Yearly Archives: 2021
Data: Impact Of Vaccination Rates On Attendance
The number of performances had the largest upside effect on ticket sales in September, with a 20% increase producing a 9% increase in ticket...
Thirteen (Or More) Ways Of Looking At Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos
2021 is the 300th anniversary of the six extraordinary works. Mark Swed looks at the slew of recordings marking the occasion, from a spectacular...
Andy Warhol As Faithful Catholic
"Religion and sincerity go hand in hand, and neither one is particularly associated with Andy Warhol, whose name is synonymous with ironic, detached irreverence....
Growing Trend: Young Architects Want To Unionize
It's a trend at professions offering noneconomic benefits, a sense of mission at a nonprofit or the cachet of working in book publishing or...
The Abrupt Closing Of Circus Oz Reflects A Bigger, Wider Problem In Australian Arts
The larger issue is the years-long attempt by (mostly conservative) federal and state governments to make funding of arts groups contingent on corporate-style board...
Why London Dance Companies Can’t Do A Good “Nutcracker”
London’s big ballet companies are not where anyone should hope to find an even tolerable Nutcracker. - Alastair Macaulay
The Ways “The Matrix” Has Bled Into Real Life
Those ways aren't pretty: incels glommed onto the "red pill" idea; "free your mind" has been adopted by far-right populists; "post-truth" is now regularly...
Met Museum Slashes Visitor Capacity As Omicron Continues To Spread
Attendance will be limited to about 10,000 people per day, half the normal number during the December holidays. - The New York Times
What Bob Iger Achieved In 15 Years As Disney’s CEO
He achieved quite a lot — far more than he, or skeptical observers, expected: rejuvenating the animation studios; acquiring Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st...
All These Canceled Performances Are Really Hurting Broadway In The Pocketbook
Box office grosses are down by one quarter just from the previous week by nearly one half from Christmas week in 2019, the last...
Baltimore Art Museums Close Through Christmas Due To COVID Surge
The Baltimore Museum of Art won't reopen until Wednesday, Dec. 29 (although its gift shop and restaurant will keep running), and the Lewis Museum...
Britain Adds Another $40 Million To Arts COVID Relief
"U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has … an additional £30 million in funding will be made available through the existing Culture...
Germany Hasn’t Canceled Performances Because Of Omicron, But …
… you can't go and see them. No live audiences allowed. - Variety
My Life As A Cyborg
My elevator pitch goes something like this: “I know you think cyborgs are always imminent. But not here yet. However, I am a cyborg....
Christopher Newton, 85, Former Shaw Festival Director
Among Newton’s contributions were the development of distinctive festival seasons, the establishment of a permanent acting ensemble and the creation of an artistic training...
Confessions Of A Crossword Puzzle Constructor
What makes for a good word, in the eyes of a crossword-puzzle constructor? The language of aesthetic judgment is gustatory—one has good taste or...
How Do You Reconcile Being A Writer With Having A Career?
There is a contradiction here of both scorning a system that’s shallow and rigged, and also feeling bitter about not being able to succeed...
How Can You Recontextualize Confederate Statues? (There Are Challenges)
Hamza Walker conceived a fiendish idea: Why not stage an exhibition in which, removed from their places of pride, these statues could be evaluated...
A Case For The Universality Of Western Music
Jay Nordlinger: "What is the glory of Western civilization? Our political freedom, probably — the rights of individual man. But I would not put...
Just As With People, Orchestras With Co-Morbidities Get Hit Hardest By COVID
In particular, symphony orchestras, such as those in San Antonio and in Springfield, Mass., which have the twin problems of long-term financial distress and...
Biden Nominates Net Neutrality Champions To FCC
Biden is blazing a path that will make it harder for large internet service providers to exert their market control. The point of net...
The Most Adapted Of All Modern Ghost Stories (Excepting “A Christmas Carol”)
Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) has inspired many a movie and television adaptation as well as a major opera. Adam Scovell...
New AI Software That Could Make Editing Podcasts As Easy As Editing Text
Shasta can record a conversation, automatically transcribe its contents in the cloud, and then make that audio every bit as easy to edit as...
The Real-Life Inspiration For “The Exorcist” Identified Publicly
He was known to a small group of Jesuits and reporters, but he spent his life afraid that more people would learn about his...
A Very Very Weird Year For The Art Market
The story of the Banksy neatly encompasses all three elements of the year: the impact of Asian buying power; the increasing influence of cryptos and those...