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    Tony Awards Unforgettable Looks: Cole Escola, Nicole Scherzinger, and More

    On Sunday night, some of the biggest names in theater gathered at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan to celebrate the Tony Awards.From Hollywood royalty like George Clooney to Broadway legends like Audra McDonald — neither of whom won in their categories — there was no shortage of stars at this year’s awards.There was also no shortage of fashion. On the red carpet, there were sartorial references to past Tony winners and nods to current roles, all conveyed through cloth, beadwork and color.And, of course, it wouldn’t be live theater without at least a few costume changes.The event’s host, Cynthia Erivo, slipped in and out of at least a half-dozen outfits before the curtain closed as she belted out a parody version of a “Dreamgirls” song in a purple sequined number. That was another homage, lest you forget, as Ms. Erivo won a Tony in 2016 for her star turn in “The Color Purple.” Showbiz — it isn’t always subtle!Of all the stars who graced the seats of Radio City on Sunday, here are a dozen whose attire stood out among the ensemble cast.Cole Escola: Most ’90s Nostalgia!Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Best and Worst Moments From the 2025 Tony Awards

    There was a “Hamilton” reunion, Nicole Scherzinger’s outsize grandeur and Cynthia Erivo’s pleasant “sing-off” music. But those cheesy projections were a big miss.Best Reunion: The ‘Hamilton’ CastIt was plugged before what seemed like every commercial break, but when members of the original cast of “Hamilton” finally gathered onstage at Radio City Music Hall for a 10th-anniversary reunion performance, the hype proved justified. Sleekly lit and dressed and choreographed, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. were gloriously back; so were Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones and that Tony-nominated guy who played King George. The eight-song medley — which included “My Shot,” “The Schuyler Sisters” and “The Room Where It Happens”— snapped. I’d make room for it on any list of all-time-best Tonys performances.— Scott HellerBest Inspiration: Here’s to You, Mr. RobinsonGary Edwin Robinson, the head of the theater arts program at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, accepting his special Tony Honor.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe smooth baritone, the sly half-smile and the wink at the camera. This guy had to be an actor. And, once upon a time, he was. But Gary Edwin Robinson received a Tony Award last night for his second career, as a teacher, at Boys and Girls High School in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Accepting the honor in that voice that could make you believe anything, he said that he trained his students not merely to appreciate theater, but to find careers in it. Appreciation is of course valuable, but the harder thing is to instill in young people the idea that finding “the theater in themselves” can be honorable, and even necessary.— Jesse GreenBest Epic Acceptance: Nicole ScherzingerAn outsize grandeur animated Nicole Scherzinger’s acceptance speech.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNicole Scherzinger’s acceptance speech was as epically demonstrative as her movements in “Sunset Boulevard” are controlled, restrained, precise. The acknowledging of “the exceptional warrior women in this category”! The shaking! The crying! The swooping motions from the hand that was not holding her new award! At times it felt like seeing a modern Maria Callas shaking her fist at the heavens, except that for once those heavens had ruled in her favor. There was an outsize grandeur to the drama of it all that felt classical. Can Medea be far off?— Elisabeth VincentelliBest Placement: Cynthia Erivo’s Balcony BitReady to mingle: The show’s host Cynthia Erivo in the balcony.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Call Her Alex,’ Plus 7 Things on TV this Week

    The series about the podcast host Alex Cooper airs, alongside a slew of new documentaries.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, June 9-15. Details and times are subject to change.Day in the life of a podcaster.In October 2018, a new podcast hit the charts: “Call Her Daddy,” hosted by Alex Cooper and Sofia Franklyn, and produced by Barstool Sports. Since then, Cooper and the podcast have weathered a very public co-host breakup and a battle for the podcast’s I.P. — and it’s gotten a $60 million Spotify deal. This and more will be examined in the new documentary series “Call Her Alex.” The two-part series originally premiered at Tribeca Film Festival last week. Cameras also followed Cooper as she prepared for her podcast tour and reminisced on her childhood, which started her on her current trajectory. Streaming Tuesday on Hulu.A series of unfortunate events.On March 20, 2013, a flight was set to depart the Dominican Republic, headed to St. Tropez. On board was 700 kilograms of cocaine stored in 26 suitcases, four French nationals who claimed it wasn’t theirs and they didn’t know who it belonged to. The French documentary series “Cocaine Air” tries to unravel the strange story and figure out how it got on the plane. Streaming Wednesday on Netflix.A picture of the OceanGate Titan Submersible.OceanGate Expedition via ReutersIn June 2023, the world seemingly held it’s breath when news that a submersible, called Titan and owned by OceanGate, imploded on its way down to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. The five people onboard, including OceanGate’s founder and chief executive, Stockton Rush, died in the wreck, after a trip that lasted an hour and 33 minutes. The implosion has been attributed to a faulty design and inadequate testing. The new documentary feature “Titan: The OceanGate Disaster” explores what went wrong. Streaming Wednesday on Netflix.Heather Rovet, a Toronto real estate broker, has a perfect relationship with her boyfriend, Jace — until she finds out that she is actually dating Jason Porter, a felon with a history of romantic schemes. And suddenly, Heather is now in a horror film. The true crime documentary “Romcon: Who the F**k is Jason Porter” tells how it all went down. Streaming Thursday on Prime Video.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Tonys 2025 Takeaways: ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Wins 6 Awards

    Broadway rewarded adventurous newcomers including Sarah Snook (“The Picture of Dorian Gray”), Nicole Scherzinger (“Sunset Boulevard”) and Cole Escola (“Oh, Mary!”).“Maybe Happy Ending,” a stirring Broadway musical about two discarded robots who go on a road trip and forge a relationship, won the coveted Tony for best new musical on Sunday night, capping a remarkable journey for a show that faced long odds but won over both critics and fans.The triumph of a show with a puzzling title and tough-to-explain themes was a vote of confidence in originality by an industry often dominated by big-brand intellectual property and big-name Hollywood stars.The musical’s prize capped a night in which Broadway rewarded adventurous newcomers: Sarah Snook, the “Succession” star who played 26 roles in a technologically complicated adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray”; Nicole Scherzinger, the former Pussycat Doll who, barefoot and bloodied, delivered a scorching performance in a revival of “Sunset Boulevard”; and Cole Escola, an alt-cabaret performer who imagined Mary Todd Lincoln as an alcoholic who longs to be a chanteuse and turned that zany idea into the hit play “Oh, Mary!”The awards were spread out among a diverse array of shows. “Maybe Happy Ending,” set in a futuristic Korea, won a night-leading six awards, and “Buena Vista Social Club,” a musical set in Cuba, finished with four competitive prizes.Natalie Venetia Belcon performed a song from “Buena Vista Social Club” before winning a Tony for best featured actress in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe awards show took place as Broadway seems finally to be rebounding after a damaging pandemic shutdown. The season that just ended was the highest grossing on record when the figures are not adjusted for inflation. But attendance remains slightly below prepandemic levels and very few musicals are achieving profitability. The season’s success was attributable in large part to three starry plays whose runs are now ending: “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Othello” and “Glengarry Glen Ross.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Cole Escola Wins the Tony for Best Actor in a Play

    In “Oh, Mary!,” Escola plays a drunken, melodramatic Mary Todd Lincoln who yearns to return to cabaret.Cole Escola won the Tony for best actor in a play for their performance in the outlandish, ahistoric comedy “Oh, Mary!” This is Escola’s Broadway debut, and first Tony.Escola, who is nonbinary, plays a self-indulgent, scheming Mary Todd Lincoln, who aspires to become a chanteuse. As a result, her boredom — which includes pining to perform her “madcap medleys” of yesteryear — drives her to all kinds of antics. (With Cole prancing around in a hoop skirt, hilarity ensues.)The New York Times chief theater critic, Jesse Green, called “Oh, Mary!,” which Escola also wrote, “one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years.”Directed by Sam Pinkleton, the show opened at the Lyceum Theater last summer after a sold-out and twice-extended Off Broadway run. The play has also been extended multiple times since it transferred to Broadway. (It was the first show in the Lyceum’s 121-year history to gross more than $1 million in a single week.)Escola, known for their roles in Hulu’s “Difficult People,” TBS’s “Search Party” and sketches on YouTube, came up through New York’s cabaret and alt comedy scenes. The premise for “Oh, Mary!” began with an idea, which Escola sat on for more than 12 years: “What if Abraham Lincoln’s assassination wasn’t such a bad thing for Mary Todd?”The Tony Awards, like the Oscars, use gendered categories for performers, and Escola agreed to be considered eligible for an award as an actor. Escola isn’t the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award.In 2023, J. Harrison Ghee became the first out nonbinary performer to win a Tony for best leading actor in a musical, for “Some Like It Hot,” and Alex Newell became the first out nonbinary performer to win for best featured actor in a musical for “Shucked.” More

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    ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Starring Nicole Scherzinger Wins the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival

    The high-tech production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical proved to be a star vehicle for the pop singer.A radically reimagined production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard,” with no turban and lots of technology, won the Tony Award for best musical revival on Sunday night.The production, which began performances at Broadway’s St. James Theater last September and is scheduled to run only until July 13, is the brainchild of its director, Jamie Lloyd, a 45-year-old British auteur who prioritizes dialogue and psychological depth over furniture and props. Lloyd’s production first ran in London’s West End, where it won last year’s Olivier Award for best musical revival.The show proved to be a star vehicle for its leading lady, Nicole Scherzinger, who in her 20s achieved fame as the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, and then spent years as a judge on television talent shows before landing this role, which has reintroduced her, at age 46, as a powerhouse performer.In the musical, Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, a onetime star of silent films who has vanished from the limelight but delusionally dreams of returning to the big screen. The show, set in Los Angeles in 1949 and 1950, is based on a 1950 Billy Wilder film; Lloyd Webber wrote the stage production’s music, while the book and lyrics are by Don Black and Christopher Hampton.The original Broadway production won seven Tony Awards, including best musical, in 1995. That production starred Glenn Close, who returned to play the role again in 2017 in the only previous Broadway revival of the show.The current production is characterized by its heavy use of technology adapted from filmmaking and its minimalist, modern aesthetic. The actors are dressed mostly in black and white; Scherzinger performs much of the show barefoot, and she and her co-star, Tom Francis, end the show drenched in blood.Because the story is about, and set in, Hollywood, Lloyd opted to integrate and interrogate cinematic devices — much of the onstage action is filmed by performers holding movie cameras and is projected onto a huge screen behind the actors. One of the production’s highlights is a coup de théâtre at the top of the second act, when Francis, playing a writer named Joe Gillis, performs the title number while walking through Shubert Alley and along 44th Street, with the action visible to audience members onscreen.The revival is being produced on Broadway by companies controlled by Lloyd (the Jamie Lloyd Company) and Lloyd Webber (Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals), and by ATG Productions, which operates the theater where the show is playing, and by Gavin Kalin Productions. The show was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; it has been selling more than $1 million worth of tickets most weeks, but it is not yet clear whether it will recoup its capitalization costs. More

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    Nicole Scherzinger Wins the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical

    In “Sunset Boulevard,” Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, a former screen star who descends into madness.Nicole Scherzinger won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical for her performance in a revival of “Sunset Boulevard,” a high-tech, minimal-scenery staging from Jamie Lloyd about a washed-up silent film star, Norma Desmond, who haunts a grand, ghostly Los Angeles mansion. This is Scherzinger’s first nomination and win.This latest run of “Sunset Boulevard” — based on the 1950 film by Billy Wilder — is dramatically scaled back compared to previous revivals of the Andrew Lloyd Webber show. Instead, the show relies on technology to modernize it for a new audience. It is the type of show that demands vocal and choreographic athleticism, something that Scherzinger — the former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls — takes on with confidence.It first opened in London in 2023, winning Scherzinger praise and an Olivier. It then moved to Broadway last fall, and Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, wrote that Scherzinger delivered an “exciting yet exceptionally weird and counterintuitive performance.”Speaking to The Times in 2023, Scherzinger described her turn as Norma as “grueling.”“But for many years I have been saying I am using a fraction of my potential, and now I feel I have really tapped into that,” she said.Before joining the show and after the Pussycat Dolls disbanded in 2010, Scherzinger pursued a solo career with modest success — dropping two solo albums and working as a judge on “The X Factor” and “The Masked Singer.”She later performed “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” (from Lloyd Webber’s “Evita”) as part of a TV special celebrating Lloyd Webber, who, along with the director Trevor Nunn, asked her to join the cast of the 2014 revival of “Cats” in the West End. More

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    ‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Wins the Tony for Best Musical

    The musical, about a budding romance between two outdated robots, won six Tony Awards on Sunday night.“Maybe Happy Ending,” an original musical that is outwardly about a budding romance between two outdated robots, but fundamentally about contemporary themes of social isolation and the transformative power of connection, won a stunning victory as best musical at the Tony Awards Sunday night.The show’s triumph defied all the odds — it has a mystifying title, a subject matter that some find off-putting, and zero brand recognition in an industry often dominated by well-known intellectual property and well-liked celebrities. But “Maybe Happy Ending” has gradually won over audiences since opening last fall, and overtook several better-known, and better-funded, titles to win the award that traditionally has the biggest financial impact on the shows that receive it.The story concerns two discarded “helperbots” — humanoid robots previously used as personal assistants — living across the hall from one another at a robot retirement home in a near-future Seoul. The helperbots, played by Darren Criss and Helen J Shen, strike up a friendship and embark on a road trip, racing against their own expiring shelf lives as they seek meaning and magic, at first from the outside world, but then from each other.The show is written by two Broadway newbies, Will Aronson, who was born in the United States, and Hue Park, who was born in South Korea; it is directed by Michael Arden, a Broadway regular who won a Tony Award in 2023 for directing “Parade.”The score has a midcentury pop and jazz sound. The cast is remarkably small for a Broadway musical, with just four onstage actors. But the production feels big, because it has an unusually elaborate and high-tech set, designed by Dane Laffrey with video design by George Reeve, that is one of the most complex and sophisticated seen on Broadway.“Maybe Happy Ending” had a long and nontraditional path to Broadway. It had productions in South Korea and Japan, as well as a prepandemic run at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, before making its way to New York, where it opened in November to unanimously positive reviews. In The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green called it “astonishing,” writing, “Under cover of sci-fi whimsy, it sneaks in a totally original human heartbreaker.”The show began performances on Broadway last October and continues with an open-ended run at the Belasco Theater. A North American tour is scheduled to begin in Baltimore in the fall of 2026.The Broadway run is being produced by Jeffrey Richards and Hunter Arnold; it was capitalized for $16 million, and it is not yet clear whether it will recoup those capitalization costs, although the Tony will likely help. More