David Finkle, 12/10/12

Writer, Drama Critic

Al Pacino deserves a great big hand for his performance in the Glengarry Glen Ross revival. Whether he was aware of it or not, in some lip-smacking press coverage he was the victim of quite a pre-opening drubbing for deficient preview performances.

Dan Rather, 12/10/12

Host, 'Dan Rather Reports'

Caught my old friend Billy Joe Shaver's gig last week at New York's "Hill Country." What a hoot. Shear down-home grit, grin, groan and guzzle, Texas style. Only thing missing was the chicken wire.

Michael Kaiser, 12/10/12

President, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

It is not uncommon to read about huge deficits and cancelled seasons. Not surprisingly, orchestras are suffering the most. This has left many suggesting that we need new models for running arts organizations and others looking for draconian cuts.

Andrew Horwitz, 12/10/12

Founder, Culturebot.org

What better site to explore the shifting modes of perception and the drastic transformations in our experience of time and space than the largely abandoned administrative facilities of the James A. Farley Post Office and future home of Moynihan Station?

K. Lorrel Manning, 12/10/12

Writer and director, Happy New Year

The research for the film began to have an effect on me. Pretty soon, I found myself having trouble falling asleep. As I replayed certain events that had been revealed to me over and over in my head, I began to see images from my own childhood.

George Heymont, 12/10/12

San Francisco-based arts critic

While Shirley Jones did none of the scooping some performers rely on late in their careers, her hit-and-miss approach to many phrases was the aural equivalent of watching a pilot try to land a plane in strong crosswinds. No skid marks, but many moments of alarm and uncertainty.

Daniel Grant, 12/10/12

Arts Writer

To prosper as an artist, career counselors to visual artists continually advise that one has to devote as much serious attention to the business aspects of this work as creating it. To some people, the business part of art may take precedence over anything else.

Saul Sudin, 12/10/12

Filmmaker

Today, the communal lifestyles of Jews are evolving and changing unlike anything in the last several centuries. Many synagogues and community centers are scrambling to figure out how to connect to a younger generation that is more transient and globally minded than ever before.

John Seed, 12/07/12

Professor of Art and Art History, Mt. San Jacinto College

There is a reason that every graphic software has "brush" tools: it is because technology is trying very, very hard to emulate the subtlety of expression that only a physical brush applied a human hand to actual materials can truly offer.

Fern Siegel, 12/10/12

Deputy Editor, MediaPost

This is the first major New York revival of Jonson's masterwork Volpone in 50 years, and it's staged with flair. What's better than seeing the amoral rich get their comeuppance?

Nick Kolakowski, 12/09/12

Editor and freelance writer

An intellectual always wants to craft a clear and truthful work, one that presents their ideas in the best possible light, even if it means endless revamps and tweaks.

James Sims, 12/09/12

Senior Editor, BroadwayWorld.com

For Broadway, it isn't so much about a specific voice -- let's call it the Marketing Mamet Effect -- rather it's a tone that drives social strategy.

Cecile R. Ganteaume, 12/09/12

Curator, Circle of Dance, National Museum of the American Indian

Despite great odds, dance remains a vibrant, meaningful and diverse form of cultural expression in many Native communities throughout the Americas.

Bess Rowen, 12/09/12

Ph.D Student, Department of Theatre, CUNY, the Graduate Center

My previous history with The Flea Theater's commitment to the various periods and themes of their plays already had me looking forward to Restoration Comedy. I'm happy to say that The Bats and the artistic personnel at The Flea surpassed my high expectations.

John M. Eger, 12/08/12

Van Deerlin Endowed Chair of Communications and Public Policy and Director of the Creative Economy Initiative, San Diego State University

More neuroscientists, psychologists, educators and others are finding that the arts help nurture the right hemisphere of the brain, and is exactly what the more left brained curriculum needs to create the new thinking skills leading to creativity.

John Lundberg, 12/09/12

Writer, Poetry teacher

A poetry row in the UK last month led to a victory for verse in the country's public schools when the UK's Department of Education awarded a half million pound grant (about $800,000) to the "Poetry by Heart" national recitation competition.

Brian Horay, 12/07/12

Classical Music Blogger

Instead of simplistic, romantic notions of war draped in patriotic glory, the listener encounters a more difficult and nuanced 20th-century musical landscape of existential questions, gruesome descriptions, defiant submissions and cold dissonance.