Cleveland Play House Plucks New Leader From D.C.

“The administrative leader of one of the nation’s hippest theater companies will become managing director of the Cleveland Play House, the country’s oldest professional regional theater. Kevin Moore, now managing director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., was named on Monday to replace long time Play House managing director Dean Gladden, now at the Alley Theatre in Houston.”

Edinburgh Fringe: Exit Interview

Sitting in his cramped High Street office, Paul Gudgin, who has run the Edinburgh Fringe for eight years said “the lack of affordable accommodation in the city was the Fringe’s Achilles Heel and by far the most difficult challenge the event needs to overcome in future years. He also called on the Fringe’s public funding to be dramatically increased, from the current level of £65,000 a year to around £300,000.”

Will Digital Book-Reader Kill Books?

“On a recent trip to an empty Borders I feared for my profession, not to mention the publishing industry. Nearly all the stuff in their shop is already available digitally online. And once books go too, perhaps the empty bookshops will be replaced with download “hubs” where we can buy Costalottashmucks coffee and download the latest tunes, novels and movies from the matrix while money trickles out of our bank accounts, all funnelled through our mobile phones. The real nub of the issue for me is that screens will now mediate the text.”

Hermitage Art Just “Walked Out The Door”

A Russian court hears about how an Hermitage employee and her husband stole 77 pieces of art from the museum and sold them to buy medicine. “According to prosecutors, the couple made off with icons, a Swiss pocket watch, and a gold-encrusted saltcellar. Mrs Zavadskaya, who died in 2005, simply walked out of the staff exit, apparently unchallenged by security guards.”

Why iTunes Won’t Let You Hear Japan

“The iTunes Music Store has a secret hiding in plain sight: Log out of your home account in the page’s upper-right corner, switch the country setting at the bottom of the page to Japan, and you’re dropped down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of great Japanese bands that you’ve never even heard of. And they’re nowhere to be found on iTunes U.S.”