“Co-owners Rebecca Fitting and Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo acknowledged that Black customers and employees have felt unwelcome and disrespected, that poor training had led to racial profiling in their stores, and that the company had not succeeded in creating an anti-racist space.” They say they’ll do better, including talking with the neighbors about gentrification without getting defensive. – LitHub
Author: ArtsJournal2
The Met Is Going To Livestream Star Singer Recitals
Since the Covid-19 numbers are looking worse, not better (not by a long shot) in the US, Peter Gelb says that the Met has to push the envelope with new content, even if it mostly employs those who are already stars. “If there’s no Met to come back to, the jobs of our furloughed artists will be lost. … I have to ensure that the Met can earn revenue.” – The New York Times
Explaining That Eliza Hamilton Gasp
Thomas Kail, Hamilton director (both on stage and screen): “I remember it was important for me to have a moment at the end of the show where the music and lyrics are resolving that extended past, that reached somewhere else. Pippa is so thorough and so intelligent and so precise, that it was a really fun conversation to have.” – Los Angeles Times
Hamilton: Where Are Peggy (And All Of The Other Cast Members) Now?
So you caught the Hamilton addiction, but that’s only one streaming performance … where are the Schuyler sisters, where are the soldier boys, where are the generals now? – The New York Times
More Goodbye, Columbus, In Baltimore This Time
Protesters pulled down the status and dragged it to Inner Harbor, where they dumped it. “The Columbus statue was dragged down as people marched across the city Saturday demanding reallocation of funds from the police department to social services, a reassessment of the public education system, reparations for Black people, housing for the homeless, and the removal of all statues ‘honoring white supremacists, owners of enslaved people, perpetrators of genocide, and colonizers.'” – Baltimore Sun
When Artists Are No Longer Afraid To Speak Out
Atlanta-based actor Stephanie Peyton: “We’re all stuck with this whole COVID thing. And so we have nothing better to do than to be on our social media and see these new videos every day of Black men being shot, and women disappearing and children not being found. Not only are we seeing this every day, but we’re experiencing it every day. And it’s not just with police but it’s with our bosses, it’s with our schools, it’s with our housing, it’s everywhere. And so for us, it was getting to a point of being like, we’re gonna call this stuff out.” – Token Theatre Friends
The UK Announces A 1.5 Billion-Pound Bailout For The Arts
After months of waffling – and infuriating the arts sectors in the UK – the Tory government finally came through. One playwright: “If this package is as ambitious as it looks, then conversations within our sector will now need to turn to what our recovery might look like in terms of protecting any gains made in recent years over inclusion, representation and diversity, and how this support can reach who need it most, particularly outside of London.” – The Guardian (UK)
Saroj Khan, Choreographer Of Bollywood, 71
Khan spent more than 60 years in the film industry. She “was a pioneer, one of the few women working behind the camera at a time when nearly all the technicians were men. She joined the industry as a 3-year-old child actress in the early 1950s, and she became an assistant choreographer at the age of 12.” – The New York Times
A Classic Science Fiction Trilogy With Ideas So Wild That Only Our Time Could Match Them
As Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series gets shot around the virus in five different countries (“Our main stages are in Europe, in countries that are super safe at the moment,” the executive producer says), it’s not bizarre that a series about an empire that almost falls thanks to the smarmy, hypnotic charisma of one intensely creepy man feels relevant. Genre, says the producer, is “an expression of revolutionary thought.” – Wired
That Final, Romantic Cinderella Elbow Bump
Theatre continues, in some ways weird or alarming and in other ways perfectly creative, during the lockdowns, shutdowns, quarantines, and pandemic numbers spikes. – The New York Times