Hurry for Harry: city readers snap up memoir

Only 10 days into the new year, and the crew at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location was having a royally busy day.

A lion roars on Broadway as box office hauls reveal winners

NEW YORK (AP) — It was feast or famine at the Broadway box office as 2022 wound down, with eye-popping revenue for popular shows — including a staggering new Broadway record for “The Lion King” — not lifting all strugglers.

Twenty-one of the 33 shows available broke the $1 million mark for the week ending Sunday, and “The Lion King” made history with the biggest haul ever — an astonishing $4,315,264 over nine performances for a 25-year-old show with no stars. It took the crown from "Hamilton, the first Broadway show to crack $4 million, which it did with eight performances at the end of 2018.

“The Music Man” was close behind with two high-wattage stars in Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman — $3,971,531 over nine shows — followed by “Wicked” with $3,152,679. The top average ticket price went to “The Music Man” with $285.80, just about a dollar more than “The Lion King.”

All shows bar one — “A Christmas Carol” — saw their numbers grow over the week ending Sunday. However, the usual bump was barely evident for “Topdog/Underdog,” with just $345,567 over eight shows, and “Ohio State Murders” pulling in just $311,893 to a half-empty theater over nine performances despite the presence of six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. A revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy “Between Riverside and Crazy” starring the rapper Common pulled in just $260,085.

Zambonis, Whistle Dogs and banana meatloaf

Time flies when you’re writing hundreds of stories on tight deadlines. The Free Press arts and life team wrote a lot of words about a whole lot of things in 2022. Before we turn the page on another year, we wanted to revisit some of our favourite stories from the last 365 days.

We had it covered: 2022 in arts coverage, all wrapped up

Free Press Arts Wrapped

Fête to mark 50 years of music that ‘put the accent’ on Manitoba

A francophone band that honours Louis Riel and got its start at the 1972 Festival du Voyageur marks its 50th anniversary tonight.

Live and in person

It was the year of the Big Exhale.

Taking notes on a year of music

As is our December tradition, the Free Press’s trio of freelance album reviewers — John Kendle, Keith Black and Holly Harris — have pored over a year’s worth of listening to and writing about music to bring you their top 10 picks for 2022. From fresh new acts to established artists, there’s something here for every ear.

Burton Cummings Theatre now features more Burton

There is more history, and more of Burton Cummings’ history, to see at the Burton Cummings Theatre.

What’s up

New Year’s Eve gala dinner at Centro Caboto Centre

Hometown hero Cummings turns back the clock

They pulled the plug on Burton Cummings Wednesday night, but Winnipeg’s favourite 75-year-old son is alive and well and continues to rock on.

Princeton University plans Toni Morrison tribute in 2023

PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — A monthslong Toni Morrison tribute at Princeton University, where the Nobel laureate taught for 17 years, will range from music created and performed by Grammy-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant to a spring lecture series and three-day symposium featuring author Edwidge Danticat, among others.

The tribute will center on “Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory,” an exhibition drawn from her archives that will explore her creative process through manuscripts, correspondence between herself and other Black women, photographs, maps she drew while working on her acclaimed novel “Beloved," rare drafts of her novel “Song of Solomon” and various unfinished projects. The exhibit runs at the Princeton University Library from Feb. 22 to June 4.

“In imagining this initiative — from exhibition to symposium to partner projects — I wanted to show the importance of the archive to understanding Morrison’s work and practice. But I also wanted to show how this archive in particular is a site that opens up new lines of inquiry and inspires new kinds of collaboration," said curator Autumn Womack, assistant professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton, in a statement released Wednesday.

Morrison, who died in 2019 at age 88, was also known for such novels as “Sula," “The Bluest Eye” and “Jazz." She won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

New museum aims to preserve Yoruba culture

One man’s desire to protect the slow death of his native language and culture has led to the opening of a unique museum in Winnipeg.

Guess Who frontman rings in new year, celebrates 75 with two shows at theatre bearing his name

The cold winds of Moose Jaw in December 2022 are galaxies away from Hollywood’s glamorous nightclub scene in 1972.