greuel and Councilwoman Jan Perry said they were hesitant to name an exact number, with Perry adding that she would take her policy cues from the voters in May.

Candidate Emanuel Pleitez, a technology executive who read from notes throughout the forum, argued that "politicians shouldn't be in the business of setting numbers" and should "let the market decide."

Last week the City Council advanced a measure for the May ballot that would permit only the dispensaries that opened before the moratorium to operate; the measure would also raise taxes on marijuana sales. Garcetti backed the request by Councilman Paul Koretz and Council President Herb Wesson asking the city attorney to draw up language for a ballot measure. Perry was absent for the vote.

Two additional — and competing — medical marijuana initiatives have qualified for the May ballot.

One, which is largely backed by dispensaries that opened after the moratorium, would allow many pot shops to remain open, but it would set new requirements for their operations — such as limited hours and maintaining a certain distance from schools. It would raise taxes on medical marijuana by 20% to pay for city enforcement.

The other was created by a coalition of medical marijuana advocates and the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which began organizing dispensary workers last year. Like the City Council-sponsored proposal, it would allow only pot dispensaries that opened before 2007 to operate. Koretz and Wesson have criticized the measure for not mandating that the shops be located farther away from schools, churches and parks.

Some advocates for the union-backed measure now say they probably will support the council's proposal because it too would allow older dispensaries to remain open and has a better chance of passing.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

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Google reportedly ‘actively exploring’ the smartwatch market

In October, Google (GOOG) was granted a patent for a smartwatch with a flip-up display, however it was assumed that the concept, like most patents, would never move beyond the drawing board. A new report from Business Insider claims that the company is now “actively exploring” the idea of producing its own smartwatch and is even looking into ways it could market such a device. Information is slim and it is unclear what size the device would be or if it would even run the company’s Android operating system. Business Insider cautioned that the project is still in a “very early stage” and “it remains to be seen if Google will actually end up bringing a smart watch to market.” As the Pebble has shown, however, there is clearly a market for smartwatches.

[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Opera about Nazi atrocity shown in Austria

VIENNA (AP) — Thousands of children were murdered by the Nazis because they fell short of the Aryan ideal. On Friday, a hushed audience gathered in Austria’s Parliament to watch the world premiere of an opera depicting how the Nazis methodically killed mentally or physically deficient children at a Vienna hospital during World War II.

The killings were part of a greater campaign that led to the deaths of about 75,000 people — homosexuals, the handicapped, or others the Nazis called “unworthy lives” — and served as a prelude to the Holocaust.

Austrians played a huge role in these and other atrocities of the era — nearly 800 children were killed at Vienna’s Spiegelgrund psychiatric ward — and Friday’s premiere of the opera “Spiegelgrund” was the latest installment of a national effort to atone for such acts in word and deed.

The timing was picked to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, which will be observed worldwide Sunday, and the performance was streamed live on the Internet for international audiences. But the parliamentary venue was chosen for a particularly Austrian reason: as a reminder of how the country’s politicians fomented the atmosphere of intolerance and authoritarianism that allowed Hitler’s troops to walk in in 1938, and a determination to not let history repeat itself.

Composer Peter Androsch said his focus on the era was in part born of his own family’s history. His great grandfather died in a Nazi concentration camp. Androsch said the fact that that was hidden for generations “says a lot about conditions in totalitarian regimes and should serve as a reminder for me and many others.”

At the premiere — a hauntingly effective hour-long performance — legislators were joined in the audience by diplomats, Holocaust survivors, former Spiegelgrund patients and other invited guests in an ornate chamber lined with Ionic columns and used for special legislative sessions.

Spiegelgrund survivor Friedrich Zavel was in the audience. He was brought to the clinic in 1940 after being accused of homosexuality. Now 83, he still shudders when he speaks of his ordeals: humiliation, solitary confinement and torture.

The “Wrap Treatment” consisted of orderlies binding a child first in two sheets soaked in ice water, then two dry sheets, followed by waiting for days without food and drink until the body warmth dried the sheets. There also were beatings and injections that either made the child vomit or left him unable to walk for days.

Asked Friday how he felt about the wrongs done to him, Zavel said: “I know neither revenge nor hate.”

The opera itself was more of an oratory. Backlit in gloomy purple and red, and accompanied by strings, flute, percussion and a harpsichord, a trio slipped into each other’s roles in an allegorical depiction of how all are victims and perpetrators.

Thus a white-coated doctor embodying “The Law” switched from vocalizing about Sparta’s doctrine of letting weak newborns die to singing a child’s ditty before moving to the role of “Memory” — singing broken phrases that harken back to the horrific experiences of the victimized children. The two other singers shifted roles accordingly as a narrator dryly recited facts reflecting the atrocities committed.

“On some days, so many children were killed that the orderlies had to pile the little bodies on a wheelbarrow,” narrator Karl Sibelius intones in one sequence before reading a letter from a mother addressed to an institute doctor and pleading for the return of her son.

Bass Robert Holzer was “The Law,” and sopranos Katerina Beranova and Alexandra Diesterhoeft sang “Memory” and “Children’s Song” respectively. All were very solid.

Parliament President Barbara Prammer said the nation could no longer focus only on glorifying its past.

“We can’t choose our history,” she told The Associated Press.

___

AP video journalist Philipp Jenne contributed.

___

Online: www.sonostream.tv

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