Symphony President Alan Valentine said patrons donated $300,000 worth of tickets since the pandemic hit. But officials anticipate an $8 million loss from the shutdown, leaving the organization several million dollars short for the year. – The Tennessean
Author: Douglas McLennan
San Antonio Symphony Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing: Orchestras After The Virus
“I’m very convinced that people after this are more hungry for intellectual and artistic inspiration than before. So the wrong approach, I think, is to do a populist approach to the arts industry and just play happy tunes that everybody wants to hear and nothing profound. I think that would be the wrong approach. I think it should be the extreme opposite. I think now we can challenge our audience more than before. That’s my gut feeling. And I’m not alone with that.” – San Antonio Express News
BBC Pulls Classic Episode Of Fawlty Towers Over “Racial Slurs”
The episode in question — originally broadcast in 1975 and called The Germans — is renowned for featuring John Cleese’s deeply awkward and rude hotel owner demanding that his staff “don’t mention the war” around German guests, culminating in him doing a goose-stepping impersonation of Adolf Hitler. However, it also features a character, the elderly Major Gowen, using highly-offensive and racist language about the West Indies cricket team. – The Holywood Reporter
How Luminato Scrambled To Reinvent Into A Virtual Festival
“It’s not a festival in the same way a live festival is, since the conditions are completely different, our ability to present work in so many of the ways we normally do is nonexistent, our audiences can’t come out and be with us in public…I mean, most of the people who work at the festival have long careers in performing arts. We’re used to creating work for crowds of people to experience in close quarters. But it didn’t feel right to not do anything.” – Broadway World
What Do Famous Artists Owe Their Fans?
As the famously passionate fans of the Harry Potter franchise rise up to express raging disappointment at the bigotry espoused by its creator, and the surprisingly passionate fans of Live P.D.—who launched vicious attack campaigns on journalists and critics calling for its cancellation—just rage, there’s another question beyond the right and wrong of all this. It’s the question of what, exactly, fans are owed from the culture they support—and what are they willing to accept in order to keep enjoying it? – The Daily Beast
Institutions, Sure. But How Do We Put Artists At The Center?
How do we sustain the infrastructure to make the kind of highly professional theater that we have come to revere without pushing the actual artists to the fringes of that ecology? How can we reimagine the American theater to acknowledge who our “first responders” are: actors, directors, playwrights, designers, composers, musicians, in all their plurality and diversity? Should we be asking our artists in this pandemic to make home videos that extol our work when we took them off the payroll the moment the pandemic hit? – Clyde Fitch Report
What Do Museums Have To Do With Police Brutality?
“Police shootings? I can’t imagine what special insight a museum director brings to the subject. But if you’re going to talk about them, at least say something smart.” – National Review
Oscars To Have 10 Best Picture Nominations, Set Inclusions Standards
Starting with the 94th Oscars ceremony, the Academy will return to a guaranteed 10 best picture nominees, as was the case for the 82nd and 83rd ceremonies, before it shifted to a system that could yield anywhere from five to 10 nominees. This aims to maximize the diversity of the films that are nominated for the Academy’s highest honor. – The Hollywood Reporter
LA Says Museums Can Reopen. Museums Say Not So Fast
Southern California museums are navigating complicated health and safety protocols while also seeing to the regular work of preparing new exhibitions, caring for art, managing employees and communicating with the public. – Los Angeles Times
How Museums Can Take Advantage Of Lockdown
Museums have an opportunity to make a contribution to civic discourse that plays to their intrinsic strengths. It is obvious that many of our political and civic institutions have failed in the promotion of the interests of humanity and the planet. We are entering a period where questioning the status quo ante and its values and priorities is of existential importance. – The Art Newspaper