An unprecedented 14 new shows opened in April. A wide slate with something for everyone. Yet, still, suburban visitors to Broadway are down roughly 20%. What’s it all about and what can we, as supporters of a vibrant Broadway community who rely on suburbanites, do about it? - LoHud
“Under Mr. Moog’s stewardship, we have seen a loss of talented and expert staffers and continued revenue declines, stunting our efforts to achieve sustainability even as we receive generous foundation support that should fuel growth,” the unions wrote in the letter. - WBEZ
Key findings by the City include that Greater Sydney has the largest creative workforce in the country, but the number of artists who live in the local area decreased by 11% from 2011 to 2021. - ArtsHub
Yasmine Naghdi, a principal at London's Royal Ballet, was cast as the lead in Swan Lake (complete with the 32 fouettés) for a performance to be simulcast to cinemas around the globe, and she could feel herself freaking out and self-sabotaging. So she turned to sports psychologist Britt Tajet-Foxell. - The Guardian
Beginning in September, this is what the majority of elementary-school kids in New York City will be doing. More than two-thirds of its school districts selected the Into Reading curriculum. For those kids, learning to read will no longer revolve around books. - The Atlantic
"Sometimes we associate the word 'operatic' with big, extreme feelings. But I think mixed emotions — ambivalence — are what opera does best. It conveys the complexity of emotions that might be hard to hear in everyday speech. The book (Fellow Travelers) had a lot of that." - San Francisco Classical Voice
Works by white writers dropped from 88 percent to 75 percent in five years. It is by far the biggest such change in U.S. literary history. Although these findings point to significant gains, they also demand that we reckon with what appears now to be the beginning of their reversal. - The Atlantic
"Today, figures like Schomburg and … W.E.B. Du Bois are hailed as the founders of the 20th-century Black intellectual tradition. But increasingly, scholars are uncovering the important role of the women who often ran the libraries, where they built collections and — just as important — communities of readers." - The New York Times
The historically lamentable lack of government support for the arts in the U.S. is taking another turn for the worse. California and San Francisco are facing large deficits, and meager support for the arts here is certain to decline further. - San Francisco Classical Voice
"Audiences love big, stage-filling choreography with dramatic music and luscious dancing. But every once in a while, a short, spare dance packs a punch. And that’s what people remember when they walk out of the theater." Wendy Perron lists some of the greatest. - Dance Magazine
People who relish mental challenges are not necessarily more intelligent – although some research has found that, on average, they score higher on fluid intelligence, the ability to solve problems and think logically. - Psyche
The Musée du Fromage, opening this weekend on Île Saint-Louis in central Paris, will feature demonstrations of how several different varieties (out of hundreds in France) are made, how to "read" the milk, the importance of bacteria, and the big effects that small details can have. - The Guardian
Kazuko Shiraishi shot to fame when she was just 20 with her “Tamago no Furu Machi” (“The Town that Rains Eggs”). A pioneer of performance poetry, she was known for her Ginsberg-esque public readings (occasionally with Ginsberg himself), sometimes accompanied by jazz, and she created Japan's Beat poetry scene singlehandedly. - AP
Maria is a successful actor/singer/director in Britain, and Sonia is arguably London's leading producer. They've occasionally worked together before, but Merrily We Roll Along is their big passion project, which they did in England, Japan, and Boston before the New York production that just won four Tonys. - The New York Times
Earlier this year, ISIS's media arm created two YouTube channels, with corresponding Facebook and Twitter/X accounts, branded as Al Jazeera and CNN and matching those outlets' graphics and logos. ISIS created four videos each in Arabic and English, all reporting fake news, before getting kicked off YouTube. - Institute for Strategic Dialogue
