Margy Waller: Arts+People+Places
In the midst of a lot of other news in his first 8 days in office….funding for child care for all, reactions to tragedy, responding to threats from the federal government, and more, new New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made ‘arts for all’ a priority. On Friday, he joined with the producers of the Under the Radar theater festival to announce a free ticket giveaway of … [Read more...] about
https://www.artsjournal.com/brightride/2026/01/10/not-an-arts-impact-statement-but-really-great/
On a Sunday in May, a friend and I planned to try for rush tickets to see Hugh Jackman at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City. She woke up with bad sciatica and cancelled on me. But I went ahead to get in the rush line. I arrived at 11:15 for the noon box office opening and the line was already long. The man in front of me told us he’d come the day before (for the … [Read more...] about The Power of Strangers at Art
Emily Cass McDonnell knows The Thin Place works because of magic. She stars as Hilda in the Playwrights Horizons debut of Lucas Hnath’s play which opens this week, but she’s been with the production since the first readings. Last spring, The Thin Place had its premiere at the 43rd Humana Festival of New Plays at Actors Theater in Louisville. That’s when McDonnell … [Read more...] about Audience and Actors Sharing The Thin Place
Anne-Sophie Mutter was playing the gorgeous slow movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra when she.... suddenly lowered her instrument and stopped playing. The conductor turned and stopped—and then the orchestra stopped. And ASM started speaking to a woman who was sitting in the front row: "Either you put your phone away or I … [Read more...] about Violin vs. Phone
Instead of relaxing into the New Year and creating the annual column about the favorite things of the last 12 months, we went to Paris. Yes, we saw a lot of art in a week. Every walk is a gallery stroll, even if you never go inside. But we did go inside: Fondation Louis Vuitton for BASQUIAT and the Gehry building, JR at Maison Européenne de la Photographie, a concert at … [Read more...] about Music Makes Art Magic: Atelier des Lumières
The most important thing I learned in a glorious Humana Festival weekend of theater — six new American plays and a lot of theater geeks—was not in a play at all. Anne Bogart gave a talk at the Festival. I recommend it to you. If you too are a contemporary American theater geek, you probably already know her name. As a mere lover of new plays, she was new to me when I … [Read more...] about Civics is How We Take Care of the Space Between People
When Doug McLennan asked me to write a description for my blog that ArtsJournal would begin hosting in 2017, I thought about the topics which move me to spend time writing—the things that I feel sufficient passion to write about without compensation. There’s no employer, no client, no contract, and no deadline. Looking at the writing I’d been doing for my own blog at … [Read more...] about What We Liked in 2017
The Importance of the Familiar You know how it feels when you unexpectedly hear a familiar piece of music—any kind of music? You get that jolt and you say, oh I love that song/piece. Or you say, wait, I love that, what is that? And maybe you hit Shazam on your watch or phone to confirm what it is and listen again. There’s some evidence that familiarity increases … [Read more...] about Frank Sinatra Sings Brahms
