Tag: Entertainment-Variety

Vertical drama is entering Australia’s mainstream screen industry conversation, with Cairns Crocodiles set to host a dedicated microdrama panel that brings together platform executives, broadcasters and content creators at the annual APAC creativity festival.

Tim Oh, general manager of leader microdrama company COL Group International, is scheduled to appear at the Queensland event alongside Nikyah Hutchings, executive producer of commercial and partnerships at NITV, in a session titled The Maestros of Microdramas. The panel will examine how the format is reshaping storytelling habits, brand integration and creative opportunity across the region.

“Australia has been quietly outperforming every other market on [microdrama platform] FlareFlow for some time now, in revenue per user, in audience depth, and in how quickly new users convert,” Oh said. “To give you a sense of the scale, Australia’s new user payment rate is close to 20%, more than double what we see in most other developed markets.”

“Vertical is not coming to Australia,” Oh added. “It is already here, and it is working better here than almost anywhere else in the world. The question now is how we build on that together.”

Hutchings recently claimed the Grand Prix at the B&T 30 Under 30 awards after winning the media sales and account management category. She oversees NITV’s commercial content slate and contributes to SBS’s “Australia Explained” series. “Microdramas are changing how culture shows up on our phones and is this exciting meeting point of culture, tech and money,” she said. “I’m looking forward to sitting down with Tim Oh in Cairns about how vertical storytelling can open up new opportunities and make space for more voices, and what they really mean for creators, broadcasters and brands.”

The format has tended to be discussed in Australian industry circles as a mobile or platform phenomenon rather than a storytelling one. “Disruption is happening and the future is not yet written,” said Catherine de Clare, co-curator of the film and screen track at Cairns Crocodiles. “We want creatives and business leaders to start thinking about what opportunities are out there and what kind of world we want to build.”

The panel will also address the question of brands moving into microdrama, as the format is projected by some analysts to reach box office parity with Hollywood releases this year. Cairns Crocodiles, which positions itself at the intersection of Australian and Asian media markets, has expanded in recent years as a site for cross-regional deal-making and format development.

There’s a bit of acting advice that’s often ascribed to Noël Coward: “Speak clearly and don’t bump into the furniture.”

But if you’re Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne, by all means, slide down the staircase, nosedive over the settee and slur your words while tossing back two strong martinis and a case of Dom Pérignon. The actors check every one of those boxes during the drunken high point of “Fallen Angels,” the revival of a nearly forgotten Coward play that’s being performed on Broadway for the first time in 70 years.

The show follows two upper-crust friends, Julia (O’Hara) and Jane (Byrne), who discover their former lover Maurice (Mark Consuelos) has touched down in London while their husbands are on a golf trip. Excited, yet anxious, over the prospect of reconnecting with the man that got away, the pair fortifies themselves with cocktails and bubbly during a boozy dinner. “Champagne is a great strengthener,” Julia assures Jane, who is worried that the two will “go down like ninepins” if Maurice is as “attractive and glamorous as ever.”

But instead of paving the way for some good ol’ fashioned infidelity, the liquid courage causes the women to turn on each other, with the evening devolving into inebriated insults and recriminations. And the two stars, who at first seem to be playing in different registers with O’Hara launching her punchlines towards the balcony and Byrne aiming for the second row, harmonize to deliver a master class in physical comedy. It’s demented, hilarious fun to see Byrne kick off her heels and rappel down her chair or witness O’Hara dipping her after-dinner strawberries into her Cordial Medoc as though dunking shrimp into cocktail sauce. The two are so silly, so loopily in synch, that the scene, which occurs halfway through the second act, lifts the entire show, giving it a buoyancy that has been lacking during its exposition-heavy beginning.

So what to make of “Fallen Angels”? First produced in 1925 when Coward was just 24, it was an attempt to put a stiff upper lip spin on French farce. Although scandalous in its day for its frank depiction of female desire and open discussion of infidelity and premarital sex (Maurice “had” Julia in Pisa and Jane in Venice and “Florence and Florence”), the show seems positively tame post-“Sex and the City,” “Bottoms” and “Booksmart.” When it premiered it was nearly banned by the censors, and Coward had to tone things down to get the Lord Chamberlain’s seal of approval. He added the naughty bits back in during a 1958 revision, but the show could have benefitted from a full rewrite, not just a polish.

There are some lines that have Coward’s trademark sparkle (“I have heard that the worst part of parenting is the children”), while others feel like the product of a young playwright still trying to find his voice. And the main characters are little more than soused ciphers, whose one defining trait is their barely contained horniness. They lack the shading — the pathos hiding behind elegantly crafted quips — that Coward brought to the protagonists of his masterpieces, “Private Lives” and “Design for Living.”

Roundabout Theater Company’s Interim Director Scott Ellis directs “Fallen Angels” with screwball flair, staging the crossed-wire mishaps, bedroom hijinks and tipsy pratfalls like a Jazz Age “Noises Off.” He also wisely encourages O’Hara and Byrne to go-for-broke and milk every punchline, but Ellis has less success coaxing memorable performances from the show’s supporting players. Aasif Mandvi and Christopher Fitzgerald barely register as Jane and Julia’s oblivious husbands, while Consuelos, who plays Maurice as a suave cuckolder with a dodgy European accent, should probably stick to daytime TV. But Tracee Chimo, who plays a bubbly, know-it-all maid, is a standout. Likewise, David Rockwell’s set, an elegant Art Deco dining and drawing room where much of the action unfolds, provides a stylish backdrop to the proceedings, while the chandelier that soars over the stage also serves as a sight gag that ends the show on a slyly subversive note.

If only the 90 minutes that preceded that killer capper had more fizz to them. O’Hara and Byrne may be bleeding for every laugh, but you can’t ignore the fact that “Fallen Angels” is one of Coward’s lesser works. The play proves that even in his twenties, he was already perfecting his transgressive wit.

However, the other elements of Coward’s genius, that alchemy of humor and humanity that made him one of the last century’s greatest playwrights, would come with age.

Ted Danson recalled an intimidating first encounter with former President Bill Clinton and his Secret Service detail during an early date with his now-wife, Mary Steenburgen.

Moderating a panel with Bill and Hillary Clinton at History Talks in Philadelphia on Saturday, Danson started off by telling the audience that his wife has been close with the Clintons “since the early days” — and that she used her friends in high places to test his character on one of their first dates.

“One of the first things she did was take me to meet her dear friends in the White House,” Danson said. “Bill — Mr. President — took me around the corner, and there were three Secret Service agents behind him, all of them looking at me. The president asked me what my intentions were.”

The “Cheers“ star then turned to Bill and asked, “My first question is to you, Mr. President: Do you think that was fair?”

“No, but it was effective. And I didn’t think I had to be fair,” Clinton replied after a brief silence. “As it turned out, you became the best thing that ever happened to her.”

Staying on topic about the Clintons’ early days in the White House, Hillary described the jarring transition from Arkansas to presidential life. After attending the presidential inaugural parade and a dozen balls, the exhausted couple “collapsed into bed” around 3:30 a.m. — only to be awakened two hours later by staff.

“At 5:30 a.m., the doors opens with a White House butler,” Hillary recalled. “He walks in with a silver tray and two cups of coffee because that’s how the Bushes — George H.W. and Margaret Bush — liked to woken up.”

Even basic tasks became an ordeal. Hillary recalled one instance when her staff spiraled after she asked for two eggs, a pan and butter to whip up a quick breakfast for Chelsea when she fell sick.

“You would’ve thought I’d asked for the nuclear codes,” she quipped. “If you said, ‘Can I have a banana?’ and they didn’t have one, then everywhere you went for a week, there’d be bunches of bananas.”

Parenting, childhood upbringings and creating a better world for their grandchildren anchored the Clintons’ conversation, largely steering clear of Trump and other partisan topics. This tone echoed across the four presidential panels, which promoted bipartisanship and the values of the nation’s Founding Fathers (the term “working towards a more perfect union” was heard repeatedly throughout the day).

Beyond politics, History Talks drew a range of entertainment figures, including Nicole Kidman, NFL icons Tom Brady and Jason Kelce, country singer Garth Brooks and comedians Tina Fey and Colin Jost.

Don Schlitz, one of the most widely revered names in the history of country music songwriting, died April 16 in a Nashville hospital after what was described as a sudden illness. He was 73.

A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Schlitz may be best recognized by the public as the sole author of one of country’s most iconic singles, and possibly the genre’s most quoted song ever: “The Gambler,” a country-pop crossover smash for Kenny Rogers in 1978. It was the first song he ever had recorded by someone, but it was not all downhill from there.

Most of his other hits were co-writes, many of them with fellow songwriting legends like Paul Overstreet. The collaborations with Overstreet include “Forever and Ever, Amen,” an 1987 smash in the hands of Randy Travis; other songs for Travis that included “On the Other Hand,” from 1986, and “Deeper Than the Holler,” in 1988; and “When You Say Nothing at All,” made into a country No. 1 by Keith Whitley in 1992 (and also successfully recorded by Alison Krauss & Union Station, plus Ronan Keating, who had a U.K. No. 1 with it in 1999).

Sometimes Schlitz co-wrote with a recording artist, as with “I Feel Lucky,” a smash he co-wrote with its singer, Mary Chapin Carpenter, in 1992, and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” which Carpenter turned into another hit the following year.

He had several enduring hits with the Judds, co-written with their producer, Brett Maher, including “Turn It Loose,” “Rockin’ With the Rhythm of the Rain” and “I Know Where I’m Going,” each of them a No. 1 country hit in the late ’80s for the mother/daughter duo.

Others who recorded his material included Alabama, Sara Evans, Waylon Jennings, George Strait, Ronnie Milsap, Reba McEntire, the Bellamy Brothers, Tanya Tucker, Garth Brooks, Pam Tillis, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, Kathy Mattea, the Oak Ridge Boys and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Schlitz’s many honors include his inductions into the Nashville Songwriters Association Hall of Fame in 1993, the (New York-based) Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Grand Ole Opry in 2022.

The Country Hall of Fame is especially notable because Schlitz was only the sixth songwriter to be inducted, at that time. The Opry’s recognization is similarly noteworthy because he was the only non-performing songwriter to be so inducted in the Opry’s history — although he certainly became a performer for his many regular appearances there, as he had in many songwriters’ round appearances at the Bluebird Cafe.

Awards-wise, “The Gambler” won him the Grammy for best country song in 1978, and it became the CMAs’ song of the year the following year. Ultimately he won two Grammys, three CMA song of the year prizes and two ACM song of the year awards. He also was named ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year for four consecutive years, from 1988-91.

His prowess extended to Broadway, when he wrote both music and lyrics for the 1999 musical “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

Schlitz often told the story of how he wrote “The Gambler” when he was 23, working at Vanderbilt University as a computer operator, aspiring to be a writer. One day, without a car, he walked 2-3 miles home from work and wrote the entirety of the song in his head along the way, except for the kicker. “I’m just making up this story song; I’m good at rhymes and meter, so I’m putting that in to it…. When I made it back to my efficiency apartment, I sat down at my dad’s old Smith-Corona typewriter — I’m a pretty good typist — and wrote it start to finish…without a last verse. When I was done, I knew it was too long and it didn’t have a love angle, and it wasn’t up-tempo, and it was a pretty linear melody,” he told the Library of Congress in a 2018 interview.

One solution for the song was to have no solution. “At that time, I didn’t have the last verse, though I wrote 50 or 60 options. One version of it had 50 lines, another had another 50 lines. I didn’t know how to end it, how to get out of the song, and finally I just decided to leave it open-ended, let the listener decide what happens in the end, like an O. Henry finish.”

Bobby Bare recorded it, but his record company didn’t think it was worthy of releasing. Three other versions came out, including one recorded by Schlitz himself, which he recalled peaking at No. 61. Then an ASCAP exec took to it and got it recorded by both Johnny Cash and Rogers, and the latter singer’s version was the one to make it to the starting gate.

“Kenny’s version was really special and fit his persona. Then they did this amazing album cover. He changed a couple of words, he modulated after the first chorus. His version was more up-tempo. … The song became ubiquitous. It was everywhere. … Actually, I think it was a hit because it was a story, somewhat linear, and, it had no ‘finished’ ending! It allowed the listener to be involved. It respected the intelligence of the listener. And I say this with humility, or as much as I can muster, it wasn’t dumb. (Bob) McDill once told me, ‘You can’t write country music, looking down your nose at it.’ You have to respect your listener. Listeners are smart people. And it was a good time for a story song…

“I can’t tell you enough about what Kenny did, for the song, for me, and for country music. Kenny has always been loyal, kind, generous with his praise. The power of Kenny Rogers, and Larry Butler — a genius producer. The right people at the right time.”

He added, ” if it’s become an American folk song, I’m good with that. You know, I’m not a card player, not a gambler. I don’t do that. Besides, that’s not what the song’s about anyway. If it is, to some people, that’s great. But [the song’s] really about discretion. It’s about choices and the choices you make. Very simply — but very directly. I think when you hear the song, you hear the meaning of the story in Kenny’s voice. He put the wisdom in there.”

Schlitz had only been performing on the Opry on a few occasions when Vince Gill formally invited him to become a member. Soon, he became a favorite of Opry audiences, regaling them with stories from his songwriting career after bluntly beginning with: “You have no idea who I am.”

“I remember whispering to Vince onstage, ‘Don’t leave me here alone,’” Schlitz recalled of his first Opry appearance to American Songwriter in 2022. “I went out and played ‘The Gambler’ and everyone applauded. As we were driving home, we were quiet like old friends can be. I asked him, ‘Does it ever get old?’ He told me ‘Nope,’ and that has turned out to be true.”

He had officially quit songwriting some time ago, saying the constant sense of inner mental research had wearied him. ““I woke up and looked at my wife and said, ‘I want to stop. I want to stop thinking about it all the time.’ That was my process. I listened to people talk. I read. I wanted to write songs that I wanted to hear. Most importantly, I wanted to find an honest way of saying something that came from my heart.”

He still marveled at the unpredictable magic that makes for a hit, saying, “You never know what song is going to be the song, You’re going to tell me that a song that is too long about a guy talking to an older guy who is either drunk or doesn’t have any cigarettes of his own is something that needs to be written? Yeah, I wanted to hear that story.”

Schlitz added, ““I’m not gonna think about my legacy yet. But I get to share Kenny Rogers’ legacy. Keith Whitley’s legacy. Randy Travis’ legacy. These are songs that they know from their heroes.”

Schlitz is survived by his wife, Stacey; his daughter Cory Dixon and her husband Matt Dixon; his son Pete Schlitz and his wife Christian Webb Schlitz; his grandchildren Roman, Gia, Isla, and Lilah; his brother Brad Schlitz; and his sister Kathy Hinkley. Service plans are pending.

“We are heartbroken by the news of the passing of Don Schlitz,” said Country Music Association CEO Sarah Trahern. “Don loved his family, his home state of North Carolina, and above all, songs and songwriters. He carried that love into every room, every stage and every lyric he ever wrote. His work, including timeless classics like ‘The Gambler,’ helped shape our genre and rightfully earned him some of its highest honors.

“In recent years, he found great joy performing at the Grand Ole Opry, mentoring the next generation of songwriters, and sharing his music at Room In The Inn, giving back to the community he helped build. Wayne and I send our love to Stacey and the entire family. Not long ago, we shared a dinner, and as we were leaving, Don picked up a guitar and began to play. That is how I will always remember him, smiling and with a guitar in his hand. His legacy lives on through his music and the many artists and writers he inspired. He will be deeply missed.” 

Coachella has had countless bombshell moments over the years, and so far this year it’s had guest appearances from Madonna, SZA, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg, Olivia Rodrigo and Billy Idol, among others.

But Coachella 2026’s biggest surprise is this: All of those guest appearances, and more besides, took place on the traditionally less-newsworthy Weekend 2.

For example: On Weekend 1, Justin Bieber brought out Dijon and Mk.Gee; on Weekend 2, he brought out Dijon and SZA, Billie Eilish (who was serenaded but did not sing) and Sexyy Red. Giveon brought out Kehlani on Weekend 1, but for his second performance, he was joined by Snoop Dogg and Teddy Swims. On Weekend 1, Addison Rae didn’t bring out any guests — but for her second set, there was Olivia Rodrigo, joining her not only for “Headphones On” but also the live debut of Rodrigo’s new single, “Drop Dead.”

And on Weekend 1, sure, Sabrina Carpenter had cameos from Susan Sarandon and Will Ferrell — but on the second, she did three songs with Madonna (leading one Variety staffer to moan, “Why oh why did I go last weekend?!”).

It didn’t stop there: On Weekend 2, Alex G didn’t just walk into the pit during one song, he went straight into the crowd and did his best to keep singing amid the mayhem. And the Strokes only played their fiercely political video montage, which assailed decades of U.S. meddling overseas as well as the ongoing loss of life in Gaza and Iran, at the close of their second set. (The reasoning behind saving that for Weekend 2 is more obvious.) And PinkPantheress threw a full-on party during “Boy’s a Liar” on her second Saturday night, filling up the stage with Janelle Monae, Zara Larsson, Chase Infiniti, Manon (on hiatus from Katseye), Blood Orange, Slayyyter, Tyriq Withers and DJ Ninajirachi.

Sombr and Teddy Swims split the difference, the former by bringing out a pair of Billys (Corgan and Idol) on successive weekends, while Swims was joined by David Lee Roth for both sets.

Traditionally, most artists have basically played the same set since the festival expanded to two weekends in 2012, and the second is usually musically superior — which makes sense, because there’s less pressure, and they know the “room” better. Occasionally in the past, artists have brought out a different guest or had a unique surprise on Weekend 2 — but it has never even come close to overshadowing if not crushing Weekend 1, which is traditionally the world’s biggest stage for music except for the Super Bowl.

So what’s going on? According to informal (and off the record) conversations with several live-music insiders on Sunday, several factors are at play beyond the shortest and most obvious one: on Weekend 2, a surprise is going to be more of a surprise. 

Of course, that’s not the only reason — the headliner being upstaged by their guest(s) is a big one. “My theory would be that the artists wanted to make sure the spotlight was on them for Weekend 1, and then came back more relaxed and wanting to make another, maybe bigger statement on Weekend 2,” said one agent who has worked with the festival for many years.

Indeed, Madonna — who also made a surprise appearance at the festival during Drake’s 2015 headlining set — announced the July release of her “Confessions on a Dance Floor II” album last Wednesday, teased her new single on Friday afternoon and released it officially a couple of hours after her appearance with Carpenter — obviously a carefully timed strategy. But if she’d done any of that during Weekend 1, she would have stolen the headliner’s thunder.  

That reasoning applies less to Bieber, although his two pre-Coachella warm-up shows and his Weekend 1 set showed that he very much wants to keep the focus on his new material. But by Weekend 2, he’d done that, and possibly felt he could loosen up a bit.

Other factors are in play as well. “Weekend 1 is driven heavily by influencer culture,” the agent added. “But the artist guest area and VIP sections thin out massively for Weekend 2, and there are also less late-night off-site parties, which means less of that [superficial] L.A. crowd makes the trek into the desert.”

A second insider noted, “I think it’s also [artists] giving more to the Weekend 2 crowd, which is generally there more for the music than the scene.” A third added, “Weekend two is always better in my opinion — there’s more to see and less to be seen.”

All agree that this year’s Weekend 2 trend is almost definitely not part of a larger plan, or an effort by Goldenvoice, the show’s founder and promoter, or to boost buzz and attendance to the former stepchild weekend — “It’s hard to see Goldenvoice inserting themselves into an artist’s creative,” another agent said.

However, they also agree that it’s definitely the end result. “It does bode well,” the agent concluded, “for weekend two not feeling like the afterthought next year.”

Ella Langley is not just a singles phenomenon. “Choosin’ Texas” has spent a phenomenal six weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 this year, but that is hardly the last word on her chart successes for 2026. Her “Dandelion” album has ridden the ubiquity of that song to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 album chart, with 169,000 equivalent album units in its first week.

It’s the country crossover sensation’s first No. 1 album. Her previous effort for Columbia, “Hungover,” debuted at a lowly No. 80 in August 2024, then took 17 weeks to reach the album chart’s top 40 before finally peaking at No. 20 just last week, as noted by Billboard.

“Choosin’ Texas” has been No. 1 on the Spotify US Top 50 as often as not in recent weeks, indicating that its streaming success has been across many different demographics, not just country fans, even with its strong traditional-country lean. Currently “Texas” is at No. 2 on the Spotify chart, pushed out of the top spot only by the new Olivia Rodrigo single; it is joined in the top 10 by another song off the new album, “Be Here,” that looks likely to be her followup hit.

Breaking down the 169,000 units, 39,000 of those were in album sales, meaning almost all of the rest was due to her strong streaming performance. Langley’s 120,000 streaming units represent 130.46 million on-demand streams for the songs on the album, as tallied by Luminate.

Even while there are songs from “Dandelion” lined up to be future singles off the album, Langley appeared at a Morgan Wallen stadium show Saturday night and performed a song with him that they are about to put out as a duet. That joint song, “I Can’t Love You Anymore,” is due out this Friday. It hasn’t yet been revealed whether it might appear on a deluxe edition of “Dandelion” or be set for Wallen’s album… or whether it could just be a non-album stand-alone track.

Billboard reported that the debut for “Dandelion” was the best for a country album by a woman in two years — since Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter.” But it’s notable that it comes on the heels of another relatively fresh country artist, Megan Moroney, getting her first No. 1 album with “Cloud Nine” in March. These two are leading contenders for the Academy of Country Music Awards (ACMs) coming up in May.

Speaking of Wallen, he is at No. 2 on this week’s album chart, as “I’m the Problem” stays strong with 83,000 units.

Following behind Wallen at No. 3 is BTS‘ “Arirang,” in its fourth week on the chart. It spent the first three lodged at No. 1.

The biggest leap was taken by Justin Bieber’s “Swag,” which rose from No. 55 to No. 7 on the strength of his widely seen and discussed Coachella week 1 performance, which largely consisted of songs from his two “Swag” albums. It saw an increase of 160%, to 43,000 equivalent album units.

The remainder of this week’s album chart saw Don Toliver at No. 4, Olivia Dean at No. 5, Bad Bunny at No. 6, Luke Combs at No. 8, a second Morgan Wallen album at No. 9, and Sabrina Carpenter at No. 10 (also a Coachella-inspired leap back into the top 10.)

Between Langley, Combs and the two Wallen albums, country releases account for an impressive four spots in this week’s top 10.

The Indigo Girls have been receiving an outpouring of support and love from fans and famous admirers, after the duo released a video statement in which Emily Saliers got exceptionally frank about how two incurable physical conditions she’s experiencing will adversely affect her vocals on their upcoming tour.

In a clip posted to their Instagram account, with Amy Ray sitting beside her, Saliers talked about how she has been diagnosed with cervical dystonia and an essential tremor — both of which have hampered her ability to sing in a clear and constant tone. Nonetheless, they are forging ahead with the tour, but with full advance warning to the audience that they will notice the difference.

“Unfortunately there’s no cure for these, so the honest fact is that my voice will not be what it was,” Saliers said, briefly becoming tearful amid the otherwise matter-of-fact explanation of what she is dealing with. “That’s really hard for me. … I hate that I’m only 62 and it’s happened to me, but we are both aging. People age. We are trying to look at this organically as a process of our own aging. … I just hope that you can have some grace with my struggles for this particular touring year. We’re gonna work hard to make it good, and then whatever the future holds, we’ll see. … We want to bring you the best show that we possibly can.”

Saliers talked about the medical treatment she has been getting to mitigate the effects of these two conditions on her singing. For the upcoming tour, she said they have been working on altering arrangements, boosting the support they already got from background singers like band mainstay Lucy Wainwright Roche, and making use of “all the modern digital tools that front-of-house engineers use to help singers sound better.” (A huge percentage of modern pop artists use live tuning as part of their concert arsenal, though very few have ever owned up to it.)

Reaction to this revelation was as emotional and positive as might be expected. And their fellow performing artists were among the first to chime in in the comments with applause for how boldly and proactively the Indigo Girls were handling this tough situation.

“What you offer the world is beyond bodies,” wrote Sara Bareilles on Instagram. “Thank you for sharing whatever you have to share. It will be received with so much love and gratitude.”

Posted superfan Brandi Carlile: “This is why these two have been my heroes and the only reason I ever picked up a guitar. Being an @indigogirls fan is a life-long privilege. Indigo Girls fans already have an evolved perspective on aging and a deeper understanding of how badass vulnerability really is. This is because of the music they have given us. Wisdom breeds wisdom.

“To say we have Emily’s back is the understatement of the century,” Carlile continued. “If you love to sing, Emily, sing. We will be there singing with you. We are the luckiest fans in the world – we know our verses, and we know the words to every song. Let’s sing them back at the Indigo Girls louder than ever.”

The Indigo Girls’ video begins with Saliers saying:

“We’re coming to you from Atlanta where we’re been practicing and looking forward to our tour dates that we have for 2026, and we needed to make y’all aware of something. To those of you in our community who have supported us all these years, we’re so grateful for you, and I wanted to be completely forthcoming. We both have talked about this and are in support of each other…

“Many of you have noticed that my voice — maybe all of you have noticed, it’s pretty noticeable — that my voice is not what it once was. So I wanted to share with you that I’ve been diagnosed with two movement disorders. One is called cervical dystonia with torticollis, which basically is in the part of my brain that controls movement. And in other people with this condition, the brain sends signals to tighten muscles… So because of the cervical dystonia, my, head twists to the right and is misaligned. It can cause shaking of the head. It’s impossible for me to hold my head centrally without shaking, things like that. So structurally, obviously, that is problematic for this whole throat area.

“But the other diagnosis, which is harder in fact for me, is an essential tremor. And the essential tremor causes involuntary shakes or movement, and it affects all the parts of my singing apparatus, the larynx, the pharyngeal muscles, my jaw and my diaphragm from which I get all the air for singing. So I’m unable to make the connections muscularly and structurally because of the essential tremor. What else the essential tremor does is give me this — I am gonna call it horrible, because it’s horrible to me — vibrato that I never used to have. I am completely physically unable to hold a straight tone the way I used to.

“And this is what you, our community, have come to, I think, appreciate and love about some of our harmonies is the way we can hold long straight tones together. So I want to give you a heads up about that, in full transparency. I’m doing everything that I can know and that the medical community has advised me to mitigate the symptoms of these two disorders. So that includes therapeutic massage, physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture…. I get Botox shots in my neck and shoulders every three months. That’s sort of the standard line of treatment for these disorders. And I’m also seeing a vocal coach who is an expert in movement disorders for singers, particularly essential tremor.

“Unfortunately there’s no cure for these, so the honest fact is that my voice will not be what it was. That’s really hard for me. Amy’s been super supportive, and we want you to know that as we get ready for these shows, we are doing everything we can to make the songs sound as good as they can possibly sound or ever sound, which includes all the modern digital tools that front-of-house engineers use to help singers sound better. So we’ll be using those and we’ll be working on harmony parts”. Lucy, Wayne, Wright Roach and Lyric and Jeff Fielder will be joining us. We’ll be singing some harmonies.” with the backup-singing musicians. “There may be some new arrangements…

“We wanted together to let you know that this has been going on. I’ve had this diagnosis for a while, but as I say, the conditions get incrementally worse over time. … I hate that I’m only 62 and it’s happened to me, but we are both aging. People age. We are trying to look at this organically as a process of our own aging.

“There are no words to articulate our gratitude for you, our community, who has been with us through our activism and through all the albums and through even our personal struggles through all the years. I just hope that you can have some grace with my struggles for this particular touring year. We’re gonna work hard to make it good, and then whatever the future holds, we’ll see. … We want to bring you the best show that we possibly can. And unfortunately this is a condition that can’t be reversed or mitigated unless there’s some medical breakthrough that hasn’t happened yet. So that’s where we are.”

At this point, Ray added her thoughts.

“We’re just reviewing all the songs. It’s interesting because there’s a lot of things I need to work on, too, and so we’re picking out the strongest songs… You know,we’re not changing things drastically. Basically, we’re bringing Lucy (Wainwright Roche) in a little bit more and that helps support us. And then we are just practicing together to make sure we’re singing together and blending as much as we can in the best way. So we’re doing the work because we love the music and we love you guys. And we don’t wanna just say, ‘Oh, we’re not gonna do it anymore because of this.’ We just want to keep playing and do our best, and I feel like y’all are the best audience ever. And we’re sort of as a community, you know, all going through things. So, so we’re gonna hang together, you know, and just do our thing. And the central message of love and self-esteem and activism and all that, it’s therem and that’s what we want to share.”

“It’s heavy and it’s life,” said Saliers. “We are just telling you because we’re gonna go through this year touring, and we don’t want it to be this thing that people are talking about, that we’re not talking about. Because we expect you guys to believe in yourself. and we want to believe in ourselves. So if we can’t play all your requests, it’s not because we don’t want to, we’re just picking the songs, as Amy said, that work the best. And we hope we can bring you joy and that we can all enjoy these. I mean, I know we all need the bonding, galvanizing power of music together.”

From the response, it seems clear that few if any fans will hold the alteration of arrangements in these shows against them. The message was met with a torrent of enthusiasm for the Indigo Girls carrying on. And some of their contemporaries led the way in the online onset of praise for their honesty and perseverance.

Wrote singer Chely Wright: “You are the definition of authenticity, courage and grace.”

Said Jennifer Nettles: “Forever in both of your corners! Forever a fan! Forever your friend. Your whole community of fans and friends are with you and I will be in the front row clapping the loudest and singing to the top of my lungs!! Your music sings and grows and evolves right along with life. Ever transforming. Thank you for your hearts and support of each other. You are inspiration to us all. See you on the road!!!”

And, posted Glennon Doyle: “Your audience has been aging too, Emily and Amy. We’re entering our Indigo Crones era with you. So much has changed – around us and on us and in us. But you haven’t. You’ve been with us the whole time- writing us through, leading us forward, singing us home. We’re not home yet, so you can’t stop singing. We won’t either. Lead the way Emily- show us how to sing while we shake. There might not be a more important thing to show us in this moment. We love you, Amy and Emily. See you on stage.”

The tour, announced three weeks ago, begins April 24 in Athens, Ohio, and runs through a Sept. 13 closer in Evanston, Illinois. One of the early dates is a May 14 gig in Los Angeles at the Bellwether. They will be opening for Brandi Carlile at the Gorge in Washington state on May 29 as part of a star-studded bill their famous acolyte has put together.

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Amazon’s second season of its social experiment series, “Jury Duty,” ended this month, with the reveal that unwitting series star Anthony Norman had been working for a family-owned hot sauce company that didn’t actually exist in real life.

But while “Rockin’ Grandmas” was a fictitious firm that formed the basis of “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” (streaming free on Prime Video) fans of the show can now actually purchase Rockin’ Grandmas products in real life.

Prime Video and Dave’s Gourmet have launched a lineup of four hot sauces under the “Rockin’ Grandma’s” moniker, with the sauces inspired by the comedy series and popular restaurant-style condiments. The collection features a Jamaican Jerk (Off) Sauce (their name, not ours); a “smoky sauce” with habanero, chipotle and passion fruit; an original hot sauce made with habanero, mustard and honey; and a “sweet sauce” that adds a touch of pineapple and mango to the ingredient list.

The hot sauce bottles come in fun and colorful branding that nods to themes and motifs from the show along with a hangtag displaying the Prime Video and “Jury Duty” show logos. The catchphrase: these sauces will “rock your socks off.”

“We loved the idea that something living inside a world created for one person could make its way into the real world for many more to enjoy,” says Matthew Insolia, President of Dave’s Gourmet, which also makes its own line of condiments and pasta sauces available online. “Now fans of the show can taste it. No acting required.”

Series star Norman was hired a “temporary employee” to assist at a corporate retreat for Rockin’ Grandma’s, with the weekend then covered documentary-style for “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat.” Of course, unbeknownst to Norman, the entire experience was staged for the TV show. The finale episode, which aired April 3, saw Norman helping to save Rockin’ Grandma’s from being sold, after which the cast revealed the truth to the 25-year-old “temp,” who was awarded $150,000 for his participation on the show. The finale was followed by a reunion episode hosted by actor James Marsden, who played himself in the first season of “Jury Duty.”

While the show is over, you can still buy the Rockin Grandma’s hot sauces online at Amazon, and Amazon Prime members can stream “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” online free on Prime Video. Not a Prime member? Get a 30-day free trial here to watch the show for free and get free shipping on the sauces, in addition to a host of other Prime member deals and offers.

Of course, Rockin Grandma’s Hot Sauce is not to be confused with Grandma’s Hot Sauce, an independently-owned small business in the UK producing hot sauces inspired by founder Kapana Feldano’s grandmother’s upbringing and recipes from the West Indies. You can shop Grandma’s Hot Sauce and its line of wiri wiri and scotch bonnet pepper-inspired condiments online here.

Tina Fey reflected on how “Saturday Night Live” has covered politics at History Talks, a speaker series featuring some of the most prolific political and media figures in modern history. The starry event, produced in tandem by the History Channel and Comcast NBCUniversal, fittingly celebrated the 250th anniversary of the United States right in the heart of Philadelphia.

“One fifth of America’s history has been covered by ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Fey quipped to the audience at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday afternoon. “Which one will last longer?”

Fey appeared on “SNL” from 1997 to 2006, a pivotal era where she worked closely with Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers and Rachel Dratch, helping usher the sketch series into a new echelon of political relevance — one in which the country’s top elected officials began to take notice.

“The show’s relationship to current events became a thinner and thinner veil,” Fey explained. “They said something, we said something back. They’d come over and go, ‘We want to be on [the show] too.’ It’s thrilling, and almost a scary thing, that something you say will be heard by the person in charge.”

Fey continued to shape “SNL” history after her departure, notably hosting the first episode following the 2007–08 writers strike with a monologue that criticized NBC’s staff cuts. Later that fall, she appeared in a run of sketches as Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin during the height of the 2008 election. Many media analysts at the time suggested the sketch impacted McCain and Palin’s poll numbers. Variety reported on the “SNL Effect” in March 2008, highlighting how the show helped fuel a narrative that the press was too tough on Hillary Clinton and too soft on Barack Obama, which some argued led to tougher media coverage of Obama.

“It is fascinating to know that what you say will be taken seriously,” Fey said, recounting the six-week cycle she spent writing Palin sketches with Poehler and Meyers. “We always worked really hard to make sure they were what we call a ‘fair hit.’ It only felt like it would work if it was based in something that was true. Sometimes people will ask me, ‘Does SNL try to control the narrative of politics?’ And they really do not. You really can’t because if it’s not true, it will not be funny.”

Fey’s comments align with what longtime NBC executive Rick Ludwin told Variety after Nielsen reported that “SNL” Season 34 saw a 50% ratings boost during the 2008 presidential campaign. “We’re obviously thrilled the show is being talked about as more relevant than in the past,” Ludwin told Variety’s Michael Schneider. “There is a sense of responsibility to be fair. Our job is to be funny and to make fun of politics.”

The “SNL” icon also listed some of her favorite political impressions on the show: Darrell Hammond as Al Gore, Dana Carvey as George H. W. Bush and Matt Damon as Brett Kavanaugh. Before explaining why Damon’s take worked, Fey looked out into the crowd and quipped, “Justice Kavanaugh, if you’re here, I don’t understand what this event is. Are we on trial?”

Damon’s Kavanaugh debuted in the “SNL” Season 44 premiere in 2018, leading a cold open on the nominee’s Supreme Court hearings opposite Rachel Dratch as Sen. Amy Klobuchar. His explosive performance poked fun at Kavanaugh’s questionable explanations of yearbook jokes widely interpreted as references to lewd sexual exploits and heavy binge drinking.

“He came in and just played him so perfectly, it helped alleviate a frustration that many viewers of those hearings had,” Fey said. “It only works if it’s correct.”

“SNL” alum Kate McKinnon also moderated a History Talks panel with current cast member Colin Jost, the “Weekend Update” co-anchor who now occupies the desk once held by Fey. The event drew a wide range of attendees, including NFL stars Tom Brady and Jason Kelce, country singer Garth Brooks and Nicole Kidman. Most notably, all four living former U.S. presidents — Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — were in attendance.

“Doesn’t it seem like there is one segment that is out of place?” McKinnon quipped.