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    Striking Writers Are Worried About A.I. Viewers Should Be, Too.

    A.I. screenwriting, a point of contention in the Writers Guild strike, may not yet be ready for prime time. But streaming algorithms and derivative programming have prepared the way for it.Television loves a good sentient-machine story, from “Battlestar Galactica” to “Westworld” to “Mrs. Davis.” With the Writers Guild of America strike, that premise has broken the fourth wall. The robots are here, and the humans are racing to defend against them, or to ally with them.Among the many issues in the strike is the union’s aim to “regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies,” at a time when the ability of chatbots to auto-generate all manner of writing is growing exponentially.In essence, writers are asking the studios for guardrails against being replaced by A.I., having their work used to train A.I. or being hired to punch up A.I.-generated scripts at a fraction of their former pay rates.The big-ticket items in the strike involve, broadly, how the streaming model has disrupted the ways TV writers have made a living. But it’s the A.I. question that has captured imaginations, understandably so. Hollywood loves robot stories because they make us confront what distinguishes us as human. And when it comes to distinguishing features, the ability to conjure imaginary worlds is simply sexier than the opposable thumb.So the prospect of A.I. screenwriting has become potent, both as threat and rallying cry. Detractors of the striking writers taunted them on social media that software was going to horse-and-buggy their livelihoods. Striking WGA members workshopped A.I. jokes on their picket signs, like “ChatGPT doesn’t have childhood trauma.” (Well, it doesn’t have its own. It has Sylvia Plath’s, and that of any other former unhappy child whose writing survives in machine-readable form.)But it shouldn’t surprise anyone if the TV business wants to leave open the option of relying on machine-generated entertainment. In a way, it already does.Not in the way the WGA fears — not yet. Even the most by-the-numbers scripted drama you watch today was not written by a computer program. But it might have been recommended to you by one.Algorithms, the force behind your streaming-TV “For You” menu, are in the business of noticing what you like and matching you with acceptable-enough versions of it. To many, this is indeed acceptable enough: More than 80 percent of viewing on Netflix is driven by the recommendation engine.In order to make those matches, the algorithm needs a lot of content. Not necessarily brilliant, unique, nothing-like-it content, but familiar, reliable, plenty-of-things-like-it content. Which, as it happens, is what A.I. is best at.The debate over A.I. in screenwriting is often simplified as, “Could a chatbot write the next ‘Twin Peaks’?” No, at least for now. Nor would anyone necessarily want it to. The bulk of TV production has no interest in generating the next “Twin Peaks” — that is, a wild, confounding creative risk. It is interested in more reboots, more procedurals, more things similar to what you just watched.TV has always relied on formula, not necessarily in a bad way. It iterates, it churns out slight variations on a theme, it provides comfort. That’s what has long made strictly formatted shows like “Law & Order” such reliable, relaxing prime-time companions. That’s also what could make them among the first candidates for A.I. screenwriting.Large language models like ChatGPT work by digesting vast quantities of existing text, identifying patterns and responding to prompts by mimicking what they’ve learned. The more done-to-death a TV idea is, the greater the corpus of text available on it.And, well, there are a lot of “Law & Order” scripts, a lot of superhero plots, a lot of dystopian thrillers. How many writers-contract cycles before you can simply drop the “Harry Potter” novels into the Scriptonator 3000 and let it spit out a multiseason series?In the perceptive words of “Mrs. Davis,” the wildly human comedic thriller about an all-powerful A.I., “Algorithms love clichés.” And there’s a direct line between the unoriginality of the business — things TV critics complain about, like reboots and intellectual-property adaptations and plain old derivative stories — and the ease with which entertainment could become bloated by machine-generated mediocrity.After all, if studios treat writers like machines, asking for more remakes and clones — and if viewers are satisfied with that — it’s easy to imagine the bean counters wanting to skip the middle-human and simply use a program that never dreamed of becoming the next Phoebe Waller-Bridge.And one could reasonably ask, why not? Why not leave the formulas to machines and rely on people only for more innovative work? Beyond the human cost of unemployment, though, there’s an entire ecosystem in which writers come up, often through precisely those workmanlike shows, to learn the ropes.Highly formatted shows like “Law & Order” could be among the early candidates for A.I.-generated scripts. NBCThose same writers may be able to use A.I. tools productively; the WGA is calling for guardrails, not a ban. And the immediate threat of A.I. to writers’ careers may be overstated, as you know if you’ve ever tried to get ChatGPT to tell you a joke. (It’s a big fan of cornball “Why did the …” and “What do you call a …” constructions.) Some speculations, like the director Joe Russo’s musing that A.I. some day might be able to whip up a rom-com starring your avatar and Marilyn Monroe’s, feel like science fiction.But science fiction has a way of becoming science fact. A year ago, ChatGPT wasn’t even available to the public. The last time the writers went on strike, in 2007, one of the sticking points involved streaming media, then a niche business involving things like iTunes downloads. Today, streaming has swallowed the industry.The potential rise of A.I. has workplace implications for writers, but it’s not only a labor issue. We, too, have a stake in the war with the storybots. A culture that is fed entirely by regurgitating existing ideas is a stagnant one. We need invention, experimentation and, yes, failure, in order to advance and evolve. The logical conclusion of an algorithmicized, “more like what you just watched” entertainment industry is a popular culture that just … stops.Maybe someday A.I. will be capable of genuine invention. It’s also possible that what “invention” means for advanced A.I. will be different from anything we’re used to — it might be wondrous or weird or incomprehensible. At that point, there’s a whole discussion we can have about what “creativity” actually means and whether it is by definition limited to humans.But what we do know is that, in this timeline, it is a human skill to create a story that surprises, challenges, frustrates, discovers ideas that did not exist before. Whether we care about that — whether we value it over an unlimited supply of reliable, good-enough menu options — is, for now, still our choice. More

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    Whose Queen? Netflix and Egypt Spar Over an African Cleopatra.

    Egyptians say the influential streaming service is dragging an ancient queen into a modern, and decidedly Western, debate — about Black representation in Hollywood — in which she has no real place.On this much, at least, everyone can agree: Cleopatra was a formidable queen of ancient Egypt, the last of the Macedonian Greek dynasty founded by Alexander the Great, who went on to even greater posthumous fame as a seductress, immortalized by Shakespeare and Hollywood.Beyond that, many of the details are fuzzy — which is how one of the world’s dominant streaming services ended up in an imbroglio with modern-day Egypt recently, called out by online commenters and even the Egyptian government for casting a Black actress to play Cleopatra in the Netflix docudrama series “African Queens,” which airs on Wednesday.Soon after the show’s trailer appeared last month, Netflix was forced to disable comments as they turned into a hostile, and occasionally racist, pile on. Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the government agency in charge of heritage, declared the show a “falsification of Egyptian history.” A popular television host accused Netflix of trying to “take over our Egyptian culture.” An Egyptian lawyer filed a complaint demanding that the streaming service be shut down in the country.For the show’s makers, the four episodes about Cleopatra were a chance to celebrate one of history’s most famous women as an African ruler, one they portray as Black. But for many Egyptians and historians, that portrayal is at best a misreading, and at worst a negation, of Egyptian history.Despite her Macedonian Greek lineage, the producers of the show say question marks in her family tree leave room for the possibility that her mother was of another background: The identities of Cleopatra’s mother and grandmother are unknown, leading some experts to argue that she was at least partly Indigenous Egyptian.“We don’t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them,” Jada Pinkett Smith, who produced “African Queens,” said in a Netflix-sponsored article about the show.Cleopatra was descended from a line of Macedonian Greek kings who ruled Egypt from 323 B.C. to 30 B.C., when it was annexed by Rome, and many scholars say she likely had little, if any, non-Greek blood. The Ptolemies — as all the dynasty’s kings were called — tended to marry their own sisters or other relatives, leaving few openings for new blood, though there is some evidence that she had a Persian ancestor, according to scholars.A sculpture of Cleopatra in the workshop of the Egyptian artist Ibrahim Salah in Giza in 2020.Mohamed Hossam/EPA, via Shutterstock“Statues of Queen Cleopatra confirm that she had Hellenistic (Greek) features, distinguished by light skin, a drawn-out nose and thin lips,” Egypt’s government said on Twitter on April 30.Modern battles over Cleopatra’s heritage and skin color have erupted time after time, finding fresh fuel with each new Hollywood casting, from Elizabeth Taylor, who played her in 1963, to Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga and Gal Gadot, all recent contenders to portray her in various projects.Netflix’s casting of Adele James, a biracial British actress, is a reflection of Western arguments over Black representation in Hollywood and whether history is too dominated by white narratives that revolve around European primacy.But it stirred up a very different debate in Egypt, where many view identity and race through another lens. For many Egyptians, the question is whether Egyptians and their ancient ancestors — geographical location notwithstanding — are African.“Why do some people need Cleopatra to be white?” the show’s director, Tina Gharavi, wrote in a piece defending the casting in Variety last month. “Perhaps it’s not just that I’ve directed a series that portrays Cleopatra as Black, but that I have asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they are furious at me for that.”Egypt sits on the northeast corner of Africa. Its relationship with the continent, however, is deeply ambivalent.Today, it holds membership in the African Union and other continental groups. But in Greek and Roman times, historians say, Egypt was seen as a major player in the Mediterranean world, the gateway to Africa, rather than fully African.Since Arabs conquered Egypt in the seventh century, bringing the Arabic language and Islam with them, Egyptians have shared more cultural, religious and linguistic ties with the predominantly Arab and Muslim Middle East and North Africa than with the rest of Africa.Elizabeth Taylor during the filming of the movie “Cleopatra” in Rome.Associated PressThe ancestors of today’s Egyptians include not only Arabs and native Egyptians, but also Nubians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Circassians, Albanians, Western Europeans and other conquerors, traders, slaves and immigrants who landed in Egypt at various points over the last two millenniums.For all its diversity, Egyptian society often prizes light skin and looks down on darker-skinned Egyptians. But many Egyptians and historians say the racist slurs hurled online at Ms. James, while abhorrent, distract from the real issue. The show is dragging an ancient queen into the middle of contemporary Western debates in which she has no real place, they argue.“How can someone who’s not even from my country claim my heritage just because of their skin color?” said Yasmin El Shazly, an Egyptologist and the deputy director for research and programs at the American Research Center in Egypt.Ancient Egypt and its wonders have long been a trophy in Western culture wars. In 1987, Martin Bernal’s book “Black Athena” argued that European historians had erased Egyptian contributions to ancient Greek culture. Though many scholars agree that much of the evidence it cited was flawed at best, the book became one of the canonical texts of Afrocentrism, a cultural and political movement that, among other things, seeks to counter ingrained ideas about the supposed inferiority of African civilizations.According to some Afrocentrists, ancient Egypt was the Black African civilization that birthed not only African history and culture, but also world civilization until Europeans plundered its technologies, ideas and culture. The pyramids and the pharaohs became sources of pride for these Afrocentrists — and Cleopatra, for all her Greek blood, a potential heroine of the movement.“Cleopatra reacted to the phenomena of oppression and exploitation as a Black woman would,” according to the Hamilton College classicist Shelley Haley, a professor of Africana and an expert on Cleopatra who consulted on the Netflix show. She argued that Cleopatra’s potentially mixed background made her a person of color: “Hence we embrace her as sister.”A still from “Queen Cleopatra,” which stars Adele James.NetflixThis kind of thinking frustrates many Egyptians, historians and Egyptologists. Egyptians, too, are fiercely proud of the pyramids and the pharaohs, even if they are two millenniums removed, and they would like Afrocentrists who hold such views to back off.For many Egyptians, the pharaohs — whose skin color and ancestry are still a matter of scientific debate — were Egyptian, not African. The Black American comedian Kevin Hart was forced to cancel a planned show in Egypt in February after an uproar over his past comments that the pharaohs were Black Africans.It does not help that some Afrocentrists hold that modern-day Egyptians descend from Arab invaders who displaced the Black Africans of ancient Egypt, a theory many Egyptians consider both offensive and inaccurate.“An African-American who’s never been to Egypt saying that ‘this is our heritage and modern Egyptians are these Arab invaders’ is very insulting,” Ms. El Shazly said.Some historians say the modern fixation on whether Cleopatra looked more like Elizabeth Taylor or Ms. James would have felt alien to the ancients.In Cleopatra’s time, Alexandria, the capital of her kingdom, was a cosmopolitan port city bustling with Greeks, Jews, ethnic Egyptians and people from all over who, the Cambridge University historian David Abulafia said, largely saw themselves as part of the Hellenistic world. They identified by culture and religion, he said, not by skin color.“Race is a modern construct of identity politics that’s been imposed on our past,” said Monica Hanna, an Egyptian Egyptologist. “This use and abuse of the past for modern agendas will just hurt everyone, because it’ll give a distorted image of the past.”Though Egyptian critics of the show have denied any racist motives, some Egyptian commentators say their society’s internalized racism and inferiority complexes turned up the volume of the Cleopatra outcry.Unable to take pride in modern-day Egypt’s political repression and cratering economy, some Egyptians “link their identities to ancient glories” or attempt to signal their superiority to the rest of Africa by emphasizing their European roots, said the Egyptian writer AbdelRahman ElGendy.Seizing the chance to whip up Egyptian pride, government-owned media dedicated airtime on three different evening talk shows recently to slamming “African Queens.”The same day, a government-owned media conglomerate announced that it would produce its own Cleopatra documentary. Its film, it pointedly noted, would be based on the “utmost levels” of research and accuracy. More

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    ‘Ted Lasso,’ Season 3, Episode 9 Recap: Colin’s Moment

    This week brought a return to form as the series shed some of the subplots that had been bogging down the story in recent episodes.Season, 3, Episode 9: ‘La Locker Room Aux Folles’For anyone doubting the adage that less is sometimes more, I offer the example of this episode of “Ted Lasso.” While it’s not what I would describe as remarkable, or even especially memorable, it has a nice rhythm to it, in part because it tackles fewer unrelated story lines. The aggressive jumps from subplot to subplot, many involving new or peripheral characters are less in evidence — Keeley’s professional and romantic dalliances with, respectively, Shandy and Jack, had been particular offenders — and their absence is a welcome break.Speaking of Jack, it appears that particular subplot has already run its highly unnecessary course. I cited most of my objections last week. But even I’m a little taken aback at how casually the show has discarded a once semi-central story line. Keeley and Jack had one fight, Jack slammed the door like Nora in “A Doll’s House” and now (unlike Nora) she has relocated to Argentina. What does this mean for her financing of Keeley’s business? If past discarded subplots are any clue — remember the momentarily club-threatening dispute with Dubai Air? — absolutely nothing. Still, for the record: Good riddance, and on to what still matters.ColinAnyone wondering about this episode’s central theme had to do no more than read the all-too-specific title. It’s a reference to “La Cage Aux Folles,” the play about a gay couple that was later adapted into a French film, an American film and a hit Broadway musical. For anyone who missed the episode title, we helpfully open to the strains of the musical’s prelude, as the AFC Richmond squad goes through a beautifully choreographed practice (sorry, training) that culminates, after several pinpoint passes, in a goal by Isaac. The team has been playing incredibly since last we saw them, and will soon find themselves on an eight-game winning streak! (Has anyone else noticed that Richmond seems to alternate between long winning and losing streaks without ever being, you know, average?) Spirits are high.Well, all spirits save one. When Colin congratulates Isaac on his shot, the latter merely scowls back. Later, Isaac refuses Colin’s invitation to get a beer with a curt, angry “No.” Next, before the game with Brighton & Hove Albion — I’m with Ted; sounds like a law firm — Isaac leaves Colin’s attempted fist-bump un-bumped. And finally, he lays into Colin after an error on the field, before charging furiously into the stands to confront an abusive fan.There are two possibilities here. Either Isaac is angry that Colin is gay — a fact he discovered accidentally last episode — or he is angry that Colin never told him. I think I speak for most if not all regular viewers of “Ted Lasso” when I say there was never any doubt in my mind which would be the case. This was a plot twist that was (forgive the phrase) straight as an arrow.But that doesn’t mean it was an ineffective one. Colin’s announcement to the team is not merely the setup for a nice Lasso lesson of the kind we’ve seen fewer of this season, it’s the setup for Colin’s own comeback: “Coach, did you just compare being gay to being a Denver Broncos fan?”Billy Harris, who plays Colin, has been excellent throughout the past few episodes, and never more than in this one, in which he repeatedly displays a deft comic touch. After explaining to Trent that this was the “second-best way” his revelation to the team could have gone, he describes what would have been the best way. And let me tell you: I would’ve been first in line to buy that copy of Oprah’s magazine.Don’t even get me started on Colin’s final conversation with Isaac, after both have laid their cards on the table. These are two friends having a hilarious conversation neither one envisioned, but one for which they are both finally ready.Is it a bit of a stretch that a men’s professional sports team would harbor zero outspoken homophobes? Probably. But given that we have just three episodes to go, it’s almost certainly for the best.Nate (and Jade and Rupert)It’s a pleasant surprise, for us as well as Nate, when Jade stops by his office bearing lunch. But several items of West Ham merch later, storm clouds roll in. By which I mean, of course, Rupert.The turtle-necked Lucifer proceeds to offer a brief yet comprehensive master class in his personal art of seduction: the offhand compliment about Jade’s smile, the display of his “amateur dialectologist” party trick, the intimation she might be out of Nate’s league. None of it is too strong or obvious. Rupert is testing and assessing, displaying his well-rehearsed charm in doses small enough to see what might stick.Jade is having none of it, just as she was unimpressed by Nate’s attempts at a “wunderkind” persona at A Taste of Athens. Her immediate response to Rupert’s visit — “He seems very wealthy” — may be the most delightful cutting-down-to-size he has inspired to date. And when Nate explains that his boss is “actually really decent,” Jade responds with the eternal half-smile of the person who knows better.When we next see Nate and Rupert, the scene is staged almost like a horror movie. As Nate sketches plays on his whiteboard, Rupert appears behind him in the doorway to lurk for a moment, silent and unseen. Just listen to the ominous music: If this were a different show, Rupert would be holding a machete. But his jabs are more subtle: ostentatiously forgetting Jade’s name, helping himself to Nate’s baklava without invitation.The smiling face of evil: Anthony Head in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Later, Rupert invites Nate out for a drink without Jade, a “guy’s night.” It’s a phrase that evidently means different things to different guys, as Nate discovers when he shows up to find Rupert happily ensconced with two beautiful women. “The girls will be joining us,” he explains, to absolutely no one’s surprise but Nate’s. One can almost see the scales falling from his eyes; it’s like watching a glacier calving.Nate makes his excuses and instead heads to Jade’s apartment where, in a lovely touch, they do not kiss but merely hold each other for a moment. Nate has passed life’s test, but he has failed Rupert’s. We will learn soon enough whether or not there are consequences.RoyAsk and ye shall receive. I was pretty hard on the show’s treatment of Roy last week. And, behold, we’re granted, for the first time in a while, reason to be optimistic about him, courtesy of some long-overdue tough love from Rebecca. (That line in Episode 6 regarding Keeley’s whereabouts — She’s “somewhere that believes they deserve her” — was merely a warm-up.)After some characteristic Roy grousing, Rebecca sits him down to discuss his skipping the news conference he was supposed to be giving. “Is that the plan for the rest of your life? You’re just going to walk away from everything the second it isn’t fun or easy?” she demands. And no, she’s definitely not just talking about the news conference. For good measure, she adds, “Get out of your own way, man!”And for the remainder of the episode he pretty much does. When Isaac storms out of the locker room, it’s Roy — you will recall he helped turn Isaac into a strong team captain last season — who offers support while withholding questions and judgment alike. And at a surprise makeup news conference, he explains Isaac’s rushing into the stands with a story that can only be described as Lassoean. There’s hope for Roy yet.Which of course means there’s hope for Roy and Keeley yet. Maybe. Last episode, it seemed like a Keeley-Jamie reunion was more likely. Or perhaps neither will take place. Maybe Rebecca will adopt Keeley: After all, she’s already playing a fairly maternal role and the psychic, as discussed, merely said that Rebecca would “have a family” and “be a mother.” Two central plotlines solved with one unexpected twist! Which brings me to …The ticking clockWe are now 31 episodes into the 34 episodes of “Ted Lasso” that will, to the best of our current knowledge, ever be broadcast. Even if the showrunners ultimately relent and offer a Season 4, they have been adamant that three seasons were all they intended and will conclude the story they intended to tell.Which means we have three episodes in which to determine Rebecca’s romantic/parental status, Keeley’s romantic status (likely but not necessarily involving Roy or Jamie), Ted’s parental/geographic status, and the status of Nate’s soul. If Ted leaves, who will be Richmond’s new coach? Will the team be relegated — or win the Premier League championship?And those are just some of the big questions. The smaller ones — will Rebecca ever use her knowledge of Rupert’s affair with Ms. Kakes against him? Will we ever see the wonderful Phoebe again? — are too numerous to catalog. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy few weeks.Odds and endsAnother episode gone by without any sign of Rebecca’s marvelous Dutch love interest. At this point, I think this is both good and bad news. Bad, because presuming he shows up, their arc will be rushed by definition. Good, because I sincerely doubt there’s time to introduce another potential love interest. Though there’s always the Keeley adoption option, I suppose.In that early training, a near-perfect Beardism: “I haven’t seen 22 dudes have this good a time on grass since I saw the Grateful Dead jamming with the Black Crowes and Phish.”The joy in Nate’s voice when he introduces Jade to Rupert as his “girlfriend.” He practically sings the word.Speaking of singing, the episode ends as it began, with “La Cage Aux Folles,” in this case the song “I Am What I Am.”After all the focus on Michelle and Jake’s potential matrimonial status last episode — and Ted’s existential concern about the topic — our Ted/Henry/Michelle quota is limited to a single parent-teacher phone conference. And as much as the idea of being on the teacher end of that call frightens me, Ted’s “We’d better go let Ledbetter go” was pretty clever.If Coach Beard really had to start a trans-Atlantic beef over rock guitarists at his news conference, I wish he’d picked a better champion than Joe Walsh. Although it did set up a nice line about “the guy from Cream.”Ted: “That’s what that lady from the American ‘Office’ said.” Speaks for itself. More

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    John Roland, Durable Anchor at Fox Flagship in N.Y., Dies at 81

    For a quarter-century, he was the face of the kinetic 10 p.m. news program that typically beat its rivals in the ratings.John Roland, the Emmy Award-winning anchor of the 10 p.m. newscast on Fox’s flagship station and a dependable fixture on local television news in New York for 35 years, died on Sunday in North Miami Beach, Fla. He was 81.The cause was complications of a stroke, his wife, Zayda Galasso, said.While Fox 5’s nightly newscast began with the ominous query, “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” Mr. Roland was a reassuring presence during the quarter-century that he anchored the weeknight program, from 1979, when he succeeded Bill Jorgensen, who was lured to WPIX-TV, until just before he retired in 2004. The program typically topped the ratings at that hour for TV news.“John was very likable, not a formidable presence like Bill Jorgensen,” Ted Kavanagh, the station’s news director from 1968 to 1974, said in an email. “He was more a Jimmy Stewart type. An American Everyman that somehow finds himself thrust into the limelight and makes a surprisingly strong impression.”One of Mr. Roland’s co-anchors, Judy Licht Della Femina, who described herself as “the first female anchor in Channel 5’s history,” said, “Back when it had a pretty gritty, testosterone-laden newsroom, John was there to protect me. He looked out for me.”John Roland Gingher Jr. was born in Pittsburgh on Nov. 25, 1941, to John and Marian Gingher. His father was a foundry inspector.After graduating from California State University at Long Beach in 1964, Mr. Roland began his career in broadcasting as a researcher for NBC News in Los Angeles in 1966 and abbreviated his name.As a reporter for KTTV, a Metromedia station there, he covered Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1968 and the trial of Charles Manson, who was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy in 1971 for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate.In 1969, Mr. Roland was hired as a political reporter by Metromedia’s sister station, WNEW in New York (now Fox’s WNYW). He also worked as a weekend anchor and produced a cooking feature before being promoted to weeknight anchor.In 1983, Mr. Roland made news when he disarmed one of three robbers who tried to hold up a restaurant on East 67th Street in Manhattan opposite Fox’s broadcast center. He shot one with the robber’s own gun, but was hit over the head with a pistol. He needed 36 stitches to close the wound.In 1986, he became a partner in an Upper East Side restaurant, Marcello, which was awarded two stars in a review by Bryan Miller of The New York Times.Mr. Roland was briefly suspended in 1988 after a heated on-air interview with Joyce Brown, a mentally ill homeless woman whose involuntary commitment to a mental hospital for treatment had been successfully challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Mr. Roland had encountered Ms. Brown, who also went by the name Billie Boggs, before her incarceration; she had lived in front of a hot air vent near the television station.The interview grew combative when Mr. Roland challenged Ms. Brown’s assertion that she had never needed any hospital care; he cited her behavior in the streets that he had witnessed and found offensive. The station was flooded with complaints, as well as calls of support for Mr. Roland.He was suspended, a spokesman for the station said, because during the interview “his emotions prevailed over objectivity.” He later apologized on the air and in a phone call to Ms. Brown and said his interview had been “very insensitive.”Mr. Roland won two local Emmy Awards, in 1976-77 as a writer on the Sunday 10 p.m. news, and in 1981-82, which he shared with colleagues on the weeknight news broadcast.He appeared as an anchor in the films “Hero at Large” (1980), “Eyewitness” (1981) and “The Object of My Affection” (1998), and as himself in “The Scout” (1994).Mr. Roland was married four times. In addition to Ms. Galasso, he is survived by a brother, Ronald; a stepdaughter, Natasha; and a step-granddaughter.He left the 10 p.m. slot in 2003, anchoring newscasts at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. until he retired in 2004.“I want to thank you for inviting me into your home for all these years,” he said from the anchor desk on his last broadcast. “It’s an invitation I never took for granted and always considered an honor.” More

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    Sanaz Toossi on Her Pulitzer: ‘This Signals to Iranians Our Stories Matter’

    The 31-year-old playwright received the honor for her first produced play, “English,” about a language test-prep class in Iran.Sanaz Toossi had just cleared security at the San Francisco airport when her cellphone rang at midday Monday. It was her agent, telling the 31-year-old playwright she had won the Pulitzer Prize in drama for “English,” her first produced play.Toossi, who had written the play as a graduate school thesis project at New York University, was in disbelief. “I asked, ‘Are you sure?’ And when she said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Could you please just double-check?’”The prize was real, and as Toossi boarded the plane home to Los Angeles, her phone began buzzing with congratulatory messages not only from around the United States, but also from Iran, where her parents were born and where the play is set.“English,” which Off Broadway’s Obie Awards recently named the best new American play, is a moving, and periodically comedic, drama about a small group of adults in Karaj, Iran — the city where Toossi’s mother is from — preparing to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language. The Pulitzers called it “a quietly powerful play,” and said of the characters that “family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities and also represent a new life.”The play was originally scheduled to be staged at the Roundabout Underground in 2020 but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic; it instead had a first production last year at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York, co-produced by Roundabout. It has since been staged in Boston, Washington, Toronto, Montreal and Berkeley, Calif., with productions planned in Atlanta, western Massachusetts, Seattle, Chicago and Minneapolis. (Toossi was in the Bay Area this week to attend the closing performance at Berkeley Repertory Theater.)The Pulitzers called “English,” about a small group of adults in Karaj, Iran, “a quietly powerful play.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesToossi, who was born and raised in Orange County, Calif., spoke Farsi with her family at home and English outside the home, and she visited Iran regularly while growing up. In a telephone interview on Tuesday, she talked about “English” and the Pulitzer win. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did the idea for “English” come to you?I guess I wrote this play out of rage for the anti-immigrant rhetoric that was, and is, so pervasive in this country. I’m so grateful that my parents were able to immigrate to this country and make something better for both themselves and for me. They worked their asses off, and they created beauty where there was none, and it wounded me to see them and myself spoken of like we didn’t belong here.What is the play about?It’s about the pain of being misunderstood, and how language and identity are interwoven.You are a writer, and you wrote a play about language. What did you learn about words?I feel incredibly insecure about both my English and Farsi speaking abilities — I feel like I know 50 percent of each language, and I feel like I’m always bombing job interviews because the words never come to me in the way that I want them to come to me. This play was, of course, so much about my parents and immigrants and hoping that we can extend grace to people who are trying to express themselves in a language they didn’t grow up speaking, but I think it was also a reminder to be kind to myself.What is it like to watch the play with audiences who are, presumably, mostly not Iranian Americans?It’s light torture to watch your play with an audience around you. I just watch them watch the play. I remember in New York when we did it, it was hard to feel like we were getting the wrong kinds of laughs some nights. But I also have been really moved by the non-Iranian audiences who have come to see the play and have found themselves in it. That’s what you ask of an audience, and that’s beautiful.As the play is done around the country, you are creating more work for Iranian American performers. Was that a motivation?I grew up watching media in which I was incredibly frustrated by our representation and the roles being offered to us. I know so many actors in our community, and they’re so incredibly talented, and to feel like their talents were not put to good use was frustrating. I wanted to work with them, and I wanted to give them roles that they loved. It was really important to me to make this play funny, because I didn’t want to shut our actors out of big laughs.In previous interviews you’ve talked about a fear of being pigeonholed.I don’t know if that fear will ever dissipate. I feel so proud to be Iranian, and to be able to tell these stories, and I just remain hopeful that when I turn in a commission that’s not about Iran, that it will be equally exciting.You do some television work. Are you a member of the Writers Guild of America? Are you on strike?I am on strike. I was on the picket line last week. I’m incredibly proud to be a W.G.A. member. I love theater — theater is my first love, and my biggest love — but I can’t make a living in theater. If I could, I would give my whole self to the theater. But the W.G.A. meant I had health insurance during Covid and I make my rent. I’ll be on the picket line this week too, and for however long it takes. For so many playwrights, that’s how we subsidize our theater making.What’s next for you?This year I had to ask myself if what we do is important. The people of Iran are in the midst of a woman-led revolution, and they’re putting their lives on the line. I wonder who I would be if we’d never left, and I wonder if I would let my roosari [head scarf] fall back, knowing it could mean my life. But I do really, really believe theater is important — I have been changed by theater, and theater has imagined better futures for me when I have failed in imagination. So I don’t know what’s next, but I just hope that in this year of so much pain and bloodshed, I hope this signals to Iranians that our stories matter and we’re being heard. And one day soon, I hope we get to do this play in Iran. More

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    Review: Racism Echoes Through Time in ‘the ripple’

    The story of a Black family’s fight to desegregate public pools spans decades in Christina Anderson’s play at Yale Repertory Theater.NEW HAVEN — The story of teenage adventure that Edwin loves to tell his little girl, Janice, comes from his own life: the time in the early 1950s when he and some friends sneaked into an all-white swimming pool in their Kansas hometown, and one of them dived in for a speedy lap.“White folks scream and holler,” Edwin says, savoring the drama of a well-planned disruption. “Women scramble to get out while fellas jump in and try to get a hold of that beautiful, Black Aquaman!”No one ever caught any of them, Edwin adds triumphantly — and the pool was “shut down for three whole days.”“Why?” young Janice asks.“Sanitization,” her father replies. “A Negro ‘infected’ the water, they said.”Christina Anderson’s poetically titled new play, “the ripple, the wave that carried me home,” lands a number of gut punches like that one. In Tamilla Woodard’s somewhat blunted production for Yale Repertory Theater, it spans decades to tell the story of one Black family’s tiny, Midwestern corner of the fight against racial segregation — both the kind that was once enforced by law and the slippery kind that came later, skulking around legality to maintain all-white preserves.Janice’s mother, Helen, was raised a passionate swimmer. Her own father ran a program teaching Black children to swim, and as a teenager Helen took up teaching, too. A few years later, two 8-year-olds she had taught drowned with a white friend in a lake where they went to swim together.This is the deeply felt tragedy that turns Helen (Chalia La Tour) and Edwin (Marcus Henderson) into local activists for pool integration and access. In a town that would rather close its pools than desegregate them — a Civil Rights-era practice called “drained-pool politics,” as a program note says — the cause consumes them for years. As a teenager in the 1970s, Janice (Jennean Farmer) comes to see it with some resentment as her parents’ battle, not hers. But the ripples of racism in American culture are inescapable.Janice looks back on all this from 1992 Ohio, around the time that four white Los Angeles police officers are being tried in connection with the beating of the Black motorist Rodney King. (The play does not mention it, but 20 years later King will drown in his own swimming pool.)The catalyst for Janice’s memories is an invitation — from the comically named Young Chipper Ambitious Black Woman (an excellent Adrienne S. Wells, who doubles in the role of Janice’s Aunt Gayle) — to return to Kansas for the naming of a pool in her father’s honor. That rankles as an erasure of her mother; her parents did everything as a team.A drama that is also about family and healing and home, “the ripple” cries out for a sense of intimacy that this production unfortunately lacks. It is foiled by slack pacing and Emmie Finckel’s vaulted set, which for all its visual appeal is a mismatch for the show. A thing of elegant beauty, beguilingly lit by Alan C. Edwards, it has a vastness that leaves the characters adrift, too far from us.the ripple, the wave that carried me homeThrough May 20 at Yale Repertory Theater, New Haven, Conn.; yalerep.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Born of Grief, a Couple’s Off Broadway Incubator Marks 20 Years

    Even as it celebrates with a gala, the Ars Nova family now faces another challenge as one of its founders confronts A.L.S.In 2002, Jenny and Jon Steingart founded the Off Broadway incubator Ars Nova as a way of honoring Jenny’s brother, Gabriel Wiener, who in 1997 died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 26. Now, as the nonprofit theater is marking its 20th anniversary, the couple is facing another wrenching struggle: Jon has A.L.S., the severe neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.“Every painful experience in my life — if I have to live through it, I am going to come out on the other side with a lesson and a way to give back in some way,” Jenny Steingart said in a recent interview at their home on the Upper West Side. “Because a loss without some meaning behind it is really hard to live with.”So this anniversary, to be celebrated with a gala on Monday, also finds the Steingarts feeling great satisfaction, having created an institution that — in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — has played a crucial role in the professional development of so many artists.Among those who have worked at Ars Nova are Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Christopher Jackson and Phillipa Soo of “Hamilton” fame; Bridget Everett, the actress and cabaret performer of the acclaimed HBO series “Somebody Somewhere”; and Dave Malloy, who created “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” at Ars Nova.More recently, Ars Nova presented Heather Christian’s widely-praised music-theater piece “Oratorio for Living Things,” after being delayed by the pandemic shutdown.“This theater has done the good work of incubating extraordinary artists,” said the “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller, adding that Mimi Lien, the scenic designer for his current Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd” — who won a Tony for “Great Comet” — came out of Ars Nova. “Many people make things,” he added, “but few of them are vital 20 years later.”When Ars Nova offered Everett a creative home, she was performing in karaoke bars. With its support, she developed her brash 2007 solo show, “At Least It’s Pink” at Ars Nova. “I was taken aback by their enthusiasm for me because I wasn’t getting anything anywhere,” Everett said. “I would not have a career if it wasn’t for them seeing something in me.”The improvised rap evening “Freestyle Love Supreme” had its beginning at Ars Nova, which also helped birth the musical “KPOP.”The director Alex Timbers (“Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”) got his start at Ars Nova, with Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s doomsday comedy “Boom.” “It was the first time I’d been hired professionally to direct and given access to designers I would never have gotten to work with on my own,” he said. “It was not only a gift, but a leap of faith.”The cast of the 2017 Off Broadway production of “KPOP,” which occupied two floors of a building in Hell’s Kitchen.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesLucas Steele, left, and Denée Benton in the 2016 Broadway production of “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” at the Imperial Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAt the gala, Ars Nova will announce a financial pledge from the Steingarts that will enable a more consistent presentation of comedy in addition to its current variety show, “Showgasm.” Citing, for example, Ars Nova’s “Creation Nation,” a popular live variety program that featured the comedian Billy Eichner, Jon Steingart said comedy — as well as music — taps into “where youth culture is right now.”Jenny Steingart, 55, a Manhattan native, said her parents — Michael A. Wiener, who helped found the Infinity Broadcasting chain of radio stations, and Zena, a music teacher and singer — encouraged her to follow her passion. “‘What are you aligned with?’” she recalled them asking. “‘What is the thing that sparks you?’”Jon, now 55, grew up in Southern California and was a producer of the Broadway show “Julia Sweeney’s ‘God Said “Ha!.”’” They married in 2002 and now have three children, ages 19, 16 and 13.After the death of her brother, who produced recordings of early music, Jenny said she and Jon “let his legacy inspire the creation of new art.”Jenny Steingart and Anthony Veneziale accepted a special Tony Award for “Freestyle Love Supreme” in 2021. Theo Wargo/Getty Images For Tony Awards ProIn the early years, the Steingarts, together with the theater’s founding artistic director, Jason Eagan, were out every night trolling for talent, an approach that continues to this day. “We’re looking at artists with potential,” Eagan said, “rather than artists with résumés.”Ars Nova, which planted its flag on West 54th Street, quickly established itself as a space where artists could take big chances, where “you can say, I want to make an electro pop opera about a slice of ‘War and Peace,’” said Renee Blinkwolt, the company’s producing executive director, referring to “Great Comet,” which won Tony Awards for lighting as well as scenic design. (In 2016, the show’s commercial producers agreed to revise how it credited Ars Nova’s contributions to “Great Comet” in Playbill.)Despite having cemented its status as a staple of the New York theatrical landscape, Ars Nova, which in 2019 opened a second theater at Greenwich House in the Village, remains relatively scrappy, with an annual operating budget of about $4 million and a staff of 14. A ticket subsidy program keeps prices low and this season offered pay-what-you-wish.During the pandemic, no employees were furloughed, thanks in part to the Paycheck Protection Program, which covered about 10 percent of the funds required to keep paying artists and staff.These days, the Steingarts are less involved in running the organization, but they continue to play a strong supporting role. Jon spends most of his time researching his disease — “I don’t quit,” he said — recognizing that he is fortunate to be alive five years after his diagnosis. Sitting in a wheelchair at his kitchen table, Jon also described himself as “pretty even keel about acceptance.”“I’m not a person who, win or lose, spends a lot of time asking why me,” he said.Jenny, however, is a little less accepting, although she is doing her best to keep it together.“I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, and I also don’t want to be Pollyanna,” she said. “It’s really important to me to lean into the gratitude I have and the blessings that have come from even the worst stuff.”Though Ars Nova’s close-knit extended family has had to adjust to the prospect of a future without one of its parents, the artists are trying to do what they’ve always done: stay positive and persevere.“The tragedy of losing her brother and what Jon is going through — it’s the brutality of life,” Everett said. “But I’m really glad that what Ars Nova has given does sustain. Putting people on course and giving them a chance — what better gift is that?” More

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    ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 7 Recap: The Scorpion and the Scorpion

    This week, the Roys throw the election eve party they inherited from Logan and as always, they arrive with their own discrete agendas.Season 4, Episode 7: ‘Tailgate Party’This “Succession” season’s premiere episode ended with Tom and Shiv lying together in bed, bitterly angry but still holding hands. In the weeks since, the couple has been flirting more openly (and bizarrely), trying to figure out if perhaps they are each broken in just the right way that their jagged pieces can fit back together.Their weird romantic renaissance peaks with this week’s episode, which sees them sexting each other incessantly — and sees Tom confusingly gifting Shiv with a glass-encased scorpion, in an apparent reference to “the scorpion and the frog” parable. (Tom, sheepishly explaining: “I love you but you kill me and I kill you?”)The couple means to cement their comeback by co-hosting an election eve “tailgate party” in their swanky triplex apartment, with a guest list drawn from a who’s-who of media, political and business bigwigs. They inherited this shindig from Logan, who regularly used it as a way to make nice with his ideological enemies, allowing them all to meet as friends for at least one night and pretend they don’t despise each other. It’s like a cocktail party version of Tom and Shiv’s marriage.As always with “Succession,” the Roys arrive at this party with discrete agendas. Shiv intends to continue in her secret role as the Matsson-whisperer. Unbeknown to Kendall and Roman, their father had already invited Matsson to the party; but the Swede declined, because legacy media backslapping and chest-puffing bores him. It’s only after Shiv warns him that the Roy boys are making moves that Matsson mobilizes. His strutting GoJo band barges into the triplex right when Kendall is leading a moment of silence for Logan.Shiv pretends to be appalled by the rudeness, but after Kendall insists he wants to avoid any direct confrontation with Matsson —“There’s too much peanut butter between us,” he says — she takes the assignment to stay by Matsson’s side, introducing him to the power-brokers while also subtly promoting GoJo’s plans for Waystar and ATN. She makes sure everyone knows she will be involved in whatever comes next — or as she demands of Matsson, have “a very, very, very significant role.”Roman, meanwhile, is still kicking himself after skipping the Living+ presentation that made Kendall the new Waystar star, so he makes his own big move. The polling is showing a tight presidential race, with the Republican candidate Jeryd Mencken falling just short in a few key states. If Roman can talk Connor into dropping out and backing Mencken, that might be enough to make a difference, which would mean that the new president of the United States would owe Roman Roy all the favors.On the whole this is a very heavy episode, but nearly everything to do with Roman wooing Connor is hilarious. After his older brother laughs off the idea that he would concede for “the good of the republic,” Roman becomes the go-between for ambassadorial offers. Somalia? “Little bit car bomb-y.” Work up to a big European post through Slovenia or Slovakia? “It’s a no on the Slos.”Eventually they settle on Oman (“rich man’s Yemen!”), but Willa is concerned when she looks the country up and reads, “The sultan’s word has the force of the law.” She is also not swayed by the prospect of helping Mencken, telling her husband, “All my family and friends hate Mencken.” (Connor just smiles big and says,“Diplomatic plates!”)The subplot takes a sour turn when Willa persuades Connor to reject Oman and stay in the race, which angers Roman so intensely that he refers to Willa as Connor’s “wife” (in quotation marks) and calls his brother “a joke.” This happens immediately after Roman has a crushing encounter with Gerri, who lets him know of her plan to extract “eye-watering sums” from Waystar thanks to his entitled arrogance, sloppiness and sexual harassment.She then adds, as the hardest slap in her former protégé’s face, “I could’ve got you there.” It’s no wonder Roman is fuming when he confronts Connor — though that does not excuse how mean he is.Kendall also makes some missteps while coasting on his Living+ triumph. He invites Shiv’s ex-lover and top Democratic operative Nate Sofrelli (Ashley Zukerman) to the party, to see if the Dems might consider squashing the GoJo deal from a regulatory standpoint. In return, Kendall promises that ATN will give the potential new administration “a better ride on the first 100 days.”All this favor-trading makes Nate uncomfortable, as does Kendall’s insistence that old acquaintances should not have to worry about ethics and legal formalities. (“You’re not Logan,” Nate warns him. “And that’s a good thing.”)Kendall rebounds though when he gets some useful intel about Matsson. GoJo’s long-suffering head of communications, Ebba (Eili Harboe), lets slip that the company’s metrics are erroneously doubling their subscriber numbers in India. (“New money,” Kendall later says to Shiv, shaking his head. “You gotta hold those bills up to the light.”)Kendall comes to Frank and suggests a new tactic: “Reverse Viking.” Acquire GoJo and make Waystar bigger than anything Logan ever achieved. And if Roman and Shiv object? Kendall shrugs. “I love ‘em but not in love with ‘em, y’know” he says. “One head, one crown.”The whole premise of Logan’s tailgate parties are that the attendees are all, to some extent, putting on an act. Loony lefty? Neo-fascist? These are just performative personas. At this party everyone can take off those masks and put on another. But while it’s all well and good — sort of — to play those kinds of games in public, emotionally healthy people do not keep playing them in private. The Roys, damaged by their manipulative and withholding father, repeatedly fail to grasp this. That is how Kendall and Shiv can pretend to have each other’s backs while secretly planning to stab each other.Which brings us back to poor Tom, who realizes as the night rolls on that Shiv will not protect him from the people who want to change ATN. Even while standing right next to Tom, she calls him “Mr. Mild” and “a one-pepper menu item.” While circulating with Matsson, she never balks at any suggestion that her husband has no future with the company. Those rumblings eventually reach Tom, who is already exhausted from being bombarded with questions from the party’s more liberal guests about whether ATN is fostering a climate of political violence.It all ends in tears. In last week’s episode, Shiv and Tom enjoyed a moment of truth-telling they each found refreshing — and even a little kinky. This week though, in a private moment on their balcony, they lob honesty-bombs at each other until they do real damage.In a nightmarish scene, they keep saying the worst things they can imagine about one another. Shiv calls Tom a “hick.” He tells her she is “maybe not a good person to have children.” She blames him for separating her from her father in his final months. He counters, “It’s not my fault that you didn’t get his approval.” The argument is brutal, and may mark a turning point for this show as it pivots toward the finale.Because unlike the tentative togetherness that ended the Season 4 premiere, this episode ends with Tom and Shiv in separate rooms, in deep pain. That’s a strong visual metaphor for where the “Succession” story stands right now. The tailgate party has broken up. Everyone has moved back to their respective sidelines. Welcome to rivalry week.Due diligenceLest you feel too much sympathy for Tom, remember that in this episode he makes goofy faces while Greg is firing dozens of ATN employees simultaneously via a group video call. Later at the party, Greg tries to impress the GoJo crew with his willingness to be heartless. (“You gotta do what you gotta do, right?” he says to Matsson, who replies, “Do you, though?”)Greg is “Team KenRo,” even though Kendall — like Tom — mainly expects him to perform morally objectionable tasks, such as finding some drugs that might make Matsson do something embarrassing. Greg agrees to try his best, despite warning Kendall that Matsson “has expressed a distaste in the past for my particular flavor of me.”The cases of terrible “biodynamic” German wine that Tom was stuck with last season return at the tailgate party, where he tries to fob it off on the guests. (Tom, pressuring Nate into drinking it: “It’s the kind of wine that separates the connoisseurs from the weekend Malbec morons.”)So when will Logan’s funeral be? The series finale, maybe? The past few episodes have been preparing us for a real humdinger of a ceremony, which is currently either going to be Marcia’s “three-day grief-a-thon” or Connor’s “tight 90.” One thing we do know: Roman will be delivering the eulogy, in what could be his last chance to convince the nation’s tastemakers that he is, contrary to his father’s opinion, a serious person.Connor, on spending time with Logan’s corpse: “The weird thing is how much he’s not there. I find that consoling.” More