Author: Matthew Westphal

Carnegie Hall Projects $9 Million Deficit, Cancels Everything Until Fall

“Carnegie Hall is projecting a $9 million operating deficit on its $104 million budget after canceling … all events in its auditoriums through July 25, roughly 30% of this season’s schedule. It has just under 400 full-time employees plus part-time staff and teaching artists. It has not decided whether layoffs will be needed.” – Yahoo! (AP)

They don’t trust me with cheese

‘The man next to us is honking like a seal,’ whispered my friend Mel at the interval of One Man, Two Guvnors at the National Theatre back in 2011. Tonight the National Theatre will stream their film of the show (available on YouTube for a week afterwards), and I’ve just found the review I wrote for Plays International. – David Jays

Libraries As ‘Second Responders’ In The COVID Crisis

“When libraries closed their doors abruptly, they immediately opened their digital communications, collaborations, and creative activity to reach their public in ways as novel as the virus that forced them into it. You can be sure that this is just the beginning. Today libraries are already acting and improvising.” Deborah Fallows gives some examples of what they’re doing. – The Atlantic

Theaters Across The U.S. Commission Ten-Minute Plays We Can All Perform While Sheltering In Place

“The [project], which is being called ‘Play at Home,’ is a website (playathome.org) featuring new plays, intended to take no more than 10 minutes to read, that are free so that anyone can read or perform them at home or by video conferencing. The commissioning theaters are providing a $500 stipend to the playwrights they select to write the works.” – The New York Times

Assembling New Micro-Operas During Coronavirus Confinement

“Ella Marchment, stage director of the International Opera Awards, is behind the scheme, which is called #OperaHarmony. … The [project] will pair composers with librettists to create pieces on the theme of distance or community. The composers and librettists will then be matched with directors and singers to record their micro-opera, which will be shared online.” – The Stage

The Dance World May Be Socially Liberal, But It’s Still Difficult For Gender-Nonconforming Dancers

The male-female binary is built into the formalized structures of dance at just about every level, from the very beginning of training through the conventions of professional-level choreography and even down to dancewear. As alienating as that can be, non-binary dancers find ways to make room for themselves. – Dance Spirit

When COVID Shut This Small Museum Down, Its Community Suffered A Big Loss

“In the eight years since it was founded, the Underground Museum has become not only one of the most important destinations for black art in the country but also a crucial gathering place for its working class Arlington Heights neighborhood [in Los Angeles]. … As cultural institutions all over the world wrestle with how to bring art to the public during the pandemic, smaller ones like the Underground Museum are also trying to figure out how to continue serving communities that have come to rely on them in other ways.” – The New York Times