Around The Arts

Branagh set to return to London stage\nLONDON -- Kenneth Branagh is returning to the London stage for the first time in more than a decade.\nThe National Theater announced Wednesday that the actor and director will star in "Edmond," a David Mamet play that's being revived at the National this summer.\nBranagh, 42, played the self-absorbed Gilderoy Lockhart in last year's "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and is director of the West End hit "The Play What I Wrote," which is moving to Broadway this spring.\nNicholas Hytner, the National's artistic director, said the part of Edmond was "as challenging a role as anything in contemporary theater."\nThe production is part of an effort to attract new theatergoers with low prices -- two-thirds of the tickets will sell for $16, and the rest for $40.\nN.J. symphony gets Italian string \ninstruments\nNEWARK, N.J. -- A $50 million collection of 30 "golden age" string instruments is finally in the hands of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra after its collector and symphony officials announced a deal Wednesday.\nThe steeply-discounted sale of the instruments for $18 million by Herbert Axelrod -- a pet products tycoon, tropical fish expert, philanthropist and amateur violinist -- bestows what is widely viewed as the world's largest assemblage of rare Italian stringed instruments on the Newark-based orchestra.\nThe sale was characterized by orchestra officials as a gift. It is the unmatched concentration of such instruments among one group of players that makes this a significant event for the symphony world, said Charles S. Olton, president of the American Symphony Orchestra League.\nOlton said the collection will only enhance the orchestra's first-class reputation and attract tourists to its concerts, which are regularly held at seven locations around New Jersey. Players and orchestra officials also said the instruments, along with the orchestra's praised concert hall at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, will enhance the group's search for a successor to Zdenek Macal, who stepped down as music director last season.\nControversial anti-firearm book re-published\nNEW YORK -- A disputed book about guns in the United States that was stripped of the prestigious Bancroft Prize and discontinued by its original publisher will be reissued this fall in a revised edition.\nMichael Bellesiles' "Arming America," first published in 2000 by Alfred A. Knopf, has been acquired by Soft Skull Press, which has a history of taking on controversial books.\nMany cited it as a devastating statement against America's alleged historical love affair with firearms. But gun advocates quickly attacked the book, and scholars and critics also became skeptical.\nOther releases by Soft Skull include "Fortunate Son," which first came out in 1999 and claimed that George W. Bush had been arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession. Bush, a presidential candidate at the time, denied the allegations.\nSt. Martin's Press dropped the book soon after publication upon learning that author James Howard Hatfield was convicted in 1988 for attempted murder.