Eliana Willis

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    How ‘The Outsiders’ Staged a Broadway Fight Club

    In a park, at night, as a train screams nearby, the teenagers punch, kick and grapple. They roll over and over, gravel sticking to their rain-soaked clothes, in a terrible embrace, beating one another bloody. “We didn’t want to romanticize it or sugarcoat it or make it easy,” the director Danya Taymor said of this scene in the Broadway musical “The Outsiders.” “It felt really important that these moments of violence be terrifying, be brutal.” More

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    ‘Wedding Day at the Cro-Magnons’’ Review: A Bittersweet Premiere

    An Arabic production of Wajdi Mouawad’s 1991 work, planned to open in Lebanon, was canceled because of his perceived ties to Israel. It found a home in France.What happens when the roots you long for keep eluding you? This question has long been central to the work of the playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad, and never more so than in a new production of his 1991 work “Wedding Day at the Cro-Magnons’.”Currently the director of Théâtre National de la Colline, a high-profile Parisian playhouse, Mouawad was born in Lebanon. In 1978, he fled the country’s civil war with his family, at the age of 10. As a writer, he has returned to his Lebanese heritage over and over — and this year, he went back to the country to stage his first production with local actors, an Arabic-language adaptation of “Wedding Day at the Cro-Magnons’.”But in April, just weeks before the premiere, Le Monnot playhouse in Beirut was forced to cancel all performances of the play over Mouawad’s perceived ties to Israel, which Lebanon considers an enemy state. Several Lebanese lobbying groups had called for the show to be stopped, with one, the Commission of Detainees Affairs, filing a legal complaint with the country’s military courts and demanding Mouawad’s arrest.According to a report in the French newspaper Le Monde, Mouawad was accused of allowing the Israeli Embassy in France to pay for three plane tickets in 2017 to bring two Israeli actors and a translator to the country for his production “All Birds.” In another perceived transgression, last season Mouawad programmed a work by the Israeli artist Amos Gitai at the Théâtre National de la Colline.Mouawad quickly left Lebanon. In a public statement, the Beirut venue blamed “unacceptable pressure and serious threats made against Le Monnot as well as some artists and technicians.”It was an astonishing turn of events for a playwright who has always asserted his Lebanese identity, regardless of his childhood exile, and dissected it onstage. In the end, in lieu of Beirut, “Wedding Day at the Cro-Magnons’” premiered over the weekend at the Printemps des Comédiens, a theater festival in Montpellier, France, ahead of an international tour (whose dates remain to be confirmed) with the cast that was scheduled to perform in Lebanon.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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    A Cave Explorer Died 99 Years Ago. Now His Story Is Broadway Bound.

    “Floyd Collins,” a musical about a trapped spelunker and the media circus surrounding his failed rescue, had a brief Off Broadway run in 1996.In 1925, a spelunker named Floyd Collins got trapped in a Kentucky cave and the unsuccessful efforts to rescue him became a media sensation, with print and radio reporters breathlessly tracking the endeavor.Now a musical about the tragedy is heading to Broadway, three decades after it was first performed and a century after Collins’s death.Lincoln Center Theater, one of the four nonprofits with Broadway houses, said on Monday that it would stage a revival of “Floyd Collins” at its Vivian Beaumont Theater next spring, with previews beginning March 27 and an opening on April 21.The musical features a bluegrass score by Adam Guettel and a book, as well as additional lyrics, by Tina Landau, who will direct the production. No cast has been announced.The show debuted in Philadelphia in 1994, and then had a generally well-received Off Broadway production in 1996 at Playwrights Horizons; it won an Obie Award for music, has periodically been staged at theaters in the United States and Britain, and has fans thanks to an Off Broadway cast album.Guettel, a Tony winner for “The Light in the Piazza,” is experiencing a bit of a renaissance. He is a Tony nominee again this year, for “Days of Wine and Roses.” And next spring, in addition to “Floyd Collins,” his new musical “Millions,” adapted from the novel and film of the same name, will have an initial staging at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.“Floyd Collins” will be one of two Broadway shows staged by Lincoln Center Theater this season, which is the final season of its longtime producing artistic director, André Bishop. The nonprofit previously announced that this fall it would stage a Broadway production of “McNeal,” a new play by Ayad Akhtar, starring Robert Downey Jr. as a novelist.The theater also announced on Monday that it would stage Off Broadway productions of “The Blood Quilt,” written by Katori Hall and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, and Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” revised by Mark O’Rowe and directed by Jack O’Brien.They join an already announced Off Off Broadway production of “Six Characters,” a new play by Phillip Howze, directed by Dustin Wills. As a fund-raiser in December, the theater is planning a one-night reunion concert of its Tony-winning 2008 revival of “South Pacific.” More

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    What’s on TV This Week: Celine Dion and the Stanley Cup Finals

    The pop star does her first interview on NBC since her stiff person syndrome diagnosis. And the Oilers and the Panthers compete in the pro hockey championship.For those who still enjoy a cable subscription, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, June 10 — 16. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE STANLEY CUP FINALS GAME 2 8 p.m. on ABC. Hockey season is ending with a championship between not just two teams but two countries: the Edmonton Oilers (Canada) and the Florida Panthers (U.S.). The last time the Oilers won the silver cup was in 1990, three years before the Panthers’s team was even formed. The Panthers have never won the cup but were in the finals in last year. Either way, one of the teams will celly in the barn after a gino, eh?SIX SCHIZOPHRENIC BROTHERS 8 p.m. on Discovery. Based on the 2020 nonfiction book “Hidden Valley Road” by Robert Kolker, this documentary series follows the Galvin family, whose six of the 12 siblings developed schizophrenia. Over four episodes, this documentary details the family life, casting it as a case study of how the psychotic disorder runs in families.TuesdayFrom left, Caroline Brooks, Sara Al Madani and Saba Yussouf on “The Real Housewives of Dubai.”Yasmin Hussain/BravoTHE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF DUBAI 8 p.m. on Bravo. The reality network’s first international iteration of the Housewives franchise is back for a second season. Taking place in Dubai, this series ups the stakes, and the drama, of course, with fights and parties taking place on private islands and private planes. With Nina Ali not returning for a second season, though, we won’t get to hear as many tales about the Burj Khalifa.CELINE’S STORY: AN NBC NEWS SPECIAL WITH HODA KOTB 10 p.m. on NBC. In a 2022 Instagram post, the Canadian singer revealed she had been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes muscle stiffness, painful muscle spasms and slurred speech. Because of this, Dion canceled the rest of her 2023 tour and made her first post-diagnosis public appearance at the 2024 Grammy Awards. Now, she gives an in-depth interview, revealing she almost died amid this diagnostic 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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    In ‘Dark Noon,’ Hollywood Westerns Get a South African Reboot

    At St. Ann’s Warehouse, a collaboration between a Danish director and a South African troupe that questions the tropes of Western films.The saloon is there. So are the dusty cowboy hats, the freshly laid railroad tracks and the Native American headdresses.But while “Dark Noon” basks in these hallmarks of Hollywood westerns, it examines them through new eyes, leaving no triumphalist cliché unquestioned. Virtually every scene in this collaboration between a Danish director and a South African theater company (at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn in previews before opening June 17) ends with at least one bullet-riddled corpse on the parched red earth of the set. Many of the dead are female or Indigenous.“It is a western town,” Nhlanhla Mahlangu, the co-director and choreographer, said of the archetypal tumbleweedy community that rises up over the course of the action, “but it is all the settlement towns of South Africa as well. We are also talking about the shootings in our country.”Nearly all of the play’s seven actors piled into an increasingly crammed green room with Mahlangu to discuss the work after their final performance at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C., and they agreed about these similarities. “So much of our own lives are connected to these tropes,” said Mandla Gaduka, a cast member.The narrative in which the white-hatted cowboy tames the Wild West, typically through the explicit or (usually) implicit genocide of his Indigenous predecessors, comes in for withering scrutiny in “Dark Noon.”John Ford’s 1956 film “The Searchers,” starring Harry Carey Jr., Jeffrey Hunter and John Wayne, is considered a classic of the western genre.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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    Pride Month 2024: An Abundance of Theater of All Stripes

    From Broadway to the city’s smaller stages, a flurry of shows with wide-ranging appeal, familiar faces and rising talent.American theater has long been more welcoming to queer lives and stories than Hollywood has been, so the abundance of shows during Pride Month is unsurprising. It’s also overwhelming — there is just so much to see.On Broadway, queer characters play central roles in productions as starkly different as “Illinoise,” a dance-theater work based on a Sufjan Stevens album, and Paula Vogel’s autofictional “Mother Play,” starring Jessica Lange. In the Max Martin jukebox “& Juliet,” a romance involving Juliet’s nonbinary best friend makes up a sweet subplot.And of course, the gayest show of the year returns on June 26, when Cole Escola’s madcap comedy “Oh, Mary!” — about Mary Todd Lincoln’s secret life and aspirations — begins previews on Broadway after a popular run at the Lucille Lortel Theater. As Joshua Barone wrote in his review, “Escola’s humor is tailored like a Bernadette Peters concert gown to New York gays who were brought up on a diet of alt-cabaret and ‘Strangers With Candy.’”Cole Escola, left, as Mary Todd Lincoln and Conrad Ricamora as Abraham Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!,” which is moving to Broadway after a run at the Lucille Lortel Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSusannah Millonzi, left, and Purva Bedi in Bailey Williams’s “Coach Coach.”Maria BaranovaSave some money for the city’s smaller stages, though, because they are offering a flurry of shows for Pride Month and are where you can spot rising talent.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 Matt Williams, the Creator of ‘Roseanne,’ Spends His Sundays

    Mr. Williams loves people-watching and pasta with his wife. But when he’s writing on Sundays? No judgment allowed.Over the past four decades, Matt Williams has been intimately involved in many of America’s most successful television programs.He is credited as a writer, showrunner, producer or creator on “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World” and “Home Improvement,” among others. “Roseanne,” which he created, transplanted his family from New York to Los Angeles, where they lived until the Northridge earthquake in 1994. After the earthquake, Mr. Williams relocated to Manhattan with his wife, the actress Angelina Fiordellisi, and their two young children. From then, Mr. Williams lived a bicoastal life, commuting weekly between New York and Los Angeles for almost 20 years as he worked on movies and TV shows.In 2018, he closed his production company and began living, once again, full time on the East Coast.“It was really time to make New York City my home again,” he said. “My wife and I especially enjoy Sundays in New York. After all that hustle and bustle of Monday through Saturday, the city sits back and relaxes a little on Sunday, so you can enjoy New York in a different way.”His first book, “Glimpses: A Comedy Writer’s Take on Life, Love, and All That Spiritual Stuff,” was published this year.Mr. Williams lives in a three-story townhouse in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan with Ms. Fiordellisi and their black Labrador, Nova.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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    Pat Sajak Bids Farewell to ‘Wheel of Fortune’: ‘The Time Has Come to Say Goodbye’

    The host thanked the show’s viewers and had special words for his co-star, Vanna White, before he signed off for the final time.On Friday night, Pat Sajak said goodbye to “Wheel of Fortune,” expressing gratitude to the countless viewers who had tuned in during his more than 40 years at the helm. “Thank you for allowing me into your lives,” he said.After the final game on his watch concluded, Sajak returned from a final commercial break and addressed the camera directly. “Well, the time has come to say goodbye,” he said. “It’s been an incredible privilege to be invited into millions of homes night after night, year after year, decade after decade. I always felt that the privilege came with the responsibility to keep this daily half-hour a safe place for family fun. No social issues, no politics, nothing embarrassing I hope, just a game.”Still, Sajak, who began his run in 1981, acknowledged that “Wheel of Fortune” had evolved into more than just frivolous, fleeting fun for many. “It became,” he said, “a place where kids learned their letters, where people from other countries honed their English skills, where families came together along with friends and neighbors, and entire generations.”He praised the show’s crew and thanked his family, including his daughter Maggie, who joined “Wheel” as a social correspondent in 2021. And he of course had many kind words for his co-star of more than four decades, Vanna White, whom he called his “professional other half.” (The farewell episode was filmed in early April.)“Like me, she takes the show very seriously but not herself,” Sajak said. “I shudder to think what these 40-plus years might have been like had they brought someone in all full of themselves, playing the prima donna role. Vanna is as sweet and unassuming as she seems.” (He noted that while he’ll miss seeing her at work, they’ll see plenty of each other: They live about five miles apart.) They embraced onstage after his remarks as the episode ended like any other, with the two of them speaking to each other as the credits rolled.On Thursday night, it was White who, through tears, took a moment to address Sajak directly.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