AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Ted Lasso Found The Audience Broadway Couldn’t
Good Morning,
The most useful stories today aren’t about who’s failing to draw a crowd. They’re about where crowds actually come from now — and it’s almost never through the front door.
A fictional English football club made Americans care about the real sport, and the writers say the trick was smuggling the game inside a comedy (Los Angeles Times). Poetry is having its biggest moment in decades, built by performance poets on TikTok and Instagram rather than by publishers (The Guardian). And Broadway is studying movie theaters after the Hadestown pro-shot hit, on the theory that a camera close enough to read an actor’s eyes offers something the eighth row can’t (NPR).
Set that against today’s harder math. Jellicle Ball filled every seat it had and still had to close, because a Broadway show is a start-up carrying fixed rent (The New York Times). And developmental programs — where new work figures out who it’s for — are disappearing from American theatre at an alarming rate (American Theatre). Demand isn’t the constraint. The path from demand to a sustainable institution is.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Ministry of Justice has spent £50,000 scrubbing a Banksy off a heritage listed wall (BBC).
All of our stories below.
- Movies Have Also Turned Completely Gray
Where the heck is all of the color? – El País English
- Was An All-Night Art Heist In Italy Some Kind Of Revenge?
“About 30 artworks belonging to Lilli Petroli owner Mauro Lilli were stolen in the unusual heist, including bas-reliefs attributed to Pablo Picasso, a bronze ballerina sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, paintings by Bruno d’Arcevia of the Italian Manner movement, and pieces by sculptor Mario Moretto.” – ARTnews
- Elizabeth Smith, Founding Faculty Member Of Juilliard Drama And Vocal Coach To The Stars, Has Died At 91
“The actress Laura Linney, who graduated from Juilliard in 1990, was confused when Ms. Smith stared at the floor during her entire audition. ‘She wasn’t looking, she was listening,’ to Ms. Linney’s voice, the actress said.” – The New York Times
- How ‘Ted Lasso’ Might Deserve Some Credit For A Soccer Boom In The United States
“We tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show. … The first thing you’ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.” Even if it’s fictional. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
ISSUES
- Was An All-Night Art Heist In Italy Some Kind Of Revenge?
“About 30 artworks belonging to Lilli Petroli owner Mauro Lilli were stolen in the unusual heist, including bas-reliefs attributed to Pablo Picasso, a bronze ballerina sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, paintings by Bruno d’Arcevia of the Italian Manner movement, and pieces by sculptor Mario Moretto.” – ARTnews
- Britain Claims That Banksy Is Expensive For The British Public
“The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says it has spent £50,000 trying to remove paint from the wall of the Grade II-listed building in Carey Street.” Er … a solution presents itself. – BBC
- The Young Artist Making The Last Of The Dummies
“To some people, these are just puppets. … To me, there’s so much to them. It’s sculpture, casting, painting, sewing, mechanics, history, research, performance design — all at once. They are like kinetic art objects.” – The New York Times
- The Painter Who Uses Medieval Style And Techniques To Address The 21st Century
“Today (Malo Chapuy) paints religious scenes, altarpieces, and early Renaissance-style portraits that look like museum artifacts save for the proliferation of wind turbines, water towers, astronauts, and spaceships.” – Art in America
- London’s National Gallery Asked Citizens To Help Chart The Future. Some Are Angry They Asked
London’s National Gallery is facing backlash from conservative groups in the U.K. after convening a 50-citizen assembly to help shape its future planning. – Artnet
MEDIA
- Study: Arts Orgs That Got More COVID Relief Funding Are Doing Better Than Those That Didn’t
From Sacramento and Seattle to New York City and Philadelphia, the study highlights diverging trends across cities — some rebounded from the pandemic and even exceeded their 2019 numbers, while others plummeted. – Hyperallergic
- Seven Smithsonian Museums Closed Due To HVAC Issue
The museums, all on the south side of the National Mall, share one of the General Service Administration’s HVAC plants; the chilled water supply at that facility was disrupted on Thursday, leaving the museums without air conditioning during a heat wave. The buildings will reopen once the issue is resolved. – Washington City Paper
- Do The People Of This Slovakian Village Really Want To Lose UNESCO World Heritage Status?
That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. – Deutsche Welle
- Dallas’s Perot Museum Of Nature And Science Seems To Be Planning A Big Expansion It Hasn’t Announced
The news comes from a filing the museum made last week with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation; management has also filed with the city of Dallas for a construction permit. Work is expected to start early next year. – The Dallas Morning News (MSN)
- The Problem With Super-Flexible High-Tech Performance Venues
Justin Davidson on New York’s Perelman Arts Center and The Shed: “Now the boldest experimenters can take advantage of walls that move at the touch of a button, precision lifts, rooms that shrink and expand, projected images (on) moving surfaces. … Yet the revolution, now that it’s here, feels anticlimactic and overpriced.” – Curbed (MSN)
MUSIC
- Not Only Is Poetry Still Alive, But It’s Having A Hell Of A Moment
No, not just The Odyssey. “A new audience is finding poetry, particularly (though not exclusively) through social media: a new generation of poets, particularly but not exclusively performance poets, have come to prominence through Instagram, TikTok, and other short-form video formats.” – The Guardian (UK)
- When Did It Become OK To Stop Reading A Book In The Middle?
Wasn’t there a compact, for a while, that if you started a book, you’d damn well finish it? “Even lifelong DNFers often feel bad about closing the book — that it’s a sign of a quitter, or that they’re too stupid.” – The New York Times
- Exploding Myths About The English Language
If languages had all been getting ever easier over all of that time, humans worldwide would just be yelling “ah,” pointing at things and gesturing frantically. Despite occasional appearances otherwise, we are doing better than that. – The New York Times
- When Today’s Slang Leaves You Behind
I knew the context. I knew who was using it. I knew when it should be used. I knew when it was already embarrassing to use it. I wasn’t speaking the language but I was fluent. Now, I’m joining the ranks of the bamboozled elderly and Googling “quiet on the creek”. – The Guardian
- Readers Prefer AI-Generated Stories To Human-Written Ones — As Long As They Don’t Know About The AI Part: Study
“Readers gave AI-generated stories they believed to be written by humans the highest ratings in a new study published by Cambridge University Press, … with researchers noting that ‘participants generally seemed to have poor instincts about how to tell which story was AI-generated’.” – The Bookseller (UK)
PEOPLE
- Ted Lasso Found The Audience Broadway Couldn’t
Good Morning,
The most useful stories today aren’t about who’s failing to draw a crowd. They’re about where crowds actually come from now — and it’s almost never through the front door.
A fictional English football club made Americans care about the real sport, and the writers say the trick was smuggling the game inside a comedy (Los Angeles Times). Poetry is having its biggest moment in decades, built by performance poets on TikTok and Instagram rather than by publishers (The Guardian). And Broadway is studying movie theaters after the Hadestown pro-shot hit, on the theory that a camera close enough to read an actor’s eyes offers something the eighth row can’t (NPR).
Set that against today’s harder math. Jellicle Ball filled every seat it had and still had to close, because a Broadway show is a start-up carrying fixed rent (The New York Times). And developmental programs — where new work figures out who it’s for — are disappearing from American theatre at an alarming rate (American Theatre). Demand isn’t the constraint. The path from demand to a sustainable institution is.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Ministry of Justice has spent £50,000 scrubbing a Banksy off a heritage listed wall (BBC).
All of our stories below.
- Movies Have Also Turned Completely Gray
Where the heck is all of the color? – El País English
- Was An All-Night Art Heist In Italy Some Kind Of Revenge?
“About 30 artworks belonging to Lilli Petroli owner Mauro Lilli were stolen in the unusual heist, including bas-reliefs attributed to Pablo Picasso, a bronze ballerina sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, paintings by Bruno d’Arcevia of the Italian Manner movement, and pieces by sculptor Mario Moretto.” – ARTnews
- Elizabeth Smith, Founding Faculty Member Of Juilliard Drama And Vocal Coach To The Stars, Has Died At 91
“The actress Laura Linney, who graduated from Juilliard in 1990, was confused when Ms. Smith stared at the floor during her entire audition. ‘She wasn’t looking, she was listening,’ to Ms. Linney’s voice, the actress said.” – The New York Times
- How ‘Ted Lasso’ Might Deserve Some Credit For A Soccer Boom In The United States
“We tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show. … The first thing you’ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.” Even if it’s fictional. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
PEOPLE
- Ted Lasso Found The Audience Broadway Couldn’t
Good Morning,
The most useful stories today aren’t about who’s failing to draw a crowd. They’re about where crowds actually come from now — and it’s almost never through the front door.
A fictional English football club made Americans care about the real sport, and the writers say the trick was smuggling the game inside a comedy (Los Angeles Times). Poetry is having its biggest moment in decades, built by performance poets on TikTok and Instagram rather than by publishers (The Guardian). And Broadway is studying movie theaters after the Hadestown pro-shot hit, on the theory that a camera close enough to read an actor’s eyes offers something the eighth row can’t (NPR).
Set that against today’s harder math. Jellicle Ball filled every seat it had and still had to close, because a Broadway show is a start-up carrying fixed rent (The New York Times). And developmental programs — where new work figures out who it’s for — are disappearing from American theatre at an alarming rate (American Theatre). Demand isn’t the constraint. The path from demand to a sustainable institution is.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Ministry of Justice has spent £50,000 scrubbing a Banksy off a heritage listed wall (BBC).
All of our stories below.
- Movies Have Also Turned Completely Gray
Where the heck is all of the color? – El País English
- Was An All-Night Art Heist In Italy Some Kind Of Revenge?
“About 30 artworks belonging to Lilli Petroli owner Mauro Lilli were stolen in the unusual heist, including bas-reliefs attributed to Pablo Picasso, a bronze ballerina sculpture by Giacomo Manzù, paintings by Bruno d’Arcevia of the Italian Manner movement, and pieces by sculptor Mario Moretto.” – ARTnews
- Elizabeth Smith, Founding Faculty Member Of Juilliard Drama And Vocal Coach To The Stars, Has Died At 91
“The actress Laura Linney, who graduated from Juilliard in 1990, was confused when Ms. Smith stared at the floor during her entire audition. ‘She wasn’t looking, she was listening,’ to Ms. Linney’s voice, the actress said.” – The New York Times
- How ‘Ted Lasso’ Might Deserve Some Credit For A Soccer Boom In The United States
“We tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show. … The first thing you’ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.” Even if it’s fictional. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Prediction Markets Are Wrecking Civil Society
Monetizing the full gamut of reality, platforms have opened Pandora’s box. Basic tenets of liberal society—democratic integrity and respect for human life—are being corroded. Regulators need to step in. – The Walrus
- As AI Overwhelms The Web: What Was The Internet?
Despite valiant efforts by activists and reformers, it’s been the dystopians’ world—or at least the realists’—for some time now: an age of techno-feudalism, digital colonialism, the new Jim Code. – Boston Review
- What’s Behind Gen Z’s Dark Humor?
In my assessment, Gen Z’s dark and nonsensical humor does not show a lack of moral values, but it’s instead the product of its desire to engage in more authentic conversations about what they believe. – The Conversation
- Rise Of The Neo-Luddites
The label of “neo-Luddism” or “digital Luddite” is also being reclaimed by people concerned about labour conditions, society and democracy in an era of AI expansion twinned with personal profit. – The Conversation
- The Edinburgh Fringe Is Huge. But Is Success Just Getting Bigger?
Edinburgh has wrestled with for years: what is tourism actually for? If the answer is simply “more visitors, more spending”, the city will keep winning by numbers while residents feel they are losing by experience. – The Conversation