Pantos joined the summer opera festival as president in February of 2022 — with longtime company chief Pelham Pearce remaining as artistic director. But Pearce resigned abruptly as last summer's season began, and late last year a bitter dispute broke out between management and the musicians' union AGMA. - The Colorado Sun
The streaming company added 5.9 million new paid subscribers during the second quarter of 2023, the first period after instituting what it calls its "paid sharing" strategy. - The Hollywood Reporter
"Found at the site of Viejo Sangayaico, 200km southeast of Lima, the floor was built into an open-air platform sometime between AD1000 and AD1400. It then continued in use under Inca rule, from 1400 to 1532, and perhaps during the early years of the Spanish conquest." - The Art Newspaper
Edward Hall, who founded the all-male Shakespearean specialist Propeller Theatre Company, is the brother of actress/director Rebecca Hall and son of Royal Shakespeare Company founder Peter Hall. Edward succeeds the Chicago troupe's founding director, Barbara Gaines, who departed last month after 37 years. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
"A Swiss teenager is the latest offender to start carving her name into the ancient amphitheatre. The 17-year-old was caught in the act, with a local tour guide managing to video her scratching the letter N into the wall of the famous landmark." - The Independent (UK)
So how do we avoid this catastrophe? Just as in other areas of recent American life where entire industries were imperiled — banks, the auto industry — this crisis requires federal intervention. - The New York Times
What worries me more than money at the moment is the spiritual pall hanging over the theater community – a simmering angry paralysis mirroring our city’s wandering at anchor over its mixture of astonishing wealth, desire for social justice, and more and more people living in tents. - Post Alley
The show’s opening last week raised further questions about its intended audience. On a hot weekday, the heavily trafficked library was closed to its constituents in preparation for a celebrity-studded evening event hosting the rapper and his VIP friends. - Hyperallergic
What feels different about ecocritical art is that the very topic it engages with proposes widespread ruin and demands that action be immediately taken to counteract such an apocalypse. - Art Review
Last year, a team of academics from Columbia University and NYU published a paper with the eye-catching title “Work From Home and the Office Real Estate Apocalypse.” In it, they estimated that New York office buildings had lost 39 percent of their long-term value. Now, It's 44 percent. - Curbed
Writer and actor strikes in the US show that selling out is not just a question of personal ethics, but an industry-wide concern. A director’s decision to align themselves with Goliaths of entertainment has consequences; money for the big guy in opposition to an industry where smaller films and creators have more opportunities. - The Guardian
What about literature’s latest trend: the celebrity novel? Do the rules that apply to the celebrity memoir remain the same when it comes to celebrity-authored fiction that has been ghostwritten? Isn’t there a difference between a ghostwritten memoir and a ghostwritten novel? - The Guardian
"The head of Opera Holland Park, James Clutton, … approached Jonathan Dove to compose the music and Alasdair Middleton to write the libretto. The result is (and you can trust me on this) astonishing. An opera that is a thriller is a rare beast." - The Guardian
The Cornwall Youth Noise Orchestra is the brainchild of Matt Ashdown and Liz Howell of Moogie Wonderland, which began as a club night and now bills itself as “a participatory arts organisation”. - The Guardian
"The idea and technology of a situation deepfake are the same as any other deepfake, but with a bolder ambition: to manipulate a real event or invent one from thin air. Examples include depictions of Donald Trump's perp walk and Trump hugging Anthony Fauci, neither of which happened." - The Conversation
