Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Royal Shakespeare Company’s Income Rebounds (Big Time)
In 2020/21, when activities were restricted due to lockdowns, the RSC’s box office income was £94,000. This rose to £12.5 million for 2021/22, and...
The Value Of Thoughts Expressed As Writing
When someone talks about a “good writer,” the phrase suggests a way with words, an ear for rhythm, maybe even a structural vision. But...
How Podcasts Captured The Radical Mind This Year
Part of why I think podcasts recounting historical instances of extremism have been so prolific this year is because they offer a hungry but...
Pittsburgh Arts Audiences – How They’ve Changed Since Before COVID
For some arts organizations subscriptions have slipped, but single-ticket demand has offset the drop. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Iceland’s Prime Minister Is Writing Crime Novels
She made her mark on the global cultural map this year when she published her first thriller novel, entitled 'Reykjavík', which she co-wrote with...
Defining The Idea Of Beauty
Beauty is what we find, create, and propagate, either through imitation – creating a copy, another iteration – or through distribution of the thing...
The Golden Age Of Streaming Is Sputtering
The never-ending supply of new programming that helped define the streaming era — spawning shows at a breakneck pace but also overwhelming viewers with...
Why Artists Are Upset About AI-Generated Images
The fact that art styles and techniques are now transferable in this way is immensely disruptive and extremely upsetting for artists. As technologies like...
A Very Difficult Year For Literary Magazines
Mark Krotov, the co-editor and publisher of the eighteen-year-old literary journal n+1, noted that the publishing industry relies on literary magazines but fails to invest...
Alex Ross: The Future Of Orchestra Music Directors
We don’t need more itinerant maestros who draw big salaries in multiple cities. We need more directorships along the lines of ones in which...
Flood Of Books Seek To Explain Sondheim’s Influence On Theatre
Many of the current crop of works can be classified as either “I worked with Steve” books or “I had an ongoing professional and...
Scholars Solve 2,500-Year-Old Grammar Puzzle
The discovery makes it possible to "derive" any Sanskrit word—to construct millions of grammatically correct words including "mantra" and "guru"—using Pāṇini's revered "language machine,"...
How Storytelling Will Drive Our Response To Climate Change
The environmental crisis is one of overconsumption, carbon emissions, and corporate greed. But it’s also a crisis of miscommunication. In 2023, storytelling will finally...
University Of California Settles Strike With Academic Workers
The deal promises to substantially increase pay for some 36,000 unionized workers, including teaching assistants, researchers and tutors, many of whom are graduate students....
How Frank Gehry Brings His Projects In On Time And On Budget
In the quarter-century since the Guggenheim Bilbao, Frank Gehry’s projects have repeatedly come close to or met the same demanding standard. - Harvard Business Review
Hundreds Of Musicians Sign Petition Asking Juilliard To Suspend Composer From Faculty
By late Friday, after an initial 120 people had signed the letter, Beaser, 68, a former chair of the prestigious Manhattan music school’s composition...
Pope Francis Will Return Parthenon Marble Fragments To Greece
Although the Vatican fragments will belong to the church rather than the state, a museum spokeswoman said they would be “reunited in their positions,”...
Dance Magazine’s 25 Dancers To Watch In 2023
These trailblazers and breakout stars are forging their own paths through our field. - Dance Magazine
Inside Disney’s Leadership Coup
That Mr. Iger was unhappy with Mr. Chapek is well established. Less well known is the depth of his antipathy and the lengths he...
In Latest Version Of France’s Most Important Literary Prize, Inmates Do The Judging
The inmates were part of the very first edition of a new, government-sponsored literary prize bestowed by prisoners. The award, called the Goncourt des...
E.J. Dionne: It’s Time To Make Book-Banning Politically Unpopular
Opponents of censorship heartily agree that parents should have an important say in how schools work and how public libraries serve our children. What...
What Good Memoirs Can Do For You
We tend to imagine the memoirist as a naive spiller of information about their life, as in religious confession, rather than the intentional constructor...
Is TikTok A Threat To Music?
Commercial radio normalised popular music’s relationship to advertising. But the collapse between content and advertising exemplified by TikTok prompts us to consider how music making and...
BookForum Dead? Does This Look Like A Dying Magazine?
Either way, here’s what I know: I’m tired of losing outlets to conglomeration. I’m tired of culture being under siege because of money, of...
What Do The Fast Closings Of Shows Like KPOP Say About Diversity On Broadway?
Has the predominant Broadway tradition of shows by and featuring white artists, playing to white audiences, created a barrier that makes it harder for...
