Author: Matthew Westphal

Is There An Executive Exodus At This North Texas Theater?

Joanie Schultz will have been on the job for only two years when she leaves the WaterTower Theatre in Dallas County. Her unexpected resignation comes just a few months after the departure of Nicholas Even, the second managing director to resign from WaterTower during Schultz’s term. Also, one major donor family had its name removed from WaterTower’s stage because they were offended by Schultz’s production of Robert Askins’s extremely irreverent play Hand to God.

Cuban Ballet Dancers Who Defected Make Emotional Return To Island

“[Five] renowned defectors from the Cuban National Ballet took the stage at the 26th Havana International Ballet Festival as part of a wide-ranging and profound reconciliation between Cuba and its millions of expatriates and exiles around the world. … Asked about his feelings upon performing once again in Cuba, [one of the returnees] began to cry.”

Is Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra A Hopelessly Quixotic Enterprise?

“The group’s deceptively simple premise — that getting musicians from groups [Israel and the Arab world] that have been opposed for decades to play together would foster understanding — seems even more ambitious in this polarized age.” (Indeed, the orchestra’s current tour of the U.S. nearly collapsed when the Trump administration withheld visas for some of its members.) As the conductor told reporter Michael Cooper, “When I’m with [the musicians], it doesn’t feel quixotic at all. When I talk to you, I know it is quixotic.”

When We Say That ‘Art Is A Right, Not A Privilege’, What Exactly Do We Mean?

The statement can mean one of two things: “access to art is a moral right” or “access to art ought to be a legal right; that free access to museums and other institutions housing cultural artifacts should be legally guaranteed to citizens.” NYU art professor Nickolas Calabrese argues that, while the first would seem to be true on its face, the second is far more problematic than most people who favor it seem to realize.

Do Swag Gifts To Donors Actually Help Raise More Money?

Some nonprofits insist that donors expect these “premiums”; some donors insist they want as much money and staff time as possible to be spent on the nonprofit’s actual mission. Jonathan Meer, an economist who studies altruism and philanthropy, looked at existing research and did an experiment of his own to find out of giving swag to donors is worth it. The answer? Well, …

Pennsylvania Backs Off Banning Book Donations For Prisoners

This past summer, the state Dept. of Corrections introduced a ban on giving books to individual inmates; the rule was part of a suite of measures taken to sten the flow of illegal drugs into prisons. After pushback from prisoners’ rights and book donation groups, the policy has been relaxed, though books will still have to be inspected at a separate location before being given to inmates.

‘Insufficient Information’: Finding Of Montreal Symphony Investigation Into Charles Dutoit Allegations

An independent investigation, ordered by the orchestra’s board last year, “did not yield sufficient information in relation to allegations of sexual harassment” by Dutoit, the ensemble’s music director from 1977 to 2002. The two complainants, for undisclosed reasons, did not speak with the investigators.

Selfie-Takers Accidentally Damage Goya And Dalí Works In Russia

In a slightly different twist on the usual heedless-selfiers-wreck-priceless-art tale, a group of four girls at an exhibition in Yekaterinburg gathered for a snap on one side of a temporary wall — and on the other side were hanging Goya’s Bravissimo! etching from Los Caprichos and Dalí’s riff on said etching. The girls knocked the wall over; it landed on top of the artworks and barely missed another museumgoer. (includes video)

Actor Geoffrey Rush’s Defamation Lawsuit Is Banner Issue In Australia’s #MeToo Movement

In two front-page articles last year, the Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph published leaked complaints by an actress that Rush made inappropriately suggestive banter to her and (as King Lear) stroked her breast onstage as he lamented over her (Cordelia’s) body. The Oscar-Emmy-Tony-winning Rush, who claims he has suffered physical illness from stress over the reports, insists that the allegations aren’t true and sued the Telegraph for defamation.