Brontez Purnell: "All good theater and literature should run the zodiac of feelings: Some of it should be sad, some of it profound; some of it should be boring and some of it should jump completely off the cliff. Whatever vehicle I’m using, I’m always trying to arrive at a certain sense of balance." - The Atlantic
“Faced with the photo evidence, Pham then allegedly admitted to climbing over torn-down fences to get inside. But still, he insisted his reasons were benign: He just wanted the rare opportunity to view ‘historical art,’ investigators said.” - Washington Post
Over the past few decades, this ethos of cheerless duty has been overtaken by the imperative to love your work. Graduation speakers, human resources departments, and motivational memes keep telling us we ought to merge passion with profession. But work remains stubbornly unlovable. Especially for workers in the United States, the hours are long, wages have not remotely kept...
Compared with other American companies, Opera Philadelphia is laying claim to the mantle of making new material during the pandemic. Still, what’s most notable about OperaPhila.tv is not its mere existence, but the strength of the work on offer. - The New York Times
A video which became a viral hit last month "shows two of Boston Dynamics' humanoid Atlas research robots doing the twist, the mashed potato and other classic moves, joined by Spot, a doglike robot, and Handle, a wheeled robot designed for lifting and moving boxes in a warehouse or truck. … almost a year and half of choreography,...
The suit "alleges that the publishers pay high commissions and other costs to Amazon, which in turn increases the retail price of e-books sold on the platform. The lawsuit claims the five publishers account for 80 percent of books sold in the US, and calls the arrangement a 'conspiracy to fix the retail price of e-books,' which it argues...
Matthew Redmond teaches this class at Stanford in part "to disrupt what seems an obvious distinction between development and result, closure and continuity. On careful inspection, it is surprisingly difficult to tell what makes a novel, or any piece of writing, truly finished." Yet there was another factor this past fall quarter, "a period defined by the constant escalation...
Once thought of as a relic of yesteryear, the limited series—or miniseries, depending on which generation you belong to—has rapidly shifted back into focus. - Fast Company
"This past Saturday, about a dozen people from across the United States and Canada held a Zoom memorial for a man whose remains have been lying in an unmarked grave in Nova Scotia since last spring. He was Charles R. Saunders, and his lonely death in May belied his status as a foundational figure in a literary genre known...
Unbeknownst to the composer, waiting beyond a YouTube search for his name was a seeming subindustry that consistently used Kerry Muzzey’s music without his knowledge. ContentID surfaced roughly 20,000 videos for Muzzey in the first month—200 or 400 more got flagged every single day. - Ars Technica
To an extent, yes, it has. Reporter Natasha Tripney talks with theatremakers around Britain about the positive developments — the success of streaming, increased engagement with communities, more egalitarian casting, long-distance collaboration — that started to arise during this public health disaster. - The Stage
Three municipalities in Georgia are suing Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming video providers for as much as 5 percent of their gross revenue in the district — joining a nationwide group of towns and counties that want these services regulated more like cable TV. It’s a small but growing front in the war over cord-cutting, challenging regulators to decide...
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the young Lithuanian woman whose considerable reputation began developing while she was an assistant conductor at the L.A. Philharmonic, became music director of the CBSO in 2016. In what she describes as "a deeply personal decision" — she and her partner have two young children and a home base in Austria — she has extended her contract...
The survey of 3,300 frequent attenders (most over 60 and almost all over 40) found that, now that COVID-19 vaccines are being given to the public, more than two-thirds expect they'll be comfortable at indoor performances by June. (The rest say not until 2022.) More than three-quarters said they'd be willing to pay more to make up for revenue...
