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    Born of Grief, a Couple’s Off Broadway Incubator Marks 20 Years

    Even as it celebrates with a gala, the Ars Nova family now faces another challenge as one of its founders confronts A.L.S.In 2002, Jenny and Jon Steingart founded the Off Broadway incubator Ars Nova as a way of honoring Jenny’s brother, Gabriel Wiener, who in 1997 died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 26. Now, as the nonprofit theater is marking its 20th anniversary, the couple is facing another wrenching struggle: Jon has A.L.S., the severe neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.“Every painful experience in my life — if I have to live through it, I am going to come out on the other side with a lesson and a way to give back in some way,” Jenny Steingart said in a recent interview at their home on the Upper West Side. “Because a loss without some meaning behind it is really hard to live with.”So this anniversary, to be celebrated with a gala on Monday, also finds the Steingarts feeling great satisfaction, having created an institution that — in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — has played a crucial role in the professional development of so many artists.Among those who have worked at Ars Nova are Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Christopher Jackson and Phillipa Soo of “Hamilton” fame; Bridget Everett, the actress and cabaret performer of the acclaimed HBO series “Somebody Somewhere”; and Dave Malloy, who created “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” at Ars Nova.More recently, Ars Nova presented Heather Christian’s widely-praised music-theater piece “Oratorio for Living Things,” after being delayed by the pandemic shutdown.“This theater has done the good work of incubating extraordinary artists,” said the “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller, adding that Mimi Lien, the scenic designer for his current Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd” — who won a Tony for “Great Comet” — came out of Ars Nova. “Many people make things,” he added, “but few of them are vital 20 years later.”When Ars Nova offered Everett a creative home, she was performing in karaoke bars. With its support, she developed her brash 2007 solo show, “At Least It’s Pink” at Ars Nova. “I was taken aback by their enthusiasm for me because I wasn’t getting anything anywhere,” Everett said. “I would not have a career if it wasn’t for them seeing something in me.”The improvised rap evening “Freestyle Love Supreme” had its beginning at Ars Nova, which also helped birth the musical “KPOP.”The director Alex Timbers (“Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”) got his start at Ars Nova, with Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s doomsday comedy “Boom.” “It was the first time I’d been hired professionally to direct and given access to designers I would never have gotten to work with on my own,” he said. “It was not only a gift, but a leap of faith.”The cast of the 2017 Off Broadway production of “KPOP,” which occupied two floors of a building in Hell’s Kitchen.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesLucas Steele, left, and Denée Benton in the 2016 Broadway production of “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” at the Imperial Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAt the gala, Ars Nova will announce a financial pledge from the Steingarts that will enable a more consistent presentation of comedy in addition to its current variety show, “Showgasm.” Citing, for example, Ars Nova’s “Creation Nation,” a popular live variety program that featured the comedian Billy Eichner, Jon Steingart said comedy — as well as music — taps into “where youth culture is right now.”Jenny Steingart, 55, a Manhattan native, said her parents — Michael A. Wiener, who helped found the Infinity Broadcasting chain of radio stations, and Zena, a music teacher and singer — encouraged her to follow her passion. “‘What are you aligned with?’” she recalled them asking. “‘What is the thing that sparks you?’”Jon, now 55, grew up in Southern California and was a producer of the Broadway show “Julia Sweeney’s ‘God Said “Ha!.”’” They married in 2002 and now have three children, ages 19, 16 and 13.After the death of her brother, who produced recordings of early music, Jenny said she and Jon “let his legacy inspire the creation of new art.”Jenny Steingart and Anthony Veneziale accepted a special Tony Award for “Freestyle Love Supreme” in 2021. Theo Wargo/Getty Images For Tony Awards ProIn the early years, the Steingarts, together with the theater’s founding artistic director, Jason Eagan, were out every night trolling for talent, an approach that continues to this day. “We’re looking at artists with potential,” Eagan said, “rather than artists with résumés.”Ars Nova, which planted its flag on West 54th Street, quickly established itself as a space where artists could take big chances, where “you can say, I want to make an electro pop opera about a slice of ‘War and Peace,’” said Renee Blinkwolt, the company’s producing executive director, referring to “Great Comet,” which won Tony Awards for lighting as well as scenic design. (In 2016, the show’s commercial producers agreed to revise how it credited Ars Nova’s contributions to “Great Comet” in Playbill.)Despite having cemented its status as a staple of the New York theatrical landscape, Ars Nova, which in 2019 opened a second theater at Greenwich House in the Village, remains relatively scrappy, with an annual operating budget of about $4 million and a staff of 14. A ticket subsidy program keeps prices low and this season offered pay-what-you-wish.During the pandemic, no employees were furloughed, thanks in part to the Paycheck Protection Program, which covered about 10 percent of the funds required to keep paying artists and staff.These days, the Steingarts are less involved in running the organization, but they continue to play a strong supporting role. Jon spends most of his time researching his disease — “I don’t quit,” he said — recognizing that he is fortunate to be alive five years after his diagnosis. Sitting in a wheelchair at his kitchen table, Jon also described himself as “pretty even keel about acceptance.”“I’m not a person who, win or lose, spends a lot of time asking why me,” he said.Jenny, however, is a little less accepting, although she is doing her best to keep it together.“I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, and I also don’t want to be Pollyanna,” she said. “It’s really important to me to lean into the gratitude I have and the blessings that have come from even the worst stuff.”Though Ars Nova’s close-knit extended family has had to adjust to the prospect of a future without one of its parents, the artists are trying to do what they’ve always done: stay positive and persevere.“The tragedy of losing her brother and what Jon is going through — it’s the brutality of life,” Everett said. “But I’m really glad that what Ars Nova has given does sustain. Putting people on course and giving them a chance — what better gift is that?” More

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    ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 7 Recap: The Scorpion and the Scorpion

    This week, the Roys throw the election eve party they inherited from Logan and as always, they arrive with their own discrete agendas.Season 4, Episode 7: ‘Tailgate Party’This “Succession” season’s premiere episode ended with Tom and Shiv lying together in bed, bitterly angry but still holding hands. In the weeks since, the couple has been flirting more openly (and bizarrely), trying to figure out if perhaps they are each broken in just the right way that their jagged pieces can fit back together.Their weird romantic renaissance peaks with this week’s episode, which sees them sexting each other incessantly — and sees Tom confusingly gifting Shiv with a glass-encased scorpion, in an apparent reference to “the scorpion and the frog” parable. (Tom, sheepishly explaining: “I love you but you kill me and I kill you?”)The couple means to cement their comeback by co-hosting an election eve “tailgate party” in their swanky triplex apartment, with a guest list drawn from a who’s-who of media, political and business bigwigs. They inherited this shindig from Logan, who regularly used it as a way to make nice with his ideological enemies, allowing them all to meet as friends for at least one night and pretend they don’t despise each other. It’s like a cocktail party version of Tom and Shiv’s marriage.As always with “Succession,” the Roys arrive at this party with discrete agendas. Shiv intends to continue in her secret role as the Matsson-whisperer. Unbeknown to Kendall and Roman, their father had already invited Matsson to the party; but the Swede declined, because legacy media backslapping and chest-puffing bores him. It’s only after Shiv warns him that the Roy boys are making moves that Matsson mobilizes. His strutting GoJo band barges into the triplex right when Kendall is leading a moment of silence for Logan.Shiv pretends to be appalled by the rudeness, but after Kendall insists he wants to avoid any direct confrontation with Matsson —“There’s too much peanut butter between us,” he says — she takes the assignment to stay by Matsson’s side, introducing him to the power-brokers while also subtly promoting GoJo’s plans for Waystar and ATN. She makes sure everyone knows she will be involved in whatever comes next — or as she demands of Matsson, have “a very, very, very significant role.”Roman, meanwhile, is still kicking himself after skipping the Living+ presentation that made Kendall the new Waystar star, so he makes his own big move. The polling is showing a tight presidential race, with the Republican candidate Jeryd Mencken falling just short in a few key states. If Roman can talk Connor into dropping out and backing Mencken, that might be enough to make a difference, which would mean that the new president of the United States would owe Roman Roy all the favors.On the whole this is a very heavy episode, but nearly everything to do with Roman wooing Connor is hilarious. After his older brother laughs off the idea that he would concede for “the good of the republic,” Roman becomes the go-between for ambassadorial offers. Somalia? “Little bit car bomb-y.” Work up to a big European post through Slovenia or Slovakia? “It’s a no on the Slos.”Eventually they settle on Oman (“rich man’s Yemen!”), but Willa is concerned when she looks the country up and reads, “The sultan’s word has the force of the law.” She is also not swayed by the prospect of helping Mencken, telling her husband, “All my family and friends hate Mencken.” (Connor just smiles big and says,“Diplomatic plates!”)The subplot takes a sour turn when Willa persuades Connor to reject Oman and stay in the race, which angers Roman so intensely that he refers to Willa as Connor’s “wife” (in quotation marks) and calls his brother “a joke.” This happens immediately after Roman has a crushing encounter with Gerri, who lets him know of her plan to extract “eye-watering sums” from Waystar thanks to his entitled arrogance, sloppiness and sexual harassment.She then adds, as the hardest slap in her former protégé’s face, “I could’ve got you there.” It’s no wonder Roman is fuming when he confronts Connor — though that does not excuse how mean he is.Kendall also makes some missteps while coasting on his Living+ triumph. He invites Shiv’s ex-lover and top Democratic operative Nate Sofrelli (Ashley Zukerman) to the party, to see if the Dems might consider squashing the GoJo deal from a regulatory standpoint. In return, Kendall promises that ATN will give the potential new administration “a better ride on the first 100 days.”All this favor-trading makes Nate uncomfortable, as does Kendall’s insistence that old acquaintances should not have to worry about ethics and legal formalities. (“You’re not Logan,” Nate warns him. “And that’s a good thing.”)Kendall rebounds though when he gets some useful intel about Matsson. GoJo’s long-suffering head of communications, Ebba (Eili Harboe), lets slip that the company’s metrics are erroneously doubling their subscriber numbers in India. (“New money,” Kendall later says to Shiv, shaking his head. “You gotta hold those bills up to the light.”)Kendall comes to Frank and suggests a new tactic: “Reverse Viking.” Acquire GoJo and make Waystar bigger than anything Logan ever achieved. And if Roman and Shiv object? Kendall shrugs. “I love ‘em but not in love with ‘em, y’know” he says. “One head, one crown.”The whole premise of Logan’s tailgate parties are that the attendees are all, to some extent, putting on an act. Loony lefty? Neo-fascist? These are just performative personas. At this party everyone can take off those masks and put on another. But while it’s all well and good — sort of — to play those kinds of games in public, emotionally healthy people do not keep playing them in private. The Roys, damaged by their manipulative and withholding father, repeatedly fail to grasp this. That is how Kendall and Shiv can pretend to have each other’s backs while secretly planning to stab each other.Which brings us back to poor Tom, who realizes as the night rolls on that Shiv will not protect him from the people who want to change ATN. Even while standing right next to Tom, she calls him “Mr. Mild” and “a one-pepper menu item.” While circulating with Matsson, she never balks at any suggestion that her husband has no future with the company. Those rumblings eventually reach Tom, who is already exhausted from being bombarded with questions from the party’s more liberal guests about whether ATN is fostering a climate of political violence.It all ends in tears. In last week’s episode, Shiv and Tom enjoyed a moment of truth-telling they each found refreshing — and even a little kinky. This week though, in a private moment on their balcony, they lob honesty-bombs at each other until they do real damage.In a nightmarish scene, they keep saying the worst things they can imagine about one another. Shiv calls Tom a “hick.” He tells her she is “maybe not a good person to have children.” She blames him for separating her from her father in his final months. He counters, “It’s not my fault that you didn’t get his approval.” The argument is brutal, and may mark a turning point for this show as it pivots toward the finale.Because unlike the tentative togetherness that ended the Season 4 premiere, this episode ends with Tom and Shiv in separate rooms, in deep pain. That’s a strong visual metaphor for where the “Succession” story stands right now. The tailgate party has broken up. Everyone has moved back to their respective sidelines. Welcome to rivalry week.Due diligenceLest you feel too much sympathy for Tom, remember that in this episode he makes goofy faces while Greg is firing dozens of ATN employees simultaneously via a group video call. Later at the party, Greg tries to impress the GoJo crew with his willingness to be heartless. (“You gotta do what you gotta do, right?” he says to Matsson, who replies, “Do you, though?”)Greg is “Team KenRo,” even though Kendall — like Tom — mainly expects him to perform morally objectionable tasks, such as finding some drugs that might make Matsson do something embarrassing. Greg agrees to try his best, despite warning Kendall that Matsson “has expressed a distaste in the past for my particular flavor of me.”The cases of terrible “biodynamic” German wine that Tom was stuck with last season return at the tailgate party, where he tries to fob it off on the guests. (Tom, pressuring Nate into drinking it: “It’s the kind of wine that separates the connoisseurs from the weekend Malbec morons.”)So when will Logan’s funeral be? The series finale, maybe? The past few episodes have been preparing us for a real humdinger of a ceremony, which is currently either going to be Marcia’s “three-day grief-a-thon” or Connor’s “tight 90.” One thing we do know: Roman will be delivering the eulogy, in what could be his last chance to convince the nation’s tastemakers that he is, contrary to his father’s opinion, a serious person.Connor, on spending time with Logan’s corpse: “The weird thing is how much he’s not there. I find that consoling.” More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Sam Now’ and ‘Jeopardy! Masters’

    A coming-of-age documentary from PBS follows Sam Harkness and his family over 25 years, and a new iteration of the popular quiz show premieres on ABC.With 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, May 8-14. Details and times are subject to change.MondayKen Jennings hosting “Jeopardy! Masters.”Christopher Willard/ABCJEOPARDY! MASTERS 8 p.m. on ABC. The “Jeopardy!” champion and co-host Ken Jennings is now the host of the beloved quiz show’s latest iteration. Each episode will feature the current six highest-ranked “Jeopardy!” contestants competing in two games for $500,000 and the Masters champion title. Amy Schneider, Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach, Andrew He, Sam Buttrey and James Holzhauer appear in the premiere.SAM NOW 10 p.m. on PBS. Shot by Sam Harkness’s half brother, the director Reed Harkness, this documentary follows Sam as he grapples with his mother’s abrupt departure. Through home videos and interviews over 25 years, the film explores concepts of intergenerational trauma, familial relationships and healing as Sam searches for answers and inner peace. Nicolas Rapold’s review for The New York Times called it “a sensitive and surprising“ film “whose emotional reality seems to evolve before your eyes.”TuesdayDANCING QUEENS 9 p.m. on BRAVO. This docu-series follows six amateur dancers as they vie for top spots in the world of Pro-Am ballroom dancing, where professionals are paired with amateur partners for competitions. The six featured women this season range from stay-at-home mothers to businesswomen, all of whom invest their time, money and wits in practice, clothing, makeup, travel and the occasional sabotage in the hope of coming out on top.WednesdayWE NEED TO TALK ABOUT AMERICA 10 p.m. on FUSE. Featuring new and returning first-generation American comedians, this commentary series about the oddities of American pop culture is back for a second season. Gender reveals, eating contests and over the top marriage proposals are among the topics to be dismantled and roasted.THE GAME SHOW SHOW 10 p.m. on ABC. Through interviews with contestants and hosts as well as analyses of the game show genre’s evolution and scandals, this four-part series explores the history and persistence of a variety of American game show formats. The season premiere opens with an examination of the development of the quiz show, and what changes in the audience, contestants and questions asked reveal about American culture. Other episodes explore reality competitions and dating shows.ThursdayFrom left, David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan and Tom Hanks in “The Green Mile.”Ralph Nelson/Castle Rock EntertainmentTHE GREEN MILE (1999) 8 p.m. on AMC. Adapted from the book of the same name by Stephen King, this Academy Award nominated film from the director Frank Darabont (‘The Shawshank Redemption’) is a death row drama that focuses on the reminiscences of Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), a retired corrections officer residing in an assisted living facility in 1999. The film follows the story of John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a Black man who has been sentenced to death at “The Green Mile” — the nickname given to Cold Mountain Penitentiary’s death row, where Paul worked in the 1930s — after being convicted of raping and murdering two white girls. As it becomes evident that John is a healer of both humans and animals, and Paul and some of the other officers begin to doubt his guilt. In her review for The Times, Janet Maslin wrote that the film “makes the horrors of the death penalty grotesquely clear,” but that “much of it is very gentle.” She added that the three-hour film’s “unassumingly strong, moving performances and Mr. Darabont’s durable storytelling” make watching it “a trip worth taking.”FridayFrom left, Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron and David Farrar in “Black Narcissus.”Film ForumBLACK NARCISSUS (1947) 6:15 p.m. on TCM. This Golden Globe and Academy Award winning film, adapted from the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden, is a “work of rare pictorial beauty,” according to a review for The Times. It described the movie as “a coldly intellectual morality drama tinged with a cynicism” that hinges on its “provocative contemplation of the age-old conflict between the soul and the flesh.” It follows five nuns attempting to establish a school and hospital in an isolated town in the Himalayas — a mission that goes awry as they each succumb to the pressures of their environment. The film focuses especially on Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), and their responses when their faith and morals are tested. The film was banned for four months in 1947 by the National Legion of Decency, a Catholic group, for its erotic themes. In 2020, the story was remade as an FX mini-series.SaturdaySimu Wu in the documentary “Hidden Letters.”Feng Tiebing/Cargo ReleasingHIDDEN LETTERS 8 p.m. on PBS. For Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, “Independent Lens” presents an exploration of gender relations in modern China through the lens of Nushu, a secret written language developed by women for women centuries ago in southern China. The documentary is structured around the stories of two Nushu practitioners — a divorced museum guide and an engaged musician — and hints at the ways in which the principles of Nushu are still at play today. “‘Hidden Letters’ compels when it dwells in the everyday lives of its two leads, capturing the stray misogyny leveled at them by their partners, fathers, bosses, customers and even strangers,” wrote Devika Girish in her review for The Times. “Like a totem from their ancestors, Nushu evidently helps these women reckon with their own lives and ambitions.”SundayMATCH ME ABROAD 10 p.m. on TLC. This new dating show follows matchmakers based in the Czech Republic, Colombia and Morocco as they work to find connections for seven Americans seeking love overseas. It chronicles the journeys of the singles and their motivations as well as the matchmakers’ perspectives, as they chaperone dates, translate and coach their clients. More

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    Adam Brace, Director of Ambitious One-Person Shows, Dies at 43

    He worked with stand-up comedians to develop shows — one of which is headed for Broadway — that were more than just collections of jokes.Adam Brace, a prolific British director renowned as an incisive collaborator with stand-up comedians and other performers on a string of acclaimed one-person shows, one of which is to open on Broadway next month, died on April 29 in London. He was 43.Rebecca Fuller, his partner, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of a stroke.For more than a decade, Mr. Brace worked with more than a dozen comedians and actors, up-and-coming as well as established and most of them British, to craft stage shows that were thematically and structurally more ambitious than conventional stand-up sets, more in the tradition of shows starring American monologists like Eric Bogosian, Colin Quinn and Mike Birbiglia.Mr. Brace, who had once been a playwright, helped edit the shows with a sophisticated ear to what audiences wanted.“He looked after so much more than the jokes and the laughs,” said the American comedian Alex Edelman, whose show “Just for Us” is scheduled to begin performances at the Hudson Theater on June 22, after an Obie Award-winning run Off Broadway. It was also staged in London and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the annual performing arts extravaganza. “He looked after the intangibles that can turn a good comedian into a great comedian.”Mr. Edelman, who also worked with Mr. Brace on two other one-man shows, added: “Comedians are maniacs, and he dealt with us at our rawest and most eccentric. He’d take these personal stories and translate them into accessible shows.”“Just for Us” tells the story of how Mr. Edelman, after drawing the attention of white nationalists online, decided to infiltrate a group of them in Queens. It was praised last year by Laura Collins-Hughes in The New York Times as “a brisk, smart provocation of a monologue” about “race and identity in American culture.”The coming move of Mr. Edelman’s show to Broadway follows by several months the opening in London’s West End of “One Woman Show,” Liz Kingsman’s theatrical parody about a playwright who decides to write and perform a confessional monologue. It was nominated for an Olivier Award for best entertainment or comedy play and will open Off Broadway, at the Greenwich House Theater, next month.“With my show, he changed everything,” Ms. Kingsman, an Australian-born actor and writer, said by phone. “It could have been a show that didn’t have a lot of depth, but together we dove down and figured out everything underneath it and everything we wanted to say with the best delivery method.”She added, “I never wanted my show to be a soapbox thing, I never wanted it to sound like I was preaching, so it was about us finding the form where we could make everything funny and digestible.”For Mr. Brace, directing one-person comedy shows like Ms. Kingsman’s was mostly about being a dramaturg, the literary editor of a play. He had held that job at the Soho Theater in London before becoming its associate director.“The term ‘director’ is not a useful or accurate term in comedy, but it’s one we’re stuck with now,” he told The Stage, a British performing arts publication, in 2022. “I don’t really tell anyone to do anything.”“What we’re doing,” he added, “is shaping the whole event. It’s hard-core dramaturgy and, at the most involved level, co-creation.”Mr. Brace and Mr. Edelman working on the Off Broadway production of “Just for Us” before it opened at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2021.Monique CarboniAdam George Brace was born on March 25, 1980, in London. His father, George, an architect, was killed in a bicycle accident before Adam was born. His mother, Nicola (Sturdy) Brace, was a theater administrator. As a teenager, Adam stuffed envelopes with her theater’s season announcements and watched its productions. His paternal grandmother nurtured his interest in theater by taking him to the Edinburgh Festival — where many of the shows he later directed were performed.After receiving a bachelor’s degree in drama from the University of Kent in 2002, he taught English as a foreign language in South Korea and acted at a children’s theater in Kuala Lumpur. He also worked as a gardener, a security guard and a journalist at The Irish Post. In 2007, he received a master’s degree in writing for performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.While studying for his master’s, he traveled to Amman, Jordan, where he researched what turned out to be his first full-length play, “Stovepipe.” The story of the recruitment of private British military contractors during the Iraq war and an ambush that kills one of them, it opened in England in 2008. The Daily Telegraph’s reviewer, writing about a 2009 production, said that Mr. Brace’s script “crackles with tense dialogue and gradually reveals a cunning sense of structure.”His next play, “They Drink It in the Congo” (2016), about a young white Londoner’s efforts to start a festival to celebrate Congolese culture and raise awareness of the civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was his last. By then, he had begun directing one-person shows. He also worked as an associate at the Gate Theater in London, from 2011 to 2013; as an associate dramaturg at Nuffield Southampton Theaters, from 2013 to 2016; and, most recently, at the Soho Theater.He also worked regularly with Sh!t Theater, a theater company consisting of Ms. Fuller and Louise Mothersole, whose performance art includes music, comedy and multimedia elements.“We called him our directurg,” Ms. Fuller, who performs under the name Rebecca Biscuit, said by phone. “He helped you see connections in things that weren’t visible.”In addition to Ms. Fuller, Mr. Brace is survived by his mother; his brothers, Tim and Alex Hopkins; and his stepfather, Nigel Hopkins.Mr. Edelman said that after a show, he and Mr. Brace would assess how well he had executed several goals, including whether he had found the right balance between stillness and momentum.With Mr. Brace’s death, he said, “One of the things I’m thinking about is, who will be the person to talk to about that execution with me?” More

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    ‘The Glory’ Was a Hit. Now Netflix Is Spending More on K-Dramas.

    As the series, which focuses on bullying and revenge, became the latest global sensation to emerge from South Korea, Netflix announced it would spend $2.5 billion more on Korean content.“Somebody please help me!” Dong-eun, a high school student, screams as a classmate sears a hair curler into her arm while two other tormentors hold her down.The gruesome scene in a school gymnasium is one of the early, pivotal moments of “The Glory,” the 16-episode drama centered on bullying, social status and revenge that has become the latest in a succession of South Korean mega hits for Netflix. Its breakout sensation, “Squid Game,” became the streamer’s most popular series of all time.“The Glory,” which was released in two parts in December and March, is now Netflix’s fifth most popular non-English television offering ever. Executives said they were somewhat surprised to see how well the show did internationally, noting that it reached the top 10 non-English TV list in 91 countries.It was one of the Korean hits, along with “Squid Game” and “Physical: 100,” that Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive of Netflix, cited last month when he met with President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. There he announced a $2.5 billion investment in South Korean content over the next four years and noted that stories created in the country “are now at the heart of the global cultural zeitgeist.”Don Kang, Netflix’s vice president of content for Korea, said it had been exciting to see the show take off globally. “‘The Glory’ is a great example of a story that resonates authentically with local audiences, but also depicts themes of human psychology and social issues, which audiences everywhere can relate to,” he said in a statement to The New York Times.“The Glory” revolves around Moon Dong-eun, who makes it her life’s mission to seek revenge on the people who bullied her in high school. Her scars serve both as physical reminders of the pain she suffered at the hands of bullies and as the motivation behind her yearslong quest for vengeance. As she ages and develops her complicated payback scheme, she transforms from victim to perpetrator.In braiding together the themes of bullying and revenge — plot devices that have animated dramas for centuries — “The Glory” lured droves of justice-hungry viewers in South Korea and beyond, even without the grand sets and striking visuals that propelled the popularity of “Squid Game.”Netflix officials said they were pleased to discover that a show focused on story line and characters could travel as well as it did. They said they decided early on to release the episodes in two batches in part because of the weightiness of the content.In a country where traditional broadcasters still censor smoking, Netflix is among the platforms that have opened a path for content creators to delve into topics that have long been considered too risqué, said Yu Kon-shik, an adjunct professor of communications at Konkuk University in Seoul and part of the production planning committee at the Korean Broadcasting System.Fans of “The Glory,” some of whom recalled their own experiences with bullying, admitted that they found it gratifying and cathartic to see Dong-eun upend the lives of her enemies, even when she did things they would never consider.“‘The Glory’ is this slow burn of a vengeance,” said Amy Lew, of Temple City, Calif., whose children have been bullied in school. “That’s everyone’s dark side, right? You want to see the underdog win.”“Squid Game” became Netflix’s most popular series of all time.NetflixThere is a reason so many people can relate. Almost one in three students reported being bullied in 2019, according to a UNESCO report, which also found that the prevalence of bullying has increased in almost one in five countries. And although reports of school violence in South Korea are relatively low — about 2 percent of students report being victims, according to its Ministry of Education — the actual figures could be higher because many students are afraid to speak up, said Kim Tae-yeon, a lawyer in Seoul who specializes in the subject.The resonance of “The Glory” and its themes parked the show on Netflix’s Global Top 10 list for non-English television for 13 weeks. (It has spent only three weeks on the list of leading non-English programs in the United States.) It became one of four Korean series among Netflix’s 10 most popular non-English TV offerings of all time, along with “Squid Game,” “All of Us Are Dead” and “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.”Now the company is hoping to build on those successes by releasing more than 30 Korean series, films and unscripted shows this year alone. At the end of March, just three weeks after the release of the second batch of episodes of “The Glory,” Netflix offered up another new Korean thriller: “Kill Boksoon.”It has spent the past five weeks in Netflix’s top 10 for non-English films.The global success of Korean productions demonstrates the international reach of Netflix — which can subtitle or dub shows in more than 30 languages — but also of the growing power of Seoul as a creative hub, Kang, the Netflix vice president, said.“Korea is a storytelling powerhouse with the ability to showcase uniquely Korean culture and issues,” he said, “while conveying universal emotions that resonate with people around the world.” More

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    Newton N. Minow, F.C.C. Chief Who Deemed TV a ‘Vast Wasteland,’ Dies at 97

    His stunning declaration caused an instant sensation when he made it in 1961 and ignited a national debate over Americans’ viewing habits.Newton N. Minow, who as President John F. Kennedy’s new F.C.C. chairman in 1961 sent shock waves through an industry and touched a nerve in a nation addicted to banality and mayhem by calling American television “a vast wasteland,” died on Saturday at his home in Chicago . He was 97. His daughter Nell Minow said the cause was a heart attack.On May 9, 1961, almost four months after President Kennedy called upon Americans to renew their commitment to freedom around the globe, Mr. Minow, a bespectacled bureaucrat who had recently been put in charge of the Federal Communications Commission, got up before 2,000 broadcast executives at a luncheon in Washington and invited them to watch television for a day.“Stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you, and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off,” Mr. Minow said. “I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”The audience sat aghast as he went on:“You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.”He added, “If you think I exaggerate, try it.”Mr. Minow spoke at the Gannett Foundation Media Center at the Columbia School of Journalism on May 9, 1991, the 30th anniversary of the speech in which he called television a “vast wasteland.” Susan Ragan/Associated PressTo broadcasters who for years had enjoyed a cozy relationship with the F.C.C., Mr. Minow’s scorching indictment opened a troubling new era of regulatory pressures that for the first time stressed program content and public service. While the F.C.C. had no authority to tell broadcasters what to air, Mr. Minow pointedly reminded them that it did periodically renew station licenses for the use of the public airwaves, and that it had the power to revoke them for irresponsible performance.Mr. Minow’s characterization of TV as “a vast wasteland” — a phrase inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” — was an instant sensation, entering the American lexicon and setting off an avalanche of headlines, editorials, cartoons and letters to the editor, and a national debate over the viewing habits of adults and children.It also transformed Mr. Minow, a 35-year-old Chicago lawyer who had campaigned for Adlai E. Stevenson and President Kennedy, into an overnight celebrity — a household name that a poll of editors by The Associated Press found to be the “top newsmaker” of 1961, ahead of Jack Paar, Gary Cooper and Elizabeth Taylor.Mr. Minow insisted that he had not meant his remarks to the National Association of Broadcasters as a frontal attack. But in the ensuing months, his public hearings and pronouncements kept up the pressure on networks to raise the quality and diversity of programming. And for a time it worked: TV violence appeared to recede, educational offerings for children expanded slightly, the stature of network news was reinforced.But the networks — still reeling from the payola and quiz show scandals of the 1950s — contended that they were only giving the public what it wanted, and an NBC special about Mr. Minow’s hearings appeared to bear them out. The program attracted only a small audience and was swamped by ratings for the western “Maverick” on ABC and the talking-horse sitcom “Mister Ed” on CBS.There was also a certain vengeance — perhaps lost on audiences — when the phrase “vast wasteland” was featured years later as an answer to questions on TV game shows, like “Jeopardy!” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”Communications PioneerMr. Minow served with the F.C.C. for only about two years. And in retrospect, experts say, his most important contributions probably had less to do with his famous speech than with his efforts on behalf of two laws adopted during the Kennedy administration.One required TV sets sold in America to be equipped to receive ultra-high-frequency (UHF) signals as well as the very-high-frequency (VHF) broadcasts that predominated at the time. By the end of the 1960s, most Americans had reception on scores of channels, not just a dozen, with a wide diversity of programming, especially on independent and public stations.Mr. Minow also pushed legislation that opened the era of satellite communications. It fostered the creation, by a consortium of interests, of the Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat), and later the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (Intelsat), which allowed the United States to dominate satellite communications in the 1960s and ’70s, and it ultimately led to greater program diversity.Mr. Minow, right, in an undated photo with, from left, Frank Stanton, the president of CBS; the program host Arthur Godfrey; and William S. Paley, the network’s chairman.Bettmann, via Getty ImagesIn an interview for this obituary in July 2019, Mr. Minow bemoaned the likelihood that he would be remembered for his assessment of America’s television culture rather than for his efforts on behalf of communications satellites, which he said led to the global information revolution, to digital communications and to the internet.“I went to the White House and told President Kennedy that these communications satellites were more important than sending men into space, because they would send ideas into space and ideas last longer than people,” he said. “I testified 13 times in Congress for the legislation to create the corporations and the funding. I think this is more important than anything else I’ve ever done, for its impact on the future of the world.”The legislation was adopted, and America’s first communications satellite went into orbit in 1962 and was soon used to transmit programs across the world. Mr. Minow’s role was detailed in “Chasing the Moon,” a 2019 book, by Alan Andres and Robert Stone, and a companion PBS-TV series marking the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing in 1969.Mr. Minow resigned from the F.C.C. in 1963 to become an executive with Encyclopaedia Britannica. Two years later he joined a Chicago law firm that merged in 1972 with Sidley Austin, one of the world’s largest practices. Mr. Minow was a partner until 1991 and then became senior counsel. In 1988, he recruited Barack Obama to work as a summer associate at the firm, where Mr. Obama met his future wife, Michelle Robinson.In the decades that followed his F.C.C. tenure, Mr. Minow wrote books and articles, lectured widely and continued to campaign for programming reforms. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting System were founded, educational programming for children and adults was greatly expanded, and network news grew from adolescence to maturity, with a new emphasis on documentaries.Mr. Minow also played important roles in the development of the nation’s televised presidential debates, which began in 1960 with a confrontation between Mr. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. Mr. Minow and Mr. Stevenson, a former Illinois governor and presidential candidate, helped persuade Congress that year to exempt presidential debates from the F.C.C.’s equal-time rule, so that broadcasters could cover them without having to include marginal candidates.Without congressional exemptions, there were no debates in 1964, 1968 and 1972. But the F.C.C. later changed its rules to provide exemptions, and Mr. Minow helped the League of Women Voters revive the debates.He was co-chairman of the 1976 and 1980 debates and later served on the board of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the bipartisan nonprofit group that has organized them since 1988. With Craig L. LaMay, he wrote “Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future” (2008).In the 2020 election campaign, President Donald J. Trump scuttled a second debate with his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden, by abruptly announcing that he would not participate in a virtual face-off ordered by the Commission on Presidential Debates because of concerns over the spreading coronavirus. It was the first time any candidate had pulled out of a scheduled presidential debate.Mr. Minow called Mr. Trump’s withdrawal “a big loss to the democratic process,” adding, “American voters are the losers — deprived of the opportunity to see, hear and evaluate presidential candidates through today’s technology.”Mr. Trump said the debate commission was “trying to protect Biden” and repeatedly sought to undermine its integrity. Without evidence, he accused the scheduled moderator, Steve Scully, of being a “never Trumper” and said the moderator of the first debate, Chris Wallace of Fox News, “was a disaster” who favored Mr. Biden.A Biden spokeswoman said: “Donald Trump doesn’t make the debate schedule. The debate commission does.”In 2016, President Obama awarded Mr. Minow the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in a ceremony at the White House.Newton Norman Minow was born in Milwaukee on Jan. 17, 1926, the son of Jay A. Minow, who owned a chain of laundries, and Doris (Stein) Minow. He attended public schools in Milwaukee, enlisted in the Army in World War II and, after earning a certificate in engineering at the University of Michigan as part of an Army training program, helped lay the first telephone line connecting India and China. He mustered out in 1946 as a sergeant.In 1949, he married Josephine Baskin. The couple had three daughters. Besides his daughter Nell, Mr. Minow is survived by his other daughters, Martha and Mary Minow, and three grandchildren. His wife died last year. Mr. Minow graduated from Northwestern University in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in speech and political science, and a year later he received a law degree at Northwestern, where he was editor of the law review and first in his class academically.After a year with a Chicago law firm, he became law clerk to Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson of the United States Supreme Court. He then joined Governor Stevenson as an aide and worked on his unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1952 and 1956 against Dwight D. Eisenhower. He also got to know Robert F. Kennedy, with whom he discussed the effects of television on children.He joined the Kennedy presidential bandwagon early, and after the 1960 election he eagerly sought the $20,500-a-year F.C.C. chairmanship — an appointment some observers considered inappropriate given his limited experience with the media and communications law.Mr. Minow recalled years later that when he told Mr. Stevenson, who had been passed over for secretary of state, that the Kennedy transition team had him in mind for the F.C.C. job the former governor said: “Oh, you must have misunderstood. You’re only 34 years old. They’re not going to ask you to be chairman of the F.C.C.” But they did.A Sitcom’s RebukeWhile his campaign against television violence and mediocrity was widely applauded, it was also criticized by powerful television executives as an unconstitutional government attempt to interfere with private enterprise, and by others as an elitist attack on entertainment enjoyed by millions of viewers. The sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” (1964-67) offered a rebuke of sorts: The boat that sank, leaving its passengers stranded, was named the S.S. Minnow.President Barack Obama awarded Mr. Minow the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2016.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesMr. Minow’s books on programming, presidential debates and other subjects included “Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television, and the First Amendment,” (1995), written with Mr. LaMay, which urged broadcasters, parents, advertisers and legislators to elevate children’s programming.He was on the board of the Public Broadcasting Service and its predecessor, National Educational Television, from 1973 to 1980, and was chairman from 1978 to 1980. He helped fund the influential PBS series “Sesame Street.”Nearly a half-century after a speech that had become among the most widely quoted of an era, Mr. Minow was still being asked about it, and he still insisted the press had misconstrued his intent.“The reaction was astonishing to me,” he recalled in a 2003 article for the Federal Communications Law Journal. “Particularly astonishing was the importance the press placed upon two words — vast wasteland — which I didn’t think were that important. But somehow that stuck in the public mind. I had two different words in mind: public interest.”In 2011, Mr. Minow wrote an article for The Atlantic, “A Vaster Wasteland,” in which he hailed the “sizzling and explosive advances in technology” that had transformed communications. But he berated television again for failing America’s children and politics, sounding every inch the war horse of old.“For 50 years, we have bombarded our children with commercials disguised as programs and with endless displays of violence and sexual exploitation,” he declared. “We are nearly alone in the democratic world in not providing our candidates with public-service television time. Instead, we make them buy it — and so money consumes and corrupts our political discourse.” More

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    King Charles’s Coronation: A British TV Spectacle for the Digital Age

    King Charles III’s coronation will be disseminated across numerous platforms to a less sympathetic public than when his mother was crowned in 1953.The mystique around the British royal family — so essential to the nation’s acceptance of its hereditary and privileged first monarchy — has always drawn its power from a blend of secrecy and symbolism that combine in impeccably choreographed spectacle.On Saturday, the regal alchemy will be conjured anew at King Charles III’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in London. The spectacle has been years in the planning, not simply as an event in its own right, but also as a moment in history intimately entwined with its onscreen projection around Britain and across the globe.The coronation will be the first since Charles’s mother, Elizabeth II, who died in September, was crowned in June 1953. Hers was the first coronation to be transmitted live and in full at a time when televisual broadcasting was still a novelty, and it initiated a long era of increasingly close coordination between Buckingham Palace and the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster.Areas for the media to use during Charles’s coronation have been erected in front of Buckingham Palace. The event will be projected around Britain and across the globe.Press Association via AP ImagesAnti-royalists have complained bitterly that, as Graham Smith, the head of a campaigning organization called Republic, said in a recent statement: “The BBC routinely misrepresents the monarchy and public opinion. They suggest the nation is celebrating major events when that simply isn’t the case.”While the BBC rejects these claims of partiality, there is little doubt that as digital technology has advanced over many years, the broadcaster’s royal coverage has become ever more sophisticated and comprehensive. The medium, in other words, has facilitated a kind of blanket coverage of a message that would not have been possible in the 1950s.In 1953, the queen’s coronation unfolded in a nation in thrall to a newfangled miracle called television. British baby boomers, many of them small children at the time, like to recall that television in those days meant a small black-and-white screen in a large wooden cabinet broadcasting a single channel. The British establishment — including its nobles and priests, as well as the BBC — wielded exclusive control of the monochrome footage that would mold a generation’s memory of the event.Makeshift antennae were thrown up on hilltops to link the various parts of the British Isles to the central broadcast unit in London. In the presatellite, predigital era, British Royal Air Force bombers flew raw film of the coronation across the Atlantic for broadcast on American networks.In New York in 1953, crowds gathered around televisions broadcasting the queen’s coronation. British Royal Air Force bombers flew raw film of the event across the Atlantic for American networks.Getty ImagesSome members of the British hierarchy wished to keep cameras out of the inner sanctum of Westminster Abbey, where the queen was crowned. “The world would have been a happier place if television had never been discovered,” the Most Rev. Geoffrey F. Fisher, then the archbishop of Canterbury, who presided over the queen’s coronation, was quoted as saying.Even today, King Charles has resolved to follow his mother’s example by banning cameras from what is considered the most sacred part of the coronation service, in which he is anointed with what is called the oil of chrism.But much else has changed. When Elizabeth was crowned, “Britain was marked by extreme deference,” Vernon Bogdanor, a constitutional expert at King’s College, London, said in a recent interview. “The monarchy was thought to be magical and untouchable.”Since then, the royal House of Windsor has changed radically from “a magical monarchy to a public service monarchy,” Bogdanor said, and “is judged by whether it contributes to society, and if it doesn’t, people won’t have it.” King Charles, he added, seems “well aware of that.”For the king, a helter-skelter technological revolution has transformed every smartphone owner into a pocket cinematographer, hooked to a multiplex world of apps and platforms, uploads and downloads. Where his mother’s crowning bathed the monarchy in uncontested splendor, Charles’s challenge is to focus a much more diffuse spotlight.While Elizabeth’s coronation required only around 20 cameras, Charles’s crowning is set to be broadcast on the BBC’s hi-definition iPlayer streaming service, alongside television coverage. In advance of the coronation, other television offerings — including a soap opera, a sewing program and a show usually devoted to rural life — will be broadcast with coronation-themed episodes “to mark history with an unparalleled breadth of programs,” said Charlotte Moore, the BBC’s chief content officer. Regional affiliates of the BBC, its many radio channels and rival commercial television broadcasters will also have programming on regal matters.With her sparing television addresses and her tight adherence to the royal script, the queen seemed to generally balance the monarchy’s need for visibility with its enduring aversion to scrutiny. But the rest of her family has fared very differently onscreen.“The public eye is grown more unforgiving, its gaze, like its judgments, more relentless,” Catherine Mayer wrote in “Charles: The Heart of a King,” a biography updated last year after its initial publication in 2015. “Even so, if the Windsors wish to see the biggest dangers to the survival of the monarchy, they need only look in the mirror.”From left, Queen Mother Elizabeth, her grandson Prince Charles and his aunt Princess Margaret at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Charles was 4 at the time.Intercontinentale, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSince the mid-1990s, when the estranged Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, gave television interviews to seek sympathy for their divergent versions of their marital woes, culminating in divorce in 1996, efforts by members of the royal family to advance their agendas on television have proved ambiguous at best.In 2019, Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth’s second son after Charles, gave a lengthy television interview to try to rebut accusations related to his friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The interview set off a public relations disaster, leading to Prince Andrew’s withdrawal from public life.Then, in March 2021, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry appeared in a joint interview with Oprah Winfrey, screened in the United States and then in Britain, after their decision to live in California and step back from their roles as senior royals. The interview touched on a range of topics including mental health issues, intimations of racism in the House of Windsor, and the couple’s sense of dislocation, betrayal and vulnerability.But cumulatively, the airing of grievances, like Prince Andrew’s litany of self-exculpation before it, bolstered the sense of a dysfunctional and anachronistic institution held in place by a fickle mix of public tolerance, inherited privilege and fabled wealth. In the run-up to the coronation, one question eagerly pursued by British newspapers was whether Harry would attend the most important public event in his father’s life on May 6. The answer: he would, but without Meghan and their two children.For Charles, the recent redrawing of the media landscape and the public mood offer perils that were barely dreamed of when his mother was crowned.Charles and his son Prince Harry in 2019. After much speculation in the British press, it was announced that Harry would indeed attend the coronation, but without his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children.Samir Hussein/WireImage, via Getty Images“Because the royals have ended up co-opted into the culture wars,”‌ Mayer, the author, said‌ in an interview, “one word out of place — and, let’s face it, that’s a family that specializes in words out of place ‌ — will have gone round the world and back in a way it never would have before.”‌ More

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    Judith Miller, ‘Antiques Roadshow’ Mainstay, Is Dead at 71

    Known for her many guidebooks, she helped determine what was trash and what was treasure on the BBC series that inspired the American show.Judith Miller, the author of popular antiques price guides and a member of the team of appraisers who determined what was trash and what was treasure on “Antiques Roadshow,” the beloved long-running BBC program that inspired the American series of the same name, died on April 8 in North London. She was 71.Her husband, John Wainwright, confirmed the death, in a hospital. He did not specify the cause, saying only that she died after a short illness.Ms. Miller, known to the British news media as the queen of collectibles, was often buttonholed on the street by Britons eager to share their back stories of Great-Aunt So-and-So’s bibelots, and at antiques fairs, where many attendees clutched fresh copies of “Miller’s Antiques Handbook & Price Guide” or “Miller’s Collectibles Handbook,” the twin bibles of the antiques and collecting world. Once, Mr. Wainwright recalled, at the reception for his mother’s funeral, a woman approached Ms. Miller and pulled a plate out from under her coat, wondering what it might be worth. (He did not know the woman, he hastened to add.)Ms. Miller’s books, updated regularly, are encyclopedic in their range and eclectic in their categories. They describe thousands of objects — the current antiques edition lists more than 8,000 — each illustrated by a sumptuous color photograph. There were the usual suspects, like Royal Doulton Art Deco teacups and saucers, Meissen pottery, Murano glass and pages of Scandinavian ceramics. But Ms. Miller also covered the world of material and popular culture, including a signed photograph of Whoopi Goldberg; a letter from Lyndon B. Johnson on White House stationery; a first edition of William S. Burroughs’s novel “Naked Lunch”; ’60s-era Barbies; and British utility clothing from the ’40s. There was also Inuit art, Swinging Sixties fashion, ’50s-era Ferragamo shoes, James Bond books, baseball cards, soccer jerseys and what was described as the world’s smallest pen, 1.5 inches long, made by Waterman in 1914.Riffling through a Miller’s collectibles guide is delicious social history, an intriguing romp through the decades. A reader could learn, for example, that a plastic box purse from the 1940s in bright, jaunty colors took its shape from the telephone cables that were used because of the shortages of other materials in the years after World War II.Ms. Miller’s books are encyclopedic, describing thousands of objects, each illustrated by a sumptuous color photograph. The current edition of her antiques guide lists more than 8,000.Mitchell BeazleyA mild-mannered woman who spoke with a soft Scottish burr, Ms. Miller was the expert in charge of “miscellaneous and ceramics” on “Antiques Roadshow,” which began in 1979 and she joined in 2007. (The American version first aired in 1997.) One of the treasures she was most proud of identifying was a collection of British Art Deco transport posters by the French artist Jean Dupas, which was brought to the show by a man who had paid 50 pence for them at a yard sale when he was a boy in the 1970s. Ms. Miller estimated their value at more than 30,000 pounds (nearly $40,000).“That was a very well-spent 50 p,” she told the man, who responded with British understatement: “Wow. Gosh.”Her other favorite discoveries, The Guardian reported, included a stash of 2,000 18th-century shoe buckles and a toilet seat used by Winston Churchill.Ms. Miller was a history student at the University of Edinburgh when she began buying cheap antique plates from local junk shops to brighten up the walls of her student digs. Intrigued by their history, she began to research and collect in earnest.With her first husband, Martin Miller, she wrote the first “Miller’s Antiques Price Guide.” Published in 1979, it was an instant success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. After the couple divorced in the early 1990s, Ms. Miller continued to produce books on collectibles and antiques; she had completed more than 100 at her death.Her own collecting ranged from 15th-century porcelain to midcentury modern furniture. She was addicted to auctions, she told The Telegraph: “I get sweaty palms, my heart starts beating faster, and I start glaring at anyone bidding against me.”She loved costume jewelry, as well as pieces by the Danish silversmith Georg Jensen and chairs, which she bought in abundance. She was agnostic with regard to period and preferred buying single chairs to buying sets. Her favorites included an 18th-century ladder-back chair, an Arne Jacobsen piece from 1955 and a Queen Anne chair from 1710. When Ms. Miller set out on an antiques expedition, Mr. Wainwright invariably sent her off with these words:“Repeat after me: We do not need one more single chair.”Judith Henderson Cairns was born on Sept. 16, 1951, in Galashiels, Scotland. Her father, Andrew Cairns, was a wool buyer, and her mother, Bertha (Henderson) Cairns, was a homemaker.Judith grew up in an antiques-free household; she always said that her parents were part of the “Formica generation” and had paid to have their parents’ things carted away after their deaths. She had planned to be a history teacher, but in 1974 she took a job as an editorial assistant at Mr. Miller’s publishing company.After they married in 1978, the Millers embarked on a career of publishing and house flipping; they would move 12 times in 16 years. In 1985 they bought Chilston Park, an enormous estate in Kent, England, with no running water or electricity, where they lived for a time with their two young daughters before turning it into a luxury hotel.In addition to Mr. Wainwright, her partner since the early 1990s, Ms. Miller is survived by her daughters, Cara and Kristy Miller; her son, Tom Wainwright; and four grandchildren.Ms. Miller’s own collection ranged from 15th-century porcelain to midcentury modern furniture. She was addicted to auctions, at which she once said her heart “starts beating faster.”Andrew CrowleyCara Miller has been working on “The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder,” the first in a series of mystery novels to be published next year for which Judith Miller was both consultant and inspiration. At one point Cara asked her mother the crucial question: “What antique would you kill for?” Her answer, as Cara recalled by email, was “Of course for an antique for someone to kill over I suppose it would have to be worth a vast amount — a Ming vase, a Fabergé egg — but that’s not nearly as interesting as what item we love and why we love it. So often the value is in the story behind it and what that story means to us.”In 2020, Ms. Miller told Fiona Bruce, the host of “Antiques Roadshow,” her own story of an object she particularly valued.It was a late-19th-century cranberry glass claret jug. It had belonged, Ms. Miller said, to her great-aunt Lizzie, who had been a downstairs maid at a grand house in Scotland and had married the footman. The jug was a wedding present from the lady of the house. The footman died in the trenches during World War I, and Lizzie never remarried.“To her, this was her most precious object,” Ms. Miller said. “We used to go see her twice a week, and if I was a very, very good girl I was allowed to pick it up.”When Great-Aunt Lizzie died, she left the piece to Ms. Miller.“I think on a good day it’s worth about 40 quid” ($50), she told Ms. Bruce. “But you can’t put a value on the memories.” More