What are the special challenges faced by those who run arts and cultural organizations? How are they coping with the world-wide economic downturn? The 10th International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management was held last week at SMU, and one of the organizers, Krista Farber Weinstein, stopped by to discuss the challenges facing arts managers with Think host Krys Boyd.

WEATHERING THE STORM: Fort Worth Opera General Director Darren K. Woods lays out his vision for the organization in a profile in this month’s Opera News. After a lead concerning cowboys in Fort Worth (natch), Woods discusses how his decision to cut the 2009 season back by one production ultimately kept the opera on solid [...]

SELLING GUTENBERG: If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s that Amphibian Stage Productions can bring the funny. We laughed out loud at its series of videos calling for increased support of the arts. And now a new video has emerged, this time promoting its upcoming show, Gutenberg the Musical! The two-man show spoofs [...]

Texas Ballet Theater reps announced a Russian theme for the company’s new season, and that it will be debt-free at the end of the month, during an event at the preview center for the Dallas Center for Performing Arts on Thursday.
The troubled dance company, the state’s second largest, has come back from a budget deficit [...]

Guest blogger Danielle Marie Georgiou is a Dance Lecturer at the University of Texas at Arlington where she serves as the Assistant Director of the UT Arlington’s Dance Ensemble. She is also a member of Muscle Memory Dance Theatre – a modern dance collective. Danielle is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities [...]

CHANGES AT LCC: Late last week, Alejandrina Drew resigned as director of the Latino Cultural Center. Kudos to Nancy Churnin for trying to get to the bottom of her abrupt departure. In a Q&A on dallasnews.com’s East Dallas Blog, Churnin asked Drew why she left, to which Drew responds: “I’m ready to retire and enjoy [...]

Guest blogger Danielle Marie Georgiou is a Dance Lecturer at the University of Texas at Arlington where she serves as the Assistant Director of the UT Arlington’s Dance Ensemble. She is also a member of Muscle Memory Dance Theatre – a modern dance collective. Danielle is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities [...]

REMEMBERING GRETCHEN: Local playwright Gretchen Dyer died over the weekend as a heart condition she had had for 20 years finally took its toll. She was 50. Those are the cold facts. In response, another local playwright, Vicki Caroline Cheatwood, has written an incredibly warm appreciation of her friend on TheaterJones.com. Most recently, Dyer made [...]

Today in the Art&Seek Saturday Spotlight, we feature Target First Saturday at the Nasher Sculpture Center.

David A. Smith’s Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy recounts the history of federal funding of the arts since 1817 when Congress bought its first set of oil paintings. But for Dr. Smith — a senior lecturer in history at Baylor University — the decades up to the 1960s are mostly a preamble to his account of the National Endowment for the Arts. Actually, the first seven chapters of Money for Art are an extended preamble to just the NEA’s culture wars in the ’80s and ’90s. At its heart, Dr. Smith’s study is an attempt to explain that outbreak by putting it in a historical context — to explain it, learn from it and perhaps even get past it.