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Another casualty of COVID; Cirque du Soleil files for bankruptcy, $1 bil in debt, cuts 3,500 jobs
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Jason
Jun 29, 2020, 1:59:38 PM6/29/20
to
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/29/business/cirque-du-soleil-bankruptcy/index.html?utm_content=2020-06-29T17%3A42%3A24&utm_term=link&utm_source=twcnnbrk&utm_medium=social
New York (CNN Business) Cirque du Soleil, the producer of a number of Las Vegas acrobatic shows, has filed for bankruptcy.
In an announcement Monday, the Montreal-based company blamed its bankruptcy on the "immense disruption and forced show closures as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic" and is aiming to restructure its debt with assistance from the Canadian government and private equity firms.
The filing comes three months after it temporarily suspended production of its shows, including six in Las Vegas. It also has about 10 shows on tour across the world, including "O," "Michael Jackson One," and "The Beatles LOVE."
Cirque entered a "stalking horse" bid from its largest backers, including a mix of multinational private equity firms from the United States, China and Canada for $20 million. That offer is intended to be a starting point in an auction to draw other bidders.
The company has also received $300 million in fresh funding to "support a successful restart, provide relief for Cirque du Soleil's affected employees and partners, and assume certain of the company's outstanding liabilities," it said in the release.
Cirque is drowning in nearly $1 billion in debt, according to multiple reports. That's becoming increasingly untenable as its productions remain suspended. To help stem the financial loss, Cirque has laid off roughly 3,500 employees.
"For the past 36 years, Cirque du Soleil has been a highly successful and profitable organization," said Daniel Lamarre, CEO of Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group in a release. "However, with zero revenues since the forced closure of all of our shows due to Covid-19, management had to act decisively to protect the company's future."
New York (CNN Business) Cirque du Soleil, the producer of a number of Las Vegas acrobatic shows, has filed for bankruptcy.
In an announcement Monday, the Montreal-based company blamed its bankruptcy on the "immense disruption and forced show closures as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic" and is aiming to restructure its debt with assistance from the Canadian government and private equity firms.
The filing comes three months after it temporarily suspended production of its shows, including six in Las Vegas. It also has about 10 shows on tour across the world, including "O," "Michael Jackson One," and "The Beatles LOVE."
Cirque entered a "stalking horse" bid from its largest backers, including a mix of multinational private equity firms from the United States, China and Canada for $20 million. That offer is intended to be a starting point in an auction to draw other bidders.
The company has also received $300 million in fresh funding to "support a successful restart, provide relief for Cirque du Soleil's affected employees and partners, and assume certain of the company's outstanding liabilities," it said in the release.
Cirque is drowning in nearly $1 billion in debt, according to multiple reports. That's becoming increasingly untenable as its productions remain suspended. To help stem the financial loss, Cirque has laid off roughly 3,500 employees.
"For the past 36 years, Cirque du Soleil has been a highly successful and profitable organization," said Daniel Lamarre, CEO of Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group in a release. "However, with zero revenues since the forced closure of all of our shows due to Covid-19, management had to act decisively to protect the company's future."
That Derek
Jun 29, 2020, 3:45:06 PM6/29/20
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Geez, I couldn't stand them on account of that sanctimonious ringmaster/emcee who would introduce the show with that stagy French-flavored accent: "At Cirque du Soleil, we do not use les animals!"
Not wanting to utilize or not being able to afford animals is okay -- just don't lord it over everybody. It was like going to a Ben & Jerry's ice cream place and being bombarded by all the hippie philosophy billboards reminding the customers not to waste paper.
Have you ever noticed that the performers who have the stagiest French accents are French? Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Robert Clary, and that Cirque du Soleil guy to name a few.
Not wanting to utilize or not being able to afford animals is okay -- just don't lord it over everybody. It was like going to a Ben & Jerry's ice cream place and being bombarded by all the hippie philosophy billboards reminding the customers not to waste paper.
Have you ever noticed that the performers who have the stagiest French accents are French? Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Robert Clary, and that Cirque du Soleil guy to name a few.
Bryan Styble
Jun 29, 2020, 5:59:37 PM6/29/20
to
Astute analysis there, Derek. And you could have added Celine "I shake my fist so you'll know I mean these lyrics!" Dion.
I presume you omitted Pepe LePew and Sellars/Martin as Clouseau [sp?] because they're doing farce, animated or live-action, correct?
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
I presume you omitted Pepe LePew and Sellars/Martin as Clouseau [sp?] because they're doing farce, animated or live-action, correct?
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
darrell...@gmail.com
Jun 29, 2020, 6:38:29 PM6/29/20
to
Derek and Bryan:
“Geez, I couldn't stand them on account of that sanctimonious ringmaster/emcee who would introduce the show with that stagy French-flavored accent: "At Cirque du Soleil, we do not use les animals!"
Not wanting to utilize or not being able to afford animals is okay -- just don't lord it over everybody. It was like going to a Ben & Jerry's ice cream place and being bombarded by all the hippie philosophy billboards reminding the customers not to waste paper.
Have you ever noticed that the performers who have the stagiest French accents are French? Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Robert Clary, and that Cirque du Soleil guy to name a few.
The Ringmaster was actually saying:
“We are “socially responsible”.
WHY aren’t you?”
They are superior to
Everyone else. Hey!
Why aren’t you in 🇫🇷
France? I am sure the
Axis of Cheese 🧀
misses you.
“Geez, I couldn't stand them on account of that sanctimonious ringmaster/emcee who would introduce the show with that stagy French-flavored accent: "At Cirque du Soleil, we do not use les animals!"
Not wanting to utilize or not being able to afford animals is okay -- just don't lord it over everybody. It was like going to a Ben & Jerry's ice cream place and being bombarded by all the hippie philosophy billboards reminding the customers not to waste paper.
Have you ever noticed that the performers who have the stagiest French accents are French? Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Robert Clary, and that Cirque du Soleil guy to name a few.
“We are “socially responsible”.
WHY aren’t you?”
They are superior to
Everyone else. Hey!
Why aren’t you in 🇫🇷
France? I am sure the
Axis of Cheese 🧀
misses you.
Message has been deleted
RH Draney
Jun 29, 2020, 7:38:05 PM6/29/20
to
On 6/29/2020 2:59 PM, Bryan Styble wrote:
> Astute analysis there, Derek. And you could have added Celine "I shake my fist so you'll know I mean these lyrics!" Dion.
>
> I presume you omitted Pepe LePew and Sellars/Martin as Clouseau [sp?] because they're doing farce, animated or live-action, correct?
He also left out François Truffaut (Lacombe in "Close Encounters of the
> Astute analysis there, Derek. And you could have added Celine "I shake my fist so you'll know I mean these lyrics!" Dion.
>
> I presume you omitted Pepe LePew and Sellars/Martin as Clouseau [sp?] because they're doing farce, animated or live-action, correct?
Third Kind") and his latter-day counterpart John Emmet Tracy (Enzo
Lambert on the TV series "iZombie")...one of these people isn't actually
French, but both are (in one way or another) on-topic for this
newsgroup....r
David Samuel Barr
Jun 30, 2020, 2:21:12 AM6/30/20
to
On 6/29/2020 5:59 PM, Bryan Styble wrote:
> Astute analysis there, Derek. And you could have added Celine "I shake my fist
> so you'll know I mean these lyrics!" Dion.
No, she's Canadian, not French.
> Astute analysis there, Derek. And you could have added Celine "I shake my fist
> so you'll know I mean these lyrics!" Dion.
> I presume you omitted Pepe LePew and Sellars/Martin as Clouseau [sp?] because
> they're doing farce, animated or live-action, correct?
who were French, not characters
(both played by non-French actors).
That Derek
Jun 30, 2020, 10:02:05 AM6/30/20
to
>> He cited *performers* who were French, not characters
(both played by non-French actors).
That's why I did not include Pepe LePew and Inspector Clouseau. Both Mel Blanc and Peter Sellers went out of their way to make their characters over-exaggerated.
(both played by non-French actors).
IIRC, the Cirque du Soleil point-man that I originally trashed is a French-Canadian. I'm just not passionate enough to chase down his name nor his background.
It seems there are just some celebrities who are better served by descriptors. In this case, it's "that Cirque du Soleil guy with that stagy French accent." Another case: "that soap opera actor from the Robitussin commercials who said 'I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV.'"
darrell...@gmail.com
Jun 30, 2020, 10:23:29 AM6/30/20
to
David Samuel Barr
WTF! R U new or something?
If you had any class, you’d apologized to THAT DEREK. Don’t worry. No one here is holding his or her breath.
Have you ever even heard of reconnaissance?
How about pen testing? Total jerk.
WTF! R U new or something?
If you had any class, you’d apologized to THAT DEREK. Don’t worry. No one here is holding his or her breath.
Have you ever even heard of reconnaissance?
How about pen testing? Total jerk.
That Derek
Jun 30, 2020, 10:54:23 AM6/30/20
to
Mr. Barr was not the one who 'insulted' me. I didn't consider anything in this thread to have been insulting nor apology-worthy.
Mr. Barr took to task a previous post-er who excoriated me for not including fictional characters like Pepe Le Pew and Inspector Clouseau on my litany of French actors who really pour it on when performing French accents.
David Samuel Barr is OK.
Mr. Barr took to task a previous post-er who excoriated me for not including fictional characters like Pepe Le Pew and Inspector Clouseau on my litany of French actors who really pour it on when performing French accents.
David Samuel Barr is OK.
darrell...@gmail.com
Jun 30, 2020, 11:36:39 AM6/30/20
to
I apologize. 😎
David Samuel Barr
Jul 2, 2020, 12:02:57 AM7/2/20
to
No worries, lad. All is forgiven.
(But, BTW, to answer your first question,
no, I've been here over 20 years, though
haven't been very active the last several.
And the person who I was gently correcting
[not Derek] and I went to school together
back in 1972. It's all in good fun.)
On 6/30/2020 11:36 AM, darrell...@gmail.com wrote:
> I apologize. 😎
(But, BTW, to answer your first question,
no, I've been here over 20 years, though
haven't been very active the last several.
And the person who I was gently correcting
[not Derek] and I went to school together
back in 1972. It's all in good fun.)
On 6/30/2020 11:36 AM, darrell...@gmail.com wrote:
> I apologize. 😎
Bryan Styble
Jul 2, 2020, 8:50:43 AM7/2/20
to
David Samuel Barr clarified:
And the person who I was gently correcting [not Derek] and I went to school together back in 1972.
____________________________________________________
Yikes! I guess that would be, uh, me?
So we attended school together, eh? Well, in 1972 that was Lindbergh High, in southwest suburban St. Louis, in those days I'm informed the largest secondary school, public or private, anywhere in Missouri. (And where, thanks to three years of rather dominating appearances on Scholar Quiz right there downtown under The Gateway Arch at KMOX-TV*, I was a rather well-known student on campus even though I played on no Lindbergh Flyers sports squads).
BUT: For a couple months I ALSO attended Northwestern University's National High School Institute during June, July and August of '72, prior to my senior year at Lindbergh, enrolled in the Institute's radio/TV/film program. That summer sojourn to suburban Chicago, as it happened, launched my radio career, eventually by the late 1980s making me a rather widely beloved and emulated--or abhored and ridiculed?--local commercial newstalk radio host, first in Southern California at some inconsequential stations and then in the big (or sometimes just sorta-big) radio yakker leagues in the San Francisco Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago, Albuquerque, Seattle and Orlando.
As I didn't find your name, Sir Barr, in an admittedly-nonexhaustive check of my Lindbergh yearbooks, I'm guessing you were a fellow Northwestern "cherub" (as the university so infelicitously termed us for some ungodly** reason)--which (as a male) would have put you in the same dorm with me, i.e., Elder Hall on Evanston's fabled Sheridan Road, correct?
(Oh, and whichever of those two schools it was at which we previously crossed paths, I apologize for not recalling your name while deeply thanking you for remembering MINE despite my spelling it differently back then...as I am quite flattered I managed to stick in the recesses of your mind, whether those are indeed PLEASANT memories of this future loudmouth broadcaster, or not.)
Incidentally***, I knew the vastly-over-celebrated songstress Celine Dion is not French--but given that she grew up in Montreal speaking it as a first (and only?) language, I figured she was applicable to Derek's intriguing theory about showbiz types exaggerating their accent for (silly) effect.
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
_______________________________________________________
* Those legendary call letters abandoned for some godforsaken reason in favor of KMOV, but thankfully only years after I departed The Gateway City.
** Well, upon reflection, I guess "ungodly" is an improper term to employ when discussing cherubs.
*** A word whose penultimate syllable has seemingly YET to be pronounced by commercial radio newstalker and world-class syntax-shatterer Dennis Prager, the big galoot instead always serving up for his ever-tortured listeners "in-cid-DENT-ly". (That's by my decidedly-unscientific reckoning, BUT after loyally tuning into his various shows ever since his second-ever broadcast on KABC/Los Angeles in 1982, and regularly making air pseudonymously as a caller on his programs ever since his THIRD-ever show.)
And the person who I was gently correcting [not Derek] and I went to school together back in 1972.
Yikes! I guess that would be, uh, me?
So we attended school together, eh? Well, in 1972 that was Lindbergh High, in southwest suburban St. Louis, in those days I'm informed the largest secondary school, public or private, anywhere in Missouri. (And where, thanks to three years of rather dominating appearances on Scholar Quiz right there downtown under The Gateway Arch at KMOX-TV*, I was a rather well-known student on campus even though I played on no Lindbergh Flyers sports squads).
BUT: For a couple months I ALSO attended Northwestern University's National High School Institute during June, July and August of '72, prior to my senior year at Lindbergh, enrolled in the Institute's radio/TV/film program. That summer sojourn to suburban Chicago, as it happened, launched my radio career, eventually by the late 1980s making me a rather widely beloved and emulated--or abhored and ridiculed?--local commercial newstalk radio host, first in Southern California at some inconsequential stations and then in the big (or sometimes just sorta-big) radio yakker leagues in the San Francisco Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago, Albuquerque, Seattle and Orlando.
As I didn't find your name, Sir Barr, in an admittedly-nonexhaustive check of my Lindbergh yearbooks, I'm guessing you were a fellow Northwestern "cherub" (as the university so infelicitously termed us for some ungodly** reason)--which (as a male) would have put you in the same dorm with me, i.e., Elder Hall on Evanston's fabled Sheridan Road, correct?
(Oh, and whichever of those two schools it was at which we previously crossed paths, I apologize for not recalling your name while deeply thanking you for remembering MINE despite my spelling it differently back then...as I am quite flattered I managed to stick in the recesses of your mind, whether those are indeed PLEASANT memories of this future loudmouth broadcaster, or not.)
Incidentally***, I knew the vastly-over-celebrated songstress Celine Dion is not French--but given that she grew up in Montreal speaking it as a first (and only?) language, I figured she was applicable to Derek's intriguing theory about showbiz types exaggerating their accent for (silly) effect.
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
_______________________________________________________
* Those legendary call letters abandoned for some godforsaken reason in favor of KMOV, but thankfully only years after I departed The Gateway City.
** Well, upon reflection, I guess "ungodly" is an improper term to employ when discussing cherubs.
*** A word whose penultimate syllable has seemingly YET to be pronounced by commercial radio newstalker and world-class syntax-shatterer Dennis Prager, the big galoot instead always serving up for his ever-tortured listeners "in-cid-DENT-ly". (That's by my decidedly-unscientific reckoning, BUT after loyally tuning into his various shows ever since his second-ever broadcast on KABC/Los Angeles in 1982, and regularly making air pseudonymously as a caller on his programs ever since his THIRD-ever show.)
David Samuel Barr
Jul 5, 2020, 3:07:49 AM7/5/20
to
Yes, Bryan, as has occasionally come
up here before (e.g. on 8/3/2008), we
were both RTVF cherubs* at Northwestern
that year and both in Elder Hall. No
problem that you may not remember me; I
made a point of trying to be unobtrusive.
While my experience there was somewhat
mixed you were one of those with whom I
did get along well (you even served as
the visual "punchline" to one of my video
assignments). I could toss off several
names of our teachers and fellow students
and recollections thereof but as this is
a public forum (and the topic certainly
of no further interest to anyone else in
the group) I'll refrain from doing so,
although feel free to e-mail me if you
wish to continue this.
* As they told us back then, the term
"cherub" had been coined several years
earlier when a professor teaching a
regular summer course looked out his
classroom window, saw a group of NHS
Institute students** out on the adjacent
lawn and snidely said "they look like
little cherubs, don't they?" Evidently
that tale spread and the name stuck.
** The NHS Institute had programs in a
variety of disciplines. I had originally
planned to go to the journalism one,
along with a friend I had met in a
similar program at the University of
Kansas the previous summer, but unlike
at KU RTVF was a separate program from
print so I ended up there instead.
up here before (e.g. on 8/3/2008), we
were both RTVF cherubs* at Northwestern
that year and both in Elder Hall. No
problem that you may not remember me; I
made a point of trying to be unobtrusive.
While my experience there was somewhat
mixed you were one of those with whom I
did get along well (you even served as
the visual "punchline" to one of my video
assignments). I could toss off several
names of our teachers and fellow students
and recollections thereof but as this is
a public forum (and the topic certainly
of no further interest to anyone else in
the group) I'll refrain from doing so,
although feel free to e-mail me if you
wish to continue this.
* As they told us back then, the term
"cherub" had been coined several years
earlier when a professor teaching a
regular summer course looked out his
classroom window, saw a group of NHS
Institute students** out on the adjacent
lawn and snidely said "they look like
little cherubs, don't they?" Evidently
that tale spread and the name stuck.
** The NHS Institute had programs in a
variety of disciplines. I had originally
planned to go to the journalism one,
along with a friend I had met in a
similar program at the University of
Kansas the previous summer, but unlike
at KU RTVF was a separate program from
print so I ended up there instead.
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