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    Is Bilal Baig Ready for Fame? Sort Of.

    “Sort Of,” the melancholy comedy loosely based on the performer’s life and experiences, returns for its second season on HBO Max on Dec. 1.Only a few minutes after the writer and performer Bilal Baig arrived at an upstairs gallery of the Whitney Museum of American Art, a fan approached.“Are you in a Canadian TV show?” a man in a pink shirt said. “It’s the best show ever.”Baig acknowledged the compliment politely, though so quietly as to discourage further conversation. The man’s wistful closing salvo: “I’ll never be as cool as you.”On that morning at the Whitney, Baig, 28, did look chic, in a knit dress, teal trench coat and high-heeled boots. Most people don’t wear jewel-toned leather without some comfort in visibility. But for Baig, a Toronto native and a queer transfeminine Muslim artist at the mostly sweet center of overlapping identities, being seen has its complications. (Baig typically uses they/them pronouns but accepts others. “Anything except the pronouns I was given,” they said. “Also, gender to me is so much about what other people are throwing on. I’m just rolling with it.”)In “Sort Of,” the HBO Max half-hour comedy Baig created with the writer and performer Fab Filippo, Baig stars as Sabi Mehboob, a gender nonbinary nanny and bartender. Baig is not Sabi. Sabi trained as an electrician; Baig studied theater. And Baig has been out for years longer, and in generally more accepting places. Yet overlap remains. Both share a watchfulness, as well as a sense of humor so dry it’s practically a weather event.Baig with Amanda Cordner in “Sort Of,” which returns for its second season on Dec. 1.HBO MaxWhen asked about similarities, Baig said, “The thing that I feel most connected to with that character is the level of guardedness, which is probably common in the transfeminine experience. I understand why Sabi doesn’t trust the world and trust people in general. I get that on a deep psychological level.“There is always a piece of, Is someone going to hurt me?” Baig continued. “Is someone looking at me in a way that maybe isn’t exactly how I want them to look at me? It’s fascinating. I live that every day.”“Sort Of,” which returns to HBO Max for a second season on Dec. 1, got started in 2018. Baig, a recent theater graduate who had a small role in a Toronto play, began chatting backstage with Filippo, who was also in the cast. Filippo suggested collaborating on a TV show, specifically a TV show inspired by Baig’s life. Baig had never really done TV before and was seriously considering abandoning acting for nonprofit work. But the idea was intriguing.“It felt challenging and scary,” Baig said. “So I really wanted to do it.”There were more conversations. Filippo recalled a day early on in which he admitted struggling with ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. “Like, ‘I just can’t get around the plural,’” he recalled saying. “And Bilal very gently said, ‘Or maybe you don’t quite see me yet.’ They held this really strong line with a kind of grace that was really exceptional.”Together the two creators decided that “Sort Of,” which grew to include the family for which Sabi nannies and also Sabi’s own families, biological and found, would focus on identity and transition in a general sense, not a particular one. A mellow, finely observed comedy, it recognizes that almost all of us are in transition in one way or another, if we will only stop to notice.Themes and questions that might have seemed pertinent — How does Sabi identify? Will people accept Sabi? Will people find Sabi attractive? — are mostly settled or not especially important. Instead, Baig and Filippo modeled the comedy on that of other shows about 20-somethings juggling jobs, friends and romantic partners.“If we just don’t change much about that but insert this body, this skin color, this gender into it, that felt fresh and funny to us,” Baig said. “And like, it’s possible.”Some elements were borrowed, directly or circuitously, from Baig’s life. Many of Sabi’s habits of gesture and expression are Baig all the way — the long pauses, the crushing deadpan, the purposefully blank expression. Sabi’s relationship with their parents doesn’t map onto Baig’s exactly. But Sabi does experience estrangement, particularly from their father. And Baig feels some estrangement, too.“The ties between us are, I feel, quite unraveled,” Baig said of their parents. “They know about the show. They know about how I move through the world. But it’s not rosy at all.”And yet Baig moves through the world with more sureness than Sabi, even as performer and character share a belief that the world may not always be welcoming. Ellora Patnaik, the actress who plays Sabi’s mother, has known Baig for years.“Bilal is in a place of much more confidence, and awareness, and really looking forward to the future with more certainty than uncertainty,” Patnaik said in a recent interview. “Not that everything is rock solid, especially in their community. But they can look at things and really, really feel like they have a bit more control over their life. Sabi, they’re still searching.”The creators didn’t want that search to feel singular. Baig and Filippo were determined to show a variety of genders, ages and sexual and racial identities, suggesting a rich spectrum of human experience rather than fixed points. And mindful of shows in which queer and transgender characters meet tragic ends, they wanted to provide a counternarrative.“That was actually easy,” Baig said. “All we had to do was not show Sabi getting killed. Literally, that was it.”Yet, “Sort Of” advances no particular agenda, and if the show is provocative, that provocation comes from its lived-in tone, its quietness, its broad acceptance of its characters.“I get human beings,” Baig said. “I get excited by them. I want to throw them in spaces where they’re talking to each other.”“The thing that I feel most connected to with that character is the level of guardedness,” Baig said about Sabi, the protagonist of “Sort Of.”Yael Malka for The New York TimesA company called Sphere Media put up the money for a sizzle reel, which convinced the Canadian Broadcasting Company to order the series. Just before filming began, HBO Max joined, too, which Baig described as terrifying: “It’s the pressure of, OK, we’ll be reaching so many more people.”“Sort Of” was spared the pressure of being the first show to orbit a nonbinary main character. That honor likely goes to Mae Martin’s Netflix comedy “Feel Good.” But that first shoot, which began at the height of the pandemic, still felt fraught.“Everybody thought they were going to die,” Filippo said. “Going to work was pretty scary.”Everyone made it through, and the show, which debuted in November 2021, quickly became a critic’s darling. (“It is the kind of representation everyone deserves,” a critic from Mashable wrote, “and ‘Sort Of’ makes it look easy.”) It received a Peabody and won the best comedy prize at the Canadian Screen Awards. Baig declined to submit in either the actor or actress categories, which helped nudge the awards toward removing gender from its acting categories altogether.This approval has brought Baig a level of fame that is just on the edge of comfortable. At the Whitney, I had planned to ask whether Baig was famous-famous or still only Canada-famous, which was when the man in the pink shirt approached. Turns out the man was from Toronto, so that was one answer.Baig said: “Especially in Toronto, there’s a respect. People say really nice things and then totally leave me alone.”If fame has never been the goal, Baig appreciates the opportunities it provides to tell more stories, stories that aren’t necessarily Baig’s own. “There’s more I want to create and say,” they said.In the meantime, Baig would welcome at least a third season to round off Sabi’s story. This next season focuses on love, in all of its forms. An additional season might see Sabi settling even deeper into their identity.“These walls that are up for them are just very slowly coming down,” Baig said.Baig has walls, too, of course, and they’ll come down or they won’t. But this sense of apartness, of reserve, has made Baig a keen observer of human behavior, a quality that twines with an innate empathy to produce the distinctive tone of “Sort Of” — caustic, melancholy, ultimately generous.An hour into the visit, we had taken the stairs down to an exhibit of Edward Hopper paintings. Baig paused at a painting of a woman sitting up in bed, lit by a low morning sun.“This feels like something I would do,” Baig said. “I’m good with it. I think sad people are fascinating.” More

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    After a 70-Year Run in London, ‘The Mousetrap’ Heads to Broadway

    The enduring Agatha Christie whodunit, which has stumped West End theatergoers since 1952, will come to New York next year. (No spoilers, please.)For the past 70 years, London theatergoers have enjoyed trying to figure out the identity of the murderer in “The Mousetrap,” Agatha Christie’s enduring whodunit.Now, Broadway audiences will get a chance to try to solve it.On Friday, keen-eyed theatergoers discovered a website for the Broadway iteration, which announced that the murder mystery, whose London production holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s longest-running play, would make its Broadway debut some time in 2023.The website did not give details about the run’s start date, location or cast, but said the production’s set would be “a loving recreation” of the chintzy West End design and even borrow its wind machine, which is used to create a storm.On Friday, Adam Spiegel, the show’s British producer, confirmed the transfer of the show in a telephone interview from St. Martin’s Theater in London, where he was hosting a special matinee of “The Mousetrap” to celebrate its 70th birthday.Spiegel said he “was not ready” to provide any details of the Broadway run, but insisted it was going ahead. “Oh God, yes, it will happen in 2023,” he said.He is producing the show with Kevin McCollum, the Tony Award-winning producer who recently helped take “Six,” the hit musical about the wives of Henry VIII, from London to Broadway.It is unclear why “The Mousetrap,” which began as a radio play, has never reached Broadway before. For decades — even when it was merely middle-aged, and still far from becoming a septuagenarian — some critics have called it an anachronism, noting its old-fashioned staging, with creaking windows the closest thing to a special effect.A New York production did open Off Broadway in 1960, at the Maidman Playhouse. “‘The Mousetrap’ will not exactly shake you up, but neither will it let you down,” Lewis Funke wrote in The New York Times. But it never moved to Broadway.The original 1952 production starred Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim, who were married. All told, the show has been performed over 28,915 times in London, the production said on Friday in a news release, and has been seen by over 10 million people. Queen Elizabeth II attended its 50th anniversary performance in 2002.A decade ago, when the show was celebrating its 60th anniversary, Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times that seeing it in London was like “being part of a field trip to a historic site,” because he found himself surrounded by so many tourists and schoolchildren. But he loved its cozy mystery. “Oh, bliss, it’s a living Clue board,” he said.“So, yes, ‘The Mousetrap’ creaks,” he wrote, “but old houses do; that’s part of their charm.”The show’s long West End run was interrupted by the lengthy coronavirus shutdown. Spiegel said the idea for the transfer to Broadway arose soon after “The Mousetrap” reopened in May 2021. Ever since, it “has probably had the most successful run of its life,” Spiegel said, “so suddenly we got a renewed sense of purpose about where else it might work, and New York seemed a good place.”“The Mousetrap” is set for a limited engagement, according to the website. Asked if that could end up actually being for 70 years, like in London, Spiegel demurred. “That might be a bit ambitious,” he said, “but we might as well aim for the moon.”Wherever “The Mousetrap” ends up being staged on Broadway, one thing about the production is guaranteed: Spiegel said that it would “of course” end every performance just as it does in London, with a member of the cast asking the audience to keep the identity of the killer to themselves. The no-spoilers plea has helped keep the ending a surprise for 70 years. More

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    ‘The Rat Trap’ Review: Together for Better, but Mostly for Worse

    Noël Coward’s bleak portrait of a collapsing marriage between two artists has its American premiere at New York City Center.Sheila Brandreth and Keld Maxwell are in love and about to get married. She is a novelist and he is a playwright, both at the start of their careers: It’s a union made in literary heaven, and Sheila (Sarin Monae West) looks forward to “the joy of working together and helping one another to make our way in the world.”But when Keld (James Evans) is out of earshot, Sheila’s roommate, Olive Lloyd-Kennedy (Elisabeth Gray), offers a more jaundiced perspective. “You are much the cleverer of the two,” she tells Sheila, “and because of that I prophesy that you will be the one to give in.”Alas, it is Olive who is right.This is not much of a spoiler considering that the play is called “The Rat Trap,” the title revealing a gloomy — cynical souls might say realistic — view of marriage as terribly wrong for one party, possibly even both. That this all ends on an uncompromisingly depressing note is all the more startling considering that the show, presented by the Mint Theater, was written in 1918 and is meant to be a comedy.Then again, its author is Noël Coward, whose view of matrimony was like a cocktail of Champagne and strychnine.Written when Coward was 18, “The Rat Trap” was first staged in London in 1926 and is just now making its American debut. Elements of his signature style already figure in this piece of juvenilia, including such epigrams as “Marriage nowadays is nothing but a temporary refuge for those who are uncomfortable at home.” What’s more remarkable is that the teenage Coward had an uncanny sense of the agonizing friction between artistic ambitions and domestic life.Alexander Lass’s underpowered production at New York City Center does not bother exploring some tantalizing possibilities — like, for example, the nature of Olive’s feelings for Sheila — and it does not quite manage to hit either the comic highs or the dramatic lows. (There are also some questionable set and blocking choices, like a sofa positioned in such a way that the actors sitting on it must contort themselves to avoid showing their backs to the audience.)But West shines, first as a woman in love then as one who shrivels into seething disillusion when her career stalls while her husband’s blossoms. Because of course Sheila’s ambitions end up taking a back seat to his. “I gave up my working brain for you,” she tells Keld, who responds with a classic anthem of weaselly self-justification.The play appears to suggest this imbalance is baked into the conventions of bourgeois relationships. But it also satirizes the bohemian pretensions of Naomi Frith-Bassington (Heloise Lowenthal) and Edmund Crowe (Ramzi Khalaf), a couple of proto-hipsters who prefer free love to the officially licensed kind.Coward later wrote that “The Rat Trap” had some merits, but “the last act is an inconclusive shambles.” He was too harsh — the ending is trenchant rather than inconclusive. In love as in war, it seems to say, everybody loses.The Rat TrapThrough Dec. 10 at New York City Center Stage II, Manhattan; minttheater.org. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. More

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    Evan Mock Is Having the Best Time

    After a childhood of surfing and skateboarding on Oahu’s North Shore, the “Gossip Girl” star, party-circuit fixture and friend to many brands is making waves on the island of Manhattan.On a recent afternoon, Evan Mock was trying to do laundry in his East Village condo, but something was wrong with the dryer. Perturbed beeps cut through the retro-soul music playing in the airy third-floor walk-up. The machine kept starting and stopping. He mentioned a theory, something about excessive lint accumulation and a defective filter.Mr. Mock, 25, is probably best known for his role as the pink-haired, Park Avenue-raised, Tarkovsky-loving bisexual son of a right-wing media mogul on the HBO Max reboot of “Gossip Girl,” which returns for its second season on Dec. 1. But the downtown denizen has a lot of other things going on.A king of the “collab,” he has worked with brands including the Danish jewelry manufacturer Pandora and the Italian footwear designer Giuseppe Zanotti. He has modeled for designers including Paco Rabanne and Virgil Abloh. His skateboarding prowess has landed him a hefty sponsorship from Hurley and an elusive spot on the Instagram grid of Frank Ocean. A few months ago he started a fashion line, Wahine, with the stylist Donté McGuine.He is a bona fide multi-hyphenate, a party-circuit fixture, an it boy, a man about town. Also, he has frosted tips now.Mr. Mock with his usual order at Madhufalla Organic Juice and Smoothie Bar on Mulberry Street: a shot of wheatgrass juice and a shot of ginger.Ryan Jones for The New York TimesDespite the hyper résumé, Mr. Mock is laid-back. Serene. As the light streamed into his apartment, he reclined by a floor-to-ceiling corner window. “Sometimes it’s too much,” he said, referring to the intense sunlight. “But I’m not complaining.”He took a swig of coconut water from a Tetra Pak. His feet were up. They were clad in last month’s limited release North Face x Paraboot shoes, the ones with the vulcanized rubber outsoles, matelassé full grain leather uppers and an elastic collar — a mule so exclusive that it was not even available for purchase. As the streetwear website Hypebeast reported: “Simply put, you cannot buy this.”Growing up, Mr. Mock often went around barefoot. Born and raised on the North Shore of Oahu, his father put him on his first surfboard when he was 2 years old. “I caught my first wave before I could swim,” he said.He was home-schooled into his teenage years to accommodate peak surf hours. Around age 11, he also got into skateboarding. (“Pretty late,” he said.) By 16, he was making more than $15,000 a month from skateboarding sponsorships. He then moved to California to pursue what he called his “skateboarding dreams.” (He did air quotes around the words “skateboarding dreams.”)Hints of his modeling career were scattered throughout the tidy two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. On his kitchen counter sat a Louis Vuitton purse — a brand for which he walked the runway in 2019. In the corner of the living room, there was an overflowing Rimowa suitcase — the luxury German luggage maker for which he wrote, co-produced and starred in an online commercial last year. It shows Mr. Mock skateboarding through Manhattan donning a Rimowa cross-body messenger bag as he recounts, in a voice-over narrative, a whirlwind romance with a girl he met outside a club in Barcelona. Entranced by her beauty, he speaks of impulsively buying her a ticket to accompany him to Paris. But a lost passport, a brief stint in airport jail and six-hour flight delay put an end to the fling.Across the room, by a stack of shoe boxes, what looked at first like a regular McDonald’s Happy Meal box, was, upon closer inspection, a box of Cactus Plant Flea Market x McDonald’s collectibles from the streetwear label’s limited-run release. The figurines (originally retailing around $10) were reportedly listed on eBay for over $25,000, though the prices have since dropped significantly.Mr. Mock got up to clean his lint trap. “Let’s just get on some bikes,” he said.He puts a lot of mileage on his VanMoof e-bike. The day before, he rode uptown for a “Gossip Girl” A.D.R. (automated dialogue replacement) session, then back down to the Lower East Side to check out a Japanese whiskey bar he might invest in on Chrystie Street.“We could go to Curbs,” Mr. Mock said, referring to a section of Lafayette Street that has become popular among New York skateboarders for the many curbs afforded by its triangular layout.He started to get changed, switching his white T-shirt for a vintage dark gray Number Nine T-shirt. Above the chest pocket it had a small graphic of a speech bubble containing the word “cigarettes.” “It’s a Japanese brand that was illest back in the day,” Mr. Mock said of Number Nine. “Everyone in Japan knows what’s up.”Mr. Mock with Mr. Hiraga in Lower Manhattan.Ryan Jones for The New York TimesHe put on and then took off a hoodie of his own design, a boxy Wahine zip-up. On the front, the outline of a valentine heart surrounding a word that cannot be printed in The New York Times. “I drew it on my friend’s bathroom wall and then I took a picture of it,” he said of the design’s origin.He completed the outfit with a pair of dark-wash Palace jeans, Ambush edition Nike Air Adjust Force sneakers, a silver bomber jacket, a Palace hat and Isabel Marant sunglasses. Outside, he glided through Alphabet City on his next-gen smart-tech bike. As the scenery swept by, he kept one hand in the pocket of the unzipped bomber.Near the REI store, he swerved lithely across Houston Street to give a hello kiss to the photographer Gray Sorrenti, who happened to be passing by with the model-actress Blue Lindeberg. The chance encounter took place directly across from the 55-by-75-foot Calvin Klein billboard where, one year ago, Mr. Mock had appeared, smiling down at NoHo in nothing but black boxer briefs and thigh tattoos.The next stop was Madhufalla, a juice and smoothie bar on Mulberry Street. Mr. Mock ordered his usual: a ginger shot and a wheatgrass shot. “Sweeter than you’d think,” he said. He downed both in the store and ordered an açai berry almond milk smoothie to go.“Sometimes it’s too much,” Mr. Mock said of the intense sunlight in his New York apartment. “But I’m not complaining.”Ryan Jones for The New York TimesAround the corner, at Curbs, he fist-bumped a couple of acquaintances before taking a seat on a bench. Between sips of the smoothie, he talked about “Gossip Girl.” The original CW series, which ran from 2007 through 2012, was, he said, “before my time.” And when the showrunner of the HBO Max reboot, Joshua Safran, reached out to him about playing the part of Aki Menzies, Mr. Mock had never acted.“There were a lot of different firsts,” he said. “When I first read the script, I thought there was nothing more opposite than my actual life. In terms of living somewhere cold, going to a private school, all the drama.”He paused. Then picked up again: “It’s funny, because I never actually went to school. But the character is basically me — besides being filthy rich, going to a private school and living uptown in New York.”A game of eight ball at Ace Bar.Ryan Jones for The New York TimesOn his first day of filming, he had to take part in a sex scene with Emily Alyn Lind, the actress who plays his girlfriend. The inherently awkward situation had the added discomfort of taking place in September 2020. Between shots, the cast members wore K95 masks and plastic face coverings. During their downtime, the actors had to isolate in a room by themselves until they were called back to the set. “But, honestly, I’m kind of glad it happened like that, because we got the weird stuff out of the way,” Mr. Mock said. “Hopefully, everything from here on out will be a little bit quote-unquote normal.”He watched a skateboarder wipe out in front of the bistro Jack’s Wife Freda. Ms. Lindeberg, the actress and model, walked by again. This is something Mr. Mock loves about New York: “You basically have no option but to see homies everywhere you go,” he said. As if on cue, another friend, the actor Nico Hiraga, rode up on a skateboard, joined shortly by another skateboarding friend, George Hemp.“We could go play pool,” Mr. Mock suggested.Soon Mr. Hiraga and Mr. Hemp got Citi Bikes, and the group headed north. All three biked almost exclusively one-handed. The ride was punctuated by more run-ins. On St. Marks Place, Mr. Mock pulled over to hug his brand-deal agent, Jenelle Phillip, who was outdoor-dining at Cafe Mogador. On East 10th Street, at the edge of Tompkins Square Park, he stopped to chat with the skateboarding documentarian Greg Hunt, who was out with his camera, trying to take advantage of the good light. Mr. Mock said he had spotted other familiar faces in the 12-block journey, but he couldn’t pull over for everyone.It was early evening by the time he and his friends reached the Ace Bar on East Fifth Street. “Meet the Fockers” was playing on the TV screen above the Skee-Ball machine.“I love this movie,” Mr. Hiraga said, smiling. “I’m in my saga era.”A few feet from the pool table, a man stood contrapposto, beer in one hand, the other, adamantly on his hip. Mr. Mock said he tends to stand similarly, in a kind of half-akimbo pose. Skateboarders have a certain way of holding themselves — Mr. Mock offered the word “feminine” to describe it, but then agreed that it’s more about fluidity, or a specific grace that comes from being in a constant negotiation with gravity.He added that he has broken each arm three times. In one spill, he broke four fingers. What happens, he explained, is that you learn how to fall.Mr. Mock frequently travels through Manhattan by e-bike.Ryan Jones for The New York Times“If you watch skaters fall, it looks like Bruce Lee fighting water,” Mr. Mock said. “Falling in the same certain type of way, you get reflexes after a while. You can save yourself most of the time, but sometimes you can’t.”Is breaking bones scary?“It just comes with it,” he said. “You expect it.”He turned back to the pool table, adjusting his Palace jeans, which were more or less held up by a leather belt that he said he had gotten from “some random dude in Rome.” More

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    London’s Theater Cuts Matter, on Broadway and Beyond

    The cushion of state money let the Hampstead and Donmar playhouses develop broad programs with international reach. Now they must find creative ways to play on.LONDON — Standing ovations at London theaters are drearily routine these days, but I experienced one a few weeks ago that felt genuinely impassioned. I’m thinking of the fervent audience response to a new two-character play, “Blackout Songs,” on Hampstead Theater’s intimate second stage. (The show runs at the 100-seat Hampstead Downstairs until Dec. 10.)Chronicling the bruised and bruising relationship between two self-destructive drinkers who meet at an A.A. meeting, Joe White’s spiky tragicomedy is impressive on several fronts. Its performers, Alex Austin and Rebecca Humphries, fearlessly inhabit two restless lovers trying to stave off psychic and physical ruin. The writing plays with time, asking the audience to piece together a fragmented narrative that views these characters — unnamed until the very end — at critical points as they ricochet in and out of each other’s lives.The play asks a lot of the two actors, who meet its demands with force. But there was an additional reason for the palpable excitement in the house at the show’s end that night. The excellence of the show dealt a direct rebuke to the still fresh news of major cuts in government ‌subsidies for arts institutions across London, in which the Hampstead lost its entire grant. Work like “Blackout Songs” is what the Hampstead exists to do, and suddenly the theater felt at risk.The same fate befell the venerable Donmar Warehouse, another small theater with an outsize reach. Might the activity of two playhouses so crucial to the theatrical ecosystem — not just in London — be somehow curtailed? Would they have to become safer, less adventurous?Both houses have long shown their importance, here and overseas. Equipped with three auditoriums between them (the Hampstead has a 370-seat main stage as well), they have generated a substantial body of work, sending shows from London into the world and also offering homes to shows from abroad. The Donmar has just staged the European premiere of “The Band’s Visit”; a second American musical, “Next to Normal,” is scheduled to arrive there next year.To cut these theaters’ subsidies is to advocate, willingly or not, for shrunken ambitions. Philanthropy and commercial activities can pick up the slack, of course, as in the United States. But donor bases don’t arrive overnight. The cushion of state money let the Hampstead and the Donmar develop broad programs with international reach. Unless the theaters tread carefully, the effects of the cut will be felt far beyond London.I can easily see international producers snapping up “Blackout Songs,” not least because its compactness — two characters, one set — is attractive financially. But the director Guy Jones’s production sets the bar high. On a bare stage with just a few chairs, the play’s jagged, nonlinear style is accompanied by whiplash shifts in mood that Humphries and the compellingly volatile Austin capture with ease. The impact couldn’t be stronger, prompting the best sort of guessing game about where the play might end up next.“The Band’s Visit” at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Michael Longhurst.Marc BrennerThe Hampstead has a history of birthing plays that have entered the theatrical canon. Bernard Pomerance’s “The Elephant Man” and Mike Leigh’s “Abigail’s Party” premiered there, as did Harold Pinter’s seminal two-hander, “The Dumb Waiter.” The flow of writing works both ways: The Hampstead has hosted multiple American Pulitzer Prize-winners and finalists, including Marsha Norman, Martyna Majok, Tony Kushner and Stephen Karam.“The Humans,” the Karam play that won the 2016 Tony Award, traveled to the Hampstead in 2018 with its American cast. An earlier Karam play, “Sons of the Prophet,” will receive an overdue British premiere on the Hampstead’s ‌main stage on Dec. 12: further evidence of that two-way traffic.Sure, not every Hampstead offering has been of comparable value. It has faltered of late with plays like “The Breach” and “The Snail House,” two misfires from Naomi Wallace and Richard Eyre; the current main stage play, Rona Munro’s history-minded “Mary,” is beautifully directed by the Hampstead’s artistic director, Roxana Silbert, but doesn’t galvanize the audience as “Blackout Songs” does downstairs. (It also requires more background knowledge of Mary, Queen of Scots and her court than most playgoers will possess.)Still, it’s important to the Hampstead to program a range of work across its two theaters and throughout the year. “What’s the point of a theater not having shows?” Greg Ripley-Duggan, the Hampstead’s executive producer, said pointedly by phone this week. But, he added, the lost subsidy was “an awful lot of money to make up, and to make up from one year to the next. The business model is going to have to change radically.”An absence of state funding will mean greater reliance on corporate and individual philanthropy, and pressure on ticket prices in a city where playgoing — especially away from the West End — is still reasonably affordable. Tickets for “Blackout Songs” can be had for about $12, a sum unheard-of in New York.Across town at the Donmar, a recent 30th-anniversary gala fell within days of the funding cut announcement, and the playhouse’s current and former artistic directors took to the stage at the event to celebrate the 251-seat powerhouse and argue for its survival. The Donmar is also lucky to be hosting a show just now that plays to its strengths: “The Band’s Visit.” On view through Dec. 3, the production is the first musical at this address from its current artistic director, Michael Longhurst, whose career spans both sides of the Atlantic, much like the Donmar itself. “Frost/Nixon” and “Red” are just two Broadway hits first seen there, as was Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out,” which is now back onstage in New York through Feb. 5.“The Band’s Visit” has gone in the other direction. Much lauded on Broadway, this adaptation of a 2007 Israeli movie of the same name has an unshowy sweetness ‌that suits the intimacy of the Donmar — all the better for a musical set in an Israeli backwater that is transformed by the unexpected appearance of a‌‌ group of Egyptian ‌musicians lost on‌ their way to somewhere else.Like “Blackout Songs,” this loving reappraisal of “The Band’s Visit” brought the audience to its feet. Let’s hope the Donmar, and the Hampstead, find creative ways to play on.Blackout Songs. Directed by Guy Jones. Hampstead Downstairs through Dec. 10.The Band’s Visit. Directed by Michael Longhurst. Donmar Warehouse through Dec. 3. More

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    Late Night Predicts a Tough Thanksgiving

    For the humans, there’s inflation; for the turkeys, there’s avian flu. “To be fair, I’m pretty sure every Thanksgiving is a tough one for turkey,” said Stephen Colbert.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Thank$giving 2022Thanksgiving will be affected by inflation this year.In his Wednesday night monologue, Stephen Colbert attributed that to “a variety of factors, including the war in Ukraine, high fuel prices. But the number one factor, according to experts, is Hunter Biden’s laptop.”“In other words, it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg for a wing and a thigh.” — JAMES CORDEN“This year, your Thanksgiving might look a little different, because prices are up on almost everything, from frozen pie crusts to pumpkin pie mix to a dozen dinner rolls. Well, there goes my favorite dessert: a dozen dinner rolls.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But it’s not just the supporting players. It’s also the star of the show, Tom Turkey. In addition to inflation, a blight of avian flu means that Thanksgiving 2022 is shaping up to be a tough one for turkey. To be fair, I’m pretty sure every Thanksgiving is a tough one for turkey.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Prices are up because of inflation and supply chain issues. so don’t be surprised if this year, the candied yams are just a potato with a Starburst in it.” — JAMES CORDEN“A new record high for Thanksgiving food items. You know how the economists figured this out? Pie chart.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (The Night Before Edition)“Today was so-called ‘Blackout Wednesday,’ which is known as the biggest bar night of the year. So if you’re watching me right now, you a loser.” — SETH MEYERS“It’s a great tradition, you talk smack about your family to your friends, and then tomorrow you talk smack about your friends to your family.” — JIMMY FALLON“This is actually one of the biggest drinking nights of the year, which is why tomorrow morning people are going to be, like, ‘I’m most thankful for this bacon, egg and cheese and Gatorade.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Right now, some of you are excited to see your family, while the rest of you are about to draw an extra line on a Covid test.” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s a special time, when we gather with family and friends to share our gratitude through America’s traditional expression of love: the food coma.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“A bit of history: I read that Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving an official holiday in 1863. It’s like during the Civil War, he saw our country fighting each other and thought, ‘We should make a whole meal out of this.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingBruce Springsteen shared his favorite Thanksgiving dishes on Wednesday’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”Also, Check This OutHugh Jackman and Zen McGrath in “The Son.”Rekha Garton/Sony Pictures ClassicsHugh Jackman plays the father of a troubled teenager in Florian Zeller’s drama “The Son.” More

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    Late Night Can’t Wait to Finally See Trump’s Tax Returns

    Jimmy Kimmel joked that Trump “promised to release his tax returns more times than he promised to release Melania.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Just in Time for ThanksgivingOn Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trump’s request to block a House committee from obtaining his tax returns.“He promised to release his tax returns more times than he promised to release Melania,” Jimmy Kimmel joked. “Like 10,000.”“Democrats will only have a few weeks to access the documents before the Republicans retake the House and make them disappear. Basically, Trump’s tax returns are like a close friend’s Instagram story.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Now, following this ruling, we can finally find out if he wrote off Eric as a loss.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Farewell, Dr. Fauci Edition)“Today, Dr. Fauci gave his final White House briefing before his retirement. He was like, ‘This is my last day, so if you want to inject bleach, go nuts.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Dr. Anthony Fauci today gave what is likely his last coronavirus briefing before retiring at the end of the year. And you can tell he’s kinda given up, because he gave the briefing from a rave.” — SETH MEYERS“Dr. Fauci is 81 years old. Today, Biden was like, ‘Congrats on your early retirement.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingStephen Colbert addressed the issues plaguing this year’s World Cup on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe “Dead to Me” star Linda Cardellini will stop by “The Late Late Show” on Wednesday night.Also, Check This OutWomen now make up a majority of players in the New York Philharmonic, but they dominate some sections of the orchestra more than others: 27 of the ensemble’s 30 violinists are women. Calla Kessler for The New York TimesFor the first time in 180 years, women outnumber men in the New York Philharmonic. More