There was a time when listeners treated the mere existence of recorded sound as a miracle. A wonder, a kind of time travel. Priests warned of early wax cylinders being tools of the devil. Vintage images from the space age show couples seated around their high-fidelity systems as if being warmed by a fireplace. – Los Angeles Times
Category: AUDIENCE
EU Asks Netflix To Stop HD Streaming As Internet Use Soars
With so many countries on forced lockdowns to fight the spread of the virus, hundreds of millions working from home and even more children out of school, EU officials are concerned about the huge strain on internet bandwidth. – CNN
Atlanta Is A Majority-Black City. Why Is There So Little Black Theater?
“Though Atlanta’s … bustling professional theaters staged 187 productions last year, only 22 were by playwrights of color.” Jesse Green went there to talk to black actors and directors, and to the directors of two big and largely white theaters, “to see whether a city that has long been a magnet for the black middle class is dealing any better with these matters than New York does — which is to say, not very well.” – The New York Times
Holland Cotter’s Five-Point Plan To Save The Souls Of Traditional ‘Encyclopedic’ Museums
“They need to rethink the Temple of Beauty branding they’ve coasted on from the start. They need to acknowledge the often conflicted relationship between aesthetics and ethics. They need to address what their collections leave out. They need to reconsider their own role as history-tellers and history-inventors. In short, they need to redefine what ‘encyclopedic’ and ‘museum’ and ‘art’ can mean. … Here’s a five-point plan to move that process along in a post-coronavirus future.” – The New York Times
Right Now Boring Online Social Sharing Is Comforting
It’s not just Americans broadcasting their living spaces to the world in the hopes of finding digital company. In the midst of a pandemic, kids with smartphones and wireless access and unlimited free time are showing us what a room looks like globally. American teenagers are watching TikTok videos from countries that are two or three weeks ahead of the United States in quarantine measures, peering into the life they will soon be living. – The Atlantic
Finally We’re Learning Online
If there is a silver lining in this crisis, it may be that the virus is forcing us to use the internet as it was always meant to be used — to connect with one another, share information and resources, and come up with collective solutions to urgent problems. It’s the healthy, humane version of digital culture we usually see only in schmaltzy TV commercials, where everyone is constantly using a smartphone to visit far-flung grandparents and read bedtime stories to kids. – The New York Times
Some Theatres Have Hired Film Crews Quickly So ‘All That Work Wouldn’t Be Lost’ To The Shutdown
At Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va., the staff hired a crew to film a new play whose run was supposed to last until March 29 – and the theatre is shut until March 30. The idea is not 100 percent figured out yet, and there are definitely Equity and other union issues to discuss, but … “The theater decided it might be able to show the play to patrons still holding tickets by giving them special access to the film online. … Many companies, like Signature, are asking people to donate the cost of those unused tickets to help defray expenses at an uncertain juncture.” – The Washington Post
In Which ‘The Atlantic’ Argues That Theatre Shutdowns Could Be Good For Plays
Shakespeare apparently wrote King Lear while the Globe was shuttered because of the bubonic plague (a trope that echoed heavily on Twitter over the weekend). Then there’s the economic opportunity: “Given that the bubonic plague particularly decimated young populations, it may also have wiped out Shakespeare’s theatrical rivals—companies of boy actors who dominated the early-17th-century stage, and could often get away with more satiric, politically dicey productions than their older competitors. Shakespeare’s company took over the indoor Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 after the leading boy company collapsed, and started doing darker, edgier productions, capitalizing on a market share that was newly available.” – The Atlantic
Does Democratization Of Culture Mean The End Of Audience?
“My current research situates audience development within work on culture as a vocation, and wider debates around the democratisation of culture and cultural democracy. Audience development both replicates and reproduces (rather than challenges) the dominant cultural hegemony – most notably in subsidised cultural institutions. As such, it has traditionally been seen as a management tool for the democratisation of culture.” – Arts Professional
A Fundraiser For The Academy Of Music Is Philadelphia’s Biggest High-Society Event. Here’s How It Should Change For The 21st Century.
Eyebrows shot up last month when the Philadelphia Orchestra (which owns the building) and the Kimmel Center (which operates it) announced that the Academy Ball, held every year but one since 1957, was called off for next year and would be reconsidered entirely. Peter Dobrin makes the case that the Ball is a unique Philadelphia tradition that shouldn’t be ended but can definitely be made more relevant. – The Philadelphia Inquirer