Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Does Opera On A Screen Really Work?
Seeing the seams is part of live performance’s charm—it asks the audience to actively participate in the suspension of reality, as opposed to having...
The Dirty Secret Behind College Tuitions
“We can’t stand the fact that the sticker price is so high despite the fact that nobody pays it.” This pricing strategy took hold in the...
Study: How Australians Read
This report represents the first time the Australian book industry has been granted a detailed level of insight into recreational readers and also offers...
Edmonton Symphony Names Jean-Marie Zeitouni As Music Director
“He made his ESO debut in 2006 and has conducted more than 35 performances with the orchestra and Edmonton Opera since then.” - CTV
You Thought Movie Theatres Were In Trouble? Cinemark Chain Posts Record Fourth Quarter Revenue
Exhibition giant Cinemark reported record fourth-quarter revenue of $814 million, up 27 percent year-over-year and 3 percent above the pre-COVID pandemic fourth quarter of 2019. -...
How Should Artists Respond In The Trump Era
With each day bringing new troubles and concerns, how should we proceed? Ideally, with boldness, though that quality seems to be in short supply,...
UK Government To Inject New Money Into The Arts
The Culture Secretary is expected to use a speech in Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, to announce a new £270 million Arts Everywhere Fund to help organisations in...
The Kennedy Center Debacle As A Mamet Drama
It plays like a David Mamet drama, complete with an inciting incident, characters bringing years of baggage to every scene and a surprising climax....
Cooperation Versus Competition – A Biological, Philosophical Perspective
The evolution of cooperation has been of interest to biologists, philosophers and anthropologists for centuries. If natural selection favours self-interest, why would we cooperate...
Trump And The Corruption Of What Words Mean
Trump has already hit language very strongly, and not just because of his own idiosyncratic manner of speech. As the Times has noted, his administration has...
Minnesota Theatre Says It Will Decline NEA Funding, Double Down On DEI
A Minneapolis theater organization says it will decline federal funding in order to preserve its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. - Bring Me the News
Artists Sign Letter Protesting Changes In NEA Criteria
Hundreds of artists signed a letter sent to the National Endowment for the Arts asking it to reverse policy changes made as a result...
Dancers Perform Protest Outside Kennedy Center
Thirty-four dancers performed The Nelken Line, a piece by choreographer Pina Bausch that pays homage to the seasons. It's been performed widely since Bausch created it...
We Need To Define What Smart Is
If we could stop bickering about which creatures do or don’t deserve to be called smart, an emerging movement of scientists and philosophers argue...
How Research Publishing Has Devolved Into A Citation Game
Gone are the days when academics simply conducted research and published their findings. Now their papers are less valued for their content than for...
An Arts Advocacy Summit: Will It Have Any Impact?
The call to action was to develop a blueprint for the TCC to take to Capitol Hill to advocate for arts funding, with the $207...
Kharkiv’s Puppetry Tradition Thrives During War
But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 dealt Kharkiv’s puppetry a heavy blow, as much of the city’s population of 1.4 million...
Trump’s Kennedy Center Cancels Performance By Gay Chorus
This is the latest event to be canceled by the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover. The show “Finn,” which could be read as...
When Messiaen Zigged And Other Composers Zagged
As Messiaen saw it, the real revolution in 20th-century music had been launched not by an Austrian Jew but by a Frenchman, Claude Debussy,...
When Obsession With The Great Book Makes Writing One Impossible
The bibliophobia of the title, Chihaya assures us, only “occasionally manifests as an acute, literal fear of books.” More often, it “develops as a...
School Censors Play, Students Write Anti-Censorship Play And Win State Award
School play gets canceled for "inappropriate content". In response students write , their own anti-censorship play skewering the school district, sells out performances, and...
Multi-Generation Musicians. What Accounts For Them?
If genes and grit are not entirely responsible for the persistence of professional musical families across generations, what else matters? There are several possibilities....
Report: America’s Choruses Are Doing Well
Organizations across disciplines operated at a small deficit for the first time in five years in 2023. Choruses, by contrast, were still operating at...
Opera America’s State Of Opera Report
The key findings of the Annual Field Report are drawn from the fiscal year 2023 data submitted by OPERA America’s Professional Company Members (PCMs) in the...
Behold The Evolution of “Extreme” Marching Band
Marching band is more than a pastime. It’s an extreme sport. The real reason the students rehearse so hard isn’t to play well at...
