Portland Theatre That Had Been In Money Trouble Gets $7 Million Gift

Artists Repertory Theatre had plans to sell half of its building, including one of its theatres, to a development group that was going to turn the pricey Portland real estate into a 20-story housing and retail building. That may still happen, but the $7 million – one of the largest arts gifts in Oregon’s history – allows the theatre company to pay off its mortgage and be, the artistic director said, “in control of our own destiny.”

Barbara Kruger, Still Relevant – Actually, Essential

The artist isn’t personally on Twitter or Instagram – or rather, she’s on them all of the time, but simply to observe. “As uncomfortable as she seems with contemporary standards of personal exposure, she is at ease in the realm of the abstract. As in her work, she quickly distills dissertation-worthy topics into stuff you want to put on a sweatshirt. ‘History is a circle jerk of hurt and damage,’ she told me at one point.”

Here’s How You Get Millennials To The Symphony

You hire them as musicians. But for real, even though they’re not in the marketing department, four Millennial musicians in Milwaukee “were willing to share their ideas on how to attract more people their age to performances. Their thoughts boil down to ‘accessible repertoire,’ to use McCullough-Benner’s phrase, and friendly concert experiences.”

With Podcasts, Intimacy Is A One-Way Street

Says one of the hosts of a popular NPR roundtable podcast: “No wonder you feel as if you know them; that the sound of their voices comes to fire precisely the same neurons, arouse the same feelings, that the voices of your closest friends do. It’s purely biological, and it’s indistinguishable from intimacy — except for one minor, mundane, trifling detail: It’s unidirectional. You know them, you trust them, you love them, and they have absolutely no idea who you are.”

This Woman Wrote A Book That Seems To Be A Roman À Clef About An Affair With Philip Roth

Lisa Halliday won the Whiting Award for her first novel, in which an editorial assistant meets a famous writer on a bench. The writer is pretty clearly modeled on Roth. “The likeness is no accident. Ms. Halliday, 41, and Mr. Roth, 84, are good friends. And for a time, when she was in her 20s and working at the Wylie Agency, which represents him, they had a romantic relationship.” (Should any of this matter in the reception of the book?)

The Union Representing A Fired Director – And The Chorister Who Reported The Director – Says The Met Acted Too Swiftly

A Met official disagrees with the union (American Guild of Musical Artists), which asserted that a written apology and a rehearsal change would have been enough. The Met official said “that while the chorister had indicated that he would accept a written apology, he had also communicated to Met officials that he did not want to see Mr. Copley either in the underground rehearsal rooms or on its stage, and threatened to consult a lawyer if he did.”