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    How ‘The Lion King’s Resident Dance Supervisor Keeps the Musical in Motion

    If there were a want ad for resident dance supervisor to “The Lion King,” it might read something like this: Must be able to work 10-hour days, seven days a week; to manipulate 200 puppets and walk on stilts; to wrangle 52 performers and remember every move in the two-and-a-half-hour show. Candidate must also have the heart of a social worker, the discipline of a Marine and the boundless enthusiasm of a camp counselor to keep the musical as fresh as when it opened 28 years ago.While plenty of Broadway shows have dance captains — they’re in charge of keeping choreography in good order — only “The Lion King” has a resident dance supervisor. The show is like a giant, kinetic jigsaw puzzle: It needs someone to ensure that all the pieces fit together, so that the narrative moves forward — and no one gets hurt.This has been Ruthlyn Salomons’s job for 25 years.There are crowds backstage and onstage at “The Lion King,” which has 52 performers; ensemble members perform multiple roles.Graham Dickie/The New York TimesMovement is the show’s motor, Salomons said. “It’s what binds it. It’s not just the performing bodies that move. Everything in the show moves. Everything dances.” That goes for a 5-inch mouse as much as for the 13-foot-long mama elephant, Bertha, who has four puppeteers tucked into her body.“The show’s demands are so unusual,” said Michele Steckler, a former associate producer of “The Lion King,” “that taking care of it requires a different kind of maintenance.” In the show’s early days, Steckler petitioned her colleagues to create a new position for someone to oversee all the movement. “It was just too much for one person,” she said. (The show also has two dance captains, but they double as performers and can’t see the show from outside.)Salomons with Ntsepa Pitjeng-Molebatsi, who plays Rafiki.Graham Dickie/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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    ‘The White Lotus,’ Plus 9 Things to Watch on TV this Week

    The HBO satire of the rich and well-traveled comes back for a third season. And “Saturday Night Live” hosts its 50th anniversary special.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that air or stream this week, Feb. 10-16. Details and times are subject to change.An uneasy vacation.Since HBO’s “White Lotus” and “Succession” have been off the air, what has there been to discuss with your friends or post about on X on Sunday nights? Luckily, “The White Lotus” is back. In its first two seasons, viewers have gone on transcontinental journeys, including an indelicate hotel manager in Hawaii and a strange love square in Italy. And now, the third season is taking off to Thailand, where there promises to be stressful family dynamics, an off-putting couple and of course, lots of suspense and threats of violence and crime. Sadly, Jennifer Coolidge won’t be on this season after she met her untimely demise — or maybe she will be? With the director and writer Mike White at the helm, who truly knows what is going to happen? Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO and streaming on Max.50 years of ‘Saturday Night Live.’In lots of ways, this whole season has been a celebration of the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” but the official pomp and circumstance is kicking off this week with “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert,” a live show from Radio City Music Hall in New York. Hosted by “SN.L.” alum Jimmy Fallon, the show will include performances from over 20 artists, including Arcade Fire, Eddie Vedder and Miley Cyrus. And the best part? You can watch live from the comfort of your home. Friday at 8 p.m. on Peacock.The 50th anniversary special of “Saturday Night Live,” hosted by Lorne Michaels, will look back at the show’s past.Will Heath/NBCLive from New York, it’s … Sunday night? Though the title doesn’t match the timing, “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” is the big three-hour event that rounds out a season full of trips down memory lane and will feature some famous alumni and a look into the show’s history. If you want to get prepped in a different way, the fictional retelling of the first night of the show, “Saturday Night” directed by Jason Reitman, is now streaming on Netflix. Sunday at 8 p.m. on NBC.A resurgence of romantic comedies.Sometimes you’re traveling to Italy for a very pragmatic, very grown-up reason, and all the sudden, you’re swept up into a romance that alters the course of your life. I mean, that’s what I’ve seen in movies; it’s never happened to me. In “The Dolce Villa,” things are no different. Eric (Scott Foley) travels to Tuscany to try to stop his daughter Olivia (Maia Reficco) from buying and restoring an old villa. The moment he arrives in town, he meets the mayor, Francesca (Violante Placido), and you know what they, say: colpo di fulmine. Streaming Thursday on Netflix.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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    ‘The Interview’: Denzel Washington Has Finally Found His Purpose

    So many of Denzel Washington’s greatest performances — from the majestic title role in “Malcolm X” to the unrepentantly corrupt cop Alonzo Harris in “Training Day” — have been defined by a riveting sense of authority, an absolute absence of pandering or the need to be liked. There’s an inner reserve deep down inside his characters that is unassailable, a little enigmatic, and that belongs to them alone.The commanding qualities that have helped Washington become a cinematic legend are also, as I learned firsthand, the same ones that make him an unusual — and unusually complicated — conversationalist. The first of our two discussions was done remotely. He was at a photo studio in Los Angeles as the fires were still burning there, and I was at home in New Jersey. Even putting our physical distance aside, the discussion felt, well, distant. Or let me put it this way: We never quite figured out how to connect.The second time we talked, it was different. I met Washington in person, at a spare, drafty room in a Midtown Manhattan building where he was rehearsing for an upcoming Broadway appearance. He’s playing the lead in a new production of “Othello” that goes into previews on Feb. 24; it co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago and is directed by the Tony Award winner Kenny Leon. I can’t with any certainty really say why, but things just felt easier on the second go-round. What I do know, though, is that the entire interview experience was, for me, as indelible as one of his performances.Listen to the Conversation With Denzel WashingtonThe legendary actor discusses the prophecy that changed his life, his Oscar snub and his upcoming role starring alongside a “complicated” Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello” on Broadway.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppI saw that at the end of last year you were baptized and earned your minister’s license. I got baptized, and I have to now take courses to obtain a license. I’m not an ordained minister.Can you tell me about the decision to go through that process at this point in your life? I went for a ride one day. I decided to get in my car and drive up to Harlem. I stopped in front of the church that my mother grew up in. The door was cracked, so I went in. They were celebrating young students, members of the church, that were going to college. And I got involved in that, and one thing led to another, and weeks later, months later I got baptized. More

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    For Morris Chestnut, R&B Is Therapeutic

    “It’s helpful in my work,” said the star of the new TV series “Watson,” “because it triggers thoughts, triggers memories, triggers emotions.”When Morris Chestnut first heard about “Watson,” a new CBS medical mystery set within the Sherlock Holmes mythology, he was interested. But once he read the script by Craig Sweeny — the show’s creator and one of the writers behind that other Sherlockian CBS series, “Elementary” — he grew even more excited.“He has so many crazy, creative ideas,” Chestnut, 56, said. “So I rushed to it. I said, ‘I have to do it.’”“Watson” opens as Chestnut’s character, Dr. John Watson, is rebuilding his life six months after the death of his dear friend and partner, Sherlock Holmes. Holmes has left Watson a parting gift: a medical clinic, in Pittsburgh, devoted to curing rare disorders.“He’s treating patients, and while he’s treating those patients, he somewhat also has to treat himself,” Chestnut said.Studying to be a doctor is stressful, but so is studying to sound like one, and it requires a certain level of sacrifice — especially for an N.F.L. addict.“When I’m doing the show, I literally have to pick one game on Sunday,” Chestnut said of learning the medical jargon that flows like honey from Watson’s mouth. “In the middle of commercial breaks, I’m looking at the script.”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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    The Greatest ‘Saturday Night Live’ Episode Ever*

    *Well, maybe only to me. “S.N.L.” fans all have their own idea of the show’s peak, and this is mine.As measured by the calendar, “Saturday Night Live” is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. But you could also say that 50 “Saturday Night Lives” are each celebrating an anniversary.There are, of course, those who watch the show every week, every year, and have followed its evolution for decades. But many of us have a singular personal “Saturday Night Live”: a particular season or group of performers that defines the show for us.Don’t take this from me. Take it from Lorne Michaels. “Generally, when people talk about the best cast,” he once said, “I think, ‘Well, that’s when they were in high school.’”I was in high school in 1984. Even back then — those freaks-and-geeks years when you define yourself by your pop-culture obsessions and nerds are most vulnerable to the wiles of sketch comedy — I was only a modest “S.N.L.” fan. I loved “S.C.T.V.” and David Letterman and Monty Python.In college and later, I would move on to “The Simpsons” and other comedy enthusiasms. Sometimes I’d enjoy “S.N.L.”; sometimes I’d hate it; sometimes I’d enjoy hating it. But honestly, for most of my life I’ve thought of it like a public utility — always there, but not something I’d be a “fan” of any more than I’d be a fan of the gas company.But there was a while when “S.N.L.” vibrated on my wavelength, when I was the right age to stay up, when my friends spent every Monday quoting lines to one another in the school cafeteria. I can narrow my “S.N.L.” of choice down to a specific season — in fact, to a specific episode: Season 10, Episode 9, airdate Dec. 15, 1984.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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    How Going to Commercial During the Super Bowl Works

    Television commercial breaks are the bane of every N.F.L. fan. They interrupt a game already riddled with stoppages, bombard viewers with come-ons and force fans and players in the stadium to stand around for about two and a half minutes, sometimes in the freezing cold.Yet commercials are the lifeblood of the N.F.L. Without them, broadcasters could not afford to pay the league billions of dollars for rights fees, money that goes to paying players’ salaries and much more.Most games have 18 commercial breaks. A few timeouts, like at the end of the first and third quarters and at the two-minute warnings, are fixed. The league and networks avoid taking breaks if a team’s opening drive of the game ends quickly, because they want fans to settle into the broadcast. If all goes well, the last commercials run at the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter.Most commercial breaks, though, are chosen in real time as league executives, network producers and officials on the field look for natural breaks in the action. Finding them is more art than science because every game unfolds differently, with long drives, three-and-outs, injury timeouts and coaches’ challenges.League officials sit in the press box during games and help determine when to take commercial breaks.Caroline Gutman for The New York Times“Our fans know that the commercial breaks are coming,” said Mike North, vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling at the N.F.L. “The whole idea from where we sit is to try to use those breaks to cover downtime: resetting the field after a score; if there happens to be an injury, hopefully a minor one; or an instant replay review when the referee goes to the sideline.”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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    Tony Roberts, Nonchalant Fixture in Woody Allen Films, Dies at 85

    Tony Roberts, the affable actor who was best known as the hero’s best friend in Woody Allen movies like “Annie Hall,” and who distinguished himself on the New York stage with two Tony Award nominations and what the critic Clive Barnes of The New York Times called his “careful nonchalance,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.His daughter and only immediate survivor, Nicole Burley, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Mr. Roberts played easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Alvy Singer, the hero of “Annie Hall” (1977), which won the Oscar for best picture, stuttered, dithered and fumbled his way around Manhattan’s Upper East Side alongside Rob (Mr. Roberts), his taller, better-looking, far more self-assured Hollywood actor friend and tennis partner. If truth be told, Rob would rather be in Los Angeles, where the weather is nicer, adding a laugh track to his sitcom.Mr. Roberts, center, with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall” (1977). Mr. Roberts appeared in several of Mr. Allen’s films, playing easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Brian Hamill/United Artists, via Everett CollectionMr. Roberts played similar types in other Allen films. In “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” (1982), he was a jovial bachelor doctor at the turn of the 20th century. “Marriage, for me, is the death of hope,” his character announced. In “Stardust Memories” (1980), he was a brash actor who brought a Playboy centerfold model to a film festival.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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    The Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials, Ranked

    Here is our critic’s evolving survey of this year’s Super Bowl commercials, from best to worst.Here is my annual critical ranking of the Super Bowl commercials. This is the pregame edition, with all the available national ads that I could track down; the list will be updated after Sunday’s game.The trends so far? Nothing controversial, as you would expect, but also — and perhaps for associated reasons — very little creativity. It’s a bad year for ads; the ones at the top of this list aren’t much better than average. More spots than usual depend entirely on the appeal of a relatable celebrity (who is almost certainly male). Concepts beat ideas — there is a lot of fussy, overly complicated silliness and not much in the way of simple, effective storytelling or mood setting.(You may not see every commercial listed here during the game, and you may see commercials not listed here. The various broadcast and streaming platforms will carry different selections of ads, and some ads will only be shown in certain regions.)No. 1National Football LeagueN.F.L.The N.F.L.’s own feel-good promo, “Somebody,” is affecting in a highly produced, can’t-we-all-just-get-along manner. Its implicit endorsement of diversity and inclusion offers a muted contrast to the league’s decision to forgo the “End Racism” end-zone slogan.No. 2Stella ArtoisWe 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