"Aiming to welcome more than 800,000 visits annually, Qiddiya Performing Arts Centre will be home to more than 260 indoor and outdoor performances annually, across three theatres, totaling 3,000 seats. Each theatre promises an immersive experience by blending physical and digital elements." - The National (Abu Dhabi)
“There was a customer on the phone who said something along the lines of 'Just throw out $20,000,' and reported to our staff member to shout that out into the room. And boy did it work, because the first time it came up, it stunned the room and silenced the room.” - Slate
“The excavation of the political from the personal is always worth studying, which is part of the reason People has always been such a rich text. But today’s People Magazine is thinner, less glossy, and generally less substantive.” True for many magazines, but for People? It's Barry Diller. - Culture Study
Zelda Fichandler, a month before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated: "When I look around, however, beyond our too-perfected technique and … the ‘canons of our craft,’ a deep, visceral intuition tells me that the power of our art is being blunted, deadened, and caged.” - American Theatre
We all know nonprofit theatres are struggling, and many are even closing. But oh gods, are they important: “100 percent of the nominees for best new musical, and 100 percent of the nominees for best new play, were developed at nonprofit theatres.” - The New York Times
Overall paid attendance for this past season was 72%, only three points below the pre-pandemic level. There was a record number of new audience members, and the average age of single-ticket buyers is down to 44 from 50 pre-pandemic. Are contemporary operas selling well? Yes, some of them. - The New York Times
Susan Jaffe has some ideas, some plans, and some hopes. But “the challenges facing Ballet Theater, which begins its summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House this month, are daunting. Costs are rising, donations have declined and audience habits are rapidly shifting." - The New York Times
And for worse. “The world of the McKittrick, we believed (or let ourselves pretend to believe), was an enchanted one; not just by the witches who herald Macbeth’s downfall, but by a stranger and more widely suffused magic.” - Slate
Can funding struggling theatre help solve our disconnect? Sarah Ruhl: "We are facing a public health emergency—and we need funding from the National Institutes of Health immediately. Let’s treat theatre as a proven method to stem the tide of debilitating isolation in this country.” - American Theatre
"As English fluency has increased in Europe, more readers have started buying American and British books in the original language, forgoing the translated versions that are published locally. This is especially true in Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and, increasingly, Germany.” - The New York Times
"'Every year our expenses go up at least five percent, if not more, because we so outpace inflation,' says Ken Davenport, producer of the Neil Diamond musical A Beautiful Noise. 'So flat is terrible.'" - The Hollywood Reporter
That's the term SFMOMA director Christopher Bedford uses; Hirshhorn Museum director Melissa Chiu calls it "radical accessibility." Ted Loos reports on how those two institutions and Atlanta's High Museum are putting the idea into practice. - The New York Times
One mother of two autistic children said, “I’m hoping that what we see here shows that you can do anything, especially in the arts, to make it accessible for all.” - CBC
The Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture, originally planned for 2020, is back - and “longtime collaborators playwright Alani Apio and artistic director Harry Wong III saw an opportunity to realize a shared dream 30 years in the making: to simultaneously stage all three plays in Apio’s The Kāmau Trilogy.” - American Theatre
Critic Elisabeth Vincentelli reports that audiences being moved to actual tears (and, yes, even wailing on occasion) has become surprisingly commonplace this season — and it's all because of the way the scripts and cast are connecting with viewers. - The Washington Post (MSN)
