His vision was to turn Pitlochry Festival Theatre into both an artistic retreat and a producing powerhouse. It was to invite exciting creatives to Perthshire and create and premiere a show, then for that show to be sent on to London, New York and elsewhere. – The Stage

The book “Antiquities of Athens,” published in 1858, was returned to the library in the seaside town of Kiama last week by a man who had found it during recent home renovations inside a tea crate bricked into a sealed fireplace, Kiama Library manager Michelle Hudson said. – AP News

“Something’s in the air: My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, published last month by FSG, is just one in a recent cluster of genre-spanning books that interpret, adapt, and play with Stein’s legacy, as well as that of her longtime partner Alice B. Toklas.” – Publishers Weekly

Given worsening inequality, political polarisation, falling fertility, resource shortages and global conflicts, Wilson argues that we are hurtling towards the same end as ancient Rome, the Mayan civilisation and every other sophisticated society before us. – The Guardian

Musicians and fine artists can play and paint until they die, and actors can age onstage. But the body is the instrument of dance. There is no other violin to polish, no other paintbrush or color except that. The maintenance of the body is essential to the capacity of performance.” – Pointe Magazine

The companies are calling on the chart companies to introduce new rules that would only allow AI-generated songs to be included if the use of AI is properly authorized and lawful, if the track was substantially human made and if it doesn’t raise concerns of streaming fraud or chart manipulation. – The Hollywood Reporter

“Running from April 2026 to April 2029, the agreement will see minimum rates rise by at least 13.5 per cent over three years. It also improves holiday entitlement and family leave, supports better work-life balance, strengthens equality and inclusion provisions, and recognises additional responsibilities.” – WhatsOnStage (UK)

“For this list, we focused primarily on the breadth and distinction of each institution’s permanent collection. Additional considerations included the strength of its temporary exhibition program and the grandeur of its architecture.” – ARTnews

Following her abrupt firing, she went to direct Australia’s Adelaide Festival, then quit two years early to work in South Australia’s state government. Nine months after that, she departed for London to head the British Council. One year later, Mackenzie is now in the House of Lords as Under-Secretary for the Arts. – Limelight (Australia)

“Film producer Jason Cloth, who financed Joker, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and dozens of other movies, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on wire fraud charges in connection with what prosecutors say was a $100 million Ponzi scheme.” – AP

The union’s dispute with management is over pay, working conditions, and the museum deciding not to seek living-wage accreditation. Staffers at the new V&A Storehouse in particular complain of inadequate restroom breaks and chances to get water, comparing conditions there to those at an Amazon warehouse. – The Guardian

“Forti burst onto the New York dance scene at the dawn of the ’60s with her seminal ‘Dance Constructions,’ works in which dancers responded to cheap, ready-made objects that prompted improvisational actions such as leaning, climbing, or whistling.” – Artforum

After deliberating for roughly two hours, the jury in a Buffalo courtroom convicted Hadi Matar, 28, on all charges. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, which he’ll serve after his 25 years in a New York state penitentiary for attempted murder. – The Telegraph (UK) (Yahoo!)

I’d like to draw attention to four of the public responses to my recent blog on the “Orchestra

More than a thousand people lined up before dawn arrayed in braids, vests, and gigantic water bottles, for an open call for an off-Broadway Spring Awakening revival (New York Times).

The New Yorker traces how bots now manufacture the froth of interest that passes for cultural conversation (The New Yorker), while grandparents ship AI-generated storybooks to their grandkids (Wired) — cheap calories, delivered with love. The musicians’ union is suing Universal and Warner for licensing members’ recordings to Suno and Udio without credit or payment (MusicBusinessWorldwide) — an attempt to make AI pay for its theft.

Institutions are reorganizing around the same thing. Dallas’s AT&T Performing Arts Center is absorbing Dallas Theater Center as its producing arm (KERA). And Interlochen has published a 97-page accounting of some 70 instances of faculty sexual misconduct across seven decades (Interlochen Public Radio).

Meanwhile, a university has informed its academics that books on shelves constitute “the unnecessary storing of combustible materials” (The Critic). Somewhere a bot is drafting the follow-up memo.

“If the odds are against parents who disapprove of artificial intelligence, it’s because there’s an entire ecosystem of AI services designed to insert real children into books … and some relatives can’t resist their ads for specially curated storybooks.” – Wired

As also happened in defendant Hadi Matar’s New York state trial for attempted murder (for which he was convicted in February 2025), he declined to testify himself and his attorney called no witnesses. – AP

The bureaucrat sent an email to him with a dread warning. The books must go, it decreed. There was nothing healthy nor wise in the practice, for the keeping of books on bookshelves is now “the unnecessary storing of combustible materials.” – The Critic

This strategy of manufacturing a froth of interest around a given subject, from Nicki Minaj’s political perspectives to Sydney Sweeney’s jean ads, has recently been especially effective, and has moved culture-war fights from the trenches of bot-infested social networks into more mainstream channels. – The New Yorker

In this new media landscape, the rigid divides between pure cinema and genre cinema collapsed. Show business no longer creates value solely by selling a single commodity. Instead, it thrives on building interconnected “media ecologies,” creatively connecting film production with TV, toys, games, tourism, platforms, brands, live events, local practices and new technologies. – The Conversation

Artistic director Marcello Angelini and assistant artistic director Daniela Buson (who are married) announced they will retire from their positions at the end of the 2026-27 season, the company’s 70th. Among the couple’s crowning achievements is this spring’s tour to London, for which the company received glowing reviews. – Tulsa Flyer

The point is that art is linked to dialectical movement. In most societies at most points in time, art is decoration or religious offering — the lyric is also possible. But to actually have artistic evolution, you really need a movement of historical forces that art, essentially, is keeping pace with. – Castalia

“Utilizing a bullshit job to pursue other projects isn’t easy. It requires judgment and determination to take time that’s been first flattened and homogenized … then broken randomly into unpredictably large fragments.” – Arrowsmith Press