" Kwame Kwei-Armah told The Guardian the pandemic had changed theatre forever, with the livestreaming of plays becoming 'hard baked' into how the industry operates. said that during lockdown he had resolved to 'innovate, not just replicate' resulting in a project titled Best Seat in Your House which will use multiple cameras and allow online audiences to change...
"With as many as eight shows a week to fill, and the tourists who make up an important part of their customer base yet to return, producers need time to advertise and market. They need to reassemble and rehearse casts who have been out of work for more than a year. And they need to sort out and negotiate...
Last year it was a Ford F-250 pickup truck that saved the day, and the audiences around the city. "Bandwagon 2 will trade in the pickup truck for a 20-foot shipping container atop a semi truck, which will visit four parks around New York City for weekend-long residencies through May. ... Tricked out with a foldout stage, video wall...
Video streaming — sometimes a throwaway in the company’s earnings announcements — was this time a centerpiece. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who is shifting to executive chairman this summer, noted that streaming has risen 70% compared with the same time a year ago. Prime Video, which has recently marked its 10th anniversary, served film or TV titles to...
"Today, the company is launching Play Something, a new viewing mode designed to make it easier for the indecisive among us to quickly find something to watch. … The goal of this new shuffle feature is to eliminate, or at least ease, the Peak TV-era anxiety so many of us feel while trying to find something to watch" among...
Chris Jones: "There's real evidence now of pent-up demand. Consider what is happening in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil, which has emerged from bankruptcy protection and put its famous productions of both Mystère and O on sale last week …, has seen colossal demand for tickets. … Comedian Dave Chappelle sold 13,000 tickets for his July 2 concert. The...
The Office and The Sopranos were two of the biggest hits of 2020, according to streaming services, which have recently paid hundreds of millions of dollars for exclusive rights to long-off-the-air favorite comedies such as Seinfeld, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and South Park. Why? The same reason people turn to comfort food: reassurance and the dopamine hit. -...
Back in the early 19th century, "the directors of the Paris Opera saw no reason to leave the success of their performances up to the whims of an unpredictable audience. To guarantee acclaim, they employed the services of an organized body of professional applauders, commonly known as the 'claque.' These claqueurs were tucked away throughout the audience, disguised as...
The event, a rock concert at an arena in Barcelona on March 27, required attendees to have an antigen test beforehand and to wear masks throughout, but no social distancing was required. Two weeks later, only six audience members (four of whom say they were exposed elsewhere) tested positive for COVID, which extrapolates to half the current infection rate...
Among adults 18 to 49, the demographic that many advertisers pay a premium to reach, the Oscars suffered an even steeper 64 percent decline, according to preliminary data from Nielsen released on Monday. Nielsen’s final numbers are expected on Tuesday and will include out-of-home viewing and some streaming statistics. - The New York Times
As a Hollywood writer friend of mine said after she watched “Nomadland”: “That was not entertainment. That was Frances McDormand having explosive diarrhea in a plastic bucket on a van.” Not a crop of movies that make you reach for the Junior Mints. - The New York Times
Five years ago, 63% of Americans mostly watched television through cable and satellite. Today, that percentage has dropped to fewer than half of all Americans, while the percentage of those primarily watching television via a streaming service on the internet has jumped 17 percentage points, from 20% in 2016 to 37% today. - CBS News
How wild to have a show with Crip Camp nominated for best documentary, a show that prevented disabled people in L.A. from getting to their subway trains - and also forced hordes of people to find the new site for COVID-19 testing. Ash Pana, who lives by Union Station and "who suffers from chronic pain and sometimes uses a...
And then DSO vice-president Erik Rönmark posted the letter to social media (with the patron's, or former patron's, name redacted). Response on social media was strong. The CEO of a tech company wrote: "You just won yourself a new patron at the $125 level. My company ... would like to sponsor 4 new patrons at this same level, preferably...
