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- Hadestown Opened to $10.2 Million in Cinemas
Good Morning,
Hadestown took $10.2 million in North American cinemas its opening weekend, the biggest ever for a filmed stage show, ahead of Hamilton (also double what Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook movie update took in). Director Brett Sullivan shot it live at London’s Lyric Theatre with the Broadway principals, then added no-audience studio sessions for the close-ups (ArtsHub).
In Havana, Impulso Teatro, a company working in a converted Vedado mansion, now plays with no electricity or sound system, and candles outside the door, because neighborhood blackouts approach 24 hours a day. Director Linda Soriano told her 14 actors they could stay home, but 88-year-old Carlos Perez keeps coming (Reuters).
Steve Reich, now 90, tells the Times he has just written one of his best pieces in years (The New York Times).
When Mysterious Tech Studio streamed Mystery of Osu Land, billed as the first photorealistic AI-generated feature in Yoruba, the crowd crashed the host platform’s servers (Variety) – Africa’s into AI, apparently.
Getty Images will file Chapter 11 and go private with Koch money; it says iStock faces “declining agency demand and disruption,” while its editorial photography is projected to grow from $369 million to $400 million by 2029 (The Hollywood Reporter). This from the dominant image licensor on the planet.
South Carolina’s Arts Commission voted 5-3 on October 1 to deny grants to the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus and Spartanburg’s Proud Mary Theatre Company. Its chair, Flavia Harton, has since resigned, and so has Rip Parks, who had written in June that he “could not defend these programs to concerned legislators” (The Post and Courier).
All of the stories we collected below.
- Was This The First-Ever Mirror-Selfie?
Okay, not the first painted self-portrait, but a photo taken by Mia Jackson (younger sister of early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and grandmother of Virginia Woolf) sometime in the late 1850s is evidently the oldest known image in which the camera is deliberately aimed at the subject in a mirror. – Artnet
- Who Are The Most-Faked Artists?
Art trickery can get tricky. And yet it persists. Some experts estimate that around half of the secondary art market consists of forgeries and misattributions. – ARTnews
- As Electricity Failures Drag On, Theatre Companies In Havana Perform By Candlelight
“Since January, when the US imposed a fuel blockade in a bid to upend the communist-run government, (Cubans) have had to contend with blackouts spanning days. … On a recent Friday evening, …candles flickered outside the theater hall, while the inside was lit by an array of rechargeable lights in all shapes and sizes.” – Reuters
- Think You Can Spot AI Writing? Probably Not
A question that is turning us all into different kinds of readers—skeptical, antagonistic, and less willing to give our fellow humans the benefit of the doubt. Trying to figure out what AI writing looks like is turning writer and reader into adversaries. And I’m going to tell you why. – The Walrus
- Non-Fiction Is In Trouble?
What if, like a thumb on the scales tipping debut novels toward more favourable outcomes, nonfiction’s bleaker fate was also a product of accumulated choices—choices about where the money goes and how the story of these books gets told? – The Walrus
- Is “Hadestown” Proof Live Theatre Works In Movie Theatres?
Hadestown has already surpassed Hamilton for the highest grossing opening weekend for a live theatre film in North America, bringing in $10.2-million USD during its debut weekend. – ArtsHub
- Book-Banning In US Schools Reached Record High In 2025-26
“PEN recorded nearly 12,000 instances of book banning affecting 7,370 unique titles across 114 U.S. school districts during the 2025-26 academic year, a record high since PEN began tracking literary censorship in American public schools in 2021.” The “vast majority” of the bans were in Texas and Florida. – Publishers Weekly
- African Filmmakers Pile Into AI, But Not Without Bumps
The episode felt somehow symbolic for this moment in the history of AI in Africa, where excitement over the technology’s transformative potential for the continent’s filmmakers often runs counter to the practical realities on the ground. – Variety
- Richard Tognetti On 50 Years Of The Australian Chamber Orchestra
While the ACO is perhaps best known, outside Australia at least, for its championing of new music alongside the classics, at home it’s Tognetti’s openness to music from other genres, and the rich cross-fertilisation that results, for which he’s equally celebrated. – Gramophone
- Why King Arthur Still Resonates In Our Popular Culture
Arthur and the chivalric culture he evokes remain part of our cultural lexicon, as shown by his continued reimagining in popular media. – Jstor
- The New York City Ballet Star Who’s Retiring After An Actual Near-Death Experience
Two years ago, Adrian Danchig-Waring suffered a herniated disc which ended up completely dissolving into fluid, and an epidural injection led to a severe bacterial infection. He lost 25 pounds and the ability to walk. Then he made a deal with the universe … – The New York Times
- Seattle Artists Make A Case For Funding From City’s Public Safety Budget
What matters most is how they made the case. They didn’t ask Seattle to support the arts because culture enriches a city. They asked the city to treat arts and culture as public safety infrastructure. – Return on Art (LinkedIn)
- Getty Images To Declare Bankruptcy And Go Private
After abandoning a $3.7 billion merger with rival Shutterstock in late June over a regulatory roadblock, Getty Images now plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and go private in partnership with Charles Koch’s investment firm. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Music Distribution Site Distrokid Removes Tracks After UMG Claims Copyright Violations
Independent artists, Sahunta tells Rolling Stone, “are unfortunately the most powerless group in the music industry. And the irony is we comprise the majority of music on streaming, yet we’re so easily taken advantage of and screwed over by these companies that claim they are for independent artists… – Rolling Stone
- Two SC Arts Commission Members Resign Following Denial Of Grants To LGBTQ+ Groups
Russell Parks, the board member who led the effort to deny funding to two Greenville-based LGBTQ+ performing arts groups, and board chair Flavia Harton (who didn’t vote on the issue) are both leaving the Commission before their terms expire. Neither gave any reason other than time constraints. – The Post and Courier (Charleston) (Yahoo!)
- After Four Months Off The Air, PBS Programming Will Return To Western Florida Panhandle
PBS Network programming disappeared from the Pensacola-Fort Walton Beach area airwaves on July 1, when the licensee for local outlet WSRE, Pensacola State College, closed the station following loss of federal and state funding. As of November 1, new nonprofit Emerald Coast PBS will go live on WPAN channel 53. – NorthEscambia.com (Escambia County, Florida)
- Co-Star Of “Breaking Bad” And Disability Activist RJ Mitte Dead By Suicide At 34
Mitte, who had cerebral palsy, portrayed the son and namesake of protagonist Walter White on the award-winning series. – Deadline
- Steve Reich, At 90, Says He’s Just Written One Of His Best Pieces In Years
“(It’s) the kind of thing that you do when you’re younger and you’re figuring out how exactly it is that you’re going to work,” the composer said of In All Your Ways. “It’s invigorating to be 89 and say, ‘Well, this is new!’” – The New York Times
- How French Police Solved The Renoir Heist So Quickly
A lot of things went right in this investigation, starting with the fact that police arrived only four minutes after the museum’s alarm went off — and they found that the thieves had dropped two of the stolen paintings in their haste to escape. – AP
- Musicians Of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra Vote Unanimously To Approve Strike
“Since COVID, the orchestra feels that it has fallen behind some of the other Canadian orchestras and they’re not happy about it,” said a union official. “There are other odds and ends, like work schedules, but primarily it is money.” – Ottawa Citizen
- “Coolest Market In Paris” Has Burned Down
The Marché des Enfants Rouges, a covered food market in the Marais neighborhood which dates back to 1615, was “totally destroyed” in a blaze which broke out at about 3 am Monday. – The Guardian
- Sorry, But The Reading “Crisis” Isn’t One
The practice of using our eyes to create and absorb systems of language instead is so difficult and so weird, in fact, that, as best as we can tell, and as Marriott reminds us, it’s been invented no more than four times in our 300,000 years as a species. – The New Republic
- Hollywood Expects David Ellison To Fail. Will He?
With $80 billion in debt and a sprawling media empire to combine, David Ellison will have his hands full with the now court-approved combination of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery, known as Skydance. But so-called “expert” opinion has him failing before he even starts. – New York Post
- American Retirees Aren’t Spending Down Their Savings. This Is A Problem
A survey of older adults with at least $100,000 showed that only 28 percent were comfortable watching their savings taper off to cover living expenses, ostensibly exactly what the money was saved for in the first place. This is a problem—not just for retirees but for the country. – The Atlantic
- New Hammer Museum Director Envisions A New Arts District
At an institution with a fiscal operating budget of about $30.4 million, she is seeking to place educational initiatives on equal footing with exhibitions, pursuing collaborations across the city, and positioning the Hammer as the anchor of a Westside arts district. – Los Angeles Times
- Netflix Admits Using AI On More Than 300 Projects
Sung Q Lee, Netflix’s senior director of production for Asia-Pacific, said the technology was being deployed across the filmmaking process, but stressed the importance of preserving human creativity. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum Reaches Funding Deal To Stay Open
The museum, one of Europe’s most popular art institutions, had long campaigned for additional government funding for what it said were essential renovations to help preserve its more than 200 paintings and nearly 500 drawings by Vincent van Gogh. – The New York Times
- Six Of The Best First Lines In Literature
A novel’s first line is saddled with an extraordinary responsibility: to not only establish a story’s start but also to impart with indelible effect the writer’s voice. – The Atlantic
- The Hidden World Of Art Logistics
“Art logistics is the vital, invisible backbone of the global art market.” – The New York Times
- Why Are National Anthems Always Orchestral?
More to the point, why are some of them so dire? There’s no comparison between God Save the King and La Marseillaise; one’s a dirge, the other makes me want to march to the barricades. – The Guardian
- Should The Paris Opera Remove Chagall’s Work In Favor Of The Original Dome Art?
A relative of the 19th century artist whose work is under Chagall’s says oui: Jules-Eugène Lenepveu “was specifically chosen to decorate the opera ceiling by Charles Garnier, who designed everything in the opera house right down to the last door knob.” – The Guardian (UK)
- The Oregon Guy Behind Goofy And Bozo The Clown
Pinto Colvig, who got his first job as a clown when he was 12 and visiting the Lewis & Clark Centennial Expo in Portland, also voiced Grumpy and Sleepy, and a whole host of other characters. – OPB
- Previewing The Met’s Lincoln In The Bardo
“‘Wild scene,’ the writer George Saunders said, a little wide-eyed, after witnessing a portion of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lincoln in the Bardo unfold.” – The New York Times
- If Bookshops Make Ninety Percent Of People Happier, What’s Going On For The Ten Percent?
“One crime bookshops have been getting away with for years is their blatant role in incentivising the creation of ‘TBR’ (to-be-read) piles.” – Irish Times