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Martha Plimpton Does Something Very Few Actors Ever Do — Quit Steppenwolf Theatre

“Why would anybody want to go? It’s inarguably among the most prestigious collections of stage actors in the world and yet membership comes with no formal minimum participation requirement. … However, two sources close to Steppenwolf said that there was no love lost between the actress and the current artistic administration, although Plimpton had wanted to keep her action as private as possible.” – Chicago Tribune

Richmond’s Institute For Contemporary Art, Only A Year Old, Lays Off More Than A Fifth Of Its Staff

“Six full-time employees out of 27 are having their positions eliminated as a result of a reorganization, said Dominic Willsdon, executive director of the ICA. … The non-collecting contemporary art museum at Virginia Commonwealth University opened in April 2018 after four years of construction and roughly 15 years of planning.” And ICA has had staffing issues ever since. – Richmond Times-Dispatch

Metro-DC-Based National Philharmonic Says It’s Out Of Cash And Is Closing

The freelance orchestra, based at Strathmore in the Maryland suburbs, was founded in 1983 and performed two to three dozen concerts a year. The announcement said that the orchestra would need an additional $150,000 to save the upcoming season, and its president told Anne Midgette, “The National Phil would be delighted if a donor would come forward or funding were to come through for its operations.” – The Washington Post

Check Out The New World’s Largest Performing Arts Building

Designed by the Dutch architectural firm Mecanoo, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Kaohsiung is a city of nearly 3 million at the southern end of Taiwan) opened last fall and includes a 434-seat recital hall, a 1,210-seat theatre, a 1,981-seat concert hall, a 2,236-seat opera house, an art gallery, and an outdoor amphitheatre incorporated into the roof. – Bachtrack

Drawing a Line

“We work at StageSource, which represents both the individual theatre artists and the theatrical organizations of New England. Part of our mission is to provide resources to empower our community to realize its greatest potential — and for us, that potential is impossible to reach without a definitively safe and inclusive environment. … [To that end, we created] the Line Drawn Initiative to address sexual harassment in the New England theatre sector. Through that initiative, we released a survey to uncover the scope and specifics of the problem. Unsurprisingly, the results were bleak.” – HowlRound

What Snowball The Dancing Parrot Is Teaching Neuroscientists About Why Humans Dance

These newly published observations cement the human-ness of Snowball’s dancing. His initial headbangs and foot-lifts are movements that parrots naturally make while walking or courting. But his newer set aren’t based on any standard, innate behaviors. He came up with them himself, and he uses them for different kinds of music. “This is what we would genuinely refer to as dance, both in the scientific community and in the dance profession,” says Nicola Clayton of the University of Cambridge, who studies bird cognition. “It’s amazing.” – The Atlantic

Francoise Gilot Was Picasso’s Muse. When She Left He Predicted Disaster. It Didn’t Turn Out That Way

“For one thing, Gilot ended up happily married to Jonas Salk, who was doubtless secure enough in his own accomplishments to like her for reasons that had nothing to do with Picasso. And she went on to have an admired career as an artist. Gilot is ninety-seven now; she has been painting nearly as long as Picasso did, and is enjoying something of a revival.” – The New Yorker