“According to the 22nd annual Boxed In report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film …, female characters comprised 45% of all speaking characters across comedies, dramas, and reality shows on broadcast, cable, and streaming. That is up from 40% in 2017-2018. … Off-screen, 31% of all creators, directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and directors of photography in television were women, beating the previous high of 28% set in 2016-2017.” – Variety
Month: September 2019
Baltimore Symphony’s Regular Season Is Supposed To Begin Next Week. Will It? If Not, Is It Still A Lockout?
“Technically, the lockout ends Monday, but the musicians’ first work obligation isn’t until 10 a.m. Wednesday. If the players show up for rehearsal, the work stoppage would be over. If, instead, they are picketing outside the Meyerhoff, expect the dispute to continue for some time. (Whether the work stoppage could then be categorized as a strike or merely as a continuation of the lockout is one of those complicated legal questions that attorneys wrangle over and courts ultimately decide.)” – The Baltimore Sun
In Trial For Oakland’s Ghost Ship Fire, One Defendant Acquitted, One Gets Hung Jury
Three years after three dozen people died in the flames at the warehouse-turned-artist-colony, Max Harris, the 29-year-old resident caretaker, was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter; jurors deadlocked 10-to-2 over Derick Almena, the 49-year-old master tenant and organizer of the derelict warehouse’s informal transformation into a live-work complex. – San Francisco Chronicle
Arts Council England Defends Its New ‘Relevance’ Funding Requirement
Simon Mellor, the Council’s deputy chief executive: “To be clear, of course we’re not going to be asking organisations to justify the relevance of individual works of art. We do, however, think that it is not unreasonable to expect organisations in receipt of the public’s money to be relevant – to ensure that the way they work, including their public programmes and other activities, is valued by their communities and stakeholders.” – Arts Professional
Dallas Opera Cancels Plácido Domingo Gala Following Latest Sexual Misconduct Allegations
The tenor’s performance at the benefit concert next March would have been his first appearance with The Dallas Opera since his U.S. operatic debut in 1961. (The one accuser in the latest report who was willing to be named publicly, soprano Angela Turner Wilson, is the daughter of the president of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.) – The Dallas Morning News
Boström Knausgård: You Don’t Know Me From My Ex-Husband’s Books
Questions of strength and weakness have hovered around Boström Knausgård ever since the novelist with whom she shares a last name wrote, in rather excruciating detail, about their life together and Boström Knausgård’s mental illness. Because the novel—like her other fiction—draws closely from its author’s past, it will surely invite comparison with My Struggle, by her former husband, Karl Ove Knausgaard. – Vanity Fair
An Overhaul In Leadership At Portland Oregon’s Major Arts Organizations
A massive overhaul is happening at the top of Portland’s biggest artistic institutions. Six of Oregon’s major arts organizations—including NW Film Center, Portland Center Stage and Chamber Music Northwest—have recently undergone changes in leadership, or are about to. It’s not just generational turnover, either: In many cases, the white men in charge are being succeeded by women and people of color. – Willamette Week
Dallas Symphony’s New Music Director Brings A Distinctly Different Approach
“We were all trying to impress him. When it said fortissimo, we got a little out of hand. He said, ‘We all have different levels of fortissimo. Never take the sound past beautiful.’ The entire violin section applauded, which I don’t think I’d ever seen before.” – Dallas Morning News
Italy Welcomed Foreign-Born Directors To Run Museums. Well, That’s Over
Museum boards are being abolished, and the contracts of foreign-born directors seem unlikely to be renewed as Italy’s government rolls back many of the game-changing reforms introduced four years ago. – artnet
Is Art Facing A Crisis Of Beauty?
“I realize that the various arts councils see art as a communications strategy, a way of encoding statements of moral good in visual form. Long ago they surrendered any faith in the aesthetic. What’s so much worse is that many artists seem to share this. But I think I understand. Adorno believed that aesthetic experience was rooted in experiences of natural beauty. If nature is threatened, so too is aesthetic experience. Hence the looming loss of faith.” – Momus