Hollywood Organizes For Political Action

United Talent Agency (UTA) on Wednesday canceled its annual Oscars party and said it will instead hold a rally in Beverly Hills two days before the Feb. 26 Oscar ceremony to protest “anti-immigrant sentiment” in the United States. “If our nation ceases to be the place where artists the world over can come to express themselves freely, then we cease, in my opinion, to be America,” UTA chief executive Jeremy Zimmer said in a statement.

What Would The Subjects Of Oscar-Nominated Documentaries Say If They Got Up On That Stage?

“Five of the 10 feature-length and short documentaries nominated for Oscars are directly or indirectly about refugees. … Several of the documentarians wanted to bring their subjects to the Oscar ceremony, but plans were upended by President Trump’s [travel ban].” So the Times‘s Carpetbagger asked what they’d say if they got the chance.

U.S. Universities Must Fight To Defend Immigrants, Science, And Actual Facts, Writes Leon Botstein

The conductor and president of Bard College, himself an immigrant, in a New York Times Op-Ed: “Not since the era of witch hunts and ‘red baiting’ has the American university faced so great a threat from government. … What, then, are we, the leaders of our institutions of higher education, to do when faced with a president who denies facts, who denies science?”

Bolshoi Ballet Has ‘Recovered’ From The Acid Attack And The Ugliness That Followed

Historian Simon Morrison (Bolshoi Confidential) talks with Here & Now‘s Robin Young about how turmoil has abounded at the theater for all of its 241 years, and how the ballet company has stabilized following the horrific attack on former ballet artistic director Sergei Filin (and after Filin’s subsequent involuntary departure from the company). (audio)