Hamilton has cancelled scheduled performances at the Kennedy Center due to President Trump’s takeover of the Center. In the notice of cancellation, the producer stated that institutions such as the Kennedy Center are sacred and should be protected from politics.
A proposed Florida bill would create a loophole allowing employers to avoid paying minimum wage. The bill, which has cleared the Commerce and Tourism Committee, would exempt internships, apprenticeships, and similar programs from the minimum wage requirements in the Florida Constitution. Florida’s current minimum wage is $13 per hour.
IATSE has reached an agreement with the Atlantic Theater Company. The crew voted in February 2024 in favor of union representation and the first-time agreement includes significant wage increases and a comprehensive benefits package. If ratified, this would be the first union contract at a for-profit theater off-Broadway.
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner threatened to terminate the lease of O Cinema after the movie theater began screening No Other Land. The documentary about the life of Palestinian residents in the West Bank won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. O Cinema currently leases Old City Hall from the city.
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ASCAP posted a record-breaking $1.8 billion in revenue in 2024. This is the highest amount in ASCAP’s history, and is a 5.7 percent increase over the previous year.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is asking the U.S. Government to relax “overly burdensome laws” governing use of copyrighted material for training artificial intelligence models. OpenAI has been sued in the past over copyright infringement, as many models have been trained on human work without informing the original creators or obtaining their consent.
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The San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music are pausing their Emerging Black Composers project after receiving a memo from the U.S. Department of Education. The project was launched in 2020 with the goal of commissioning ten works from Black American composers over a ten-year period. In its first five years, the project has commissioned seven works. The pause was due to federal cuts in diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
The Milwaukee Symphony has received $5 million from Ellen and Joe Checota. The award is a challenge grant and is meant to help grow the Symphony’s endowment fund.