“The spotlight that needs to be intensified is on dramatic writing, and on the practitioners who can make American drama a real force in the world again. It’s embarrassing that many embassies in Washington are more aggressive about showcasing their nations’ plays and players than is the hometown administration.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Bad Arts Management Has One Major Cause: Bad Training
Michael Kaiser: “It seems disingenuous for major funders to chastise or ignore organizations with poor management when these same funders have avoided funding programs to improve the quality of arts managers. We spend billions of dollars to train singers, dancers and actors, and insignificant amounts to train the people who employ them.”
A New Role For Public Libraries: Grocer’s Helper
“The Virtual Supermarket Project is part of a city push to make healthy food more accessible in communities where major supermarkets are scarce. Baltimore’s health department launched it last month at two of the city’s public library branches.”
San Francisco’s Fly-In Museum
“The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is the country’s only airport with a museum program accredited by the American Association of Museums. Exhibits are scattered through various terminals and change several times a month.”
Toni Bentley Gets Her Hip Replaced — And Keeps The Bone
“Once back from the hospital I gingerly opened the container: nothing in there looked remotely like anything from an anatomy book. Now, … if I wanted to preserve my ‘souvenir’ on dry land I needed to have a taxidermist extract the fatty tissues from the bone so it wouldn’t go rancid. One hundred thousand dollars of medical bills and I still needed a taxidermist.”
Why Archie Comics’ New (Token) Gay Character Matters
“In superhero comics, [openly gay characters are] old news (and in art comics, [they’re] very, very old news). … The significant distinction here is that, unlike superhero comics, Archie comics are specifically aimed at kids…: They’re a fantasy about what high school will be like.”
Legacy Of The Big Dig: A Design Disaster (But It’s Fixable)
“[I]t’s as if we had decided, when we tore down the overhead green-painted Central Artery, that we would memorialize it on the ground. We’d make another big green disruption through the heart of the city. So what’s the solution for the Greenway? My answer is simple. Make it a neighborhood.”
Shouldn’t Our Financial Meltdown Translate Into Art?
“In our Law & Order, ripped-from-the-headlines times, why has the American entertainment machine been slow to turn the financial drama of 2008 into prime drama in 2010?”
Domingo Is At La Scala, So His Singing Competition Is, Too
“Sophisticated Milan may be blasé about many things, but along with design and soccer, opera is not one of them. Domingo’s presence in town is a local happening, and it is hard not to bump into his image touting Operalia … quite literally in the case of the advertisement placards dangling from the ceilings inside subway cars.”
Hockney’s iPhone Days Are Over: He Draws On An iPad Now
“The iPad screen now allows him to make images of greater scale and complexity. Instead of just using one finger, he finds himself drawing with all of them. Is that more difficult than using a conventional pencil, brush or pen? ‘In a way, it’s faster,’ he says. ‘I can change color or the width of the mark very rapidly on this, quicker than with an ordinary computer.'”