Small Consolation: Museums’ Hit-&-Miss Attempts to Engage Audiences Via “Virtual Exhibitions”

Too much of museums’ existing online content, now being repurposed, reminds me of “park and bark” — the great opera stars of yesteryear, standing stock-still at center stage and belting out their arias. By contrast, I found much to admire in purpose-built content that some museums managed to put together on the fly. – Lee Rosenbaum

Safety, Solvency, Service

These past few weeks, a whole world of arts organizations have been searching for, revisiting, or assembling-on-the-fly their emergency readiness plans as the pandemic turns that world upside down. Many are finding that “pandemic” wasn’t among the expected disasters in their plans, so they’re diving into action as best they can. – Andrew Taylor

They don’t trust me with cheese

‘The man next to us is honking like a seal,’ whispered my friend Mel at the interval of One Man, Two Guvnors at the National Theatre back in 2011. Tonight the National Theatre will stream their film of the show (available on YouTube for a week afterwards), and I’ve just found the review I wrote for Plays International. – David Jays

Ask

I’ve also been watching with great interest the number of arts organizations making content available online, providing virtual experiences to help us get through this. At the same time, I wonder if a myopia inherent in our industry might get in the way of doing even greater good. – Doug Borwick