Sonia Friedman, the producer behind, among many others, last season’s game-changing revival of Merrily We Roll Along, the revival of Sondheim’s Company with a female Bobbie, and this season’s Dead Outlaw, discusses why New York’s model is dysfunctional and how box-office reporting makes things worse. - TheaterMania
“The literary journal Lapham’s Quarterly is relaunching its website and podcast this summer under the editorial guidance of the writers Donovan Hohn and Francine Prose — a fortuitous and surprising turn for a magazine that seemed on the brink of extinction” following suspension of publication in 2023 and Lapham's death last summer. - The New York Times
“Employees continued to picket on the day after Wednesday night’s walkout when, during a Suzanne Vega concert, they protested ‘an unacceptable level of hostility and mismanagement’ by the new leadership. … On Thursday evening, the management team headed by new CEO Joseph Callahan responded by firing some employees involved.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Gatti, currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and formerly music director of the Rome Opera and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, is succeeding Zubin Mehta at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, which encompasses both Florence’s famous spring music festival and its opera house. - ANSA (Italy)
“Peru’s culture ministry (is) reinstating with immediate effect the protected area covering 5,600 sq km (2,200 sq miles), that in late May had been cut back to 3,200 sq km. … (The move follows) criticism (that) the change made (the ancient images) vulnerable to the impact of informal mining operations.” - The Guardian
“How are New York City’s theatres really doing in the wake of pandemic disruption, economic instability, and social upheaval? (This report) dives deep into this question using three years of comparative data (2019, 2022, and 2023) from more than one hundred nonprofit theatre companies across the city.” - SMU DataArts
After what were reported to be extremely contentious deliberations, the jury found the disgraced producer guilty of one count of sexual assault and not guilty of a second count. The judge declared a mistrial on a count of rape after the jury deadlocked and the foreman refused to continue deliberating. - AP
“What critics of the prime-time cartoon either fundamentally misunderstood (or conveniently overlooked) was its core truths. Bart loved his parents. He went to church with them. The Simpsons sometimes struggled to make ends meet, and they didn’t always get along, but they stuck together. They were a typical middle-American family." - The Atlantic (Yahoo!)
Several platforms are proliferating across cyberspace, seemingly in response to a culture in mainstream art criticism that the authors perceive as risk averse. ‘No one was writing truthfully about art – it was just the same four or five legacy art magazines covering the same circuit of shows. - Frieze
And that’s almost no interference from network executives. Fox was the first new broadcast TV network in decades; new execs were intimidated by multiple Oscar-winner James l. Brooks, the animated series’s producer. So talented writers got to push envelopes with their scripts and were rarely overruled. - Slate (Yahoo!)
Your brain breaks apart fleeting streams of acoustic information into parallel channels – linguistic, emotional and musical – and acts as a biological multicore processor. - The Conversation
“In my opinion, they are asking for proof of things that are not tangible. We are really trying to jump through all of the hoops no matter how small. The hoops get tinier and tinier but the standards and criteria are not tangible.” - Dayton Daily News
According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in March, 43 percent of Americans supported continuing federal funding for NPR and PBS, 24 percent backed ending funding and 33 percent were unsure. But the survey found a close correlation between partisan leans and views on funding. - Washington Post
“The orchestra has informed subscribers that the contemporary music series will be ‘paused’ for the 2025-26 season. There was no public announcement or acknowledgement. The CSO series presented just two MusicNOW concerts this current season, most recently in March.” - Chicago Classical Review
Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court began on Monday. The trial could last for three weeks followed by a written decision from the judge expected at a later date. - AP News
