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The LA Phil Tries The Online Route

The Hollywood Bowl couldn’t have audiences – but the musicians could be there, distanced, and the orchestra took advantage of its city’s geographical advantages. The concerts were only “possible in the age of the novel coronavirus because the [Hollywood Bowl] stage is about 5,700 square feet— more than twice the size of the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage — and completely outdoors, but for the partial cover of the shell. All participants, including artists and tech crews, were tested for COVID-19 prior to filming and stayed at least 6 feet apart onstage.” – Los Angeles Times

Nothing, Absolutely Nothing, Can Beat Live Music

The first concert since lockdown is definitely special (not that it’s weird to be masked and distant anymore; it’s simply exciting to be there). “It’s been difficult but clarifying to see how mightily classical music struggles in an online-only format. Experiencing sound in person, among others, turns out to be even more essential than I’d assumed. This art form has long been devoted to recordings — but always as a counter, an implied (or screamed) comparison, to real performances.” – The New York Times

Mass Layoffs Has US, UK Museums Rethinking Their Roles

The current crisis raises the question of what exactly a museum is. Is it a collection of objects, or the staff that bring those objects to life and makes them accessible to the public? ‘We need to think about museums not only as repositories for things […],’ Nicole Cook, a member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Union organising committee, writes via email, ‘but rather as vital centers for scholarship, education, and community, all core activities that revolve around people – and more pointedly, activities that rely on fully staffed museums.’ – Apollo

Art Basel Goes Virtual, Charging Galleries For Virtual Booths

Art Basel organizers plan to present two new online viewing room initiatives in September and October, which they describe as “freestanding, thematic editions.” Unlike previous iterations of the Art Basel-branded viewing rooms, these will not be provided free of charge to exhibitors at the physical fairs. Instead, Art Basel will charge a flat fee of CHF 5,000 ($5,500) for each of the new editions. – Artnet

Theatre Reform: We Shouldn’t Work So Many Hours

“It’s this process that we have spent decades, centuries developing in theatre of how much time it takes to make the thing. In my experience, the process will expand to fill as much time as you give it. So we’ve put ourselves in a place where we say, it’s going to take this many weeks to rehearse and this many hours to tech, and we take that as gospel now.” – American Theatre

A Historical Disinclination To Theatre

One of the key facets of Jonas Barish’s argument is that, throughout history and across cultures, theatrical activity has almost always been met by vociferous opposition. From ancient Greece, when Plato wrote that acting and the theatre would be excluded from his ideal state, to the Soviet era in Russia, when strict governmental regulation dictated what type of work theatre artists were permitted to create, theatre has been subject to both philosophical criticism and material censorship. – Howlround