"Look with thine ears," Lear tells poor blind Gloucester, and that is exactly what the rest of us should do now we know that the majority of New York theatres will not open their doors until, at the most optimistic guesstimate, the middle of next year. Zoom fatigue set in months ago, but audio is stepping into the breach to take us places that glazed screen-gazing can't. The eyes tend toward the literal, while what we only hear can bloom, the way a novel does, in the privacy of the mind, as is the case with two new productions--one radical, one retro--that use audio to light a path forward for performance in the COVID era and beyond. "A Thousand Ways" (produced by the Brooklyn-based ArKtype) was created by the duo Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, who go by the moniker 600 Highwaymen and are known for devising inventive, sincere theatre of a kind that makes urbane audiences fatted on cynicism feel wonder afresh. In "This Great Country," from 2012, seventeen performers, some experienced, some green, acted out scenes from "Death of a Salesman," transforming that classic into something rich and strange; "Employee of the Year," staged in 2014, had five girls under the age of eleven tell the story of one woman's adulthood.

On the roster: The scariest stat you'll see all day -Trump tries outreach to Dems on DREAMers - Dems set demands on taxes - Flynn pushed plan that profited his client - 'You're my boy, Blue' THE SCARIEST STAT YOU'LL SEE ALL DAY When you consider the fact that a third of American adults cannot name a single branch of their federal government, you cease to wonder why things are so bad and begin to wonder why they are not already worse. In a poll conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center ahead of this weekend's celebration of the 229th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution, only 26 percent of respondents could identify the executive, legislative and judicial branches, while 40 percent could name only one or two. Americans talk openly and often about the dumbing down of our culture, what we refer to as "The Big Stupid." It is a lament, but also something of a brag for people not clutched by ignorance of this magnitude. But it's easy to be an intellectual elite in a nation where not even half of the people know what kind of government they have.

As every scrap of James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee is pored over and picked apart, one word gleams brighter than any other. It is a common word, employable as both a noun and a verb, and it boasts an extraordinary breadth. We may say, "I hope to catch the 6:42 A.M.," or "I hope the kids don't catch a cold," and, at the other end of the spectrum, Christians are exhorted to pray "for all who have died in the hope of the Resurrection." So where do the hopes that Comey cited yesterday, in his own utterances and in his reports of others' speech, belong? First, we have his homely dictum, which is already destined to wind up on a thousand T-shirts, or in the chorus of a country ballad: "Lordy, I hope there are tapes."

Robot" is never far from the pulse of current events. A couple of weeks ago, the dystopian computer hacker drama was in mid-shoot at an FBI field office when news broke that bureau Director James Comey had been fired. "One of the lines of dialogue is referencing Comey," Sam Esmail, the show's creator, recalled. "That was a little surreal and kind of an out-of-body experience." Esmail might as easily be describing the USA Network series, whose dark and downbeat second season unfolded much within the imagination of its mentally unstable antihero, Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), as he fought to free himself from his manipulative alter-ego, Mr. Robot (Christian Slater). By season's end, fsociety -- the underground hacktivist group led by the sidelined Elliot -- was shattered, and a deadly, explosive plot hatched by Mr. Robot and the Dark Army, a cryptic Chinese organization, was about to go off. Elliot himself lay bleeding, shot by a character he believed to be a delusional figment. The show's license to be uncanny is endorsed by the headlines, argues its star. "As ridiculous as this sounds, I feel that I'm reading my scripts as if I could be reading the L.A. Times tomorrow," said Malek, speaking by phone during a lunch break from a location shoot on New York City's Broadway. "I would approach Sam and say, 'Do you really believe that this is possible?'

A video released Friday showed former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton practicing how to duck a hug from her then opponent, President Donald Trump last year. Philippe Reines, a Democratic strategist who worked with Clinton's campaign during the 2016 election, posted the video on Twitter, which was filmed Sept. 24, 2016, two days before the first presidential debate. It showed Clinton practicing for her face-off with the then-candidate Trump, in which Reines opposite her, was portraying Trump. As a voice called out from the background, asking the two candidates to come on to the stage, both walked up, with Clinton extending her hand, but Reines (like Trump), opening his arms wide for a hug. Then laughter could be heard as Clinton tried to avoid the embrace.

How's it gone so far? Microsoft's big annual conference kicks off today, and we've sniffed out what you can expect. We also get the full reveal of Amazon's Echo-with-a-screen. It's not pretty, but it does sound pretty smart. What to expect at Microsoft's Build 2017 conference While it's a mobile computing world, Microsoft has no shortage of projects we need to be updated on.

A special team of analysts has been activated to sort and sift through the cache of newly discovered emails that kick-started the dormant Hillary Clinton email probe, two intelligence sources confirmed to Fox News. The sources say the multi-agency task force was re-engaged over the weekend, with analysts working overlapping shifts covering 16 hours a day to identify new classified material. The objective is to gain more clarity on the records recovered from ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner's computer -- to assess if intelligence sources and methods were compromised and to inform FBI Director James Comey in case he faces more pressure for answers on the state of the investigation. Comey's announcement Friday that the bureau was reviewing newly discovered emails in the Clinton case – discovered during the separate sexting probe of the disgraced former congressman and estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin – drew criticism from Clinton allies who accused him of meddling in the election.

The gunman who attacked a Florida LGBT nightclub had attended the club before the attack and had used a gay dating and chat app, witnesses said. Kevin West, a regular at Pulse nightclub, said Omar Mateen messaged him on and off for a year before the shooting using the gay chat and dating app Jack'd. West was dropping off a friend at the club when he noticed Mateen – whom he knew by sight but not by name – crossing the street wearing a dark cap and carrying a black cellphone about 1 a.m., an hour before the shooting. "He walked directly past me. I said, 'Hey,' and he turned and said, 'Hey,'" and nodded his head, West said.