Overall tickets sales in 2023 were 101% of what they were in 2019, the last complete year of data before Covid. More than half of audiences in 2023 were first-time bookers.54% of the audience had not attended before, a near record high in the decade, eclipsed only by the figure of 55% first-timers in 2013. - BachTrack
Fei-Fei Li is at the forefront of a growing chorus of academics, policymakers and former employees who argue the sky-high cost of working with AI models is boxing researchers out of the field, compromising independent study of the burgeoning technology. - Washington Post
Choreographer Hillel Kogan calls the work, titled Appropriation, a ballet because "In a symbolic way, ballet is the major appropriator." Yet Kogan also incorporates, among other forms, breakdance, jazz, voguing, Chinese dance theater, various folk dances, Broadway, gymnastics, and capoeira. - The Jerusalem Post
Russian authorities apparently accessed Ksenia Karelina’s phone and discovered she had donated approximately $50 to Razom, a pro-Ukrainian charity, in 2022. - The Guardian
With the passing of Peak TV, they found themselves getting turned down by studio after studio, just like most of the other independent creators of new series. So Duplass Brothers Productions started producing shows itself, financed with the money Mark makes acting in the Reese Witherspoon series The Morning Show. - Variety
So what is the ideology of the Internet? An optimist might invoke the idea of democratization, pointing to the medium’s ability to amplify otherwise silent voices, in ways both good and bad. But the Internet is not so much a forum as a language unto itself, one with its own history, predilections, and prejudices. - The New Yorker
"How to keep murals thriving while keeping them from intruding illicitly into neighborhoods, how to keep businesses from simply ginning up wall-sized ads and calling them art, how to distinguish legal from illegal handiwork, and, frankly, good from bad. It’s a seesaw we’re still riding." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
Bill was a mentor to two generations of writers—writers of narrative reporting, primarily, but also novelists, biographers, intellectuals, essayists, and humorists. He expanded The Atlantic’s topical range and its cultural presence. - The Atlantic
"Each week’s new cases require new clients, new patients, new victims and killers and crooks, some at least mildly famous and each of them plausible. ... (Delivering) such shows involves a hectic, grueling, often maddening sprint to assemble new troupes of actors week after week." - The New York Times
"While one hardcover copy of (Robin) Cook’s latest novel costs (a) library $18, it costs $55 to lease a digital copy — a price that can’t be haggled with publishers. And for that, the e-book expires after a limited time, usually one or two years, or after 26 checkouts." - AP
"An investigation into the clawback of Metro Arts grant funds intended for underserved artists (found) probable cause of discrimination. … Six people, including five artists who lost some or all of the grant money promised to them, filed formal Title VI complaints alleging that Metro Arts discriminated based on race." - The Tennessean (Yahoo!)
"The repertory theatre company, based in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., reported at its annual general meeting that cost escalations and attendance shortfalls led to it ending the fiscal year in the red, despite bringing in record operating revenues of $36.7-million thanks to its best fundraising efforts ever." - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
"As an actor, talk show guest and broadcaster, Mr. McCourt was a boisterous and entertaining counterpart to his more dour and literary-minded brother Frank, a high school English teacher whose 1996 memoir about growing up dirt poor in Ireland (Angela's Ashes) became a publishing phenomenon." - The Washington Post (MSN)
"Three Belgian climate activists who were previously sentenced to prison for a protest targeting … Girl with a Pearl Earring will no longer face any punishment for their actions, a Dutch court of appeal ruled on Monday. … (Their) protest took place in October 2022 at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague." - CNN
