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How Social Media Is Changing How We Engage With Art

The internet has always had an expansive capacity to reach some pretty strange and inexplicable places, but with the ever-evolving nature of social media, its strangeness is more readily available than ever before. - ArtsHub

Criticize The Show You’re In? What Does It Accomplish?

Is the mainstream media the place to debate the process of theatremaking? Or does honesty, however it cuts, break the compact of the rehearsal room, of the backstage? - The Stage

When An Actor Criticizes The Show They’re In…

I’ve had artists and members of the theater community reach out after a review — yes, even ones where I didn’t care much for the show — and extend grace and understanding for my point of view on their work. As I sit here, I can’t fathom why some can’t extend that same hand to their colleague. - Seattle...

This Play About Abortion And Birth Control Is A Century Old And In Yiddish

Lena Brown's play Sonia Itelson, or, A child, a Child was written, and set in, the 1910s; it was almost certainly not produced then, being against the same anti-obscenity laws under which Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger were prosecuted.  Then it sat in a drawer for decades, until ... - Tablet

Is The Live Entertainment Capital Of America Really Branson?

Few places in the country host a professional show-business destination as quirky and expansive as this Missouri mountain town a few dozen miles north of the Arkansas border. Singer Andy Williams opened a theater here. So did comedian Yakov Smirnoff. - Washington Post

A High School Kid Paints A Mural, And Some Parents Freak Out, Alleging Hidden Anti-Christian And Satanic Messages

"School district officials and a high school student in Michigan have drawn the ire of parents who allege that a painted mural contains LGBTQ propaganda, a depiction of Satan and a message of witchcraft. The painting covers a wall inside a teen health center (in southwestern Michigan)." - NPR

Chess Computers Are Now So Dominant, Are Humans Even A Factor In High-Level Play?

In an era when chess engines entirely dominate the game—when they’ve so monopolized human players’ thinking, strategy, and preparation that chess has, in certain ways, come to resemble poker—is it really possible to disentangle creativity from computing? - The Atlantic

Archaeologists Find Original 4th-Century Mosaic Floors That The Real St. Nicholas Walked On

"Archaeologists excavating the Church of St. Nicholas in Demre, Turkey, have uncovered the original stone mosaic floors where the saint ... would have stood during mass, and where his tomb was first located within the house of worship." - Artnet

The Viral Tyranny Of TikTok

This new era of instant, inexplicable attention has also come at a price. In interviews with more than three dozen TikTok creators, many noted that the app’s reach often brings with it relentless demands: from angry commenters, from audience expectations, even from the algorithm itself. - Washington Post

Dalit Standup Comics In India Have A Few Things To Say About Caste

"A small but growing number of Dalit comedians (is) breaking into India's Brahmin-dominated comedy scene. Onstage, they're finding that examining caste through humor not only makes for better comedy, but is also personally empowering." Says one, “If you don't laugh at my jokes, I'll touch you." - The Christian Science Monitor

How The Denver Art Museum Removed Columbus From Its Stories

It is easier to understand objects created during the current downfall of Columbus and those who followed him, if you can see the art created before they arrived and while they reigned. - The New York Times

Camille A. Brown May Be About To Dance With Her Company For The Last Time

"Our last show was March 2020. I was 40, and I was already feeling like, OK, my body is changing. I'm not sure that I can sustain this. ... So I don't want to say I'm stopping dancing. But it does require a shift of thought." - The New York Times

Can A Powerful Book Really Rewire Your Brain? A Neuropsychologist Tried To Find Out.

Certainly a book can cause a temporary change, which was all that most researchers had thought of measuring with fMRIs.  Dr. Gregory Berns wanted to learn if the changes that reading a powerful book caused might remain after the book had been finished and the stimulus was gone. - Literary Hub

South Broad Street Became Philadelphia’s “Avenue Of The Arts”. Can The Same Thing Happen To North Broad Street?

The concentration of arts institutions around Broad Street south of City Hall transformed that portion of the city, but the street north of City Hall has lagged behind.  Now, with the Philly Pops joining PAFA, the Met Philadelphia and Philadelphia Ballet in expanding there, North Broad could catch up. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

How Toni Morrison Bored A Tunnel Through Writer’s Block And Got To Work Writing “Jazz”

"'I know this woman!' she kept thinking. 'Angered by my inability to summon suitable language,' she writes, 'I threw my pencil on the floor, sucked my teeth in disgust.'  Sth.  'So that's what I wrote' she says, and it became the novel's first line." - T — The New York Times Style Magazine

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