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    Onstage and Off, Whitney White Is Everywhere This Spring

    An actor, musician and writer, White is also now an in-demand stage director. “I am looking, I am hungry, I am searching,” she said.This spring, Whitney White directed the ensemble drama “Liberation” Off Broadway, then the two-hander “The Last Five Years” on Broadway. Just days after that musical opened, she stood in an upstairs room at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, rehearsing “Macbeth in Stride,” her adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy, which begins performances on Tuesday.During the song “Reach for It,” White, who plays a version of Lady Macbeth, took the lead. “Power’s not supposed to look like me,” she sang into a microphone.Maybe it should.A multidisciplinary artist with an unusual number of hyphens, White, 39, is an actor, a musician, a writer for theater and television (the Amazon series “I’m a Virgo”) and an increasingly in-demand, Tony-nominated stage director. Her current projects, White observed during a rehearsal break, are all about ambitious women. “I’m weirdly one of them,” she said.White grew up in Chicago, in a one-bedroom apartment with her working single mother. Her first exposure to theater was at her grandfather’s church, the Apostolic Church of God, which boasted a 50-person choir. A visit to Cirque du Soleil was another formative experience.At Northwestern, White took theater classes, but she found the scene there cliquey, exclusionary, so she majored in political science instead. While interning for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, she realized that she had to be an artist after all.“There’s nothing else that I can really wholeheartedly do with myself,” she said.With Nygel D. Robinson at the piano, the cast of “Macbeth in Stride” in rehearsal, from left: Charlie Thurston, White, Holli’ Conway, Phoenix Best and Ciara Alyse Harris.Elias Williams 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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    in Television

    In ‘Towards Zero,’ Agatha Christie Gets Steamy

    A new three-part TV mini-series streaming on BritBox amps up the themes of forbidden desire and psychological distress in the detective novelist’s 1944 book.In the second episode of the BBC’s latest Agatha Christie adaptation, a bride walks into the hall of a large country house and finds her husband standing on the elegant curved staircase, with his head buried beneath the silk evening gown his ex-wife is wearing.This, it is clear, is not a stereotypically cozy Christie retelling.Instead, this three-part limited series, “Towards Zero” — which comes to BritBox on Wednesday — takes the forbidden desire, well-heeled nihilism and murderous emotion from Christie’s 1944 novel of the same name and gives those a distinctly contemporary feel.“It’s incredibly dark, interesting material,” said Sam Yates, the show’s director. Since Christie’s novels have already been adapted so many times, “the choice is do them exactly by the book every time, or let them live for the moment,” said Yates, who also directed “Vanya,” the inventive one-man Chekhov adaptation currently playing Off Broadway and starring Andrew Scott.The show features a love triangle between Audrey, played by Ella Lily Hyland, center; and Nevile and Mimi.James Pardon/Mammoth ScreenFor “Towards Zero,” Yates and the writer Rachel Bennette chose the moment, tweaking their source material for today’s audience, as shown by the steamy interaction on the staircase, which pushes the characters to violent extremes.Set in 1936 among the British upper class, “Towards Zero” opens with a love triangle playing out around a much-publicized divorce. Nevile Strange (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a playboy tennis star, is ending his marriage to Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland), on whom he cheated with the younger and more assertive Kay (Mimi Keene), who would become his wife.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 Television

    ‘#1 Happy Family USA’ Is a Bittersweet Coming-of-Age Sitcom

    This animated comedy, cocreated by Ramy Youssef, depicts a Muslim family in New Jersey during the fraught period after Sept. 11, 2001.A Muslim family in New Jersey facing bigotry after Sept. 11 doesn’t sound like a particularly fruitful sitcom premise. But Ramy Youssef has managed to make the subject matter grimly hilarious in his new animated series, “#1 Happy Family USA,” premiering Thursday on Amazon Prime Video.Created by Youssef and Pam Brady (“South Park”), the series is half coming-of-age story, with shades of “Big Mouth” and “Everybody Hates Chris,” and half brutal satire about Islamophobia in the early 2000s. It encourages viewers to find humor and humanity in outlandish scenarios stemming from what was a dark period for many American families.The premiere episode is set on Sept. 10, 2001. Youssef voices Rumi, an Egyptian American boy preoccupied mainly with impressing his attractive teacher (Mandy Moore), who has a thing for Michael Jordan. To that end: Rumi wears an oversized bootleg Bulls jersey that reads “Balls.” Poor kid.Of course, the next day, life for Rumi and his family suddenly changes. His father, Hussein (also voiced by Youssef), is a former doctor turned halal cart owner maniacally intent on assimilating. At the same time, however, his Princess Diana-obsessed mother, Sharia (Salma Hindy), is reconnecting with her faith and begins wearing a hijab — much to Hussein’s dismay. Rumi’s ambitious older sister, Mona (Alia Shawkat), is hiding the fact that she is gay, and an F.B.I. agent with an alcohol problem (Timothy Olyphant) moves in next door.The animation, with big-eyed character designs from the illustrator Mona Chalabi, at times literalizes Rumi’s anxiety and at others allows the story to take absurd detours. (Chalabi won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for a contribution to The New York Times.) When Rumi tries to code switch to appeal to his classmates’ families, he transforms physically into identities like preppy WASP and Hogwarts student. Hussein launches into musical numbers, one of which becomes the theme song. Also, there’s a talking lamb.“#1 Happy Family USA” manages to place story lines drawn from the pangs of early adolescence within the terrifying context of being a Muslim caught in a suddenly more xenophobic society — while also making fun of the peculiarities of the early 2000s. (In one subplot, Rumi panics after illegally downloading music for a mix CD.) It’s a tricky balance to strike, but Youssef and his team pull it off. More

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    in Television

    30 Years Later, a New Look at the Oklahoma City Bombing

    A National Geographic docuseries recounts the experiences of those who went through the 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.David Glover holds up what looks like a pair of gray bricks. They were once part of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which was bombed by Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. It remains the deadliest domestic terror attack in U.S. history.Glover, an executive producer of the new three-part docuseries “Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day in America,” explained in a video interview that he had received the rubble from Mike Shannon, a firefighter featured in the film. Shannon wanted the filmmaker to feel the weight of the project in his hands.“It was almost like he was saying, ‘Don’t forget this is real,’” Glover said. “‘Don’t forget you’ve got a responsibility here.’ It is a physical artifact that has a lot of heft to it.”Shannon needn’t have worried. The series, now streaming on Hulu and Disney+, follows a pattern set by the first two “One Day in America” installments, which covered the Sept. 11 attacks and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The stories are less interested in granules of policy and the sweep of history than in the experiences of individuals who were present for events that shook the country. (Glover is an executive producer on all of the “One Day in America” series, which were produced by 72 Films, the company he founded with Mark Raphael.)This approach means that McVeigh, the violent anti-government extremist who bombed the Murrah building (and was executed in 2001), takes a back seat to the Oklahomans whose lives were shattered that day, many of whom appear here to give their accounts of the shock and its aftermath. This includes emergency medical workers, victims, family members, law enforcement officers and even McVeigh’s court-appointed attorney, who admits to fearing for his life when he learned the identity of his new client.Even the more famous and consequential interview subjects approach the day’s events from a personal perspective. Bill Clinton, who was in the first term of his presidency when the attack occurred (and was in the middle of a White House news conference on terrorism when he was notified about it), lost one of his favorite Secret Service agents in the bombing.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 Television

    How an Anime Master Perfects the Cool Guy Action Hero

    When it comes to creators who have defined contemporary anime, Shinichiro Watanabe is no less than a television auteur. His anime series, which include the renowned “Cowboy Bebop” and “Samurai Champloo,” are known for thrilling fight scenes, propulsive musical scores and fun, unpredictable characters.Watanabe’s signature is his magnetic Joe Cool protagonist. He’s a cowboy, bounty hunter, itinerant with some moral gray areas, but he’s ultimately a good guy who’s loyal to his crew. While loafing around at a bar he may give the vibe of an impassive layabout. But during a mission he is a suave, athletic fighter with a hybrid style of tussling that draws from various martial arts forms and alludes to several of the great movers and fighters from history.“Lazarus” is Watanabe’s latest series, about a scientist whose miracle drug may wipe out humanity and the ragtag team of miscreants who must track him down. Recruited to that team is Axel Gilberto, a fresh yet familiar take on Watanabe’s typical hero. Here’s how the latest version of Watanabe’s always athletic, always stylish leading man fits into his history.‘Cowboy Bebop’ (1998)The OriginalSpike Spiegel, the cool guy prototype, is known for his laidback style.Watanabe’s original cool-guy hero is Spike Spiegel, the centerpiece of his popular space Western “Cowboy Bebop.” Spike’s attitude and style are a mix between two well-worn cinematic tropes: the unflappable Old West gunslinger and the cynical down-on-his-luck film noir detective. His body language conveys a sense of nonchalance, even indifference. When he’s relaxed, his gangly frame is often reclined, and when he’s up and about he saunters around, hands in pockets, arms akimbo, with a smooth, uninterrupted gait.His fight style reflects this same fluidity; Spike is a master at evasive movement, great at narrowly dodging hits. Though he excels at both close range fighting and taking shots at a distance, his legs and footwork are really the stars of his combat style: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 Weighs In on Trump’s Perfect Physical

    “The doctor said Trump’s BMI is 28,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “Right, and so is his next wife, by the way.”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 Picture of HealthThe results of President Trump’s annual physical exam described a man in “excellent health.”“Of course he is,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday. “He eats right, he avoids unhealthy foods, diet soda. He manages stress, he doesn’t hang onto anger, he gets a good night’s sleep, he limits his time on social media, he spends lots of time with loved ones, and gets plenty of exercise getting in and out of that golf cart.”“And he’s got a body like Brad Pitt to show it.” — JIMMY KIMMELHe “gave Trump a clean bill of health, saying, ‘his active lifestyle continues to contribute significantly to his well-being’ including his ‘frequent victories in golf events,’ adding, his well-being is also due to a cruel, indifferent universe where good, hardworking people are routinely diagnosed with terminal illnesses, but an objectively evil monster who only eats cheeseburgers and fried chicken lives forever. The world is chaos, there is no god, proven by his frequent victories in golf events.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Dr. Barbabella claims that Trump is 6-feet-3, which he is not. He weighs 224 pounds. Just for comparison, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is 6-4, 219 pounds. Honestly, it’s difficult to tell them apart.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I’m going to say no to either of those numbers. I don’t want to be that guy, but he has a front butt.” — JON STEWART“Maybe they just weighed Trump’s head.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The doctor said Trump’s BMI is 28. Right, and so is his next wife, by the way.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Barbabella, good man and thorough, wrote: ‘I performed and supervised the comprehensive exam, which included diagnostic and laboratory testing, as well as consultations with 14 specialty consultants.’ ’Cause nothing says good health like your doctor saying, ‘I think you’re fine. I just need to consult with 14 specialty consultants.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Taking Space 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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    in Theater

    Review: In ‘John Proctor Is the Villain,’ It’s the Girls vs. the Men

    Kimberly Belflower’s play, on Broadway starring Sadie Sink, gives high school students a chance to prosecute a #MeToo case against “The Crucible.”The first word spoken in “John Proctor Is the Villain,” a vital new play in a thrilling production at the Booth Theater on Broadway, is “sex.”Defining the word is part of a six-week sex education unit at a rural Georgia high school that doesn’t want to teach it. Just 10 minutes a day is all it gets, and those minutes consist mostly of reading a textbook aloud, in imperfect unison that makes it sound like mush.The 16- and 17-year-old girls in the class know all about sex anyway. Even in their conservative, one-stoplight community — one’s father is the preacher at the Baptist church most of the others attend — they’ve “done some stuff,” or at any rate have obsessed over Lorde and practiced Talmud on Taylor Swift.It is in this hormonal, repressive environment, in 2018, just a year since #MeToo acquired its hashtag, that the playwright, Kimberly Belflower, sets the action. But the girls who want to start a feminism club, which the school resists as “a tricky situation,” do not need hashtags to understand sexual predation. Some have already lived it. Raelynn, the preacher’s daughter, has a purity ring but also an ex-boyfriend who, trying to win her back, forces her to have what he later calls a “conversation.”“Do you mean like when you threw a desk on the ground and kiss-raped me?” she asks.Others have experienced worse.But even for those who have thought little about the subject, the world is about to change, as their lit teacher, the golden Mr. Smith, embarks on a unit about “The Crucible.” Excitedly he tells them that the Arthur Miller classic, an allegory of McCarthyite witch hunts set in 17th-century Salem, Mass., is “a great play about a great hero.” Once they start reading it, they beg to differ.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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    ‘Harry Potter’ HBO Series Casts Dumbledore, Hagrid and More Major Roles

    John Lithgow will play the Hogwarts headmaster in the HBO show, with Paapa Essiedu filling the role of Severus Snape.Potterheads are one step closer to seeing a television series about the boy wizard come to life, two years after it was announced.HBO said on Monday that it had cast John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.Casting for major roles like Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley has not been announced, and the series — based on the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling — does not have an official title or air date.HBO also said that Luke Thallon and Paul Whitehouse were joining the cast as Quirinus Quirrell and Argus Filch.“We’re delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can’t wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life,” Francesca Gardiner, the showrunner of the series, and Mark Mylod, who will direct several episodes, said in a joint statement. (They are both also executive producers of the show.)Paapa Essiedu will play Severus Snape in the show.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockLithgow starred in the 1990s television series “3rd Rock From the Sun” and won Emmys for his roles in “Dexter” and “The Crown.” He has also won two Tony Awards and has an extensive movie career; he played one of the cardinals contending for the papacy in last year’s “Conclave.”He told ScreenRant in February that he had signed on to play Dumbledore, a role played in the original “Harry Potter” films by Richard Harris, who died in 2002, and Michael Gambon, who died in 2023. (Jude Law played a younger Dumbledore in “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” a spinoff film.)“It was not an easy decision because it’s going to define me for the last chapter of my life, I’m afraid,” Lithgow said then. “But I’m very excited. Some wonderful people are turning their attention back to ‘Harry Potter.’ That’s why it’s been such a hard decision. I’ll be about 87 years old at the wrap party, but I’ve said yes.”The new show will air on HBO and stream on Max. HBO said in 2023 that the series would be a “faithful adaptation” of the seven books published between 1997 and 2007. Eight hit films were released between 2001 and 2011. More