Call it standing ovation inflation: these days, it feels like it's mandatory to stand and clap for live performances. Has our please clap era gone too far? That's what one Throughline listener wanted to know. So we traced the winding road from Shakespeare’s epilogues to Broadway divas to ridiculously long film festival ovations… and how they helped engineer the way we applaud.

Guests:

Roger Gilbert, professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell

Kyle Buchanan, reporter and columnist for the New York Times

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