Quick Takes - Nov. 30, 2012

LACMA body set to quit

Diana Gutman, chairwoman of the Art Museum Council at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, reports that her 40-member board has voted unanimously to stop volunteering at the museum next year because of its plans to nearly triple council members’ fees.

As the museum announced this week, members who once paid a minimum of $400 to participate on various councils (or $450 for this particular council) will be required to pay $1,000 plus a $250 membership fee starting next June.

The Art Museum Council is one of 10 museum support groups — the only one raising money for acquisitions and exhibitions across the board instead of for a specific department.

In an email Thursday explaining the decision, Gutman wrote that the council’s board “voted to withdraw from LACMA rather than discriminate against any of our members who would be unable to pay the exorbitant increase to stay in our council. We do not believe in leaving anyone out of our group.”

Museum director Michael Govan explained this week that he was raising dues for the 10 art councils, support groups that help with acquisitions and exhibitions, to bring them “more in line with other museums nationally.” He also said that their boards would be dissolved, shifting responsibility for fundraising and event-planning from the councils to curators and the in-house development staff.

—Jori Finkel

Composer blows deadline again

Osvaldo Golijov is one of the most in-demand composers working today, with commissions from major orchestras around the world. But the Argentine composer has missed deadlines for new pieces in recent years and, on Thursday, he whiffed again with the announcement that his new violin concerto — already delayed — will not be ready for its scheduled performances in January.

The piece had been scheduled to be performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with violinist Leonidas Kavakos, in concerts in Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall.

The piece is a co-commission of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and London’s Barbican Centre. It had been scheduled to be performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall in May 2011, but the performance was canceled because the piece wasn’t ready in time.

In a statement, Golijov said that “some works have a pleasant birth, while others a difficult one.... The violin concerto belongs to the second type....”

—David Ng

Another cruel truth for ‘Owens’

The CW is going to be minus one doctor: The network has canceled freshman drama “Emily Owens, M.D.”

The series, which starred Meryl Streep spawn Mamie Gummer as a shy medical student who realizes adulthood is awfully similar to high school, was not given a full-season order. But fans will get to see it finish its 13-episode run.

The Tuesday drama brought in only 1.4 million viewers for its most recent episode.

—Yvonne Villarreal

‘Hunger Games’ to Vietnam

Ever wonder what made Suzanne Collins come up with the idea for “The Hunger Games”? The trilogy is pretty terrifying: Teenagers are set loose in the woods and forced to fight to the death.

Maybe that year Collins’ dad spent in Vietnam has something to do with it.

Her next book may shed light — although it will be an unusual light. “Year of the Jungle” is an autobiographical book about the year Collins was in first grade and her father was a soldier in Vietnam. But it’s a picture book. For little kids.

Wait. What?

In its news release about the book Thursday, publisher Scholastic explained: “In ‘Year of the Jungle,’ when young Suzy’s father leaves for Viet Nam, she struggles to deal with his absence. What is the jungle like? Will her father be safe? When will he return? The months slip by, marked by the passing of the familiar holidays and the postcards that her father sends. With each one, he feels more and more distant, and when he returns, Suzy must learn that even though war has changed him, he still loves her just the same.”

“Year of the Jungle” is for 4 and older. It is illustrated by James Proimos and will be published Sept. 10.

—Carolyn Kellogg

Spielberg, King to do TV drama

Two of the biggest names in showbiz, Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, will team this summer on CBS.

The network announced Thursday that it has ordered 13 episodes of “Under the Dome,” a drama adapted from King’s 2009 novel about a small New England town suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a transparent dome, from Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.

King is on board as an executive producer.

The series will launch with a premiere episode directed by Niels Arden Oplev, who helmed the Swedish-language adaptation of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

—Meredith Blake