Tracy Young: “I’ve seen nothing to counter the notion that Shakespeare was a populist. All about the people, and the audience’s kind of theater guy. … That to me was the real affirmation of why Play on Shakespeare is worthy. I have no complicated feelings about the rightness or wrongness of it.” - TheaterMania
“Beginning January 1, 2026, major French museums — including the Louvre and the Château de Versailles — will charge non-European Union visitors €30 (about $35), up from €22 ($25). …The new pricing, described as a ‘differential tariff,’ marks a sharp turn in France’s long-professed commitment to universal access to culture. It’s also triggered a domino effect.” - ARTnews
At the preshow, “Buena Vista Social Club, a musical about a Cuban band, picked up awards for choreography, sound design and orchestrations, while Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the Netflix series, won for sound, lighting and scenic design.” - The New York Times
“Singing robots. Undead frenemies. A dead train robber, and a dying cave explorer. A fumbling group of spies, and a bumbling group of pirates. Also: Hamilton.” - The New York Times
And that’s thanks to us, the great unwashed movie audience: He "explained that he found himself too distracted by the chat and mobile-phone disturbance from the audience to concentrate on the film.” - The Guardian (UK)
"The pressures that deformed the news in Murrow’s day have only grown more intense, and its defenses weaker. The last line of protection is those people sitting in the dark, watching George Clooney remind them what they have to do.” - Slate
“Operators aimed the dish at Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away. Traveling at the speed of light, the music was expected to overtake Voyager 1 within 23 hours.” - Seattle Times (AP)
Maybe - but no sarcasm, please. "We already have umpteen animated takedowns – Robot Chicken’s fever-dream dismemberments, Family Guy’s fart-laced remakes – and they’re fine, in their way.” But not from the franchise itself. - The Guardian (UK)
At Madrid’s Bernabéu Stadium, dozens of music gigs took place in 2024 - until September, when everything came to a (non-screeching) halt when the stadium’s neighbors sued over the noise. - BBC
John McWhorter: “Sitting through a three-or-more-hour performance in a language we don’t understand is a peculiar cultural phenomenon, ... and it’s a big part of what keeps opera from reaching more people. ... The composers of yore had their works translated ... because they wanted audiences to understand what they were hearing." - The New York Times
The countertenor/company director allows as how yes, ticket revenue under the policy fell from 8% to 4% of the company’s budget — and then he runs through the ways in which the policy has brought newcomers to try out an art form which the wider world sees as elitist and uninteresting. - Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)
“The United States is the country with which Mexico has co-produced the most films. In 2024, at least 21 films featured collaborations with artists from both countries” - but tariffs definitely threaten that number. - El País
This might be a difference in purpose, but “whatever you think of the advent of romantasy onto the SFF scene, be assured that it isn’t a problem to be solved.” - Reactor
"Emmy voters like to reward series that are very clearly About Something, like commercialism or wealth or artistic genius or what a millennial is, and spy shows are not a genre I think viewers are trained to think of as being thematically dense.” - Vulture (MSN)
