All posts tagged: Musical

Stephen Colbert ends ‘The Late Show’ with musical finale featuring Paul McCartney : NPR

Stephen Colbert ends ‘The Late Show’ with musical finale featuring Paul McCartney : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Host Stephen Colbert receives a standing ovation during Thursday night’s Late Show finale. Scott Kowalchyk/CBS ENTERTAINMENT hide caption toggle caption Scott Kowalchyk/CBS ENTERTAINMENT Satirist Stephen Colbert ended the late night show he hosted for nearly 11 years on a whimsical and joyful note. During his finale, he invited his audience, his crew and famous friends to dance with him onstage as he sang Hello, Goodbye with former Beatle Paul McCartney. Joining them was singer Elvis Costello, and musicians Louis Cato and Jon Batiste, the current and former band leaders for Colbert’s show. And in the end, Colbert and McCartney together switched off the lights at New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Beatles made their American debut in 1964 and where the Late Show franchise was taped in front of audiences for close to 33 years. YouTube Through the magic of visual effects, Colbert’s entire show and the theater were sucked into a giant green interdimensional wormhole that at times looked like the CBS logo to this reporter. Joining Colbert for a bit earlier in …

So Long, Graduation. Hello, Musical Chairs.

So Long, Graduation. Hello, Musical Chairs.

Published by Jenni Sidey

I remember it like it was yesterday. On a grassy patch on the National Mall in the center of our nation’s capital, the party is over. The Capitol is on one end; the Washington Monument is at the other. And yet, all I can think about are these metal chairs. All 25,000 of them. They are going away now. One by one, they are being folded, stacked, and carted over to the event trucks parked on the nearby streets. Just minutes ago, this sunny day was abuzz with excitement. The band was playing, the bagpipers piping, the color guards marching, the flags waving, the speakers speaking, the cameras flashing. And then, suddenly, the happy graduates tossed their caps into the air, and when they came down, it was over. The crowd lingered for a while. Congratulations hung in the air. But now all that’s left to show is a platform being dismantled one piece at a time and these metal chairs. One of which I’m sitting on as I think about my son and all …

Stephen Sondheim by Daniel Okrent review – a superb biography of the musical master | Biography books

Stephen Sondheim by Daniel Okrent review – a superb biography of the musical master | Biography books

Published by Sam Flores

Among the many great pleasures of Daniel Okrent’s new biography of Stephen Sondheim – a book perfectly weighted between the gossipy and erudite – is its rendering of the milieu beyond its immediate subject. You come for the biography and stay for the world of mid-20th-century New York, in which Leonard Bernstein says terrible things about Sweeney Todd (“disgusting”), Sondheim says terrible things about Barbra Streisand (“doesn’t have one sincere moment left inside her”), and Arthur Laurents says terrible things about everyone. In the early 2000s, during a particularly poisonous exchange of letters between Laurents and Sondheim, the latter told his old collaborator, “you’re just good enough to know you’re mediocre”. The entire book is sheer delight and Okrent, formerly an editor at the New York Times and a baseball fanatic who effectively invented the modern fantasy baseball league, does a terrific job of telling Sondheim’s life story alongside shrewd analysis of his body of work. We meet Sondheim’s mother, known as Foxy, whom the writer and composer made an elaborate play of hating his …

‘Beaches’ Musical to Close After 2026 Tony Awards Snub

‘Beaches’ Musical to Close After 2026 Tony Awards Snub

Published by Daniella Wilson

Beaches, The New Musical is the first Tonys casualty of the season and will now close May 24 after being shut out of the nominations. The show began previews at the Majestic Theatre March 27, ahead of an April 22 opening date, but has failed to catch on with audiences and with critics, who delivered mixed to negative reviews. Last week on Broadway, the musical played to just 51 percent capacity, and it has been bringing in $550,000 or less per week since opening, which is far below the running costs of an average musical.  The show, which stars Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett, likely hoped for nominations for its leads or for the musical itself to help right the ship.  Still, the show was always set for a limited Broadway run, through Sept. 6, before heading on a national tour. The production said Tuesday that plans are currently underway for the tour. It came to Broadway after about a 10-year development period with an international premiere in 2024 at Theatre Calgary in Alberta, Canada, …

Musical Chairs | ZeroHedge

Musical Chairs | ZeroHedge

Published by Jenni Sidey

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank Yesterday, Trump spoke with Xi in Beijing. While markets kept a watchful eye on any headlines about the war in Iran, palates were left dry as only tepid announcements dripped out, such as that China “offered help” on Iran and “pledged not to send weapons.” What they did not manage to evade was a conversation about Taiwan. During the two and a half hour conversation with Trump, Xi underscored that US intervention in Taiwan could trigger a “highly dangerous situation.” While Rubio underscored that the topic of American arms sales to Taiwan wasn’t a major focus of discussion, it likely will be when Congress’ approved USD 14bn arms sale to Taiwan lands on Trump’s desk, and again when Xi visits the White House in September. While the US and China are stalled in the geopolitical arena, the financial scene seems to be bearing fruit. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced that conversations around the creation of a “Board of Investment” were underway, and that tariffs would be reduced …

Spotify’s New Feature Lets You Dance Through Your Musical History

Spotify’s New Feature Lets You Dance Through Your Musical History

Published by skeptic

Have your musical tastes changed over the years? In celebration of the company’s 20th anniversary, music streaming service Spotify is now allowing people to view and share their listening stats from the day they joined. Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year(s) will include previously hidden data, allowing you to revisit your Spotify history. The stats include info about your first day on Spotify, the total number of unique songs you’ve listened to, the first song you ever streamed and your all-time most-streamed artist. You’ll also receive your own personalized All-Time Top Songs Playlist, a collection of your top 120 tracks, with play counts for each song. The feature includes a custom share card, which can be saved, sent to friends or uploaded to Instagram, too.  The feature became available on Tuesday morning. To find Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year(s), open the Spotify mobile app and search “Spotify 20” or “Party of the Year(s).” You can also visit spotify.com/20 on your mobile device. Spotify is the most popular music streaming service, with over 700 …

Movies use this one musical trick to make you feel miserable 

Movies use this one musical trick to make you feel miserable 

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to Popular Science’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Spotify, YouTube, Apple, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals our editors can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show. FACT: This musical motif is works like an emotional cheat code  By Jess Boddy So I played a lot of Hollow Knight: Silksong last year. And if you’ve played or even watched some of that game, you’ll recognize the core motif that’s embedded in the game’s entire soundtrack. In fact, it might even sound familiar if you’ve never played Silksong at all. That’s because that motif is actually an 800-year-old Latin chant called the “Dies irae.” After it …

a composer on the musical styles of birdsong

a composer on the musical styles of birdsong

Published by skeptic

International Dawn Chorus Day (May 3 for 2026) is a great time to hear the UK’s birds at their most vocal. While we can enjoy the variety and beauty of birdsong, for the birds themselves it serves more practical purposes – to attract a mate and establish and defend a breeding territory. Birds can produce complex vocal sounds, which we refer to as “song” because they have a vocal organ called the syrinx – which, unlike the larynx possessed by mammals like the human, can make two distinct notes simultaneously. This ability to generate notes in rapid succession is helpful because birds hear their song and the songs of other birds differently to humans. Research suggests that they are able to perceive small and rapid changes in sound much more clearly than we can, meaning what we may hear as a single or buzzy note will be distinguished by them as multiple notes. Birdsong to a bird is something of much greater complexity than we can apprehend. International Dawn Chorus Day brings casual bird appreciators, …

Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Fighting With My Family’ film to be reimagined as a stage musical

Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Fighting With My Family’ film to be reimagined as a stage musical

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Stephen Merchant’s acclaimed wrestling film Fighting With My Family, which starred Florence Pugh and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is set to be adapted into a stage musical. The 2019 biopic, written and directed by Merchant, chronicled the remarkable true story of WWE superstar Paige, also known as Saraya Jade Bevis. It followed her journey from a chaotic British wrestling dynasty in Norwich to the bright lights of America’s WWE arena, where she was forced to confront her identity away from her family. The new coming-of-age musical will draw inspiration from the film, depicting the goth outsider’s ascent from her family’s wrestling ring to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the US, and the personal challenges that come with it. Merchant expressed his long-held vision for the story as a musical. He said: “When we were making the film, I always thought of it …