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    Book Review: ‘Cue the Sun!’ by Emily Nussbaum

    CUE THE SUN! The Invention of Reality TV, by Emily NussbaumThere are times when Emily Nussbaum’s passionate, exquisitely told origin story, “Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV,” feels like something of a Trojan horse.Her expansive analysis begins with a simple proposition: an argument for why a genre that includes series like “The Dating Game” and “Alien Autopsy” deserves a book-length history in the first place.For Nussbaum, industry terms like “unscripted series” don’t quite encompass all the pop culture ground these shows negotiate. Instead, she settles on the phrase “dirty documentary” to cover a wide swath, describing a history that kicks off with the pioneering prank show “Candid Camera” in the 1940s, progresses to irreverent TV series like “The Gong Show” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and eventually explodes into modern TV megahits like “Survivor,” “Big Brother” and “The Bachelor.”With muscular prose and an exacting eye for detail, Nussbaum, a staff writer for The New Yorker, outlines how such shows united high and low art into a potent concoction, ranging from “celebreality” soap opera to grand social experiments that explore romance, competition and ethics. Their secret sauce: placing people in contrived situations to spark entertaining, telegenic, revelatory behavior — often through conflict or embarrassment.“It’s cinéma vérité filmmaking that has been cut with commercial contaminants, like a street drug, in order to slash the price and intensify the effect,” Nussbaum writes. The result is “a powerful glimpse of human vulnerability, breaking taboos about what you were allowed to say or see.”The book culminates in one of America’s most persistent rule breakers, Donald Trump, documenting how the creator and executive producer Mark Burnett built NBC’s “The Apprentice” into a success that burnished the reputation of the playboy tycoon, resulting in “the most sinister outcome.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Jay Johnston of ‘Bob’s Burgers’ to Plead Guilty in Jan. 6 Case

    Jay Johnston, also known for his work on “Mr. Show with Bob and David,” was charged last year with participating in the riot at the Capitol. He is expected to plead guilty at a hearing on July 8.The actor Jay Johnston, who voiced Jimmy Pesto Sr. on the animated Fox sitcom “Bob’s Burgers,” has agreed to plead guilty in the federal case against him over his participation in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The authorities arrested Mr. Johnston, 55, in California last summer and charged him with four counts, including civil disorder and entering restricted grounds. Mr. Johnston agreed to plead guilty to a single count of civil disorder in exchange for the other charges being dropped, according to a person familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity. A plea agreement hearing is scheduled for July 8 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.A civil disorder charge carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, or a fine or both.Mr. Johnston was a regular on the groundbreaking 1990s television comedy “Mr. Show with Bob and David” and later had recurring roles on “The Sarah Silverman Program” and “Arrested Development.” His movie credits included “Anchorman” and “Men in Black II.”He was quickly named by internet sleuths when the F.B.I. published photos of him at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in asocial media post asking for the public’s help identifying him.The authorities also identified Mr. Johnston in police body camera and security footage of him pushing against officers and helping rioters push through a tunnel entrance into the Capitol, according to an affidavit prepared by the F.B.I.He is seen taking photos of the crowd, signaling others to join the push and giving water to rioters, who used it to wash their eyes out, according to the affidavit.Additionally, three people who know Mr. Johnston identified him to investigators in the images at the Capitol. One of those people showed investigators a text message sent by Mr. Johnston in which he admitted to having been at the Capitol.“The news has presented it as an attack,” the message stated, according to court documents. “It actually wasn’t. Thought it kind of turned into that. It was a mess. Got maced and tear gassed and I found it quite untastic.”Mr. Johnston had also booked a round trip from Los Angeles to Washington D.C., with his departing flight on Jan, 4, 2021 and his return set for three days later, according to court documents.The Daily Beast, an online news site, reported in December 2021 that Mr. Johnston lost his job voicing Jimmy Pesto Sr. on “Bob’s Burgers” after allegations spread that he had been at the Capitol.Mr. Johnston is one of more than 1,500 people to be charged for actions related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, according to the Justice Department. He is set to join the more than 800 people who have pleaded guilty to charges.Alan Feuer More

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    After a Brief Run, ‘Tommy’ Revival to Close on Broadway

    “The Who’s Tommy,” which has a rock score by Pete Townshend, will end on July 21. A national tour is in the works.A revival of “The Who’s Tommy” that arrived on Broadway three decades after a successful original production will end its run on July 21. The show opened strong but faced dwindling sales at the box office.The production, which had a successful pre-Broadway run in Chicago, will now pin its hopes on a national tour, beginning in Providence, R.I., in the fall of 2025.With a rock score by Pete Townshend, “Tommy” dates back to a 1969 album from the Who; the original Broadway production opened in 1993 and ran for a little more than two years.Set in London, the show has a wild plot: A young man who loses the ability to hear, speak and see in response to childhood trauma develops a gift for pinball that allows him to attract a cultlike following.The revival began its life last year at the Goodman Theater in Chicago; the Broadway production began previews on March 8 and opened on March 28 at the Nederlander Theater. At the time of its closing, the revival will have played 20 previews and 132 regular performances on Broadway.Des McAnuff, who directed the original production, returned to direct the revival. Townshend and McAnuff collaborated on the show’s book.The revival, starring Ali Louis Bourzgui in the title role, scored mostly positive reviews, but The New York Times, which can have an outsize influence, was an outlier: Jesse Green, its chief theater critic, characterized the show as featuring “relentless noise and banal imagery.”The production was nominated for a Tony Award for best musical revival but lost to “Merrily We Roll Along.”“Tommy,” with Stephen Gabriel and Ira Pittelman as lead producers, was capitalized for $15.7 million, according to a spokesman. That money has not been recouped.The show is the third musical to announce a closing since the start of May, following “Lempicka” and “The Heart of Rock and Roll.” More

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    ‘I Might Be Real-Life Good at This’: Shooting for Broadway at the Jimmy Awards

    The awards, which celebrated excellence in high school musical theater on Monday, have become a launchpad for future stars and Tony nominees.Shortly after Damson Chola Jr. sang the powerful “Ragtime” anthem “Make Them Hear You,” in a commanding performance that drove the Minskoff Theater to delirium on Monday night, the young singer accepted the Jimmy Award for best actor. He gave an equally poised acceptance speech, expressing gratitude with a calm cadence and the occasional wry chuckle of someone who’s seen and heard it all.“Is he 40?” my neighbor mused.Hardly. The Jimmys celebrate excellence in high school musical theater, and Chola, a recent graduate, is 18. The winner for best actress, Gretchen Shope, perhaps more expected for their age group, included in her thanks “the girl on TikTok that said I looked like Chappell Roan.” Then again, Shope had just killed with “The Music That Makes Me Dance,” from “Funny Girl,” so who’s to say what’s typical when it comes to theater kids?The actor Telly Leung led group coaching sessions at the Juilliard School, which was also home for the Jimmy Award nominees during their stay in New York.Bess Adler for The New York TimesFormally known as the National High School Musical Theater Awards, the Jimmys were founded in 2009 by the theater organization Pittsburgh CLO and a division of the Nederlander Organization. (The nickname derives from that company’s onetime chairman, James M. Nederlander.) The awards have since grown significantly in size. This year, tens of thousands of participants from across the country were narrowed down, through regional awards programs, to 102 nominees.The Jimmys have also grown in esteem: Casting agents for Broadway and national tours see them as a prime way to scout for promising performers. And you don’t even have to win to be noticed. Eva Noblezada, a 2013 finalist, went on to earn Tony Award nominations for “Miss Saigon” and “Hadestown” in 2017 and 2019, and she currently stars in “The Great Gatsby.” Casey Likes, a 2019 finalist, made his Broadway debut as the lead in “Almost Famous” and is now playing Marty McFly in “Back to the Future.” The guest presenters at the Minskoff included Justin Cooley, a 2021 finalist whose Tony nomination for his performance in “Kimberly Akimbo” came just two years later.During a whirlwind week that included intensive rehearsals, the young nominees attended the Tony Awards. “I went back to my dorm and I just cried,” said Theo Rickert, a rising senior from Illinois.Bess Adler for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Review: In ‘Find Me Here,’ Sisters Grapple With a Father’s Will, and His Legacy

    A family gathering fuels Crystal Finn’s new play, in which an excellent cast teases out the many complications of inheritance.Weddings, anniversaries, holidays: The family get-together is a dramatic gift that keeps on giving to both screen and stage. Crystal Finn’s new play, “Find Me Here,” at Wild Project, falls into a subcategory of the funerals subgenre — the opening of a will. In this case, a patriarch’s last wishes are discovered by his three daughters and their families. Truths and conflicts emerge gingerly, almost tentatively, because Finn is less interested in confrontation than in gentle poking and prodding.Unfortunately, “Find Me Here,” the third and final installment of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2024, is also unwilling to commit to any particular point. Its cast, however, including Constance Shulman, Miriam Silverman and Frank Wood, is so good that the production feels like the theater equivalent of handing Formula 1 drivers keys to an economy sedan. The actors are experts, but there is only so much the vehicle can do.The story revolves around the siblings Nancy (Lizbeth Mackay), Dee-Dee (Shulman) and Deborah (Kathleen Tolan), whose ages range from the mid-60s to the early 70s. Deborah is the oldest and has spent the past 30 years on an island, having followed a guru there. Tolan gives her the beatific mien of someone who can see a light invisible to others, which contrasts nicely with the acerbic Dee-Dee and the stressed-out Nancy.The will’s most consequential revelation is that Deborah was left nothing, an outcome she shrugs off. When Nancy tells Deborah that their father did love her, Dee-Dee says, “Well that’s … we just don’t know … he did, Deborah.”Mind you, Nancy also calls their father a tyrant and says that when she informed him that she was getting divorced, he replied, “Three daughters, and not one of them a success.”Though there are three sisters in the play, Finn (who was in the cast of “Usus,” the first installment of Summerworks 2024) doesn’t nod toward Chekhov so much as to some kind of American portraiture painted in small, innocuous brushstrokes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Review: A ‘Ulysses’ That Squeezes Bloomsday Into 2 Hours, 40 Minutes

    Elevator Repair Service’s staged reading of the huge James Joyce novel retains much of its humor, pathos and bawdiness.Looking at the stage as you enter the Luma theater, the smaller of the auditoriums at Bard College’s Fisher Center, you might think your ticket had been switched with one for a zoning board meeting. Enjoy the splendor of chairs lined up behind three conjoined conference tables! Admire the care with which pens, stacks of paper and wee bottles of water have been laid like dinner settings! Warily consult the large clock on the upstage wall that offers the real time — at least at first.And wonder whether this thing called “Ulysses” can possibly capture, in a reading, the richness of Joyce’s gargantuan novel about everything under the sun and also in the dark.With caveats, it can. The Elevator Repair Service production, playing at Bard through July 14, somehow manages to reduce the novel’s more than 260,000 words to 2 hours and 40 minutes with much of its humor, pathos and bawdiness intact. It’s not the complete text, of course; for that you must spend 24 hours at a Bloomsday marathon, during which even the readers may fall asleep.Instead, the edition used here, though verbatim, is highly intermittent. When each of its hundreds of cuts occurs, we hear the squeal of sped-up tape, and we see the seven cast members blown back in their chairs as if by a strong wind of gibberish.Still, this redacted “Ulysses” manages to touch down for at least a brief visit in each of the novel’s 18 episodes. These are roughly modeled on the ones in Homer’s “Odyssey” — Ulysses being the Latin name for Odysseus. But instead of tracing the watery wanderings of that Trojan War hero on his 10-year journey home to faithful Penelope, Joyce traces the bibulous wanderings of a Dublin ad canvasser named Leopold Bloom on a daylong journey back to his cheating wife, Molly.Center front, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, who plays both Stephen Dedalus and Bloom’s sharp-tongued cat. Left to right, at the desk: Dee Beasnael, Knight, Kate Benson and Maggie Hoffman.Maria BaranovaWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Leslye Headland’s ‘Cult of Love’ to Open on Broadway in the Fall

    The play will be produced by Second Stage, which is also planning an Off Broadway production of a two-character drama by Donald Margulies.“Cult of Love,” a play about a fractious holiday gathering of a Christian family, will come to Broadway this fall via Second Stage Theater, one of the four nonprofits with Broadway houses.The announcement on Tuesday is a further sign that the current season is shaping up to be a robust one for plays, which had been considered an endangered species on Broadway, but which seem to be proliferating as the economic climate for musicals worsens.“Cult of Love” is written by Leslye Headland, a creator of the Netflix series “Russian Doll” and the Disney+ series “The Acolyte.” She has also written and directed films including “Sleeping With Other People.”The play is scheduled to begin previews Nov. 20 and to open Dec. 12 at the Hayes Theater.“Cult of Love” is Headland’s final work in a series, called “Seven Deadly Plays,” that is inspired by the seven deadly sins; this one is about pride. The play was staged in 2018 at IAMA Theater Company in Los Angeles and there was a run early this year at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California. (A planned 2020 production at Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts was canceled because of the pandemic.)The Broadway production, like the Berkeley production, will be directed by Trip Cullman. The play has 10 characters and casting has not been announced.Second Stage also said on Tuesday that it would stage an Off Broadway production of “Lunar Eclipse,” a two-character play by Donald Margulies (a Pulitzer winner for “Dinner With Friends”) that had a run last year at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass.The new production, directed by Kate Whoriskey, is to star Reed Birney (a Tony winner for “The Humans”) and Lisa Emery as a long-married couple. It is to begin previews Oct. 9 and to open Oct. 30 at the Tony Kiser Theater.“Lunar Eclipse” is expected to be Second Stage’s final production in that space, which the company is exiting at the end of the year, citing financial considerations. Second Stage expects to present its spring season at the Pershing Square Signature Center while it explores options for an Off Broadway home. More

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    ‘Babylon Berlin’ Review: Dancing While the World Begins to Burn

    The long-awaited fourth season of the cult-favorite German thriller takes place in 1931, with the Nazis not quite in power.Far from the eyes of Emmy voters or the digital gremlins compiling streaming Top 10 lists, there is a series — a German period drama, of all things — that a small core of aficionados would argue is the world’s best television show.Some of their fondness may have to do with absence. It has been more than four years since a new season of “Babylon Berlin” became available in the United States. And the first three seasons, which resided formerly on Netflix, moved this year to MHz Choice, a boutique streamer of international series and films whose (unreported) subscription figures would probably constitute a good morning’s uptick for Netflix.So if you are part of the cult — tracking the right subreddit, commiserating with a Facebook friend group of the requisite sophistication — it is a very big deal that the 12-episode fourth season of “Babylon Berlin,” shown in Germany in 2022, is finally premiering on MHz Choice in the United States on Tuesday. (To answer the immediate questions: $7.99 a month, seven-day free trial, and the full season will be up by July 30.)Based on historical mystery novels by the German writer Volker Kutscher, the show is a sleek, louchely sexy blend of police procedural, love story, Freudian melodrama and expensively rendered costume epic. All of the elements (with the occasional exception of the heavy psychological symbolism) are juggled with finesse by the show’s creator-writer-directors, Achim von Borries, Henk Handloegten and Tom Tykwer. (Bettine von Borries and Khyana el Bitar are also credited as writers in Season 4.)The balls stay in the air with the mesmerizing rhythm of one of the cabaret acts at the show’s fictional nightclub, Moka Efti; the effect can be, to use the favorite descriptor among “Babylon Berlin” fans, addictive. The series — and the fourth season in particular, which has a story line involving the gathering of Berlin’s criminal gangs — has been compared to “M,” the great 1931 thriller by the German director Fritz Lang. But a better comparison would be to Lang silents like “Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler” and “Spies,” intricately assembled thrillers that are some of the most deluxe entertainments ever put on film.It helps, of course, that the place and time the show inhabits are Berlin in the Weimar era of the 1920s and early ’30s, a ready-made backdrop of artistic, cultural and sexual ferment in a city headed toward political and social catastrophe. The action hopscotches from police labs to the soundstages of expressionist films, from munitions factories to beer halls, from baronial manors to squalid tenements, with a studious devotion to the quality and evocativeness of costumes, sets and locations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More