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L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse Establishes Residency For Heavyweight Collective Of Black Theatre Talent

The group is called Cast Iron Entertainment, and includes Oscar-winning and Tony-nominated playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney and actors Sterling K. Brown, Glenn Davis, Brian Tyree Henry, Jon Michael Hill, and André Holland. They’ll have complete freedom to create and develop projects, with no requirement of an end project committed to the Geffen. – The Hollywood Reporter

The Solo Balanchine Made For Paul Taylor, Revived By New York City Ballet

“In his autobiography, Taylor said he had asked Balanchine if there was any way it should be performed. His reply: ‘Is like fly in glass of milk, yes?'” City Ballet soloist Jovani Furlan learned the dance, titled Variations, from Paul Frame (who learned it from Taylor); Furlan has now taught it to, and is alternating performances with, Michael Trusnovec, long the star dancer in Taylor’s own company. Gia Kourlas interviews them both. – The New York Times

LA Philharmonic: How To Change The Center Of Gravity Of Programming?

“One of the big things that we’re trying to do this season,“ Chief Executive Chad Smith said, “is really advance this idea that Gustavo has been initiating for so long, which is to shift the musical center of gravity for our art form further west and further south. We come from an art form which historically was European and largely male. How do we, over time, change that?“ – Los Angeles Times

After 87 Years, A Radical Novel Of The Harlem Renaissance Finds A Publisher

Claude McKay set aside his novel Romance in Marseille in 1933 because his editor thought it too shocking to sell: its protagonist is a West African double amputee with a prostitute lover, and most of the action is “in a sexually liberated working-class milieu, where queer love is accepted as a fact of life, no more subject to judgment than its heterosexual counterpart.” Penguin Classics has just published it for the first time. – The New York Times

I Planned And Conducted Concerts Where We Didn’t Tell The Audience What The Program Would Be. Every Performance Sold Out.

Robert Trevino, music director of the Basque National Orchestra in Spain, writes about the restaurant meal that gave him the idea, how he and the orchestra staff planned and marketed the series (and convinced the media not to reveal the secret), and how the audiences responded. (includes complete video of concert) – Gramophone

How Are They Dating This Set Of Ancient Australian Rock Paintings? With Mud Wasps

Dead mud wasps, in fact. The ancient artists who painted the Gwion figures in Western Australia’s Kimberley region used iron oxide pigments, which have no organic material and can’t be carbon-dated. But the remains of mud wasp nests stuck to the paintings can be carbon-dated, and researcher Damien Finch has used them to determine that the Gwion paintings are roughly 12,000 years old. – BBC

Boris Johnson’s Government Seriously Considers Abolishing License Fee That Funds BBC

“The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, suggested the television licence” — an annual fee, currently £154.50 ($201.68), charged every household and business with a television — “was an increasingly outdated way of funding the BBC, saying that while she would guarantee its existence in the short term, it was time to look at new ways of subsidising public service broadcasting.” – The Guardian