Pianist Jayson Gillham, who spoke from the stage about Israel killing journalists in Gaza, said “I believe artists should be free to speak with integrity. … This case was never just about me. My principles remain unchanged.” - The New York Times
“The celebrity-as-celebrity casting is a delicate alchemy with volatile ingredients more likely to explode than create movie magic” - but when it works? It really works. - The New York Times
“The optics of the case speak louder than the niceties of any contract dispute. Those optics advance the narrative that Meta is a heartless and negative force determined to stifle the truth about its misdeeds.” (In other words, buy physical copies of the book.) - Wired
“The documents — sent to a Senate and a House committee last month by lawyers for unidentified clients referred to as whistle-blowers — detail how vendors were selected for work without competitive bidding under rationales that are depicted as flawed.” - The New York Times
Viewership is smashing records, especially for Telemundo and Peacock. The Mexico-England game was Telemundo’s most-watched telecast ever. Many English-speaking viewers have turned away from Fox because of its analysts line-up, joining the U.S.-based Spanish-speaking audience. - Variety
“A major publisher appeared to pull a prizewinning history book about a prominent South Carolina slaveholding family and its role in the abolitionist movement, after several scholars accused the author of misleading readers” - and it looks like the historian lost her job at Tufts as well. - The New York Times
That went well. "Just because Meta owns one of the largest social media platforms, and we're forced to use it, it's been taking it as an excuse to violate our consent and privacy again and again.” Uh, oops. - Business Insider
“The great secret of Catcher, though—what gets lost in its reputation—is that Holden’s attitude is itself phony. He’s a tender kid who famously worries about the ducks in cold, icy Central Park, and who adores and hopes to protect his little sister, Phoebe.” - The Atlantic
“I had always worn pink and been really girly. I stood out in every room I was in. When I watched Legally Blonde, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can be taken seriously.’” - The Guardian (UK)
"Given the complexity of the music, the central role of the voices and the challenging subject matter of the opera, how has it been to re-immerse in that sound world and those themes? Has learned anything new during the process of writing the orchestral suite?” - Bachtrack
"Growing up in Puerto Rico in the late 19th century, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was told by his teacher that Black people had no significant history or accomplishments.” Just how wrong was that teacher? Very. - The Guardian (UK)
The unnamed 17-year-old, who's been competing in girls’ youth divisions for several years, was enrolled as a contestant in last week's North American Irish Dance Championships in Orlando. She withdrew after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened to pursue the competition’s governing bodies for violating state law. - Orlando Sentinel
“When Kapoor first made one of these works in Prussian blue, he was stunned to find ‘it wasn’t an empty space painted blue,’ he said. ‘It was full of blueness or, as I say, darkness. What was empty became full. How can that be?’” - ArtNet
Mid-budget and horror films had some decent rep, but trans characters? There were none in 2025 films, says a study, and all other queer rep continued to decline. - The Guardian (UK)
“The literate era will prove to be a brief interlude between the oral and digital ages. Reading shaped the modern mind. Its disappearance will reshape it. Cognitive scientists are starting to understand what these changes might look like.” - The Atlantic
"Growing up in Puerto Rico in the late 19th century, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was told by his teacher that Black people had no significant history or accomplishments.” Just how wrong was that teacher? Very. - The Guardian (UK)
“The literate era will prove to be a brief interlude between the oral and digital ages. Reading shaped the modern mind. Its disappearance will reshape it. Cognitive scientists are starting to understand what these changes might look like.” - The Atlantic
“When researchers have actually tried to document the size of cultural differences over time, the picture is far more complicated – and more interesting.” - Psyche
“The brain initiates voluntary action unconsciously: our conscious sense that we have decided to act is actually the result of this brain activity.” It’s possible that our only choice is in deciding not to do something. - 3 Quarks
“Since the (Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX) scandal, the movement’s organizations have shied away from the limelight and become extremely concerned with PR. For several years, their growth has been severely curtailed. But they survived. And the new AI money has given EA a chance to come back larger than ever before.” - New York Magazine
Why should a name matter so much? Psychologists have a term that might help explain what’s happening here: prestige bias. Developed by the cultural evolution theorists Joseph Henrich and Francisco J Gil-White, the concept describes the human tendency to preferentially attend to, learn from, and value the outputs of high-status individuals. - Psyche
“The documents — sent to a Senate and a House committee last month by lawyers for unidentified clients referred to as whistle-blowers — detail how vendors were selected for work without competitive bidding under rationales that are depicted as flawed.” - The New York Times
That went well. "Just because Meta owns one of the largest social media platforms, and we're forced to use it, it's been taking it as an excuse to violate our consent and privacy again and again.” Uh, oops. - Business Insider
But they seem to have been left behind. “A shareholder lawsuit, quietly filed this past week against 5&2 Studios in the Delaware Court of Chancery, alleges that some of those early acolytes were prevented from sharing in the miracle.” - Puck
As part of their broader lawsuits against OpenAI for copyright infringement for training its software on their media products without consent or compensation, the plaintiffs filed a motion accusing the company of lying during discovery by deliberately hiding evidence that its training datasets and output logs are searchable. - Variety
“What’s left has the air of a ghost ship, as the center’s board prepares to reconsider to what degree the building will remain open. The Kennedy Center declined to comment.” - Washington Post
Pianist Jayson Gillham, who spoke from the stage about Israel killing journalists in Gaza, said “I believe artists should be free to speak with integrity. … This case was never just about me. My principles remain unchanged.” - The New York Times
"Given the complexity of the music, the central role of the voices and the challenging subject matter of the opera, how has it been to re-immerse in that sound world and those themes? Has learned anything new during the process of writing the orchestral suite?” - Bachtrack
After Jayson Gillham made a controversial speech about the Gaza War during a 2024 recital presented by the orchestra, the MSO cancelled his concerto engagement four days later. Gillham sued the organization in Australian federal court, claiming his rights as an employee were violated. The judge has now ruled against him. - The Guardian
The open-sided Hunter Pavilion, where the Chicago Symphony performs every summer, has had changes made both for the audience (fewer but wider, ADA-compliant seats) and the orchestra players (LED lights and new ventilation to reduce onstage temperatures, improved onstage acoustics). - AP
The 88-year-old two-time Oscar-winner and acting legend says music was his first love, and Decca will release his first album, Life Is a Dream, on August 21. The disc, performed by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel, includes pieces composed over the entire course of Hopkins’s adult life. - The Hollywood Reporter
The jury of the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, which Dudamel (in his first time leading a fully professional orchestra) won in its inaugural edition in 2004, decided not to name a winner for only the second time in the event’s history. The €20,000 second prize went to 31-year-old Polish conductor Jakub Przybycień. - Moto...
“When Kapoor first made one of these works in Prussian blue, he was stunned to find ‘it wasn’t an empty space painted blue,’ he said. ‘It was full of blueness or, as I say, darkness. What was empty became full. How can that be?’” - ArtNet
But, er, don’t freak out, New York. “The building remains safe for employees and visitors, according to both the museum and the union that represents its workers.” - The Art Newspaper
“The secretive operation was the result of years of negotiations, tricky logistical planning and multiple technical studies to ensure the integrity of the 70-metre-long (230ft) medieval artwork.” - The Guardian
One architectural historian might go even farther: “Anything on a stone building that looks like a design gets picked up as these damn things now. There’s absolutely no evidence they were ever used like that.” - The Guardian (UK)
“The optics of the case speak louder than the niceties of any contract dispute. Those optics advance the narrative that Meta is a heartless and negative force determined to stifle the truth about its misdeeds.” (In other words, buy physical copies of the book.) - Wired
“A major publisher appeared to pull a prizewinning history book about a prominent South Carolina slaveholding family and its role in the abolitionist movement, after several scholars accused the author of misleading readers” - and it looks like the historian lost her job at Tufts as well. - The New York Times
“The great secret of Catcher, though—what gets lost in its reputation—is that Holden’s attitude is itself phony. He’s a tender kid who famously worries about the ducks in cold, icy Central Park, and who adores and hopes to protect his little sister, Phoebe.” - The Atlantic
The great poet of Howl and defender of free speech has one (pretty huge) legacy problem during his centennial celebration: His defense of, and membership in, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. - The Guardian (UK)
“Mengestu declined to provide further details. PEN America confirmed that he had resigned and also declined to say more. The organization has been on shaky ground in recent years because of backlash from writers and activists over its response to the war in Gaza.” - The New York Times
“The celebrity-as-celebrity casting is a delicate alchemy with volatile ingredients more likely to explode than create movie magic” - but when it works? It really works. - The New York Times
Viewership is smashing records, especially for Telemundo and Peacock. The Mexico-England game was Telemundo’s most-watched telecast ever. Many English-speaking viewers have turned away from Fox because of its analysts line-up, joining the U.S.-based Spanish-speaking audience. - Variety
“I had always worn pink and been really girly. I stood out in every room I was in. When I watched Legally Blonde, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can be taken seriously.’” - The Guardian (UK)
Mid-budget and horror films had some decent rep, but trans characters? There were none in 2025 films, says a study, and all other queer rep continued to decline. - The Guardian (UK)
“The math is simple. Census figures show that about 20% of the U.S. is Hispanic, yet Telemundo points to Nielsen ratings to show that roughly half the World Cup viewers in the U.S. have watched at least some portion of some matches in Spanish.” There are a number of reasons for this. - AP
The unnamed 17-year-old, who's been competing in girls’ youth divisions for several years, was enrolled as a contestant in last week's North American Irish Dance Championships in Orlando. She withdrew after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened to pursue the competition’s governing bodies for violating state law. - Orlando Sentinel
“By eschewing music and narrative in favor of seemingly pedestrian motions—toe taps, limbs folding and unrolling—that don’t repeat, challenged dance tradition when it premiered in 1966. It requires performers to maintain what Rainer describes as an ‘uninflected continuity.’”- Dance Magazine
“For me, the key has always been to make Odette the embodiment of pure femininity, sorrow, refinement, and forgiveness — but never weakness. ... Odile, by contrast, should be explosive, feminine, bold, daring and wicked — but never vulgar. You know, without steam coming out of her nostrils.” - Gramilano (Milan)
Some companies have embraced outright celebration; a few are pointedly grappling with what they see as troubling issues in the country’s history and present. Many are highlighting the huge body of American choreographic work, both ballet and modern/contemporary. - Dance Magazine
Such an opportunity was bound to present itself to the director of San Francisco Ballet in the 2020s. It’s no surprise that she took the opportunity — but what she has to say about the experience, while quite perspicacious, isn’t much of a surprise either. - The Times (UK)
“Call it ballet-qua-haunted house. … Audiences came in-kind on opening night, sporting black lace, corsets, velour, brocade and, in at least a couple cases, a top hat and a waxed mustache.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)
“The cleaners, represented by 32BJ of Service Employees International Union, reached a tentative deal that includes $5 an hour wage increases, a 21% increase from the current rates, by the end of the new four-year contract, as well as improved paid leave and protection for its employer-paid family health care.” - The Hollywood Reporter
There are already at least four this summer, with more in production. "With the show’s success – all perky keisters, swanky hotel shags, a secret sex cottage and just a smidgeon of hockey – reckons it was inevitable.” - The Guardian (UK)
Borough Hall, Streatham Hill Theatre, Tottenham Palace Theatre, and the Intimate Theatre have been deemed “at risk of closure, redevelopment, or demolition.” Three of them are being eyed for conversion into churches or other sites of worship. - The Standard (London)
“What resulted was not just an outré and out lesbian ‘Latin spitfire,’ in words, but also decades of film and theater work on topics ranging from racism and homelessness to revolution to questions of identity.” - Hyperallergic
And, for balance, this report also includes on-the-record favorable comments from one high-level staffer who worked with Sharif at Arena — Reggie D. White. who followed Sharif to DC from the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. - DC Theater Arts
In a statement released on social media, the organisers said: “To Our BBTA Community, due to unforeseen circumstances, we have made the difficult decision not to hold the Black British Theatre Awards ceremony in 2026. We know this will be disappointing news … and it was not a decision we took lightly.” - WhatsOnStage...
Because she’s even more ubiquitous than usual this year — a blockbuster show at Tate Modern, a bio-series at Netflix, a fantasy opera about her at the Met, a new record ($54.7 million) for a woman artist at auction — here’s a recap of her life. No mention of the affair with Trotsky, though....
Her deadpan performances in Woody Allen’s early films (she was his second wife) first brought her to public notice, but she achieved real fame as the pigtailed, gingham-wearing, put-upon suburban heroine of Norman Lear’s soap opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which aired 325 episodes over its 18-month run in 1976-77. - Deadline
“The problems at the Barnes were so obvious,” he told The New York Times in 1993, “Ray Charles could see them in a swamp at midnight.” - The New York Times
Robert Kimball, a musical theater historian and champion of American popular song who unearthed hundreds of pieces long thought to be lost and helped rediscover the work of the seminal Black Broadway songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. - The New York Times
Wallace was "a self-proclaimed radical historian whose magisterial, unvarnished biography of New York, Gotham, written with Edwin G. Burrows, won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired two more door-stopper volumes about the city.” - The New York Times
She’s from the US, but her family (like a whole lot of people in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other diaspora landing spots) also claim Ireland. - Irish Times
The Town Hall (Town Hall), the storied performance hall in the heart of New York City’s theater district, invites applications for its Executive Director position.
The next VP and CDO will be a key institutional leader and strategic partner to the UMS President, responsible for leading a comprehensive fundraising program.
Syracuse Stage, Central New York’s premier professional theatre, seeks its next Artistic Director, to join Managing Director Carly DiFulvio Allen to lead...
The Director of Production provides executive-level strategic leadership, operational direction, and organizational oversight for all production and technical services across a complex, performing arts center.
University of the Pacific's Conservatory of Music in Northern California seeks an innovative and broadly minded colleague to advance and professionalize operations in the Conservatory.
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts seeks Vice President, Earned Revenue & Marketing. Salary range is between $140,000-$160,000. Please visit link for full details.
SAY seeks a visionary CEO to lead its next era, advancing 25 years of life-changing support, advocacy, community, and impact for young people who stutter.
Pianist Jayson Gillham, who spoke from the stage about Israel killing journalists in Gaza, said “I believe artists should be free to speak with integrity. … This case was never just about me. My principles remain unchanged.” - The New York Times
“A major publisher appeared to pull a prizewinning history book about a prominent South Carolina slaveholding family and its role in the abolitionist movement, after several scholars accused the author of misleading readers” - and it looks like the historian lost her job at Tufts as well. - The New York Times
Mid-budget and horror films had some decent rep, but trans characters? There were none in 2025 films, says a study, and all other queer rep continued to decline. - The Guardian (UK)
“What’s left has the air of a ghost ship, as the center’s board prepares to reconsider to what degree the building will remain open. The Kennedy Center declined to comment.” - Washington Post
“The F.C.C.’s focus on The View plays on longstanding grudges held by the president against the show and some of its hosts, and thrusts a talk show started by the ABC journalist Barbara Walters as a breezy kaffeeklatsch into a molten national debate.” - The New York Times
“While nothing that he writes is of much interest, Nazir himself is shaping up to be an oddly appealing character. He’s a cultural chancer.” (And wow, Commonwealth Prize jury, what were you doing?) - Slate
And, for balance, this report also includes on-the-record favorable comments from one high-level staffer who worked with Sharif at Arena — Reggie D. White. who followed Sharif to DC from the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. - DC Theater Arts
Joe Hisaishi developed his huge following with his scores for Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films for Studio Ghibli. Yet he’s long had a parallel career as a conductor of standard orchestral repertoire in Japan. Now he’s shifting his focus to classical music, and he’s been appointed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s composer-in-residence. - The New York Times
“The White House condemned the for what it said was a failure to celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing it had become a political tool intent on denigrating the American story.” No First Amendment red flags here at all. - The New York Times
Elon Musk and a MAGA army, not to mention AI, not to mention (other) authoritarian governments, are sure coming for the little nonprofit that could. - The New York Times
