A
OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS
Animals Out of Paper
Yolo! Productions and the Great Griffon狮鹫 present the play by Rajiv Joseph, in which an origami (折纸术) artist invites a teenage talent and his teacher into her studio. Merri Milwe directs. In previews. Opens Feb. 12. (West Park Presbyterian Church, 165 W. 86th St. 212-868-4444.)
The Audience
Helen Mirren stars（star v. 担任主角） in the play by Peter Morgan, about Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ of the UK and her private meetings私人会议 with twelve Prime Ministers 首相大臣 in the course of 在...期间 sixty years. Stephen Daldry directs. Also starring Dylan Baker and Judith Ivey, Previews begin Feb. 14. (Schoenfeld, 236 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.)
Hamilton
Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote this musical 音乐剧 about Alexander Hamilton, in which the birth of America is presented as an immigrant 外来移民的 story. Thomas Kail directs. In previews. Opens Feb. 17. (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.)
On the Twentieth Century
Kristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher star in the musical comedy by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, about a Broadway 百老汇 producer who tries to win a movie star's love during a cross-country train journey. Scott Ellis directs, for Roundabout Theatre Company. Previews begin Feb. 12. (American Airlines Theatre.227. W. 42nd St. 212-719-1300.)
B
For Western designers, China and its rich culture have long been an inspiration激励,鼓舞 for Western creativity.
"It's nо secret that China has always been а source (来源) оf inspiration fоr designers," says Amanda Hill, a chief creative officer at A+E Networks, a global media company and home to some of the biggest fashion (时尚) shows.
Earlier this year, the China Through A Looking Glass exhibition in New York exhibited 140 pieces of China-inspired fashionable clothing alongside Chinese works of art 艺术品, with the aim of exploring the influence of Chinese aesthetics (美学) on Western fashion and how China has fueled（fuel v. 加强,刺激） the fashionable imagination for centuries. The exhibition had record attendance, showing that there is huge interest in Chinese influences.
"China is impossible to overlook," says Hill. "Chinese models are the faces of beauty and fashion campaigns 运动,活动 that sell dreams to women all over the world, which means Chinese women are not just不仅仅 consumers of fashion — they are central to its movement." Of course, not only are today's top Western designers being influenced by China — some of the best designers of contemporary fashion are themselves Chinese. "Vera Wang, Alexander Wang, Jason Wu are taking on（take on sth 接管） Galliano, Albaz, Mare Jacobs — and beating them hands down（beat sb hands down 轻松击败某人） in design and sales," adds Hill.
For Hill, it is impossible not to talk about China as the leading player when discussing fashion. "The most famous designers are Chinese, so are the models, and so are the consumers（so be/do/have/情态动词 sb/sth. ...也是）," she says. "China is no longer just 不再仅仅是 another market; in many senses（在很多意义上）, it has become the market. If you talk about fashion today, you are talking about China — its influences, its direction, its breathtaking（breathtaking adj. 激动人心的） clothes, and how young designers and models are finally acknowledging 承认,认可 that in many ways."
C
Before the 1830s, most newspapers were sold through annual subscriptions in America, usually $8 to $10 a year. Today $8 or $10 seems a small amount of money, but at that time these amounts were forbidding（forbidding adj. 可怕的，令人生畏的） to most citizens. Accordingly 于是, newspapers were read almost only by rich people in politics or the trades. In addition, most newspapers had little in them that would appeal to（sth appeal to sb. 对...有吸引力；使感兴趣） a mass audience. They were dull and visually forbidding. But the revolution that was taking place（take place 发生） in the 1830s would change all that.
The trend, then, was toward the "penny paper" — a term referring to（refer to sth. 提到,谈到） papers made widely available to the public. It meant any inexpensive newspaper; perhaps more importantly it meant newspapers that could be bought in single copies on the street.
This development did not take place overnight. It had been possible (but not easy) to buy single copies of newspapers before 1830, but this usually meant the reader had to go down to（go down to sw. 去往某地） the printer's office to purchase a copy. Street sales were almost unknown. However, within a few years, street sales of newspapers would be commonplace 普遍的 in eastern cities. At first, the price of single copies was seldom a penny — usually, two or three cents was charged（charge v. 收费，要价） — and some of the older well-known papers charged five or six cents. But the phrase "penny paper" caught the public's fancy（catch/take sb's fancy 吸引某人，中某人的意）, and soon there would be papers that did indeed sell for only a penny.
This new trend of newspapers for "the man on the street" did not begin well. Some of the early ventures (企业) were immediate failures. Publishers already in business在营业中, people who were owners of successful papers, had little desire to change the tradition. It took a few youthful and daring（daring adj. 勇敢的,敢于冒险的） businessmen to get the ball rolling（set/start/get the ball rolling 着手做，开始做，带头做）.
D
Monkeys seem to have a way with numbers.
A team of researchers trained three Rhesus monkeys to associate 26 clearly different symbols consisting of（consist of sth 由...构成） numbers and selective letters with 0-25 drops of water or juice as a reward. The researchers then tested how the monkeys combined — or added — the symbols to get the reward.
Here's how Harvard Medical School scientist Margaret Livingstone, who led the team, described the experiment: In their cages, the monkeys were provided with touch screens. On one part of the screen, a symbol would appear, and on the other side, two symbols inside a circle were shown. For example, the number 7 would flash（flash v. 快速地显示） on one side of the screen and the other end would have 9 and 8. If the monkeys touched the left side of the screen, they would be rewarded with seven drops of water or juice; if they went for the circle, they would be rewarded with the sum of the numbers — 17 in this example.
After running hundreds of 数以百计的 tests, the researchers noted 指出,留意到 that the monkeys would go for the higher values more than half the time, indicating that they were performing a calculation, not just memorizing the value of each combination.
When the team examined the results of the experiment more closely, they noticed that the monkeys tended to（tend to do sth 倾向于做某事） underestimate (低估) a sum compared with a single symbol when the two were close in value — sometimes choosing, for example, a 13 over the sum of 8 and 6. The underestimation was systematic 有条理的，成体系的: When adding two numbers, the monkeys always paid attention to the larger of the two and then added only a fraction (小部分) of the smaller number to it.
"This indicates 显示 that there is a certain way quantity is represented in their brains," Dr. Livingstone says. "But in this experiment what they're doing is paying more attention to the big number than the little one." （pay attention to sth）
