Eliana Willis

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    Louis Armstrong Musical ‘A Wonderful World’ Set for Broadway

    “A Wonderful World,” featuring Armstrong’s songs, is set to begin previews at Studio 54 in October after previous runs in Miami, New Orleans and Chicago.“A Wonderful World,” a new musical about Louis Armstrong, will have a run on Broadway starting in the fall.The musical, which has previously been staged in Miami, New Orleans and Chicago, will star James Monroe Iglehart, who a decade ago won a Tony Award for originating the role of the Genie in “Aladdin,” and who is now starring as King Arthur in a Broadway revival of “Spamalot.”The show is scheduled to begin previews Oct. 16 and to open Nov. 11 at Studio 54, where the musical “Days of Wine and Roses” is now playing a limited run.When Armstrong died in 1971, the trumpeter and singer left a legacy as one of the most important figures in the history of jazz. The show examines his life through the eyes of his four wives.The score is made up of Armstrong songs including the classic that gives the show its title, along with “When You’re Smiling,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” and others. The book is by Aurin Squire, and Christopher Renshaw is directing; Renshaw and Andrew Delaplaine are credited with conceiving the musical.“A Wonderful World” is being produced by Thomas E. Rodgers Jr., Renee Rodgers, Martian Entertainment (Carl D. White and Gregory Rae), Vanessa Williams and Elizabeth Curtis. More

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    In Justin Peck’s ‘Illinoise,’ Dance On and Feel It

    Justin Peck was around 17 when he first heard the Sufjan Stevens album “Illinois,” an epic paean to the state, nearly two dozen tracks brimming with orchestral indie rock, dense, lyrical wistfulness and sometimes obscure local history. This listening experience came long before Peck wanted to make dances, before he was even a professional dancer.But “Illinois” urged him to move. “It was an instantaneous, illuminating thing that I felt like it was so danceable,” said Peck, now the resident choreographer and artistic adviser at New York City Ballet. “And it is so rare to find someone who can conjure that, especially someone who’s alive right now.”Ever since, Peck, 36, has found artistic inspiration in Stevens — “the voice in music that has led me down paths further than I’ve ever gone before,” he said.The two collaborated regularly, including on “Year of the Rabbit,” the ballet that launched Peck as a choreographer, in 2012. Not long after they began working together, Peck, hoping to experiment with storytelling forms, and influenced by dance-pop productions like Twyla Tharp’s “Movin’ Out,” asked if he could make a theatrical piece set to “Illinois.” Stevens took nearly five years to agree.Justin Peck, left, and Jackie Sibblies Drury, who said the show “feels like the most broadly appealing thing that I have actually ever worked on.”Sasha Arutyunova for The New York TimesAlmost five years later, the result is “Illinoise,” a project that is every bit as ambitious and genre-defying as its soundtrack: a narrative dance musical that combines a coming-of-age story, a snapshot of queer identity and a meditation on death, love, community, history, politics and zombies.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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    In ‘Elsbeth,’ a Quirky Side Character Becomes a Quirky Lead

    This CBS procedural is new, but its star, Carrie Preston, has been playing the central character for almost 14 years.While filming the new crime show “Elsbeth” in an Upper West Side apartment in January, Carrie Preston, playing the title character, tentatively patted the guest star Peter Grosz on the arm. The combination of the gesture and Elsbeth’s hesitant expression made the attempt at comfort come across as simultaneously awkward and funny — and unmistakably true to the consistently awkward, funny Elsbeth.Robert King, who created the series with his wife, Michelle, and was directing that particular episode, chuckled in delight as he watched on a monitor. Nearby the showrunner, Jonathan Tolins, said, “She always finds things like that,” referring to Preston’s flourish. “That was probably not in the script.”Premiering Thursday on CBS, “Elsbeth” is a new project but Elsbeth herself is not. One reason Preston inhabits her fully enough to improvise such small, telling gestures is because she has been playing her for almost 14 years.Fans of legal dramas have long been acquainted with Elsbeth Tascioni, a seemingly scatterbrained but diabolically effective redheaded lawyer who popped up toward the end of the first season of “The Good Wife” in May 2010. From the start, the Kings, who also created that hit show, thought of Elsbeth as an answer to Columbo, the Los Angeles homicide detective that Peter Falk played in a series, then specials, between 1968 and 2003.“I didn’t really watch ‘Columbo’ — it was a little before my time,” said Preston, 56. But “I knew he was a little unorthodox in the way he did things. I was like, ‘OK, I get it: They want people to not see her coming.’”The Kings kept bringing Elsbeth back for guest stints on both “The Good Wife” and its first spinoff, “The Good Fight.” Despite her relatively limited screen time, she became a fan favorite, and Preston landed two Emmy nominations and one win, in 2013, for playing her.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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    Late Night Chides Biden for Talking About Gaza While Eating Ice Cream

    “Not the most dignified way to deliver world-changing news,” Michael Kosta said on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.’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.Biden’s Big ScoopOn Monday, President Biden was asked about a timeline for a potential cease-fire in Gaza while visiting an ice cream shop for a “Late Night with Seth Meyers” segment.On Tuesday, the “Daily Show” host Michael Kosta said Biden had delivered his response “in the most Joe Biden way possible” — that is, while eating an ice cream cone.“Not the most dignified way to deliver world-changing news. It does remind me of the photo of Obama’s team watching the bin Laden raid while making balloon animals.” — MICHAEL KOSTA“This was like when Obama announced ‘We got bin Laden’ just as someone put out the pie.” — SETH MEYERS“That’s a very statesmanlike response, and a reason to kindle hope, if he hadn’t said it directly into a scoop of mint chip.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’ll tell you what, if I was a politician, I would always have an ice cream with me, just to cram in my mouth in case I got asked about Israel-Palestine.” — MICHAEL KOSTA“Now, despite Biden’s prediction, both Hamas and Israel say they’re not actually close to a cease-fire. But I’m not surprised that Biden was so optimistic: When you’re holding a freshly scooped ice cream cone, everything feels like it’s going to be OK. That’s why it’s the official food of telling your kid you’re getting a divorce.” — MICHAEL KOSTAThe Punchiest Punchlines (Biden and Trump Take Mexico Edition)“Biden and Trump are scheduled to visit the border in Texas on Thursday. Both of them. They will both be at the border. And if they can get two more senior citizens to go with them, they’ve got themselves a pickleball match.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Former President Trump is set on Thursday to visit the U.S.-Mexico border. I’m guessing to make a break for it?” — SETH MEYERS“If you think these two guys are confused now, wait till they spend a few hours in 100-degree heat.” — JIMMY FALLON“The president is going to see what can be done to solve the border crisis. Trump is going to make sure he doesn’t solve what’s happening at the border. Biden is planning to meet with U.S. border agents, while Trump is planning to sell golden high-tops on the streets of Juárez.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJosh Brolin took over Stephen Colbert’s desk on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightSheryl Crow will perform on Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutOlivia Rodrigo onstage in California on Friday night.OK McCausland for The New York TimesFor her Guts World Tour, Olivia Rodrigo’s opening acts will range from the rising star Chappell Roan to the Gen-X rockers the Breeders. More

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    ‘The Ally’ Review: Social Justice as a Maddening Hall of Mirrors

    Itamar Moses’s play offers eloquent arguments on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it doesn’t offer much drama.As this is a trial, let’s start with the facts. Asaf Sternheim, who teaches writing at a university a lot like Penn, is asked by a former student, Baron Prince, to endorse a manifesto. The manifesto seeks justice for Baron’s cousin, Deronte, who was killed by police officers while being stopped for a theft he had nothing to do with.Also pertinent: Asaf (Josh Radnor) is a Jew, albeit the kind that subscribes, as he says, to the “acoustic-guitar-based variety” of Judaism. Baron (Elijah Jones) is Black, as was Deronte.And one more thing: The 20-page manifesto, tying violence against Black Americans to violence against all subjugated populations, calls for “sanctions on the apartheid state of Israel,” adding that “failure to do so will leave the United States complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.”You could feel the “uh-oh” in the audience the night I saw “The Ally,” an important, maddening play by Itamar Moses that opened on Tuesday at the Public Theater.Words like “apartheid” and “genocide,” when applied to Israel and Palestinians, are sure to rile lots of people. But challenging the use of those words will equally rile others. Smack in the middle is Asaf, whom the play proceeds to put through a tribal-political wringer that leaves him — and left me — a limp dishrag.Whether you think that’s a good thing for a play to do may depend on your tolerance for endless, furious, yet familiar debate. There’s no question that Moses, whose biography as the Berkeley-raised son of Israeli immigrants is a close match for Asaf’s, knows the territory and its every skirmish intimately. It often seems that the arguments, on all sides, have been transcribed from personal experience or the news.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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    Ole Anderson, Original Member of Four Horsemen Wrestling Team, Dies at 81

    The professional wrestler fought alongside Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard. He later spoke out against the commercialization of the sport.Ole Anderson, a professional wrestler who starred as an original member of the Four Horsemen team in the 1980s and was later critical of the sport’s corporate greed, died on Monday. He was 81.The Carter Funeral Home in Winder, Ga., said that Mr. Anderson had died at his home in Monroe, Ga., and that he had “passed away peacefully.” The funeral home did not share a cause of death.World Wrestling Entertainment, known as the World Wrestling Federation when Mr. Anderson wrestled, said in a statement on Monday that he was known for his “hard-nosed style and gruff demeanor.”Mr. Anderson wrestled professionally from the late 1960s through the 1980s, after training under Verne Gagne, a member of the W.W.E. Hall of Fame.Through the 1970s and early 1980s, he was a member of the tag team known as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, which over the years included Gene, Lars and Arn Anderson, who called themselves brothers and were popular around the Midwest. They were part of regional circuits like Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and Georgia Championship Wrestling that were united under the National Wrestling Alliance, which regularly crowned them tag-team champions.In the 1980s, Mr. Anderson teamed up with Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard to become the Four Horsemen, who went on to dominate the N.W.A. and later World Championship Wrestling, which competed with the W.W.F.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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    Death of David Gail, ‘Port Charles’ Star, Was Drug Related, Publicist Says

    The 58-year-old actor, who was also on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” died last month in a Tampa, Fla., hospital days after going into cardiac arrest.David Gail, the “Port Charles” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” actor who died in a Tampa, Fla. hospital on Jan. 16, had been intoxicated from a mix of drugs and alcohol that caused him to go into cardiac arrest, his publicist said on Tuesday.A number of drugs were found in Mr. Gail’s system, including amphetamines, cocaine, alcohol and fentanyl, according to a statement from the publicist, Linda Brown. The cardiac arrest led to a brain injury, which ultimately caused his death days later, she said.The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner did not immediately respond to a request for Mr. Gail’s autopsy report on Tuesday evening.The family previously said that Mr. Gail, 58, had died from complications from a sudden cardiac arrest.Paramedics who found Mr. Gail after he went into cardiac arrest performed CPR and used a defibrillator to try to revive him, but he ultimately wound up on life support at the hospital, according to Ms. Brown.Mr. Gail’s mother, Mary Painter, said in the statement that her son had for years been reliant on medication to manage pain from hand and wrist surgeries that kept him out of work for nearly a decade.“It breaks my heart to learn my son died this way,” Ms. Painter said, adding, “I can only assume that his former dependence played a part in self-medicating from uncontrolled sources.”Her son’s death, she said, highlighted victims of pharmaceutical addiction and the fentanyl epidemic.Mr. Gail had a bountiful television acting career in the mid- to late 1990s, including his most prominent role, as Dr. Joe Scanlon on the “General Hospital” spinoff show “Port Charles.” Mr. Gail played Dr. Scanlon in 216 episodes in one season, which ran in 1999 and 2000, according to IMDb.Years before that, Mr. Gail appeared on eight episodes of “Beverly Hills, 90210,” playing a minor part in an episode in the first season and returning to the show for the fourth season in a more established role.“When I came back it was such a shock, I was asking, ‘How could I possibly come back?’” Mr. Gail said about his return on the “Beverly Hills Show Podcast” in 2021.“But it worked,” he added.He also made dozens of appearances in a variety of television shows throughout the 1990s and several films in the 2000s. More

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    Netflix Becomes a Broadway Producer With Peter Morgan’s ‘Patriots’

    The streamer is co-producing a play about Putin’s Russia from the creator of “The Crown” while also developing a screen adaptation.Netflix, the streaming behemoth that has evolved from mailing out DVDs in red envelopes to becoming a hugely important player in the entertainment industry, is embarking on a new adventure: producing on Broadway.The company will pick up its first Broadway credit this spring as a producer of “Patriots,” by Peter Morgan, the creator of the hit Netflix series “The Crown.” The new play is about an oligarch who was an early supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but then fell out with him and wound up dead.Even before “Patriots” begins its Broadway previews on April 1, Netflix is already in the early stages of developing a screen adaptation of the story, according to Emily Feingold, a Netflix spokeswoman.“Patriots” will be Netflix’s first Broadway credit, but not its first stage venture. The company is actively involved as a producer of “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a play now running in London that is a prequel of sorts to the popular Netflix streaming series. The “Stranger Things” production is expected to come to Broadway, but the timing and other specifics are unknown.Netflix’s foray into Broadway producing comes at a time when the entertainment industry has been aggressively working to monetize intellectual property — adapting popular titles and franchises on many different platforms, including not only film, television and stage but also books, video games and immersive experiences.Broadway has long had the attention of Hollywood studios — Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal have been particularly active in pursuing stage adaptations of their films. And for some time now, the recording industry has been actively involved on Broadway, seeing the stage as another way to repurpose pop song catalogs.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