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    This Year’s Tony Nominees in Portraits

    ‘Purlie Victorious’Kara Young“My mime teacher had a double-jointed hand, and she taught me this skit about a dying butterfly in a forest. You find the dying butterfly, and you pick it up and your hand becomes the butterfly. And I performed this very often because I was the one who was able to do the double-jointed hand.”‘Purlie Victorious’Leslie Odom Jr.“I played Martin Luther King in our Black history show in kindergarten. The pictures that I hold the dearest are of my grandmother and my father clapping in the front row. My dad looks like I just won the Nobel. He’s so proud that I’ve memorized my little four lines as Martin Luther King.”‘An Enemy of the People’Jeremy Strong“One of the real formative experiences for me was seeing Ian Holm do ‘Lear’ at the National in the ’90s. He was a little man with tremendous, immense power and vulnerability. And I remember him on the heath at the end — he was naked in front of the well-heeled audience, and I remember being very affected by a human being willing to be that open and unprotected in front of people. It changed my life.”‘mary jane’Rachel McAdams“I saw ‘Cats’ in Kitchener, Ontario. My dad was a mover, and he actually helped move the company, so we got free tickets. I was 8. I was walking on air when I came out of that show. I still remember looking down at my little white patent leather shoes and thinking my whole world has been cracked open.”‘Merrily We Roll Along’Daniel Radcliffe“The first time I was onstage was in a school play called ‘Nellie the Elephant,’ when I was 5 or 6 — I was dressed as a monkey. But my first proper stage appearance was when I was about 13, in ‘The Play What I Wrote,’ that Kenneth Branagh directed, and they had a different celebrity in every night, and I did like three performances. As the guest, if you knew the lines, you could get laughs. So even knowing very little about comedy, I got laughs, and I remember feeling, ‘Oh, that’s incredible fun.’”‘Merrily We Roll Along’Jonathan Groff“The first time I remember being onstage was playing Sandy, the dog, in a dance recital. I was 4 years old, and they were doing a number from ‘Annie,’ and I was in a dog head costume, and I remember hearing the audience laugh at me moving my head back and forth, and I was hooked.”‘Merrily We Roll Along’Lindsay Mendez“The first show I saw on Broadway was at the Gershwin Theater. I saw ‘Show Boat.’ It was just so grand and incredible. I was, I think, 12 years old. I had loved theater as a little kid, but getting to see it at that level, it hit me for the first time that I could pursue it as an adult for a living.”‘Appropriate’Sarah Paulson“Janet McTeer in ‘A Doll’s House’ — that was a very early, if not the first, Broadway show that my mother took me to see. I was in the first row of the mezzanine, and I’ll never forget the energy with which she came onstage. It was like watching a lightning bolt.”‘Appropriate’Corey Stoll“Courtney B. Vance was playing Corey in the original ‘Fences,’ and I remember seeing that production with James Earl Jones, who was so obviously this powerhouse. But I remember seeing this young man going toe to toe with him, and holding his own against this colossus. It really blew me away that the theater was a place where there were all these different forms of power, and each person can hold an audience’s attention and affection.”‘Stereophonic’Will Brill, Eli Gelb, Juliana Canfield, Sarah Pidgeon and Tom Pecinka“My parents took me to see ‘Peter Pan’ at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto. I was 3, and I was sitting on my mom’s lap, and Captain Hook had Peter Pan tied up, and apparently I stood up on my mom’s lap, and I screamed, ‘You poo-poo head!’ at Captain Hook.” — Will Brill“I saw Mark Rylance play Olivia in ‘Twelfth Night.’ And I was so astonished by his tragic sense of humor. I had been planning on doing an Olivia monologue to audition for school, and I was like, ‘I can’t do it because he’s too brilliant.’ I changed my monologue.” — Juliana Canfield“I did three different productions of ‘Grease.’ I played Danny every time, at 12, 14, and then my senior year of high school. When I was Danny my senior year, all of a sudden the girls started to take notice.” — Tom Pecinka‘Cabaret’Eddie Redmayne“The first show I ever saw was ‘Cats,’ when I was about 7 years old. I was up in the circle, and a cat crawled out of a hole somewhere and gave me the fright of my life. I found it utterly terrifying and completely exhilarating.”‘Cabaret’Gayle Rankin“The thing that drew me to theater was, I was always fascinated by people. I was really quiet as a kid, and so people watching was like my TV. I remember sitting at a Starbucks in Glasgow when I was, like, 12, watching people for hours on end.”‘Cabaret’Bebe Neuwirth“It wasn’t until I saw ‘Pippin,’ when I was 13, that I decided that I was going to be a dancer on Broadway and do that guy’s choreography. I didn’t know I was talking about god [Bob Fosse]. I didn’t know anything. It just resonated so deeply for me — I could feel that movement in my body, and I knew that I was watching an aspect of myself when I saw that.”‘Cabaret’Steven Skybell“I did children’s theater in Lubbock, Tex. My first show was ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ I played [a] king — I was already character-typed as the older character even then. And from the time I was 10, I knew I wanted to be an actor. I’ve just slowly been pretending all along the way.”‘Hell’s Kitchen’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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    Jimmy Fallon Tracks Biden’s Summer Abroad

    “Yeah, the president is in Italy for the G7 Summit, or as Fox News put it: ‘Biden Flees Country After Hunter Convicted,’” Fallon said.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 European VacationPresident Biden landed in Italy on Wednesday for the G7 Summit, his second trip to Europe in a week.“He went to France last week, now he’s off to Italy,” Jimmy Fallon said. “Biden’s like your friend who is somehow posting pics from Europe all summer.”“His staff wants to make sure he’s as jet-lagged as possible for the first presidential debate.” — JIMMY FALLON“Usually when an 81-year-old does that much traveling through Europe, it’s on a Viking river cruise.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, the president is in Italy for the G7 Summit, or as Fox News put it: ‘Biden Flees Country After Hunter Convicted.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Impossible Edition)“A guy named Joey Chestnut — he has the world record for eating 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes — has been banned from the competition this year because he signed an endorsement deal with a vegan meat company, which in and of itself is insane. It’s like if Cookie Monster signed a deal with celery.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It was announced yesterday that Joey Chestnut will not compete in this year’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest because he has a deal with the vegan food company Impossible Foods. Incidentally, his record for those is still just one.” — SETH MEYERS“This is like barring LeBron James from basketball or Aaron Rodgers from podcasting.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Ugh, come on, Nathan’s! You’re going to ban Joey Chestnut just for taking a sponsorship deal? He’s got a family to feed — and feed and feed and feed.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“But Joey Chestnut said he’s ‘gutted’ by the decision, and his fans are furious. And it’s disappointing, for sure. The good news is for Joey, he might not die quite as soon. He might actually live through the Fifth of July this year.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian Tiffany Haddish made a case for getting arrested only in Beverly Hills on Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightBowen Yang and Matt Rogers of the Las Culturistas podcast will sit down with Seth Meyers on Thursday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutThe choreographer Ashley R.T. Yergens said he was surprised by wanting a baby: “I’m like, You are on testosterone,” he said. “You have been in normal male range for years now. What is this biological urge?”Jeanette Spicer for The New York TimesPremiering at New York Live Arts this week, Ashley R.T. Yergens’s “Surrogate” explores how trans men experience pregnancy and I.V.F. More

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    Tony Lo Bianco, ‘French Connection’ Actor, Is Dead at 87

    Once labeled a “natural-born heavy,” he shined onscreen and especially onstage, securing a Tony nomination and winning an Obie Award.Tony Lo Bianco, an actor whose film roles included villains in “The French Connection” and “The Honeymoon Killers” and whose stage career earned him stellar reviews for an Arthur Miller tragedy and an Obie Award for a baseball drama, died on Tuesday at his home in Poolesville, Md. He was 87.The cause was prostate cancer, his wife, Alyse Lo Bianco, said.Mr. Lo Bianco made a vivid impression in “The Honeymoon Killers” (1970), a low-budget black-and-white film, based on a true story, that came to be regarded as a cult classic. With a heavy Spanish accent and serious sideburns, he played Raymond Fernandez, a con man who courted, married and murdered lonely women for their bank accounts, passing off his real lover (Shirley Stoler) as his sister. The British newspaper The Guardian called the film the movies’ first “super-realist depiction of the banality of evil.”Mr. Lo Bianco in “The Honeymoon Killers” with Mary Jane Higby, left, and Shirley Stoler. In that film, which was based on a true story, he played a serial killer.Roxanne Company, via Everett CollectionA United Press International writer once labeled Mr. Lo Bianco “a natural-born heavy” because of his dark hair, bushy eyebrows and sharp features. In “The French Connection” (1971), moviegoers saw him as the owner of a modest Brooklyn diner, Sal and Angie’s, dressed to the nines and driving a Lincoln with European plates, courtesy of international drug money. In “The Seven-Ups” (1973), he was a mortician at one of the Mafia’s favorite funeral homes.But Mr. Lo Bianco was a stage actor at heart. He won an Obie Award in 1975 for “Yanks 3, Detroit 0, Top of the Seventh,” in which he played Duke Bronkowski, a baseball player with age and time breathing down his neck who is trying to pitch a perfect game during his 14th season in the major leagues.Eight years later, he triumphed on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” (1983) as a Brooklyn longshoreman destroyed by his obsession with his 17-year-old niece. The performance brought him a Tony Award nomination for best actor in a play.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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    Review: A Glorious ‘Titanic,’ Returned From the Depths

    Maury Yeston’s score, stupendously played and sung, is the star of the final production of an excellent Encores! season at New York City Center.Among the 1,500 people who died aboard R.M.S. Titanic on April 15, 1912, eight were musicians, playing through the ship’s last hours to solace themselves and their doomed companions. It seems only fitting, then, that among the many ways to love the splendid Encores! revival of “Titanic,” which opened on Tuesday at New York City Center, the best is as a tribute to the power of music to address the largest and gravest human emotions.And what music! Though fully a modern theatrical work, the score by Maury Yeston harks back to the grandeur and pathos of period English symphonists. In “Godspeed Titanic,” his glorious hymn to the ship upon its departure, it’s Elgar and Vaughan Williams you hear. When Peter Stone’s book requires a more expository style to depict the class contrasts onboard, it often arrives in the operetta voice of Arthur Sullivan. For comic bits and social dances, Yeston ventriloquizes ragtime and early salon-style jazz. All of this is wound together in a seamless composition that could almost stand on its own.Or at least it could in the Encores! revival, which features one of the series’ largest orchestras — larger even than the one in the pit at the show’s 1997 Broadway premiere. Here the 30 instrumentalists are fully visible, on a platform above the stage, responding to the music direction of Rob Berman with full drama and no schmaltz. Seeing them play almost continuously as the action below hurtles toward disaster — there are nearly two hours of music in a production that’s barely longer — further echoes and honors the efforts of their Edwardian colleagues.The cast of 32, especially when singing en masse, does the same for the lost passengers. (The vocal arrangements are thrilling.) At times, the beauty and force made me cry, then blew the tears out of my eyes.A focus on musical excellence is more than just a welcome return to the Encores! mission (as this entire season has been). That mission — to revive shows that would be difficult to produce otherwise, in simple stagings that prioritize the spirit of their original musical intention — is a bull’s-eye for “Titanic,” which thematically and otherwise depends on its size. Even so, it is a test for the series, which, over the years, has enhanced its sets, costumes and choreography to a nearly commercial level, sometimes at the expense of other values.But in approaching “Titanic,” the director Anne Kauffman, represented on Broadway this season by the exquisite “Mary Jane,” has moved decisively back toward bare bones. Not that there was much choice: An Encores! revival could not begin to encompass the show’s drama by visual means, as the original Broadway production did with massive decks lifting, tilting and sliding. In that version, the ship’s architect, Thomas Andrews, was killed by a rogue piano.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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    Seattle Repertory Theater Cuts Staff to Refocus on Producing

    The institution, Seattle’s pre-eminent repertory theater, says it is making the cuts so it can focus its resources on productions.As nonprofit theaters around the country grapple with continuing financial troubles and a changed post-pandemic theatergoing landscape, Seattle Rep announced this week that it would lay off 12 percent of its employees.The move by Seattle Rep, the city’s pre-eminent repertory theater, underscores the painful calculus that nonprofit theaters across the industry are facing. As the financial crisis in regional theaters continues, many have pared down programming or shaved costs by relying on co-productions with other theaters.The theater says it is cutting administrative roles to prioritize production. It is cutting its head count from 108 to 95, a net loss of 13 full-time jobs.“There has to be some sort of action in response to what’s happening in the field,” said the theater’s artistic director, Dámaso Rodríguez. “Some folks suspend production for a while. That’s not the approach we’re taking.”The theater, founded in 1963, has a storied history. It helped start Richard Gere’s professional acting career when he was 19, was home to the original workshop production of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-winning play “The Heidi Chronicles” and saw the first reading of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner’s “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.”But like many theaters, Seattle Rep is facing financial challenges. It has lost more than half of its subscribers — who buy tickets for multiple shows at a time — since the pandemic began. It is expected to report a $335,000 deficit on a $16 million budget when its current fiscal year ends this month. Rodríguez said the newly announced cuts were part of a three-year plan to better position the theater for the future.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 Apollo Theater Celebrates Its 90th Anniversary With Usher, Babyface and More

    Usher, an eight-time Grammy winner, has won many awards in his 30-year career. But the one he received on Tuesday night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem was special, he said.“It’s the prestige,” said the R&B singer, who arrived in a black S.U.V. surrounded by phone-wielding fans to the red carpet outside the theater, which was celebrating its 90th birthday at its annual spring benefit.Along with Babyface, Usher was at the Apollo, which opened in 1934 and has played host to numerous venerated musicians including Billie Holiday, James Brown and Aretha Franklin, for a celebratory concert and an awards ceremony. He and Babyface, the singer-songwriter and producer who has won 12 Grammy Awards, received Icon and Legacy awards from the organization, respectively, for their contributions to music.Gov. Kathy Hochul; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Jordin Sparks, the singer and “American Idol” winner; Ava DuVernay; the filmmaker and screenwriter; and Big Daddy Kane, the rapper, were among the more than 800 musicians, philanthropists and elected officials who filled the 1,500-seat theater.The singer-songwriter and producer Babyface was honored on Tuesday at the Apollo Theater.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesUsher and his wife, Jennifer Goicoechea.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesCora Brown and Grandmaster Caz.Krista Schlueter 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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    West Wilson of ‘Summer House’ Discusses His First Taste of Infamy

    When Mr. Wilson was accused on the reunion of misleading Ciara Miller, his castmate and former romantic interest, fan backlash was swift.When a 28-year-old unemployed journalist named Westling Wilson, who goes by West, was enthusiastically embraced by Bravo fans during his first season on the reality TV show “Summer House” this year, it made some wonder: Could he keep the good vibes going?Last week many viewers issued a resounding answer to that question: No. Over the course of the first episode of the “Summer House” reunion on Thursday, Mr. Wilson went, in some viewers’ eyes, from fan favorite to villain, due largely to the way he handled a breakup with his co-star, Ciara Miller.Ms. Miller, a 28-year-old nurse and model from Atlanta who has been on the show for several seasons, is known for not warming easily to new people, which made it all the more surprising when she and Mr. Wilson seemed to hit it off almost immediately.By the middle of the latest season, the two were cuddling, sleeping in the same bed at their shared Hamptons house and going on dates in New York City. Their will-they-or-won’t-they tension was a main story line, and audiences were fervently rooting for them to make it official.Their romantic fate wasn’t revealed until last week, when Mr. Wilson and Ms. Miller said in the first episode of a two-part reunion that, after several months of dating — during which Mr. Wilson took her to Missouri to visit his parents — he told Ms. Miller in December that he wasn’t ready to commit to a monogamous relationship.Fans were rooting for the relationship between Mr. Wilson and Ms. Miller, center, a nurse and model from Atlanta.BravoWe 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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    What to Know Before ‘Bridgerton’ Season 3, Part 2

    Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington are on their way to a happy ending — but Lady Whistledown is still a huge barrier in this “friends to lovers” story.The first half of “Bridgerton” Season 3 left viewers on a cliffhanger — and a little hot and bothered — with Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington finally giving in to their desires in the very climactic Carriage Scene.With that will they/won’t they out of the way, plenty of questions still remain. Will Penelope and Colin actually get married? Will Eloise spill Penelope’s big secret? Can Lady Whistledown continue to hide her true identity? With the second half of Season 3 upon us, here’s a quick refresher on where things stand in Netflix’s version of Regency-era London.Colin and Penelope’s FlirtationBecause the series more or less follows the plot of the novels, many fans knew that a Colin-Penelope (Polin, if you’re on BridgertonTok and have listened to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter too many times) romance was in the works from the beginning. Throughout the first two seasons of the show, Colin and Penelope were relatively close friends connected by Eloise Bridgerton, Colin’s sister and Penelope’s bestie. In the “Bridgerton” universe, where the separation of unmarried men and women is mandated, the familial tie gave them occasion to interact.At the end of Season 2, Penelope overheard Colin telling his friends he “would never dream of courting” her. When Season 3 picked up, we learned that Colin traveled around Europe by himself during the summer and that he wrote letters to Penelope — a tradition they had maintained since Season 1 — but that she didn’t respond. When Colin confronted her about the letters, she told him she had overheard his insult.Penelope’s New GroovePreparing for courting season, Penelope underwent a makeover moment, the so-called “Bridgerton glow-up,” changing her hair and clothing in the hopes of landing a marriage proposal.In an attempt to repair their friendship, Colin offered to teach Penelope how to flirt. To nobody’s surprise, Colin become attracted to Penelope — but he wasn’t the only one.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