It helps if you're also the writer-director of the documentary, or the sister or parents of said writer-director. But the intense focus is far from easy. - Los Angeles Times
Australia Ballet conductor-in-training Alexander Rodrigues says conducting an orchestra for ballet is a true challenge, thinking about the music's past, present, and future - "And you’re balancing the music with the dance, the tempos of that." - Sydney Morning Herald
She was reluctant to do Lion King. "I was interested in the avant-garde. I didn’t have any interest in commercial theatre. I hadn’t even seen the animated cartoon, which surprised Tom Schumacher." But then ... the animals called. - Irish Times
Gurnah, who is from Tanzania and lives in Britain, said, "People don't come with nothing, they come with their youth, their energy, their potential. ... Just to stay on the idea 'they are there, they are coming to steal something of our prosperity' is inhumane." - Le Figaro
The Harder They Fall is "righteous and rowdy" - and has a Black British musician director who says that his music and films come from the same place: "When I’m writing and these words are coming out, so are melodies and song and score." - The Guardian (UK)
Claire Lilley, who placed 18 sculptures for the London Frieze Sculpture show this year: "I love how we as humans occupy the same space as sculpture. I’ve seen people press their entire bodies against sculptures and hug them." - The New York Times
That seems wild, since this year's version was recent - and grim. "The Oscars’ class of 2020 included plenty of good films ... seen only on small screens, unleashed upon an isolated and atomized populace, in the middle of a brutal pandemic winter." - Vulture
The activist artist says she accepted a position at Harvard after telling the regime, "Look, you want me to leave, well now you have an opportunity. ... But I’ll leave on the condition that you release , and I handed a list of several people." - Hyperallergic
"It is a measure of Professor Bunnell’s success that today photography is unquestionably accepted as both a fine art and a discipline worthy of historical scholarship. Things were different in the late 1950s, when he entered college." - The New York Times
Rock musician Dave Grohl speaks for pretty much every performer: "You wake up every day, cross your fingers that they’ll open a door, turn on the lights and we’ll have a ... show. It’s not guaranteed." - Washington Post
Fiona Lamptey's vision: "I really want to bring back our stars, like people that have to leave their home to go make a film that feels aspirational, or ambitious, and that they can get paid for ... those projects that kind of feel big for the U.K." - Variety
It was a particularly bad evening for the actor who had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy: "I was onstage, and I forgot my lines, I forgot where I was, and I thought, I can’t do this anymore." - Irish Times
Star power, a lot of hustle, and some luck. Ask Phoebe Robinson: "Her career models have shifted from comics like Wanda Sykes to multihyphenates like Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling." - The New York Times
IATSE stagehands at the Kennedy Center voted to strike if a deal couldn't be reached - but at the last minute, the venue and stagehands hammered out a long-term deal, and Hadestown can go forward. But it was painful for everyone. - Washington Post
Some things went better, including a lot of pivoting to digital, but "Before the pandemic hit India, the annual India Art Fair took place in Delhi. 'We were at an all-time high,' said its director, Jaya Asokan. ... Just weeks later, everything ground to a halt." - The New York Times
