Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play

A new study by that title has ignited controversy in the theater world, with playwrights “see[ing] the nation’s major nonprofit theater companies as impediments to their work,” company leaders “view[ing] playwrights as insufficiently savvy about the cold realities of the business” and some observers calling discontented playwrights self-serving whiners.

The Problem With Hurricane Placido

At age 69, he blows in and out of one town after another, singing, conducting, and (nominally) running two now-troubled companies, Los Angeles Opera and Washington National Opera. His critics argue that “it is sometimes hard to get a decision from Mr. Domingo, that his artistic ambitions have outstripped economic realities, and that both companies are struggling from the lack of a firm local hand.”