Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree, written to be performed by Crouch and a new actor each night, depicts a meeting between a father (the actor) whose 12-year-old daughter was killed in a crash and the man (Crouch) driving the other vehicle. The actor must be completely unfamiliar with the piece. - The Guardian
It’s an attack on the free press, and the very idea of an American public sphere: where information and ideas flow freely, everyone has access to the arts, and neighbors are connected, to one another and to those in power.” - InsideRadio
Dances that put artists and audience members in close proximity—whether they’re immersive, invite (or demand) audience participation, or have moments where the fourth wall is broken—can foster a powerful sense of intimacy and immediacy. - Dance Magazine
The most enthusiasm was reserved for Delta David Gier, who was closing out the South Dakota Symphony’s season with one of the ensemble’s great achievements, for the community and American opera alike. - The New York Times
The Piprahwa gems were discovered on the estate of an English landowner in India in 1898; they were inside reliquaries labeled as containing the cremains of Siddhartha Gautama himself. Sotheby’s was set to auction them in Hong Kong this week — until India demanded their repatriation and threatened lawsuits. - NBC News
Patricia Racette, who made her debut at the Met in 1995, is known for her portrayals of Puccini heroines. She has also ventured into other genres, including cabaret, which she said she hoped to bring to St. Louis. She said opera companies should not fear crossover repertoire. - The New York Times
Fewer working-age adults entails a shrinking tax base, even as the need for public services swells. Education, healthcare, infrastructure, public safety and welfare will be underfunded. The pie will shrink. And as lifespans grow, the demand for healthcare will increase while the number of healthcare workers decreases. - Aeon
How would tariffs on overseas film production work when the industry's so internationalized? Whom would be charged, at what point? Are such tariffs even legal? Would a US tax incentive be instead of or in addition to tariffs? How did the entire industry get upended by one social media post? - TheWrap (MSN)
While tariffs are unlikely to have the effect Trump claims he wants, a federal tax credit program for filmmakers—something California politicians spent years advocating for—could be a much stronger alternative. - Wired
Ric Grenell complained after Monday’s episode revealed that Miranda, who has declined to perform at the venue after its Trump-led makeover, will be mentoring contestants in the lead-up to the Season 23 finale later this month. - The Daily Beast
Now it is in the cross-hairs of President Trump, who issued an executive order in March that seeks to address what he described as the Smithsonian’s promotion of “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive,” singling out the African American museum as a particular offender. - The New York Times
“(The show) brought in $4,003,481.50 last week, becoming the first Broadway play to surpass $4 million in a single week. The play also broke its own record, yet again, as the highest grossing play in Broadway history … (after it) received five Tony Award nominations, including one for Clooney.” - The Hollywood Reporter
The discussion offered a glimpse into the animated debate that the museum’s 45 curators have been engaged in over the last five years, reimagining how the institution should present art in its curvaceous, Peter Zumthor-designed building crossing Wilshire Boulevard. - The New York Times
Last Friday, a 47-year-old man scaled a metal fence at an entrance to the ancient landmark, then fell and was impaled on one of the fence’s spikes, which pierced his spine. He screamed in pain and bled until he passed out; it took an ambulance crew 20 minutes to extract him. - Artnet
“A powerful hailstorm breached the Louvre’s roof (on Saturday) afternoon, causing water to drip into the Salle Rosa room hosting its headline exhibition, ‘A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting.’ … (The water) narrowly missed Giovanni Cimabue’s unprotected Maestà wooden panel painting (circa 1280).” - ARTnews
“A House committee approved a budget proposal last week that called for allocating $257 million to the Kennedy Center for capital repairs and other expenses, roughly six times the amount it usually receives from the government.” The committee said in a statement that the allocation was requested by Trump. - The New York Times
“On April 28, a bankruptcy court ruled that the (Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) will be sold for $1.4 million to McFarlin Building LLC. The 19-story property was to sell on May 6 in a bankruptcy auction, but despite its bankruptcy trustee approaching hundreds of potential buyers, no additional bids were submitted." - Artnet
Racette has a long history with the company: she first performed there in 1993 and has returned numerous times since; she made her debut as a stage director there in 2018 with La Traviata, and has directed the company’s young artist programs since 2019. - St. Louis Public Radio
Here’s what happens when the Pulitzer board either (a) considers none of the three finalists submitted by the jury in a category a worthy winner or, as in this case, (b) can’t find consensus on a single choice among the submitted finalists. - The New York Times
Fewer working-age adults entails a shrinking tax base, even as the need for public services swells. Education, healthcare, infrastructure, public safety and welfare will be underfunded. The pie will shrink. And as lifespans grow, the demand for healthcare will increase while the number of healthcare workers decreases. - Aeon
Paradoxical though it may seem, studies have found that many creative people had difficult childhoods. Indeed, many well-known artists owe their genius to tough childhood events, from which they escaped by creating mental worlds where they were free to develop their talents. - PsyPost
According to a recent YouGov poll, Americans rate the 2020s as the worst decade in a century for music, movies, fashion, TV, and sports. A 2023 story in The New York Times Magazine declared that we’re in the “least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.” - The Atlantic
For one thing, there is a desire in conversations to be cooperative with your partner. When they ask a question, the default cooperative answer is usually “yes,” so you often go with that default. On top of that, it you may feel deficient if you’re lacking knowledge or awareness that someone else has. - Fast Company
"I do think intellectual history has been revitalized but primarily outside the confines of the academy. Of course, there are plenty of great intellectual historians currently writing, but the field has experienced the same fate as the general history profession in terms of the so-called academic jobs crisis that has significantly deepened since 2016." - The Ideas Letter
Ric Grenell complained after Monday’s episode revealed that Miranda, who has declined to perform at the venue after its Trump-led makeover, will be mentoring contestants in the lead-up to the Season 23 finale later this month. - The Daily Beast
“A House committee approved a budget proposal last week that called for allocating $257 million to the Kennedy Center for capital repairs and other expenses, roughly six times the amount it usually receives from the government.” The committee said in a statement that the allocation was requested by Trump. - The New York Times
"I think it's an empowering situation when participants are able to not just immersive themselves in a world but actually affect that world and, in today's current situation, just having a little bit of power to make a significant change to a person, a character or a story is extremely enriching." - Los Angeles...
Trump has depicted the Kennedy Center as a crumbling building that he will return to its former glory. Never mind that he has offered few ideas for doing so and has spoken about his plans with his trademark blend of grandiloquence and vagueness. - The New Republic
“The role of science in today’s world is questioned. The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation,” von der Leyen said. “Science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party.” - Politico
"In the copyrightability analysis, distinguishing between using AI as a tool to assist in the creation of works and using AI to stand in for human creativity is important. The difference is whether AI is enhancing human expression or is the source of the expressive choices." - PC Magazine
The most enthusiasm was reserved for Delta David Gier, who was closing out the South Dakota Symphony’s season with one of the ensemble’s great achievements, for the community and American opera alike. - The New York Times
Patricia Racette, who made her debut at the Met in 1995, is known for her portrayals of Puccini heroines. She has also ventured into other genres, including cabaret, which she said she hoped to bring to St. Louis. She said opera companies should not fear crossover repertoire. - The New York Times
Racette has a long history with the company: she first performed there in 1993 and has returned numerous times since; she made her debut as a stage director there in 2018 with La Traviata, and has directed the company’s young artist programs since 2019. - St. Louis Public Radio
At Berlin's Komische Oper, stage director Kirill Serebrennikov has replaced the opera’s moralizing final sextet with an epilogue: a solo dancer represents the dead lothario's soul as it struggles against, and then accepts, its fate — this as the soloists and chorus perform last rites using Mozart's final work. - The New York Times
It is, says the Pulitzer committee, “a work about ecosystems and biodiversity, that challenges the notion of the compositional voice by interweaving the profound musicianship and improvisational skills of a soloist as a creative tool.” - Avant Music News
The Piprahwa gems were discovered on the estate of an English landowner in India in 1898; they were inside reliquaries labeled as containing the cremains of Siddhartha Gautama himself. Sotheby’s was set to auction them in Hong Kong this week — until India demanded their repatriation and threatened lawsuits. - NBC News
Now it is in the cross-hairs of President Trump, who issued an executive order in March that seeks to address what he described as the Smithsonian’s promotion of “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive,” singling out the African American museum as a particular offender. - The New York Times
The discussion offered a glimpse into the animated debate that the museum’s 45 curators have been engaged in over the last five years, reimagining how the institution should present art in its curvaceous, Peter Zumthor-designed building crossing Wilshire Boulevard. - The New York Times
“A powerful hailstorm breached the Louvre’s roof (on Saturday) afternoon, causing water to drip into the Salle Rosa room hosting its headline exhibition, ‘A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting.’ … (The water) narrowly missed Giovanni Cimabue’s unprotected Maestà wooden panel painting (circa 1280).” - ARTnews
“On April 28, a bankruptcy court ruled that the (Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) will be sold for $1.4 million to McFarlin Building LLC. The 19-story property was to sell on May 6 in a bankruptcy auction, but despite its bankruptcy trustee approaching hundreds of potential buyers, no additional bids were submitted." - Artnet
A fellow painter, Benjamin Robert Haydon, thought that “Turner’s pictures always look as if painted by a man who was born without hands” who had “contrived to tie a brush to the hook at the end of his wooden stump.” - New Statesman
Here’s what happens when the Pulitzer board either (a) considers none of the three finalists submitted by the jury in a category a worthy winner or, as in this case, (b) can’t find consensus on a single choice among the submitted finalists. - The New York Times
Management began reviewing all store materials after receiving a complaint from a customer against profanity on a greeting card. What began as a purge of purportedly profane materials, including greeting cards, stickers and book titles with swear words, quickly escalated into the quiet removal of more than 60 books from the store. - NBCNews
Percival Everett’s James continued its run of awards with the fiction prize, while Benjamin Nathans’s To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause won for nonfiction, Tessa Hulls’s Feeding Ghosts won for autobiography, Marie Howe’s New and Selected Poems won for poetry, and Jason Roberts’s Every Living Thing won for biography. - Publishers Weekly
The library records more than 180,000 annual visits, one of the highest figures in Alabama, in a city of 25,000. It has been called Fairhope’s Taj Mahal. Now, it is also a battleground. Residents have packed meetings of the City Council and the library board, debating books with sexual content or L.G.B.T.Q. themes. - The...
The news hardly comes as a surprise, given the judge’s inclination to rule against the IMLS shutdown. The temporary restraining order was issued just days ahead of a mass layoff of nearly all IMLS employees that was slated to take effect on May 4. - ARTnews
Are male novelists actually in decline? Some metrics certainly say so: of all the writers to appear on the weekly Sunday Times bestseller lists for fiction hardbacks so far this year, just a third are men. - The Guardian
It’s an attack on the free press, and the very idea of an American public sphere: where information and ideas flow freely, everyone has access to the arts, and neighbors are connected, to one another and to those in power.” - InsideRadio
How would tariffs on overseas film production work when the industry's so internationalized? Whom would be charged, at what point? Are such tariffs even legal? Would a US tax incentive be instead of or in addition to tariffs? How did the entire industry get upended by one social media post? - TheWrap (MSN)
While tariffs are unlikely to have the effect Trump claims he wants, a federal tax credit program for filmmakers—something California politicians spent years advocating for—could be a much stronger alternative. - Wired
Can the traditional talk show format — with an opening monologue, celebrity guests, live musical performances, a sidekick — survive in the streaming era? Or is the future of talk shows something quite different, and much more like … podcasts? - The New York Times
“Just a day after Donald Trump revealed his plan to impose 100% tariffs on ‘any and all’ films produced in ‘foreign lands,’ California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he wants to collaborate with the president to create a $7.5 billion federal tax incentive to help the (Hollywood) film industry. - Variety
At the open of the U.S. stock market regular trading Monday, Netflix’s stock was down -3.3%, Disney was -2.4%, WBD was -4.2% and Paramount was -2.2%. Shares of Lionsgate Studios slipped more than 7% in early trading. - Variety
Dances that put artists and audience members in close proximity—whether they’re immersive, invite (or demand) audience participation, or have moments where the fourth wall is broken—can foster a powerful sense of intimacy and immediacy. - Dance Magazine
Sonja Kostich studied at Baryshnikov’s School of Classical Ballet and was 17 when he invited her to join ABT. She went on to dance with his White Oak Dance Project as well as San Francisco and Zurich Ballets. As an administrator, she has led Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. - CultureMap...
“Melissa Toogood, a Bessie Award-winning dancer who was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in its final years, succeeds Alicia Graf Mack, who is to become the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Toogood, who is Australian and lives in Sydney, will begin on July 1.” - The New York Times
When I scrubbed in for my first surgery, it felt strangely familiar—there was music playing, overhead lights shining, and a team working in synchrony, each person with a precise role. The energy reminded me of a performance. - Pointe Magazine
Mejia is an airborne dancer whose exuberance shines in joyful Balanchine ballets like “Stars and Stripes,” “Rubies” and “Western Symphony.” But his repertoire, especially in recent seasons, has expanded to roles that require him to be more subtle, more sophisticated. - The New York Times
“Ballet doesn’t have to be ‘boy meets girl, girl goes crazy, girl dies, becomes a fairy, boy chases her through the woods’. Audiences want to be taken somewhere a bit deeper.” - The Telegraph (UK) (MSN)
Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree, written to be performed by Crouch and a new actor each night, depicts a meeting between a father (the actor) whose 12-year-old daughter was killed in a crash and the man (Crouch) driving the other vehicle. The actor must be completely unfamiliar with the piece. - The Guardian
“(The show) brought in $4,003,481.50 last week, becoming the first Broadway play to surpass $4 million in a single week. The play also broke its own record, yet again, as the highest grossing play in Broadway history … (after it) received five Tony Award nominations, including one for Clooney.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“Performers and stage managers at Chicago’s venerable comedy venue The Second City are threatening to strike if they are unable to reach an agreement with management over wage increases. … Negotiations between Actors Equity and leadership at The Second City have been ongoing since February; … the current contract expired April 13.” - WBEZ...
This is his first Pulitzer, though he has been a finalist twice before. The production, directed by Phylicia Rashad, originated at Steppenwolf in Chicago and is currently on Broadway. The other finalists for this year's award were Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! and Itamar Moses’s The Ally. - The Hollywood Reporter
The most memorable offerings didn’t care a whit about product-testing strategies. What marketing genius, for instance, could have predicted that “Maybe Happy Ending,” a jazz-infused rom-com about robots and mortality that originated in South Korea. - Los Angeles Times
The show was staffed with early-career, non-unionized theatermakers, and they received no severance pay or other compensation when producers abruptly ended the run. When that news reached social media, some “angel investors” came together to help the suddenly jobless cast and crew. - Playbill
Last Friday, a 47-year-old man scaled a metal fence at an entrance to the ancient landmark, then fell and was impaled on one of the fence’s spikes, which pierced his spine. He screamed in pain and bled until he passed out; it took an ambulance crew 20 minutes to extract him. - Artnet
“Hosts of video artists … owe a debt to Birnbaum, who found clever ways of upending the one-way stream of information that pours forth in the media, and in particular on television. During the late ’70s and ’80s, she began harvesting images from pirated tapes of TV programs, then reediting their images.” - ARTnews
With a pioneering sense of eclecticism, he connected the dots between John Cage and James Brown, between Mahler and MTT’s famous grandfather, Boris Thomashefsky, a star of the New York Yiddish theater. - Los Angeles Times
Pierre Audi, the stage director and impresario whose transformation of a derelict London lecture hall into the cutting-edge Almeida Theater was the opening act in a long career as one of the world’s most eminent performing arts leaders, died on Friday night in Beijing. - The New York Times
During the incident, which occurred on April 18, police were called to United Airlines flight 953 after it landed in Munich from Chicago, following reports that Rondeau had stripped off his clothes. CBS reported that the incident occurred after he drank alcohol and took prescription medication. - The New York Times
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“The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies ‘to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS’ and further requires that that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations.” This is funding already approved by the U.S. Congress. - AP
Just days after musicians leafleted the audience at Michael Tilson Thomas’s last-ever concerts, management released an open letter pointing out that the orchestra is facing down years of large deficits and charging that musicians’ attitude during negotiations has been “counterproductive and even immature at times.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Oh Mary!, Sunset Boulevard, John Proctor Is the Villain, George Clooney, Nicole Scherzinger and others are among the nominees. (Conspicuously missing are Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal for Othello.) And, of course, Audra is nominated for, and may well win, her seventh Tony. - TheWrap
For s start, it’s closed to the public, since the Chapel has been the site for the voting since 1492 and the cardinals are sequestered while deliberating. A stove and chimney for the smoke are installed, the marble mosaic floor is covered, porta-potties are installed in the next room, etc. - Artnet
At these 80th-birthday concerts for Michael Tilson Thomas, who has suffered a recurrence of an aggressive brain cancer, the musicians distributed leaflets to the audience demanding “a fair contract” and accusing SFS management of budget cuts which “jeopardize the world-renowned status Michael helped build.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
The space near the OSF campus “featured a raised stage area, intimate seating in-the-round on folding chairs, and ample shade from the surrounding trees. It served as a natural, open-air theater that felt both rustic and inviting” - and COVID-19 safe. - Oregon ArtsWatch
“Officially called the West End Concourse, the corridor has a lot going for it: It’s easily accessible, the floors are spacious and smooth, and there are public restrooms, a rarity in New York City. It’s a ready-made stage for all sorts of group and partnered dance. … The biggest draw? It’s free.” - The New York...
Then the Academy, apparently not fearless, censored the lecture. "I did not want to cause them trouble. I did, however, feel it was essential to make the point that the pursuit of wisdom is impossible without engaging with (and challenging) uncomfortable ideas.” - The New York Times
“The president has gone beyond rhetoric, moving to challenge or seize control of history-related federal cultural institutions including the Smithsonian, the National Park Service and the National Endowment for the Humanities.” - The New York Times
Marketing, campus planning, and the entire social media team - gone as of Friday. “Kennedy Center staff members ... spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Most former employees had to sign non-disparagement agreements.” - Washington Post (MSN)
