The Bristol Old Vic says its ticket sales are up one third over last year, but ever-rising costs and the loss of grants from Bristol City Council (not to mention uncertainty over Arts Council England funding) mean it may need to cut back both its mainstage productions and community/educational work. - BBC
That is, until it opened. “The muted response to the show itself suggests that fewer British people are riled by the debate than the media coverage implies — or at least that when activists engage with potentially inflammatory art, outrage can quickly vanish.” - The New York Times
Starting in the 1830s, the American Bible Society began a campaign to get inexpensive Bibles into homes "in every part of the land," while the American Sunday-School Union, which considered secular books "sweet poison" for young minds, worked to replace them in classrooms with Christian instructional books and evangelical tracts. - Slate (MSN)
Christopher Wu has some ideas to make symphony-going seem less of a chore to newbies. “Culture is always shifting. Everyone is into TikTok now. ... So maybe we need to be open to reimagining the presentation of this music we love, not the music itself.” - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Blackbird’s new checkless exit gives me the creeps. It's just the latest in a series of changes that have gradually and steadily stripped the human touch and human voice out of restaurants. Each of these changes was small, but together they’ve made going out to eat much less personal." - The New York Times
After Neill’s blood cancer went into remission - and his book about his experiences was published - the Jurassic Park, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and The Piano actor started working harder than ever. - The Guardian (UK)
"With South African stars shining on the international stage, opera has boomed since racial barriers were scrapped in 1994, drawing in talent from the country's great choral traditions to carve out an important place in (the) cultural landscape. Much of the change has been driven by the 25-year-old Cape Town Opera." - AFP (Yahoo!)
She was one of the Bolshoi's biggest stars and in demand as a guest all over the world. Yet the president of Georgia himself called and asked her to come home to Tbilisi and revive the national ballet company, then in a desperate state after years of post-independence civil war and shortages. - Bachtrack
"Appiah, a professor of philosophy and law at New York University, is author of more than a dozen books and is known for scholarly contributions to philosophy relating to ethics, language, nationality and race." He is also familiar for his advice column "The Ethicist" in The New York Times Magazine. - The New York Times
The entertainment division's bonanza was from improvements in direct-to-consumer streaming and the box-office hit Inside Out 2. … The streaming business specifically (which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+) had third-quarter revenue of $6.4 billion and net income of $47 million, compared to last year's third-quarter losses of over half a billion. - The Hollywood Reporter
"'We no longer see any prospect of success,' the group (Last Generation Austria) said in a statement. The group regularly made headlines over the past two years blocking streets and pouring black liquid over a screen protecting Gustav Klimt's masterpiece Death And Life in Vienna's Leopold Museum." - AFP (Barron's)
"Robinson, who has been artistic director at the opera company in Missouri since 2008, will join Seattle Opera on Sept. 4. … He succeeds Christina Scheppelmann, who (is) leaving after the end of the 2023-24 season to become general and artistic director of Brussels’s La Monnaie/De Munt." - The Seattle Times
Mariko Silver, currently head of the Henry Luce Foundation, formerly president of Bennington College, and for several years an Obama administration official, will take up her new post in September. - AP
For instance, the Alliance of Black Orchestral Percussionists “provides students with equipment like mallets and cymbals, allowing proteges to master more quickly the dizzying array of instruments for which an orchestral percussionist is responsible.” - San Francisco Classical Voice
