Today’s highlights: Xander Parish, the first British principal of Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet, left in 2022 and will open the Nouveaux Ballets Russes in Florence on March 14 with a Swan Lake set in Belle Époque Paris, directed by an opera stager and built with projection mapping and holograms (Pointe). Lookingglass, the Chicago ensemble theatre whose alumni include Mary Zimmerman and David Schwimmer, has named two artistic directors and made Schwimmer producing director, with one show a year likely to be co-produced with New York partners to “spread the risk of original work” (Chicago Tribune).

England’s national museums will stay free to overseas visitors, though Baroness Hodge’s review had pointed to New Zealand and Singapore as models for charging them; the government said a fee could deter domestic visitors (The Independent). At the Whitney, the union wants a $34-an-hour floor, and its chair, Derrick Charles, earns $24; a strike is set for October 5, three days before previews of the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective (ARTnews).

The Nashville Symphony suspended its season effective October 18 and furloughed all 77 musicians; new CEO Mark Cantrell blamed a deficit of $10 million and years of reliance on one donor (The Tennessean). Deniz Göktaş, a 32-year-old Turkish stand-up, received 19 months for insulting religious values and President Erdoğan in a special that has drawn 9.5 million views; he is free pending appeal (AP).

All of our stories below.

Eline van der Velden said that in response to a question about the AI-generated “actress” suddenly speaking in Cantonese during an interview. About Norwood’s future career, van der Velden said “We get loads of offers in, we’ve said no to anything (like) a traditional film, because that’s not what she’s made for.” – Variety

“Deniz Göktaş, 32, has been held jailed since July 3 after clips of one of his routines, which included a reference to Erdoğan as a ‘dictator,’ were circulated online. He was convicted Monday …, receiving a combined prison sentence of 19 months and 10 days.” He has been released pending an appeal. – AP

The law prohibits using software to get around ticket limits, queue and presale restrictions. It restricts websites and ads designed to make resellers look like authorized ticket sources. Sellers in violation could face misdemeanor charges and penalties. – Los Angeles Times

Ann Temkin has been a curator at the museum since 2003 and was promoted to chief curator in 2008, becoming the first woman to lead MoMA’s richest and most powerful department. – The New York Times

“It’s not just about a one and done, you know, ask for a payment and be done. We really want to nurture the relationship through the journey from anonymous all the way into a paying subscription, and we know that the majority of people aren’t going to ever come over to a paying subscription.” – Press Gazette

<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/09/time-travels-new-and-old.html" title="TIME TRAVELS: New and Old” rel=”nofollow”>My day suddenly

A Florence-based nonprofit, the New Generation Foundation, is backing the company, called the Nouveaux Ballets Russes. Parish, a Briton who was until 2022 a principal at Russia’s Mariinsky Theater, is artistic director, and he aims, as Diaghilev did, to engage collaborators in the vanguard of art, music, tech, and fashion. – Pointe Magazine

If the goal is to celebrate books and reading and get kids excited… is a for-profit book fair the best way to do that? – LitHub

The word audiophile — etymologically, one who “loves to hear” — has a wine-sipping pretension that I hate, but sometimes an ugly shoe fits. – n+1

It’s no secret that we’re kind of in a content race to the bottom right now. Social media and shortform video have pushed everything from music to documentaries into a race to truncate their lengths and make everything bite-size, in order to bend to the current of algorithm-centric audiences. – Slate

The late 19th century saw a wave of American towns building what they called opera houses. They presented all kinds of entertainment, from plays to vaudeville to lectures to magic shows (and yes, occasionally touring opera and classical music artists). Here are five in Maine which are still thriving. – The New York Times

“Given sweeping changes in the arts and nonprofit ecosystems both locally and nationally since early 2025, many original benchmarks and timelines included are no longer realistic,” according to the Downtown nonprofit’s funding application. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For months, two-thirds of Cuba had no electricity at night. Some neighborhoods in the capital of Havana have been without running water for more than two weeks. Transportation is scarce and eggs, bread and cooking oil are hard to find. – AP News

Drexel says that while it appreciates the William Penn Foundation’s “public suggestion that it assist in temporarily keeping the Academy’s museum open,” they have “not received a formal proposal with a defined level of financial support.” – Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

The new co-artistic directors are Ericka Ratcliff, most recently literary manager at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and longtime Lookingglass ensemble member David Catlin. Another longtime member, Philip R. Smith, will be executive director, while Schwimmer takes the new position of producing director, focusing on fundraising, marketing, board development and finding co-producing partners. – Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)

She will be the artistic director, with Matthew Principe as executive director and creative strategist, of VOX Detroit, which will produce concerts of — as Goerke describes it — “opera, cabaret, musical theatre, song, recital, spoken word, and whatever wonderful things happen to fall in between.” – Detroit Free Press

“Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of Art will begin striking on Monday, October 5, if they cannot reach a contract agreement with the museum, Local 2110 UAW announced. … (That’s) only three days before member and press previews open for the museum’s major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective (the show opens to the public October 11).” – ARTnews

“The decision follows months of discussions between the Government, museums, the tourism sector and local leaders to examine whether charging tourists from abroad could boost the institutions’ finances. … Free entry to museums was introduced by Sir Tony Blair’s government in 2001.” – The Independent (UK)

“UTA, which represents the Globe, has been fielding inquiries about potential adaptations for the article” — headlined “A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose.” — “both in the scripted space and the documentary sphere.” – The Hollywood Reporter

The award, established by the estate of the silent film stars, is given for “an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” Among previous winners are Gustavo Dudamel, Isabelle Allende, Merce Cunningham, Ava DuVernay, Laurie Anderson, Tricia Brown, Maya Lin, and Meredith Monk. – AP

“The Nashville Symphony has declared a state of ‘financial emergency,’ suspending the 2026-27 season effective Oct. 18, as well as furloughing roughly half their staff and all 77 members of the orchestra. At this time, 29 full-time Symphony staff members remain, while 27 were furloughed.” – The Tennessean (Yahoo!)

Middle schoolers barred from most social media turned the Spotify comments under an episode of NPR’s Wild Card into a group chat. Showrunner Dave Blanchard deleted the posts as bot gibberish until one replied, “so it deleted my com” (The Verge).

A new definition of artist? Es Devlin, the designer behind two Olympic ceremonies and two Super Bowl halftime shows, opens a 30-year retrospective at London’s Design Museum on October 2; she took her self-description, “everythingist,” from the Russian designer Natalia Goncharova (The Guardian).

Arts-management professor E. Andrew Taylor lists who was supposed to oversee the Kennedy Center — Congress, the trustees, the IRS, the courts — and finds most of them answering to a president who chairs the board Judge Christopher Cooper called “derelict” in May (The Conversation).

NAZA, a documentary built on 24 anonymous Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers describing Gaza targeting, had its New York premiere with protesters and an LED-screen truck outside, as its directors face Netanyahu’s threat to strip their citizenship (The Guardian). Eight independent bookstores, including Firestorm Books in Asheville, wrote the American Booksellers Association that a memo on “domestic terrorism” could reach them: in the Prairieland protest case, prosecutors called a printer and a book club “material support” (Lit Hub).

The Mighty Sparrow, the “Calypso King of the World,” has died at 91.