Albania's most famous author both domestically and abroad, Kadare won numerous awards (including the very first International Booker Prize) and was a perennial candidate for the Nobel. "He leaves a body of work as immense as Balzac’s, as unrelenting in its critique of dictatorship as Orwell’s." - The Guardian
Two weeks after the 85-year-old actor fell from the stage during a London performance of Player Kings, an abridged version of Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts One and Two in which he played Falstaff, McKellen announced his withdrawal from the regional tour of the production "to protect my full recovery." - BBC
"Michelle Miller Burns, who has led Minnesota's largest performing arts organization since 2018, will take charge of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where she had held several leadership roles before coming to Minnesota, the orchestra announced Friday. She starts with Dallas in September." - The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
When we engage with nostalgic media, we are, in essence, engaging with media that attempts to take us home — often to our childhoods, when we weren’t burdened with the stresses of adulthood, or even to a time of perceived simplicity, which we may not have experienced ourselves. - The Conversation
Mull, who was also a singer-songwriter, rose to fame in the 1970s on Norman Lear’s satirical soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and its spinoffs, “Fernwood 2 Night” and “America 2-Night.” - Los Angeles Times
Regularly reinventing architecture is exciting, but it faces a number of challenges. Architecture is an art, hence creativity is important, but it is an applied art, which makes it fundamentally empirical—that is, ruled not by theory but by experience. - American Scholar
Our current system of grading reinforces practices set in a time far different from that of the present, with different values and ideas. As knowledge becomes exponentially more important over time, the way we teach it needs to change. - 3 Quarks Daily
Many “rules” beloved of self-appointed grammar constables were simply made up quite recently by irritable ink-stained wretches. Using “hopefully” as a modal adjunct, for example. - The Guardian
The first budget proposal the governor made suggested a 58% cut to California’s state arts programs. Among those cuts is a $10 million reduction from $26 million to $16 million to the California Arts Council (CAC), the state agency that supports local arts infrastructure. - CultureOC
DeSantis said the cause was Orlando International Fringe Theater Festival, which he characterized as being overtly “sexual” and therefore an inappropriate recipient of state funds. While it’s unclear if the Orlando festival was slated to receive any money from the grants, the state of Florida awards money for cultural projects based on a ranked list. - ARTnews
Thangam Debbonaire, 57 — a former professional cellist who danced at raves in her college days and has lines of poetry tattooed on her forearm — was in charge of developing Labour’s election promises on the arts. Those include more art, drama and music classes in schools, and a crackdown on ticket scalping. - The New York Times
The heirs of Alexandre Benois, a celebrated stage designer who worked on the original performance of "Bolero", argued that he should have been credited as a co-author and demanded a share of the proceeds. And because Benois died in 1960, that would put "Bolero" back under copyright until 2039. - France24
"First of all, the legislature had already reduced the budget from $60 million to $30 million. But $30 million in the budget of the state represents 0.03 percent. So it's negligible for the state economy, for the budget, but it makes a huge impact for (the arts programs). - CBS News
Summer heat getting you down? The Bard’s got you covered: There’s a new collection of the coolest Shakespeare movies of our time, including - of course- Baz Luhrmann’s “supercharged teenage dream” Romeo + Juliet. - The Guardian (UK)
The author of Erasure (on which the movie American Fiction was based) and James is also an artist. When he’s creating art, he says, it’s harder to explain his work. "I’m working off an idea or feeling that is not based in words. There is a physicality to it." - LitHub
