Actor and educator Kila Packett writes about the Los Angeles Drama Club’s Shakespeare Youth Festival (active year-round in Watts and East L.A.) and the trip by four students and six teachers, at the invitation of Dr. Auma Obama, to give a week of workshops to disadvantaged young people in the Luo heartland of western Kenya. – American Theatre
Author: Matthew Westphal
Rally for the Right to Bear (& to scare with) Arms Prompted “Extensive Precautions” at Virginia MFA
I hadn’t wanted to write anything about this beforehand (for fear of putting a dangerous idea into someone’s head), but I was worried about the welfare of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts during the Jan. 20 gun-rights rally in Richmond. I was concerned that there might be a replay of what had happened in August 2017 in Charlottesville. – Lee Rosenbaum
How Bolsonaro Is Waging His Culture War On Brazil’s Arts Sector
“The president’s vow to rid cultural and educational institutions of ‘leftist’ values is changing the game at the institutions charged with fostering cultural production.” Here’s a rundown of the changes Bolsonaro has made so far. – Americas Quarterly
‘How Am I Going to Dance to This?’ Ask New York City Ballet Dancers About Ratmansky’s Latest Music Choice
The plaintive question came from Sara Mearns as she and her colleagues listened to the decidedly avant-garde music choreographer Alexei Ratmansky had selected for his new work, Voices. Ratmansky’s response: “There is no musicality, just your own.” – The New York Times
The Environmental Costs Of The Vinyl LP Revival
“If you’re one of the millions of people to re-embrace vinyl records, it’s worth knowing where they come from and how they’re made.” (It ain’t pretty.) – The Guardian
Another Thing We Can Blame On Algorithms: Cancel Culture
“Outrage is the perfect negative emotion to attract attention and engagement – and algorithms are primed to pounce.” Worse, “misleading content on social media tends to lead to even more engagement than verified information.” On the other hand, once you’ve been cancelled, algorithms can help you (to overextend the metaphor) get revived on another network, as in the case of Kevin Hart. – The Conversation
The Rise And Collapse Of CollegeHumor.com
“For two decades, CollegeHumor rode a number of online trends and movements. The company started as the brainchild of literal teenagers, and it outlived many competitors because of this precocity about the social web. Until, all of a sudden, the social web helped render its business model obsolete.” – Wired
It’s True: ‘Cats’ Is Becoming The Next ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’
The movie was set to be one of Hollywood’s epic disasters, on track to lose $100 million. “But a funny thing happened on the way to the cinematic scratching post. Word-of-mouth buzz began to build that Cats‘ numerous and not-inconsiderable quirks were, in fact, more fun than the sum of its filmmaker- and studio-intended entertainment value.” Viewers, many assisted by cannabis, “seemed to relish the collective joy of discovering a movie this bizarre in an era when Hollywood has never been more allergic to creative risk-taking. Repeat viewings became de rigueur.” – Vulture
After 88 Years, Frank Lloyd Wright’s School Of Architecture Is Closing
The School of Architecture at Taliesin, which operated at both Wright’s original Taliesin home in Wisconsin and his Taliesin West in Arizona, will cease operations this June. The School’s board had tried, and failed, to complete an agreement with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation that would let it continue as an accredited program. (The Foundation’s press release pointedly stated that “the School did not have a sustainable business model.”) – Archinect
The Gauguin Sculpture The Getty Paid Millions For Is Not A Gauguin
The item, titled Head with Horns and acquired by the Getty Museum in 2002 for a price reported to be between $3 million and $5 million, was quietly reattributed to “unknown artist” last month and removed from display. – artnet