"In devising an onstage gateway to Ally’s imagination, 'We were like, what if the portal is actually her notebook?' said Sammy Lopez, co-director. 'And what if we gave the audience the opportunity to jump into the notebook with Ally?'" - The New York Times
And it's not just any musical - it's an attempt to adapt the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, the movie that introduced a worldwide audience to reggae via star and musician Jimmy Cliff. - Slate
"The Actors’ Gang Prison Project is a rehabilitation program that offers theater programming to 14 California state prisons, a reentry facility and an L.A. County probation camp" - and it's celebrating 40 years since its inaugural production. - Los Angeles Times
After some art historical detective work, "the two artworks, which were once one, now hang side-by-side ... only a sliver of wall dividing the woman from her husband and son." - Yahoo News (AFP)
"We have changed our collective tastes in response to technological progress in the past. We’ll now do it again, without even noticing that it’s happening. And if history is any indication, our tastes will evolve in a way that rigs the game in favor of human artists." - Wired
Aman Dhaliwal is an actor who has appeared in Punjabi, Hindi, and Telegu films. "The suspect approached the victim in the parking lot ... and began to attack him with a hatchet and knife." - Los Angeles Times
Legal filings show that "one side of the family has accused the other of deceit and fraud, of secretly loaning the works to the White House as part of an effort to boost an ownership claim on them." Then there's the other side. - The New York Times
Yes, but "if your laptop isn’t being flecked with olive oil spatter during a decathlon of online cooking classes, you’re probably doing something wrong. Of course, you’re probably doing something wrong anyway." - Fast Company
Basically, "Americans simply did not want to hear about it" early on, and now? "There’s reason to be pessimistic about the risk-averse, IP-addicted studios of the 21st century dipping back into a war that it rarely bothered to engage with in the first place." - The Guardian (UK)
Multiple exhibitions in Istanbul seem to nearly predict the pain and agony of the recent earthquakes that have killed at least 55,000 people - partly because the artists understand "the fragility of the buildings people see as their sanctuaries." - Hyperallergic
It's complex - see the Indigenous villains in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but "Increasing use of non-English languages and subtitles demonstrates both a trend toward linguistic realism in Hollywood and also broader acceptance of linguistic diversity." - Raw Story
At SXSW, there's a lot of discussion around what AI could do for (or against) the movies. But "for all the hype, some remain skeptical, wondering how much of the excitement is venture capital-fueled froth." - Los Angeles Times
Not to mention luck at the library: "I found Krik? Krak!, a short story collection by Edwidge Danticat, in the Ealing Road Library and fell in love. This book raised me." - The Guardian (UK)
