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A Visual Tour of ‘Oh, Mary!,’ Cole Escola’s Surprise Broadway Hit
A collage showing Cole Escola as Mary Todd Lincoln, historical photos of Mary Todd Lincoln, and other ephemera. More
Eliana Willis
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Interview: S.E. Hinton on ‘The Outsiders’ and Her Reading Life
What books are on your night stand?I am currently rereading “Middlemarch” (it takes rereading), and “The Last of the Wine,” by Mary Renault. Socrates is a character in that book. So is Plato. To have them appear casually in a novel, yet be very faithful to what we know of them, is great.How do you organize your books?I have a beautiful library, organized by subjects: History (early to late), Author Biographies, Exploring, Women’s Studies, Journalism, Entertainment, English Fiction, American Fiction and Children’s Books. The Paranormal books are organized by Ghosts and Hauntings, Reincarnation, Coincidences, Strange but True.Why so many books on the paranormal?I have had many strange things happen in my life.Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).Any time, on the sofa, with good lighting, my cat and a small glass of wine.What’s the last great book you read?“Demon Copperhead.” I don’t know a whole lot of Dickens but I know “David Copperfield” inside and out. I love the way Barbara Kingsolver followed some of the plot. Also, Demon is a great narrator — talking the way you can imagine him talking, thinking the way you can imagine him thinking.What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?I wish I knew more Shakespeare.Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?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
- in Television
Stephen Colbert Is Surprised by Luigi Mangione’s ‘Minifesto’
“He could’ve just made it a Yelp review: ‘American health care sucks. One star,’” Colbert said of the content of a notebook found with the crime suspect.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.The Rest Is Still UnwrittenLaw enforcement officials said they recovered a notebook from Luigi Mangione after he was arrested on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., in connection with the killing of the chief executive of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson. Officers said the notebook included detailed plans for the shooting last week.On Wednesday, Stephen Colbert expressed surprise over the brevity of the note’s 262 words. “That’s not a manifesto — that’s a ‘minifesto,’” Colbert said.“He could’ve just made it a Yelp review: ‘American health care sucks. One star.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The document basically rails against the health care industry and ends with, ‘I do apologize for any strife or traumas, but it had to be done.’ Well, at least he apologized. Reminds me of what Manson said after his murders: ‘Whoops, my bad!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s so crazy to think that Donald Trump working the French fry machine was only the second-weirdest thing to happen at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania this year.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Police in Altoona report that they’ve been getting threats from Mangione’s fans, demanding he be released immediately. You know, I’ve been on TV just about nonstop for 29 years. This guy’s been in the news since Monday. He has fans threatening the police? Why do I feel like if I shot somebody, even my mother would be like, ‘Lock him up, teach him a lesson! It’s the only way he’s going to learn!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“OK, ‘I don’t really know what I’m talking about’ is a surprising thing to put in a manifesto. This is the first murder manifesto I’ve read that could have ended with ‘But no worries if not!’” — MICHAEL KOSTA“You never see the Taliban like, ‘Death to America, although we’re not experts, so, grain of salt.’” — MICHAEL KOSTA“Mangione has now been charged with second-degree murder, but he’s not pleading guilty, and he’s fighting attempts to extradite him to New York. Well, that makes sense — no one wants to be extradited to New York during the holidays. You’ve got to wait in a two-hour line just to be cavity searched at the M&M store.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Two More Weeks Until Christmas Edition)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 Highs and Lows on London Stages in 2024
Our critics discuss which A-lister performances on the West End were worth the ticket price, and why so many new musicals struggled this year.This year saw London host buzzy productions like Jamie Lloyd’s “Romeo and Juliet,” starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, and Robert Icke’s take on “Oedipus,” with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. Other productions struggled, including more star vehicles — and some musicals, particularly.Matt Wolf and Houman Barekat, The New York Times’s London theater critics, discuss the triumphs and the disappointments of the last year in British theater, and also look ahead to 2025.Which productions impressed you most?HOUMAN BAREKAT James Macdonald’s “Waiting for Godot” at the Theater Royal Haymarket was superb. The Beckett estate is famously proscriptive about what can be done with his plays, so the performers have to make their mark in small, subtle ways. Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati delivered a master class in timing as the leads.I was hugely impressed by Rachel O’Riordan’s take on “Faith Healer” at the Lyric Hammersmith, featuring Declan Conlon as an insidiously charismatic Svengali. On a lighter note, I also loved the National Theater’s arch, camped-up version of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” with its gorgeous staging and costumes.The cast of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” including Hugh Skinner, center, as Jack Worthing.Marc BrennerMATT WOLF I second Houman’s choices, and would extend further kudos to the writer-director Robert Icke’s scorching take on “Oedipus,” whose sold-out run proved that there is still an appreciative audience in London for serious theater. Special shout-out to Icke’s Jocasta, Lesley Manville, who is well on the way to becoming a giant of British theater.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
- in Television
Labor Board Classifies ‘Love Is Blind’ Contestants as Employees
The National Labor Relations Board’s case against the Netflix hit could have ripple effects across the reality TV industry.The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the hit reality show “Love Is Blind” on Wednesday in which it classified the show’s contestants as employees, opening a case that could have ripple effects across the reality television industry.The complaint by the labor board’s regional office in Minnesota says that the show committed several labor violations, including unlawful contractual terms related to confidentiality and noncompete provisions.By classifying the cast members — who date and sometimes marry other singles on the show — as employees with certain federal legal protections, the complaint opens the door to possible unionization. It is one of the labor board’s first forays into reality television and a major development in the effort by some onscreen personalities to change the industry through the legal system.Several contestants on “Love Is Blind,” which streams on Netflix and has been one of the buzziest dating shows since its debut in 2020, have come forward in lawsuits, in interviews and on social media with objections to the restrictions outlined in their contracts.One contestant, Renee Poche, became involved in a legal dispute with the show after she publicly accused the production of allowing her to become engaged, in front of TV cameras, to a man “who was unemployed with a negative balance in his bank account.” She said in court papers that after she had made “limited public remarks about her distressing time on the program,” one of the companies behind the production initiated arbitration proceedings against her, accusing her of violating her nondisclosure agreement and seeking $4 million. (Poche, a veterinarian who lives in Texas, said she had earned a stipend of $1,000 per week, adding up to a total of $8,000.)Two “Love Is Blind” participants — Poche and Nick Thompson — submitted complaints to the labor board, resulting in an investigation into the policies and practices of the production companies behind the show, which include Kinetic Content and Delirium TV.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 Amazing Kreskin, Mentalist and 1970s TV Star, Dies at 89
His display of mysterious mind-reading powers on TV made him a pop culture phenomenon in the 1970s.George J. Kresge, who as the entertainer the Amazing Kreskin used mentalist tricks to dazzle audiences as he rose to fame on late-night television in the 1970s, died on Tuesday in Wayne, N.J. He was 89. A close friend, Meir Yedid, said the death, at an assisted living facility, was from complications of dementia.Kreskin’s feats included divining details of strangers’ personal lives and guessing at playing cards chosen randomly from a deck. And he had a classic trick at live shows: entrusting audience members to hide his paycheck in the auditorium, and then relying on his instincts to find it — or else going without payment for a night.George Joseph Kresge Jr. was born in Montclair, N.J., on Jan. 12, 1935, and became known professionally as either the Amazing Kreskin or just Kreskin. As a child he was drawn to both magic and psychology, he said, and by the time he was a teenager he was performing mentalist tricks for audiences.His star rose in the 1970s and early 1980s when he was a regular guest on the talk show circuit. He made dozens of appearances on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” — 88 according to some sources — and was also seen on “The Mike Douglas Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman,” among other shows. (In the 21st century, he appeared on “The Tonight Show” when Jimmy Fallon was the host.)With other famous guests, he played psychological tricks that looked like magic: asking people to put their fingers on objects that would seem to move, for example, or guessing what card had been pulled from a deck.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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Martin Benson, Regional Theater Impresario, Dies at 87
South Coast Repertory, which he founded with a partner, was a major force in Southern California theater. He directed more than 100 of its productions.Martin Benson, a founder and longtime artistic director of South Coast Repertory, a nationally renowned regional theater in Southern California that won a Tony Award in 1988, died on Nov. 30 at his home in Huntington Beach, Calif. He was 87.Justin Krumb, his stepson, said the cause was probably a heart attack.Mr. Benson and David Emmes, friends and former theater students at San Francisco State College (now University), started South Coast Repertory in 1964 and developed it as a home for classic works and newly commissioned plays and musicals. As Orange County’s first professional theater, it filled a void.“We’ve always been a theater of literature,” Mr. Benson told The New York Times in 1988. “Shaw, Synge, Wilde and new playwrights.”South Coast’s many world premieres included Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Wit,” Donald Margulies’s “Sight Unseen,” Craig Lucas’s “Prelude to a Kiss” and Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain” — all of which went on to Off Broadway and Broadway runs. Sam Shepard’s “True West,” with Ed Harris and John Ashton, made its Southern California premiere in 1981. Ten of Mr. Greenberg’s plays were commissioned by South Coast and had their premieres there.Mr. Benson directed 119 productions and won seven Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards: three for plays by George Bernard Shaw, whose works he specialized in, and the others for “Wit,” Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” John Millington Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” and Sally Nemeth’s “Holy Days.”Mr. Benson, left, in an undated photo with David Emmes, with whom he founded South Coast Repertory, and Jerry Patch, the company’s resident dramaturg.Glenn Koenig/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesWe 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
- in Theater
Raygun Shuts Down Musical Inspired by Her Jeered Olympic Breaking
The comedian behind the parody about the Australian breaker who became a summer celebrity said she was willing to make some changes to avoid legal drama.A performance of “Breaking: The Musical,” a parody exploring the journey of the Australian breaker known as B-girl Raygun, whose unusual routines at the Paris Olympics this summer led to mockery and memes, was shut down after a cease-and-desist letter.Steph Broadbridge, the show’s creator and star, said she was willing to make changes so the show could move forward, but not at the expense of art. She said the show in Sydney was designed to be intimate enough that she could receive feedback from friends and other comedians with the goal of having it fully ready by May.“I was trying to get notes and bump up the jokes and make it funnier,” she said.The breaker, Dr. Rachael Gunn, a professor with a Ph.D. in cultural studies from Macquarie University who has a background as a ballroom, jazz and tap dancer, became an unlikely Olympic celebrity after losing all three of her head-to-head battles with routines that featured her thrashing about on her side and hopping around like a kangaroo.The one-hour show was supposed to feature a dozen actors and songs like “You May Be a B-Girl, But You’ll Always Be an A-Girl to Me,” “I’m Breaking Down” and “I Would Have Won but I Pulled a Muscle,” according to an Eventbrite listing.Broadbridge, 42, said in a video posted to her Instagram account that Gunn’s lawyers had said that the musical could damage the dancer’s brand and that she was not allowed to perform any of Raygun’s signature moves.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
