Arts & Culture

NEW YORK — A revival of Aaron Sorkin's military courtroom drama 'A Few Good Men' was scheduled to open Thursday, October 29, at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. Previews began October 8. Michael Arden directs. The cast includes Bradley Whitford, Tom Blyth and Krysta Rodriguez. Sorkin's play centers on a corruption case inside the U.S. military. Theatre Development Fund lists the engagement as running through January 10, 2027. The opening continues a fall season heavy on star-driven revivals. Others on the calendar include 'Awake and Sing!', and Rosamund Pike in 'Inter Alia', which opens at the Music Box on December 1, per Playbill's schedule. Critics' notices had not yet appeared at the time of writing.

LONDON — The London Museum will open to the public on November 28 in the restored General Market at Smithfield. The Victorian building has been unused for more than 30 years. Londonist reports admission will be free. The museum calls the project one of Europe's largest cultural infrastructure schemes. A social hub called Our Time will hold 13 large installations, including the Lord Mayor's Coach and Syd's Coffee Stall. Underground galleries called Past Time trace the city from prehistory through the Roman period, the Great Fire and the Blitz. The Cheapside Hoard will also be shown. Other November openings include Tate Britain's 'Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury' (November 12), the National Gallery's 'Van Eyck: The Portraits' (November 21) and Nan Goldin at the Hayward Gallery (November 24).

TRENTON, N.J. — Baker & Taylor, the library book wholesaler that shut down in late 2025, presented a liquidation plan and financial disclosure at an October 28 hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. Its liquidation analysis puts total assets at about $6.6 million, with an estimated liquidation value of roughly $1.67 million. Post-petition debt is about $10.2 million, so nothing would be left for unsecured creditors. Those creditors include Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins, which were owed tens of millions when the company filed in March. Approved creditors have until 4 p.m. Eastern on December 1 to vote. Law360 reported that the judge allowed vote solicitation to begin ahead of a December confirmation hearing. The company closed after a sale to ReaderLink fell through, because the buyer would not take on its debt.

NEW YORK — The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History named Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson winner of its thirteenth annual Military History Prize. The award is for 'The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780,' published by Crown. It is the second volume of his Revolution Trilogy and covers the war's middle years, including Valley Forge and the southern campaign. The prize carries $50,000. The jury, chaired by Michael S. Neiberg, praised the book's archival depth and its attention to the costs borne by soldiers, civilians, loyalists, enslaved laborers and Indigenous peoples. The two other finalists, chosen from 106 submissions, were John A. Haymond's 'Black Soldiers, White Laws,' from Atlantic Monthly Press, and Stephen R. Platt's 'The Raider,' from Knopf. A celebration is set for December 1 at the Yale Club in New York.

LOS ANGELES — Screenwriter Simon Stephenson, who has a story credit on Pixar's 'Luca', sued director Alexander Payne in California federal court on Wednesday. He alleges that the Oscar-nominated 'The Holdovers' was built on his unproduced script 'Frisco', which reached the 2013 Black List. The complaint says Payne read it in 2013 and again in 2019, then passed on it. It claims the film swapped a children's hospital for a boarding school and kept the story's structure and individual exchanges. It counts 46 corresponding incidents, 24 of them in the same order. Defendants include writer David Hemingson, producer Mark Johnson, Miramax and Focus Features. Stephenson seeks unspecified damages and an injunction. He first raised the claim with the Writers Guild in 2024, which said it could not rule on copyright. Payne has publicly dismissed the accusation and has cited the 1935 French film 'Merlusse' as an inspiration. None of the allegations has been tested in court.

LONDON — BAFTA has begun an independent review of whether past guest-ticket arrangements for its trustees broke UK charity law. At the academy's annual meeting on Monday, Michael Pritchett, chair of its membership council, said trustees had received free tickets for themselves and a guest to its film, television and games awards, possibly for up to 20 years. He said a second ticket at the film awards sells for about £2,000. He added that the accounts say trustees received no benefits, and that legal advice he paid for suggests offences under the Charities Act and Companies Act may have occurred. He also raised possible unpaid tax. BAFTA says it ended trustees' plus-one tickets in 2025 and still defends complimentary tickets for trustees themselves. Outgoing chair Sara Putt said BAFTA's own lawyers had a fuller picture. The Charity Commission says it is assessing information. No violation has been established, and the review is expected to report within weeks.

LISBON — Maria João Pires, the Portuguese pianist, is reported to be returning to the recording studio. She retired from the concert stage about 11 months ago after a small stroke. Slipped Disc published photographs on Oct. 21 showing her rehearsing for recording sessions at the Belgais Centre for the Arts. She founded the performing complex in the eastern Beira-Baixa region. The site reports that Pires now says she intends to make some recordings. The report rests on that one outlet. No label, repertoire or release date has been announced, and no second source confirms it. Pires is among the most admired Mozart, Schubert and Chopin interpreters of her generation.

WARSAW — The Polish National Opera gave the world premiere of Mothers of Kherson, a new Ukrainian opera, at the Teatr Wielki's Moniuszko Hall on Oct. 16. Bachtrack's Peter Quantrill called it an outstanding premiere that brings both tragedy and hope to the stage, and said it issues an urgent call to action. He credited director Barbara Wysocka's staging with reconciling the work's competing aesthetic tensions. The cast includes Valerii Zadorozhnyi, Wojciech Parchem, Tomasz Madej, Rafał Żurek and Paweł Trojak. Characters include a Belarusian border guard, a Belarusian air traffic controller, a Russian border guard and a camp guard. The review, published Oct. 17, is the main account found so far of the production. The Polish company has also staged Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten this year.

NEW YORK — Dmitry Yudin, the 21-year-old Russian pianist who won the 18th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, has joined Sheldon Artists for general management, according to The Violin Channel. Slipped Disc reported the signing on Oct. 21. Yudin took first prize after the final round in Tel Aviv on Sept. 8. He played Bartók's Second Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic under Yoel Levi. The prize carries $40,000 and a further $10,000 career fund, according to Moto Perpetuo. Uladzislau Khandohi of Belarus and Jinhyung Park of South Korea shared second prize, and Ukraine's Roman Fediurko took third. The first two stages were held at the Kronberg Academy in Germany in spring. Yudin studied at Moscow's Gnessin School and the Manhattan School of Music, and took second prize at the 2024 Géza Anda Competition.