The National Park Service report, 2023 National Park Visitor Spending Effects, finds that 325.5 million visitors spent $26.4 billion in communities near national parks. This spending supported 415,400 jobs, provided $19.4 billion in labor income, and $55.6 billion in economic output to the U.S. economy. - NPS
Can the traditional talk show format — with an opening monologue, celebrity guests, live musical performances, a sidekick — survive in the streaming era? Or is the future of talk shows something quite different, and much more like … podcasts? - The New York Times
“Performers and stage managers at Chicago’s venerable comedy venue The Second City are threatening to strike if they are unable to reach an agreement with management over wage increases. … Negotiations between Actors Equity and leadership at The Second City have been ongoing since February; … the current contract expired April 13.” - WBEZ (Chicago)
“Just a day after Donald Trump revealed his plan to impose 100% tariffs on ‘any and all’ films produced in ‘foreign lands,’ California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday he wants to collaborate with the president to create a $7.5 billion federal tax incentive to help the (Hollywood) film industry. - Variety
“Among those leaving the agency are directors overseeing grants for dance, design, folk and traditional arts, museums and visual arts, and theater. Also departing are the directors of arts education, multidisciplinary works and the ‘partnership’ division, which oversees work with state and local arts agencies.” - The New York Times
It is, says the Pulitzer committee, “a work about ecosystems and biodiversity, that challenges the notion of the compositional voice by interweaving the profound musicianship and improvisational skills of a soloist as a creative tool.” - Avant Music News
This is his first Pulitzer, though he has been a finalist twice before. The production, directed by Phylicia Rashad, originated at Steppenwolf in Chicago and is currently on Broadway. The other finalists for this year's award were Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! and Itamar Moses’s The Ally. - The Hollywood Reporter
“The Pulitzer board praised (her work) ‘for graceful and genre-expanding writing about public spaces for families, deftly using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive.’” - Bloomberg CityLab
Percival Everett’s James continued its run of awards with the fiction prize, while Benjamin Nathans’s To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause won for nonfiction, Tessa Hulls’s Feeding Ghosts won for autobiography, Marie Howe’s New and Selected Poems won for poetry, and Jason Roberts’s Every Living Thing won for biography. - Publishers Weekly
At the open of the U.S. stock market regular trading Monday, Netflix’s stock was down -3.3%, Disney was -2.4%, WBD was -4.2% and Paramount was -2.2%. Shares of Lionsgate Studios slipped more than 7% in early trading. - Variety
“It’s insane,” a veteran UK producer told us. “So U.S. companies can only make U.S. films? James Cameron can’t make Avatar overseas? Who pays the tariffs? Leading independent distributors would all be out of business if it’s them.” - Deadline
Vancouver is the third largest film and television production hub in North America after Los Angeles and New York. There were 26,000 persons employed in the industry in B.C. in 2023. - Vancouver Sun
Most film production – and indeed TV shows – are a complex patchwork of corporate investment, globally sourced labour and multinational revenue. Some are tiny, hand-to-mouth operations, others are gigantic behemoths whose turnover dwarfs the GDP of a minor island nation. - The Guardian
A cultural battle is dividing Odesa, with the Babel statue a flashpoint. The spark was the decolonization law, which was part of a broader effort in wartime Ukraine to sever ties with Russian heritage and build an identity free of its influence. - The New York Times
The library records more than 180,000 annual visits, one of the highest figures in Alabama, in a city of 25,000. It has been called Fairhope’s Taj Mahal. Now, it is also a battleground. Residents have packed meetings of the City Council and the library board, debating books with sexual content or L.G.B.T.Q. themes. - The New York Times
