Director Kirill Serebrennikov Convicted Of Embezzlement In Case Many See As Trumped-Up

The 50-year-old Russian, celebrated at home and overseas for his productions of theatre, film, and opera, is artistic director of the Gogol Center, Moscow’s most celebrated stage for avant-garde and dissident work. (He is also a frequent critic of Vladimir Putin.) He and two colleagues were convicted of stealing 129 million rubles ($1.8 million) in government funding designated for projects that, prosecutors alleged (and the judge agreed), never took place — even though many people saw the productions and they were covered in the press. – Yahoo! (AFP)

Boris Johnson’s Government Releases ‘Roadmap’ To Restarting Live Performance; Arts World Says, Is That All There Is?

“On Thursday, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden published the five-stage plan for a ‘phased return’, which will initially let performances take place outdoors, with indoors performances to follow later.” The plan is being widely dismissed as inadequate: one theatre exec called it “as useful a map as a snakes and ladders board,” and the chair of the Writers’ Guild said that “a road map is only any use if you have enough petrol to get you where you need to go.” – BBC