The payment, which includes accrued retirement plan funds and unused vacation pay, to former general director, artistic director and CEO Ian Campbell and deputy director Ann Spira Campbell was negotiated and paid last June, with the money provided by an anonymous donor separately from all operating funds for the company.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Lyric Opera Of Kansas City Fires Artistic Director, Eliminates His Position
The board chairman said in a statement, “Lyric Opera of Kansas City is reorganizing along the lines of standard industry structure for the purpose of improved effectiveness and efficiency in our operation and has eliminated the position of artistic director. Lyric Opera of Kansas City today announces the departure of Artistic Director Ward Holmquist. We thank him for his years of service.”
Salman Rushdie Vs. Francine Prose – Chapter 459 Of The Charlie Hebdo Wars
Rushdie: “Our fellow artists were murdered for their ideas and you won’t stand up for them … I hope that our long alliance can survive this. But I fear some old friendships will break on this wheel.”
Banksy Finds New Surfaces, And A New Fan Base, Amidst Gaza’s Ruins
The elusive British street artist “slipped in and out of Gaza in February, leaving his mark on three slabs of rubble left from Israel’s 50-day fight with Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza.”
‘Abortion,’ ‘Miscarriage,’ or ‘Untitled’? A Frida Kahlo Lithograph’s Complicated History
The personal history behind the images may be (as so often with Frida) yet more complicated.
Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” Is Being Removed From Russian Bookstores
The worry, ostensibly, is that the swastika on the book’s cover might violate the law passed last December that forbids spreading “Nazi propaganda.”
What We Need In The Arts Is More Whistleblowers
“Sometimes, our instinct to protect each other does more harm than good. … Why don’t we call each other out more? Identify the bad apples for the greater good? Imagine: if every money-wasting incompetence or petty dishonesty was called to account, what would the savings amount to?”
This Summer’s Movies Are Playing Sex For Laughs
“Sex has always served as ample inspiration for comedy – every awkward encounter in bed is a potential gold mine for an observant writer or actor. But this summer, more than any other in recent memory, filmmakers are focused on what’s going on in hotel rooms, taxi back seats and anywhere else two people (or more) are getting it on. … Here, the stars and filmmakers from those films talk about what embarrassed them, what might embarrass audiences and what’s so funny about sex. These are excerpts from the conversations.”
Actor-Playwright Gets Naked To Give France’s Culture Minister A Dressing-Down On Live TV
At the award ceremony for the Molières, the country’s top theatre honors, Sébastien Thiéry came onstage completely nude to scold Fleur Pellerin: “Do you know, madame minister, that playwrights are the only ones in the profession not to have the right to receive unemployment benefits? Do you think that’s fair? … Why this discrimination? Is it because we are physically ugly?”
Remembering The Young Oliver Sacks
“The world was saddened to learn of neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks’s terminal illness through a recent op-ed. With Sacks’s new autobiography out this month, Lawrence Weschler shares early stories and diary entries about Sacks, his close friend, before Sacks achieved worldwide fame.”