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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Claim to Fame’ and ‘American Gigolo’

    ABC wraps up its new celebrity-adjacent competition show, and Showtime airs a modern TV version of the Richard Gere film.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. 5-11. Details and times are subject to change.MondayOUT OF OFFICE (2022) 8 p.m. on Comedy Central. Though this is a scripted film and not a documentary, it might as well be since it focuses on a topic many of us have been experiencing for the last two-plus years: the blurring of work and personal boundaries as people work from home. The movie, created by the producers of “The Office,” has an all-star cast: Ken Jeong, Leslie Jones, Jay Pharoah and Paul F. Tompkins, to name a few, as well as “Office” alum Oscar Nuñez. The film follows each character as they live through the “new normal” of working in the place where they also live.From left: Victoria Zito, Margaux Lignel, Emily Gorelik and Anya Firestone in “Real Girlfriends in Paris.”Fred Jagueneau/BravoREAL GIRLFRIENDS IN PARIS 9:15 p.m. on Bravo. This new reality show is as if you took “Emily in Paris” but made it real life. It follows six American young women who are living in Paris as they focus on their careers, dating and their friendships with each other. Viewers can expect beautiful views of Paris, lots of date nights and plenty of luxury shopping.NO ORDINARY LIFE (2022) 10 p.m. on CNN. On-camera personalities often get the glory, but this documentary focuses on five women behind the camera: the photojournalists Jane Evans, Maria Fleet, Margaret Moth, Mary Rogers, and Cynde Strand. . The director Heather O’Neill, a CNN alum herself, used behind-the-scenes footage and archival interviews to paint a picture of their careers across decades. The CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour is also featured as she describes the aftermath of Moth being shot in the face by a sniper in Sarajevo while on the job in 1992.TuesdayLIES, POLITICS AND DEMOCRACY 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In this two-hour documentary special, which is also acting as Frontline’s season premiere, the filmmaker Michael Kirk examines the fragility of American democracy and investigates the lies and misinformation surrounding the 2020 presidential election, leading to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol Riot. This documentary also comes as primaries for the 2022 midterm elections are underway.CLAIM TO FAME 10 p.m. on ABC. In this new show, each contestant is related to a celebrity, and the other contestants must guess who is related to which celebrity for a prize of $100,000. It’s hosted by two celebrity relatives themselves, the eldest and youngest Jonas brothers: Kevin and Frankie (not to be confused with the Jonas Brothers, which includes Kevin but not Frankie). In this week’s episode, all of the contestants identities will be revealed, but so far eliminated contestants include Chuck Norris’s grandson, Simone Biles’s sister and Laverne Cox’s twin.WednesdayJay Leno and Brie Larson in “Jay Leno’s Garage.”Nicole Weingart/CNBCJAY LENO’S GARAGE 10 p.m. on CNBC. Jay Leno’s talk (and car) show is back for an eight-episode season — but this time with a twist. The only vehicles featured are electric or use alternative fuel sources. As always, the show will be as celebrity-filled, featuring Brie Larson, Post Malone, Kelly Clarkson, Pitbull and James Marsden, just to name a few. Elon Musk will also be making an appearance.ThursdayDEAD RECKONING (1947) 8 p.m. on TCM. This film noir mystery tells the story of Rip Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) and Jonny Drake (William Prince) as they are sent to D.C. to receive top honors for their military services. Jonny jumps out the train to avoid photographers and later turns up dead. Murdock suspects foul play and tries to solve the mystery, but the femme fatal Coral Chandler (Lizabeth Scott) is a roadblock.THE CON 10 p.m. on ABC. A small town pastor who stole $40 million from his investors, wrote a suicide note, then jumped on a ferry to Fort Myers, Fla.? A mom who made fake coupons to use at stores? These are a few of the stories about con artists recounted in this docuseries, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. As this second season wraps up, the final episode tells a story about a man who was taken into police custody for pretending to be a doctor but then was still able to open a medical practice.FridayCAMPFIRE SESSIONS 10 p.m. on CMT. This cozy show, which features country music stars doing acoustic sets, is coming to an end this week after a star-studded second season: Jason Aldean, Old Dominion, Brett Eldredge, Brandy Clark, Jon Pardi, Old Crow Medicine Show, Clay Walker and Tracy Lawrence have all been around the campfire to perform their songs. Now they will gather together to sing their favorite covers.SaturdayCREATIVE ARTS EMMY AWARDS 8 p.m. on FXX. These awards were actually handed out last weekend, but on Saturday viewers can watch an edited and condensed version of the two-day event. Judd Apatow, Ashley Nicole Black, RuPaul Charles and the cast of “Queer Eye” are a few of the presenters. The Creative Arts Emmys focus on the technical and logistical achievements of television with such awards as outstanding period costumes, outstanding stunt performance and outstanding main title design.SundayJon Bernthal in “American Gigolo.”Hopper Stone/SHOWTIMEAMERICAN GIGOLO 9 p.m. on Showtime. This modern interpretation of the film by the same name, staring Jon Bernthal as Julian (played by Richard Gere in the original), is starting off its first season this week. The series begins around 15 years after the movie ended with Julian being exonerated for a wrongful murder conviction and released from prison. As he leaves behind his old life and reconnects with his mother and his former lover, Detective Sunday (Rosie O’Donnell) figures out the real story behind the murder. More

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    Jane Krakowski Cherishes ‘Chorus Line’ Merch and Old Tonys Tapings

    The “Schmigadoon!” actress explains the things that keep her in a Broadway state of mind: her Vespa, Lizzo’s music and French Fries.The actress Jane Krakowski is proud that “Schmigadoon!,” the Apple TV+ musical comedy series she stars in, gave people a dose of theatricality when it premiered during Broadway’s lockdown in 2021, even with an unusual production period Covid restrictions.“It was such a labor of love,” she said on a recent Zoom call. “I didn’t even meet anybody in the cast until I showed up on set, and we were in shields and masks.”With shooting for season two wrapped, the Tony Award-winning New Jersey native is focused on preparing to perform at The Town Hall in Manhattan next week, a cabaret act music-directed and hosted by Seth Rudetsky that was delayed from its original January date by the Omicron wave.Rudetsky, a longtime friend with whom she does regular game nights, will interview her and accompany her on songs from her storied career. (She teased a medley inspired by the series “30 Rock,” in which her role as Jenna Maroney earned her four Emmy nominations and made her a meme icon.)Krakowski’s eagerness to be back onstage radiates off her, and she says she has seen nearly every production from the most recent season. Having seen her “She Loves Me” co-star Gavin Creel in “Into the Woods” at New York City Center (twice), she says she’s excited to revisit the production’s Broadway transfer at the St. James Theater, where he now stars with Joshua Henry.“I heard they’re amazing together,” she said. “Because I know and love Gavin — he dragged me across the stage in a split for almost a year — I’m glad he’s having fun and being brilliant in this show.”Squeezing in some final vacation time on Long Island before rehearsals and her son’s return from sleep-away camp, Krakowski admits to falling down musical theater rabbit holes on YouTube, and loving Henry’s singing videos on social media. The tight-knit industry bonds she’s created, and vintage theater merch round out a list of things she credits with keeping her in a Broadway state of mind.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. A Sweatshirt From the Original Production of “A Chorus Line” Right when Covid was sort of easing up, I decided to go clean out a storage unit I’d had for over 15 years. One of the things I found was a sweatshirt I bought from the original “A Chorus Line”: Blue with white letters, the entire cast in their poses. It’s from when I was approximately 11 years old and a young, hopeful performer coming in to see every Broadway show. When I was a teenager, everyone would say how many times they had seen “Star Wars.” Yeah, that was “A Chorus Line” for me. I saw it nine times.2. Single-Number Performances on the Tonys Broadcast Did you notice that these past Tony Awards? I was like, “Wait a minute, a lot of shows did single-number performances.” When I was growing up, I would watch the Tonys as if it was the Super Bowl, dreaming of being in this business. They only did one-song performances, and I used to VCR them and practice the numbers in my living room from start to finish. I’d do my best Patti LuPone in “Evita.” Then for a long time it became mashups, best-ofs — like two-minute commercials for the shows’ best numbers. So it was interesting that they went back to what I was used to seeing in my childhood, when it inspired me. And I’m thinking now kids at home can learn a whole piece, because it’s really hard to memorize a remix.3. French Fries as Health Food I got Covid while filming in Ireland and was really sick. French Fries were the one thing I could eat while I was in bed. And they’re amazing in Ireland, natch; you’d think they would be. And now fries represent health to me, since it was how I got back on my feet during Covid. Now I seem to be ordering them almost every day, and I’ve been traveling a lot for work, so I’ve been able to try fries all over. Australian ones are very good, by the way. I don’t know what they’re frying them in, but they’re amazing.4. Joshua Henry’s Videos He’s someone I like to follow whenever he’s onstage because I think he’s massively talented. I found his videos a few months ago, before he went into “Into the Woods,” and this new side of him — these videos have just been killing me. Not only is he displaying his incredible voice, but his masterful musicality. The last one was really special: It was Adele mixed with “Children Will Listen” [from “Woods”] with Sara Bareilles, Phillipa Soo and Patina Miller backstage at the show.5. Broadway’s Return The first show I went back to see was “Springsteen on Broadway.” When I walked into the theater — and I’m a sucker for this — you could see the bare bones of the Broadway house, with the brick wall and the ropes hanging in the back, and you could see into the wings where the crew is tirelessly doing their work. It felt incredibly emotional. It started me off on a great celebration of trying to see as much as I can on Broadway and be so thankful that it’s back, because it really is part of the lifeblood of New York, and part of the heartbeat of the city.6. Lizzo I can’t get enough of Lizzo right now. I just watched her Hot Ones episode, and it’s gold. You need to watch it. To quote my friend Titus Burgess, “It gave me life!” She gives us everything we want, including nails that match her whole onesie. She’s an incredibly trained musician and entertaining performer. And [her song] “About Damn Time” is what I would consider the song of the summer. I find it kind of amazing how many times I can say, “It’s bad bitch o’clock, it’s thick thirty,” within a night.7. Riding her Vespa I first got one when I was doing “Guys and Dolls” in the West End because I wanted to always be above ground; I wanted to experience everything about London while I was there. That’s when my love began, and then I brought it back to the United States and was driving it to every performance of “Damn Yankees” and all over the city. Then I drove it to my three-month pregnancy appointment, and my gynecologist said to me, “What’s that on your arm?” It was my helmet. She’s like, “What are you doing? You’re 41, this is already a risky pregnancy.” So I put it away. But during Covid, I finally brought it back out. I am absolutely loving being back freewheeling on my Vespa all over the city.8. Her Dance Warm-up I started taking dance lessons from Michael Owens, around the time I was like 15, and I loved him. But he moved to Los Angeles in my early 20s, and I sort of lost contact with him. Then, when I was filming “Ally McBeal” out there around 2003, Billy Porter took me to Michael’s class, and I was able to make a video of that class’s dance warm-up. I could barely walk for three days, but he got me back into my absolute love of taking dance classes. And it’s still the warm-up I use.9. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts There is not a performance that I’ve ever worked on without going there to do research. It’s an incredible resource to have, even if I’m considering doing a part, to just know and have a history of what’s been done prior. It’s an incredible tracking of Broadway history. Now, there are a lot more of these shows filmed for movie theaters, but there’s really a very small record of Broadway live performances — which is what makes it exciting, that connection between performer and audience on each particular night. But I hope they’ll keep it going because so many shows don’t get the opportunity to get on Netflix for people to see.10. Showing Up for Each Other When Broadway started reopening, I was asked to do a live concert for the Roundabout Theater Company’s gala in Central Park. I remember asking Tina Fey to introduce me, and Titus to sing with me, and when I saw them there that night, I got this overwhelming feeling of thankfulness for the friends I have, and that they show up. More

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    Richard Roat, Seen on ‘Cheers,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld,’ Dies at 89

    A familiar TV face for years, he appeared on many of the most popular prime-time shows of recent decades.Richard Roat, a versatile character actor whose half-century-long career was punctuated by notable guest appearances on three of the most popular sitcoms of recent decades, “Cheers,” “Friends” and “Seinfeld,” died on Aug. 5 in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 89.Kathy (Arntzen) Roat, his wife and only immediate survivor, said the cause was a heart attack. She said Mr. Roat, who lived in Glendale, died in a condo while on vacation.On a 1985 episode of “Cheers,” as the imperious boss of the barstool habitué Norm Peterson (George Wendt), he threatened to fire Norm if he didn’t accept a promotion (and raise) to become the company’s “corporate killer” — the person who terminates people.“Studies have shown that it’s particularly humiliating when you’re fired by someone who is clearly and markedly superior to yourself,” Mr. Roat’s character tells Norm coldly. “That wouldn’t be the case with you, Norman. You’re just an ordinary Joe. We checked out your home life. You have absolutely nothing that anyone could possibly envy or resent.”In 1996, on “Seinfeld,” Mr. Roat was a dermatologist who labeled Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) a “difficult” patient when she sought treatment for a rash. His character turned from friendly to stern when he checked her patient history.“Well, that doesn’t look serious,” he says, barely examining her. “You’ll be fine.” He then adds notes to her history when she complains that the rash is “really itchy.”And on “Friends,” in 2000, he was a professor at the college where Ross (David Schwimmer) taught. At one point he tells Ross that he was violating campus rules by dating a student.“They’re going to fire you,” he says.“Really, it’s not just frowned upon?” Ross asks.Mr. Roat worked primarily in television, starting in 1962 with two very different series about police officers: the sitcom “Car 54, Where Are You?” and the drama “Naked City.” He was a regular on the daytime soap opera “The Doctors” from 1963 to 1964, and over the next 45 years was seen on comedies like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Murphy Brown” and “Ellen” and dramas like “The Fugitive,” “Columbo,” “Matlock” and “Dynasty.”In a 1986 episode of “The Golden Girls,” as the boyfriend of Rose (Betty White), he dies in bed after they sleep together.He also worked regularly in regional theater. He starred with Jo Anne Worley in Ken Ludwig’s theatrical farce “Moon Over Buffalo” at the Pasadena Playhouse, and in William Luce’s one-man show “Barrymore,” about the actor John Barrymore, at the Dorset Theater Festival in Vermont. He played the title role, based on Lyndon B. Johnson, in Barbara Garson’s political satire “Macbird!” at the Players’ Ring Gallery in Los Angeles, and a married character in Mart Crowley’s “The Boys in the Band,” about a group of gay men, at what is now the Montalbán Theater, also in Los Angeles.In 1962 he played Mark Antony in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Julius Caesar.” Mr. Roat, seated, with Jay Leno and Ellen Reagan in the 1978 television movie “Almost Heaven.”G Stein/ABC via Getty Images
    Richard Donald Roat Jr. was born on July 3, 1933, in Hartford, Conn. His father was a glazier, and his mother, Lois (Bowan) Roat, was a homemaker.After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Hartford in 1956, Mr. Roat acted with the Mark Twain Masquers and other local theatrical groups. He also earned a living by driving a bakery truck and holding other odd jobs.In 1961 he made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Michael Ebert in “The Wall,” a play about Jews in occupied Poland during World War II. Mr. Roat played Dr. Jerry Chandler during 172 episodes of “The Doctors” and told The Portland Press Herald that he felt grateful for the opportunity to act regularly.“There’s room for less than one percent of the new actors in nighttime television,” he said. “Unless you’re a ‘regular’ and get a running assignment for a season-long series, your chances in nighttime television are practically nil.”His last television role was in the drama “24” in 2009.Mr. Roat had another long-running role, which he pursued as an actor and continued after he retired that year: as a tax preparer for people in the entertainment business. During a slow period in his acting career in the late 1960s, he took a job in an accountant’s office. On April 15 of that first year, the accountant had a nervous breakdown, Kathy Roat said, and Mr. Roat “took some tax forms and decided to become a tax preparer.” More

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    Black Film and TV Actors Get a Chance to Shine on Broadway

    On Broadway this fall, it’s less about new playwrights making their debuts and more about established stars giving the stage a shot.One of the most exciting parts of the 2021-22 Broadway season was the number of people who looked like me, both onstage and behind the scenes. We saw the Broadway debut of seven plays by Black playwrights, starring Black actors, in an art form that too often tokenizes people of color, alienates them, misrepresents them or ignores them altogether.But even when productions are bathed in the bright lights of Broadway, they can still be overlooked: Many of last fall’s works seemed to disappear as quickly as they appeared in the tough post-shutdown return period. This fall, Broadway may not have as many new works by Black playwrights, but it will serve old favorites with promising casts of versatile Black actors who have built careers not just on the stage, but also in film and TV.One of last season’s highlights was the playwright Alice Childress receiving her long-overdue Broadway debut with the stunning comedy-drama “Trouble in Mind.” So, what better time to give even more neglected writers of color their moment in the spotlight? The experimental Black playwright Adrienne Kennedy will follow this November with a similarly belated premiere, a production of her harrowing 1992 play “Ohio State Murders,” starring the stage luminary Audra McDonald as a writer who returns to her alma mater to speak about the violent imagery in her work.A lethal mix of present-day racial injustice and unrelenting racial trauma from the past, “Ohio State Murders,” directed by Kenny Leon, will have an exciting peer in a revival of August Wilson’s 1987 play “The Piano Lesson,” directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson (a cast member of the 2009 Broadway revival of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” to cite another Wilson work). Her husband, Samuel L. Jackson, who originated the role of Boy Willie in “The Piano Lesson” at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1987, will also join this revival, now in the role of Doaker Charles, Boy Willie’s uncle who recounts the titular piano’s history. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play follows siblings who are at odds over whether to sell a piano bearing depictions of their enslaved ancestors.The appeal of these plays doesn’t just come down to the material and the ethnicity of the casts, however; the Black casts this season represent captivating newcomers and veterans from various realms of theater, film and TV. So those only familiar with Jackson’s explosive acting style in, say, an action-packed Marvel movie or a brutal Quentin Tarantino film, will now see how the actor’s energy translates to the stage. The same will be true for Jackson’s castmate Danielle Brooks, a star of the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” who made an acclaimed Broadway debut in “The Color Purple” in 2015 and tickled audiences as the brassy Beatrice in the Public Theater’s 2019 production of “Much Ado About Nothing.”Film and TV are, after all, a different ballgame than the theater, where actors must respond in real time to the action onstage and perform with a resonance that will reach the upper echelons of the balcony. That will be the challenge for John David Washington (“Tenet,” “BlacKkKlansman”), who is new to the theater and will be making his Broadway debut in “The Piano Lesson.”Elsewhere on Broadway this season, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will transition from his arresting roles on TV (“Watchmen”) and film (Jordan Peele’s “Candyman” reimagining) in a revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Topdog/Underdog,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning work that follows the daily rituals of two impoverished brothers named Lincoln and Booth. He will make his Broadway debut opposite Corey Hawkins, who played the charming cab dispatcher Benny in John Cho’s film adaptation of “In the Heights.” Hawkins also played Dr. Dre in “Straight Outta Compton” and Macduff in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” and was nominated for a Tony Award for his role as the con man Paul Poitier in the 2017 Broadway revival of John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation.”Most of these plays are contemporary, dating only from the last three decades or so. (The neglect or erasure of early works by Black artists and other artists of color is, unfortunately, common.) But a West End and Young Vic revival of “Death of a Salesman” reconfigures Arthur Miller’s beloved 1949 classic into a story about a Black family, starring Wendell Pierce, André De Shields and Sharon D Clarke, who won an Olivier Award for best actress for her portrayal of Linda Loman in the British production and is known stateside for her knockout performance in last season’s “Caroline, or Change.”So anticipation is running high this season not just for the polished onstage products — the glamorous and funny, tense and heart-rending Black productions — but also for the array of Black talent, from the Broadway of decades past to today’s Hollywood stars, that will meet, creating something utterly of the moment. More

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    David Milch Still Has Stories to Tell

    LOS ANGELES — The door to a room at an assisted-living facility swung open, and out darted one of its occupants: a cat named Mignonne, who was eager for some fresh companionship. Then, with more deliberation, came the apartment’s primary resident, David Milch, who was similarly happy to have visitors.“I’m so grateful,” he said, allowing entrance to the quarters where he has lived for nearly three years, but which still feel to him like an intermediate space. “As you may imagine, things are all in a state of flux.”To television viewers who have followed the medium’s resurgence of erudition and artistic credibility, the 77-year-old Milch is a towering figure. A onetime writer-producer on the influential 1980s police drama “Hill Street Blues,” he went on to help create boundary-busting programs like “N.Y.P.D. Blue” and his personal masterpiece, the uncompromising HBO western “Deadwood.”Betty Thomas as Lucy Bates in Hill Street Blues, an influential television drama from the 1980s.Shout! Factory/20th Century FoxIn his industry, Milch is well known for his writing style, which blends articulate grandeur with defiant obscenity, and for his appetites. He is a recovered drug addict and a compulsive gambler who, by his own admission, lost millions of dollars on horse racing and other wagers.Now he rises each day in his modest accommodations here, decorated with family photos, some Peabody Awards near a sink and some Emmy statuettes on a shelf, and furnished with a bed, a small TV and a refrigerator containing a single can of LaCroix sparkling water. This is where he has lived since the fall of 2019, a few months after publicly disclosing that he had been given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.Having welcomed me and his wife, Rita Stern Milch, into the room, Milch explained that he has not lost the powers of observation and articulation that have served him as a writer. Instead, he has found himself training those abilities on his own life as he navigates his experience with the disease.“When you’re in transition, there’s a sense that life lives you,” he said, fiddling with an elastic bracelet that he wore to keep his room key attached around his wrist. “You’re holding on and trying to accommodate all of the impositions and uncertainties.”Describing his present relationship to life and the way he once lived it, he added, “I’m estranged. I can kid myself, but I ain’t a regular.”Preserving what he can remember about himself and sharing it with an audience are already demanding tasks for Milch, and now they have taken on a particular urgency. In the years since he received his diagnosis, he has been working on a memoir called “Life’s Work.”The book, which will be published by Random House on Sept. 13, offers a poetic but unvarnished account of his personal history, abundant with the barbarity and grace that have animated Milch’s fictional characters.The project is a quintessentially Milchian lesson in accurately depicting a life, even one composed of events that he may not always be proud of having lived.As Rita explained, the memoir showed there was beauty in “how he took his life and turned it into art — all the experiences he had, which seemed so wild, he was able to tame in narrative and take back.”David saw an even more fundamental value in the project: “I have felt the blessing of feeling like I know who I am,” he said.A few days before the visit, Rita — who lives about 20 minutes away — had cautioned that he has bad days and good days; even on good days, he can be discursive in his thinking or unaware of his surroundings.“He still thinks like a storyteller,” she said. “And maybe because I love him, but I just find it fascinating. Even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense, there’s something in it that’s just Dave.”On a Tuesday morning in July, David Milch was in a genial mood and voluminous in his affectionate praise for Rita. He said something elliptical about the difficult work that lay ahead, now that it was time for students to enroll in their classes. He saw me admiring a trophy he’d won for a racehorse he once owned and asked, with a gleam in his eye, if I liked going to the track.Milch is happiest “when he’s figuring out a story,” said his wife, Rita Stern Milch. “Sometimes people talk about him as if he’s dead already. Wait a minute, he’s very much alive. And he’s still got something to offer.”Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York TimesAt the start of 2015, amid other health problems and difficulties with his memory, Milch received a neuropsychological evaluation and was told he had dementia; a few years later he was given a diagnosis of “probable Alzheimer’s.”By the summer of 2019, he was becoming confused on car rides where he was a passenger and fighting with Rita over car keys he had forgotten he was no longer allowed to use. On one exit from his house, he had a particularly nasty, face-first fall on the steps. That October, he moved into the facility where he now resides.Milch was already in the habit of composing his screenplays through dictation and had been recording his speeches at work for the past 20 years. His family members and colleagues expanded that process, recording his personal remembrances and reaching out to others for stories that could stimulate Milch’s memories, all in the service of creating “Life’s Work.”“There were days where the recordings are a lot more wading through confusion,” said his daughter Olivia Milch. “And then there are days where he just rolls and it’s stunning, how he’s able to talk about the disease and what he’s going through.” The book’s prologue was essentially transcribed verbatim, she said, including her father’s ethereal opening words: “I’m on a boat sailing to some island where I don’t know anybody. A boat someone is operating, and we aren’t in touch.”“Life’s Work” is by turns a brisk and brutal memoir, beginning with its author’s upbringing in Buffalo, N.Y., at the hands of his father, Elmer, an accomplished surgeon as well as a relentless gambler and philanderer. Elmer operated on mobsters, scammed Demerol prescriptions for himself and enlisted David, while he was still a child, to run his bets for him.The author himself grew up to develop his own crippling vices — he recalls being introduced to heroin as a high-school senior — as well as a prodigious writing talent. As an undergraduate at Yale, Milch studied with the Pulitzer Prize winners Robert Penn Warren and R.W.B. Lewis, and he vacillated between futures at Yale Law School and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop while he made L.S.D. in Mexico and continued to use drugs. “I loved heroin,” Milch writes in the memoir. “I loved checking out. You were here and you were not here at the same time. That has appeal.”Milch was a writer-producer on “Hill Street Blues,” then helped create “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” and “Deadwood.”20th Century FoxIn television, Milch writes that he found a constructive outlet for his energies and learned to open his “imagination to the particular truths of a different person and a different environment.” He was hired at “Hill Street Blues” by its co-creator Steven Bochco, and together they created “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” whose sophisticated storytelling and then-unprecedented use of nudity and explicit language influenced decades of prestige TV that followed.Milch continued to gamble, betting tens of thousands of dollars on individual horse races; he had a heart attack, received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and got sober at the age of 53. Then in 2004, he created his magnum opus, “Deadwood,” a drama set in the Dakota territory in the 1870s, a merciless era of American frontier expansion.On that show, Milch writes, “It was time to listen, to find the characters up and walking and hear who they were and what they had to say.” He adds, “The actors told me their characters’ deepest truths. They gave themselves up, and they inhabited the parts they had come to.”Paula Malcomson, who played the saloon prostitute Trixie, said that Milch maintained a daily presence on the “Deadwood” set as a kind of wandering, salty-tongued philosopher.“He granted us permission to be ourselves,” she said. “He let us bring forth the things that most people would say, ‘That’s too much. This is uncouth.”Robin Weigert, who played Calamity Jane on the series, said her portrayal of the disenchanted sharpshooter was influenced by Milch’s own language and physical demeanor.“I will always feel that there is a little piece of David’s soul that I got to dwell inside of,” Weigert said. “It creates a different feeling than when you just work for somebody. I felt like I worked inside of him.”But “Deadwood” was canceled at HBO after only three seasons; other shows Milch made for the network, like “John From Cincinnati” and “Luck,” had even briefer runs and still others weren’t picked up at all.In 2011, Milch writes, his wife went to their business advisers and learned that he had spent about $23 million at racetracks in the previous 10 years. They had $5 million in unpaid taxes and were $17 million in debt, she found.A yearslong period of downsizing followed for the Milches, during which David was able to complete the story of “Deadwood” in an HBO movie that aired in 2019. He has been open about his disease with his colleagues and co-stars, many of whom remain in his life, and say that Milch has retained his fundamental expressiveness.Many in the original cast of the series “Deadwood” gathered again for the movie, which completed the story.Warrick Page/HBOWeigert visited Milch while he was still living at his home. He had forgotten the names of some of his dogs, she said, and where his bedroom was, but “we had this high-level conversation about the transmigration of souls.”W. Earl Brown, who was an actor and writer on “Deadwood,” visited Milch after he moved to the care facility. As Brown recalled, “Dave takes a long look around the room, leans into me and says, ‘I have to tell you something, Earl: The indignities of decrepitude are boundless.’ That quote perfectly encapsulates David Milch.”Malcomson described Milch as “the most human of anyone I’ve ever known.”“I comfort myself a little bit, thinking he burned so bright and there was so much life lived, and maybe that was his exact quota,” she said. “I’m not saying he’s not living life now, but I’m saying that it is a different version of it.”As the publication of “Life’s Work” approaches, Rita Stern Milch said she was anxious about seeing so many intensely personal stories about her husband and their family shared with a wide readership. Having worked as a film producer and editor, she said, “I’m a background person, a behind-the-scenes person. It doesn’t make me comfortable.”But she said those concerns were less important than allowing David to tell readers what he has experienced while he still can. “It’s a horrible diagnosis and it ain’t fun,” she said. “But life goes on. You don’t have to hide people away. They don’t have to disappear.”“This is the game,” Milch said. “This is what’s going on. You can tell yourself it’s something else. But you know that you’re, in many ways, holding on.”Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York TimesOver a pizza lunch at an outdoor restaurant near the facility, David and Rita explained that they continue to work together on writing projects, whether they end up getting produced or simply provide David with a means of keeping his mind active. (As he writes in the memoir, “I still hear voices. I still tell stories.”)They had revisited an early screenplay of David’s called “The Main Chance,” which takes places at the Saratoga Race Course, but Rita said they backed off once David became agitated, thinking he was back at the track. They have also continued to develop a biographical series about the late-night host Johnny Carson.On the car ride back from lunch, they listened to a radio station that was broadcasting news updates about Major League Baseball.“Did we bet on baseball games?” David asked from a passenger’s seat.“No,” Rita answered as she steered the car.David smiled and seemed glad for the admonishment. “Nor are we going to,” he said happily. More

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    ‘S.N.L.’ Loses Three More Cast Members

    Melissa Villaseñor, Alex Moffat and Aristotle Athari are the latest performers to depart “Saturday Night Live.”Lorne Michaels continues to make good on his vow that “a year of change” is coming to “Saturday Night Live”: Three more cast members are departing the long-running NBC sketch series before the start of its 48th season.Melissa Villaseñor, Alex Moffat and Aristotle Athari are leaving “S.N.L.,” according to a person familiar with the departures who was granted anonymity to discuss plans NBC had not announced publicly.Villaseñor and Moffat both joined “S.N.L.” as featured players in fall 2016 and were promoted to the main cast in fall 2018. On the show, Villaseñor has portrayed Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well as original characters like Cesar Perez; she hosted the Film Independent Spirit Awards in April 2021. Moffat’s repertoire included a recurring impersonation of Eric Trump as well as characters like Guy Who Just Bought a Boat.Athari, who performed previously in the comedy troupe Goatface and appeared on HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” joined “S.N.L.” last fall as a featured player.NBC declined to comment on Thursday. The network did not respond to questions about why these performers were leaving or whether further changes were expected at “S.N.L.” in the coming weeks.Their off-season exits follow the departures of the veteran cast members Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney, who all made their final “S.N.L.” appearances on the show’s 47th season finale, in May. The new season is expected to begin in October. More

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    Review: In ‘On That Day in Amsterdam,’ a Traveler Becomes a Tourist

    Two young men wander the city before they both must say farewell and return to very different lives.Sammy’s parents used to rhapsodize about the trip they took to Paris once, before he was born. Hearing their stories made the city shimmer in his imagination, but the closest he’s ever gotten to it was on a nonstop drive across France.Hidden in the back of a truck, peering through a hole in its side, he glimpsed a highway sign that said Paris. Then the driver blew past it, on through the darkness toward Amsterdam.In Clarence Coo’s play “On That Day in Amsterdam,” that’s where Sammy is on the night in 2015 when he meets Kevin at a club. They are young and beautiful, something sparks between them, and they wake together the next morning in a houseboat on a canal. Outside, snow is falling.Sammy is Syrian and without a passport, hoping to reach safety in England but terrified of the journey across the water to get there. Kevin is American, not wealthy but privileged anyway, a college student traveling on the credit card his mother pays for.While both are scheduled to leave the Netherlands that night, they have very different notions of how precious it is to be passing through, even briefly. Sammy (Waseem Alzer), who is sweet, eager and daring in his vulnerability, wants to grab this day with both hands and go on a tourist adventure. Kevin (Glenn Morizio), who is callow, arrogant and incurious in ways that he will come to regret, eventually acquiesces.It’s a bit of a Richard Linklater, “Before Sunrise” setup: just-met lovers with mere hours to spend together in a glamorous foreign capital. And on the largest stage at 59E59 Theaters, the set by Jason Sherwood (a two-time Emmy Award winner) conspires with projections by Nicholas Hussong (a 2022 Tony Award nominee for his spectacular projections in “Skeleton Crew”) and lighting by Cha See to bring visual texture and depth to Sammy and Kevin’s ramble through Amsterdam.There is the nagging sense, though, that design is the tail wagging the dog in this Primary Stages production from Zi Alikhan — that the set’s transparent downstage screen, which frames the action, constrains the performers somehow, and that the copious projections, on that screen and another upstage, could have used some editing. Yes to the moody, abstract and dreamy, emphatically yes to the striped blocks of color that represent evening windows; no to the drably literal, which only gets in the way of the poetry that Coo is reaching for.The playwright, too, has also overwhelmed the show, with a surfeit of ideas jostling for limited oxygen. This is a quasi-romance and coming-of-age story set inside a refugee crisis in a world awash in bigotry. But it’s also about art as a necessary solace, which is what it provides to Sammy, who wants to take his mind off the peril he’s in by popping into some museums. Kevin, though, is a tortured would-be writer; the making of an artist is much on Coo’s mind as well.The play might be able to manage all of that, yet it also collapses time to usher in three famous former residents of Amsterdam: Rembrandt (Brandon Mendez Homer), Vincent van Gogh (Jonathan Raviv) and Anne Frank (Elizabeth Ramos). Anne, at least, fits the principal themes: She was both an artist and a migrant fleeing — and hiding from — danger. But these characters’ interstitial-feeling scenes fit awkwardly with the whole.The result is a play too overcrowded for fullness. What sticks in the memory is Alzer’s lovely Sammy, grasping at a few hours of normalcy, cherishing the chance to lose himself in throngs of tourists who, with their documents in order, are free to come and go.On That Day in AmsterdamThrough Sept. 4 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Lea Michele On ‘Funny Girl,’ ‘Glee,’ Her Career and Those Rumors

    She’s landed her dream role in “Funny Girl.” Now she’s tasked with rescuing the faltering Broadway show and proving that she is not the person she once was.Fifteen years ago, Lea Michele was sulking in her “Spring Awakening” dressing room, heartbroken over a guy, when the Broadway show’s director offered her a bit of advice.The director, Michael Mayer, suggested that she watch “Funny Girl,” which, he explained, was about a performer learning to not let a man drag her down.“I gave it to her as a kind of comfort,” Mayer said in a phone interview last month. “You’ve got this great career, you’re the lead in this significant new musical, and you’re young still.”Michele watched the movie that night. Dazzled, she watched it again the next night, resolving to one day land the lead role of Fanny Brice. A few weeks later, she gushed about “Funny Girl” and its star, Barbra Streisand, at dinner with a television producer, Ryan Murphy, who went on to create a new series, “Glee,” with Michele in mind.This is where it gets meta: Playing a glee club captain who graduates to become a striving theater actress, Michele’s character lands her dream role in the first Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” since its debut in 1964.Murphy’s plan to transfer Michele’s Fanny Brice from the TV screen to stage never materialized. But on Tuesday, a tale that feels to many like life imitating art culminates with Michele’s first performance as Brice, a 20th-century Jewish performer, at the August Wilson Theater.Like the two other actresses who occupied the lead role this year (first Beanie Feldstein, then her standby Julie Benko), Michele must seek to avoid the shadow of Streisand’s star-making performance in the original musical and movie.Unlike the other actresses, Michele, 36, must contend with another shadow: her past self. Two years ago, she faced a wave of criticism from former colleagues who publicly accused her of bullying behavior and a prima donna attitude. And she must step into a show whose behind-the-scenes machinations and cast changes have been one of the juiciest running stories on Broadway this summer, prompting reams of coverage and gossip.Michele during a “Funny Girl” rehearsal. She is playing Brice with the character’s feverish energy dialed up a bit higher than the two Fannies before her this year. Jenny Anderson“I feel more ready than I ever have before, both personally and professionally,” Michele said in an interview three weeks before her debut. She spoke from a dressing room vacated by the actress Jane Lynch, who ended her run as Brice’s mother earlier than planned, ensuring that the former “Glee” co-stars would never perform together onstage.The allegations prompted an “intense time of reflection” about her conduct at work, Michele said — which, she believes, has equipped her to be a part of, and lead, a Broadway company for the first time since leaving “Spring Awakening” in 2008.“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” she said. “It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not. And that wasn’t always the most important thing for me.”For Michele, who temporarily stepped away from performing after the birth of her son, Ever, in 2020, the explosive internet reaction to her “Funny Girl” casting was not, perhaps, the return-to-Broadway narrative she had imagined.Before the news was announced, Feldstein, who had generally received underwhelming reviews in the role, said on Instagram in July that she would be leaving the show two months earlier than expected, writing that the production had “decided to take the show in a different direction.” The announcement fueled speculation that Feldstein’s departure had something to do with Michele, who was rumored to be taking over the part.“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” Michele said. “It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesRebukes of Michele resurfaced online, with some questioning whether she should have been offered the role at all.To go back to June 2020: After Michele tweeted a message with the Black Lives Matter hashtag, Samantha Marie Ware, a Black actress who appeared on “Glee,” said Michele had been responsible for “traumatic microaggressions” toward her, saying that Michele had threatened to get her fired and made a humiliating remark in front of castmates.A deluge of criticism followed, including from former “Glee” actors who described Michele as exclusionary and demeaning to colleagues. The meal-kit company HelloFresh, saying it “does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind,” ended its partnership with her.Another co-star from “Glee,” Heather Morris, tweeted at the time that it had been very unpleasant to work with Michele, writing that “for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she should be called out.” (Morris did not respond to an interview request.)Michele apologized in 2020 for her past behavior. In the interview last month, she declined to address the specifics of Ware’s account, saying she doesn’t “feel the need to handle things” through the media. Ware declined to comment, but shortly after Michele’s “Funny Girl” casting was announced, Ware posted a tweet in which she said, “Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness.” Her account and tweets have since been made private.Michele now acknowledges that her work style is intense, sometimes to a fault. “I have an edge to me. I work really hard. I leave no room for mistakes,” she said. “That level of perfectionism, or that pressure of perfectionism, left me with a lot of blind spots.”She traced that psychology to her days as a child actress on Broadway, where, she said, the expectation to perform at a consistently high level often put her in a “semi-robotic state.”Her performance career started unexpectedly when she was 8, living in Tenafly, N.J., with her father (a Jewish deli owner) and her mother (an Italian-Catholic nurse). As Michele tells it, her mother was asked to drive a friend’s daughter, whose father had just had a heart attack, to an audition for the Broadway production of “Les Misérables.” Michele insisted on coming along, and she ended up landing the dual role of Young Cosette and Young Éponine. Hungry for more, Michele was 9 when she was cast in the new musical “Ragtime.”At 14, she met Mayer when she landed the role of Wendla in a workshop of “Spring Awakening.” The role, as a teenager exploring her sexual desires within the strictures of a 19th-century German household, left no questions about her dedication to the theater. Michele was beaten with a switch onstage by her co-star, Jonathan Groff, and when she was older, she was asked to bare her chest and simulate sex onstage.Groff, who formed a close bond with Michele during the run, remembers Michele being upset by the uncomfortable laughter that beating scene would elicit from audiences.“It would really crush her,” he said, “like, ‘Oh gosh, are we not doing the scene well enough? The people are laughing!’”Groff was the person who invited her to dinner with Murphy, setting the stage for Michele’s “Glee” role. At 22, Michele became known to the world as Rachel Berry, an anal-retentive high school glee club member whose middle name, Barbra, is after a certain Brooklyn-born diva.By the time Berry lands the “Funny Girl” role in the series, her affinity for the musical is well established, having already sung “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and the movie-specific “My Man.” In the show’s fifth season, Berry belts “I’m the Greatest Star” on a Broadway stage, with Lynch watching from the audience.You can be forgiven for mixing up which plot points belong to Michele and which to Berry. “It all kind of morphed together a little bit,” Michele said.In a moment of Rachel Berry-like perfectionism, she admitted that during a “Glee” concert tour, she asked that “Don’t Rain On My Parade” be removed from the set list because she had messed up during a live performance.Behind the scenes, Michele said, she was getting a “quick education on addiction” while dating Cory Monteith, her co-star who had long struggled with substance abuse. Monteith died in 2013 of a combination of heroin and alcohol, devastating Michele and other cast members.Performing in 2010 with Cory Monteith, who died of a combination of heroin and alcohol in 2013.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesNot long after, Michele got within reach of her dream role, as Murphy snagged the rights to a Broadway revival of “Funny Girl.” It was a difficult time, Michele said, and she felt uncertain about the plan because she had just performed many of the show’s songs on TV.“I didn’t feel like there was anything new that I could bring,” she said.The new emotional material came in the years since — when, as Brice does in the show’s second act, Michele got married and had a child, reordering her priorities.Her friends started to notice changes. Groff recalled that at Michele’s wedding to Zandy Reich, a businessman, in 2019, Murphy, who officiated, told a story about his first dinner with them as a couple. According to Groff, Murphy lightheartedly said, “This was the first time I’ve had dinner with Lea where the main topic of the conversation wasn’t about her, what she wanted to do next creatively.” (A representative for Murphy said he was unavailable to comment for the story.)Michele gave birth to Ever the next year after months of pregnancy complications. He was still a baby when the team behind the London production of “Funny Girl” was casting for the transfer to Broadway. Mayer said that even though Michele was at the top of the list for Brice, he sensed she would not be ready to return to work.After the show cast Feldstein, Mayer had a conversation with Michele to explain the decision. “I said, ‘Look, I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but this is what we’re doing,’” Mayer remembered telling Michele.Down the road, he added, “‘I would love to do ‘Funny Girl’ with you some time.’”Michele said she had not been set on returning to Broadway until November 2021, when she performed in a one-night-only “Spring Awakening” reunion concert. Around that time, she said, she had another conversation with Mayer, in which she said that if Feldstein’s run ended, and they wanted a replacement, she would be “honored” to step in.After Feldstein initially announced her planned departure in June, the wheels for Michele to take over were set in motion, Mayer said. He added that he loved Feldstein’s performance and stands by her “100 percent.” Asked why Feldstein decided to leave earlier than expected, he said he was unsure.“I haven’t spoken to her about it,” Mayer said. “I think it was hard for her once she knew she was going to be leaving and that someone else was taking over.” (A representative for Feldstein didn’t respond to requests for comment.)Mayer said Michele’s deal went through relatively quickly because she and Feldstein had the same agent, who already knew the details around the show. By late July, Michele was in the rehearsal room. Benko took over as Brice for the month of August, with the assurance she’d perform one show a week in the role after Michele’s debut.On one of Michele’s first days with the full cast, she sang “Don’t Rain On My Parade” onstage, and an ensemble member, Leslie Blake Walker, said she remembered watching her perform the song on “Glee” — Walker’s first exposure to “Funny Girl.”Rehearsing “Greatest Star” onstage last month, Michele played Brice with the character’s feverish energy dialed up a bit higher than the two Fannies before her this year. The comedy was her way of taking things to the extreme: grabbing a fistful of Jared Grimes’s sweatshirt when trying to convince him of her talent, or hoisting herself on top of the piano, as Mayer suggested, standing partially on the keys.Referring to her “Funny Girl” colleagues, Michele said, “Everyone here has been through a lot, and I just have to come in and be prepared and do a good job and be respectful of the fact that this is their space.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesThe structure of the show itself will see some changes, including a new interlude of a Brice song, “I’d Rather Be Blue Over You,” that Streisand sings in the movie.Michele, like her predecessors, has tried to remove the pressure of the comparison, saying, “​​I will never be as good as Barbra Streisand.” Whatever performance she delivers, it will not be eligible for a Tony: Only the originating actress in that production, Feldstein, can be considered for the award.But the pressure on her to save this revival is hard to dismiss. Mayer said he sees this as a “second chance” for “Funny Girl,” whose ticket sales had been on the decline, dropping to an average weekly gross of about $760,000 in Feldstein’s final month from $1.2 million in the first two, according to data from the Broadway League. Prices have now skyrocketed for Michele’s debut: The most expensive ticket on her first night is more than $2,600, as of Wednesday.Despite the evident star power, Michele seems aware that she should avoid behaving like a diva.“Everyone here has been through a lot, and I just have to come in and be prepared and do a good job and be respectful of the fact that this is their space,” she said.A humbling element of the process is that she had to learn how to tap dance from square one, practicing with a nursery rhyme tap video one of the show’s choreographers, Ayodele Casel, sent her. (After the first tap rehearsal, she said, she cried in the bathroom, wondering if she really could pull this role off, before the steps eventually clicked.)Still, Michele admits that she is only just learning how to be publicly vulnerable. Online hatred of her can verge on gleeful, and she fears that if she responds to criticism — or a bizarre rumor that she is illiterate — it will fuel the fire.“I went to ‘Glee’ every single day; I knew my lines every single day,” she said. “And then there’s a rumor online that I can’t read or write? It’s sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn’t be the case.”Right now, Michele said, she is focused on what’s in front of her: inhabiting the role, and this time, doing it as a wife and mother rather than a fame-hungry former glee club captain.Maybe Rachel Berry would throw a fit if her performance was ineligible for a Tony Award, but present-day Lea Michele insists that she isn’t bothered.“You might think that’s the biggest piece of bull that I’m going to say to you all day,” Michele said, using the stronger version of the word, “but I really don’t care about that at this point. It’s just about being able to play this part.” More