Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The World’s 100 Most-Popular Museums For 2023
This year we can finally answer: things are back to normal. Mostly. Our exclusive survey reveals that in 2023 many of the world’s largest...
The Cultures Of Theatre Censorship
In recent months, there have been concerns both in the UK and in Europe that legislation ostensibly designed to address hate speech might also...
NY Museum’s Former Financial Officer Files Suit Over Firing Over Expense Claims
According to the lawsuit filed by Denise Lewis, who worked at the museum from 2017 until her firing in January of this year, the...
Ten Typical Behaviors Of Creative People
Creative people are uncomfortable with the status quo. For them, a creative life is one of options, opportunities, and alternatives. They do not always...
Protecting Michelangelo’s “David”
The Galleria dell’Accademia’s director, Cecilie Hollberg, has positioned herself as David’s defender since her arrival at the museum in 2015, taking swift aim at those profiteering...
John McWhorter: How To Teach Hard Lessons
Note that all of these centerings would be about things most consider good, and even crucial, but the question would be why the university,...
Trend? Titles That Seem Familiar
Perhaps the frisson of cleverness (I know where that’s from!), or the flip-side cringe of ignorance (I should know where that’s from!), is enough to...
The AI-Created Junk Polluting Our Culture
It’s unclear what the ethical line is between scam and regular usage. Some A.I.-generated scams are easy to identify, like the medical journal paper featuring a...
Kennicott: The Baltimore Bridge And Its Symbolism
The loss of the bridge is first a human tragedy. Then it is an economic shock, with a radiating toll that won’t be fully understood...
Can There Truly Be “New” Opera Without Saying Goodbye To The Old?
In short: There can be no history of operatic modernity that is not also a memorial, no production of new opera that does not...
How The Hulu Merger Is Changing The Ways Disney Works
Yes, Hulu is just a tile. But that tile also seems to represent something bigger inside of Disney: the full Disney Plus-ification of everything,...
For Centuries The Dutch Have Fought Back The Water. In Climate Change Maybe Cities...
“I think some bowls should be full,” he said, suggesting that flooding the land would amount to little more than a natural evolution of...
It’s Been 35 Years Since The Pacific Symphony Last Picked A Music Director. The...
Carl St.Clair is currently the longest-serving music director of a major American orchestra, and under his baton the ensemble has flourished: It’s now the...
Standup Comedy Flourished In China During Lockdown. Now The Government Crackdown
Flippant references to China’s military, like those to top leaders, are considered off limits in official life, and such taboos have been codified under...
Christopher Knight: Questions About The Broad Museum Expansion
The conceit of a vanity museum’s design being dubbed “the veil and the vault,” with a perforated exterior draped over a treasury for a private collection...
LA’s Broad Museum Announces Major Expansion
The Broad on Wednesday announced a $100-million building expansion that will increase gallery space at one of Los Angeles’ most popular museums by 70%....
Toymakers Design Human Characteristics Into Their Work. And AI?
Large language models can seem to do more than what we ask them to; they exhibit something that we might call creativity if a...
London’s Wigmore Hall Announces Endowment Campaign To Eliminate Its Public Funding
The venue has an annual grant of £344,206 from Arts Council England (ACE) but John Gilhooly, Wigmore Hall’s artistic and executive director, says that...
“Mama Mia” Star Informed She’s Being Replaced By AI Voice
Musical theater star Sara Poyzer publicly shared a screenshot of an email she received from an unnamed production company which read: “Sorry for the delay—we have...
US Museums Cut Staff, Blaming Falling Visitor Numbers
As visitor numbers begin to stabilise, it remains unclear whether museums will reinstate those eliminated positions, an issue that has become more urgent as...
Is It True That Quality TV Is Done For?
"There's definitely been a contraction after years of it feeling like TV was undergoing this crazy expansion." - BBC
How The Head Of Juilliard’s Dance Program Is Shaking Things Up
In 2018, she became the prestigious New York conservatory's first woman of color to head the dance program — and the youngest person to...
How Two Amsterdam Museums Managed Hyper-Demand For Blockbuster Shows
“I thought we would sell out and would probably have about half a million visitors. In the end we had 650,000, but we could...
Inside San Francisco Symphony’s Budget Issues And What They Say About Priorities
Given these “significant financial pressures,” where does the multimillion-dollar Davies renovation project stand, certain to pose challenges even if the cost of application and...
How Steppenwolf Theatre Reimagined Its Educational Mission
It seemed that the education department functioned as a sort of nonprofit running within another nonprofit, having separate conversations about programming. - American Theatre