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- La Scala has made its streaming free
Good Morning,
Silicon Valley has discovered the theatre — not as a patron but as a training ground, with founders and engineers filing into improv classes to learn a skill that refuses to scale (The New York Times).
Listeners can’t reliably tell AI-made music from the human kind, and largely don’t care once they’re told (Washington Post).
Edinburgh’s Fringe sold 2.8 million tickets, back within sight of pre-pandemic numbers (Yahoo) — finally. AMC — an exhibitor, not a studio — is launching its own distribution company to get small films into theaters, having concluded it can’t wait for someone else to rebuild the middle (The Hollywood Reporter). And La Scala dropped the paywall on its streaming service entirely (Gramilano) — less generosity than a realization about where the value now sits.
Underneath it all, an essay on how gamification ate play (Aeon). Wendell Berry, who spent sixty years insisting some things shouldn’t be measured at all, died at 92 (AP).
And a writer on what tearing tickets taught her about beauty and changed her life (The Guardian).
All of our stories below.
- Today in Great Jobs: Casting Director Who Chooses The Series Of Actors Starring In “Oh, Mary!”
Henry Russell Bergstein: “I think all these performers that we’ve had play the role are very different. But at heart, they have a sort of … I don’t know if the word wacky and access to wackiness is the right thing, but they also all have incredible acting chops.” – NPR
- How Our Gamification Culture Kills The Spirit Of Play
The entire architecture of digital life – with its algorithmic feeds, frictionless production and the ambient expectation that we should be consuming or optimising at all times – nudges us towards chasing outputs rather than generating meaning. – Aeon
- The Star Who Injected Feminism Into Indian Classical Dance
“By the 1950s, Chandralekha was a legendary figure in (Bharatanatyam). However, she walked away from fame, rejecting the Brahminical and nationalist values that had come to shape it. … When she returned to the stage in 1984, she brought with her a radically reimagined practice — sensual, iconoclastic and uncompromisingly feminist.” – Elle India
- Putin’s Crackdown On Literature
After Mr. Putin declared all-out war on Ukraine in 2022, he unleashed a devastating crackdown on free speech. That was initially confined to criticism of the war. Over time it spread, attacking a range of cultural expression. Now, the Kremlin is placing literature squarely in its cross hairs. – The New York Times
- Publisher Announces AI Bot Assistant For Health Care Books
Elsevier announced the launch of Nora AI, an AI-powered assistant available within Elsevier e-books through VitalSource’s Bookshelf platform. Nora AI enables users to ask questions and receive personalized, evidence-based answers drawn directly from Elsevier content. – Publishers Weekly
- Is Regional Theatre Really In Trouble?
The idea has taken root that venues outside of London are in perpetual crisis. Standstill funding has affected all theatres but the retreat by local authorities from funding the arts has had a significant impact on theatres outside the capital. – The Stage
- Theft Of Renaissance Altarpiece In Sicily Confounds Investigators
“Investigative authorities have said very little on the record, but sources speaking anonymously to The Guardian and local media, as well as art historians who know the (museum in Messina) intimately, say lots of elements don’t add up, except one: the date chosen by the thieves.” – The Guardian
- Hmnnn. Evidence Listeners Don’t Seem To Care Whether Music Was Made By AI
A producer created a cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” using AI-generated vocals and drums. The remix became the most played song on Australian radio, spent 16 weeks on the charts and hit No. 1 for Australian dance singles. Traditionalists called it AI slop, but the reboot been streamed more than 48 million times. – Washington Post
- How Being A Theatre Usher Changed Me
Looking back, having lived and experienced life and now nearing 40, that place felt like a cradle. Being an usher cracked open my heart to the beauty of humans experiencing art and I had the privilege of watching along with them. – The Guardian
- Smithsonian Decides Where American Latino Museum Will Be
The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents voted Monday to house the American Latino museum, which Congress created in 2020 but which has lacked a permanent home, in the Arts and Industries Building, a 258,000-square-foot redbrick Victorian structure next to the institution’s headquarters. – Washington Post
- Could Yiddish Be Headed For A New Revival?
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of students enrolled in Yiddish-language online courses exploded – not only in the United States but also in Canada, Mexico and Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. … At the same time, organizations like the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Yiddish Book Center have pushed for a new perception of Yiddish.” – The Conversation
- Sony, Music Publishers, Sue Anthropic Over Copyright
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, and numerous other music publishers have sued Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, alleging the AI lab conducted a “brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works.” – TechCrunch
- Why Silicon Valley Has Embraced Theatre
Silicon Valley’s embrace of improvisation and theater is also part of its much bigger and more longstanding philosophical tendency to treat reality, play, perception and performance as essentially interchangeable. – The New York Times
- How Did Brooklyn’s Skyline Go So Wrong?
Two decades ago, Downtown Brooklyn was well connected but underpopulated, a combination that drew armies of fresh college graduates, quintupling the population. It’s hard to believe how thoroughly and quickly the skyline has been remade in that time—and how shoddily. – Curbed
- The Long-Growing Audiobook Market Is Turning Into A Bubble
“(The) gap between the rapid expansion in available titles and slowing revenue growth is creating new pressure across the industry. … More titles are competing for a finite amount of listening time, raising the value of established audiences and making it harder for individual projects to break through.” – TheWrap (MSN)
- Movie-Theater Giant AMC Launches Company To Distribute Indie Films
“The new label, titled Leawood Films, will distribute and market films for established and emerging filmmakers. But … the company is not necessarily aiming for blockbusters, and will instead focus on small- and medium-sized films. It will be genre-agnostic.” – The Hollywood Reporter
- City Audit Of Financially Troubled San Francisco Arts Center Is Complete
Calls for an audit of the African-American Arts and Culture Complex came after the nonprofit was consistently late with required reports on the spending of millions in city grant money. The audit found no misuse of funds but identified shortcomings with both the AAACC and the San Francisco Arts Commission. – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
- Trump Comes Out In Favor Of Federal Tax Breaks For Film And TV Production
“President Trump on Monday urged Congress to approve federal tax incentives aimed at reviving American film and television productions, saying Hollywood has been hollowed out by productions moving to Canada and other countries.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- Author Wendell Berry Is Dead At 92
“In poems, stories, novels and essays (he) celebrated the farming communities of his native (Kentucky) and warned of the excesses and misjudgments of an industrial, commercialized society.” – AP
- Edinburgh Fringe Attendance Figures Are Nearing Pre-COVID Levels
The festival sold or distributed over 2.8 million tickets in 2026, up nearly 8% from last year and approaching the 3 million sold in 2019. This despite the fact that attendance fell sharply during the festival’s final week. Saturday 17 August set an all-time record for single-day attendance — more than 164,000. – BBC (Yahoo!)
- LaScalaTV Drops Its Paywall, Is Now Free
“From Tuesday 1 September, every title in the LaScalaTV catalogue will be available to watch for free, following simple registration – a shift made possible by continued support from the platform’s Principal Sponsor, Intesa Sanpaolo.” – Gramilano (Milan)
- Summer Movie Box Office Is On The Verge Of An All-Time Record
Currently, per Rentrak, the North American box office for the first Friday in May through EOD today stands at $4.598 billion, officially the second-highest summer ever behind 2013. If this summer is going to beat 2013’s all-time high, it has $158M to gross. – Deadline
- What I Learned From China’s Robot Games
For the first hour or so, I found the Robot Games enthralling. What can robots already do, and where do they still fall short? Which robot will manage to crawl under an obstacle, and which will pitifully get stuck? But after a while, I suddenly realized that I had grown deeply bored. – Yascha Mounk
- Why Would We Fear AI Music?
It would be an understatement to say that the growing prominence of A.I. music is generating backlash—sometimes it seems this music generates nothing but backlash. – The New Yorker
- What Happens When American Universities Try To Shrink Their Way To Profitability
What’s happening to the New School is an increasingly common story across all of higher education, hit by a perfect storm of financial and political pressures. Well-paid bosses, touting fiscal crises, seek to fire their way to profitability. – Dissent
- Myles & Waldman Stalwart Performance Poets Together Again<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/08/myles-waldman-stalwart-performance-poets-together-again.html" title="Myles & Waldman
Stalwart Performance Poets Together Again“ - What Do We Want From Reviews? Judgment.
An effective review offers what the concert can’t: an extra-human perspective. By “extra-human,” I mean going beyond the experience of any one person, beyond the perspective of the reviewer and beyond the specific concert itself. – San Francisco Classical Voice
- Meet Curtis’ Youngest New Student. She’s Seven
This year Curtis will have 13 musicians entering school under the age of 18. But even at a place known for prodigies, Olivia is unusual. She is believed to be the youngest student to study at Curtis since 1950, when 6-year-old violinist Diana Halprin matriculated. – Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- “Six” To Close On Broadway After Five-Year Run
Attendance and grosses have fallen from the show’s early highs, with the show playing to 50- to 60-percent capacity this spring, but the production has seen a relatively long, healthy run on Broadway, as the 40th longest running show in its history. – The Hollywood Reporter
- The Fake Experts That AI Keeps Citing
The authors don’t actually exist, but are instead names that large language models repeatedly produce when tasked with generating experts in certain fields. – 404 Media
- Palestinian Artist Sliman Mansour, 79
In works that were by turns personal and political — vividly realistic and unsettlingly surreal — he captured and uplifted Palestinian life and history, creating art that served as a form of preservation as well as resistance. – Washington Post
- Report: Women In UK Arts Say Discrimination Is Rampant
Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. – The Guardian
- Another Study Of Violinists Sheds More Doubt On The 10,000-Hours-Of-Practice Idea
“The ‘10,000-hour rule’ is one of the most repeated ideas in popular writing about skill and success: put in 10,000 hours of practice, the story goes, and elite performance follows. … A 2019 study … redid the underlying comparison and found practice hours didn’t cleanly separate the best violinists from merely good ones.” – Science Blog
- Met Museum Calls Off John Galliano Costume Institute Show
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art is canceling its planned exhibit honoring British designer John Galliano, which had led to severe backlash in the Jewish community and beyond because of the designer’s past antisemitic and racist statements.” – AP