Why Demand For “Hamilton” Tickets Is Waning In Chicago

Sales are slowing. Browse the official Ticketmaster website and you will see availability, pretty good availability, for midweek shows in January, and these are not resale inventory. They’re as yet unsold. They will be sold, by show time. But they won’t command the same prices and those weekly grosses will not be $3 million. It behooves “Hamilton” to leave with audiences still wanting more, leaving some room for a return by popular demand.

Remembering The Man For Whom Leonard Bernstein Left His Wife

In an article previewing the coming centennial year of the composer-conductor, Los Angeles Times classical critic Mark Swed devotes a few paragraphs to Tom Cothran, who was a high school friend: “I don’t know how Bernstein ultimately felt about Tom. He was a verboten subject. Nor could I ever get Tom to talk much about the personal side of Bernstein. He felt it was his job to keep Bernstein from being too neurotic, but he may well have made him more so in the process. Still, as Bernstein’s inner monster grew, so, too, did his giving side. Shamans can be like that.”

Good Art From Bad People And The Dangers Of The #MeToo Moment

Charles McNulty: “Directors who have taken advantage of the casting couch, actors who have grotesquely exploited their stardom, conductors who have preyed on their young charges deserve to have the rug pulled out from under them. If the work they’ve done lives on, it will do so apart from the memory of their shameful deeds. This will take time. … But like many who feel a pang of obligation to due process, I can’t help wondering if in the collective rush to right historical wrongs we aren’t in danger of losing sight of other values. Justice, as symbolized by the scales, is an art of delicate calibration. But watershed movements aren’t subtle. They can’t afford to be.”

CBC Radio Bans Charles Dutoit’s Name But Not His Recordings

A spokeswoman for the national broadcaster wrote in response to a query, “While the allegations made towards Charles Dutoit are serious, we truly believe that removing these recordings entirely from our broadcasts would unjustly diminish the efforts of the many talented musicians who are featured in them. At this point, we are no longer crediting Mr. Dutoit as conductor.”

Gardner Museum Extends $10 Million Reward For Info About Stolen Art

“The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum … doubled the reward to $10 million last May, but said at the time it would revert back to $5 million on Jan. 1 if no one came forward to collect the windfall before then. When announcing the increased reward with an expiration date, museum officials said they hoped it would send an urgent message to anyone withholding information about the artwork’s whereabouts and dispel any doubts about their intention to pay it.” That tactic didn’t work, and so the offer has been extended indefinitely.

How Josie Rourke Changed The Donmar, London’s Little Theatre Powerhouse

“Her predecessors at the Donmar, Michael Grandage and Sam Mendes, had turned the 251-seat venue in Covent Garden into an international player, through movie-star casting and regular West End and Broadway transfers. Although thrilled to be the first woman to run a central London theatre, Rourke knew the risk of becoming a theatrical equivalent of John Major after Margaret Thatcher or Gordon Brown after Tony Blair. After a nervous start, she made the theatre her own with a programme that forefronted women – notably Phyllida Lloyd’s magnificent trilogy imagining Shakespeare tragedies as performed by female prisoners – and politics.”