Category: issues

“[The] Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom plan to open again on July 11, while Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will resume business on July 15. SeaWorld, meanwhile, will reopen to the public on June 11. … New requirements include temperature checks upon arrival, physical distancing, enhanced cleaning, hand-washing and sanitizing stations and ‘limited-contact enhancements,’ such as contactless payments and mobile orders at restaurants.” – Variety

The huge numbers reported in watching and listening to streaming performances are in stark contrast with “decades of dire warnings and disheartening statistics about shrinking classical audiences — because of aging patrons, changing tastes, and more competition for the entertainment dollar.” – San Francisco Classical Voice

“It is a very expensive art form, but it is crucial because it has such a worldwide impact… and so we have to find a way to make sure these marvellous people and organisations are going to survive through all this.” – BBC

Sponsors and donors’ valuation of our public culture is of an order very different from everyone else’s. For big oil, big pharmaceutical companies and the arms industry, it is not simply a case of doing good. For them, sponsorship of the arts is not charity; it is a strategic expenditure. – The New York Times

No specific program has been announced yet, but “look for some combination of performances presented online, outside, or in other ways that maintain social distance. The festival will continue [from Sept. 10] through Oct. 4, and organizers expect it to include eight to 12 curated works, as well as a virtual bookstore, artist talks, and independently presented works.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

How does a university with a $6-billion endowment and $10 billion in assets suddenly find itself in a solvency crisis? How is one of the country’s top research universities reduced, just a month after moving classes online, to freezing its employees’ retirement accounts? – Chronicle of Higher Education

“The UK’s largest arts and cultural organisation, the Southbank Centre, has warned that it will have used up its financial reserves by September, forcing its closure until April 2021 unless it gets further government support. The centre, which puts on more than 3,500 events every year” and contains three concert halls, an art gallery, and a library “and is home to eight orchestras, revealed details of the crippling financial pressures it is facing as a result of the coronavirus crisis.” – The Guardian

No, theatre and dance and opera and concerts won’t be returning in the autumn. “‘I am 100 percent confident that it is not happening,’ said Nancy Umanoff, Mark Morris’s executive director. For many dance companies, that means giving up on lucrative holiday season performances of The Nutcracker, a crucial best seller that, for example, brings in 45 percent of New York City Ballet’s annual ticket sales.” Here’s what may happen for dance, and all of the other performing arts as well. – The New York Times

Kazik Staszewski is a rock legend in Poland, and his song, “Your Pain Is Better than Mine,” hit a chord last week – or perhaps too many chords when it hit number 1 on a popular show. “Within minutes of the show ending, the results disappeared from the website of the show’s state-run broadcaster. Mr. Staszewski’s anthem had vanished, along with the rest of the chart.” One of the radio station’s many now-resigned hosts says, “even the Communist regime had more respect for the freedom of speech at Trojka than the current government has.” – The New York Times