When Playwrights Can’t Let Go Of The Script

“Eugene O’Neill rewrote compulsively; Bertolt Brecht published three alarmingly different versions of Galileo; and Leonard Bernstein’s musical Candide burned through three book writers and lyricists (Dorothy Parker and James Agee among them). … Instead of inventing an entirely new work, playwrights instead reduce, reuse and recycle. But is this really good for the theatrical environment?”

Cardinal To National Gallery: Painting Belongs In Cathedral

“The Archbishop of Westminster has urged the National Gallery to give up a Renaissance masterpiece, calling it ‘a work of faith’ rather than art. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor says that The Baptism of Christ, painted by Piero della Francesca in the 1450s should be in Westminster Cathedral. … The painting has been in the gallery’s collection since 1861.”

Royal Academy’s Russian Show, Nearly Scuttled, Was A Hit

“An art exhibition which was threatened by a row between the UK and Russia became one of the Royal Academy of Art’s most successful exhibitions. Almost 400,000 people visited From Russia when it opened at the London venue earlier this year. The exhibition was almost scrapped over Russian authorities’ fears the art could be seized while on British soil.”