Barbie director Greta Gerwig: "There was a big meeting that was like, ‘Do you need this?' And I was like, ‘Everything in me needs this.' They were like, ‘What do you even mean? What is a dream ballet?' And I was like, ‘A dream ballet? Where do I begin!'" - MSN (Variety)
A financial review shows that the festival gets up to 80 percent of its budget from ticket sales - a high number that puts the 88-year-old repertory company at risk. - Oregon Business
"Approximately eight times a week, 40 weeks a year, Broadway-sized crowds watch (the musical) Queen Esther in a town of 12,000 people in the Ozark Mountains." Theater/dance historian Joanna Dee Das writes that this success isn't about dumbing down — there are key factors here that big-city theaters are neglecting. - The Conversation
"New data from Nielsen shows that NFL games broadcast on the radio attract audiences so large that they outperform the top-rated stations in many markets. … A change in thinking about how radio is measured – which is by daypart, (unlike) program-focused TV – would show similar dominance by the audio broadcasts." - Inside Radio
"Asked why he had cut off his left ear, the artist replied that this was a misconception and he had in fact only cut off 'part of my earlobe.'" (The M d'O also has an immersive Van Gogh room in this show, proving that pop culture can influence even the French.) - The Guardian (UK)
"The debate over the series is growing increasingly heated as it becomes a surprising transatlantic export from the more traditionally buttoned-up Brits." - Washington Post
How the Barter Theatre in rural southwestern Virginia, Signature Theatre in metro DC, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, Arkansas kept up contact and engagement with their communities through the lockdowns and afterward. - AP
The museum's founders wanted a place to remember "Compton’s rich history and creativity—the vacant buildings of Compton transformed by the artist collective Communicative Arts Academy in the 1960s and 1970s or Elliott Pinkney’s murals." - Los Angeles Times
"Helping people in theater take care of their children is part of core mission — an early initiative was hiring babysitters to watch children at auditions. Then the leadership realized that theater artists need audiences." - NPR
"Shorter concerts (27%), more matinee performances (24%), conductors speaking to the audience (20%) and being encouraged to keep phones on during a performance (11%) – these were just some of the things people would like to see at orchestral concerts, according to a new study." - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (UK)
In addition to those outside the opera house, "Berlin's mayor, its senator for culture and Ukraine's German ambassador have all criticised the opera for allowing the singer to return to its stage." - BBC
