"She achieved literary celebrity but called herself a 'literary failure,' was supported in a marriage that ultimately collapsed, resisted her family but didn't denounce it, became an icon of the civil-rights movement she relentlessly criticized, and wrote a masterpiece only to watch as it was widely misunderstood." - The New Yorker
Income at the National Theatre dropped by £50 million and the organisation lost just under a quarter of its staff in the first year of the pandemic. - The Stage
"'Cautionary tales are very important,' says Becky Chambers, one of the leading authors associated with the hopepunk movement, who has won a much-coveted Hugo Award for her sci-fi Wayfarer series. 'But if that is all that you have, you risk nihilism.'" - BBC
Over the previous couple of generations, the canon has changed but it has consistently seemed to have been limited in scope and dependent on big names to anchor programs. - Nightingale Sonata
"In her first two years as UCLA's choreographer, Bijoya 'BJ' Das has set the internet aflame with three viral floor routines. … Breaking the internet has become an annual tradition in Westwood, but … Das keeps the focus on something simpler: fun. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
First, it’s important to note that our furry friends process sound somewhat differently than we do. Human society is largely sight- and touch-focused. Domesticated dogs and cats, conversely, are renowned for their strong sense of hearing. - Animal Wellness Magazine
Michael Billington: "In France the 400th anniversary of Molière's birth is being celebrated in a big way. In Britain it has been greeted with a deafening silence. But then we have always been slightly wary of Molière." In translation, that is. Adaptations, on the other hand … - The Guardian
In past centuries, it had some notable visitors: Galileo, Goethe, Stendhal, Gogol, Tchaikovsky and Henry James. At the top of the hill stands the 30,000 square foot Villa Aurora. Built in 1570, it's recently undergone some restoration. - NPR
The set of digital collectibles offered by the producers of Ross Golan's The Wrong Man "will be a mix of music, graphics, and film, including the full animated musical, vinyl, posters featuring artwork from the musical, and a previously unreleased track from Golan." - Playbill
"With the aid of curators and artists from Native American backgrounds, curators across the U.S. are broadening narratives, questioning stereotypes, and collapsing categories." - Artnet
And that is? Their own real estate. A $3 million Performing Arts Acquisition Fund from the Hewlett Foundation has enabled five community-based groups buy the spaces in which they do their work. - San Francisco Chronicle
The news giant has already poached Audie Cornish from NPR and Chris Wallace from Fox for CNN+ (rumor has it they dangled $20 million at Rachel Maddow), and it's bringing on its own stars (Anderson Cooper, Sara Sidner) as well. The suits insist, "This is not CNN 2." - Vanity Fair
It's the way the BBC is funded — a flat fee, currently £159 ($217) a year, charged to every household in the UK that has a television. Here's an explanation of how that money is spent, why the fee was just frozen, and why the Tories want to kill it. - BBC
By the time the concert hall opened in 2017, it was six years late and had cost €866 million, ten times the initial budget. Five years on, concert audiences have tripled, subscriptions have quadrupled, and the "Elphi" is a beloved symbol of the entire city. - The Guardian
The far-right National Rally party released a 3½-minute video this weekend showing its presidential candidate speechifying to the camera while walking back and forth in front of the Paris museum — whose management is very unhappy at being dragged directly into politics like this. - Artnet
