Come Fly with Me , “previously announced for a world preem at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater this fall, will launch a national tour next summer. Beyond that, producers

Matthew VanBesien, the 39-year-old executive director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, is leaving his post at the end of the year for a similar job with the Melbourne Symphony. Among the challenges he’ll face in his new job are the 18-month renovation of the orchestra’s concert hall and hiring a successor to departing chief conductor Oleg Caetani. The Age (Melbourne) 08/12/09

“A perceived split between Off Broadway’s MCC Theater and the org’s longtime writer-in-residence Neil LaBute appears to amount to little more than a production delayed for scheduling reasons. A previously announced staging of LaBute’s play ‘The Break of Noon’ did not appear as part of MCC’s recent announcement of its 2009-10 season, spurring speculation in print that LaBute and MCC … were parting ways.” Variety 06/17/09

The recent 10-day Muslim Voices festival in New York aimed to expand understanding of Muslim culture. “Yet nothing in the festival could ultimately fulfill the organizers’ agenda, because they presented as examples of Muslim-culture artforms that mostly Western or Westernized Muslims consume. How many Americans will believe — and why should they? — that any of this reveals the prevailing culture of the vast majority of today’s practicing Muslims?” Wall Street Journal 06/17/09