Art is a source of community pride
Kris Vagner, thanks for the informative and positive editor’s note on art in the Reno community (“Money spent on the arts isn’t wasted,” RN&R, May 2025).
It is important, as you say, for art to flourish in a community because of the dollars it brings in. And it is important for a community’s pride and sense of itself, for the influence that art has on the human psyche.
Reno’s Nevada Museum of Art is a fabulous place, run by courageous and creative people. Like Reno itself, it shows off where it lives. Reno is a town full of unusual art. (The astonishing Burning Man art that pops up everywhere.) Reno invites all travelers with the freeway art celebrating Indigenous people, native flora and fauna, and Nevada rock piled and landscaped for our joy.
Thanks for the phrase about how art works—“that has kept you holding on in hard times.” It touched me. You’re a good writer. This particular “note,” a piece of art in itself, should be handwritten, framed and hung in the art museum.
Colleen O’Brien, Sparks
Up with musical theater!
Extensive research shows that musical theater is a distinct and unique category of performing arts. Scholarly articles from experts in musical theater, psychoanalysis, computer science and journalism have all approached the same conclusion: Musical theater has developed independently from other plays, and will continue to advance in new, unpredictable and fascinating ways.
COVID-19 hit theaters very hard, and many shows worldwide were forced to close. Local theaters also had to close down for COVID, and while they have reopened by now, the pandemic has left lasting cultural impacts that can’t be measured as easily.
I encourage you, if you read this, to get involved! Reno has such a diverse crew of people who put their whole hearts into the theaters here. There’s always a venue and show for everyone. Watch a show, and you might even start a lifelong love of the theater, like I did.
This summer, I’ll be volunteering at the Reno Little Theater to be a part of the growing community. I hope to see you in the audience!
Nathanael Hsu, Reno
Liberals’ pretension helped Trump get elected
As much as I dislike the “Orange Man” and all he stands for, I have come to the realization of just why it is that he is in office again. I only need to look in the mirror, and the answer presents itself: It is people like me, a lifelong Democrat, who have put him there.
For far too many years, we liberals have preached and not listened, condescended to those who we perceive as our lessors, and insisted that our views are the only views. Despicable, deplorable, detestable, damnable and a few other “D” words that I can’t recall, are what Hillary Clinton called Trump’s supporters the first time around. What hubris.
Well, “them people” finally figured out that they, too, have a voice—which the rest of us have been disregarding, marginalizing and demeaning. I recall Nancy Pelosi blathering about how “elections have consequences” a few years back. Well, she really nailed it. But, like far too many of her fellow Dems, she hangs on way past her “due date.” Witness the humiliating spectacle of Sleepy Joe fumbling his way through his first, and mercifully only debate.
The Democratic Party has utterly lost its way and has no clue how to find it again. In some important races, it does not even field candidates. The Trumpkins have gained the upper hand, and there is precious little that can be done to stop their juggernaut. Trump has said he wants a third term, and what will he call himself? “Chancellor,” perhaps?
At no time since the Civil War has the country been so fragmented and close to decomposing. Whose fault is this? Just look in the mirror and ask the question, Mr. Know-It-All.
Geoffrey Lynn Giles, Reno