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    ‘The Chevalier’ Review: A Music-Theater Portrait of Joseph Boulogne

    “The Chevalier,” an intriguing music-theater hybrid, unwraps the still little-known life and work of this 18th-century composer.Now, the composer Joseph Boulogne would be hailed as a Renaissance man: artist, athlete, intellectual, soldier. Born in Guadeloupe in 1745, the son of a white French plantation owner and an enslaved mother of Senegalese origin, Boulogne became a virtuoso violinist, prodigious composer, champion fencer, the general of Europe’s first Black regiment and an avid abolitionist.But Boulogne, a.k.a. the Chevalier de Saint-Georges (and whose last name is sometimes spelled “Bologne”), was a biracial man in a time and place that held little space for him, which means his remarkable life has largely been erased from the historical narrative, though that is beginning to change.“The Chevalier,” a trim hybrid of theater and music, seeks to revive his reputation. The show was written and directed by Bill Barclay, the artistic director of Music Before 1800. (Barclay also plays Choderlos de Laclos, a Boulogne collaborator and author of the novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.”) A single performance at the eye-poppingly opulent United Palace theater in Washington Heights on Sunday served as its New York City premiere; it will be available to stream next month.“The Chevalier” starts rather unpromisingly. Barclay takes as his point of imaginative departure the few weeks that Boulogne and Mozart were housemates in Paris. Mozart, 11 years younger, grills Boulogne about his life story, and he responds with long, expository answers that hit on major biographical points — more school lecture than beguiling drama.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?  More

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    ‘Hazbin Hotel’ Is a Childhood Dream Streamed Out to the World

    Vivienne Medrano’s animated musical series went from middle-school sketches to YouTube to a series streaming on Amazon.On Oct. 28, 2019, the animator and YouTube personality Vivienne Medrano celebrated a milestone: the release of “Hazbin Hotel,” a 30-minute pilot for an animated musical-comedy about a rehabilitation program that aspires to help Hell’s repentant demons get to Heaven.Produced and directed by Medrano and brought to life by a team of several dozen freelance animators, the pilot was self-financed with contributions from Medrano’s Patreon subscribers, who helped support her and the project with monthly donations during the episode’s more than two-year development process. When she finally uploaded it to YouTube, Medrano was both relieved and excited — it felt like the culmination of something a long time in the making, and she was eager to show her work to her small but dedicated group of fans.She was not prepared for what happened next. Almost immediately, the video went viral, attracting fans of adult animation, Broadway musicals and ribald comedy who, based on the comments and other online reactions, were charmed by the project’s original voice and punky, carefree style. Within months, it drew tens of millions of views and sent Medrano’s Patreon subscriptions skyrocketing; admirers coalesced into an ardent fandom that generated fan fiction, tribute art and elaborate costumes. (As of late January, it had nearly 95 million views.)“I’ve been an artist online basically my whole life, and I had an audience,” Medrano said in a phone interview earlier this month. “But when the pilot came out, it just exploded — there were so many people so fast and so suddenly. It became this massive hit in a way that I never expected.”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?  More

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    ‘Patriots,’ About Putin’s Falling Out With an Oligarch, Is Broadway Bound

    The play, by Peter Morgan of “The Crown,” will star Michael Stuhlbarg and is scheduled to open in April.“Patriots,” a well-received British play about a Russian oligarch’s ill-fated role in the rise of Vladimir V. Putin, will transfer to Broadway in April, adding a dose of international intrigue to a packed spring season.The drama, which the critic Matt Wolf called “gripping” and “coolly unnerving” in a 2022 review of a London production for The New York Times, was written by Peter Morgan, the creator and primary writer of “The Crown,” the Emmy-winning six-season Netflix show. Morgan has written two other plays that made it to Broadway, “The Audience,” about Queen Elizabeth II, and “Frost/Nixon,” about the journalist David Frost’s famous interviews of former President Richard M. Nixon.The Broadway production of “Patriots” will star Michael Stuhlbarg, who last appeared on Broadway in 2005, when he received a Tony nomination for starring in Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman.” Stuhlbarg has numerous stage credits, but most recently has worked in film (“A Serious Man”) and television (“Boardwalk Empire”). Stuhlbarg will play Boris A. Berezovsky, a Russian business tycoon who helped Putin rise to power but then fell out with him and later died in exile. The role was played in London by Tom Hollander.Stuhlbarg will star alongside Will Keen, who will play Putin, now the president of Russia; Keen also played that role in London, and for that performance won last year’s Olivier Award for best supporting actor in a play. Luke Thallon will also reprise the role he played in London, as another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich.The production is scheduled to begin previews April 1 and to open April 22 at the Barrymore Theater.The play is directed by Rupert Goold, a British director who has twice been nominated for Tony Awards, for “Ink” and “King Charles III,” and who will also be directing “The Hunt” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn early this year. “Patriots” was staged in 2022 at the nonprofit Almeida Theater in London, where Goold is the artistic director, and last year it had a profitable commercial run in London’s West End.The lead producer of the Broadway production will be Sonia Friedman, who is a major force in both the West End and on Broadway.The play will open in the final days of a Broadway season that is proving to be quite challenging for producers and investors because production costs are higher and ticket sales are lower than they were before the coronavirus pandemic. The economics have been especially hard for musicals. On Sunday evening, the producers of “How to Dance in Ohio,” a musical about a group of young autistic adults, announced that show would close on Feb. 11, after 99 performances. And last week, the producers of “Harmony,” a musical about a German singing group that ran afoul of the Nazis, announced that show would close on Feb. 4. More

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    How ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ Became Their Passion Project

    Kelli O’Hara and Brain d’Arcy James didn’t let the door close on their new Broadway musical about a couple undone by addiction.As origin stories go, the transformation of “Days of Wine and Roses” from a movie into a musical is a straight shot, with a twist. Kelli O’Hara and Adam Guettel had the inkling more than 20 years ago, when she was a Broadway ingénue, working on what became her breakthrough Tony-nominated role in “Light in the Piazza.” Guettel had written the music and lyrics for that musical, which went on to earn him a Tony Award for best score. They talked through their coordinating vision for evolving “Wine and Roses,” the midcentury classic of a romance ruined by addiction. “I think I used the words ‘a weird dark opera,’” O’Hara recalled.She already had a co-star in mind: Brian d’Arcy James, debonair and wry, like Jack Lemmon was in the 1962 movie, opposite the O’Hara look-alike Lee Remick. The film memorably traced the stuttery arc of alcoholism and recovery, a trajectory now familiar — onscreen and off — but rarely put to song.Guettel was not only game to try, he eventually brought in the playwright Craig Lucas, the Tony-nominated book writer for “Light in the Piazza.” Both had, separately, been facing their own addictions, in ways that informed, and sometimes overlapped with, the show’s development.The twist, then, is that, two decades on, the musical about a whiskey-soaked couple has actually arrived on Broadway — it opens on Sunday — starring O’Hara and James, now in the prime of their careers, with gorgeously matched vocals. The production takes pains to show the love that propels their characters’ relationship — however misguided it turns out to be.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?  More

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    David Gail of ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ Is Dead at 58

    Mr. Gail was known for his role as Stuart Carson on Season 4 of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and had dozens of other television show credits in the 1990s.David Gail, who played Dr. Joe Scanlon on the ABC soap opera “Port Charles” and appeared on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” has died. He was 58.His death was announced on Saturday on Instagram by Katie Colmenares. A cause and a date of death were not provided.“There’s barely been even a day in my life when you were not with me by my side always my wingman always my best friend ready to face anything and anyone w me,” Ms. Colmenares wrote, adding, “I will hold you so tight every day in my heart you gorgeous loving amazing fierce human being missing you every second of every day forever there will never be another.”Mr. Gail was a prolific television actor in the mid- to late 1990s. His biggest role was in the “General Hospital” spinoff show “Port Charles,” in which he appeared as Dr. Joe Scanlon in 216 episodes during a season in 1999 and 2000, according to IMDb. Dr. Scanlon was a love interest of one of the show’s main characters, Dr. Karen Wexler, according to a “General Hospital” fan site.David Gail, center, in a scene from “Port Charles” in 1998.Chris Sjodin/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesEarlier in his career, Mr. Gail was cast on eight episodes of “Beverly Hills, 90210” on Fox.He first made his way onto the show in 1991, during the first season, in a one-off role as a hotel bellhop named Tom after not getting the part for a recurring character, Mr. Gail said on the “Beverly Hills Show Podcast” in 2021.The casting directors liked him but said he was “green,” Mr. Gail said his agent told him.But a more experienced Mr. Gail would return to the show two years later on Season 4, this time as Stuart Carson, the son of a rich businessman who becomes engaged to Brenda Walsh, played by Shannen Doherty, according to IMDb.The wedding never happens, and the couple ultimately has a falling out, according to a “Beverly Hills, 90210” fan site.“When I came back it was such a shock, I was asking, ‘How could I possibly come back?’” Mr. Gail said on the podcast, alluding to his concerns about playing multiple characters on the same show.“But it worked,” he added.Mr. Gail also appeared in 22 episodes of the television show “Robin’s Hoods” in 1994 and 1995 as the character Eddie Bartlett, and in 34 episodes of the series “Savannah” in 1996 and 1997 in the role of Dean Collins, according to IMDb.A list of survivors and other details were not available on Sunday night. Messages to Mr. Gail’s representatives were not immediately returned. More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Below Deck Mediterranean’ and ‘The Bachelor’

    The Bravo show wraps up its eighth season. Joey Graziadei leads the 28th season of the reality dating show.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 22-28. Details and times are subject to change.MondayJoey Graziadei on “The Bachelor.”Disney/John FleenorTHE BACHELOR 8 p.m. on ABC. The last few installments of this franchise have been a bit of a headache. (A Hollywood Reporter article raised questions about the Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner’s past; he has called the report “fully fictitious.” Clayton Echard was involved in a paternity battle last year. Then, no couples from “Bachelor in Paradise” kept their engagements.) But having Joey Graziadei as the lead makes me excited for this season. Graziadei, a tennis instructor who was previously on Charity Lawson’s season, is back at the Bachelor mansion and dating 32 women. Jesse Palmer returns as host. BELOW DECK MEDITERRANEAN 9 p.m. on Bravo. This season of the “Below Deck” spinoff has seemingly been going on forever — partly because of a holiday hiatus, but mostly because of the second steward Kyle’s drama — and this week it is finally wrapping up. With Captain Sandy Yawn at the helm of another boat sailing the Mediterranean, this season’s drama included someone on the crew having fake certifications and every person on deck getting sick. We don’t have to wait too long though for a fresh start — the new season of “Below Deck” airs on Feb. 5.TuesdayELECTION NIGHT: THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY starting at 8 p.m. on various networks. With the Iowa caucuses done, the New Hampshire primary is up next, with 22 G.O.P. delegates up for grabs. Linsey Davis and David Muir will anchor as results come in live on ABC. On CBS, the anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell will anchor live from New Hampshire.WednesdayCHRISSY AND DAVE DINE OUT 10 p.m. on Freeform. If you like food and gossip, this is the show for you. Chrissy Teigen and Dave Chang are eating their way through Los Angeles, inviting famous guests to dinner and gab. On the first episode, they will be at the chef Chris Bianco’s Pizzeria Bianco with Jimmy Kimmel and his wife, the writer-producer Molly McNearney.ThursdayHELL’S KITCHEN 8 p.m. on Fox. The chef Gordon Ramsay is wrapping up the 22nd season of his cooking competition show this week. With winners from past seasons as sous chefs on both competing teams, the fight to become head chef has been intense.U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIP starting at 2 p.m. on USA Network. Since the Olympics are coming to Paris this summer, watching the figure skating championships is the best way to pregame. Different programs air all weekend but on Thursday, they start off with the pairs short program at 2 p.m. Then comes the rhythm dance program at 5 p.m. and the women’s short program at 8 p.m.FridayMonica Raymund and James Badge Dale in “Hightown.”Claire Folger/StarzHIGHTOWN 9 p.m. on Starz. This show is back for its third and final season this week. The series began with Jackie Quiñones (Monica Raymund), a National Marine Fisheries Service Agent, going to Cape Cod and struggling to remain sober while trying to address the opioid crisis. The third installment is starting off with Quiñones going back to her partying habits and Detective Ray Abruzzo (James Badge Dale) at the top of his game.SaturdayFrom left: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”Peter Mountain/Warner BrothersHARRY POTTER MARATHON starting at 8 a.m. on Syfy. Though the “Twilight” and “Harry Potter” series came out at different times and have different themes, people often ask which I prefer. So, if you weren’t up for the “Twilight” marathon last weekend, maybe this is your speed. The story follows the young wizard Harry Potter (and Ron and Hermione, of course) through his years at Hogwarts.SHREK I (2001) & SHREK II (2004) starting at 7 p.m. on E! Sometimes when life is overwhelming, it’s gloomy outside and you’ve had a long week, the best cure is a couple of ogres falling in love and starting a life together. This mini marathon has Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Puss in Boots, the Gingerbread Man and of course, Lord Farquaad. “Like many movies nowadays, ‘Shrek’ is a blistering race through pop culture, and what the movie represents is a way to bring the brash slob comedy of ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘South Park,’ as well as the institutional irreverence of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ to a very young audience,” Elvis Mitchell wrote in his 2001 review of the first film for The New York Times.LIL NAS X: LONG LIVE MONTERO 8 p.m. on HBO. Ever since Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never,” I have loved a tour documentary. This one follows Lil Nas X on his first solo and headlining tour in 2022. The documentary also touches on his rapid rise to fame after the release of “Old Town Road” and how he has lent his voice to Black and queer spaces.SundayTHE MANY LIVES OF MARTHA STEWART 9 p.m. on CNN. Whether she’s serving prison time for insider trading, hanging out with Snoop Dogg or creating a beautiful tablescape, there is no doubt that Martha Stewart is endlessly fascinating. This original four-part documentary series will use archival footage of Stewart as well as interviews with friends, employees and inmates. More

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    ‘True Detective’ Season 4, Episode 2 Recap: ‘Corpsicle’

    This week’s installment offered a lot of strong procedural work, suggesting that the season’s central mystery isn’t purely supernatural but can be solved.Season 4, Episode 2: ‘Part 2’During last week’s episode, as Liz and her team were puzzling over the sudden disappearance of eight scientists at the Tsalal Research Station, Hank mused, “Just the third day of darkness and it’s already getting weird.” Based on some of the mysterious events we witnessed that episode, like the gyrating spirit that leads Rose to a grisly tableaux of frozen bodies, a word like “weird” seems woefully insufficient. One question we might have asked ourselves was whether “North Country” would become a genuine ghost story or a hybrid, blending the noir sleuthing of previous “True Detective” seasons with mere intimations of the supernatural.This second hour throws a little bit of ice-cold water on the weird stuff, at least insofar as it pertains to the deaths of these scientists and the unsolved murder of Annie, a young Inupiaq activist. That’s not to say that the uncanny won’t be an important part of the show, but it seems more folded into the ambience of this sunless locale than a literal explanation for the violence happening within it. When Navarro asks Rose about Travis, an ex-lover who turns up to her as a spirit, it is blithely accepted that such ghosts can appear in the darkness from time to time.“I think the world is getting old,” explains Rose, “and Ennis is where the fabric of all things is coming apart at the seams.” In other words, “North Country” seems to be a waxing philosophical in the “True Detective” tradition, but the end-of-the-earth environs inspire thoughts that are tied more to Indigenous myths and frostbit hallucinations.As for the case itself, there’s a lot of strong, meat-and-potatoes procedural work in this episode that suggests it can be solved. And in the process of solving it, we can learn more about Danvers and Navarro, who remain inextricably at odds but have similar appetites for pursuing justice under terrible circumstances and blowing off steam with lovers they keep at arm’s length. The show no longer seems in danger of drifting into the inexplicable.The episode begins with the folly of small-town cops working a big-time crime scene, which requires both the delicacy of an archaeological dig and the inelegant prying of a chain saw that can carve through ice. Frozen limbs can snap off like brittle twigs, and Danvers’s dimmer underlings, who have never imagined such a spectacle, have to be told not to snap selfies. (“This is a crime scene,” she tells them. “Why don’t you pretend like you know what you’re doing?”)If Danvers had any sense of self-preservation, she would punt the case to Anchorage, not only because it has a forensics team but also because she won’t have to endure the intense scrutiny of sorting through such a vexing mystery. But it’s an itch that she absolutely needs to scratch, just as Navarro cannot let go of her responsibility to Annie.Their first priority is sorting through the mass of naked flesh that gets dug up from the ice, which Danvers darkly refers to as a “corpsicle.” In order to preserve whatever physical evidence they can extract from the bodies, the corpsicle must first be thawed out over 48 hours at 38 degrees, which can be achieved by transporting it to center ice at the local recreational rink. As this Edvard Munch exhibit drips away under the hot lights, Danvers and her young protégé Peter start thinking about the questions they need to ask: Why are the victims naked? Why do they seem to have bitten their own hands? Why were some of their clothes found neatly folded by the scene? And what’s with the spiral symbol that keeps popping up?That last piece of the puzzle seems to be the most crucial because it ties the dead scientists to Annie’s murder. One of the scientists, Clark, had the spiral tattooed on his chest, and when Peter and Danvers trace Clark’s credit record back to a Fairbanks tattoo parlor in 2017, they discover that Annie’s tattoo was the model for Clark’s and that he had it inked a few days after her murder. The spiral was also found drawn on the forehead of another victim, Lund, who had a secret, intimate relationship with Annie. Lund had spent $10,000 on a trailer that served as their ostensible love nest, and when Navarro discovers it buried in the snow, the interior is full of strange etchings, photos and handcrafted objects.But even as all these puzzles within puzzles start to reveal themselves — to say nothing of the research station’s mission and its vaguely sinister corporate ties — the episode ends with a smack in the face. When the corpsicle thaws completely, one body is conspicuously absent: Clark’s.Given his connection to Annie and Lund, that makes him seem like the obvious suspect in both of these open cases — which, of course, makes him an obvious red herring, too. What’s clear now, after the dreamlike abstractions of the premiere, is that “North Country” has an investigative path forward. That may strip the show of mystique, but it’s worth the added suspense.Flat CirclesAlso waiting in the weeds is the one survivor from the corpsicle, whose jump-scare scream before the opening credits is the most disturbing moment in an episode with plenty of contenders.Strange happenings at an Arctic research station naturally call to mind John Carpenter’s classic 1982 horror film “The Thing,” as does the “extinct microorganism” that the scientists had been working hard to isolate. Perhaps similar forces have been roused in the ice.Remarkably diverse selection of music in this episode, from the Beach Boys’s “Little Saint Nick” as the corpses are carted through town to Navarro reminiscing over Spice Girls’s “Wannabe” to the incongruously cheerful funk of K.C. & the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight.”One reason Navarro didn’t get the information on Lund’s trailer until now is the tension between the miners and the people in the town, like Annie, who rallied against the pollution coming from the mine. That has nothing to do with extinct microorganisms. That’s a conflict that continues to rage within Ennis.Poor Hank. Not looking likely that texting pics and sending money to “Alina” will win him a bride.Danvers’s fury when her stepdaughter, Leah (Isabella Star LaBlanc), gets kakiniit marks on her chin, even with nonpermanent marker, underlines another important fault line in the show between Indigenous and white residents of Ennis. Leah is curious about exploring her identity, but Danvers’s insistence on shutting her down speaks to a key disconnect between her department and the community. (“Don’t give me that, Laundromat Grandma,” is a fine insult, however.) More

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    ‘S.N.L.’ Turns Back to Its Favorite Topic, Trump

    Alaska Airlines also came in for mockery, with a parody ad that imagines finding the public relations upside in a flight where a door plug blew out at about 16,000 feet.With 2024 underway and the presidential race in full swing, it was time for “Saturday Night Live” to get back to doing what it loves best: lampooning former President Donald J. Trump.In its first new broadcast of the year, hosted by Jacob Elordi and featuring the musical guest Reneé Rapp, “S.N.L.” kicked off with a sketch featuring its resident Trump impressionist, James Austin Johnson. It parodied Trump’s impromptu remarks outside a courtroom in Lower Manhattan where he is again on trial facing accusations that he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll, after an earlier jury verdict in May that Trump defamed and sexually abused her.After a brief introduction by Chloe Fineman, who played Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer, (“I am new at this, and I am learning,” she said), Johnson entered as Trump and quickly dressed down his own legal representation.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?  More