The Wall of Shame is a 50ft-long, 10ft-tall outdoor mural featuring the pardoned Trump supporters, colour-coded to distinguish their actions: violent rioters appear in red, those who damaged property are shown in blue, and the remaining individuals are depicted in white. The combined effect resembles a Star and Stripes that has imploded. - The Guardian
“Some 14,000 state-run schools in Kerala have been asked to organise daily Zumba sessions as part of an anti-drug campaign launched by the government last month. The decision has been bitterly opposed by some Hindu and Muslim organisations in the state, who say the dance is a form of ‘cultural invasion’.” - BBC
“According to Netflix, more than 50% of its members — amounting to over 150 million households, or an estimated 300 million viewers — now watch anime. The company says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the past five years, with 2024 marking a record-breaking year.” - The Hollywood Reporter
Wagner expected his works to be translated into French when they were performed in France. Yet for purists, the idea of singing a famous Italian aria in what many considered the ugly (for singing) English language was an anathema. - Nightingale Sonata
What seems rather dangerous about Hollywood’s interest in generative AI isn’t the “death” of the larger studio system, but rather this technology’s potential to make it easier for studios to work with fewer actual people. That’s literally one of Asteria’s big selling points. - The Verge
Time in school is very structured around when you can do what. It instills the idea that kids have to memorize what the teacher is saying. This is opposed to a system that could be designed around the promotion of critical thinking, around promoting debate, around a much more student-centered approach to education. - Asterisk Magazine
“Operagoers have been warned they will be banned from entering Milan’s prestigious La Scala theatre if they turn up wearing shorts, tank tops or flip-flops. Kimonos, however, are acceptable.” - The Guardian
The museum featured more than 200 works that had been censored for political, social or religious reasons. Some pieces depicted controversial figures, including dictator Francisco Franco inside a fridge, Spain’s former king Juan Carlos I in a sexual scene with a Bolivian activist, and Saddam Hussein tied up and floating in a glass tank. - Artdependence
Across the world and throughout time, structures have been deliberately erased and later resurrected as replicas – often as a nod to new (or resurgent) political and ideological undercurrents. - Aeon
For the first time since Putin ordered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the famously pro-Putin conductor is performing in Western Europe, on July 27 at a festival near Naples. This festival is supported by regional taxpayers and the EU, so loud objections to Gergiev’s engagement are being raised. - Moto Perpetuo
Richard Thompson, who joined the playhouse in January 2023, has been a mainstay of Twin Cities theater for decades, including directing shows at the Children’s Theatre Company and Penumbra Theatre. - The Star-Tribune (MSN)
hysical tasks that are easy for humans turn out to be very difficult for robots, while algorithms are increasingly able to mimic our intellect. Another surprise that has long perplexed researchers is those algorithms’ knack for their own, strange kind of creativity. - Quanta
“More softness in adult nonfiction in the second quarter and slowing sales in adult fiction combined to drop unit sales of print books just over 1% in the first six months of 2025 compared to the same period a year ago at outlets that report to Circana BookScan.” - Publishers Weekly
“The White House has raised concerns about ‘Entertainment Nation,’ a permanent display on view since 2022 that sheds light on the entertainment industry’s impact on American pop culture through a selection of theater, music, sports, movie, and television memorabilia from the last 150 years.” - ARTnews
“(He) was one of America’s most established dramatists, responsible for about 30 plays staged on or off Broadway since the mid-1980s. His work was wry yet tender, nipping at the divide between comedy and drama, and delved into questions of family, love and friendship.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
Four years after he “stepped back” from “active participation” in theater following media articles detailing his long history of abusing his staff, Rudin is producing (with Barry Diller) this fall’s Broadway transfer of Samuel D. Hunter's Little Bear Ridge Road, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf. - The Hollywood Reporter
Following last year’s boycott campaign which led to authors withdrawing from the Edinburgh Book Festival due to sponsorship by asset management firm Baillie Gifford, corporations are reluctant to risk becoming targets of activists by sponsoring Edinburgh events — leading to tighter budgets and programming cuts at the festivals themselves. - Financial Times
“James Gaddy, the vice president of administration at Albright (College in Reading, PA, said) ‘we needed to stop bleeding.’ He confirmed that over the last two years, the college has racked up a $20 million deficit, … adding that the college’s 2,300-strong art collection was ‘not core to our mission.’” - ARTnews
Time in school is very structured around when you can do what. It instills the idea that kids have to memorize what the teacher is saying. This is opposed to a system that could be designed around the promotion of critical thinking, around promoting debate, around a much more student-centered approach to education. - Asterisk Magazine
hysical tasks that are easy for humans turn out to be very difficult for robots, while algorithms are increasingly able to mimic our intellect. Another surprise that has long perplexed researchers is those algorithms’ knack for their own, strange kind of creativity. - Quanta
Technique aims to bring efficiency to everything in life. Anytime we use machine logic and apply it to humanity, we are in the realm of technique. For example, we don’t refine our morning routine so much as “hack” it. We don’t make the most of a vacation; we optimize our time off. - Plough
The problem with the technologies of 2025 — household, work or personal — is that we don’t have control over whether we use them, which perhaps is part of why we don’t see Americans gaining any more leisure time despite the wild advances of the past two decades. - The New York Times
Basically? Only connect. "Our brains are equipped with a social processing system that is engaged in thinking about other people’s minds and helps us understand and connect with them — including people who have labored on similar causes before us.” - The New York Times
“The White House has raised concerns about ‘Entertainment Nation,’ a permanent display on view since 2022 that sheds light on the entertainment industry’s impact on American pop culture through a selection of theater, music, sports, movie, and television memorabilia from the last 150 years.” - ARTnews
Following last year’s boycott campaign which led to authors withdrawing from the Edinburgh Book Festival due to sponsorship by asset management firm Baillie Gifford, corporations are reluctant to risk becoming targets of activists by sponsoring Edinburgh events — leading to tighter budgets and programming cuts at the festivals themselves. - Financial Times
On the “America 250” website created by the White House, the account of the nation’s founding is outsourced to Hillsdale College, a far-right institution that was a member of the advisory board for Project 2025. - Los Angeles Times
“The Trump administration says it’s close to working out a sale to a group of ‘non-Chinese' investors, including Oracle, with current majority owner ByteDance maintaining a minority stake.” - The Verge
“The cumulative effect of F1 and its press tour have been a carefully tuned charm offensive meant to obscure, if not outright bury, the alleged violent particulars of his behavior toward ex-wife Angelina Jolie.” - Vulture (Internet Archive)
Wagner expected his works to be translated into French when they were performed in France. Yet for purists, the idea of singing a famous Italian aria in what many considered the ugly (for singing) English language was an anathema. - Nightingale Sonata
“Operagoers have been warned they will be banned from entering Milan’s prestigious La Scala theatre if they turn up wearing shorts, tank tops or flip-flops. Kimonos, however, are acceptable.” - The Guardian
For the first time since Putin ordered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the famously pro-Putin conductor is performing in Western Europe, on July 27 at a festival near Naples. This festival is supported by regional taxpayers and the EU, so loud objections to Gergiev’s engagement are being raised. - Moto Perpetuo
If the industrial, mechanical-reproduction era was a historical anomaly for musicians—as the “recording artist” emerged as a new way of making a living—perhaps so, too, were the aggressive, confrontational labor unions of the same period a temporary departure from the preindustrial guilds and associations focused on mutual aid and credentialing. - The Baffler
They “issued Stravinsky a warning, claiming there was a law against tampering with the national anthem. (They were misreading the statute.) Grudgingly, Stravinsky pulled it from the bill.” - Open Culture
The Wall of Shame is a 50ft-long, 10ft-tall outdoor mural featuring the pardoned Trump supporters, colour-coded to distinguish their actions: violent rioters appear in red, those who damaged property are shown in blue, and the remaining individuals are depicted in white. The combined effect resembles a Star and Stripes that has imploded. - The...
The museum featured more than 200 works that had been censored for political, social or religious reasons. Some pieces depicted controversial figures, including dictator Francisco Franco inside a fridge, Spain’s former king Juan Carlos I in a sexual scene with a Bolivian activist, and Saddam Hussein tied up and floating in a glass tank. -...
Across the world and throughout time, structures have been deliberately erased and later resurrected as replicas – often as a nod to new (or resurgent) political and ideological undercurrents. - Aeon
“James Gaddy, the vice president of administration at Albright (College in Reading, PA, said) ‘we needed to stop bleeding.’ He confirmed that over the last two years, the college has racked up a $20 million deficit, … adding that the college’s 2,300-strong art collection was ‘not core to our mission.’” - ARTnews
What these paintings represent about the CIA’s relationship to the art world, though, is more complicated. On these walls, the intersection between US art and politics is especially busy. - Hyperallergic
“More softness in adult nonfiction in the second quarter and slowing sales in adult fiction combined to drop unit sales of print books just over 1% in the first six months of 2025 compared to the same period a year ago at outlets that report to Circana BookScan.” - Publishers Weekly
The Initial Teaching Alphabet was a radical, little-known educational experiment trialled in British schools (and in other English-speaking countries) during the 1960s and 70s. Billed as a way to help children learn to read faster by making spelling more phonetically intuitive, it radically rewrote the rules of literacy for tens of thousands of children....
Are you happy to watch Cormac McCarthy’s characters speak both English and Spanish, since they live on the border, or do you seek out translation? What about the Igbo in Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie’s books? Keep reading, maybe figure it out in context, or use Google Translate? - LitHub
They’re not fans. One: “'I’ve narrated really raunchy sex scenes – AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like,’ she says. ‘Birth scenes as well – I’d love to know how they plan on getting around that.’” - The Guardian (UK)
It’s all a win for families (and sometimes adults as well): “Reading aloud engages kids in the story rather than their getting tangled up in the mechanics of reading. As a result, they can have deep discussions, build on current reading levels, and later have conversations with peers.” - Slate
There’s Prose to the People, "a kind of fun celebration of how bookstores in general operate as more than just, like, a place where you go and pay money for a book. They are something bigger, and they mean something more to a community.” - NPR
“According to Netflix, more than 50% of its members — amounting to over 150 million households, or an estimated 300 million viewers — now watch anime. The company says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the past five years, with 2024 marking a record-breaking year.” - The Hollywood Reporter
What seems rather dangerous about Hollywood’s interest in generative AI isn’t the “death” of the larger studio system, but rather this technology’s potential to make it easier for studios to work with fewer actual people. That’s literally one of Asteria’s big selling points. - The Verge
Hollywood, it appears, is stuck on repeat, sucked with an ever-more deafening gurgle into a death cycle of creative bankruptcy desperately presented as comfort food. - The Guardian
Since his 1990 series “The Civil War” drew record viewership to PBS and crossed over into pop culture, Burns has proven time and again that there’s a robust market for interrogating history with the clear eyes of a journalist and the heart of a patriot. - The Wall Street Journal
Wow, OK: “The agency is targeting professionals at the intersection of arts and technology for recruitment, CIA officers told The Times, and continues to cooperate with entertainment giants to inspire the next generation of creative spies.” - Los Angeles Times (AOL)
Perhaps this is not a surprise in a time of AI slop, but at least the villainous, fictional Saja Boys’s songs are performed by real-life musicians on the high-debuting soundtrack. - Vulture
“Some 14,000 state-run schools in Kerala have been asked to organise daily Zumba sessions as part of an anti-drug campaign launched by the government last month. The decision has been bitterly opposed by some Hindu and Muslim organisations in the state, who say the dance is a form of ‘cultural invasion’.” - BBC
Fans are actually pretty dialed in, but to international touring companies. "The country has struggled to build world-class companies and hold on to the top talent it trains. The National Ballet of Japan wants to change that.” - Financial Times
“It was fascinating to get to the end of year one and evaluate our successes and pitfalls. … We had a week of sold-out shows at the Joyce Theater in New York and then half-full houses at the Theatre Royal Windsor. It’s important to work out why that happened.” - Gramilano
Citing “operating costs (which) continue to rise while revenue earnings have not kept pace,” company management announced that it would use recorded music for The Nutcracker and ALICE (in wonderland) but that the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra will play for season opener Giselle. - Milwaukee Magazine
“I’ve always been aligned with the mission and values of Ailey. So when I heard they were searching for a new artistic director, given all the knowledge and experience I’ve gained, it almost felt like I would be doing myself and the organization a disservice not to try.” - Dance Magazine
A successful Irish barrister with a long dedication to the arts, she and co-founder and artistic director Alessio Carbone are on an ambitious mission to revitalise dance in Venice. “It was once the ballet capital of the world, and in the 18th century there were more ballet theatres than in any other city. -...
Richard Thompson, who joined the playhouse in January 2023, has been a mainstay of Twin Cities theater for decades, including directing shows at the Children’s Theatre Company and Penumbra Theatre. - The Star-Tribune (MSN)
Four years after he “stepped back” from “active participation” in theater following media articles detailing his long history of abusing his staff, Rudin is producing (with Barry Diller) this fall’s Broadway transfer of Samuel D. Hunter's Little Bear Ridge Road, directed by Joe Mantello and starring Laurie Metcalf. - The Hollywood Reporter
“I know some arts organizations and some nonprofits are taking their DEI statements off their websites because they're afraid. And if we do, then it's our entire mission.” - NPR
Overall average cheapest ticket to a show in London’s Theatreland district now costs £30.55, up 24.29% from the year prior. In comparison, the overall average bottom price in 2024 was just £24.58. Meanwhile, the average most expensive ticket across West End shows in 2025 cost £162.61 – 5.2% up from the 2024 figure of £154.56. -...
Many people who paid exorbitant prices to see the show in person are miffed that they’re watching “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” on a screen as Zegler sings it to crowds on the street. Writer Ellise Shafer argues that “this divisiveness is exactly the point (director Jamie) Lloyd is trying to make.” - Variety
Local theatres are increasingly “playing safe” with their programming, resulting in more one-night events, fewer week-long runs and a significant drop in opera, ballet and contemporary dance, the findings of a new report reveal. - Arts Professional
“(He) was one of America’s most established dramatists, responsible for about 30 plays staged on or off Broadway since the mid-1980s. His work was wry yet tender, nipping at the divide between comedy and drama, and delved into questions of family, love and friendship.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
“A hard-driving giant …, (he) took the helm at Marvel at the tender age of 27, then spent nearly a decade revolutionizing the way superhero stories are written, drawn and sold” — gaining both fervent admirers and ferocious critics along the way. - The New York Times (The Spokesman-Review)
Maxwell took over the José Limón Dance Company after he died, but no one expected her to keep it going - much less for almost four decades. - The New York Times
“On arriving in Manhattan, she found studio closed; he and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, which he founded in 1953, were on tour. So, on her own, she began exploring other aspects of the New York dance scene.” - The New York Times
The Library announced this week that it has acquired more than 5,000 items from Sondheim's collection, which will be available to the public on July 1. - CBC
The Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC), the largest network of theatre practitioners in the US, seeks service-oriented & inclusive leader to serve as its Executive Director
RADAR Nonprofit Solutions is seeking an experienced Accounting Manager to perform the accounting activities for various clients in the arts and other nonprofit sectors.
South Arts is searching for a bold, visionary leader with a proven ability to shape strategy, inspire collaboration, and drive impact across complex, evolving landscapes.
As it looks forward to its 87th season, Pittsburgh Opera—one of America’s most artistically respected opera companies—invites recommendations/applications for the position of General Director
“The cumulative effect of F1 and its press tour have been a carefully tuned charm offensive meant to obscure, if not outright bury, the alleged violent particulars of his behavior toward ex-wife Angelina Jolie.” - Vulture (Internet Archive)
“The case of the Mendelssohn Stradivarius highlights the opaque trade for rare instruments, in which details about provenance, or the history of previous ownership, are often not well documented or, in some cases, intentionally obscured.” - The New York Times
That’s because the “memoir” (and its sequels, not to mention the new movie starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs) was at least partly fiction, covering up theft, a criminal case, and land in France. - The Observer (UK)
And it’s weirdly hopeful, deeply compelling stuff. “People were especially motivated to share their input when they were told that their contributions would be archived for posterity” (assuming the country & institutions, ah, survive). - Hyperallergic
"We are being advised that the curtailing of Palestine Action could have a major knock-on effect for us as it could become not only illegal for others to voice support for them but also for us, as film-makers, to distribute this film.” - The Guardian (UK)
Why? "Unlike the dawn of the internet where democratized access to information empowered everyday people in unique, surprising ways, the generative AI era has been defined by half-baked software releases and threats of AI replacing human workers.” - Wired
A personalized tour of the Library of Congress “included original manuscripts from composers Béla Bartók, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Johannes Brahms. … But it was American composer George Gershwin's manuscript for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess that moved Sondheim to tears." - CBC
The police bust of an all-women party she hosted in 1925 was the subject of Ma Rainey’s 1928 record “Prove It on Me Blues.” Rainey and her contralto voice were part of a wider lesbian blues counterculture that included Gladys Bentley, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter. - BBC
“Owning a Wright original — the architecture buff’s equivalent of owning a Picasso — comes with headaches as manifold as they are esoteric. … To address these hurdles … the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy has created an ecosystem in which its 730 members can swap advice, trade stories and build community.” - The...
“Artspace, the Minneapolis nonprofit that owns the lofts, sold the city on a vision: affordable housing that would help retain Seattle’s creative soul as redevelopment and rising costs were driving out artists. But the dream shattered.” - Seattle Times