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Stories

Can The Kennedy Center Survive The Next Four Years?

So many artists have quietly pulled out of the 2025-26 season that the center has had to keep delaying its schedule announcements. - The New Yorker

Canadian Artists Are Canceling Gigs In The US

"Unfortunately I had to cancel all my upcoming events in the United States as I felt unsafe traveling, especially after watching students and university professors abducted on the street just in front of other people." - CBC

Frank Rich’s Brief History Of Broadway As Business

“The historic fantasy of the Great White Way as a glamorous montage of gleaming marquees, sparky backstage romances, and elegant audiences reveling in black tie was a Hollywood concoction, arguably false from the start.” - New York Magazine (MSN)

Yorgos Lanthimos Denied Permission To Film Sci-Fi Comedy At Acropolis

“Yorgos Lanthimos had filed a request to film scenes for sci-fi comedy Bugonia at the fifth-century BC site in April. But in a statement on Thursday, the culture ministry said permission had been refused because ‘the proposed scenes are incompatible with the symbolism … and the values the Acropolis represents’.” - The Guardian

Some Of The Plainest Objects From Tutankhamun’s Tomb May Be Among The Most Interesting

“Call them what you like — mud trays, clay troughs, unbaked earthen dishes — but the four 3x1½-inch dull-colored things hardly get the pulses racing. … A new study … (suggests they were) objects used in the funerary rites of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife.” - Artnet

US National Park Service Deletes, Then Restores, Harriet Tubman From Webpage On Underground Railroad

“The (NPS) on Monday appeared to restore its original webpage on the history of the Underground Railroad after it was met with backlash for deleting a prominently featured photo of abolitionist and women’s suffragist Harriet Tubman, as well as segments of text describing the horrors of slavery.” - The Washington Post (MSN)

ALA Sues Trump Administration Over Dismantling Of Museum/Library Agency

“The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), whose members include museum and library workers nationwide, have sued over what the ALA called, in a release, ‘the Trump administration’s gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).’” - Publishers Weekly

Only One In Six Attempts To Censor Books In US Is Originated By Parents

“72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups, government entities and elected officials, board members and administrators, reported the American Library Association (ALA). Just 16% of ban attempts were made by parents, while 5% were brought forward by individual library users.” - The Guardian

William Finn, Composer-Lyricist Of “Falsettos” And “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” Is Dead At 73

“(He) became a heavily autobiographical musical theatre writer, folding his experiences as a gay Jewish man with a brain stem malformation into some of his most lauded work.” - Playbill

Only Ancient Greek Theater In Ionian Islands Has Been Excavated

“Perched on a hillside on Lefkada, an island off the west coast of Greece, the structure has been excavated by archaeologists from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Aitoloakarnania and Lefkada over the past decade.” - Artnet

Why The College Admissions Essay Is A Very Bad Idea

The college essay is a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests. It wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they’ve faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. - Yascha Mounk

Russian Ballet Company Pretending To Be Ukrainian Toured Scandinavia

During 2023 and 2024, a troupe calling itself “Ballet of Ukraine” played dates in several cities in Sweden and Finland — but an investigation by Swedish television found that the group is registered in Russia and had its fees sent to a Russian-owned company in Switzerland, thus deceiving audiences and violating sanctions. - BroadwayWorld

What It’s Like being A Librarian In The Time Of Trump

“I see all that being as a measure of: ‘If we fly under the radar, we’ll be safe,’” they said. “But it’s sad because who gets left behind – for staff members of color, who are visibly queer, who are disabled, we don’t get to turn off that part of ourselves.” - The Guardian

San Francisco Agency Funding In Disarray, Payments Missed

The latest target is San Francisco’s Dream Keeper Initiative, introduced in 2021 at the height of the “defund the police” movement... But now, a variety of theaters, media companies and other entities say the city is reneging on promised grants — a total of more than $14 million affecting 38 recipients — without explanation. - San Francisco Chronicle

Are Our Storytelling Tropes Insufficient For The Complexity Of Today?

Unfortunately, the dominance of psychological narratives manifests in the misplaced hopes we cast onto individual leaders – whether in the political, technological, social or religious realms – and the often simplistic ideas they put forward. - Psyche

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