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- What Makes A Good Movie Adaptation?
If the art of filmmaking is inseparable from that of adaptation, it’s because almost all feature films are made by way of a fundamental form of adaptation: that of a script. – The New Yorker
- StubHub And Its Customers’ Battles For Tickets
Complaints about StubHub to the Better Business Bureau rose 47% from 2024 to 2025, and climbed 63% in the eight months leading up to the company’s September 2025 initial public offering. – The Wall Street Journal
- Intimacy Coordinator Lizzie Talbot On The Varied Tasks Her Profession Entails
“Choreographing a sea-witch straddling a man’s face until he suffocates (Widow’s Bay) is different from dramatizing the intimate moments of the 1990s’ most recognized celebrity couple (Love Story); both of those differ from creating the physical storytelling for almost every lead character across multiple sex scenes (Your Friends & Neighbors).” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- Would David Ellison Really Move Paramount Out Of California?
Ellison has most often mentioned Tennessee as a potential new headquarters, the Journal previously reported. That state is already a home to Oracle, the software giant co-founded by Ellison’s father and Paramount stakeholder Larry Ellison. – The Wall Street Journal
- How To Fix The Boston Symphony
Increasingly, symphony orchestras define excellence very narrowly. The focus is on the musical quality of the playing. This is crucial, of course. But excellence must also be measured, in part, by community penetration and buy-in. – Nightingale Sonata
- Kennedy Center Board Ponders Three Scenarios For The National Symphony
One scenario envisions the renowned 96-year-old orchestra — a fixture at the Kennedy Center — performing at “offsite alternate venues,” according to a slide deck of the budget plans obtained by Axios. – Axios
- Tower Of Colombia’s Tallest Cathedral Collapses In Earthquake
At the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, a 1939 building in the city of Manizales and the tallest neo-Gothic church in the Americas, one of the side towers toppled onto the center of the building following the 7.4 magnitude quake which struck Colombia on Monday. – The Art Newspaper
- Memory Pictures Coming In An Old Friend Is Gone Too Long<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/08/memory-pictures-coming-in-an-old-friend-is-gone-too-long.html" title="Memory Pictures Coming In
An Old Friend Is - Disastrous Finances At New York’s School Of Visual Arts, Where Enrollment Is Down By One-Third
“Amid a broad crisis in higher education in the US …, enrollment at New York’s School of Visual Arts is down some 34% since 2019, and the school faces a $22 million structural budget deficit. … SVA is largely dependent on tuition; full-time tuition is $55,270 annually for the coming school year.” – ARTnews
- Geraldine de Haas, Chicago’s “Jazz Lady,” Has Died At 91
She began her career as a singer, then became a promoter and impresario. She co-founded what started as a 1974 Duke Ellington tribute and, in 1989, became the Chicago Jazz Festival. She then created another event, which started in 1981 as the South Shore Jazz Fest and became JazzFest Heritage Weekend. – Chicago Sun-Times
- USA Today Company Employee Unions Want Management To Cancel Palantir Deal
“Just days after USA Today Co. (formerly Gannett) announced a new deal with technology company Palantir to help monetize its users’ data, unionized employees across the country are calling on the company to end the partnership.” – Poynter
- What Gustavo Dudamel Pulled Off At The L.A. Phil
“L.A. became the place that let him try just about anything. … Here is where he’s been able to experiment …, not just with the support of the orchestra but also the community. He became a symbol for an L.A. in which, as with YOLA, anything is possible.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Kennedy Center Ordered To Pay Quarter-Million To Musician It Sued For Canceling Christmas Eve Concert
“Chuck Redd hosted and performed at the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Eve concerts for years, but bowed out of last December’s planned gig, citing ‘the defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center.’ (Management) subsequently sued Redd for breach of contract, only to have the suit thrown out in June.” – Variety
- Issue That Started Two Years Of Turmoil At Dallas Black Dance Theatre Is Finally Resolved
The drama which nearly derailed the company began in April 2024, when the company members voted to unionize and the then-executive director fired them en masse. That boss has now retired, the dismissed dancers moved on, and their successors — with no resistance from management — have joined AGMA. – The Dallas Morning News (MSN)
- Culture Gets Its Nutrition Label
Good Morning,
Two companies started labeling their own output today, which tells you where the pressure is. Spotify will tag AI-generated “performers” as “AI Personas” and pull them from editorial and algorithmic recommendations (TechCrunch). Anthropic says every model released after August 2 will watermark generated text and files using the C2PA standard (TechCrunch). Neither is altruism. The harder version of that question is proving you’re human when the good bots and the bad bots look identical (The New Yorker). That’s the fascinating question Jill Lepore ponders.
Ownership, meanwhile, is consolidating faster than authorship. Ari Emanuel’s Mari, which already owns Frieze, is now buying ATG — seven Broadway houses, ten London venues, and TodayTix — for a rumored $6 billion (The Hollywood Reporter). Theatre and the art fair now have the same owner with a huge bet on culture.
The money underneath is shifting too. Public media booked $290 million from 66,000 new donors after federal funding tanked (Greater Public), and a family foundation put $5 million CDN into the Giller Prize after its bank sponsor walked (The Canadian Press). Sponsorship out, patronage in.
And front-of-house staff would like you to know that phones are the least of it (The Guardian).
All of our stories below.
- Front-Of-House Theatre Staffers Describe The Terrible Audience Behavior They Deal With
Cell phones are the least of it. Yes, of course they occasionally find people having sex in the auditorium or restrooms, but they’ve encountered things even worse. – The Guardian
- Unlocking The Mysteries Of Hegel
In both its depth and breadth, Hegel’s philosophy is perhaps rivalled only by that of Aristotle. – Psyche
- Germany’s Resurgent Far-Right Party Threatens To Defund “Anti-German” Culture
Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) stands a good chance of winning a majority in the state legislature of Saxony-Anhalt, home to the birthplaces of Martin Luther and George Frideric Handel as well as the Bauhaus. The latter is a particular target of AfD, which says it will refuse to fund “anti-German art.” – Deutsche Welle
- What The Outpouring Of Donor Support Says About The Future Of Public Media
The American public responded with an outpouring of support—contributing a jaw-dropping $290 million in new revenue. Now, we have the research to understand why that happened and, more importantly, how we turn this historic moment into a permanent foundation for public media’s future. – Greater Public
- When Is Stereotyping Useful?
Generalising comes so naturally that few of us are at any risk of undergeneralising, so we give it little thought. The focus on overgeneralising is understandable given its potential costs, such as the child assuming that a dangerous dog is just like the friendly dogs they’ve encountered to date. – Aeon
- American Universities Are In Parlous Shape. Here’s Why
Though elite colleges profess a faith in meritocracy and insist that they are engines of class mobility, in practice they reward the already rewarded. – The Nation
- Actress Siân Phillips, 93, Is (Mostly) Retiring From The Stage
After having memory issues while rehearsing a production at Chichester Festival Theatre earlier this year, the revered star is stepping away from full-scale work. She will continue giving performances of a two-person show which she’s been doing for many years and will do a short Beckett play next year. – The Times (UK)
- Why Is The New George Lucas Museum In LA Trying To Raise Money?
It is not a good look to say the least, for a billionaire museum founder to be hustling for visitors’ money. Why would Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, a successful executive in her own right who runs a large investment company, ask for any support beyond admission? – The Art Newspaper
- With Its Season In Doubt, Washington’s National Symphony Faces Existential Crisis
The orchestra’s audiences have diminished sharply since Trump took over the Kennedy Center. Those righteous liberals who think they are somehow striking back at Bad Orange Man by staying away are actually only hurting the musicians and other artists for whom the Center is a lifeline. – DC Citycast
- The Mysterious Art Of Conducting
The very act of conducting—waving a wand to summon ravishing or ethereal or earsplitting sounds—can look like either inexplicable magic or embarrassing nonsense, a kind of tuxedoed air guitar. – The Atlantic
- Looking Closely At The Original Manuscript Of A Mahler Symphony With Franz Welser-Möst
The composer’s handwritten score of his Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) was donated to the Cleveland Orchestra a few years ago, a gift which brought Welser-Möst, the organization’s longtime music director, to tears. He leads a reporter (and readers) through three pages of the manuscript which he finds especially fascinating. – The New York Times
- Spotify Will Begin Labeling AI “Personas”
Spotify will begin labeling AI-generated artists with “AI Persona” profile tags and ban their music from its editorial and algorithmic recommendations, the company announced on Tuesday. – TechCrunch
- The Complications Of Proving You’re Human
Now the problem is how to let in the good bots (like the avatar you send to the Gap to buy you a new pair of pants) and keep out the bad bots (like the thief trying to scrape the data of every Gap customer). The rest of us have to be our own bot detectors. – The New Yorker
- Anthropic Says It Will Watermark All Text And Files Created In Claude
Anthropic said that all models released after August 2 will automatically have tech to watermark both computer-generated text and files. For files, the company is using the C2PA open standard. – TechCrunch
- The Long, Delicate Process Of Getting The Bayeux Tapestry To London
The extremely careful handling of the fragile cloth and the custom-made equipment to protect the piece from vibrations while in transit weren’t the only part of the process: it was almost as complicated a project to get France to agree to the Tapestry being moved in the first place. – The Times (UK)
- ATG, Major Broadway And West End Theatre Owner, Bought By Hollywood Superagent Ari Emanuel
ATG Entertainment (originally Ambassador Theatre Group) owns seven Broadway houses, ten London venues, numerous theatres in Europe, and the discount app TodayTix. Now Emanuel’s company Mari, which owns Frieze art fairs and two large pro tennis tournaments, has agreed to acquire ATG for a rumored $6 billion. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Paramount Boss Threatens To Pull Out Of California Unless State Settles Lawsuit Against Warner Bros. Merger
“David Ellison is eager to reach a swift resolution in the antitrust case filed by 12 states seeking to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. And he’s prepared start moving Paramount out of California as soon as October unless the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, agrees to settlement talks.” – Variety
- A Look At 75 Years Of History In The Juilliard Dance Division’s Archives
“A perusal of the archives shows how rich the Dance Division’s history has been, with a roster of teachers and students that reflects the arc of American dance in the 20th century. And the curriculum, a mix of ballet and modern dance, once seen as eccentric, now is the norm.” – The New York Times
- Matthias Pintscher Appointed Music Director Of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
The German-born, New York-based composer-conductor, who is also music director of the Kansas City Symphony, succeeds Jamie Martín at the helm of the LACO as of the 2027-28 season. – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
- Canada’s Top Literary Award Broke With Its Sponsor. Now A Foundation Has Come To Its Rescue.
Early last year the Giller Prize broke ties with its longtime sponsor Scotiabank — leaving it without the means to support the C$100,000 award and other programs. Now the foundation which stepped up with C$! million in bridge funding has made a C$4 million donation to keep the Giller going longer-term. – The Canadian Press (MSN)