Given a 10 percent decline in the art market — from $30.2 billion in 2022 to $27.2 billion in 2023 — and general concern about the long-term financial health of museums, questions have become urgent regarding the next generation of art collectors and donors. - The New York Times
"Some actors avoid playing objectionable people, concerned about being pigeonholed into villainhood, or that in the audience’s impressionable minds, their character’s likability might blur with their own. … Paulson said those kinds of thoughts haven’t occurred to her." - The New York Times
OK, bring back the 18th century: "Cordelia gets a romance. ... She gets her love, Edgar. King Lear gets to rule. The bad people are punished. The good people get rewarded." - Happy Dancing
“People wept in the street when the magnificent Mackintosh building was nearly destroyed by two fires. So why, 10 years on and despite overwhelming support for restoration, is there still no plan—or funding—for its repair" - The Observer (UK)
"For clearly one of the hardest workers in show business with one of the longest resumes I've ever seen, it's hard to believe that rejection is still ever-present for Leguizamo. ‘They were never going to pick me — no matter how talented I was,’ he said.” So he’s going it on his own. - Salon
One of the most famous British women artists of the 1800s, "for more than a century, Louise Jopling has been dismissed by the art establishment as an amateur, her huge body of work and professional career overlooked by successive curators of the national collection." - The Observer (UK)
The market already wasn’t super hot: “The bidding wars that characterized the pandemic spending frenzy have largely dissipated in favor of prearranged ‘guarantee’ deals that assure paintings will sell for a minimum price. Young artists have also seen their secondary markets collapse.” - The New York Times
Her macular degeneration might keep her from “reading” the old-fashioned way, but she still loves books of every sort. "I love being surrounded by books — they’re snapshots of the past: first-night gifts, holidays abroad, memories of lost friends and loved ones." - The New York Times
The team that started Critical Role years ago would be shocked by their "transmedia kingdom of novels, comic books, animated series and original games, as well as a new membership program for fans launched Thursday,” all as D&D goes way more mainstream. - Washington Post
"Mum ran a gymnastics club, so I was a solid acrobat. I’d trained through my teens as a dancer: choreo and movement mimicking came naturally. And, growing up on an vast rented 8,500 acre farm, I could ride horses before I could walk." - The Observer (UK)
"If you’re a performer, you have that little spark of magic that makes you watchable, right? When you play a god, it’s like, how do you tap into that part of yourself and turn it way up, and let that be okay?" - American Theatre
The music venue, whose opening has been delayed three times by everything from power supply problems to “part of the ventilation system becoming detached,” has now completed inspection and probably, maybe, definitely will open on Tuesday. - BBC
