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Broadway Is Really Into Drag, But Why?

A new Some Like It Hot musical tries to balance painful depictions "and the rich reality of drag as art, self-expression, and everything in between. But can a revision of an old story featuring harmful stereotypes ever truly be a vehicle for authentic representation?" - The Takeaway

Arts Groups Must Innovate If They Want An Audience

The pandemic accelerated a generational shift: "Past program choices are not adequately energizing younger audiences. They want the experience to be new and different, on their feet, immersed in the experience and socially connected." - Seattle Times

Why Are British MPs Declaring War On Opera?

Their reasoning: "Patronising claptrap. So, young people will only accept opera if it’s put on in a car park. The lower orders can make do with an aria in a pub. And the rich and middle-aged have their country-house operas. It is deeply depressing." - The Independent (UK)

Maybe Ticketmaster Doesn’t Deserve All The Rage Directed At It.  (Some, But Not All.)

"Over a dozen interviews with former Ticketmaster executives, managers, economists, lawmakers, antitrust experts, fans and industry insiders, many agreed that Ticketmaster is enormous and largely unaccountable to fans. But, they said, it is also a mostly effective business with few peers capable of operating at its scale." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

The Ambitious Second Novel Of Nigerian Author Ayobami Adebayo

Adébáyò's first novel, Stay With Me, "told a closely focused story about the impact of childlessness and sickle-cell disease on the life of a young couple ... but A Spell of Good Things deals with political corruption, social injustice and domestic violence." - The Guardian (UK)

When The Closed Captioning Device Failed, Sundance Jurors Walked Out

The problem illustrated a much larger issue: "According to multiple sources, the jury has repeatedly expressed concerns to both Sundance and filmmakers that movies playing at this year’s festival should come with open captions" - but many do not. - Variety

Movie Theatres Are Forever Changed

This year's box office will tell us how much theaters must go big -- and, paradoxically, shrink down -- to make it through to their next era. - CNet

Gen Z Is Really Starting To Get Into Classical Music

"There are plenty of reasons for this, from the playlist culture spawned by streaming platforms … to the solace it provided during the pandemic. … But perhaps highest on the list is the global wave of Gen Z and young millennial classical artists." - BBC

Yet More Cutbacks And Restructuring At The Oregon Shakespeare Festival

This summer's season will have six shows, down from 11 pre-pandemic and eight in 2022. AD Nataki Garrett: "Our numbers have come in between 46 and 50 percent of people returning, which is the same return rate as most theatres across the country." - American Theatre

The Most Popular Podcast Genre? Comedy (And News Is No Longer Number Two)

"Edison Research's quarterly analysis of the top genres shows Comedy continues to have the most listeners. The bigger surprise could be that despite the fall election season, the News genre lost ground. It slid back to third place (behind) the all-encompassing Society & Culture." - Inside Radio

Rebranding The Met: A Five-Point Plan To Make The Metropolitan Opera A Must-See

Observing the company's worrisome slump in ticket sales and Peter Gelb's announced plans to focus more on contemporary works and reduce the number of performances (especially of revivals), Parterre Box contributor Dawn Fatale suggests further ways to get the FOMO factor working in the Met's favor again. - Parterre Box

Sydney Just Isn’t A Museum-Oriented City. Can The New Sydney Modern Change That?

"Museum-building in a real estate-obsessed city that Mark Twain called 'superbly beautiful' — in the sunny heart of a proud 'sporting nation' — often requires overcoming a barrage of negativity. The Sydney Opera House was loathed before it was loved, and the Modern has traveled a rough road already." - The New York Times

Germany Runs A Special “Culture Train” From Berlin To Poland

On the 4½-hour trip between the German capital and the Polish city of Wrocław, "passengers encounter writers, musicians, creative artists, a library and a permanent exhibition. The project was originally designed for a six-month period, but it was so successful that it was never discontinued." - Deutsche Welle

The Sign Language Experts Bringing A Wider Range Of Speech To Theatre

As theatres reckon with racial diversity onstage, some of them are also hiring interpreters who speak Black American Sign Language, or hiring other interpreters who align culturally and racially with productions' speaking actors. - The New York Times

Please, Say No To AI Audiobook Narrators

Apple has new AI narrators. They're not great. "Jackson sounds like a pretty standard—if maddening—customer service line voice. ... Madison, on the other hand, sounds a little like a female version of Aiden Gillen playing American on The Wire." - LitHub

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