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William Finn, Composer-Lyricist Of “Falsettos” And “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” Is Dead At 73

“(He) became a heavily autobiographical musical theatre writer, folding his experiences as a gay Jewish man with a brain stem malformation into some of his most lauded work.” - Playbill

Only Ancient Greek Theater In Ionian Islands Has Been Excavated

“Perched on a hillside on Lefkada, an island off the west coast of Greece, the structure has been excavated by archaeologists from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Aitoloakarnania and Lefkada over the past decade.” - Artnet

Why The College Admissions Essay Is A Very Bad Idea

The college essay is a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests. It wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. - Yascha Mounk

Russian Ballet Company Pretending To Be Ukrainian Toured Scandinavia

During 2023 and 2024, a troupe calling itself “Ballet of Ukraine” played dates in several cities in Sweden and Finland — but an investigation by Swedish television found that the group is registered in Russia and had its fees sent to a Russian-owned company in Switzerland, thus deceiving audiences and violating sanctions. - BroadwayWorld

What It’s Like being A Librarian In The Time Of Trump

“I see all that being as a measure of: ‘If we fly under the radar, we’ll be safe,’” they said. “But it’s sad because who gets left behind – for staff members of color, who are visibly queer, who are disabled, we don’t get to turn off that part of ourselves.” - The Guardian

San Francisco Agency Funding In Disarray, Payments Missed

The latest target is San Francisco’s Dream Keeper Initiative, introduced in 2021 at the height of the “defund the police” movement... But now, a variety of theaters, media companies and other entities say the city is reneging on promised grants — a total of more than $14 million affecting 38 recipients — without explanation. - San Francisco Chronicle

Are Our Storytelling Tropes Insufficient For The Complexity Of Today?

Unfortunately, the dominance of psychological narratives manifests in the misplaced hopes we cast onto individual leaders – whether in the political, technological, social or religious realms – and the often simplistic ideas they put forward. - Psyche

Rita Moreno, Mandy Patinkin, Harvey Fierstein, Patti LuPone, Lin-Manuel Miranda And Other Broadway Legends Recall Their Favorite Roles

“For our annual ‘Yesteryear’ issue, we asked 29 Broadway legends to pose before Mark Seliger’s camera and revisit their most memorable roles. Their careers span an enormous length of time” — 65 years, in fact, from Dick Van Dyke in Bye Bye Birdie to Audra McDonald in Gypsy. - New York Magazine

These Are the 381 Books Removed From Naval Academy Library Shelves

The list also includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s examination of depictions of women in the Holocaust, and “How to Be Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are “The Making of Black Lives Matter,” by Christopher J. Lebron; “How Racism Takes Place,” by George Lipsitz,,, - The New York Times

Amazon Backlash: Independent Bookstores Rise Up

Amazon boycotts are gaining more widespread attention as some people seek ways to protest the growing influence of billionaires in government and public life. - Wisconsin Public Radio

How Will Trump’s Tariffs Affect The Art Markets?

 “Ordinarily, paintings and sculptures are exempt from customs duties,” says Nicholas M. O’Donnell, a partner in the Boston law firm Sullivan & Worcester, but “under the recently announced tariff it gets a little more complicated”. - The Art Newspaper

Montana Lawmaker Awards His Wife’s Festival More Than Double The Funding It Requested

State Rep. John Fitzpatrick pushed to zero out funding for some other groups in the state, calling them “slackers” and “no-shows,” while awarding St. Timothy’s Summer Music Festival — whose GuideStar listing shows Fitzpatrick’s wife as principal officer — 2½ times the amount of money it applied for. - Daily Montanan

Why Are Musicians Turning To OnlyFans? They Need The Money!

It quickly garnered a reputation as a hub for sexual content, given that it gave adult performers and sex workers the ability to create and upload content on their own terms, or at least without a production studio as the middleman. The platform takes a 20% cut and the rest goes to the creator. - NPR

Texas Legislator Proposes Bill To Fine Museums For Content

On March 6, representative David Lowe filed House Bill 3958, which outlines a proposed civil penalty against any museum showing “certain obscene or harmful material.” The Texas Penal Code defines “obscene” as any kind of performance or material that depicts sexual acts without literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. - ARTnews

How Should Opera Deal With AI?

Royal Opera assistant director Netia Jones: “As artists, we must explore technology in all its guises because we are trained to create rather than to destroy.” - The Observer (UK)

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