New this week: 'Spirited,' Pokรฉmon, 'Nope' and 'Slumberland'
This weekโs new entertainment releases include an album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, a documentary about how Mickey Mouse became beloved by children and adults and a cash machine for Disneyโs growing entertainment empire, and Chris Hemsworth puts himself and his body to the test in National Geographicโs โLimitless.โ.
Virus shuts many UK theaters but online the show goes on
(Aaron Chown/PA via AP)LONDON โ When Andrew Lincoln steps onstage at Londonโs Old Vic Theatre as Ebenezer Scrooge in โA Christmas Carol,โ he looks out on an empty auditorium. The Old Vic is among theaters trying to keep the flame alive. That includes London, where theaters had just begun to reopen after a four-week national lockdown ended Dec. 2. The Old Vic has mounted an โIn Cameraโ season of plays performed on its stage and broadcast online. Playwright Jack Thorneโs adaptation has been a hit at the Old Vic for the past three Christmases.
Cheers! Or not: 'Scandalous' 1st Christmas card up for sale
The first commercially printed Christmas card is up for sale โ a merry Victorian-era scene that scandalized some who denounced it as humbug when it first appeared in 1843. โA Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You,โ it reads. That didn't sit well at the time with the puritanical Temperance Society, which kicked up such a fuss it took three years before another Christmas card was produced. โThey were quite distressed that in this โscandalousโ picture they had children toasting with a glass of wine along with the adults. It's believed to have gone on sale in the same week in December 1843 that Charles Dickens' โA Christmas Carolโ first was published.
Streaming one-man performance of A Christmas Carol to benefit the Classic Theatre of San Antonio
click image YouTube / Geffen PlayhouseJefferson Mays in the 2018 production of A Christmas Carol. Fans of Charles Dickens' classic holiday spook-fest have a chance to safely see a top-notch performance of the Christmas tale โ and to support San Antonio theater while they're at it.The Classic Theatre of San Antonio has partnered with TBD Pictures to present a recorded performance of, which was filmed at the United Palace theater in upper Manhattan. Tickets sales will support the Classic as well as other regional theaters nationwide whose coffers have been drained due to the pandemic.The one-man show features Jefferson Mays as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and, well, pretty much everyone else. He'll reprise roughly 50 roles he originally took on for the 2018 premiere of the play at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. In that production, live audiences were confronted with the presence of a coffin and a jump-scare as soon as the curtains parted.
sacurrent.com'Shuggie Bain' writer Douglas Stuart wins Booker Prize
LONDON โ Scottish writer Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize for fiction Thursday for โShuggie Bain,โ the story of a boyโs turbulent coming of age in hardscrabble 1980s Glasgow. Stuart, 44, won the prestigious 50,000 pound ($66,000) award for his first published novel, the product of a decade of work. Stuart dedicated the book to own mother, who died when he was 16. Though there have been many British winners of the Booker Prize, most of them English, Stuart is the first Scottish victor since James Kelman took the 1994 prize with โHow Late it Was, How Lateโ โ a book Stuart has called an inspiration. Mantel won the Booker for both its predecessors, โWolf Hallโ and โBring up the Bodies,โ and had been widely tipped for the hat trick.
A one-man 'A Christmas Carol' fills theater need in pandemic
FILE - Jefferson Mays arrives at the "I Am the Night" FYC event in Los Angeles on May 9, 2019. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)NEW YORK โ What does the theater community desperately need during a time of social distancing? Tickets purchased via the show's website will automatically benefit local community theaters based on the ZIP code the user enters. It was his introduction to the theater, and he and his family would read it every year. โThey need help now.โPartner theaters include Actorsโ Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, George Street Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Sankofa Collective, South Coast Repertory, Springfield Contemporary Theatre, Theatre Tallahassee, and Vermont Stage.
The Tale of Two Americas
Each of us, can make bad times betterIn his seminal fictional novel The Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens opened with the following paragraph. However, this quote also appropriately describes where many Americans find themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic. If Dickens were alive today, he would probably have a residence in New York City and some sort of a dual citizenship. Witnessing our approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, his latest novel might aptly be titled, The Tale of Two Americas. Fear represents a theme throughout much of this countrys storied past.
saobserver.com2 cities handled this health crisis different. The results couldnโt have been more opposite.
With all due respect to Charles Dickens, this is a tale of how two cities handled a health crisis via social distancing, with opposite results. Days later, hospitals in the area were filled with patients suffering or dying from the Spanish flu. On the other side of the ledger, things were way different in St. Louis. After detecting its first cases of the Spanish flu in the community, St. Louis closed buildings such as schools, churches, courtrooms and libraries. The Spanish flu was nothing to mess around with, since ultimately, an estimated 20 to 50 million people died after contracting the virus.
2 cities handled this health crisis different. The results couldnโt have been more opposite.
With all due respect to Charles Dickens, this is a tale of how two cities handled a health crisis via social distancing, with opposite results. Days later, hospitals in the area were filled with patients suffering or dying from the Spanish flu. On the other side of the ledger, things were way different in St. Louis. After detecting its first cases of the Spanish flu in the community, St. Louis closed buildings such as schools, churches, courtrooms and libraries. The Spanish flu was nothing to mess around with, since ultimately, an estimated 20 to 50 million people died after contracting the virus.
Get in the Spirit with Woodlawn Theatre's Production of A Christmas Carol, the Musical
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