Category: issues

With the ongoing COVID epidemic making travel to its New Hampshire campus impractical at best, the no-longer-a-colony has invited this summer’s eight fellows to a four-week virtual residency that will include dinners and other events which the participants will join electronically. – AP

The latest COVID-19 Sector Benchmark Insight Report, released by TRG Arts and data specialists Purple Seven, “includes data from 105 nonprofit organizations of all scales in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom. The report reveals that there has been no aggregate growth in donations, but some individual organizations, particularly ones with a lower ratio of contributed income, have seen substantial increases in gift revenue.” – American Theatre

Even in the best years, funding for arts and culture in our city does not meet the needs of the communities we serve. It is time to expose this hard truth and build the support needed to focus on culture and creativity as a primary driver of racial equity, create healthy communities, assure key economic recovery, and build vital long-term sustainability. – KCET

Amid this deluge of performance art offerings flowing into my house, I realized two words marred my experience: remote and control. With remote clenched in one hand and phone in the other, it hit me: No longer a member of an audience, I had become merely a viewer now. – ArtsandCultureTexas

“Of the total amount, the government has currently released £880 million ($1.14 billion), which has been split into two funding rounds. The first round of £622 million ($805.3 million) will be distributed immediately, while the remaining £258 million ($334 million) will be reserved for a second round of funding later in the financial year to meet the developing needs of organizations.” – Variety

The bus from the airport to my resort gave me plenty of time to contemplate my life decisions. An air-conditioned trip through a hot zone of the worst disease outbreak in a century will concentrate the mind, even if television screens and the voices of cartoon characters are constantly attempting to break that concentration. – The Atlantic

Victor Sen Yung started in Hollywood as a “Chinese peasant boy” in The Good Earth, and his last role was 43 years later, in The Man With Bogart’s Face. He was credited as Sen Yung, Sen Young, Victor Sen Yung, and Victor Young. And then there was Bonanza. “Between 1959 and 1973, Yung played the easygoing cook, Hop Sing, in more than 100 episodes of the long-running TV series, Bonanza. This, of course, is all a Chinaman can do on television: hop, sing, spout gnomic bits of wisdom, and die.” – Hyperallergic

The Paycheck Protection Program is drying up, unemployment checks are about to stop (without a miracle from Congress), and 12,000 arts organizations in the U.S. say they may not survive at all. We need a figurehead. “Almost all our celebrities are artists, and though they have been generous in joining fundraisers, the benefiting organizations can only disburse small grants. You don’t save 5 million jobs that way. Where are their demands? Fancy people, the country’s op-ed pages await you.” – Vulture

The cuts are needed to address the financial challenges of the pandemic-related shutdown, Kennedy Center president and chief executive Deborah Rutter said in an interview. The arts center projects a $23 million budget shortfall for the 2020-2021 season. – Washington Post

After months of monotone condolences and a vague “five-step roadmap” from culture secretary Oliver Dowden, the British government Beyoncéd the arts community on 5 July by announcing a surprise £1.57bn emergency support package. Dowden said he would begin by bailing out the “crown jewels of our national life – you know, the Royal Albert Halls and so on”. It should come as no surprise that this government is prioritising bedazzled institutions. The “crown jewels” of theatre, however, are not the brick-and-mortar, however fine, of London landmarks, but the creative workforce that set the stage alight – 70% of whom are freelancers. – The Guardian