NFTRW Weekly Top Five

Here are the top five comment generating posts of the past week:

Six announces end to Broadway run

www.whatsonstage.com: Six is the longest-running show in the history of the Lena Horne Theatre (formerly the Brooks Atkinson), the 40th-longest-running show in Broadway history, and the seventh-longest-running Broadway show to have originated in the United Kingdom. Its final performance will be 3 January, 2027.

Yes, opera has an age problem — because society has an education problem

The Standard: At the height of the summer season Glyndebourne’s lawns look bleached. A panorama of pale, straw-like grass, bone Panama hats, white starched shirts, white linen tablecloths and, crowning it all, puffs of white hair. I watch men in mothballed tuxes negotiate the rose garden, unsteady on their feet, and fragile, bird-like women in pearls pushing their husbands’ wheelchairs, as I worry I should intervene.

Six Workers at Ed Sheeran Concert Injured in Forklift Accident

consequence.net: Six workers were injured while loading out after Ed Sheeran’s Saturday concert at Ford Field in Detroit, according to reports.

How Paranormal Activity Created a Two-Story Haunted House Onstage

Playbill: Illusions designer Chris Fisher is no stranger to the paranormal. The 2025 Special Tony Award recipient brought the Upside Down to the Marquis in Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Now, he is conjuring sinister spirits in the new stage play Paranormal Activity, which opens August 25 at the August Wilson Theatre. Though—for all his knowledge and ingenuity on creating spectacular, seemingly impossible, feats of monsters and magic—Fisher can still find himself spooked by the unexplainable.

How to Identify AI Music

consequence.net: AI is a moving target, and the tricks that help us identify it can quickly become outdated. When Suno launched their music generating platform late in 2023, one obvious tell was what you could call the Forgetful Bassist, who seemed to never remember what had been played before, and chose a different groove every time the bass returned. Now, that tic has largely disappeared. But while the artifacts of AI have become more subtle, they aren’t too hard to find (obligatory: yet).

 

Paranormal Activity Opens on Broadway August 25

Playbill: Transferring from sold-out runs from London to Los Angeles, the stage adaptation of the 2007 screen horror favorite is directed by Felix Barrett and penned by Levi Holloway. The Paranormal Activity stage play is a story distinct from the film, following couple Lou and James who move from Chicago to London to escape their past, soon discovering that places aren’t haunted—people are.

Six announces end to Broadway run

www.whatsonstage.com: Six is the longest-running show in the history of the Lena Horne Theatre (formerly the Brooks Atkinson), the 40th-longest-running show in Broadway history, and the seventh-longest-running Broadway show to have originated in the United Kingdom. Its final performance will be 3 January, 2027.

Disclosure Day: Matthew Butler - Production VFX Supervisor

The Art of VFX: In 2022, Matthew Butler took us behind the scenes of the visual effects on Morbius. Since then, he has moved from the comic book world to the retro-futuristic adventure of The Electric State, and now returns to discuss his latest collaboration with Steven Spielberg on Disclosure Day.

Behr’s 2027 Color of the Year Takes Inspiration From Travel

AFAR: Travel is not immune to routine. Airports generally look the same, your coffee order doesn’t change, and checking in to a hotel is usually perfunctory no matter where you land. In order to make your accommodation feel distinctive, hospitality turns to design.

Curt Columbus Stages His ‘Getaway’ From Trinity Rep

AMERICAN THEATRE: “Some artistic directors stay too long,” Curt Columbus told me last month. “I’m not naming names, but we all know who they are.” The occasion for our conversation was his exit, after a little over 20 years, as artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. Columbus succeeded Oskar Eustis, who himself followed in the shadow of the theatre’s trail-blazing founder, Adrian Hall (though in fact Hall’s immediate successors were Richard Jenkins and Anne Bogart).

You Shouldn't Be Able to Profit From AI-Prompted Movies

www.hollywoodreporter.com: The unofficial Silicon Valley motto of “move fast and break things” may be an inspirational rallying cry for innovation, but it cannot apply to the fabric of society itself. It is high time our legislative bodies acknowledge the danger of that motivation and respond in kind, as we are in the midst of an unparalleled technological revolution.

8 things Gen Z sees as burnout that Boomers & Gen X just call having a job

stylegirlfriend.com: A 24-year-old and a 56-year-old describe the same Wednesday. The younger one says it was brutal. Back-to-back calls, a manager who wanted a revision, a Slack message at 6:40 that she answered from the couch. She uses the word burnout twice before she gets to what happened after work. The older one says it was Wednesday.

KDKA Debuts New First Alert Weather Sphere

Pittsburgh Magazine: At 9:20 a.m. KDKA’s meteorologist Ron Smiley goes live on air forecasting warm weather and sunny skies this week in Pittsburgh. Smiley holds a tablet where, with the press of a button, he is able to switch from a 3D map of Allegheny County to a view of Mount Washington, all from the comfort of the downtown studio. These visual aids are all thanks to KDKA’s new AR/VR technology.

Narrating High-Spice Romance.

Theater Is Hard.: My side-hustle is that I’m a professional voice actor. I’ve been doing it my entire adult life, but I should be much further along in my career. I took a 14 year self-imposed hiatus after my voice coach locked me in his sound proof office and jerked himself off to me reading sample copy for chocolate pudding. I wrote my entire #MeToo narrative here, definitely read it or listen to me read it. Or you can just read about it on CNN.

Caitlin Dobronz on the Evolution of Riverfront Theatre Company

onStage Pittsburgh: Founded in 1965, the Riverfront Theater Company has become a staple in the Pittsburgh community theater environment. As many of Pittsburgh’s community and regional theater companies are still finding their footing in a post-pandemic world, Riverfront’s Artistic Director Caitlin Dobronz is constantly searching for opportunities for the historic company to evolve,

How to Identify AI Music

consequence.net: AI is a moving target, and the tricks that help us identify it can quickly become outdated. When Suno launched their music generating platform late in 2023, one obvious tell was what you could call the Forgetful Bassist, who seemed to never remember what had been played before, and chose a different groove every time the bass returned. Now, that tic has largely disappeared. But while the artifacts of AI have become more subtle, they aren’t too hard to find (obligatory: yet).

Bayreuth Festival 2026 Review: Rienzi

OperaWire: Athletic is Schager’s signature acting style, but on this night he outdid even himself (in any of his Wagnerian incarnations, from Siegfried to Parsifal). And the fabled voice somehow lasted throughout over three-and-a-half hours of non-stop singing. Yes, he relied upon his insistent, high decibel superpower and yet there were moments of pliant gentleness in which the ageless tenor seemed to reach into a freshness that bordered on the supernatural. Schager’s authoritative enactment of such a punishing role will surely remain the standard for any who attempt it in the future.

Artists Want to Prove Their Work Was Stolen by AI. A New Study Says That’s Impossible

gizmodo.com: One way to figure out how something works is to take it apart one piece at a time, and see how it changes along the way. That was the approach taken by two AI researchers who wanted to understand how image-generating AI models arrive at their final outputs: Do they reference a particular image, the way a human portrait artist might look at a human subject while painting? Or is there some other process at play?

Seattle teens bring Peter Pan to McCaw Hall — with contemporary twist

The Seattle Times: More than 80 students aged 9 through 18 will take the stage starting Friday, singing, acting and dancing in “Peter Pan: Ready to Rise.” The show is this year’s Teen Summer Musical, a Seattle Parks and Recreations program in partnership with Acts On Stage Theater, a nonprofit focused on teaching theater to youth of color. Each year, the summer musical highlights a different contemporary theme.

San Francisco's The Portal Cinema Set to Open in Fall 2026

www.indiewire.com: Despite a passionate Bay Area film culture, San Francisco has been hit hard over the last 15 years by iconic arthouse and first-run movie theater closures. From the Landmark-owned Embarcadero Center complex shuttering in 2023 to AMC taking over the beloved indie Sundance Kabuki in Japantown 10 years ago, venue attrition has empowered newer but more commercial hotspots like the Mission District’s Alamo Drafthouse to thrive.

Unstacking Risers for an Elegant Handrail

Journal of Light Construction: I’m about to embark on an exciting build of a “dancing winder” staircase this summer, which I’ll document in a JLC article to come later this year. Before we get to that complex winding stair, however, I thought I’d begin easing into the topic of winding stairs with a discussion of the simplest design—a basic “quarter-turn,” or L-shaped, stairway with two half-flights of stairs, a lower one leading up to a landing, where it turns the corner and starts the upper half-flight.

Six Workers at Ed Sheeran Concert Injured in Forklift Accident

consequence.net: Six workers were injured while loading out after Ed Sheeran’s Saturday concert at Ford Field in Detroit, according to reports.

Es Devlin’s Immersive World Comes to FUTURA SEOUL

mymodernmet.com: British artist Es Devlin has spent more than three decades exploring what happens when people gather in a shared space. Her installations often transform architecture into a stage where books become gateways, light marks the passage of time, and strangers become temporary collaborators.

ANT FEST Will Return to Ars Nova in Septemebr

www.broadwayworld.com: Ars Nova will present ANT Fest 2026, its annual festival showcasing new work from emerging artists, this September in New York City. The festival brings together new theater, comedy, music and hybrid performances from artists developing adventurous and original work.

Flexible lead times balance speed and cost in metal fabrication

www.thefabricator.com: We at OSH Cut have always focused on speed. We quote instantly, and our standard lead times are usually just two to three business days, with options for same-day production. Still, rapid turnaround is expensive. While we’ve been able to keep prices reasonable and fair, default fast service makes it more challenging to serve cost-sensitive customers. As I write this, we’re tackling this challenge head on.

Yes, opera has an age problem — because society has an education problem

The Standard: At the height of the summer season Glyndebourne’s lawns look bleached. A panorama of pale, straw-like grass, bone Panama hats, white starched shirts, white linen tablecloths and, crowning it all, puffs of white hair. I watch men in mothballed tuxes negotiate the rose garden, unsteady on their feet, and fragile, bird-like women in pearls pushing their husbands’ wheelchairs, as I worry I should intervene.

We Call It Love: A Transracial Adoptee Celebrates Hedwig and the Angry Inch at 25

episodes.ghost.io: “We have enough identifying information of the birth parents, thus I made a request for the birth parents search to government agency and I will keep you informed of the progress.” This is the email I received in April 2025, a few weeks before my 38th birthday. It’s from Jeongmin, a Korean social worker, telling me in broken English that the search for my birth parents has officially started.

Merged groups announce Confluence Theater of Pittsburgh as new name

90.5 WESA: Confluence Theater of Pittsburgh is the name of Pittsburgh’s newest theater company — the result of the merger of two of its oldest troupes. The group announced the name Monday, about a month after the formal merger of Pittsburgh Public Theater and the Pittsburgh CLO.

10 Anticipated Productions for the 2026-27 Fall Season

OperaWire: The 2026-27 season is about to begin and audiences are getting ready to choose performances as they head back to the opera. With so much to choose from, OperaWire is breaking down 10 opera productions that are must-sees.

Roku's New AI Channel Is Getting Attention For All The Wrong Reasons

www.slashgear.com: Roku currently has over 500 free channels to scroll through mindlessly, including a wide selection of local TV channels, but one recent introduction stands out from the rest: Fairground AI Creator TV on Channel 300. Added at the beginning of August 2026, Fairground AI is dedicated entirely to AI-generated content, streaming films, television series, and other AI projects in a 24-hour rotation.

Why you need to see more Alice Childress plays

Intermission Magazine: I like Chekhov. A lot. Take some relatively ordinary characters (think me or you), place them against a crumbling world (look outside, go online, look outside again), make their lives not quite amount to what they expected (look at us!) and you have the workings of play.

Home Improvement Tools At Lowe's Under $100 Worth Adding To Your Collection

www.slashgear.com: Every DIYer knows the sinking feeling that comes when you uncover a problem you don't have the tools to handle. Missing a crucial tool can add hours of workaround effort to the job or perhaps even make for a more dangerous resolution that shouldn't really be attempted by anyone but an experienced tool user (and maybe not even them at times).

Practical Engineering: Calculating Loads on Beams and Headers

www.jlconline.com: Most builders install built-up dimension lumber headers over standard window and door openings without worrying about the loads. You just put in the same-size double 2×10 or 2×12 headers throughout the house — not only will they carry standard residential loads, but they also automatically keep the window and door heads at a uniform height. You can’t beat sawn lumber for most small window headers, but as spans and loads increase, stronger materials are a better choice. Sawn lumber limits design potential and in some cases just doesn’t work. LVL (laminated veneer lumber), glulams, and PSL (parallel strand lumbers) are all good alternatives for longer-span and heavily loaded beams.

orphea: a playable 13-key electronic piano that fits into your pocket

www.designboom.com: Orphea is a compact 13-key electronic piano developed by Pianni to examine how far a conventional keyboard can be reduced while retaining its physical and musical functions. Measuring only slightly larger than a modern smartphone, the instrument combines a standard chromatic black-and-white key layout with physical pressable keys, polyphonic playing, octave controls, built-in speakers, headphone output, MIDI connectivity, and USB-C charging.

The Federal Film and TV Tax Incentive Gets a Name as Momentum Builds

www.hollywoodreporter.com: Amid a precipitous drop in domestic film and television production in recent years, Hollywood has coalesced around support for a federal tax credit. It’ll almost always be cheaper to shoot in other countries, but the thinking is that government support could make it palatable to shoot more big-budget projects in the United States.

Your Guide to Seeing a Show Downtown

Pittsburgh Magazine: The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust has a lineup of popular shows on the docket for the remainder of its 2026-2027 season. Plus, this is your last year to see Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s current iteration of “The Nutcracker,” conceived by Terrence S. Orr back in 2002; in December 2027, the dance company will debut a newly developed version of the popular Christmas show.

Center Theatre Group to Launch 2026/27 Education and Engagement Programs

BroadwayWorld: Center Theatre Group has announced its 2026/27 “Back to School” programming featuring a slate of education and engagement programs for students, educators and schools, and community members throughout Los Angeles. Since its founding, Center Theatre Group has engaged the next generation of theatre audiences, artists, and administrators through educational programming, community engagement, and opportunities to experience the joy of creating theatre.

Tango and Havana Fiesta Brings Latin American Dance Traditions Together in Miami

BroadwayWorld: Miami’s Flamingo Theater became the setting for Tango y Havana Fiesta: Music & Dance Celebration, a production conceived, directed and produced by Analía Farfan that brought together several traditions of Latin American and Hispanic music and dance.

Disneyland is fixing Tomorrowland. Fans are demanding one thing.

www.sfgate.com: Disneyland fans walk underneath the ruined remnants of a long-gone, deeply beloved ride every time they stroll through Tomorrowland. Now, there’s a chance it may come back, as part of a refurbishment of the park’s long-neglected land.

CineLot gives indie filmmakers an AI protection layer

Reel 360 News: CineLot has partnered with SonicOrigin to integrate content provenance, authentication and global film-identification tools directly into its festival submission and management platform. The new offering is available now to eligible CineLot users and is designed to help filmmakers establish clearer ownership, origin and usage information before their films begin circulating widely.

Full Sail University cuts 180 positions amid 'organizational realignment

FOX 35 Orlando: Full Sail University has eliminated 180 positions across its campus as part of what officials call an "organizational realignment." In a statement, the school said the cuts affect multiple areas, including academic, administrative and operational.

How Paranormal Activity Created a Two-Story Haunted House Onstage

Playbill: Illusions designer Chris Fisher is no stranger to the paranormal. The 2025 Special Tony Award recipient brought the Upside Down to the Marquis in Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Now, he is conjuring sinister spirits in the new stage play Paranormal Activity, which opens August 25 at the August Wilson Theatre. Though—for all his knowledge and ingenuity on creating spectacular, seemingly impossible, feats of monsters and magic—Fisher can still find himself spooked by the unexplainable.

Experiencing a Protactile Performance of Touch of Slavery

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Entering Touch of Slavery meant releasing my dependence on sight and, in return, gaining a radically expanded understanding of what theatre is and can be. For the performance, audience members are blindfolded and individually led within a space where words did not exist and touch became the only language. What unfolded in that darkened space was genuinely transformative.

L-Acoustics Fits The Bill At Houston’s Shell Energy Stadium

ProSoundWeb: Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, a 20,656-seat open-air venue that was the first soccer-specific stadium in Major League Soccer built in a city’s downtown district that’s the home of four sports teams, recently underwent an audio upgrade carried by new L-Acoustics A Series loudspeakers and supporting components in a design and installation by Houston-based LD Systems, a Clair Global brand.

Reproducing Victorian-Style Door Casing

www.jlconline.com: One of the things I like about working on a historic home is the challenge of matching new work to old. Last summer, I was hired to do the finish work for a kitchen remodel in a 19th century Victorian home in Winona, Minn. The kitchen had been previously remodeled sometime in the 1960s in a contemporary style incompatible with the home’s period look.

THE LOOKBACK WINDOW to Be Adapted for Stage by Making Our…

www.broadwayworld.com: Making Our Space Theatre Co. has commissioned author Kyle Dillon Hertz to adapt his acclaimed debut novel, The Lookback Window, for the stage as the inaugural selection of IN THE MAKING: A New Play Commission. Deepening Making Our Space's commitment to the development of ambitious new stage works after last season's THE LAST STOP reading series, IN THE MAKING is designed to support a writing process through sustained artistic collaboration from script inception through workshopping and refinement, culminating in a final staged reading for the public and industry professionals. The commission is funded in part by the NYSCA/A.R.T. Creative Opportunity Fund.

51 Years Later, A Treasure Trove of Sci-Fi History is Going Up for Sale

www.inverse.com: But Phil Tippett is more than just a punchline. He’s also a special effects legend, pioneering the use of stop motion and other classic techniques in the foundational sci-fi and fantasy movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But now, he’s hanging up his sculpting tools and retiring, but not before selling off his vast collection for fans to enjoy.

EFF to Courts: Don’t Rewrite Copyright Over AI Hype

Electronic Frontier Foundation: The history of technology is rife with copyright panics. In the 1980s, major rightsholders ran to Congress and the courts, claiming that videotape recorders (VTR) were “to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” Then, the Supreme Court declined to embrace the hype, noting that the VTR was capable of all kinds of non-infringing uses, like time-shifting and cautioning courts to avoid rewriting copyright law in response to new technologies. We believe that courts now should be similarly wary about the hype surrounding AI.

Interview: Matt Hune on REC ROOM ARTS SEASON 10

BroadwayWorld: Matt Hune is one of the founders and the artistic director of Rec Room Arts, the 60-seat theater located within walking distance of Minute Maid Park that has been producing critically acclaimed work for the past ten years. He taught theatre and creative writing at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

New 4D Effects Coming to Wizard of Oz at the Sphere in Las Vegas

www.hollywoodreporter.com: The Sphere version of the film has grossed north of $450 million since it launched a year ago, and the venue says that tickets are now on sale into early 2027. The film combines the Sphere’s vast screen with effects in the venue, including fire, falling apples and a tornado that forms inside the room.

Turn 3D Scans Into Editable CAD Models in Autodesk Fusion with the New Backflip AI Add-In

Fusion Blog: Physical parts often contain valuable design information, but that information can be hard to reuse when the original CAD file is missing, a replacement part is no longer available, a production fixture needs to be modified, or a prototype has evolved through hands-on iteration.

An Inflatable Pool Party by Craig & Karl Fills a Dubai Atrium with Summer Fun

Colossal: At ICD Brookfield Place in Dubai, a vibrant collection of smiling inflatables sprouts from a vaulted ceiling, creating a suspended pool party of colorful forms. The spirited installation is titled “Under the Sun” and the latest project by duo Craig & Karl.

Lowering The Boom: Keeping Bass Energy Under Control As Part Of A Semi-Silent Stage

ProSoundWeb: Bass players provide the foundation for nearly all contemporary music. Without them, our mixes sound thin and nobody wants to dance. Add the right amount of bass and all of the sudden it’s a show. But while we love bass, it often leads to trouble, particularly in small rooms.

The Kind Mind Uses Arts Education to Make Space for Mental Health Conversations

Playbill: As Remi Bader spoke about her experience with mental health, Maya Days reached over and touched her arm. It was a small gesture, but for Stacie Karp Weisbrot, founder of The Kind Mind, it captured much of what she hopes the organization can create: a space where people can speak honestly about difficult experiences and find connection in the process.

Majestic Rep stages the best night of our lives with 'Prom Night ’99'

Las Vegas Weekly: Teenage rom-coms of the ’90s romanticized prom to an almost religious degree. Anything could happen on this fateful night. Life-altering makeovers could turn the nerdy girl glamorous. Grads could form new alliances over a shared joint in the alley. And that school bully might finally take a beating—if we’relucky.

Manhattan Theatre Club Names Allison Curran Chief…

www.broadwayworld.com: Manhattan Theatre Club has announced the appointment of Allison Curran as its new Chief Development Officer, effective Monday, August 24. Curran has over 15 years of experience as a development professional, working at a range of institutions to secure funding from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies.

Monumental Theatre’s new take on ‘The Rocky Horror Show’

DC Theater Arts: “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure,” cries Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a role made famous by Tim Curry, a pioneer in cinematic queer expression and self-discovery who died earlier today. “Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh / Erotic nightmares beyond any measure / And sensual daydreams to treasure forever / Can’t you just see it? Don’t dream it, be it.” Under the electric dreamscape of Venus Gulbranson’s lighting design, Frank’s lyrics capture the essence of Monumental Theatre Company’s The Rocky Horror Show: pleasure without shame.

Dusk of a Great Day at Theater Mu

AMERICAN THEATRE: How do arts organizations centered around communities of color thrive? By telling their own stories, building trust with the people they serve, redefining success, and forging localized and global networks.