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    ‘My Lady Jane’ Asks: ‘What if History Were Different?’

    A fantastical series about the very short-term 16th century queen Lady Jane Grey takes historical liberties in the name of reclamation — and fun.Lady Jane Grey is generally considered a tragic heroine, the teen queen of England and Ireland for nine days in 1553 before her foes manipulated her into an early death by execution. As the cheeky narrator of the Amazon series “My Lady Jane” puts it, “History remembers her as the ultimate damsel in distress.”He then adds, using a vulgar term for “forget”: “[Expletive] that. What if history were different?”This is the animating question (and tone) of “My Lady Jane,” which premiered on Prime Video on Thursday. Playful, optimistic, a little raunchy, this take on the Jane Grey story plays like an R-rated version of “The Princess Bride,” with touches of everything from “A Knight’s Tale” to the cult Britcom favorite “Blackadder.”It is also just the latest of a handful of recent series that feature strong women attempting to wrest control of their destinies in the oppressively patriarchal societies of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, a period perched between the Middle Ages and the stirrings of modernity.These shows take liberties with history, none more so than “My Lady Jane.” Like the real historical figure, the title character, played by Emily Bader, is an educated and strong-willed young woman. Unlike the real Jane, the fantasy version is also able to outfox the political and religious forces conspiring against her, with swashbuckling flair and a self-knowing wink. There is also colorblind casting: King Edward VI (Jordan Peters) and one of his sisters, Bess (Abbie Hern), are Black, a decision made by the show’s producers in adapting the series from the novel by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows.And oh, yes: The show has human characters who turn into horses, dogs, snakes and other animals. (Those didn’t really exist).For the showrunners, Gemma Burgess and Meredith Glynn, the series offered a chance to reclaim Jane from the cruelties of history — and have a bit of fun in the process.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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    Jon Stewart Is a Little Stressed Out About That Debate

    Hosting a live “Daily Show” after the Biden-Trump spectacle, Stewart said he needed “to call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”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.Jon Stewart went live hosting “The Daily Show” on Thursday, recapping the debate between President Biden and Donald Trump. Stewart wasn’t in the best of spirits.Things started out strong: “Both men are ambulatory. They are both upright. Level one cleared,” Stewart joked over a clip of the candidates taking the stage. But it wasn’t long before the host said he needed “to call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”One rambling Biden answer — ending with the non sequitur “We finally beat Medicare” — had Stewart staring into the camera in horror.“OK, a high-pressure situation. A lot of times, you can confuse saving Medicare with beating it. I’m sure it’s not something that repeated throughout the debate, causing Democrats across the country to either jump out of windows or vomit silently into the nearest recycling bin. Anybody can [expletive] up talking.” — JON STEWART“I’m not a political expert, but while Biden was preparing at Camp David — for a week — did anyone mention he would also be on camera?” — JON STEWART“A lot of people have resting 25th Amendment face.” — JON STEWARTStewart also called out Trump for his many falsehoods.“Just so we’re all clear, everything that Donald Trump said in that clip is a lie,” he said after one montage. “Blatant and full. And we were tight on time putting this [expletive] together. There’s plenty more. Really makes you wonder: What’s R.F.K. Jr. doing tonight?”“Let me just say after watching tonight’s debate, both of these men should be using performance-enhancing drugs, as much of it as they can get, as many times a day as their bodies will allow. If performance-enhancing drugs will improve their lucidity, their ability to solve problems, and in one of the candidate’s cases, improve their truthfulness, morality and malignant narcissism, then suppository away.” — JON STEWART More

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    ‘N/A’ Review: For Nancy Pelosi and A.O.C., It’s a House Divided

    Is moral leadership possible without parliamentary power? Two very familiar congresswomen battle it out onstage.The publicity for “N/A,” a two-hander that opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on Thursday, has been careful to point out that, despite all appearances, the N in the title is not Nancy Pelosi, and the A is not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rather, the playwright, Mario Correa, argues in a program note that “N/A” is about a battle of “ideas and ideals,” which are “bigger than any one person (or even two).”I vote nay on that proposition.The play’s ideas and ideals are fine, and modestly if repetitively dramatized, but what makes this swift summer trifle so diverting is the embodiment of the women themselves. N and A are perfect incarnations of their congressional doppelgängers, down to Pelosi’s golden Mace of the United States House of Representatives brooch and A.O.C.’s signature “Beso” red lipstick. The gimmick also gives Holland Taylor (as N) and Ana Villafañe (as A) tasty roles and a meaty conflict to sink their teeth into.Correa frames that conflict as ideological, not personal. In five scenes starting with the 2018 midterms (when the Democrats win control of the House) and ending with the 2022 midterms (when they lose it), he broadly traces their seesawing power.At first the seesaw is profoundly unbalanced. We meet A just after her surprise primary victory against a machine Democrat and N’s handpicked successor. (In real life, that would be Joseph Crowley.) Though still a savvy street fighter, A is awed and a little cowed by the Washington she discovers. “So, yeah, we are not in Kansas anymore,” she tells her Instagram Live followers, invoking a surprising image of fragility.By then, N has been in Congress for 31 years. Having lost the House speakership when “that man” was elected, she intends to reclaim it. Her favorite number — the only one that counts for a parliamentarian — is 218, the number of votes needed to get work done. Anything shy of that is zero.So even though she and A find that they agree on many policy goals, especially ending the inhumane treatment of migrants at the southern border, they are irreconcilably opposed about how to achieve them. N wheedles, calls in chits, holds her nose and plays footsie with lobbyists, and if she doesn’t have the votes to pass a bill, she doesn’t waste her political capital trying. Naturally, A wants to blow that all up.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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    Jamie Kellner, TV Executive Who Started Fox and WB, Dies at 77

    With an emphasis on younger viewers, he established the networks as serious rivals to ABC, CBS and NBC, which had ruled television for nearly 40 years.Jamie Kellner, a media executive who helped build Fox Broadcasting into a thriving television network with shows such as “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “The Simpsons” — and who went on to create the WB network, known for the angsty “Dawson’s Creek” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — died on June 21 at his home in Montecito, Calif., near Santa Barbara. He was 77.The cause was cancer, said Brad Turell, a family spokesman.Mr. Kellner was one of the most successful television executives of his generation, whose knack for capturing young viewers — first men at Fox, then women at WB — lured viewers away from the Big Three networks that had ruled television for nearly 40 years.Mr. Kellner believed ABC, NBC and CBS were ignoring viewers under 35 and were hamstrung by middle-of-the-road taste. Rupert Murdoch, Fox Inc.’s owner, and Barry Diller, its chairman, recruited Mr. Kellner from the television syndication business in 1986 and installed him as president of the Fox Broadcasting Company.Its aspiration to be the first new TV network since ABC in 1948 was broadly derided. But from the debut in 1987 of its first series, the lowbrow family sitcom “Married … With Children,” which was shown on six Murdoch-owned stations and a string of independent ones that Mr. Kellner helped stitch together, the new network began stealing the Big Three’s audience.By 1992, with shows like “Melrose Place,” about the social lives of 20-somethings, Fox was No. 1 with viewers 18 to 34. “We don’t really need anyone over 50 years of age to succeed with our business plan,” Mr. Kellner told The New York Times.He resigned in 1993 after seven years at Fox. By then, Mr. Diller had left, and Mr. Kellner and Mr. Murdoch had clashed over Mr. Murdoch’s desire to pivot to older viewers and more mainstream shows.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 Bear’ Season 3 Is a Clanging, Wailing Beast

    The hit FX series about an upstart Chicago restaurant loves the pressures of tight quarters and close shouting. The new season serves up plenty more.Jeremy Allen White stars in “The Bear.”FXSeason 3 of “The Bear,” available now on Hulu, is a volcano of self-loathing. Appropriately for a show set in Chicago, “The Bear” tends to move in a loop, revisiting the past and bringing old wounds into the present day aboard a clanging, wailing beast. This go-round makes all the local stops: enchanting food porn, bitter screaming matches, elegant monologues, small moments where the audience can learn culinary techniques, a character’s back story that boils down to “they were poor and needed a job.” Doors open on the right at repressed rage.When we last saw our Bear pals, the friends-and-family preview night for their revamped restaurant had collapsed because Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) locked himself in the walk-in fridge — but really because of the fragility and volatility of the clique at large, and the fact that the characters mostly hate their friends and families. Everyone yelled even more than usual, with Carmy and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) whipping themselves into hysteria through the fridge door, and Carmy and Claire (Molly Gordon) breaking up. Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) was left with all of the responsibility but none of the authority. The action of this season begins moments later, a blue cloud of dejection hanging over everyone.I used to think of “The Bear” as claustrophobic, but now I think it’s claustrophilic: This show loves tight spaces, the pressures of close quarters. Its hugs are all rib-cracking, suffocating, too much. Even dermatologists don’t require such detailed examinations of every mole and pore on people’s cheeks.The show often name-drops actual restaurants, and many real chefs appear as themselves. (This season, they appear a bit too much: Save it for the endless mutual appreciation societies on “Top Chef.”) The omnipresent jargon, the if-you-know-you-know details and the fly-on-the-wall style give everything a rush of legitimacy — it may not be not true, but it’s real. Or wait: maybe not real, but true.That veracity is tempered by the show’s appetite for contrivance. Barnburner monologues give way to dialogue so repetitive it might as well be a Meisner exercise. Comic relief becomes sitcom buffoonery from a dumber planet. The show’s high-profile cameos can yank you out of the action and make you think “ooo, Jamie Lee Curtis” and not just “ooo, dysfunctional Christmas.”Characters on “The Bear” struggle to express themselves and struggle to be understood, so they repeat everything, over and over, louder and louder. What grates is when the show itself does this, too, always adding another line for good measure — just to make extra sure you definitely, 100 percent got what it was going for. In one scene at the end of this season, Carmy and Luca (Will Poulter), Carmy’s old chef pal, reminisce about how many peas they shucked for a certain dish while working together. Sydney says it sounds like “a trauma dish.”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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    Betty Boop Time Travels to New York, and Broadway, Next Spring

    “BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical” had a run in Chicago last year. It is slated to open at a Shubert theater in April.A long-in-the-works musical about Betty Boop, a curvy flapper first featured in animated films of the 1930s, will open on Broadway next spring following a run in Chicago last year.“BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical” has some thematic echoes of last year’s “Barbie” movie, although it was in the works before that film came along. The stage production imagines that Boop leaves her early-20th-century film life to travel to present-day New York, where musical comedy ensues. (Her first stop: Comic-Con.)The show was staged late last year at the CIBC Theater in Chicago, where The Chicago Tribune gave it an encouraging review (“there is a great deal to like, and much more work still to be done,” wrote the critic Chris Jones). The Broadway production is to open next April at a theater operated by the Shubert Organization, according to a statement from the production on Thursday; the production did not announce specific dates, theater or cast.“BOOP!” features music by David Foster, a songwriter and music producer who has won 16 Grammy Awards. The lyrics are by Susan Birkenhead (a Tony nominee for “Jelly’s Last Jam” and “Working”) and the book is by Bob Martin (a Tony winner for “The Drowsy Chaperone”). The show is being directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, who won Tony Awards for choreographing the 2004 revival of “La Cage aux Folles” and the 2013 production of “Kinky Boots.”The musical’s lead producer is Ostar Productions, led by Bill Haber, who was among the founders of Creative Artists Agency and who has credits on more than 50 Broadway shows. “BOOP!” is being capitalized for up to $26 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Even for Broadway, where musicals often take years to develop, this one has had a remarkably long journey: Haber has been working on a Betty Boop musical for more than two decades, changing creative team members and collaborators along the way. In 2003, Variety reported that a Boop musical was planned for Broadway in 2005; in 2008, The New York Times reported that Foster was attached and a Broadway bow was expected in the 2010-11 season. (Neither of those productions happened.)Betty Boop was created by Max Fleischer and was initially depicted, in a 1930 film, as a poodle with some human characteristics; subsequently the character was fully human, although with improbable proportions. The character has been adapted in various forms over the years, including for merchandise that has kept her image in the public eye. She has been seen as a sex symbol of sorts, often with short dresses, a squeaky voice and a signature expression, “Boop-Oop-a-Doop.” More

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    Second Stage Becomes First Broadway Nonprofit in Decades to Name New Leader

    The organization, which won this year’s best play revival Tony Award for “Appropriate,” has chosen Evan Cabnet as its next artistic director.Second Stage Theater, one of the four nonprofit organizations with Broadway houses, on Thursday named a new artistic director as the sector braces for a wave of leadership turnover.Founded in 1979 and distinguished by its commitment to presenting work by living American writers, Second Stage said that its board had chosen Evan Cabnet as its next artistic director. Cabnet is currently the artistic director of LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater’s program for emerging writers, directors and designers. Cabnet will succeed Carole Rothman, one of the theater’s founders, who led the organization for 45 years and is stepping down in August.Second Stage has a proud history of presenting acclaimed work, including the Pulitzer-winning shows “Between Riverside and Crazy,” “Water by the Spoonful” and “Next to Normal.” Its plays and musicals have won multiple other honors; most recently, the organization’s production of “Appropriate” won this year’s Tony Award for best play revival.Second Stage owns Broadway’s smallest house, the 600-seat Hayes Theater. Like many nonprofit theaters, Second Stage has reduced its footprint since the pandemic — it let go of its Off Off Broadway space on the Upper West Side, and at the end of this year is letting go of its Off Broadway venue in Times Square, although it plans to continue to produce such work in other spaces, starting next spring at the Pershing Square Signature Center. The organization currently has 47 staffers and an annual budget of $27 million; this season it is planning to stage two Broadway shows, two Off Broadway shows and a Next Stage Festival for early-career work.The leadership of the four Broadway nonprofits has not changed for decades, and the industry is closely watching to see how a new generation of leaders might differ from its predecessors. Two of the other nonprofits will also be looking for new artistic leaders: Lincoln Center Theater’s producing artistic director, André Bishop, is ending his 33-year tenure next spring, and Roundabout Theater Company’s artistic director and chief executive, Todd Haimes, died last year after 40 years at that organization. (The fourth Broadway nonprofit, Manhattan Theater Club, is led by Lynne Meadow, who has been that organization’s artistic director for 52 years.)Cabnet, 46, is a Philadelphia native who has lived in New York since 1996 and currently resides in Brooklyn. He has led LCT3 since 2016; previously he was a freelance director and an artistic associate at Roundabout. He will start his new job on Sept. 1; the first season to feature shows he chooses will begin in the fall of 2025. In an interview, he talked about his plans; these are edited excerpts from the conversation.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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    Bill Cobbs, ‘Bodyguard’ and ‘Night at the Museum’ Actor, Dies at 90

    Mr. Cobbs was not a household Hollywood name, but his face was one anyone who watched TV or movies over the past several decades could recognize.Bill Cobbs, a prolific character actor whose half-century career bloomed while he was middle-aged and ranged from “Sesame Street” to “The Sopranos” to “Night at the Museum,” died on Tuesday at his home in the Inland Empire region of California. He was 90.His death was announced on social media by his brother, Thomas G. Cobbs, and confirmed by his agent, Carmela Evangelista. No cause was given.Mr. Cobbs was not a Hollywood star, but his face was one anyone who watched TV or movies over the past several decades could recognize. He appeared in more than 200 films and television shows and was also a prominent theater actor.Born Wilbert Francisco Cobbs in Cleveland, Mr. Cobbs spent eight years working as a radar technician in the Air Force, where he started doing standup comedy, he said in a 2012 interview with the podcast “Movie Geeks United.” He also worked at I.B.M. and as a car salesman.His experience in the Ossie Davis play “Purlie Victorious,” a comedy about a Black preacher’s efforts to reclaim his hometown church, had an especially profound effect on his career.“That play taught me that there were a lot of things I could say in theater, on the stage and in movies and in television, that were very important, that were meaningful things, that in addition to being a means of entertaining people and touching them in different ways, there were things you could say related to the human condition,” he said.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