These stories from the classical music world are particularly jarring. It’s easy to stomach the idea of Swifties doing what they do: that’s part of their culture. But classical music fans have long cultivated an image of sophistication. - The Conversation
Zinn presented his readers with genuinely admirable dissidents, from Bartolomé de las Casas to Ida Tarbell and Langston Hughes. At a moment when the country needs effective dissidents, Zinn, the scholar-activist, is in that pantheon. But A People’s History’s had flaws: It can flatten complex problems and people into apparently simple ones. - The New Republic
Theater chain apps suffered apparent outages as moviegoers waited in long virtual lines, hoping to finally glimpse a seat map with some empty spots left on it. In Manhattan, those who have grown mistrustful of this unreliable tech found time on a weekday morning to line up around the block at AMC Lincoln Square. - Wired
On Aug. 31, the Smithsonian will consider whether to give the Latino Museum its Arts and Industries Building, which was built in 1881 and is on the National Mall between the Smithsonian’s Castle and Hirshhorn Museum. - The New York Times
Over the next 50 years, until its sudden closing in 2006, the playhouse earned a reputation as one of the leading regional theaters in the country, producing a mix of classic and new plays, many of them hits and some flops. - Miami Herald
It’s not like most of these flyers were ever going to be high art anyway. Still, the issue nags at me constantly, whenever I pass one of these synthetic images plastered over the real world. - The Atlantic
Unless impaired by a stroke or dementia, most older people retain their language skills and may even improve them as they steadily gain vocabulary throughout their lives. A new brain imaging study from an MIT-Boston University collaboration now reveals the neural activity underlying this observation. - MIT News
Rob Bonta, the attorney general, called off the meeting late Sunday, accusing Paramount of acting in bad faith. In a statement to The Times, Mr. Bonta accused Paramount of leaking details of a meeting the parties held on Friday. - The New York Times
The Justice Department was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world’s largest concert promoter. Then President Trump called. Settle it, the president told a senior DOJ official, the official later told associates. - The Wall Street Journal
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is expected to ask Paramount to divest some cable channels and commit to keeping its movie studio separate from Warner Bros. before he signs off on the $81 billion merger, people familiar with the matter said. - The Wall Street Journal
The authors’ "plots have to be built on buried grudges and horrifying secrets hidden in the fog and the fjords. Otherwise, how else could they convincingly kill off their characters?” - The New York Times
The strategies to defeat AI are getting, well, old-school: “We’re re-humanizing the process with a dedicated hotline (which has the added benefit of weeding out supposed reporters who aren’t in the habit of ringing up strangers.” - Nieman Lab
As Columbia House closes, Millennials and Gen-Xers are wishing for a bygone era of “customer-service runarounds, unwelcome bills and general scuzziness,” all of which Columbia House perpetrated to great profits for years. - Salon
“The group formed in 1999 to bring classical music to communities that may otherwise not have access to it. It consists of three ensembles,” including one that attracts kids to music and “adults later in life” back to music. - OPB
The report “accuses Pierre-Olivier Costa, the recently suspended president of Marseille’s Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM), of sexual and moral harassment, breaching rules for granting public contracts, and putting the southern French city’s only national museum ‘at risk.’” - ARTnews
And the reason that happened (probably not the reason you think it is) says a lot about where we are with ownership and access to digital stuff. - Reactor
“It’s art and science. You can have the best idea on paper, but if you can’t manufacture it, it doesn’t matter. Or if you can manufacture something that’s okay, but not great, it’s not worth it either.” - El País English
But, cautionary moment (akin to making movies about war): “Sometimes the filmmakers, they can kind of get wrapped up in the bad behavior … of the men that they're trying to critique.” Think Fight Club. - NPR
Wild: “Many of the AI generated images have been centred on the Irish counties of Limerick and Wexford, where shaky videos purportedly showed the character wandering through the streets, causing alarm and confusion among residents.” - BBC
Zinn presented his readers with genuinely admirable dissidents, from Bartolomé de las Casas to Ida Tarbell and Langston Hughes. At a moment when the country needs effective dissidents, Zinn, the scholar-activist, is in that pantheon. But A People’s History’s had flaws: It can flatten complex problems and people into apparently simple ones. - The New Republic
Unless impaired by a stroke or dementia, most older people retain their language skills and may even improve them as they steadily gain vocabulary throughout their lives. A new brain imaging study from an MIT-Boston University collaboration now reveals the neural activity underlying this observation. - MIT News
But, cautionary moment (akin to making movies about war): “Sometimes the filmmakers, they can kind of get wrapped up in the bad behavior … of the men that they're trying to critique.” Think Fight Club. - NPR
Over one-third of web pages published after the release of ChatGPT show signs of being written by AI, according to a new study from Pew Research released on Thursday. - TechCrunch
It feels counterintuitive, but at sufficiently large scales, they find, you can often remove any single image from the training data, or every image by a given artist, or every photograph of a given person, and the generated sample doesn't change. - MIT
The fan at heart is a manager of excess: too much feeling, too much weight on too little incident. This is a kind of madness after all, the madness of meaning-making under a few too many constraints. - N plus 1
Wild: “Many of the AI generated images have been centred on the Irish counties of Limerick and Wexford, where shaky videos purportedly showed the character wandering through the streets, causing alarm and confusion among residents.” - BBC
The Tang era (618-907 CE) is considered a golden age, a period of territorial expansion, prosperity and high culture which every Chinese schoolchild learns about. Claiming it never happened is like telling Brits there was no Norman Conquest. Yet the bogus idea has caught on widely enough that China’s government is weighing in. -...
In 2019, arts organizations in BIPOC-majority neighborhoods of a major U.S. city received 16% less median grant funding than those in white-majority neighborhoods. By 2022, they were receiving 289% more. - SMU Cultural Data
In a status report submitted late Tuesday to a federal court, the Kennedy Center outlined its plans to put President Trump's name back on the arts complex. - NPR
These stories from the classical music world are particularly jarring. It’s easy to stomach the idea of Swifties doing what they do: that’s part of their culture. But classical music fans have long cultivated an image of sophistication. - The Conversation
The Justice Department was preparing to wage a legal battle more than a decade in the making against the world’s largest concert promoter. Then President Trump called. Settle it, the president told a senior DOJ official, the official later told associates. - The Wall Street Journal
As Columbia House closes, Millennials and Gen-Xers are wishing for a bygone era of “customer-service runarounds, unwelcome bills and general scuzziness,” all of which Columbia House perpetrated to great profits for years. - Salon
“The group formed in 1999 to bring classical music to communities that may otherwise not have access to it. It consists of three ensembles,” including one that attracts kids to music and “adults later in life” back to music. - OPB
Though the union didn’t answer questions — and management press releases can be pressure tactics of their own — the extension seems like a good sign as “the BSO announced Sunday that a ‘ratification vote’ is in the offing.” - Boston Globe
Why do teachers get so many pedestals - and so, so many opportunities for abuse? “Being perpetually curious is hard work. Grappling with an unruly instrument and the infinite subjectivity of music is extremely hard work.” - The New York Times
On Aug. 31, the Smithsonian will consider whether to give the Latino Museum its Arts and Industries Building, which was built in 1881 and is on the National Mall between the Smithsonian’s Castle and Hirshhorn Museum. - The New York Times
It’s not like most of these flyers were ever going to be high art anyway. Still, the issue nags at me constantly, whenever I pass one of these synthetic images plastered over the real world. - The Atlantic
The report “accuses Pierre-Olivier Costa, the recently suspended president of Marseille’s Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM), of sexual and moral harassment, breaching rules for granting public contracts, and putting the southern French city’s only national museum ‘at risk.’” - ARTnews
Sydney, Australia, has an Allianz soccer stadium, and so does Munich, Germany. Guess which one appears on the Sydney Marathon medal? - The Guardian (UK)
“The Smithsonian Institution has called a board meeting to discuss giving one of its current buildings to the National Museum of the American Latino, which would bypass the need for congressional approval for a new site.” - The New York Times
“The private Jellyfish Museum in Pompano Beach, Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale, … was created by Alex and Yana Yanovsky, who previously developed successful aquariums in Ukraine, including their first jellyfish museum in Kyiv. The couple left those facilities behind when they fled Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion.” - AP
The authors’ "plots have to be built on buried grudges and horrifying secrets hidden in the fog and the fjords. Otherwise, how else could they convincingly kill off their characters?” - The New York Times
The strategies to defeat AI are getting, well, old-school: “We’re re-humanizing the process with a dedicated hotline (which has the added benefit of weeding out supposed reporters who aren’t in the habit of ringing up strangers.” - Nieman Lab
But it’s a bit nervewracking: “I feel like for a small press you really need to, not just catch a break, but catch a break every time, … if you want to last.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
“They’re simultaneously struggling to figure out if they need to use AI to keep up in today’s competitive industry—or eschew it altogether in order to maintain trust.” - Fast Company
“Darwin had long been interested in orchids, possibly influenced by the borderline sexual love his grandfather, Erasmus, felt for them and put into his writings.” - LitHub
Theater chain apps suffered apparent outages as moviegoers waited in long virtual lines, hoping to finally glimpse a seat map with some empty spots left on it. In Manhattan, those who have grown mistrustful of this unreliable tech found time on a weekday morning to line up around the block at AMC Lincoln Square. - Wired
Rob Bonta, the attorney general, called off the meeting late Sunday, accusing Paramount of acting in bad faith. In a statement to The Times, Mr. Bonta accused Paramount of leaking details of a meeting the parties held on Friday. - The New York Times
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is expected to ask Paramount to divest some cable channels and commit to keeping its movie studio separate from Warner Bros. before he signs off on the $81 billion merger, people familiar with the matter said. - The Wall Street Journal
And the reason that happened (probably not the reason you think it is) says a lot about where we are with ownership and access to digital stuff. - Reactor
“It’s art and science. You can have the best idea on paper, but if you can’t manufacture it, it doesn’t matter. Or if you can manufacture something that’s okay, but not great, it’s not worth it either.” - El País English
“For Final Fantasy XVI, Fox and his team were given unusual latitude. The writers wanted the story to feel true to Western medieval fantasy stories.” - Washington Post (Yahoo)
The idea is that most people access ballet through a story ballet - often, even usually, Nutcracker, but also Sleeping Beauty. It was, simply, time for a refresh - including 268 new costumes. - PBS
The ways that the company’s skill level, repertoire, national and international reputation, budget, and especially school (a ten-fold increase in enrollment) have grown during Sklute’s 20 years as artistic director are extraordinary. - The Utah Review
Gia Kourlas on champion Caitlin Simmers: “Her undulating torso, her sensitivity to the fluctuations of an unsteady surface and her speed are all part of her power. ... Her clarity comes from her deep center of gravity, which allows her to slice up and down waves like a silken ribbon.” - The New York...
“Pole dance is a big part of the festival this year, popping up in sweaty, dazzling shows right across the Fringe. Not only do these acts show off amazing physical feats, they also tell stories that range from one woman’s HIV diagnosis, to the relationship between a neurodivergent mother and son.” - The Guardian
The entire field is facing heightened levels of uncertainty, and we have not been spared. Dance/USA needs to reimagine and rebuild its business model. Our existing organizational strategy and structure are not sustainable. I took this job knowing that that was the case. - Dance Magazine
“Audiences at the Bolshoi Theatre could find themselves without 11 of its most well-known productions – among them The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle, Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible – after a dispute over the rights to Yuri Grigorovich‘s choreographic legacy escalated into a criminal fraud investigation.” - Gramilano
Over the next 50 years, until its sudden closing in 2006, the playhouse earned a reputation as one of the leading regional theaters in the country, producing a mix of classic and new plays, many of them hits and some flops. - Miami Herald
Tiffany - of the gorgeously fun teen sex anthem “I Think We’re Alone Now” fame - will relive the ’80s, “making her Off Broadway debut in Spandex the Musical. She plays Linda, a housewife who escapes a life of domestic drudgery to compete in a national aerobics championship.” - The New York Times
“A slapdash seediness has been embedded in the musical’s aesthetic DNA ever since it started in 1973 in a tiny upstairs space at the Royal Court Theater in London.” - The New York Times
Billed as a “five night only” event, “Hadestown: The Musical” has extended its run in theaters for four weeks, thanks to popular demand. In the process, the filmed stage show has become an indie blockbuster, grossing $20.7 million. - Indiewire
For instance, Sam Eley gives the background on his Basil Crumbwick, whose papier-mâché head makes him seven feet tall, while Katie Pritchard recounts the origin story of her Sir Elton Scone, who hosts a Great British Bake Off-style show which uses no ovens. - The Guardian
“They use (comic strip-style) still frames with embedded captions of jokes, sometimes across multiple images that include longer setups and punchlines — in social media parlance, a carousel.” - The New York Times
In 1937, Douglas was told to come to a producer’s ranch for a movie. But, “she later said, she and more than 100 other young women — many of whom were minors — had been summoned to entertain men attending MGM’s annual sales convention.” - The New York Times
“The Iranian American actor drew from her own childhood experiences and advocacy work as an ambassador with the International Rescue Committee to shape Dr. Al-Hashimi into who audiences get to know onscreen.” - HuffPost
Working in the 1960s, when most standup was a succession of one-liners, Bruce used profanity, political satire, and sexual material which comedians today consider a basic right. Yet in his day he was regularly arrested and tried for obscenity; Phil Spector ultimately said Bruce died from “an overdose of police.” - Los Angeles Times...
Ted Striggles, a dancer and lawyer who combined his disparate skills to support artists both struggling and successful, and to advise them on how to survive, including with his influential 1976 guide, “Poor Dancer’s Almanac,” died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan. - The New York Times
One of the opera world’s most admired lyric sopranos of the 1970s and ‘80s, she was known for her acting skill as well as her voice, especially in such roles as Violetta in La Traviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. - Moto Perpetuo
Rydell’s most-honored film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won three (including for Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn), though he lost to Warren Beatty for Reds. Among his other titles were The Cowboys (with John Wayne), Cinderella Liberty, The Rose (with Bette Midler), and The River (with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek). -...
Theater, dance, and live music artists: how is generative AI affecting your work, income, and creative practices? SMU DataArts and artist Annie Dorsen want your voice in the first survey of its kind. Anonymous, open to all roles and career stages, through Sept 8, 2026. Take it here
The Vice President of Marketing & Audience Development is a key member of the senior leadership team responsible for executing statewide strategies and organizational goals.
The Department of Theatre and Dance at UC San Diego http://theatre.ucsd.edu invites theatre artists to apply for a tenured faculty position within the Ladder Rank
New York Theatre Ballet seeks an Executive Director to lead the organization’s strategic direction, drive fundraising and revenue growth, and oversee operational and artistic functions.
Though the union didn’t answer questions — and management press releases can be pressure tactics of their own — the extension seems like a good sign as “the BSO announced Sunday that a ‘ratification vote’ is in the offing.” - Boston Globe
Why do teachers get so many pedestals - and so, so many opportunities for abuse? “Being perpetually curious is hard work. Grappling with an unruly instrument and the infinite subjectivity of music is extremely hard work.” - The New York Times
The contract expires at midnight tonight (Sunday, August 23). That’s not to say there will be a strike, but the musicians are supportive of a potential strike, which would be the first in the BSO’s history. - WGBH
Wow, OK, way to be just obviously evil. “The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands." - 404 Media
A Nick Jonas concert “reminded me of an obscure phrase coined by a 19th-century sociologist – Émile Durkheim’s ‘collective effervescence.’ … Individuals who are normally preoccupied with their personal concerns get swept up into a kind of electric, communal intensity.” - The Guardian (UK)
Soprano Asmik Gregorian: “This feels very strange and empty. … It was planned by Markus Hinterhäuser, and we are all here because of him. It feels a bit like a boat without a captain.” - The New York Times
According to the resolution approved by the Trump-allied board, the inscription underneath the institution’s name would read: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” - The New York Times
On Instagram, the composer wrote, "Maybe the show’s closing just might be remembered as the moment that caused everyone involved with Broadway to come to their senses and address the unsustainable cost of producing and running any new show now.” - Variety
No, not by watching Tár. “The very act of conducting—waving a wand to summon ravishing or ethereal or earsplitting sounds—can look like either inexplicable magic or embarrassing nonsense, a kind of tuxedoed air guitar.” - The Atlantic
“I want to see the eyes of the actors, I want to get closer to the emotion - which is what theatre can’t give you. It’s a different thing,” says the Hadestown pro-shot director. - NPR
And then … it was canceled just before the 16-day fest was set to begin. "By Friday, the LA Jazz Fest website had been scrubbed, with only a cryptic message that said, ‘August 22-23. Updated event info coming soon.’” - Variety
