Heyward, 31, is Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s first music director of color and the youngest current music director of any major U.S. orchestra. To that, he says, “Challenge accepted.” - Time
What happens when a writer who is used to rapturous reception, with a knack for shaping stories, collides with an active public drama he doesn’t control? - The New York Times
"Approximately eight times a week, 40 weeks a year, Broadway-sized crowds watch (the musical) Queen Esther in a town of 12,000 people in the Ozark Mountains." Theater/dance historian Joanna Dee Das writes that this success isn't about dumbing down — there are key factors here that big-city theaters are neglecting. - The Conversation
“We’re all trying to figure out what it is that makes people get off their couch, come through the rain and show up at an event together, right? It feels like there needs to be some real magnetic attraction, something that they will truly miss if they don’t see it. - Seattle Times
"Sometimes she despised the woman who bullied, rubbished, physically abused and neglected her. At other times she adored the woman who could be fun, loving and nurturing. And she was always in awe of the inspirational artist and activist. … Now, 20 years since Nina died, Lisa regards herself as keeper of the flame." - The Guardian
68% of art museum workers have considered leaving the field, 74% cannot always cover basic living expenses, and it takes an average of 12 years before a worker receives a promotion. Turnover is high — art museums lost 30% of full-time employees hired between 2020 and 2022. - Los Angeles Times
"Police identified the suspect as a radical 40-year-old Jewish American tourist and said initial questioning suggested he smashed the statues (at the Israel Museum) because he considered them 'to be idolatrous and contrary to the Torah.'" - AP
Okay, strictly speaking, it wasn't the United States yet, but the Puritan government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony suppressed Thomas Morton's book The New English Canaan back in 1637. - Smithsonian Magazine
"I ask myself whether, as so many theater companies grapple with ongoing pandemic-related challenges, I should reconceive my role. What ought arts criticism look like when the art can feel like it’s barely hanging on?" - San Francisco Chronicle
The MacArthur Foundation's citation for Patrick Makuakāne called him a "cultural preservationist," but it's not that simple. "I don’t take traditional dance elements and turn them on their head. But there’s no law against creating a hula to Roberta Flack’s 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.'" - Slate
Jack Fisk is also one of the most difficult to recruit, going years (and, at one point, two decades) between films. And once a producer does recruit him, his work will be expensive, labor-intensive, and very, very detail-oriented. It will also be brilliant. - The New York Times Magazine
"Developed with Interpol, whose database of cultural objects stolen from museums, collections and archeological sites worldwide lists more than 52,000 artefacts, the $2,5 million virtual museum should open in 2025. Visitors will be able to navigate a succession of virtual spaces containing detailed 3D images of the artefacts." - The Guardian
Intentionally or not, the stage version of the polymorphously perverse cult classic, produced by North Texas's flagship theater company, has become a standard-bearer of opposition to the state law S.B. 12, which regulates any performance that "appeals to the prurient interest in sex." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"(WNYC's Sean) Carlson spoke to Casey York of the Off-Broadway League, Anna Glass of Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Jake Rosenthal of Elsewhere in Bushwick. Their conversation covered everything from how fewer office workers affect the city's culture to why big stars aren’t necessarily the future of show business." - Gothamist
