Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 113 Shares179 Views

    in Television

    Fall TV 2023: New and Returning Shows to Watch

    Even with much of Hollywood on strike, there will be plenty of notable new and returning shows arriving in the next few months.We’ve been here before. In 2020, to be exact, when it was the pandemic that played havoc with fall network television schedules.The effects of the writers’ and actors’ strikes this year are a little less drastic — they took hold later in the production cycle than the pandemic did, and they only affect American series. But once again we are looking at lineups full of reality programs and game shows. Fox will still have its animation lineup (their long lead times mean more episodes were completed); CBS will repurpose and recycle (“Yellowstone,” the original British “Ghosts”); CW will offer a Canadian smorgasbord. On cable, streaming and PBS, meanwhile, with shorter seasons and more flexible scheduling, the effects are not so noticeable.Here is a roundup of strike-proof shows on fall schedules. Dates are subject to change.September‘THE SUPER MODELS’ Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington Burns are executive producers of this documentary series about their ’90s heyday, which promises to be as luxurious as the goods they modeled. (Apple+, Sept. 20 )‘SEX EDUCATION’ With Moordale Secondary closed, everyone has to get used to a new school in the fourth and final season of this popular, award-winning, sex-positive soap opera. (Netflix, Sept. 21)‘YOUNG LOVE’ “Hair Love,” the Oscar-winning animated short film from 2019 about a Black father learning to style his daughter’s hair, has been expanded into an animated series about a Chicago family. (Max, Sept. 21)‘THE CONTINENTAL: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK’ Mel Gibson headlines this three-episode extension of the John Wick universe, a prequel focused on a private hotel for assassins called the Continental. Colin Woodell (“The Flight Attendant”), as the future proprietor Winston Scott, has the unenviable task of convincing us that he’s a younger version of Ian McShane. (Peacock, Sept. 22)‘DEADLOCKED: HOW AMERICA SHAPED THE SUPREME COURT’ Dawn Porter (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”) directed this four-part documentary about the modern history of the Supreme Court. (Showtime, Sept. 22)‘KRAPOPOLIS’ Dan Harmon, creator of “Community” and “Rick and Morty,” joins Fox’s Sunday-night lineup with a comedy about a young king (Richard Ayoade) trying to foster civilization in a brightly animated ancient Greece. Fox has ordered three seasons of the show, which if nothing else will provide ample opportunity for the inimitable Matt Berry to voice the king’s father, a debauched half-centaur, half-manticore. (Fox, Sept. 24)Created by Dan Harmon, “Krapopolis” joins Fox’s Sunday night animation lineup.Fox‘THE IRRATIONAL’ Jesse L. Martin, a star of “Rent” on Broadway and a “Law & Order” mainstay for nine seasons, gets his own show for the first time in a three-decade TV career. In mainstream TV’s long tradition of offbeat crime solvers, he plays a behavioral scientist whose quirky team tackles “illogical puzzles and perplexing mysteries.” (NBC, Sept. 25)‘FRIEREN: BEYOND JOURNEY’S END’ This anime series begins after its heroes have completed their ultimate mission; one of the group, the elf Frieren, will outlive her human companions by hundreds of years and come to regret not having known them better. In a genre that gives a lot of space to melancholia, “Frieren” is particularly wistful. (Crunchyroll, Sept. 29)‘GEN V’ Amazon expands the world of its buzziest show, “The Boys,” with a spinoff set in a college for superheroes. (Amazon Prime Video, Sept. 29)October‘BOB’S BURGERS’ Fourteen seasons in (with No. 15 already ordered), Loren Bouchard’s animated comedy remains the sweetest, truest series about family love and dysfunction. With the recent revitalization of “The Simpsons,” it makes Sunday night on Fox the closest thing left to a destination on terrestrial TV. (Fox, Oct. 1)‘FOUND’ Shanola Hampton of “Shameless” stars as a public-relations expert who looks for missing persons of color in NBC’s second new series about an unconventional crime-solving team (after “The Irrational”). (NBC, Oct. 3)Shanola Hampton and Bill Kelly in “Found,” coming to NBC in October.Steve Swisher/NBC‘THE SPENCER SISTERS’ Lea Thompson, starring in a live-action series for the first time since ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth” ended in 2017, plays a Canadian mystery writer who solves crimes with her ex-cop daughter. The joke is that the vain, libidinous mom and the no-nonsense daughter get mistaken for sisters, or so the mother would believe; call it “Murder, She Flirted.” (CW, Oct. 4)‘BARGAIN’ The story line of this Korean series involving an organ auction, a remote location and an earthquake carries some “Squid Game” vibes. (Paramount+, Oct. 5)‘LUPIN’ Netflix’s contemporary take on a classic French character, the turn-of-the-previous-century master thief Arsène Lupin, resurfaces more than two years after its last appearance. Omar Sy returns as the Lupin aficionado Assane Diop, who spent the show’s first two seasons clearing the name of his unjustly imprisoned father. (Netflix, Oct. 5)‘OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH’ David Jenkins’s singular concoction — a queer romance and office sitcom set aboard an 18th-century pirate ship — returns for a second season. (Max, Oct. 5)‘TRANSPLANT’ A pre-strike Canadian import, this conventionally well-made medical drama about a Syrian refugee (Hamza Haq) who becomes a surgeon at a Toronto hospital enters its third season, with Rekha Sharma replacing John Hannah as the chief of the emergency room. (NBC, Oct. 5)‘LOKI’ The most multiverse-y of the Disney+ Marvel series returns for a second season, with Tom Hiddleston as a variant of the shifty Norse god Loki who is reluctantly attached to a timeline-policing authority. The Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan joins the cast. (Disney+, Oct. 6)From left, Tom Hiddleston, Ke Huy Quan and Owen Wilson in “Loki.”Gareth Gatrell/Marvel, via Disney+‘THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER’ Having adapted Shirley Jackson (“The Haunting of Hill House”) and Henry James (“The Haunting of Bly Manor”) for Netflix, Mike Flanagan tackles Edgar Allan Poe in a story that reimagines the Ushers as a big-pharma family. Flanagan regulars like Carla Gugino, Henry Thomas and Michael Trucco return. (Netflix, Oct. 12)‘FRASIER’ Intellectual property that deserves the name. The sparkling sitcom returns with Kelsey Grammer’s sniffy psychiatrist, Frasier Crane, having relocated to Boston (scene of the character’s original incarnation in “Cheers”) after his 1993-2004 run in Seattle. Not making the trip, unfortunately, is David Hyde Pierce as Frasier’s brother, Niles, nor, apparently, any of the other original cast members. (Paramount+, Oct. 12)‘GOOSEBUMPS’ R.L. Stine’s series of comic horror books for teenagers, already the basis of a popular series on Fox Kids in the 1990s, gets a new adaptation created by Nicholas Stoller (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) and Rob Letterman (the 2015 “Goosebumps” feature film). (Disney+, Oct. 13)‘LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY’ Apple has shown a taste for shows with a nostalgic flavor, whether or not they are set in the past — “Hello Tomorrow!,” “Physical,” “The Morning Show.” (Remember when morning shows mattered?) Brie Larson stars in this one as a woman in the 1950s who channels her skills as a scientist into hosting a cooking show. (Apple+, Oct. 13)Brie Larson stars in “Lessons in Chemistry” as a scientist turned cooking show host.Apple TV+‘SHINING VALE’ Courteney Cox, as a blocked writer who moves to the suburbs, and Mira Sorvino, as the jealous ghost haunting the writer’s new house, return in a comic take on “The Shining” whose first season was cleverly macabre. (Starz, Oct. 13)‘ANNIKA’ The second season of this under-the-radar British cop show will be American viewers’ only ration of the wonderful actress Nicola Walker this fall, now that “The Split” and her run in “Unforgotten” have ended. Walker plays the leader of a “marine homicide unit” based in Glasgow. (PBS, Oct. 15)‘BILLY THE KID’ It’s not obvious why this workmanlike western with the British actor Tom Blyth in the title role got a second season, but it may have something to do with the track record of its creator, the British writer Michael Hirst, who was also responsible for “The Tudors” and “Vikings.” (MGM+, Oct. 15)‘RICK AND MORTY’ The seventh season of the celebrated sci-fi cartoon will be the first without Justin Roiland, who created the show with Dan Harmon and voiced both of the title characters. (Adult Swim cut ties with Roiland after his 2020 arrest on domestic abuse charges was publicized; the charges have since been dropped.) (Adult Swim, Oct. 15)‘WORLD ON FIRE’ The first season of this British series about ordinary people proving their mettle, or failing to prove it, in the various theaters of World War II was not the most sophisticated of melodramas. The return of Lesley Manville (after a four-year gap between seasons), as a bigoted Manchester woman coping with her son’s sudden acquisition of a Polish wife, makes up for a lot, though. (PBS, Oct. 15)‘THE AMERICAN BUFFALO’ For the first time, Ken Burns directs a documentary that is not about man or man’s accomplishments. (Well, the second time if you count “Not for Ourselves Alone,” the one among his three dozen projects as a director that focuses specifically on women.) But the four-hour series is equal parts human history and natural history, as it traces the intertwined fates of the bison and the tribes that depended on them. (PBS, Oct. 16)‘EVERYONE ELSE BURNS’ The CW slips a British comedy onto its menu of mostly Canadian series. Simon Bird of “The Inbetweeners” and Kate O’Flynn of “Landscapers” play the parents in a family that struggles with the strictures of their Christian sect, whose many no-nos include drinking coffee and celebrating birthdays. (CW, Oct. 16)Simon Bird and Kate O’Flynn star in “Everyone Else Burns,” a British import coming to the CW.James Stack/CW‘NEON’ Three friends portrayed by Tyler Dean Flores (who plays the singer), Emma Ferreira (the overbearing manager) and Jordan Mendoza (the social media geek) move to Miami in search of reggaeton stardom in a comedy whose executive producers include the Taylor Swift antagonist Scooter Braun. (Netflix, Oct. 19)‘WOLF LIKE ME’ This Australian dark comedy is a mix of rom-com and broken-family drama in which one character’s being a werewolf is both the classic impediment to true love and an all-purpose allegory of the need for safety in relationships. Its first season was slight, amusing and often moving. (Peacock, Oct. 19)‘30 COINS’ The Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia’s entertainingly lurid thriller about a demonic conspiracy focused on a small village gets a second season and a substantial new cast member, Paul Giamatti, who plays a mysterious American tech billionaire. (HBO, Oct. 23)‘LIFE ON OUR PLANET’ The creators of British series like “Planet Earth” and “Our Planet” join forces with Industrial Light and Magic and Steven Spielberg for a natural-history series about the ebb and flow of life across the eons, which provides copious opportunities for animating the 99 percent of earth’s species that have gone extinct. (Netflix, Oct. 25)‘FELLOW TRAVELERS’ Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey star as clandestine lovers in a nostalgic march-of-history mini-series — McCarthyism, Vietnam, disco, AIDS — written by Ron Nyswaner (“Philadelphia”), based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon. (Paramount+, Oct. 27; Showtime, Oct. 29)‘THIS ENGLAND’ Hamlet and Hercule Poirot are all well and good, but here’s a real challenge for Kenneth Branagh: playing the Brexit-boosting, Covid-partying former prime minister of Britain, Boris Johnson, in a six-episode mini-series written by Michael Winterbottom and Kieron Quirke. (BritBox, Nov. 1)‘ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE’ Steven Knight, creator of “Peaky Blinders,” developed this mini-series from Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer-winning World War II romantic thriller about a brave, blind French girl and a German boy whose technical skills pull him into the Nazi army. Marie-Laure, the blind heroine, is played by Aria Mia Loberti, a Fulbright scholar, disability advocate and first-time actor; Marie-Laure’s father and great-uncle are played by the more seasoned Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie. (Netflix, Nov. 2)Aria Mia Loberti, a first-time actor, stars in an adaptation of the novel “All the Light We Cannot See.”Katalin Vermes/Netflix‘LAWMEN: BASS REEVES’ Originally billed as yet another spinoff of “Yellowstone,” the latest show from the executive producer Taylor Sheridan is now an anthology series that will feature various real-life old-west lawmen. The first season stars David Oyelowo as Reeves, a formerly enslaved man who developed a formidable reputation as a deputy U.S. marshal. Lauren E. Banks plays Reeves’s wife and the cast includes Dennis Quaid, Donald Sutherland and Shea Whigham. (Paramount+, Nov. 5)‘THE BUCCANEERS’ “A group of fun-loving young American girls explode into the tightly corseted London season of the 1870s,” according to the press release, which sounds like a cross between “Downton Abbey” and a reality dating competition (never mind that it’s based on an unfinished Edith Wharton novel). (Apple TV+, Nov. 8)‘FOR ALL MANKIND’ Equal parts soap opera and engaging alt-history of the space race — you didn’t see the North Korean thing coming, did you? — “Mankind” jumps ahead another decade for its fourth season, with international partners uneasily working together to mine asteroids in 2003. (Apple TV+, Nov. 10)‘BELGRAVIA: THE NEXT CHAPTER’ Written by Julian Fellowes (“Downton Abbey”) and starring redoubtable British performers like Tamsin Greig and Harriet Walter, the mini-series “Belgravia,” about 1840s London society, was a distinct pleasure. This sequel jumps ahead 30 years and has a new cast and a new writer, Helen Edmundson (“Dalgliesh”). (MGM+, Nov. 12)‘PARIS POLICE 1905’ The first season of this historical police procedural — titled “Paris Police 1900” and set when the procedures we’re used to seeing were being invented — was handsomely produced, crazily plotted and consistently entertaining. The new season returns most of the cast (with the regrettable exception of Valérie Dashwood’s laudanum-sniffing, steel-nerved Mme. Lépine) and adds automobiles. (MHz Choice, Nov. 14)‘MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS’ Kurt Russell’s last regular role in a series was nearly 50 years ago, in the 1976 western “The Quest,” so kudos to Legendary Pictures and Apple for talking him into starring in their Godzilla-adjacent MonsterVerse mystery. It’s a package deal: Russell and his son Wyatt both play the central character, an Army officer somehow connected to kaiju research and development. That would seem to prevent them from appearing onscreen together, but we can always hope for a time warp. (Apple TV+, Nov. 17)‘SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF’ Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels about a mopey Toronto bassist who is also, accidentally, a video-game warrior — already made into a 2010 film starring Michael Cera, “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” — are now adapted into an anime series produced by the Japanese studio Science SARU. O’Malley is on board as a writer and showrunner. (Netflix, Nov. 17)‘FARGO’ After an underwhelming sojourn in 1950s Kansas City in its fourth season, Noah Hawley’s arch rural noir heads back north to Minnesota and North Dakota for a story starring Jon Hamm as a sheriff and Juno Temple as the woman he’s hunting for. The typically eclectic cast includes Dave Foley, Lamorne Morris and Jennifer Jason Leigh. (FX, Nov. 21)‘ECHO’ Like alien invaders sending out spores, Marvel series multiply on Disney+. This one — starring Alaqua Cox as the Native American hero who can perfectly mimic movement and Zahn McClarnon as her father — is an offshoot of “Hawkeye,” from 2021. But it lies closer to “Daredevil” in the Marvel narrative architecture, so Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are also in the cast as Daredevil and the Kingpin. (Disney+, Nov. 29)December‘PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS’ Ten years after the second and, so far, final Percy Jackson film, Walker Scobell (he played Ryan Reynolds’s younger self in “The Adam Project”) takes on the role of the 12-year-old demigod in a new series. (Disney+, Dec. 20)Other returning shows: “American Horror Story” (FX, Sept. 20); “Starstruck” (Max, Sept. 28); “The Simpsons” (Fox, Oct. 1); “Family Guy” (Fox, Oct. 1); “Magnum P.I.” (NBC, Oct. 4); “Quantum Leap” (NBC, Oct. 4); “Creepshow” (Shudder, Oct. 13); “Hotel Portofino” (PBS, Oct. 15); “Bosch: Legacy” (Freevee, Oct. 20); “Upload” (Amazon Prime Video, Oct. 20); “Native America” (PBS, Oct. 24); “American Horror Stories” (FX on Hulu, Oct. 26); “Shoresy” (Hulu, Oct. 27); “The Gilded Age” (HBO, Oct. 29); “Invincible” (Amazon Prime Video, Nov. 3); “Rap Sh!t” (Max, Nov. 9); “Julia” (Max, Nov. 16); “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” (Starz, Dec. 1) More

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    A Guide to Musicals and Plays Coming This Fall and Spring

    A starry Sondheim revival on Broadway, Alicia Keys’s new musical and John Turturro in a Philip Roth adaptation: a guide to this season’s theater.In a different reality, this list of show openings across the country might be longer. You’d see the world premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s “Fake It Until You Make It,” for example, one of many productions canceled or postponed because of the powerful economic headwinds that theaters are facing. Still, there’s hope: Exciting ideas are taking shape in regional theaters, where works like “Run Bambi Run,” “Illinois” and “The Salvagers” are being staged. In New York, “Swing State,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Sabbath’s Theater” are among the shows that remind us of theater’s promise. And Broadway, of course, with intriguing new shows like “Gutenberg! The Musical,” “I Need That” and “How to Dance in Ohio,” will always survive. (Dates are subject to change.)SeptemberDIG The owner of a dying plant shop forms an unlikely relationship with a woman carrying a lot of baggage in this play by Theresa Rebeck, who also directs the Primary Stages production. Developed at the Dorset Theater Festival, “Dig” had a well-received premiere there in 2019. (Sept. 2-Oct. 22, 59E59 Theaters)DRACULA: A COMEDY OF TERRORS Count Dracula is a pansexual Gen-Z type experiencing an existential crisis in this comedy, written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen and inspired by the Bram Stoker classic. Expect a gender-bending celebration of sex, goth and goofiness, directed by Greenberg. The cast features James Daly as Dracula and, all appearing in several roles, Jordan Boatman, Arnie Burton, Ellen Harvey and Andrew Keenan-Bolger. (Sept. 4-Jan. 7, New World Stages)PURLIE VICTORIOUS: A NON-CONFEDERATE ROMP THROUGH THE COTTON PATCH Leslie Odom Jr. stars as Purlie Victorious Judson in Ossie Davis’s 1961 comedy about a traveling preacher who returns to his hometown in Georgia to save the community church and stand up to the oppressive white plantation owner Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee. Billy Eugene Jones (“Fat Ham”) and Kara Young (“Cost of Living”) also star. Kenny Leon directs. (Performances begin Sept. 7, Music Box Theater)SWING STATE The recently widowed Peg unintentionally sets off a small-town feud in this new play by Rebecca Gilman about the political polarization in America. In his rave review of its premiere last year at the Goodman Theater, The Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones called it “perhaps the first of the great American post-Covid plays.” Robert Falls directs this Audible Theater production, featuring the original Chicago cast, including Mary Beth Fisher as Peg. (Sept. 8-Oct. 21, Minetta Lane Theater)Rebecca Gilman’s new play, “Swing State,” arrives this month at the Minetta Lane Theater, with, from left, Anne E. Thompson, Kirsten Fitzgerald and Mary Beth Fisher.Liz LaurenMARY GETS HERS In plagued 10th-century Germany, an orphan named Mary is rescued by people desperate to protect her, and her chastity, at all costs in this new play by Emma Horwitz. The play is inspired by “Abraham, or the Rise and Repentance of Mary,” a comedy-drama written more than 1,000 years ago by Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, one of the earliest-known female poets in Germany. The show, directed by Josiah Davis, is being produced by The Playwrights Realm, which is in residence at MCC Theater. (Sept. 11-Oct. 7, MCC Theater)JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING A group of West African immigrant women working together in a Harlem hair salon share their secrets, dreams and doubts in this new play by Jocelyn Bioh (“School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play”), her Broadway playwriting debut. Whitney White (“Our Dear Dead Drug Lord”) directs this Manhattan Theater Club production. (Sept. 12-Oct. 29, Samuel J. Friedman Theater)RUN BAMBI RUN Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes and the playwright Eric Simonson (“Lombardi”) have collaborated on this new true crime saga in the form of a musical. With new songs from Gano, Simonson’s book is based on the story of Lawrencia Bembenek, a Milwaukee police officer who was convicted in 1981 of killing her husband’s ex-wife. Known as Bambi, Bembenek escaped from prison, was later caught and maintained her innocence until her death in 2010. Mark Clements directs. (Sept. 13-Oct. 22, Milwaukee Repertory Theater)MELISSA ETHERIDGE: MY WINDOW From her Kansas childhood to her years in the male-dominated rock business, Melissa Etheridge entertains with stories and many of her songs. Seen Off Broadway at New World Stages last year, Etheridge’s show has a lot of humor and a few gut punches too (her son died of a drug overdose). The almost-solo show (a roadie character is along for the ride) heads to Broadway with the same director, Amy Tinkham. (Sept. 14-Nov. 19, Circle in the Square Theater)Melissa Etheridge, the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, brings her memoir-style show to Broadway this fall after a run Off Broadway last year.Richard Termine for The New York TimesTHE REFUGE PLAYS This new epic tale by Nathan Alan Davis (“Nat Turner in Jerusalem”) follows a Black family over 70 years, beginning with a ghostly visit to a woman who is told she will die within 24 hours. This Roundabout Theater Company presentation is produced in association with New York Theater Workshop, whose new artistic director, Patricia McGregor, will direct a cast including Nicole Ari Parker, Daniel J. Watts, Ngozi Jane Anyanwu and Jon Michael Hill, among others. (Sept. 14-Nov. 12, Laura Pels Theater)GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! I still remember how much my abs hurt — back in 2011 — from laughing at Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells in “The Book of Mormon.” So their reunion is a season highlight. This time, they play aspiring (and inept) musical theater creators doing a backer’s audition of their new play about the inventor of the printing press. If the subject sounds dry, don’t worry — they have injected plenty of wildly inaccurate history into their script to spice things up. The show, written by Scott Brown and Anthony King (“Beetlejuice”), started out at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and has run Off Broadway. Alex Timbers directs. (Sept. 15-Jan. 28, James Earl Jones Theater)BILLY STRAYHORN: SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR This new musical tells Strayhorn’s story, from his poor upbringing in Pittsburgh to fame as one of the greatest jazz composers, including his collaborations with Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, and his life as an openly gay Black man living through the early days of the civil rights movement. The Broadway veteran Darius de Haas (who did the vocals for the Shy Baldwin character in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) stars as Strayhorn, with J.D. Mollison as Ellington. The book is by Rob Zellers and Kent Gash, who also directs. The music and lyrics are by Strayhorn, and Matthew Whitaker will conduct a nine-piece jazz band. (Sept. 19-Oct. 11, Pittsburgh Public Theater)MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez star in this Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical about three friends trying to make it in showbiz. The story is told in reverse chronological order, allowing us to see the broken ties of later life before the starry-eyed hopefulness of younger days. Maria Friedman directs. The 1981 Broadway debut was a flop, but this production, with a sold-out, well-reviewed run at New York Theater Workshop, might have the makings of a smash. (Sept. 19-March 24, Hudson Theater)ULYSSES Elevator Repair Service brings the epic and challenging James Joyce novel about one day in 1904 Dublin to the stage in this new production, commissioned by the Fisher Center at Bard College. While the company is not doing the entire text, as it had for “The Great Gatsby,” selections from each of the 18 episodes in the Joyce novel will be performed, using a fictional academic panel discussion as the jumping-off point. The cast features company regulars including Scott Shepherd, Vin Knight and Maggie Hoffman, with John Collins directing. (Sept. 21-Oct. 1, Fisher Center at Bard)THE WIZ This musical — an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s book with an all-Black cast — was a hit in 1975 with André De Shields in the title role. The new production kicks off a national tour in Baltimore, starring Alan Mingo Jr. as the Wiz, Nichelle Lewis as Dorothy and Deborah Cox as Glinda. The show is intended to hit Broadway in spring 2024, with Wayne Brady stepping into the title role in time for appearances in San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The Wiz” features a book by William F. Brown, with additional material by Amber Ruffin and a score by Charlie Smalls (and others). Schele Williams (“The Notebook”) directs. (Tour begins Sept. 23, Hippodrome Theater)HERE WE ARE Stephen Sondheim fans will get to see one more new musical by the master, who died in 2021, when this long-gestating show, a collaboration with the playwright David Ives and the director Joe Mantello, has its world premiere. The musical is adapted from two Luis Buñuel films, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel.” Sondheim was guarded about the exact story, telling The New York Times days before he died: “I don’t know if I should give the so-called plot away, but the first act is a group of people trying to find a place to have dinner, and they run into all kinds of strange and surreal things, and in the second act, they find a place to have dinner, but they can’t get out.” The talented cast includes Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale and David Hyde Pierce. (Sept. 28-Jan. 7, the Shed’s Griffin Theater)ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: HOW SHAKESPEARE INVENTED THE VILLAIN Patrick Page is no stranger to playing bad guys (Hades in “Hadestown” comes to mind), but he doesn’t often play a bunch of them in one show. In this solo creation, Page embodies more than a dozen of Shakespeare’s great villains — even Lady Macbeth — as he explores their motivations and Shakespeare’s interpretation of villainy. The show was presented at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, and The Times’s Maya Phillips wrote that seeing Page in action was “like watching a chameleon change hues before your eyes: stupefying, effortless.” Simon Godwin directs. (Sept. 29-Jan. 7, DR2 Theater)OctoberDRUIDO’CASEY The Irish playwright Sean O’Casey, who wrote about the Easter Rising of 1916 and Dublin’s working classes, is getting quite the celebration at the N.Y.U. Skirball Center. O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy — “The Plough and the Stars,” “The Shadow of a Gunman” and “Juno and the Paycock” — is being presented in this Druid Theater of Galway production, directed by Garry Hynes, Druid’s artistic director. The works, which audiences can watch as a marathon or single-play performances, are being produced in partnership with the Public Theater. (Oct. 4-14, N.Y.U. Skirball Center)Aaron Monaghan and Hilda Fay in Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock.” The Druid Theater of Galway production, in partnership with the Public Theater, will be at N.Y.U. Skirball Center.Ros KavanaghSTEREOPHONIC A rock band recording a new album in the mid-1970s is catapulted to stardom much quicker than its members could have imagined in this new play by David Adjmi (“Marie Antoinette”), featuring music by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire. Does the group make it, and stay together? Daniel Aukin directs. (Oct. 6-Nov. 19, Playwrights Horizons)I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE Santino Fontana stars in a revival of this 1962 musical about a shamelessly corrupt Depression-era shipping clerk. The original book, by Jerome Weidman, based on his 1937 novel, has been revised by his son, John Weidman, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome. Trip Cullman directs a cast that also includes Adam Chanler-Berat, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Judy Kuhn, Sarah Steele and Julia Lester. (Oct. 10-Dec. 3, Classic Stage Company)POOR YELLA REDNECKS The inventive playwright Qui Nguyen (“Vietgone”) is influenced as much by his Vietnamese background as by a love for comic books and action movies. His latest is about a Vietnamese family, with big dreams and small salaries, trying to adapt to a new life in Arkansas. There will be struggle and drama … and also Kung Fu and hip-hop. May Adrales directs the play, co-commissioned by South Coast Repertory and Manhattan Theater Club. (Oct. 10-Nov. 26, New York City Center Stage I)SABBATH’S THEATER Philip Roth’s raunchy, funny 1995 novel, about a debaucherous womanizer and retired puppeteer questioning the value of his life (and goaded toward suicide by his mother’s ghost), is being adapted for the stage by John Turturro and Ariel Levy. Turturro also stars as Mickey Sabbath, alongside Elizabeth Marvel and Jason Kravits. Jo Bonney (“Cost of Living”) directs this world premiere for the New Group. (Oct. 10-Dec. 3, Pershing Square Signature Center)MERRY ME Hansol Jung (“Wolf Play”) is inspired by restoration comedy and Greek theater for this new play about women on a Navy base seeking libidinous pleasure, while also trying to save the world. The show, directed by Leigh Silverman (“Hurricane Diane”), sounds unique, intriguing and naughty at the same time. (Oct. 11-Nov. 19, New York Theater Workshop)THE GREAT GATSBY The heartthrob Jeremy Jordan is the eccentric millionaire Jay Gatsby in this new musical based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about a man on a mission to pursue the love of his life: Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada of “Hadestown”). The book is by Kait Kerrigan (“The Mad Ones”), the score by the Tony Award nominees Nathan Tysen and Jason Howland (“Paradise Square”), with Marc Bruni (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”) directing. (Oct. 12-Nov. 12, Paper Mill Playhouse)HELEN. Caitlin George’s story about three sisters, which interweaves mythology and history, is being produced by the SuperGeographics and presented by La MaMa in association with En Garde Arts. (Oct. 13-29, La MaMa)I NEED THAT Danny DeVito stars as a hoarder facing eviction if he can’t clean up his act in Theresa Rebeck’s new comedy. DeVito’s daughter Lucy DeVito plays his fictional daughter in the play, also starring Ray Anthony Thomas. Rebeck teams up again with her “Bernhardt/Hamlet” director, Moritz von Stuelpnagel, for this Roundabout Theater Company production. (Oct. 13-Dec. 23, American Airlines Theater)HARMONY After many years of development, this musical by Barry Manilow (music) and Bruce Sussman (book and lyrics) is Broadway bound. And no, it’s not a Manilow jukebox musical (though I don’t hate that idea). Instead, “Harmony” is based on the true story of the Comedian Harmonists, a wildly successful singing group formed in Berlin in 1927, and follows them during the rise of Nazism. The ubiquitous Warren Carlyle directs a cast including Chip Zien, Julie Benko and Sierra Boggess. (Performances begin Oct. 18, Ethel Barrymore Theater)THE GARDENS OF ANUNCIA The adolescent years of the director and choreographer Graciela Daniele, who grew up in Argentina during the fascist regime of Juan Perón, form the basis for this musical featuring a book, music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa. The show had its premiere at the Old Globe Theater in 2021 and will be presented in New York by Lincoln Center Theater. Daniele, still working at 83, directs and co-choreographs with Alex Sanchez. (Oct. 19-Dec. 31, Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL Boundary-pushing theater tends to be the first to suffer from budget cuts (farewell, Under the Radar Festival), so it’s heartening that the Brooklyn Academy of Music is sticking with this annual event, even if it’s much smaller than in past years. “Food” (Nov. 2-18) stars the absurdist performer Geoff Sobelle, who gathers the audience at a massive table for a meditation on how and why we eat. Lee Sunday Evans co-directs with Sobelle, who cocreated the show with Steve Cuiffo. Also on the program is “How to Live (After You Die),” Dec. 7-9, a solo show by the Australian artist and filmmaker Lynette Wallworth, about her experience of being drawn into cultism and escaping through art. (The festival runs Oct. 19-Jan. 13, Brooklyn Academy of Music)In “Food,” Geoff Sobelle presents a dinner party that’s an absurdist theatrical spectacle. It will be presented at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Iain MastertonTHE FRIEL PROJECT The Irish Repertory Theater honors the great Irish playwright Brian Friel with three of his plays set in the fictional town of Ballybeg. First up is “Translations,” set in the 1830s, when British rule made efforts in Ireland to erase the Gaelic language; Doug Hughes directs (Oct. 20-Dec. 3). The Friel season continues with “Aristocrats,” directed by the theater’s artistic director, Charlotte Moore (Jan. 11-March 3); and “Philadelphia, Here I Come!,” with the theater’s producing director, Ciarán O’Reilly, directing (March 16-May 5). (Irish Repertory Theater)HELL’S KITCHEN Ali, a 17-year-old girl growing up in a tiny New York apartment with her single mother, has big dreams but feels trapped. When she hears a neighbor playing the piano, she sees a path out. This show features music and lyrics by Alicia Keys (some new music and some previous hits), and is loosely based on her experience growing up in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, surrounded by a community of artists. The project, more than a decade in the making, will now have its world premiere at the Public Theater. The book is by Kristoffer Diaz, choreography by Camille A. Brown, and Michael Greif directs. (Oct. 24-Dec. 10, Public Theater)SCENE PARTNERS Dianne Wiest stars in a neat twist on the “young wannabe starlet heads to Hollywood” story: Meryl, at 75 years old, decides to leave her Milwaukee home for Los Angeles, where she is determined to become a movie star. Who says it’s too late for her big break? Rachel Chavkin directs this new play by John J. Caswell Jr. (“Wet Brain”). (Oct. 26-Dec. 3, Vineyard Theater)DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA John Patrick Shanley’s 1984 Bronx-set drama about two outsiders circling the drain earned a young John Turturro his first rave in The Times. Aubrey Plaza (“The White Lotus”) makes her stage debut in this revival, alongside Christopher Abbott (“Girls”), with Jeff Ward directing. (Oct. 30-Jan. 7, Lucille Lortel Theater)SPAMALOT The over-the-top, delightfully goofy Monty Python musical set during the days of King Arthur (and the Knights Who Say ‘Ni!’) is returning to Broadway, where it first had us in stitches more than a decade ago. This new production, whose cast includes James Monroe Iglehart, Christopher Fitzgerald, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Michael Urie and Ethan Slater, had a well-received run in May, with Josh Rhodes directing and choreographing, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The book and lyrics are by Eric Idle, music by Idle and John Du Prez; Rhodes directs and choreographs again. (Performances begin Oct. 31, St. James Theater)“Spamalot” heads to the St. James Theater, with Nik Walker as Sir Galahad and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer as the Lady of the Lake, after a brief run at the Kennedy Center in Washington in May.Jeremy DanielNovemberPAL JOEY The nightclub singer and cad Joey Evans is transformed into an ambitious (but more redeemable) Black jazz singer, played by Ephraim Sykes in this new version of the 1940 musical based on stories by John O’Hara, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Richard LaGravenese and Daniel Beaty are rewriting its book to include the original songs along with other Rodgers-Hart classics like “My Heart Stood Still.” Savion Glover and Tony Goldwyn direct this City Center gala presentation. (Nov. 1-5, City Center)WAITING FOR GODOT Some classics, like this 1953 Samuel Beckett tragicomedy, continue to attract actors and directors aiming to make their mark. Having (ahem) played Estragon in college, I confess the play has a long-lasting appeal to me and seeing Michael Shannon take on the role in this Theater for a New Audience production sounds especially exciting. Arin Arbus directs a cast that also includes Paul Sparks (Vladimir), Jeff Biehl (Lucky) and Ajay Naidu (Pozzo). (Nov. 4-Dec. 3, Theater for a New Audience)SPAIN A couple of filmmakers find an unlikely backer — the KGB — for their epic Spanish Civil War movie in Jen Silverman’s new comedy about the age of disinformation. The cast will include Marin Ireland (“Reasons to Be Pretty”), Zachary James (“The Addams Family”) and Erik Lochtefeld (“Metamorphoses”). Tyne Rafaeli directs. (Nov. 8-Dec. 17, Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater)HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO A group of young adults on the autism spectrum prepares for a spring dance, hoping to learn to better navigate social challenges in this musical that had its premiere at Syracuse Stage last year. It’s based on a 2015 documentary by Alexandra Shiva, and features a cast made up largely of autistic actors from the Syracuse production. The book and lyrics are by Rebekah Greer Melocik and music by Jacob Yandura, with Sammi Cannold directing. (Performances begin Nov. 15, Belasco Theater)MANAHATTA A Native American woman, also a promising businesswoman with an M.B.A. from Stanford, heads to Oklahoma for a banking job, connects with her Lenape ancestry and tries to straddle the worlds of finance and her family in this new play by Mary Kathryn Nagle. Laurie Woolery directs. (Nov. 16-Dec. 17, Public Theater)BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB A group of great talents from the golden age of Cuban music in the 1940s and 1950s gathered in Havana for a week in 1996 to record the album “Buena Vista Social Club.” This new musical, with a book by Marco Ramirez (“The Royale”), tells the story of these artists and the creation of the unlikely blockbuster album and a 1999 documentary. Saheem Ali (“Fat Ham”) directs the world premiere for Atlantic Theater Company, featuring music from the album. Musical direction by David Yazbek (“The Band’s Visit”) and choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck. (Nov. 17-Dec. 31, Linda Gross Theater)THE SALVAGERS A father and son (only 14 years apart in age) have a tense enough relationship when possible romance opportunities come up for both and complicate their lives further in this new play by Harrison David Rivers (“The Bandaged Place”). Mikael Burke directs. (Nov. 24-Dec. 16, Yale Repertory Theater)SWEPT AWAY After a brutal storm sinks their whaling ship off the Massachusetts coast, four men struggle to survive in this new musical with a book by John Logan (“Red”) and music and lyrics by the Avett Brothers, based on their 2004 album “Mignonette” (which, in turn, was inspired by a 1884 shipwreck off the Cape of Good Hope). The show premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theater last year, and among the cast returning for this Arena State run are John Gallagher Jr., Stark Sands, Adrian Blake Enscoe and Wayne Duvall. Michael Mayer directs. (Nov. 25-Dec. 30, Arena Stage)APPROPRIATE When the Lafayette family returns to their dead father’s Arkansas home to settle his affairs in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Obie Award-winning play, a photo album of disturbing images creates tension and raises questions about the man they thought they knew. Jacobs-Jenkins’s works include the Pulitzer Prize finalists “Gloria” and “Everybody,” but this Second Stage production is the first play he has written to land on Broadway. Lila Neugebauer (“The Waverly Gallery”) directs a cast that includes Sarah Paulson. (Performances begin Nov. 29, Hayes Theater)Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s “Appropriate,” which ran Off Broadway in 2014, is getting a Broadway run this winter with a cast that includes Sarah Paulson.Richard Termine for The New York TimesDecemberREAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES Ana, full-figured and fresh out of high school, dreams of an education, but as a first-generation Mexican American in 1987 Los Angeles, she must battle her immigrant mother and the expectation she works in a sweatshop. This new musical is based on the 1990 play by Josefina López that inspired the 2002 film by López and George LaVoo. The new musical version features music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez and a book by Lisa Loomer, with the Tony winner Sergio Trujillo directing and choreographing. (Dec. 8-Jan. 21, American Repertory Theater)PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC A Jewish family in 2016 Paris question their safety in an increasingly hostile world in this play by Joshua Harmon (“Bad Jews”), which had its premiere Off Broadway via Manhattan Theater Club last year. David Cromer returns to direct this Broadway transfer. The story, which moves between two time periods, also includes the family’s older relatives, who in 1944 managed to survive in occupied Paris. (Dec. 19-Feb. 4, Samuel J. Friedman Theater)From left, Nancy Robinette, Kenneth Tigar, Peyton Lusk and Ari Brand in “Prayer for the French Republic,” about a family grappling with antisemitism, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in Manhattan. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJanuaryILLINOIS This new dance-theater hybrid is based on Sufjan Stevens’s 2005 concept album “Illinois,” about people, places and events in the Prairie State. With a story by Jackie Sibblies Drury (“Fairview”) and choreography and direction by Justin Peck, the show had a premiere at the Fisher Center at Bard this past summer. (Jan. 12-28, Chicago Shakespeare Theater)THE CONNECTOR A talented up-and-coming journalist faces off with a diligent copy editor in this new musical, conceived and directed by Daisy Prince. The book is by Jonathan Marc Sherman and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown (“Parade”), who also leads the band in this MCC Theater world premiere. (Jan. 12-Feb. 18, Newman Mills Theater)ENCORES! Don’t be fooled by the words “staged concert readings”; these productions, now in their 30th year, are more elaborate and moving than simple readings. This season includes “Once Upon a Mattress,” the 1959 musical comedy adapted from the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” (Jan. 24-Feb. 4), directed by Lear deBessonet and starring Sutton Foster; “Jelly’s Last Jam,” the 1992 musical about the life of the jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton (Feb. 21-March 3), directed by Robert O’Hara; and “Titanic,” a 1997 musical recounting of the famous maritime disaster (June 12-23), directed by Anne Kauffman. (New York City Center)FebruaryDOUBT: A PARABLE Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber star in a revival of John Patrick Shanley’s powerful Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a Catholic school nun who suspects a priest of sexual abuse. Scott Ellis directs the Roundabout Theater Company production, the first Broadway revival of “Doubt” since the 2005 premiere. (Feb. 2-April 14, American Airlines Theater)THE NOTEBOOK Nicholas Sparks’s 1996 novel about romantic idealism and lifelong love comes to Broadway as a new musical (there was a screen adaptation in 2004 too, of course). The book is by Bekah Brunstetter, music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson, and Michael Greif and Schele Williams direct. “The Notebook” arrives in New York following a well-received premiere last year at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. (Performances begin Feb. 6, Gerald Schoenfeld Theater)REDWOOD Idina Menzel stars in a new musical about a seemingly successful businesswoman who suffers heartbreak and escapes her life and family to immerse herself in the redwoods of Northern California. Tina Landau wrote the book and directs this world premiere; the music is by Kate Diaz and lyrics by Diaz and Landau, with additional contributions from Menzel. (Feb. 13-March 17, La Jolla Playhouse)TEETH I can’t believe a team decided to adapt the 2007 cult classic film about a young woman with toothed genitalia. Talk about pushing boundaries. The film, about an evangelical Christian teenager whose body bites back, didn’t even get the greatest reviews, but I’m in. The book is by Anna K. Jacobs and Michael R. Jackson (“A Strange Loop”), with music by Jacobs and lyrics by Jackson. Sarah Benson (“Blasted”) directs. (Performances begin Feb. 21, Playwrights Horizons)MarchONE OF THE GOOD ONES A young Latina brings her boyfriend home to meet the parents in this new comedy by Gloria Calderón Kellett (“One Day at a Time” reboot); naturally biases come to the surface. The Pasadena Playhouse, winner of the 2023 regional theater Tony Award, commissioned this new play. (March 13-April 7, Pasadena Playhouse)PURPOSE A youngest son’s homecoming forces a politically powerful Black American family to grapple with some secrets, faith and radicalism in this new play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Phylicia Rashad directs the world premiere for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company, leading a cast including Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill. (March 14-April 21, Steppenwolf Theater)THE OUTSIDERS It’s the poor Greasers vs. the rich Socs in this new musical about angsty teenagers in 1960s Tulsa based on the S.E. Hinton novel (as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film starring C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon and a bunch of other now-famous actors). The show, which had its premiere at La Jolla Playhouse earlier this year, features a book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine and music and lyrics by the folk duo Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Levine. Danya Taymor directs. (Performances begin March 16, Bernard B. Jacobs Theater)“The Outsiders” will make its way to Broadway in the spring, following its premiere earlier this year at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, Calif.Rich Soublet IISALLY & TOM A playwright and director (who are also a married couple) star in a play about the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson — that is the setup of Suzan-Lori Parks’s new play about history, consent and power. The show, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, is being presented in New York by the Public Theater in association with The Guthrie Theater, where it had its premiere last year. (March 28-April 28, Public Theater)April and beyondTHREE HOUSES A new musical by Dave Malloy (“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812”) is always going to be a highlight. In his latest, Malloy employs book, music and lyrics to explore our post-pandemic world, bringing together three strangers after a long period of a time that was as communal as it was solitary. Annie Tippe directs. (April 30-June 9, Pershing Square Signature Center)MOTHER PLAY Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger star in this new play by Paula Vogel (“How I Learned to Drive”). Vogel’s latest, set outside Washington, D.C., in 1962, is a study of the power of family bonds, focusing on a mother (Lange) with firm ideas about what her two teenage kids need to do to be successful. Tina Landau directs this Second Stage Theater premiere. (Performances begin April 2, Hayes Theater)ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE The “Succession” star Jeremy Strong takes the stage in Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 classic about a small-town doctor who tries to speak truth to power when he discovers the community’s water is tainted, and nearly ruins his life in the process. Sam Gold will direct this new production, an adaptation by the playwright Amy Herzog, whose revision of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” ran on Broadway this year. (Performances dates and theater to be announced)CABARET Eddie Redmayne starred in a recent, lauded London revival of this 1966 Kander and Ebb musical that shows us the Nazi rise to power through the lives of people in a Berlin nightclub. Redmayne is expected to reclaim the role of the Emcee when this new production, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, opens on Broadway. The book is by Joe Masteroff, music by Kander and lyrics by Ebb. (Previews begin in the spring, August Wilson Theater)GATSBY American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., is planning its own musical adaptation of the Fitzgerald novel, directed by Rachel Chavkin. The A.R.T. production will feature a score by Florence Welch (Florence + the Machine) and Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) with a book by Martyna Majok (“Cost of Living”). (May 25-July 21, 2024, American Repertory Theater) More

  • 175 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    Arleen Sorkin, Soap Opera Star With a Claim to Batman Fame, Dies at 67

    Her “Days of Our Lives” character provided a rare burst of daytime-drama comedy. She was later the voice of Harley Quinn, the Joker’s henchwoman.Arleen Sorkin, an actress and comedian who created memorable characters in two decidedly different universes — the soap opera one of “Days of Our Lives” and the crime-fighting one of Batman, where her Harley Quinn became a fan favorite after she first gave her a voice in 1992 on “Batman: The Animated Series” — died on Aug. 24 in Los Angeles. She was 67.Her husband, the producer and writer Christopher Lloyd, said the cause was pneumonia coupled with multiple sclerosis, which she had dealt with for many years.Early in her career Ms. Sorkin was best known as part of a female comedy troupe called the High-Heeled Women, which formed in 1978 and performed all over the country, mixing jokes and comic songs. One number in their repertory was a rap called “For White Girls Who Have Considered Analysis When Electrolysis Is Enuf,” a riff on the Ntozake Shange play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”By some accounts, Lilly Tartikoff, the wife of the NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, saw Ms. Sorkin in a High-Heeled Women show and told her husband to look into signing her. In any case, in 1984 Ms. Sorkin made her debut on “Days of Our Lives,” the long-running NBC soap, as Calliope Jones (later Calliope Jones Bradford), an offbeat fashion designer who brought a rare burst of humor to the often overly earnest world of daytime drama.In an oral history recorded in 2006 for the Television Academy, Ken Corday, one of the show’s producers, said that the character was inspired by the stage persona of the singer Cyndi Lauper. In her audition, Ms. Sorkin nailed the character’s kookiness.“It was one of those things where we don’t need to read any more, we don’t need a screen test; she’s got the role,” Mr. Corday said.Calliope quickly established herself as the quirkiest thing in Soap Land.Ms. Sorkin as the outlandish fashion designer Calliope Jones Bradford in a 1986 episode of “Days of Our Lives.” “What I lack in talent,” she said, “I make up for in accessories.”Joseph Del Valle/NBCUniversal, via Getty Images“The sacrosanct dramatic aura of daytime soaps has never tolerated a giggle, much less a full-out belly laugh, in plots dealing with drug abuse, child molestation, abortion, murder, wife-swapping and worse,” Vernon Scott, who covered Hollywood for United Press International, wrote in 1985. “Then along comes Calliope Jones, a ding-a-ling character in ‘Days of Our Lives,’ who actually pokes fun at soap operas themselves. This revolutionary development is akin to electing Eddie Murphy to the Politburo or appointing Johnny Carson to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”Viewers loved it; the fan mail began pouring in. The producers let Ms. Sorkin ad-lib some of her lines, adding a spontaneity to the usually glum proceedings. Calliope’s outlandish wardrobe augmented the comedy.“What I lack in talent, I make up for in accessories,” Ms. Sorkin told Mr. Scott.Ms. Sorkin appeared in more than 400 episodes of “Days of Our Lives,” most recently in 2010. Throughout her appearances, she sought to make viewers pay attention.“I imagine women doing housework while they watch our show, things like ironing,” she said. “It’s my job to make them scorch something.”The Calliope character helped bring about Harley Quinn, the Joker’s sidekick, who has an inexplicable romantic attachment to that archvillain even though he is abusive toward her.When the character Harley Quinn first appeared on “Batman: The Animated Series” in 1992, Ms. Sorkin provided the voice. “Arleen Sorkin’s voice certainly gave a great deal of life and dazzle to the character,” said Paul Dini, a writer for the show. Courtesy of DCHarley was introduced in a 1992 episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” called “Joker’s Favor.” Paul Dini, a writer for the show, told Entertainment Weekly in 2017 that he had been toying with creating a funny, snappy henchwoman for the Joker. Ms. Sorkin, an old friend from their days as students at Emerson College in Massachusetts, had appeared in a fantasy sequence on “Days of Our Lives” where Calliope was dressed as a sort of court jester. She had given Mr. Dini a videotape of her favorite “Days of Our Lives” moments, and the sequence was on it. Mr. Dini happened to watch the tape one day when he was sick and something clicked.“I was like, Well, there she is,” Mr. Dini said. “She should run around with the Joker dressed like that.”He and the animator Bruce Timm came up with Harley, a sidekick clad in red and black, and Ms. Sorkin provided the distinctive voice: “high-nasal, sing-song-y and filled with Brooklyn-ish inflections,” as Vulture put it in a 2015 article.“Arleen Sorkin’s voice certainly gave a great deal of life and dazzle to the character,” Mr. Dini told Entertainment Weekly.Harley wasn’t originally intended as a regular, but she became one, and then, later in the decade, made the transition to DC comic books, a rare case of a character going from TV to the page rather than the reverse. Ms. Sorkin provided her voice not only in “Batman: The Animated Series” but also in assorted video games and subsequent TV series, including “The New Batman Adventures” and “Justice League.” Among the other actresses who have taken up the role in animated or live-action productions is Margot Robbie (“Birds of Prey” and “The Suicide Squad”), who has most recently owned the box office as the title character in “Barbie.”Mr. Lloyd, in a phone interview, was asked whether Ms. Sorkin would have described herself as a comedian, an actress or what. He said her choice might have been “clown.”That, though, he said, would have been misleading, as she also had credits as a writer, including on the 1997 Jennifer Aniston movie “Picture Perfect,” and as a creator of the 1990s sitcom “Fired Up.” She was also involved in various humanitarian causes.“These are not the typical achievements of a clown,” he said. “I think that’s how she would describe herself, but she went on to do quite a bit more than that.”Arleen Frances Sorkin was born on Oct. 14, 1955, in Washington to Joyce and Irving Sorkin. Her mother held various jobs, including real estate agent. Her father was a dentist with a longtime dream of having one of his film ideas adapted into a movie. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2007 on the occasion of his death, Ms. Sorkin recalled that when she was hired as an extra in the 1979 movie “And Justice for All,” when she left the family’s home in Washington headed for the assignment, he handed her a movie treatment he had written and asked her to give it to Al Pacino, the film’s star. (Dr. Sorkin’s dream was finally realized in 2004 when he received a producing credit on “Something the Lord Made,” an HBO film drawn from an idea he had long championed.)Ms. Sorkin with her husband, the producer and writer Christopher Lloyd, at an awards show in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2004. Asked how he thought his wife, who was a writer as well as a performer, would have described herself, he said her choice might have been “clown.”Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesMr. Lloyd, whom Ms. Sorkin married in the mid-1990s, said she pursued an education degree at Emerson, anticipating a career in teaching, but was also involved in theater there. She played Lola in a production of “Damn Yankees,” and a cast mate urged her to hold off on teaching and instead give performing a try.Lisa Pessaro, another Emerson alumna, was among the original members of High-Heeled Women and remembered her comic colleague in an interview with Emerson Today shortly after Ms. Sorkin’s death.“She was just simply an unharnessed gem,” Ms. Pessaro said. “She had incredible wit and was oozing with personality.”In addition to her husband, Ms. Sorkin is survived by her mother; two sons, Eli and Owen Lloyd; and two brothers, Arthur and Robert Sorkin. More

  • 175 Shares119 Views

    in Television

    Danny Masterson Is Sentenced to 30 Years to Life in Prison for Two Rapes

    The “That ’70s Show” actor was found guilty in May of raping two women in the early 2000s.Danny Masterson, the actor best known for his role in the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison on Thursday for the rapes of two women when he was at the height of his career more than 20 years ago.Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo of Los Angeles Superior Court handed the sentence down after hearing statements from the women, who described the lasting impact of Masterson’s actions on their lives.“The body is a relentless witness,” one of the accusers, identified as N. Trout, said in a statement that was read aloud in the courtroom on Thursday. “When you raped me you stole from me,” she said. “That is what rape is, a theft of the spirit.”George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, said he hoped the women’s bravery would be an example to others. “Justice was finally served today,” he said, noting that one of his top priorities was to ensure “Los Angeles will no longer be a hunting ground for Hollywood elite who feel entitled to prey on women.”Shawn Holley, a lawyer for Masterson, told reporters outside the courtroom that she was “very disappointed” in the sentence, noting that a team of lawyers had reviewed the case and found “a number of significant evidentiary and constitutional issues” that they planned to to use in appeals.“Though we have great respect for the jury, and for our system of justice, sometimes they get it wrong — and that’s what happened here,” Holley said, noting that Masterson maintains his innocence.Masterson, 47, played Steven Hyde on “That ’70s Show” from 1998 to 2006 and also starred in the television comedy “Men at Work” from 2012 to 2014. More recently, he appeared in the Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” but was fired from the show in 2017 after the rape allegations emerged.The case against Masterson drew widespread attention, and at times mirrored a television saga, in part because of accusations that the Church of Scientology, to which Masterson belonged, had tried to discourage his accusers.In May, Masterson was convicted of raping two women at his home in the Hollywood Hills in the early 2000s. The jury deadlocked on a charge that the actor had raped a third woman.The mixed verdict was delivered after a jury deadlocked on all three charges in November, resulting in a mistrial.The retrial this spring lasted more than a month before Masterson was found guilty of two counts of rape by force or fear.The legal case against Masterson began unfolding in 2020, when he was charged with three counts. He pleaded not guilty.The case was closely watched not only because it involved a Hollywood star on trial in the #MeToo era but also because two of the women had accused the Church of Scientology, to which they also belonged, of discouraging them from reporting the rapes to the authorities. The church denied that it pressured the victims.One accuser, who was identified as Christina B. and who said Masterson raped her in 2001 when they were in a relationship, reported the rape to the church’s “ethics officer,” according to court documents. That officer told her, according to the documents, “You can’t rape someone that you’re in a relationship with” and “Don’t say that word again.” In May, the jury deadlocked on the charge related to her accusation.Court documents also said that Masterson had raped another woman, identified as Jen B., in April 2003 after he gave her a drink. Jen B., who sought the church’s permission to report the rape, later received a written response from the church’s international chief justice that cited a 1965 policy letter, which for her raised concerns she could be ousted from her family and friends if she reported a fellow Scientologist to the police. Still, she reported the rape in 2004.The third accuser, who was identified as N. Trout and who was raped in 2003, did not tell the church but shared it with her mother and best friend. “If you have a legal situation with another member of the church, you may not handle it externally from the church, and it’s very explicit,” she said, according to court documents. She added that she “felt sufficiently intimidated by the repercussions.”The church has maintained that it is not a party to the case, and should not be implicated. “There is not a scintilla of evidence supporting the scandalous allegations that the Church harassed the accusers,” it said in a statement following the sentencing.But Alison Anderson, a lawyer for two of the accusers, said that her clients planned to continue holding the church accountable for attempting to silence them.“Despite persistent harassment, obstruction and intimidation, these courageous women helped hold a ruthless sexual predator accountable today,” Anderson said. “They are eager to soon tell the fuller story of how Scientology and its enablers tried desperately to keep them from coming forward.” More

  • 100 Shares129 Views

    in Television

    Warner Bros. Suspends Deals With Top Show Creators

    The move, which affected star writers like Mindy Kaling and J.J. Abrams, is an escalation of the standoff between Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America.When television and movie writers went on strike in May, studios quickly suspended certain first-look deals — mostly those for lesser-established writers. Star show creators like Mindy Kaling and J.J. Abrams were kept on the payroll. Worried about keeping them happy, even during a walkout, studios left their multimillion-dollar deals alone, shielding them from the pain of the strike.No more.In an escalation of the standoff between studios and the Writers Guild of America — it has entered its fifth month, with no end in sight — Warner Bros. moved late Wednesday to suspend deals with the 1 percent of television writers. That includes Ms. Kaling, a creator of the Max series “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” and Mr. Abrams, whose recent television efforts include “Duster,” a coming thriller set in the 1970s, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private suspension notices.Warner Bros. also suspended deals with Greg Berlanti (“Superman & Lois”) and Bill Lawrence (“Ted Lasso”), among others, the people said.A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. declined to comment. Representatives for the writers either declined to comment or did not return calls. A spokesman for the Writers Guild of America had no immediate response.Top writers have contractual protections that will ultimately enable them to receive all the compensation promised in their original deals. Warner Bros. is doing what is known as “suspend and extend,” according to the people briefed on the matter, meaning that the studio will halt payments for the duration of the strike — and then, when work resumes, extend the contracts by the amount of time they were suspended.The suspension of the A-lister deals suggests that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios, expects the strike to continue into the fall. (A representative for the studio alliance declined to comment.) Studio executives had signaled that Labor Day was an inflection point; the industry’s sitting idle beyond that date would have a severe impact on the 2024 release calendar, particularly for movies.J.J. Abrams’s deal was also suspended. The move can exert more pressure on the striking writers guild.Jerod Harris/Getty ImagesWarner Bros. Discovery said in a securities filing on Tuesday that the Hollywood strikes — tens of thousands of actors joined writers on picket lines in mid-July, the first time both unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960 — would negatively affect its 2023 earnings by up to $500 million.“We are trying to get this resolved in a way that’s really fair and everyone feels fairly treated,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, said at a Goldman Sachs event on Wednesday. “Having said that, in our guidance, we said that this would be resolved by September. And here we are in September. This is really a very unusual event — the last time it happened was 1960.”Suspending the deals of prominent writers is one way for the studios to try to put pressure on the Writers Guild. During the last writers’ strike, in 2007, a small group of showrunners agitated for union leadership to settle with the studios as the stalemate wore on. That strike lasted 100 days; the current strike is now at the 128-day mark.Studio officials and Writers Guild negotiators have not met formally since Aug. 23, when talks broke off for the second time and the companies publicly released their latest offer in an appeal to rank-and-file members. Studios were hoping the offer would look good enough for members to pressure their leaders to make a deal.But the move seemed to have the opposite effect, instilling the 11,500-member Writers Guild with renewed resolve to keep fighting. “The companies’ counteroffer is neither nothing, nor nearly enough,” guild leaders said in a note to members on Aug. 24. “We will continue to advocate for proposals that fully address our issues rather than accept half measures.”The studios defended their proposal as offering the highest wage increase to writers in more than three decades. The studios also said that they had offered “landmark protections” against artificial intelligence, and that they vowed to offer some degree of streaming viewership data to the guild, information that had previously been held under lock and key.Both the writers and the actors have called this moment “existential,” arguing that the streaming era has deteriorated their working conditions as well as their compensation levels.Nicole Sperling More

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in September

    Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of September’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)‘Wrestlers’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 13Greg Whiteley, the co-creator and director of the popular Netflix docu-series “Last Chance U” and “Cheer,” tells another story of small-time athletes fighting to keep their dreams alive in “Wrestlers.” Set in and around a Louisville, Ky., gym, the series follows the veteran star Al Snow and the die-hard performers of Ohio Valley Wrestling, who are working to boost business after their new bosses have given them just a few months to increase revenue. As with Whiteley’s other shows, “Wrestlers” features up-close and exciting sports footage alongside intimate slice-of-life scenes and confessional interviews, as these people who love the history and traditions of regional professional wrestling share their hopes and dreams.‘El Conde’Starts streaming: Sept. 15The daring Chilean writer-director Pablo Larrain — best-known for his offbeat 2016 biopics “Neruda” and “Jackie” — puts his own peculiar spin on the life of Augusto Pinochet in “El Conde,” a black-and-white gothic horror film that reimagines the dictator as a depressed vampire, enduring an audit of his crumbling estate. Jaime Vadell plays Pinochet, who in this movie has been alive since the time of the French Revolution and has kept hanging around long after everyone has assumed he died. Larrain fits some actual history into this picture, but for the most part he uses satire to critique the lingering vitality-sapping effects of Pinochet’s tyrannical reign.‘Love at First Sight’Starts streaming: Sept. 15Based on the Jennifer E. Smith novel “The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight,” this romantic dramedy stars the vibrant young actress Haley Lu Richardson as Hadley Sullivan, who is reluctantly on her way to London to attend her father’s wedding when she gets seated on the plane next to Oliver (Ben Hardy), a charming math whiz heading home for his mother’s memorial service. When the two are separated after landing, they have an eventful and emotional day of meeting family obligations while also trying to find each other again. Jameela Jamil plays multiple characters and also narrates the film, using Oliver’s nerdy number-crunching as a prompt to keep the audience updated on the ever-shifting odds that these two likable kids will be happy together.‘The Saint of Second Chances’Starts streaming: Sept. 19Bill Veeck was one of Major League Baseball’s maverick innovators, spending much of his life coming up with creative and sometimes controversial ballpark promotions to draw fans and make money. The documentary “The Saint of Second Chances” — co-directed by Jeff Malmberg and the Oscar-winning Morgan Neville — is about Bill’s son Mike, whose initial attempts to follow in his father’s footsteps were derailed by his part in the Chicago White Sox’s notorious 1979 “Disco Demolition Night,” which ended in a riot. Narrated by Jeff Daniels — with re-enactments that have the actor-comedian Charlie Day playing Mike — the film covers the younger Veeck’s big comeback in the ’90s, when he found ways to bring fun back to baseball and to his own life by running the independent minor league team the St. Paul Saints.‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’Starts streaming: Sept. 27Fresh off the critical and commercial success of his film “Asteroid City,” the writer-director Wes Anderson makes his Netflix debut with “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” an adaptation of a Roald Dahl story. Clocking in at around 40 minutes — a bit too long to be a short film and not long enough to be a feature — the movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a smug gambler who become fascinated with the rumors he has heard about a man who can see without using his eyes. As always, Anderson has enlisted an impressive supporting cast, including Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade and — as Dahl himself — Ralph Fiennes. This project also reportedly relies even more than usual on Anderson’s penchant for overtly theatrical effects, as the characters tell stories within stories while often remaining on a single stage.Also arriving:Sept. 7“Dear Child”“Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight” Season 3“Top Boy” Season 3“Virgin River” Season 5, Part 1Sept. 8“Burning Body” Season 1“Rosa Peral’s Tapes”“Selling the OC” Season 2“Spy Ops” Season 1“A Time Called You” Season 1Sept. 12“Michelle Wolf: It’s Great To Be Here”Sept. 13“Class Act” Season 1Sept. 15“Surviving Summer” Season 2Sept. 21“Sex Education” Season 4Sept. 22“Song of the Bandits”“Spy Kids: Armageddon”Sept. 26“The Devil’s Plan” Season 1“Who Killed Jill Dando?”Sept. 27“Encounters” Season 1“Forgotten Love”“Street Flow 2”Sept. 28“Castlevania: Nocturne” Season 1“The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo”Sept. 29“Nowhere” More

  • 163 Shares169 Views

    in Theater

    ‘Swing State’ Playwright Wants to Sound an Alarm for a World in Trouble

    In her Off Broadway drama, which had an acclaimed run in Chicago, the playwright looks for hope to outweigh despair in a fractious, anxious time.The playwright Rebecca Gilman moved away from small-town Alabama long ago, but a soft Southern lilt still shapes her words. In all the years she lived and worked here in her adopted city of Chicago, she remained immune to its Bill Murray accent. The broad tones of nearby Wisconsin have likewise left no mark.Rural Wisconsin itself, though, has burrowed deep in her soul. After more than a decade of traveling back and forth from Chicago, Gilman relocated full-time to Green County, Wis., about four years ago. If you want to send her into a soliloquy, just ask what she loves about the prairie. She will talk about its colors and how they change throughout the year — from white to pink to purple to a wind-stirred sea of yellow — and then she will venture into its metaphors.“When you go to a prairie, it’s just teeming with life — butterflies, bugs, birds, everything,” she said on a stiflingly hot August afternoon in an upstairs lounge at the Goodman Theater, where her new play, “Swing State,” was in rehearsals for its New York run. “It’s an ecosystem. Everything depends on everything else. Some of the plants have to be pollinated by particular butterflies. Particular butterflies have to have lupine to lay their eggs. Monarchs have to have milkweed. And it is not a monoculture. It cannot thrive unless it’s as diverse as diverse can be.”Gilman, 58, worries about the prairie’s destruction, but she acts on that fear, volunteering with an endearingly named group, the Prairie Enthusiasts, to protect the land. She worries, too, about threats to wildlife — like white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats — so she recently trained as a “bat ambassador,” to raise awareness of their plight.And like so many inhabitants of this bellicose, burning planet, Gilman worries about its survival if people cannot find a way to coexist and cooperate, at the most intimate local level and beyond. In “Swing State,” which is scheduled to begin previews on Friday, at the Minetta Lane Theater in Manhattan, she wrestles with that anxiety, and with the hopelessness that it can bring.The actors Bubba Weiler and Mary Beth Fisher rehearsing the play at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, where “Swing State” had an acclaimed run last year.Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesDirected by Gilman’s longtime collaborator Robert Falls, the play is set in what is known as the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, where the rolling landscape is untouched by glacial sediment, or drift. The principal characters are driftless, too — lacking the purpose that human beings require to thrive.Peg, a recent widow in her 60s, cherishes the acres of ancient prairie on her land, and takes crotchety good care of her 20-something neighbor Ryan, a recovering alcoholic who looks out for her, too, as he scrambles to get his life together. But with the natural world in escalating peril, and her husband now just ashes in a box, Peg cannot summon the will to go on.Set in 2021, “Swing State” is only subtly a play about the coronavirus pandemic, depicting the isolation that people felt in its early stages, and the knee-jerk, politicized hostility that arose around masks and vaccines. It is more interested in the ways that antagonism has replaced goodwill, and how lethal to community such hardheartedness can be.When the play had its premiere at the Goodman last October, the critic Chris Jones wrote, in a rave review in The Chicago Tribune, that Gilman had captured “the feeling that America has atrophied, the sense that once-shared values have swung so far to the extremes that the bones of a nation have crumbled.”Yet she frames it all in up-close, personal terms, using just four characters — all residents of the same tiny township. The story isn’t overtly about civic life; at the same time, it is hugely about civic life.“The play, for me,” Falls said, perched in a cushy chair a few feet from Gilman, “is sort of about loss and everything we’re losing. One could say civility in politics. One could say very much the environment. One could say a democracy.”For all the rough-and-tumble raucousness of the national shouting match, though, “Swing State” takes a gentle tone.“In a way,” Falls said, “it becomes the quietest play, sitting in the middle of the biggest epic social circumstances.”The longtime collaborators at a rehearsal last month. Falls said the play “is sort of about loss and everything we’re losing.”Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesA TONY AWARD WINNER for his 1999 production of “Death of a Salesman,” Falls, 69, was nearing the end of his long tenure as the Goodman’s artistic director when he decided he wanted to stage one more Gilman play. It would be the sixth in a collaboration that began with her 2001 play “Blue Surge.”In late 2020, when the pandemic was keeping him at home in Evanston, Ill., wondering darkly if actors would ever act without masks on, Gilman was at home in southern Wisconsin, not knowing if she would ever write another play — because, she said, “everything just seemed sort of pointless.”But then he called her up and asked her to. Always, he said, he has felt a connection to her voice, and to the “moral sensibility” at the heart of her plays — a quality he ascribed to her deeply understanding “how the world truly works” yet rejecting “the cynicism of just throwing up your [expletive] hands.”“I really wanted to do a new play by Rebecca,” he said, “to the point where it didn’t really matter what Rebecca wanted to write about.”Gilman had two conditions, swiftly granted: that Falls would direct and that Mary Beth Fisher — who originated lead roles in two of Gilman’s best known plays, “Spinning Into Butter” (1999) and “Boy Gets Girl” (2000), both at the Goodman — would star.As Gilman wrote the role of Peg for Fisher, she poured into the play what was on her mind. Even in those dire days when theaters were shut down and the industry’s future was grim, Gilman’s eyes were on a more collective danger.“The world is in trouble,” she said. “It’s not just the theater that’s in trouble. The world is in trouble. And if the planet dies, all of our precious art is going to die with it. That was the urgency I was feeling. Like, can we create something that also communicates this?”In her swing-state township that Joe Biden won by two votes, where she and her husband joke that maybe they tilted the balance, Gilman doesn’t really talk politics with people anymore: too hazardous.“There’s so much potential for conflict and animosity,” she said, “that you kind of just don’t go down that road because you also have to live next to each other, where there aren’t very many people. You don’t want to make enemies of your neighbors. I don’t know my neighbors’ politics, and I don’t need to know, and I don’t want to know, because I need them if we get stuck in the snow, or they need me to come to their daughter’s high school graduation party.”Fisher, right, with Anne E. Thompson, left, and Kirsten Fitzgerald in the play.Liz LaurenThat polarity and interdependence are woven into “Swing State”; likewise what Gilman said was her fear of losing the people most precious to her, and her alarm at what was vanishing from her beloved outdoors.“Despair is a really strong word,” she said. “But when you do go out into the natural world regularly, it’s impossible not to see what’s dying. It’s impossible not to see what we’re losing.”When bird-watching became a popular pandemic activity, friends would ask her to take them. It gave them solace and gave her solace, too, but hers came with an asterisk.“I was so happy that they were discovering it,” she said. “But at the same time, I was thinking, there used to be so many more birds here. Every time we’d go out, I’d think, oh, gosh, I wish you had come out with me 10 years ago. I wish you’d come out with me five years ago. The birds that we used to see here are not here anymore.”Falls spent his first 13 years of life surrounded by cornfields in rural Illinois, where his mother’s side of the family were farmers. He has always preferred city to country, books to bird-watching. Yet when Gilman took him onto the prairie and handed him a pair of binoculars, he immediately made a rare sighting: a Henslow’s sparrow, a type of bird that figures poignantly in “Swing State.”Theater people in general being fond of superstition, he took that as a “great omen” for the play. Maybe it was, given the show’s success so far — the accolades in Chicago, then the transfer of the Goodman production to New York by Audible Theater, which will record an audio version for wide release.The play’s title, by the way, isn’t just about Wisconsin as a purple state. It’s about the characters’ emotional landscapes, Gilman said, “swinging between despair and hope.”She has no interest in providing false hope, preferring to acknowledge reality. But she doesn’t want to knuckle under to despair, not least because it’s unfair to abandon the world’s troubles to generations that didn’t cause them.So, she said, it’s a balancing act, one in which “meaningful work that makes the world better” — the kind her characters are in search of, and that she has discovered on the prairie — is part of finding a way to heal.“Put despair and hope on the scale,” she said. “You’re going to have to work to make hope outweigh despair, but I do think it’s possible. And I do think that the work is necessary in a way it never has been before.” More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad Tackle Another Book (Not Mormon)

    Twelve years after opening “The Book of Mormon,” the two actors — and good friends — return with “Gutenberg! The Musical!”Josh Gad still remembers the first time he and Andrew Rannells met, in June 2010 in a Los Angeles audition suite. No matter what Gad did during their scenes together, Rannells didn’t laugh. Not once.Rannells was auditioning for “The Book of Mormon,” the new musical from the creators of “South Park.” Gad, then a correspondent on “The Daily Show,” had long been attached. The producers wanted a celebrity opposite him, and they’d invited several to these tryouts. Rannells, a replacement actor in “Hairspray” and “Jersey Boys,” was not remotely famous. Confronted with Gad’s cyclone energy, he chose stillness.“I was so intimidated. And it really upset me,” Gad said, over dinner at Chez Josephine, a theater district mainstay where Rannells, in younger days, used to work the coat check. Gad turned to Rannells. “I had that Tony locked until you walked in the door. And I still had a grudge because you beat me out for ‘Jersey Boys.’” (It was unclear if Gad was joking. Then again, Gad is almost always joking.)“The Book of Mormon” opened in 2011, to rapturous reviews, with Rannells as the strait-laced Mormon missionary Elder Price and Gad as his co-evangelist Elder Cunningham, whose laces are a lot looser. Both men were nominated for a Tony Award and both men lost out to Norbert Leo Butz for “Catch Me If You Can.” Somewhere along the way, they became close friends, which was apparent over dinner, a symphony of bits, riffs and callbacks between bites of tuna tartare and duck breast. They had ordered identical meals and identical Diet Cokes.Rannells, 45, has spent his post “Mormon” years in other Broadway shows and on television (“Girls,” “Black Monday,” “Girls5Eva”). Gad, 42, has since become a voice-over luminary (“Frozen,” Frozen 2,” “Central Park”). Now they are reuniting, one block south and one block east of their “Mormon” haunts, in “Gutenberg! The Musical!” which begins previews at the James Earl Jones Theater on Sept. 15.“Gutenberg!” directed by Alex Timbers and written by Scott Brown and Anthony King, is a farcical, largehearted duet about a pair of nursing home workers, Bud and Doug, bitten grievously by the Broadway bug. Using an inheritance and the proceeds from the sale of a home, they rent a Broadway theater for one night, hoping to find a producer for their deeply misguided and tragically under-researched original musical about Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of movable type and the publisher of the Gutenberg Bible.“The Book of Mormon” opened in 2011, to rapturous reviews, with Rannells as the strait-laced Mormon missionary Elder Price and Gad as his co-evangelist Elder Cunningham, whose laces are a lot looser.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTwo old friends finding a vehicle for a Broadway return has the whiff of a vanity project. But this deliriously silly show, in which the two actors play dozens of characters and wear a combined 107 baseball caps, demands that vanity be left at the stage door.Over dinner, Gad joked (probably!) that when Timbers had sent him a photo of those 107 hats, each inscribed with the name of one of the show’s characters, he’d tried to back out.“It was too late,” Rannells said.“I know,” Gad said. “I read my contract last night.”The day after dinner, at a rehearsal space at the Alvin Ailey Extension, Gad and Rannells were stumbling through (with an emphasis, perhaps, on stumbling) the second act of “Gutenberg!” In a scene at the top of the act, as Bud and Doug introduced themselves to the audience, Rannells hit Gad in the face, perhaps accidentally.“That’s assault,” Gad said.“You walked into it,” Rannells replied. Moments later they were standing cheek to cheek, singing spooky oo-oo-oos.Rannells was wearing a shirt and shorts in complementary greens, his wavy hair reliably perfect. Gad was all in black. He was also drinking an iced coffee. Given his typical energy levels, this seemed like a bad idea. He had burst into the rehearsal room after the lunch break singing “Unchained Melody” with heavy vibrato. He also riffed on a line from “Sunset Boulevard”: “We taught the world new ways to dream.”“No,” Rannells said. He hugged Gad. Or maybe he gave him a mild version of the Heimlich maneuver. This is more or less their way, with Gad as an avatar of chaos and Rannells in smirking control.Casey Nicholaw, the director of “The Book of Mormon,” had noted this contrast. “Josh’s comedy basically just says, ‘Watch me. Love me.’ Josh is just out there,” he said. “And Andrew’s is sneaky. Andrew knows how to just hold himself with grace and dignity and then just go for it.”Each has a different process, a different style, a different affect. Collaborators I spoke with compared them to famous comic duos — Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello. Gad cited “The Odd Couple.”“I definitely am more anxious than he is,” Gad said over dinner. “I’m a bundle of anxiety when it comes to learning dances. I’m a bundle of anxiety when it comes to getting lines right.” Gad said that he is also a hypochondriac and that sometimes, offstage during “The Book of Mormon,” Rannells would suggest possible diseases for him.“He’s got a mean streak,” Gad said. “I can say that now.” Rannells, sipping his Diet Coke, didn’t deny it.Despite that mean streak, a friendship endures. Nikki M. James, their “Mormon” co-star, recalled watching it begin. “Onstage, they played very different people who end up becoming each other’s best friends,” she said in a recent interview. “That camaraderie and friendship and love and sense of family, it was very clear offstage as well.”That show left them inextricably linked. “When I die, if I get an obituary in The New York Times, Josh’s name will also be in it,” Rannells said, somewhat darkly.And after they departed “The Book of Mormon,” each for a quickly canceled sitcom (“1600 Penn” for Gad, “The New Normal” for Rannells), they would often talk about how they might work together again. A revival of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” was mooted. So was a revival of “The Producers.” About four years ago Timbers (“Moulin Rouge,” “Beetlejuice”) had another idea.Brown and King (“Beetlejuice”) had first conceived “Gutenberg!” more than 20 years ago. Back then, King was a musical theater intern at Manhattan Theater Club. Tasked with sifting through the slush pile, he found himself listening to home-recorded tapes and CDs of new musicals, most of them sung through by the author or authors, most of them hopeless. King thought that he and Brown could write something just as bad. Worse even.“We tried to come up with, like, what’s a terrible idea for a musical?” King said.But what began as a way to prank King’s boss evolved into something just a little more sincere. As King put it, “We fell in love with our own dumb stuff.”In 2003, Brown and King performed a 45-minute version of the show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. It ran for about two years. With encouragement from a producer, they wrote a second act and took it to London. The show that emerged was never about the real Gutenberg — Bud and Doug have only the vaguest ideas of how movable type and medieval history work. Instead it was a loving lampoon of Broadway wishes and tropes.Gad and Rannells’s characters in “Gutenberg! The Musical!” hope to find a producer for their musical about the inventor of movable type.Adam Powell for The New York TimesBut for the Off Broadway premiere in 2006, directed by Timbers, the creators stepped out in favor of actual actors, Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos, which made it feel more like a real show and less like a goofball routine written by two starving artist roommates.There had been conversations about moving the show to Broadway. Those conversations had never been especially earnest. Then Timbers slipped Gad the script, hoping that he would share it in turn with Rannells. Which is exactly what happened.With Brown and King and Timbers, the actors met for a reading in workshop in Los Angeles in March 2020, an inauspicious moment for Broadway-bound musicals. The reading went well. To succeed, the friendship between Bud and Doug has to feel ardent, unbreakable. Gad and Rannells had that.So after a delay of about three years, conversations began again. A two-person show felt overwhelming, especially one in which the actors also had to serve as their own crew, moving each prop and set piece. Gad described it as “more intimate, and yet much more insane than even ‘Mormon.’” Still, he and Rannells agreed.In rehearsal, that insanity was in evidence. The two men were playing not only Bud (Gad), the composer, and Doug (Rannells), the book writer, but also every other baseball-capped character. And they had to play them with all the naïveté and enthusiasm that newbie writers would bring, but also with the necessary skills of a practiced musical theater performer, because bad acting and bad singing aren’t funny for long.“You have to commit to doing fully lived-in characters by performers who otherwise would not be on Broadway,” Gad said.“It’s literally a hat on a hat on a hat on a hat,” Rannells sighed.Hats aside, they seemed to be having a pretty good time, particularly during one sequence where Rannells reenacted an eagle attacking a sea gull, while Gad, playing a pubescent girl, did a sexy, scary skeleton dance.It wasn’t all skeletons and sea gulls. Opening a Broadway show is stressful. “I think our actual human sweat will give us away,” Rannells said. “I’m going to be a real mess 10 minutes into the show.” Opening a Broadway show with a best friend in accidental smacking distance is stressful in a different way. But it’s also pretty nice. “Gutenberg!” is about two characters supporting each other, through thick and thin and third reprise. And as Gad and Rannells tell it, that tracks for the actors, too.“There are times where I want to fall down and just cry at how tiring the show is,” Gad said. “Then I look at Rannells and I’m like, ‘OK, he’s going to keep me upright.’”He turned to Rannells, adding, “I’m so happy you got ‘Jersey Boys’ now. Now I actually think they made the right choice.” More