“In Heliópolis, one of São Paulo’s largest favelas, the trial of a black youth agitates the community, which argues for his innocence. In a train heading to Jardim Romano, an audio brings the history of the region to the passengers’ ears, and culminates with a final point: the rains and flooding. In the very south of the city, the body of a dead person is reanimated with Brazilian funk music. These three stories, told in three stage plays, are representative of the theatre scene that has exploded in São Paulo in recent years.” – Global Voices
Category: AUDIENCE
Warner Announces New Streaming Service Built Around HBO – A Really Dumb Idea?
Some 35 million households now subscribe to HBO either via their cable service or the HBO Now streaming service. They’re used to paying for premium content. HBO is betting that they’ll pay roughly the same amount for a lot more of this other stuff. HBO Max subscribers will get everything a current HBO subscription delivers plus a lot more from TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network and CNN. – Washington Post
Hollywood Is Betting Big On Remakes. But New Study Suggests Audiences Aren’t Thrilled
The study found that fully 91 percent of remakes drew a less positive audience score than the original. Among critics, the remakes received a lower Metacritic score just slightly less frequently -— 87 percent of the time. – Washington Post
The Company That Tailors Broadway Musicals For School Productions Now Creates Versions For Seniors
“Into the Woods Sr. and other musicals tailored to older casts are the brainchild of Freddie Gershon, [Music Theater International’s] co-chairman, who first developed similarly shortened ‘Junior’ productions more than 20 years ago for elementary and middle schools, earning him a Tony Awards honor.” Reporter Nancy Coleman looks in on a production of the senior-ized Sondheim show. – The New York Times
Is The Director Who Turned The Indianapolis Museum Of Art Into Newfields Democratizing It Or Destroying It?
“Critics have accused [Charles] Venable of dumbing down the museum with his crowd-pleasing, cost-conscious changes. But his program has also touched a nerve as institutions around the country confront a tough new calculus.” Andrew Russeth visits Newfields and does a deep dive on the changes there. – ARTnews
Does Watching Lots Of TV Make You Dumber And More Likely To Vote For Populists? New Study Says Yes
Yascha Mounk: “These claims … sound far too much like the sort of thing educated people want to believe. But a meticulous new paper published in the American Economic Review, one of the world’s most prestigious social-science journals, suggests that there might be truth to these clichés.” At least in Italy, among those who watched channels owned by Silvio Berlusconi. – The Atlantic
Listening To The World: How Our Taste Is Being Reprogrammed
Beyond obscuring labor, the switch to digital has reprogrammed our discovery and consumption of music. Despite the seemingly unprecedented supply of music, Damon Krukowski suggests that internet companies, like Spotify and Amazon, “are replacing the freedom and chaos of the internet at large, with the control and predictability of their programs.” In other words, they generally provide access to art that we are or would be comfortable with, and they otherwise restrict or obscure alternatives. “When you go into a bookstore, or record store, or library—any physical space devoted to information,” Krukowski writes, “you enter another world . . . But when you open a browser—it’s an irony that’s the word, isn’t it?—that relationship to information is reversed. It conforms to you.” – The Baffler
How Technology Has Changed The Kind Of TV We Watch
The ability for audiences to watch and re-watch on demand has allowed screenwriters to make scripts more complicated and less formulaic. – BBC
Why Wealthy Art Collectors Are Turning Away From Abstract Art
The art that is doing well in the market provides a place of escape from society. Right now, that’s an escape to rules and boundaries and to easily digestible culture. But the inverse is also true: when there is greater social stability, even ennui, as there was in mid-century America, the preferred art becomes that which allows for a flight into messiness and multiple interpretations. Crucially, however, this current turn toward the figurative and its stabilities seems to be particular to the rich, to those who are actually buying the art. It has not always been so. – The Baffler
With ‘AMC Artisan Films’, Big Theater Chain Tries To Give Smaller Movies A Boost
“According to a press release, the initiative will spotlight ‘character and narrative driven movies’ that big-budget box-office behemoths tend to overshadow. … If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because … the promise to recognize ‘artist-driven, thought-provoking’ movies that show ‘expertise in writing, directing, acting and/or one of the many component parts that make up a movie,’ echoes one of the company’s previous initiatives” — AMC Independent from 2010. – Slate