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Why Did Toni Morrison’s Only Play Disappear?

Dreaming Emmett, about the murder of Emmett Till, ran in Albany for four weeks in 1986 and then vanished; rumors had it that Morrison herself collected every script and other record of the play and destroyed them. It turns out that’s not what happened at all. - New York Magazine

Uh-Oh, Get Your Knives Out: ARTnews’ List Of The 100 Best Works Of Art In The 21st Century

The joy of an epic list like this one is that it can’t encapsulate everything: we know we’ve left some artworks off, simply because there was no shortage to choose from. We hope you’ll discover some amazing pieces here, reflect on some that are much-loved already, and debate the merits of others. - ARTnews

Worried About Dwindling Grant Money, Philly’s Top Dance School Expands Into Retail

With local dance stores having closed, students at the Rock School were having to shop out-of-town for high-quality gear, especially pointe shoes. (Ballerinas go through a lot of those.) So, to both help local dancers and diversify its revenue sources, the school opened its own dance store. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

A New Chief For The Canada Council

Cheryl Hickman, artistic director of Opera on the Avalon, will start a five-year term in July as chairperson of the federal Crown corporation the Canada Council for the Arts. - CBC

What It Means To Be A Highly Sensitive Person

What I discovered after many years of studying this innate survival strategy is that high sensitivity means, above all, thinking deeply about everything. - Aeon

29 Years Ago, Charlotte Had A Freakout Over A Play, And The City’s Arts Scene Still Hasn’t Recovered

The play was Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, produced in 1996 by the Charlotte Repertory Theatre. Here’s the story of the fight about it started by a fundamentalist minister, the legal mechanism used to shut the play down, and the decades-long aftereffects of the debacle. - Charlotte Magazine

Behind The Move To Get Rid Of Book Blurbs

There’s been a bunch of authors and publishers lately saying, “Hey, this is hugely time-consuming. It’s an incredibly emotional process. What would happen if we stopped doing all this?” - Marketplace

Baltimore Theatre Refuses To Comply With NEA’s New Anti-DEI Guidelines

Baltimore Center Stage, Maryland’s state theater, says it will refuse to comply with the NEA’s new guidelines — which state that applicants “will not operate any programs promoting ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’” or “gender ideology” — at the cost of its own potential federal funding in the future. - Baltimore Banner

AI Imaging Discovers Remnants Of 5000-Year-Old Civilization Below Dubai

The integration of AI and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) proved especially powerful. SAR technology provides high-resolution images of structures buried beneath the earth's surface, capable of penetrating natural barriers such as sand, vegetation, and ice. - Jerusalem Post

Philly’s No Name Pops Appoints A Music Director

Christopher Dragon starts on July 1; by that point, the No Name Pops will be called the Philly Pops. Dragon is currently resident conductor of the Colorado Symphony and music director of the Wyoming Symphony (through this summer) and the Greensboro (NC) Symphony (starting this fall). - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

Why Do Orchestra Musicians Have Tenure?

In particular, tenure exists to ensure that orchestra conductors cannot “clean house” according to their personal artistic tastes. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Kansas City’s Master Of Vinyl

In a vacant church, he built a concert hall and studio where he recorded the Delta blues and Louisiana roots music. His latest acquisition is a printing shop that makes farm-equipment manuals and inserts for Analogue Productions LPs. Today, LP sales are now a $1 billion-plus market in the U.S. alone. - The New York Times

What’s A Bookstore To Do When An Author Becomes Problematic?

What to do about art we admire that is created by people we don’t? Most bookstores leave it in the hands of patrons. - The Star-Tribune

Seven Defendants On Trial For Death Threats Against Artistic Director Of Paris Olympic Ceremonies

“Thomas Jolly filed a complaint for death threats after receiving homophobic and antisemitic abuse on social networks. The online attacks erupted after Jolly’s acclaimed but controversial opening spectacle on the Seine in July — a queer-inclusive, high-energy fusion of tradition and modernity.” - AP

Unknown Donatello Sculpture Turns Up In Museum Storeroom

The marble bust, depicting Mantua noblewoman Cecilia Gonzaga, was identified in a storeroom at the Spiš Museum in Levoča, Slovakia. It was previously thought to be a 19th-century copy and was at one point used as a toy by the young girls at a reformatory. - Artnet

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