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A New Documentary Lets Its Conductors Shine

And they're all women. Director Maggie Contreras: "When you asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, John Williams was my answer. I would wave the wooden spoon wanting to be him. I didn’t have a Marin Alsop to name." - The New York Times

The Return Of The Large Broadway Orchestra

Sure, David Byrne is trying to make do with no orchestra in his show, but check out Sweeney Todd, Camelot, and Some Like It Hot. Philippa Soo, who plays Guinevere, says "she feels supported by the big orchestra, not just musically, but dramatically." - NPR

How IP Ruins Most Movies

Yes, even ones that have nothing to do with Marvel or DC, like Barbie. And yet: The newest animated Spider-Man has figured out a way around the high walls of the IP garden. "There’s no house style to match, because there’s no house." - Slate

Women Directors Outnumber Men At This Year’s Tribeca

That's a first, and it's not reflected in larger films. Still, "the news from Tribeca suggests that a more equitable future is possible, particularly because its roster relies heavily on newcomers likely to continue creating films." - The New York Times

The Actors Concerned About Generative AI Are All Too Correct To Be Worried

"It’s not hard to imagine a future in which a wide-eyed actor signs up for one season of a vampire TV show, and then two seasons later their AI replacement busts out of a coffin. Meanwhile, they receive no additional compensation." - Wired

Will This Year’s Emmys Finally Show Some Love To Latina And Latino Actors?

I mean, we're talking about Pedro Pascal, here, people. And Selena Gomez, Diego Luna, and Jenna Ortega. Before this year, the only - only! - Latinx actor to win a lead actor Emmy was Jimmy Smits. - Variety

Production Design For The Barbie Movie Wiped Out A Global Supply Of Pink Paint

Not a joke. To be fair, the pandemic's supply chain issues, plus the 2021 Texas deep freeze, created a shortage on their own - but still, as filming went on, "there was just enough to continue production." - Los Angeles Times

Ghanaian Author And Playwright Ama Ata Aidoo, 81

Ata Aidoo, "as well as being a writer and university professor, also served as Ghana’s education minister in the early 1980s; she resigned when she could not make education free." - The Guardian (UK)

Old-School Romanian Pottery Has Suddenly Become A Hot Commodity

A Romanian-born owner of a London design store says "the décor industry is fond of artisanal work right now, adding that if it’s 'obscure' — she used air quotes — that was even better." So that's great for Horezu. - The New York Times

The Hollywood Writers’ Strike Is Going Strong, One Month In

There was a K-Pop themed strike day, and the writers have also held "singles events, Greta Gerwig appreciation day, Pride and drag queen day, and reunions for writers of shows such as E.R. and the various Star Trek series." That all keeps morale up. - NPR

Don’t Learn To Code

"Computers that we can all 'program,' computers that don’t require specialized training to adjust and improve their functionality and that don’t speak in code: That future is rapidly becoming the present." - The New York Times

In The UK, A Statue Of A Black Woman Was Painted White By A Vandal

But the artist invited the entire seaside community of Bexhill to help fix the damage and restore the statue. "More than 300 volunteers ... queued along the promenade to help restore the bronze sculpture." - The Observer (UK)

The Best Time To See A Movie Is Before Lunch

"If the life wisdom espoused by self-improvement columns and my grizzled colleagues was 'Do the hardest thing first,' I was taking the opposite approach. I was beginning my day doing the most pleasurable thing. It was, quite literally, an eye-opener." - The Atlantic

Life After The Master: A Steven Sondheim Protege

“We did this workshop,” Foley told me. “And he came to see it, and . . . he did not like it. It was a really awful experience, because everybody was, like, What did Sondheim think? What did Sondheim think? And . . . I had to lie. - The New Yorker

Composer Kaija Saariaho, 70

She first came to notice in contemporary classical circles in the 1980s with atmospheric modernist music which frequently incorporated electronics; she achieved stardom with the 2000 opera L'Amour de loin, once called "the first great opera of the 21st century." She had kept secret a 2021 diagnosis of brain cancer. - BBC

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