"As Hollywood emerged from the pandemic, its biggest film productions dipped in diversity after years of incremental progress. … Opportunities were notably greater for women and people of color on streaming platforms than in theatrically released films." - AP
"The BBC is set to slash its annual output by 1,000 hours worth of shows to cope with savings requirements that have shot up by some 40 percent to almost half a billion dollars." - The Hollywood Reporter
"From the waning years of Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration through the presidencies of 10 succeeding chief executives, Mr. Russell poked fun at the foibles and flaws of the well-known, the pompous and the powerful in monologues replete with pithy one-liners and musical ditties. He called himself 'a political cartoonist for the blind.'" - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Three days after voting to cease publication and lay off its journalists, the nonprofit publisher of the Texas Observer said on Wednesday that it would change course and keep the 68-year-old liberal magazine going, following an emergency appeal that crowdsourced more than $300,000." - The Texas Tribune
"The final evaluation has found that the Unboxed festival, commissioned by Theresa May in 2018 and named a 'festival of Brexit' by Jacob Rees-Mogg, brought together a fraction of the audiences initially hoped for. It nevertheless met later, radically downgraded predictions and delivered on its economic objectives." - The Guardian
New York investigators say that the seven-foot-tall, headless nude statue, believed by scholars to be of Roman emperor Septimius Severus, was looted from the archaeological site at Bubon, Turkey, in the 1960s. The museum is also surrendering two other antiquities to the Ankara government. - The New York Times
Reading has always been a very personal thing. Now, however, I have a little percentage tracker on my home page, Goodreads friends applaud my progress each time I finish a book, and it feels … strangely comforting. - The Guardian
The problem is historic: because this area has been underdeveloped for years, the UK doesn’t have a strong path for shows to follow, and that leads to a lack of desire for risk-taking among audiences and investors alike. Hence the plethora of adaptations taking over West End stages. - The Guardian
The Symphony musicians formed the SA Phil almost immediately after their orchestra died, and their entire first season has been a rallying cry for the future of symphonic music in the state’s second-largest city. - Texas Monthly
Through Phantom, Lloyd Webber presented an argument for the destiny of musical theater itself. The operatic tradition had always been divided over the relationship between music and drama, and this debate had reemerged in Lloyd Webber’s day. - New York Magazine
The problem was the way that classical music is categorized. The structure of classical music is completely different from pop music’s, which makes it extremely difficult for it to function in the streaming era. - The Wall Street Journal
Allowed to delve into the structure’s innards as never before during the ensuing reconstruction (which is set to finish in 2024), a team of French scientists has gleaned new insights into the cathedral’s original construction. - Big Think
On a 1971 visit to Malta, the playwright saw the painter's Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and the horrified face of an elderly female spectator at the execution was the key inspiration for Beckett's Not I, the 13-minute monologue for a disembodied mouth on a pitch-black stage. - The New European
After a brutal decline following the Great Recession, print-book sales are up 33 percent in the past 10 years. If the high costs and complexity of the ebook market for libraries pushes more readers to purchase print books (or ebooks), that is a feature, not a bug, for the publishers. - The Atlantic
