Amongst its portfolio of businesses, Disney+ is the only clear winner, with the service gaining over 60.5 million members in just ten months since launch. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, crushed Disney’s cruise, theme park, cable TV, live sports, cinema and retail businesses, resulting in losses over US$4.7 billion in the financial quarter ended June 27. – The Conversation
Author: Douglas McLennan
What Does It Mean To Make “Relevant” Art?
“Artists feel the anxiety of relevance during every season of fellowship applications, those rituals of supplication, when we have to make a case for ourselves in a way that feels entirely foreign, for me at least, to the real motivations of art. Why is this the right project for this moment? these applications often ask. If I had a question like that on my mind as I tried to make art, I would never write another word.” – Harper’s
Wagner – Too Big To Cancel?
It is his instability—which enlists the audience in active and ongoing negotiation and interpretation, changing as we grapple with him at different historical moments—that makes him relevant. The music may be astonishing, the ideas volatile. Which will have the longer and more consequential afterlife? Perhaps more compelling than either, Ross suggests, is the irreconcilability of the problem. – Slate
Actors Unions Fight For Who Represents What
SAG-AFTRA, which has long claimed jurisdiction over the taping of live shows, offered Equity a limited waiver during the pandemic, but Equity rejected it, accusing SAG-AFTRA of “looking to use a pandemic to claim jurisdiction in Equity workplaces now and into the future in a way they haven’t had before,” and disrupting the relationship between employers and actors “that has existed for years, if not decades.” – Deadline
How Henry Ford’s Production Model Shaped Our Politics
https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-politics/justin-h-vassallo-world-henry-ford-madeHenry Ford would likely find his relevance to the current crisis of globalization a testament to his “producerist” philosophy. But as historian Stefan J. Link writes in his new book, Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order, Ford’s peculiar ideals “projected a political (and moral) economy that hardly anticipated the American consumer modernity that emerged after 1945.” – Boston Review
Why Have Tony Nominations Now?
“In theater, timing is everything, and the timing of these nominations is just plain embarrassing.” – Los Angeles Times
How Much Does It Cost To Operate A Shut-Down Movie Theatre? About £20,000 A Month
Heating bills so the four-screen cinema does not get damp, water rates, insurance, monthly servicing projector costs, card reader machine contracts, IT costs and staff tax and national insurance have all contributed to the huge monthly outgoings. – BBC
Toronto Indie Movie Theatres Resort To Non-Profit Tactics To Stay Alive
From offering patrons the chance to have their names grace cinema walls for a price, to selling concession stand staples at the front door, the theatres say they’re doing what they can to stay afloat. – Toronto Star
Ireland Gives €50M To Commercial Arts Venues
The new €50 million support for live events in 2021 (as well as funding for music and equipment grants) for next year in Irish venues, announced in this week’s budget, is the first time the commercial entertainment sector has received state support. – Irish Times
Is Earning A Living From The Arts No Longer Possible?
It has always been hard to make a living in the arts; what is new, William Deresiewicz contends, is that even moderately successful artists — who publish, show, or perform frequently — often struggle to lead a middle-class life. – Los Angeles Review of Books