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- Who Wrote “Porgy and Bess”?
It must mean something that the highest creative achievement in American classical music is permanently controversial. When Porgy and Bess premiered on Broadway in 1935, a typical critical reaction was: “What is it?” American-born classical musicians (unlike their European-born brethren) marginalized George Gershwin as an interloper, a gifted dilettante. Later,
- Good Morning
Today’s AJ highlights: Does Paramount still have a chance at buying Warner? Tech billionaire (and dad of Paramount owner David) Larry Ellison has personally guaranteed $40.4 billion to back Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. There’s another growing political and legal battle in Washington, where a Kennedy Center trustee has filed a lawsuit against President Trump, alleging he is “willfully flouting the law” to satisfy personal vanity.
Playwrights Horizons is facing a significant legal challenge, being sued for discrimination over its use of ticket discounts specifically for audience members of color. This comes at a precarious time for the industry, as the legendary Public Theater—despite its Hamilton windfall—is undergoing its third round of layoffs in just four years.
AI is flooding the creative market, with a report that Suno users are generating 7 million tracks a day, which means that every two weeks, AI is creating as much music as exists on Spotify. More old school, the Metropolitan Opera is actively courting influencers to share their “delight and surprise” at the art form with a younger generation. Delight AND surprise? Do tell.
Finally, the passing of Eddie Sotto, the former Disney “Imagineer” who shaped the visitor experience at theme parks around the world.
All of today’s stories below.
- Pewabic Pottery seeks next Executive Director
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pewabic Pottery, one of the oldest continuously operating potteries in the country now a nonprofit with an array of programs, products, and partnerships in Detroit, Michigan, is seeking nominations and applications for its next Executive Director. Famously woman co-founded in 1903 with important contributions to Detroit’s historic architectural landscape and the national Arts and Culture community for over a hundred years, Pewabic continues to advance a vision for elevating the human spirit in handcrafted work through its thriving production, its educational programs for local communities and youth, and its connection and commitment to artists and arts organizations in the region. Now at the precipice of a new era with a sizeable campus on Detroit’s developing east side, a team of over 50 skilled artisans and leaders and a committed board, opportunities to expand partnerships and programs, and work conducted towards a fresh capital plan and strategic review, Pewabic is poised for a new leader who will collaboratively build and execute a strategic vision and plan for the future.
The next Executive Director will have the opportunity in the first year to work with the team to evaluate and validate key strengths and challenges of the organization, connect vision, strategy, and operations to shared program goals and funding opportunities, and harness the love of Pewabic’s stakeholders to build the pottery’s presence as a pillar of economic and artistic community building locally, regionally, and nationally.
Candidates for Executive Director will demonstrate vision, seasoned managerial and fundraising experience, humility, and proven commitment to Pewabic’s work. They will ideally have experience with diverse and distributed nonprofit funding models including a balance of earned revenue streams with strong and successful relationships with both individual donors and regional and national grantmakers in Education and the Arts. Capital campaign experience preferred. The successful candidate will demonstrate a track record of effective team building and management including leadership of strategic planning processes, design of shared leadership and accountability systems, and support toward a culture of clear and transparent communication that builds team alignment and joy in the work. Qualified candidates will demonstrate a minimum of 10 years progressive executive leadership experience and familiarity and/or connection to the Detroit region is a plus. The search is being led by Katherine Jacobs of NPAG & GDSI Leadership and complete application instructions can be found at the end of this document.
ABOUT PEWABIC
Pewabic Pottery was founded in 1903 by Mary Chase Perry (Stratton), an artist and educator, and Horace J. Caulkins, a dental supplier and kiln manufacturer. Pewabic became a leader of the Arts & Crafts movement in Detroit during a time that was both a golden age for handcrafted pottery and tile and a boom in industrialization with the birth of the automotive industry. Over the last 120 years, Pewabic and its historic building have remained a pillar of artistic production, education, and community building on Detroit’s east side.
Today Pewabic boasts a range of successful retail, education programs, and community activities. Pewabic’s retail store and production of masterfully handcrafted pottery and tile are a thriving operation bounded by the capacity of campus facilities and treasured by community members across the region. With a committed and hard-working team of artisans, both the physical and online stores are responsible for up to 70% of Pewabic’s overall budget each year. Pewabic’s education programs advance artistic learning, craft, and community building through both adult classes and youth programs on Pewabic’s campus and offsite in Pewabic’s mobile offerings for schools, senior centers, and more. Seasoned educators lead guided tours of Pewabic’s museum on campus and also city tours of Pewabic installations in Detroit’s historic architecture. Finally, community events such as the annual Home and Garden Party on Pewabic’s campus in late Spring as well as national partnership events such as the 2026 NCECA conference bring together longtime friends and new explorers of Pewabic’s craft.
Having successfully navigated the challenges of the Covid era under longtime leadership, Pewabic began a period of imagining its next opportunities to realize the full potential of its historic building and campus. While strong assessment and planning work was completed and continues today, Pewabic is poised for fresh leadership vision and management to guide the organization through a collective process with staff, board, and funders that validates and refines a plan for the future. This organizational work in the context of Detroit’s broader community revitalization planning, incoming, historic city leadership, and long-standing, dedicated funders in the Arts community present a unique opportunity for a seasoned executive to build on Pewabic’s reputation and standing as a pillar in the Arts community in Detroit and nationally.
To learn more about Pewabic, its programs, and its history, visit: https://www.pewabic.org/
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Executive Director will be a seasoned, entrepreneurial, and strategic leader with the ability to guide Pewabic into a new era. The Executive Director will be instrumental in leading the organization through critical moments of operational review, program expansion, and fundraising growth, while supporting a healthy and sustainable balance of retail and production and a strong employment proposition for the team. This role requires an experienced manager and fundraiser with a passion for Pewabic’s mission and the ability to collaboratively build, communicate, and execute an inspiring vision for Pewabic’s future.
Opportunities and challenges for the next Executive Director include:
Strategic Vision & Leadership
- Work collaboratively with staff, board, community stakeholders, and funders to identify and build upon key strengths of Pewabic’s legacy and opportunities to expand and improve upon additional programs and operations.
- Articulate and champion the next level vision for Pewabic as a proud pillar of artistic community building and education connecting individuals of all ages in Detroit and across the region to shared artistic craft and purpose and economic opportunity in this period of rapid change for the region and the country.
- Identify, reinforce, and galvanize Pewabic’s partnerships, programmatic strengths, and physical space assets while strategically prioritizing and activating new opportunities for campus and program development.
- Review and refine clear goals and metrics, and advance a sustainable, healthy business model that aligns to organizational and staff capacity and ensures programs and services support the conditions for long-term sustainability.
Operational Leadership & Management
- Empower and guide Pewabic’s leadership team to realize opportunities for aligned, distributed management of Pewabic’s talented staff.
- Oversee all aspects of the financial, operational, and programmatic achievement of identified clear goals and success metrics for the team.
- Nurture relationships and effective communication with the staff to build a culture of transparency, clarity of decision-making processes, and accountability to shared goals.
- Work collaboratively with Pewabic’s Board of Directors to identify community relationship and program opportunities, support best practices in good governance and transparent communication across the organization, and to capitalize on areas of funding opportunity.
Fundraising & Financial Stability
- Steward and strengthen relationships with existing donors while cultivating and supporting new partners to realize Pewabic’s potential as a pillar of creative community on Detroit’s east side with a campus and operational improvement plan.
- Develop and implement a clear funding model that harnesses the power of Pewabic’s retail success, longstanding membership community, placemaking capacity on the east side, students and alumni, and educational expansion opportunity.
Community Engagement
- Sustain and deepen relationship across the Arts, public sector, education, and nonprofit community to build and sustain Pewabic’s legacy as an important part of Detroit history.
- Nurture partnerships with new and existing organizations interested in hosting Pewabic activities through both permanent and time bound space use that expands Pewabic’s campus reach in the region and in the national Arts community.
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
While no one candidate will possess all the qualifications listed below, the ideal candidate will be passionate about Pewabic’s mission and bring many of the following skills and experiences:
- Leadership & Strategy: A minimum of 10 years of nonprofit or community-based leadership experience, with a track record of strategic growth and impact ideally in Arts and Culture or a connected field.
- Fundraising & Financial Acumen: Proven success in fundraising, including but not limited to securing grants and major gifts, individual fundraising and bequests, earned revenue streams, and capital campaigns in support of nonprofit programs and operations.
- Team Development: Experience managing organizations of comparable staff size and complexity and facilitating, designing, and overseeing strategic leadership team development for successful, distributed management. Demonstrated success building a strong and positive organizational culture with diverse staff across departments and levels is required.
- High Emotional Intelligence: Ability to foster trust, build relationships, and lead with compassion, integrity, and humility.
- Operational & Financial Management: Experience overseeing budgets in excess of $2M annually as well as management of financial planning, prioritization, and organizational system refinement to support impact goals. Experience managing retail and/or earned revenue streams in addition to program budgets is strongly preferred.
- Collaboration & Team Building: Strong people management and communication skills with the ability to build, mentor, and empower staff.
- Equity Fluency: Ability to operationalize equity in both programmatic community and youth outreach strategy and internal organizational systems for a diverse team to build upon Pewabic’s values and purpose as a welcoming place of connection, beauty, and inspiration for all.
- Community Engagement: Strong communication skills combined with deep appreciation and familiarity with the region’s community values, ethos, culture, and funder landscape. Deep experience in, connection to, and love for the Detroit region is highly desirable.
WORK LOCATION, COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Work Location: Pewabic’s historic campus is on the east side of Detroit, Michigan. This role requires significant in-person commitment of time both in the office and in the community.
Salary and Benefits: Compensation for this full-time, exempt position includes a competitive salary base and a performance bonus component commensurate with the success of the organization. A generous benefits package is also provided. Full details available upon request from interested candidates.
TO APPLY
This search is being led by Katherine Jacobs of NPAG and founder of GDSI Leadership. Due to the pace of this search, candidates are strongly encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Candidates may submit their cover letter, outlining their interest and qualifications, along with their resume via NPAG’s website: https://www.npag.com/pp-ed
Pewabic is an equal opportunity employer and proudly values diversity. Candidates of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
- How A Linguist Constructed The Na’vi Language For The “Avatar” Films
Paul Frommer’s initial parameters were that the language had to sound “nice” (director James Cameron’s word), since they are a relatively peaceful race, and that it had to be feasibly easy for actors to learn to pronounce. Beyond those, almost everything — phonetics, grammar, vocabulary — was up to Frommer. – Deutsche Welle
- Our Collapsing Attention And The Difficulty Of Story-Telling
When all time is flattened into the present, narrative form begins to erode. Instant communication collapses tenses into an interminable “now,” and live streams keep us there. Finally, storytelling demands leisure, or at least a relaxed mind, since immersion requires the mental margin to forget ourselves and linger in the unfolding. – LA Review of Books
- How Director Gennadi Nedvigin Has Reshaped Atlanta Ballet
The key is hiring — in particular, hiring dancers proficient in both classical and contemporary techniques, since Nedvigin wants to present top-tier renditions of both classical and new repertoire with a relatively small roster of performers. – ArtsATL
- A Stolen Art Expert Talks About The Louvre
The main takeaway, for me, is that museums have a vulnerability—a technical, physical vulnerability—that is mirrored by the vulnerability of the public’s reaction, the idea that you can be culturally wounded in a profound collective manner. – The New Yorker
- Inside The Emptying Out Of The Pompidou Centre
It felt like visiting your childhood home stripped of its furniture — intimately familiar yet deeply disorienting. How would Paris get through five years without this place? – The New York Times
- How Audiobooks Infiltrated My Reading Habits
Like many audiobook devotees, I’m sheepish about my conversion, which seems blasphemous for a writer at the Book Review. I wonder whether listening “counts” as reading. – The New York Times
- “Imagineer” Eddie Sotto, Who Transformed The Visitor Experience At Disney Theme Parks, Is Dead At 67
“While Sotto’s best-known masterworks are overseas, (such as) the creation of Main Street, U.S.A., for Disneyland Paris …, he had a reputation for fighting tirelessly to enhance the theme park experience, pushing for improvements to everything including ride vehicles and the food on guests’ plates.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- The Most Influential Theatre Of The Past 25 Years
This is not a “best of” list. What we asked hundreds of theatre folks to do was send us 10 titles they felt had been the most influential on the theatre in the past 25 years. – American Theatre
- Floods Of Music: AI Swamps The Music Market
While the technology quietly reshapes the industry, the first-order effect of AI’s ease of use is simply the existence of more music—a lot more. Suno users generate 7 million new tracks a day, which every two weeks nets out to about as many songs as exist on Spotify. – The Atlantic
- Pirate Group Says It Copied All Of Spotify’s Catalog
The world’s largest music streaming service has been scraped by a pirate activist group. According to a blog post from Anna’s Archive, it says it gained access to over 250 million pieces of metadata and millions of audio files from the streamer. – PC Magazine
- Rome to Start Charging Visitors To Trevi Fountain
“Starting on 1 February 2026, the Italian capital is introducing €2 tickets for tourists to descend the steps to the area around the water-filled basin – from where it is customary to toss a coin into the fountain. Viewing the aquatic masterpiece from the piazza above will remain free.” – Euronews
- American College Theatre Festival Quits The Kennedy Center After 58 Years
The theater festival involves collegiate theater students from across the United States, and includes eight regional competitions that have long culminated in a week-long national festival, including the awarding of scholarships and other honors, at the Kennedy Center. – Deadline
- The Case For A National Theatre In The US
In the Abbey’s century-long history as a public institution lies a persuasive story about what a national theater could have done—or still might do—for the United States. Through the decades, the Abbey’s output has regularly showed how effectively theater can process national trauma at times when the public desperately needs an outlet. – The Atlantic
- The Psychology Of Fashion
Much of the sculptural, breathtaking artistry of haute couture finds a way to dramatize the friction between the composed selves we offer the world and the fragmented, chaotic sensation of being alive. We only look coherent; inside, it’s chaos. – The New Yorker
- More Details About The Mess At The Philadelphia Art Museum
Staffers are feeling cautiously hopeful about new CEO Daniel Weiss. The “cautiously” part would seem to be because of what staffers have been through over the previous three years. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- The Met Opera Is Courting Influencers (And The Young People Who Follow Them)
“Newcomers to opera (many are self-described theater enthusiasts), … they share with their followers their delight and surprise at what they have found: the lack of a dress code; the English-language translations on the backs of seats; the Hollywood-worthy projections and videos; and, yes, the existence of cheap seats.” – The New York Times
- New York’s Public Theater Hit By Yet More Layoffs
“A decade after Hamilton opened on Broadway and the Public Theater began reaping roughly $100 million for helping to develop the blockbuster musical, the legendary downtown nonprofit company is undergoing its third round of layoffs in four years.” – Broadway Journal
- Goodbye to 2025
Beneath that commanding sky helicopters beat the air like motorcycles flying by. - Trump’s First-Term NEA Boss Is Back
“The United States Senate voted to confirm Mary Anne Carter as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. It will be Carter’s second time leading the agency, after serving … during President Donald Trump’s first term. Carter succeeds Maria Rosario Jackson, a Biden appointee who resigned from the post on January 20.” – Publishers Weekly
- Major Off-Broadway Theater Is Sued For Discrimination Over Discounts For Ticketbuyers Of Color
According to the lawsuit, Playwrights Horizons promoted the discount with the language ‘For this BIPOC Night performance, we welcome folks who are Black, Indigenous or People of Color to use code BIPOCNIGHT to unlock ($39) discount seats.’ The plaintiff, Kevin Lynch, who is white …, (paid) $90.” – The New York Times
- Tech Mega-Billionaire Makes Massive Guarantee To Back Up Paramount’s Hostile Bid For Warner Bros.
“On Monday, Skydance-owned Paramount announced that Larry Ellison — the founder of Oracle and father of Paramount CEO David Ellison — had personally agreed to be responsible for $40.4 billion of equity financing for the company’s offer (to buy Warner Bros. Discovery), as well as any damage claims.” – AP
- Kennedy Center Trustee Sues Trump For Renaming Venue
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH), one of the Congressional representatives on the Center’s board, argues in her court filing that Trump and the trustees who voted to add his name to the place are “willfully flouting the law to satisfy defendant Trump’s vanity.” – Bloomberg (MSN)
- What The Arts Could Learn From The Data Revolution In Gambling
Not long ago, many online casino experiences were built around flashy graphics and simple luck-based mechanics. Today, game development has become a sophisticated data-informed process. – The Walrus
- Death Of The Dictionary?
Like the rest of the analog world, legacy dictionaries have had to adapt or perish. – The New Yorker
- Is The Reason Our Culture Seems Stagnant Because… Lack Of Critics?
If someone has spent years of their life on a work, they deserve a serious, sustained response. Critics who write such reviews aren’t just offering something to the maker of a work but to the world. Look here, a critic says. Imagine what culture could be like. – Asterisk
- Europe’s Approach To Developing AI Is Deeply Different
The differences between Europe and the United States when it comes to AI regulation aren’t so easy to fix; they’re rooted in deep cultural differences that have informed how the tech industries have developed on both continents. – Politico
- Might AI Help Us Unlock More Creative Ideas?
Generative AI will indeed make many tasks easier and quicker to perform, increasing efficiency and decreasing costs. But we think that one of the biggest promises of this technology lies elsewhere: in unlocking new forms of human creativity that can drive innovation and growth. – Harvard Business Review
- How Might One “Fix” Or Reinterpret Historically Racist Statues?
As some political leaders double down on the old memorial language, they ask: What if we thought of our memorials as works in progress, to be improved, edited, reconfigured and even deleted? – Washington Post
- What If The Audience Prefers AI-Written Books?
I can write a book for my own reasons, but I can sell the book only if readers like it more than what they can get from, say, a chatbot. If readers prefer A.I.-generated fiction, then authors won’t be able to stop it. – The New Yorker
- Broadway’s Record Box Office In 2025 Still Doesn’t Keep Up With Costs
“It’s just so difficult for (producers) to get their money back. These shows are now upwards of $25 million. Ten years ago, you could have a musical on Broadway that was probably in the $13 million range.” – CNN
- Trump Officials Threaten Smithsonian Funding Over Content Review
“Funds apportioned for the Smithsonian Institution are only available for use in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253 ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” – Washington Post
- The Best Design And Architecture Of 2025
This year’s highlights include the remodeling of a Richard Seifert brutalist ‘corncob’ tower, a celebration of Japanese carpentry and a wearable hot-water bottle. – The Guardian
