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A London theatre has added a ‘trigger warning’ to its production of William Shakespeare’s 415-year-old play Macbeth. The Almeida Theatre in London includes this “content warning”: “This production includes extreme scenes of violence, including violence against children, suicide, and the use of blood, firearms and knives. It also contains flashing lights, vaping and the smoking of real cigarettes.” It further directed viewers to the Samaritans suicide charity “if you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this production” of the over-400-year-old play, which as The Times noted, is considered suitable for children and often taught in school...

Bright Sheng is a professor of composition at the University of Michigan. He was born in China in 1955; when he was a child, the Red Guards took away his family piano. Nevertheless, he grew up to become a widely celebrated musician: He received a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship in 2001, and has twice been a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in music. His undergraduate students should certainly count themselves lucky to be able to learn from him. Instead, they are demanding the university fire him for rendering the classroom an unsafe space. The administration is looking into the matter, and...

A Queen’s University student theatre company has cancelled a production of Shakespeare’s Othello set to open this month following an outcry over the decision to cast a white woman in the title role of a black man. “For the safety and mental health of our entire team we unfortunately feel the need to suspend our production of Othello,” the artistic directors wrote on Facebook Wednesday. They subsequently apologized to the Kingston, Ont., university’s black community for what they called an “oppressive” artistic decision. After September auditions, Queen’s Vagabond Theatre made what its directors acknowledged was a risky decision: Lauren Broadhurst,...

I admit that when five of the Republican candidates for president appeared at their lecterns in the first televised debate of the season, I said to myself, oh no. Not another black guy. We’ve already been snookered into electing the first black president who has turned out to be a total flop at managing the country. I watched the entire debate, however, and by the time it was over, I was convinced we should have waited and made this guy our first black president. We should have withheld the honor until a black candidate appeared whose job application showed him...

“As God is my witness,” I did not want to write about Bill Clinton ever again. But he is a persistent cuss. Like Jack Torrance (Nicholson) said in The Shining, as he used an axe to chop through the door, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in. Not by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin? Well then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.” Is there any doubt, by now, that Clinton (him) is equally persistent? That as long as he has life and breath he will continue to break into the present to upstage all other...