Sometimes, Theatre Can Feel A Bit Too Topical (Even When It’s About 1977, Or 1897)

What it’s like to go to the theatre and see a play about the Constitution right now: “The play’s concerns could hardly have felt more viscerally urgent. In the row behind me, a woman wept deep, grieving tears — a kind of crying so suffused with pain that we’re not used to hearing it in public, even in a darkened theater. But this is not an ordinary time.”

Carol Hall, Who Wrote The Music And Lyrics For ‘The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas,’ Has Died At 82

This is how it all began: “Ms. Hall was enjoying moderate success as a singer and songwriter when, developing an idea first hatched during a dinner party conversation, she, Peter Masterson and Larry L. King created Best Little Whorehouse, a comedy based on an article Mr. King had written in 1974 for Playboy. It concerned the moralistic efforts to close down a real-life Texas brothel known as the Chicken Ranch (because some customers paid in chickens) that had operated for years.”

Museums Taking Money From Saudi Arabia Reassess Their Priorities After A Journalist’s Murder

Hm. “For years, nonprofits from museums to major universities have been strengthening ties with the oil kingdoms of the Middle East as a way to broaden their offerings, foster cross-cultural dialogue and obtain access to those countries’ considerable riches.” Great goals! But … museums have a lot to evaluate right now.

Renovating Marfa

Six of Donald Judd’s buildings in the Texas town are getting a facelift and, in some cases, much more than that: “It will add 26,500 square feet of new program space and make open to the public for the first time another 16,000 square feet.”