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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Golden Bachelor’ and ‘The Irrational’

    A spinoff of the popular dating show joins the ABC franchise. And NBC premieres a new crime procedural 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, Sept. 25-Oct. 1. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE VOICE 8 p.m. on NBC. Niall Horan, John Legend and Gwen Stefani are welcoming another a new judge to join them in their red swivel chairs: the country-music star Reba McEntire. Per usual, the season will begin with blind auditions.BELOW DECK MEDITERRANEAN 9 p.m. on Bravo. You all thought I was done talking about the Below Deck franchise? Nope! Captain Sandy Yawn will be back at the helm of this show and also a new boat. Some familiar cast returns (including the deckhand Luka Brunton, who was on TV screens just last week as the crew said goodbye to each other on “Below Deck Down Under.”) and we’ll also get to know a new bosun, chef and a stew. If you want to make the show more enjoyable, take a drink every time Sandy micromanages or mentions the infamous slide.Jesse L. Martin plays the professor Alec Mercer on “The Irrational.”Sergei Bachlakov/NBCTHE IRRATIONAL 10 p.m. on NBC. Apparently 2023 is the year that cable TV is bringing back the art of the crime procedural a la “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” or “Criminal Minds.” This new series follows the behavioral science professor Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) as he uses his expertise on psychology and body language to solve high-stakes crimes.TuesdayDANCING WITH THE STARS 8 p.m. on ABC. Though this is the 32nd season of this show, things are feeling new: There is a new host (Julianne Hough joins Alfonso Ribeiro), a new pro dancer (Rylee Arnold) and, of course, new celebrity contestants. This season is a little trickier than others because of the ongoing Hollywood strikes. A writer on staff is a member of the Writers Guild of America, for instance, and many of the contestants are members of SAG-AFTRA union, which represents TV and movie actors. Though it makes things a little more complicated, “DWTS” also continued amid the 2007-8 writers’ strike.SAVIOR COMPLEX 9 p.m. on HBO. In 2010, Renee Bach, an evangelical missionary from the United States, went to Uganda to set up a charity hospital. She was 20 years old and didn’t have a medical degree. In five years, Bach said that her hospital took in 940 children — and 105 of them died. In 2020, she settled a lawsuit after two mothers of children who had died in her care sued. This three-part documentary examines the lead-up and the aftermath.WednesdaySURVIVOR 8 p.m. on CBS. This season’s castaways are headed to Fiji and are going to be divided up into three tribes of six people. The man we all know and love, Jeff Probst, will be back to host as the season gets underway with a new 90-minute episode.ThursdayTHE GOLDEN BACHELOR 8 p.m. on ABC. The host, Jesse Palmer, is working overtime to get his check this month with two new “Bachelor” franchise shows premiering back to back. First up, we have the new series with the 72-year-old bachelor from Indiana, Gerry Turner, and the women vying for his heart. Since Instagram and influencing isn’t as much the rage with Boomers and Gen Xers, we will hopefully have less of the “here for the right reasons” conversations. Although, my grandfather loved scrolling TikTok, so who really knows?Rachel Recchia and Jesse Palmer on “Bachelor in Paradise.”ABC/Craig SjodinBACHELOR IN PARADISE 9 p.m. on ABC. Jesse Palmer travels to Mexico for the new season of “Paradise.” We know the drill by now: singles who have previously been on “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” head down to Puerto Vallarta with the hope of another chance at love.FridayTHE NEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS: HOW TO FIX A PAGEANT 10 p.m. on FX. The third season of this stand-alone documentary series begins with a look into the world of pageants. Crystle Stewart, a beauty pageant titleholder, became the president of the Miss USA organization in 2020. Three years later, she left the role. This episode features an interview with Stewart after her departure.SaturdayLeonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”Mary Cybulski/Paramount PicturesTHE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) 9:30 p.m. on IFC. Jordan Belfort, a corrupt stock trader played by Leonardo DiCaprio, becomes simultaneously lauded and reviled onscreen in this movie about greed directed by Martin Scorsese. What makes the movie “a vital and troubling document of the present is not so much Jordan’s business plan — he tells us repeatedly that it’s too complicated and boring to explain — as his approach to life,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times.SundayFAMILY GUY 9:30 p.m. on Fox. This beloved and long-running adult cartoon is back for its 22nd season and things are starting out with … an accidental baby? Meg agrees to be a surrogate, but when the couple never comes to pick up their baby, the Griffins must welcome another family member. More

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    ‘Dracula, a Comedy of Terrors’ Review: An Equal-Opportunity Seducer

    A gender-bending play at New World Stages filters well-known characters through influences like “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Young Frankenstein.”You don’t need to have been to Transylvania to know that one way to kill vampires is with a stake through the heart. In “Dracula, a Comedy of Terrors,” a gender-bending play at New World Stages, Dr. Van Helsing calls for a “shtick” to slay her greatest foe. Or at least that’s what “stake” sounds like after it’s been mauled by Arnie Burton’s German-accented, female Van Helsing.That Van Helsing deploys (a) shtick to slay her opponent sums up the mode of this “Dracula,” which actually aims to be funny. It’s a refreshing change from all the stage bloodsuckers that have unintentionally made us laugh over the decades, whether they attempted to sing (“Dance of the Vampires,” “Lestat”) or not (cheap props and woeful ponytails made an Off Broadway “Dracula” from 2011 one of the most hilariously inept spectacles I have ever been lucky enough to catch at a supposedly professional theater).Even better is that this production — not quite enough, but often — fulfills its mission.Boatman and Burton. The staging constantly draws attention to farcical, fourth-wall-breaking devices. Matthew MurphyThe play, by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen and directed by Greenberg, had a starry audio version in 2020, processing the well-known gallery of characters through influences like “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Young Frankenstein.” Dracula (James Daly) is now a Frank-N-Furter-like equal-opportunity seducer whose manly chest is encased in what looks like a black see-through doily. (Tristan Raines did the costume design.) Naturally, the vampire proceeds to help the meek real estate broker Jonathan Harker (Andrew Keenan-Bolger) and his fiancée, Lucy (Jordan Boatman), shake off their Victorian hangups — strong Brad and Janet vibes there.As if this setup weren’t enough indication that the play pays no mind to the “terrors” part of its title, Greenberg’s staging constantly draws attention to farcical, fourth-wall-breaking devices. The sound designer, Victoria Deiorio, for example, is called upon to deploy effects shamelessly (clip-clopping horses never get old), and except for Daly, who shticks to Dracula, the other cast members constantly switch roles, regardless of the character’s gender.The most adept at this exercise is Burton, an expert ham who portrays both Van Helsing and Lucy’s sex-starved sister, Mina (“I got all the recessive genes”), as if they had escaped from a Ridiculous Theatrical Company production. A close second is Ellen Harvey as Dracula’s little helper, Renfield, and the siblings’ father, Dr. Wallace Westfeldt. At the performance I attended, Harvey landed the single biggest laugh when she shifted from one character to another in a single scream.For the show to really work, it needs more moments like that one: simple, goofy and fast. That last quality is important in farce, but unfortunately, in this case, the second half of the evening drags a bit. Some scenes even slow down enough to suggest … emotions? In this context, that’s just like garlic to a vampire.Dracula, a Comedy of TerrorsThrough Jan. 7 at New World Stages, Manhattan; draculacomedy.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    On ‘Golden Bachelor,’ Looking for Love and a Pickleball Partner

    The latest “Bachelor” spinoff stars singles who are 60 and older, a largely ignored demographic in the ever-growing world of dating shows.Drivers in Los Angeles heading north on La Cienega Boulevard these days might notice a bronzed gentleman smiling down at them from billboards poised on either side of the street.He is Gerry Turner, an Indiana retiree who used to work in the food distribution industry. But as one of the billboards explains, those were not the qualifications that led to his becoming the star of the newest “Bachelor” spinoff.“He’s hot. He’s sexy. He’s 72.”The appraisal was taken from a recent headline about Turner, who as the first “Golden Bachelor” is the center of a new spin on the franchise that features singles 60 and older.“This is certainly the first time in a ‘Bachelor’ campaign that we used a quote from AARP in our billboards,” said Shannon Ryan, who oversees the show’s marketing.That “The Bachelor” is trying a slight variation on a tested formula is no revelation. The show’s myriad spinoffs have included “The Bachelorette,” “Bachelor in Paradise,” “The Bachelor” in Canada, “The Bachelor” in wintry weather, “The Bachelor” with a cash prize, and “The Bachelor” featuring people who work in the music industry.But in all of those variations on the theme, most of the eligible singles have been young, fresh-faced 20- or 30-somethings looking to marry for the first time. In “The Golden Bachelor,” which premieres on Thursday, the nearly two dozen women vying for Turner’s attention are between 60 and 75 and include divorcées, widows, mothers and grandmothers.Sitting in the show’s Mediterranean-style mansion in Agoura Hills, Calif., last month, a few hours before an evening of filming began, Bennett Graebner, one of the showrunners, recalled the new cast’s giddy introduction to the lavish home, with its infinity pool and Jacuzzis that look out onto the tree-dotted hills.At first, he said, the contestants’ reactions were similar to the ones he has seen over his 15 years as a producer for “The Bachelor.”“They ran around and looked at their bedrooms and yelled off the balcony, and we said, ‘OK, this feels like “The Bachelor,”’” Graebner said. “And they came down to the kitchen and had mimosas and they were doing toasts, and we said, ‘OK, this feels like “The Bachelor.”’”“And then,” he went on, “one woman said, ‘Let’s toast to Social Security!’”He hadn’t heard that one before.With “The Golden Bachelor,” ABC is recognizing that a core segment of its audience — the network’s median viewer age is 64 — has thus far been largely ignored in the ever-growing array of dating shows. (The median age drops to 42 for ABC shows streaming on Hulu.)In recent years, some programs have experimented with older participants, though not on this level and not with much success.In Netflix’s “Dating Around,” Leonard, a 70-year-old private investigator, became a fan favorite.NetflixIn “Dating Around,” Netflix’s first original dating series, which had its debut the year before “Love Is Blind” became a global phenomenon, the fan favorite was Leonard, a 70-year-old private investigator. On his dinner dates, he reminisced about doing LSD in his younger years and danced the Lindy Hop with one woman on the sidewalk.Last year, executive producers behind the popular dating show “Love Island” introduced a new show called “My Mom, Your Dad” on HBO Max, in which college-age adults watched their parents dating each other from a secret viewing room. The show didn’t last long, but an adaptation in Britain called “My Mum, Your Dad” just had its finale.And then there’s “MILF Manor” on TLC, in which eight mothers in their 40s, 50s and 60s found themselves at a Mexican hotel in a dating pool that consisted of their adult sons.Howard Lee, the president of TLC, said that “MILF Manor” intrigued the network because of its age bracket, which stuck out from the deluge of dating show pitches he gets featuring people in their 20s and 30s.“For the first time, this was a series that didn’t go in that direction,” he said. “MILF Manor” had a viral moment on social media — partly driven by its similarity to a “30 Rock” gag — but it is not yet clear whether it will get a second season.With “The Golden Bachelor,” in which the participants are as young as 60, the idea is getting its tryout in an altogether different league. After more than two decades, “The Bachelor” franchise remains a reality juggernaut, and “The Golden Bachelor” will be one of ABC’s biggest releases this fall, in part because of the network’s narrowed list of offerings during the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes.If “The Golden Bachelor” succeeds, expect more opportunities to arise for senior singles to look for love on television.The showrunners said a broader cultural shift toward embracing, rather than hiding, aging helped pave the way for this show.“Martha Stewart is on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 80 or so years old,” said Jason Ehrlich, one of three “Golden Bachelor” showrunners. “John Stamos was posting photos of himself in the shower nude for his 60th birthday. There seems to be a moment where there’s an appetite for this.”“Bachelor” producers have been talking about a show like this for about a decade. Their efforts to make it a reality started in earnest in 2019, and they began circulating ads to recruit “seniors looking for love” in 2020. But Covid-19 put the idea on hold. (“This is not the show to make in the middle of a pandemic,” Graebner said.)In “My Mom, Your Dad,” college-age adults watched from a secret viewing room as their parents go on dates with one another.MaxWhen the producers returned to the concept earlier this year, they rediscovered Turner’s audition tape. In it he explains that he is ready to find another partner after losing his wife of 43 years, whom he met in high school, to a sudden infection.In an interview, Turner, a father and grandfather, said he is “very, very grateful, not just for myself but for people my age, that this show has been developed and it has come to reality.”The women of “The Golden Bachelor” brought into the mansion a certain self-assured humor that comes with age, the show’s producers said. For example, the cast debated for days whether it was Susan’s meatballs or Edith’s guacamole that gave the house gas. And in Thursday’s premiere episode, when one of the women steps out of the limousine and greets Turner she opens with one thing they both have in common: hearing aids.The women’s fun facts include that Christina’s first concert was the Beatles in 1964 and that Kathy is “OBSESSED” with Christmas. Several of the participants, including Turner, share an enthusiasm for pickleball. And some of the women also have long careers behind them; Marina, 60, has three master’s degrees.“When we cast for the other shows, some of the younger kids come to us and they have a feeling that they need to present a version of themselves that we want to see,” said Claire Freeland, the third “Golden Bachelor” showrunner. “These women were just themselves from the jump.”When dating shows have included older people in the past, it has often been as a kind of gimmick. The original “Dating Game,” which premiered in 1965, once brought on Kathryn Minner, an actress who was known for playing the “little old lady” characters on TV, movies and, most famously, in an ad campaign for Dodge vehicles.“The Bachelor” has always been fond of puns and stunts, and the golden edition is likely to have plenty of age-related bits. In the mansion, there is a supply of Werther’s Originals — just like in your grandmother’s living room — and the show’s promo introducing the female contestants includes footage of a woman cleaning her glasses and another slipping on pantyhose, to the tune of “Believe” by Cher.But the producers have tried to let the age-related humor be driven by the participants themselves.“We’re never laughing at them, but we are certainly laughing with them,” Ehrlich said. He said he studied the sitcom “The Golden Girls” to find interesting conversation topics to pull out if things get dull.The showrunners insist that this is not just a show for the older viewers of “The Bachelor,” about 43 percent of whom are 55 and older, according to a 2020 YouGov poll.They think “The Golden Bachelor” has the potential to bring generations together to watch a more-wholesome version of the franchise. They also hope that a different kind of cast can entice lapsed “Bachelor” fans back into the fold and bring in new audiences who might have turned their noses up at the brand before now.The ads, for example, won’t have the typical reality show snippets of screaming-and-crying dramatics, opting instead for more uplifting messaging, said Ryan, the president of marketing for Disney Entertainment Television, which includes ABC.Even Eileen Zurbriggen, a feminist social psychologist who has argued in her research that dating TV shows like “The Bachelor” are actively harming young viewers’ capacity to start healthy relationships, in part by strengthening the perception of dating as a kind of game, said she saw potential for the show to work against gender clichés.“It is refreshing, in a culture that is still so youth obsessed, to see older women presented as interested in sex and still sexually desirable,” Zurbriggen said.April Jayne, who appeared on the dating show “MILF Manor,” said a cultural shift around aging has allowed her to embrace being 61 in her career rather than hide it.TLCApril Jayne, an actress, singer and fitness trainer who was one of the contestants on “MILF Manor,” said she spent much of her acting career hiding her age. Now at 61, she is seeing more work opportunities than ever before since her reality TV appearance.“Once you hit middle age, it does not mean you’re washed up,” Jayne said, though she noted that the 40-year age gap between her and the young man she was dating on the show was perhaps a bit too large.By the way, she added, if ABC happens to be casting for a “Golden Bachelorette,” she is interested and available.Callie Holtermann contributed reporting. More

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    ‘Billions’ Season 7, Episode 7 Recap: The Way of the Ocean

    Philip gets a hard lesson from the coldblooded sharks around him about the laws of nature.Season 7, Episode 7: ‘DMV’Well, that was a nasty bit of business.One of the best episodes of “Billions” in recent memory, “DMV” — named after the government agency turned into an unlikely bed of low-stakes graft and influence-peddling by the Rhoades family — shows the depths to which many of the show’s leading players will sink to get what they want. Even if their desires are relatively high-minded, the depths remain the same.Philip gets a turn in the spotlight this week when he reels in Prince Cap’s latest whale: bioengineered, self-repairing concrete, invented by one of his mentors in college, Dr. Mike Rulov (Timothy Busfield). Thrilled by the benefits such a material would present for America’s crumbling infrastructure, to say nothing of how rich it would make them all, Philip pitches the idea to Prince, who loves it.A little too much, unfortunately. It’s such a great invention, with such potential for positive change in the world, that Mike insists on owning it lock, stock and barrel. If Rulov demurs, Prince is prepared to snap up related projects and sue Rulov for infringement, a practice called “patent sharking.”Though stunned at Prince’s “blitzkrieg” tactics, Philip tries to play good cop. With the legal and financial resources of one of the smaller G7 nations, Prince would make the new concrete a bigger deal than Rulov could, even with his own high-rollers backing him. But there was clearly no chance of such a sale, even before Prince started making veiled threats. Rulov is simply not the kind of person willing to sell off something into which he has poured so much of himself.When Philip dutifully relays this information to Prince, it only provides the billionaire with more ammo. If Rulov cares about the concrete so much, Prince reasons, then tying it up in litigation for years will force him to sell because of his simple but irresistible desire to see his creation out in the world. Not that Mike is in any hurry for that to happen, even if he wins the fight: At the suggestion of the increasingly sinister Kate Sacker, he considers keeping the technology under wraps until he can roll it out as part of his 2028 re-election campaign. Such is the transactional nature of Mike’s do-gooding at this point.Desperate, Philip turns to Wendy — not for her advice, although that’s the front he puts up, but rather for her connection to Chuck. He knows that if he tells her the whole story, she will reach out to her ex, who will see an opportunity to stick it to Prince.But Philip’s hope that Chuck can shut down the entire patent-sharking sector is a pipe dream. All Chuck can do is have a friend at the Defense Department classify the patent as a matter of national security, seize Rulov’s efforts, and prevent either man from being the sole controller of such an important invention. Of course, the government will most likely sit on it forever, benefiting no one. But if that’s what it takes to stop Prince from getting his hands on this potential game-changer, so be it.Even after this debacle, Philip still wants nothing to do with the plot against Prince, the existence of which Wendy intimates to him after many a knowing glance between herself and Taylor. Philip storms out of her office, all but yelling, “Deniability! Deniability!” with his fingers in his ears.Two parallel story lines echo these abuses of power. In one, Charles Sr. and his grandson, Kevin, are arrested when Charles attempts to bribe a Department of Motor Vehicles employee (Patrick Fischler) into giving Kevin a passing grade on his driver’s test. Chuck throws his weight around, cuts a sweetheart deal with the district attorney, lands the outraged DMV employee a promotion and joins Wendy at Kevin’s next test in his father’s place. Everyone wins, except anyone who thinks we’re all equal in the eyes of the law.Meanwhile, after the disastrous “truth-telling sessions” that saw the Prince Cap foot soldiers tear their boss to shreds, they express discomfort with the idea of Mike conducting the annual performance reviews. But it doesn’t stop there. Banding together, they elect Victor and Rian to tell the committee Mike assembles to take his place — Wags, Scooter, Taylor and Philip — that they reject the committee’s authority to conduct the reviews. They pitch postponing them for a year and detaching their annual comp from the review process in the meantime. Mike caves and even throws them a gala casino night as a morale-building exercise.Or so it seems. In reality, he and Scooter have colluded to have the whole evening recorded, employing the real-life poker ace Vanessa Selbst to analyze their behavior and risk patterns — a performance review without the consent of the performers. Judging from Victor’s and Rian’s reactions, this has exactly the effect on morale you would expect it to.But here’s the thing, as Chuck explains to Philip: In this world, there are harbor seals, like Rulov, and there are sharks, like Prince. Whether it’s running a promising start-up out of business in order to seize it for himself, or making an end-run around his staff’s expressed desires just because he can, Prince will go in for the kill. “Sharks will shark,” Chuck says ruefully. “Harbor seals will harbor seal. That is the way of the ocean.” At this point, everyone’s out in the deep water, watching President Prince’s dorsal fin get closer and closer.Loose changeCharles Sr. gets the biggest laugh lines of the night, twice over. First there’s the precise way he chooses to express his righteous indignation upon being arrested: “This is ridiculous! I was social friends with Robert Moses!” (Charles either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Moses’s reputational stock has somewhat fallen since their last soirée.)Then there’s the deft way Charles gets Chuck to focus on his own parental neglect in failing to take Kevin to the test — rather than on Charles’s own literally criminal behavior. “Who’s the [expletive] now?” he asks before repeating it more slowly for emphasis: “Who’s … the [expletive] … now?” Chuck’s teary-eyed failure to recognize just how ridiculous this is shows how effective a manipulator Charles remains.What a delight to see Fischler, an actor who in years past cemented his status as one of the screen’s most memorable actors in the space of just two scenes. “Mad Men” viewers will recall his turn as the insult comic Jimmy Barrett, whose dressing down of Don Draper for sleeping with his wife — “You’re garbage, and you know it” — all but flays off the ad man’s skin. Meanwhile, David Lynch fans, or anyone familiar with a “scariest scenes of all time” listicle, know him as the man from the “Winkie’s dream” sequence in “Mulholland Drive,” in which his portrayal of a man facing his worst nightmare is as convincing as it is unnerving.Which members of the Prince Cap Movie Night crew understand that “The Wolf of Wall Street” is intended as a cautionary tale rather than a how-to manual? According to Wags, they are Kate, Victor, and Rian — not that it has stopped any of the three from acting rather wolfish.It’s fun to see the folks on the floor form a sort of pop-up union to collectively fight against the performance reviews. The “Hot Labor Summer” continues, even in “Billions”-land.Normally I’d come down pretty hard on a needle drop as narratively obvious as playing R.E.M.’s “Drive” after a kid passes his driving test, but I’m choosing to believe the song was chosen not for its title but for its somber tone, reflective of the mood of the rest of the episode. Otherwise, “I Can’t Drive 55” by Sammy Hagar was sitting right there. More

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    Actors’ Equity Seeks to Unionize Broadway Production Assistants

    The position is one of the few nonunion segments of the theater industry’s work force.Actors’ Equity, the labor union representing American stage performers and stage managers, is seeking to unionize Broadway production assistants, one of the few nonunion segments of the industry work force.The campaign comes at a moment when labor unions in the United States have become increasingly restive; there are organizing efforts in many sectors of the economy, and Hollywood’s writers and actors have been on strike for months.Broadway production assistants work with stage managers in entry-level positions that are usually filled only during rehearsal and preview periods. Equity described them as “doing everything from preparing rehearsal materials to ensuring decisions made during rehearsals are recorded to being extra sets of hands and eyes during complicated technical rehearsals to efficiently running errands that keep the rehearsal productive.”Many of the workers are young and are paid minimum wage, according to the union.Late on Thursday, Equity asked the Broadway League, a trade association representing producers, to voluntarily recognize Actors’ Equity Association as the bargaining representative for production assistants working on commercial productions on Broadway and in sit-down productions, which are extended non-touring engagements produced by members of the Broadway League outside New York.If the League does not agree, Equity said it would ask the National Labor Relations Board to oversee an election.“Broadway is an extremely heavily unionized workplace, and these are some of the only folks without union contracts in these rooms,” said Erin Maureen Koster, an Equity vice president who represents stage managers. Koster said that without union membership, production assistants have less protection should they be injured or harassed or have other concerns.Equity said that there were only about a half-dozen people working in the job category on Broadway and in sit-down productions at any one time, but that about 100 people have worked in the position over the past two years. The union said the position was an important rung on the career ladder for people aspiring to work as stage managers on Broadway; even some people who have worked as stage managers Off Broadway or in regional theaters take temporary jobs as Broadway production assistants as a way to break into the industry.“As shows are getting more complicated, they are hiring more production assistants, and hiring qualified stage mangers into these roles,” Stefanie Frey, Equity’s director of organizing and mobilization, said. “It’s time.”The Broadway League said in a statement that it was considering the union’s request and looked forward to discussing it further. “The Broadway League and our members support the right of employees to lawfully choose a bargaining representative,” the statement said. More

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    ‘Sex Education’ Is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know.

    The raunchy British teen dramedy has been away for two years. Here’s a refresher for the Netflix series’s fourth and final season.School is back in session for the sweet, sometimes absurd British comedy “Sex Education,” which leans heavily into its streaming-series freedom to portray adolescent sex for what it generally is: awkward, mediocre, part of life. Expect close-ups of patchy pubic hair, belly rolls and many (many) penises — among other physical realities of sex that don’t typically appear in teen stories.The show, which won the award for best comedy series at the International Emmy Awards in 2022, centers on Otis (Asa Butterfield), the erudite but romantically floundering son of a sex therapist (Gillian Anderson), who finds that he, too, has a gift for doling out intimate advice — in his case, to his desperately uninformed classmates. Unlike other raunchy teen dramas, like the provocative “Skins” and “Euphoria,” “Sex Education” takes a normalizing, endearingly un-edgy and even occasionally musical approach to the birds and the bees (though the writers would probably choose a more clinical term).In the fourth and final season, now streaming on Netflix, Otis must navigate a new school alongside his effervescent best friend, Eric (Ncuti Gatwa). After the closure of Moordale Secondary School at the end of Season 3, they now face a social hurdle more daunting than trying to become popular: survival as the new kids.But if popularity at Moordale was all about status and appearance, the new school represents something of an alternative educational universe, where learning is student-led, sustainability is cool and gossip is frowned upon.Will Otis and Eric fit in? Will Otis set up a new sex therapy clinic? And where is his broody, wryly sharp love interest Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey)?Two years have passed since the release of Season 3. Here’s a refresher — a little gossip, if you will — as we head into Season 4.What happened to Moordale?After a schoolwide sexually transmitted infection outbreak in Season 2 and an obscene, intergalactic production of “Romeo and Juliet: The Musical,” Moordale Secondary School attracted news attention for its debauchery and earned the nickname “Sex School.” The administration hired a new head teacher, Hope Haddon (Jemima Kirke), to turn things around, but her shame-based approach to discipline and strict dress code couldn’t keep the students from being sexually curious teenagers.As revenge, the student body revolted at a public assembly for Moordale’s investors and the news media, disrupting the program with a screening of a sex-positive student film in which they dressed in genitalia-inspired costumes. Then the audience chanted, “We are Sex School,” and the band performed an explicit song.It was chaotic and symphonic, and it was enough of a ruckus to scare off investors and prospective paying parents. Moordale’s funding was withdrawn, and it closed its doors, forcing its students to find new schools.Where is Maeve?In Season 3, one of the English teachers at Moordale, Ms. Sands (Rakhee Thakrar), gave Maeve, Otis’s crush and sex clinic business partner, a brochure for a gifted and talented program in the United States. Throughout the season, Maeve wavered back and forth on the decision, concerned about the money and leaving her little sister behind.Otis and Maeve’s will-they-won’t-they relationship got some resolution when they finally kissed on a class trip to France. But in the final scene of the season, we learned that Maeve was leaving to study literature at a prestigious American university.The news came as a blow to Otis, who was happy for Maeve’s dream opportunity but devastated to see her go. Maeve promised that her departure didn’t mean that they were over, but she didn’t define the relationship further.Gillian Anderson in the Season 4 premiere of “Sex Education.”Thomas Wood/NetflixIs Jean … OK?Yes … and no. At the end of Season 3 Otis’s mother, Jean, went into labor with dire complications, including hemorrhaging. But she pulled through, and in the season finale, she delivered a healthy baby girl whom she named Joy. Although the pregnancy had a happy ending, the future of the family is a bit fuzzier. In one of the final scenes of the finale, Jean opened a paternity test and her shock revealed that her partner, Jakob (Mikael Persbrandt), might not be the father.Throughout the pregnancy, Jean and Jakob were committed to raising their baby together and forging a robust, if a bit untraditional, family unit with Otis and Ola (Patricia Allison), Jakob’s daughter (who, in a messy set of circumstances, used to date Otis).Will Jean, a careerist rising in her field, continue her sex therapy practice? Will Jakob remain in the picture? And if he isn’t the father, who is?Where do things stand with Eric and Adam?Eric, who is gay and proudly wears eyeliner, colorful nail polish and silky scarves, has had an emotional roller coaster of a relationship with Adam (Connor Swindells), a closeted bully who is new to intimate relationships. They grew closer as Adam learned to accept his sexuality, but Eric struggled to be with someone who couldn’t fully open up, and he eventually kissed another boy on a family trip to Nigeria.Adam eventually forgave the infidelity, but Eric realized he had outgrown the relationship and broke up with him anyway. Heartbroken, Adam began to come to terms with his identity; in the finale, he came out as bisexual to his mother, finally admitting to her that Eric had been his boyfriend. This could be a turning point for the animal-loving gentle giant who always feels like a misfit.Is there still a wide array of experience in Season 4?Somehow the show’s lens has gotten even wider. “Sex Education” is known for its nuanced depictions of gender, sexuality and disability, and for presenting forms of intimacy that are rarely displayed on mainstream television. A progressive new school promises an even more varied student body, with types of relationships not explored in previous seasons. Whether the school lives up to its “good vibes only” reputation remains to be seen.The show celebrates the body — its limitations, its potential, its drive — in its many forms. Whatever Season 4 may bring, it is sure to explore a wide range of teenage lust and physical complexities. More

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    Stephen Gould, Tenor Best Known for Tackling Wagner, Dies at 61

    He was especially acclaimed for his performances at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany. As his voice developed, he once said, so did his view of how and why to deploy it. Stephen Gould, a tenor who after a detour into musical theater established himself as a leading interpreter of the operas of Richard Wagner in performances at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany and elsewhere, died on Tuesday in Chesapeake, Va. He was 61.His death was confirmed by his longtime agent, Stephanie Ammann. Early this month Mr. Gould announced on his website that he had bile duct cancer, that the disease was terminal and that he was retiring from singing.The Bayreuth Festival paid tribute to him on its website after that announcement.“Stephen Gould was, with interruptions, one of the mainstays of the Bayreuth Festival from 2004 to 2022,” the festival’s post said. “Highly esteemed by audiences, the press and within the festival family, he was rightly dubbed the ‘Wagner Marathon Man’ and thrilled audiences with his distinctive voice and condition in countless performances.”Mr. Gould established himself as a reliable heldentenor, a singer who takes on heroic roles, mostly in the German repertory, requiring a particularly powerful voice. Such roles are among the most demanding in opera.Mr. Gould in the title role of “Tannhäuser” at the Bayreuth Festival in 2004, with Roman Trekel as Wolfram. “This was his Bayreuth debut,” one critic wrote, “and by the end of the evening he had become a festival favorite.”Jochen Quast/European Pressphoto AgencyHe first appeared at Bayreuth in 2004, performing the title role in Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” a production that dazzled Olin Chism of The Dallas Morning News.“One of the heroes was American tenor Stephen Gould, who sang the title character,” Mr. Chism wrote. “This was his Bayreuth debut, and by the end of the evening he had become a festival favorite.”He remained so over the next 18 years, performing in 20 Bayreuth productions; he regularly sang the title role in “Siegfried” and Tristan in “Tristan und Isolde.” He also performed in leading opera houses around the world, including with the Metropolitan Opera, where he made his debut in 2010 as Erik, the hunter, in Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman.”Mr. Gould knew that the major roles he undertook required a certain maturity.“Everyone wants their heroes to be young and vibrant and look like Brad Pitt in his early days,” he said in a 2019 interview with the German news outlet Deutsche Welle. “But you have to give the voice time to develop.”As his voice developed, he noted in the same interview, so did his view of how and why he was deploying it.Mr. Gould as Tristan and Nina Stemme as Isolde in a production of “Tristan und Isolde” at the Royal Opera House in London in 2014.Robbie Jack/Corbis, via Getty Images“I don’t try to sing for the public anymore,” he said. “I did when I was younger, of course. You want to be popular, you want the critics to love you, you want your career to go high and all of that. Now when I’m onstage, what I enjoy most is discovering something for myself.”Stephen Grady Gould was born on Jan. 24, 1962, in Roanoke, Va. He studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston before joining Lyric Opera of Chicago’s developmental program for young artists, the Center for American Artists. He originally imagined himself as a baritone before switching to tenor.He was put to the test at age 27 when he had to substitute for Chris Merritt in the demanding role of Argirio in Gioachino Rossini’s “Tancredi” when Mr. Merritt became ill during a run in Los Angeles, where the opera was being staged jointly by Lyric Opera and the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.Mr. Gould in the Royal Opera’s production of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt” in 2009.Robbie Jack/Corbis, via Getty Images“He gamely tackled the patriarchal ardors of Argirio with a light, often pinched voice and reasonable dramatic presence within the static staging context,” John Henken wrote in The Los Angeles Times. “The stratospheric climaxes were forced out as high-pressure bleats, and initially much of the passage work was smeared. But he seemed to gain strength and composure, and more than held his own in the big Act II duet with Marilyn Horne in the title role.”Soon after, on what he said was a whim, he auditioned for the national touring company of “The Phantom of the Opera” and was cast. He spent several years with that troupe, performing various roles, though not either of the male leads.“When I finished with musicals, I just was going to quit,” he said in 2019, “but I wanted to give it one more chance and met a teacher from the Metropolitan Opera who told me that I’d been singing incorrectly from the very beginning.”He rededicated himself to opera, working on his technique and growing into the Wagnerian roles for which he became best known.“By then,” he said, “I was at the right age to actually sing Wagner. Too many singers today are pushed into their big Wagnerian roles in their 20s.”Information about Mr. Gould’s survivors was not immediately available. More

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    ‘Job’ Review: A Stress Test That Feels Like It’s Life or Death

    In Max Wolf Friedlich’s nimble play, a crisis therapist tries to connect with a tech worker who is broken by her profession.“Job,” a tight, 80-minute play by Max Wolf Friedlich, is filled with so many ideas that it seems to expand beyond the walls of the tiny SoHo Playhouse where it opened this week. But claustrophobia sets in as, throughout one session, a young patient and an older hippie crisis therapist confront the turbulence of life in the belly of the cyber-beast.As the play opens, the therapist, Loyd (Peter Friedman), is trying to soothe the agitated Jane (Sydney Lemmon), who is pointing a gun at his head. Stress has gotten the better of her, culminating in a smartphone-era calamity: A video of her breakdown at work went viral. No longer feeling safe and still clearly unwell, Jane nevertheless has an industrial-grade resolve to return to her job at a Bay Area tech behemoth. This psychological evaluation will determine if that’s possible.Loyd, quietly pleased by his reputation for handling lost-cause cases, begins to tease out her anxieties, but soon finds Jane’s preoccupations with the many kinds of violence committed worldwide a tough web to untangle — and to distance himself from.As Jane, Lemmon captures the frenetic essence of a person overwhelmed, and ultimately paralyzed, by all the live-streamed killings playing repeatedly across a seemingly indifferent internet. Though a victim of her industry’s grind mentality, Jane doesn’t come off as a martyr: Her acid-tongued clapbacks and finger-pointing hardly feel excusable.Lemmon searingly personifies her character’s contradictions on her own, yet the production, nimbly directed by Michael Herwitz, also dips into her overstimulated psyche, as when computer clicks trigger rapid successions of TikTok-like sensory overload, with Jessie Char and Maxwell Neely-Cohen’s sound design blasting cacophonous drilling noises and porn sounds.Though Friedman’s character is the more passive one, he imbues Loyd’s counterarguments with a genuine passion — intensely talking with Jane about our uneasy relationships to social justice, family, personal fulfillment and trauma in the cyber age.As they unveil more about themselves, a late revelation nearly undoes the play by flattening the open-ended ethical questions it had so appealingly been posing. The play has to wrap up somehow, but this abrupt shift lands us in an entirely different genre.Friedlich’s clever updating of the generational-divide format is not undermined by the play’s thematic vastness. And it’s refreshing to see characters who are not afraid of their intellect, or feel the need to condescend by slowing down their high-speed streams of life-or-death consciousness.JobThrough Oct. 15 at SoHo Playhouse, Manhattan; sohoplayhouse.com. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. More