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    Nonbinary “& Juliet” Performer Opts Out of Gendered Tony Awards

    Justin David Sullivan of “& Juliet” decided to abstain from consideration and urged awards shows to “expand their reach.”A principal performer in the new Broadway musical “& Juliet” has withdrawn from consideration for the Tony Awards rather than compete in a gendered category, shining a renewed spotlight on the question of whether major awards should continue to have separate categories for men and women.The performer, Justin David Sullivan, is trans nonbinary and uses the pronouns he, she and they. In the pop-song-fueled musical, which imagines an alternative to “Romeo and Juliet” in which Juliet does not die, Sullivan plays May, one of Juliet’s best friends. May — an adolescent, like Juliet — is still figuring things out.The Tony Awards, like the Oscars and the Emmys, have separate acting categories for men and for women. The Grammy Awards eliminated many gendered categories as part of a consolidation in 2012, and the Obie Awards, which honor Off and Off Off Broadway work, have long had nongendered categories.Sullivan, whose performance has been generally well-received, was among many people who could have been nominated as a featured performer in a musical. But those categories, like all the Tony acting categories, are gendered, and by opting out of the contest altogether, Sullivan puts public pressure on the awards.“I felt I had no choice but to abstain from being considered for a nomination this season,” Sullivan said in a statement on Wednesday. “I hope that award shows across the industry will expand their reach to be able to honor and award people of all gender identities.”The Tony Awards have accepted Sullivan’s position, meaning that Sullivan will not appear on the list of Tony-eligible performers considered by nominators at the end of the season. “Per Justin David Sullivan’s request to the Tony Administration Committee, they opted to withdraw themselves from eligibility,” Tony Award Productions said in a statement.Sullivan is not the first nonbinary performer to make such a move. Asia Kate Dillon, who played Malcolm in a production of “Macbeth” last season, asked not to be considered in either the actor or actress categories. That move did not become public at the time but was confirmed by a Tony Awards spokeswoman on Wednesday.This season, there will be at least one Tony-eligible nonbinary performer: J. Harrison Ghee, who stars in the new musical “Some Like It Hot,” will be considered for possible nomination in the leading actor category, the Tony Awards administration committee said on Wednesday. The committee, which determines eligibility categories for shows and artists, was following a request from the show’s producers.Ghee, whose performance has drawn strong reviews and who is considered likely to receive a Tony nomination, plays a musician who initially identifies as male but starts dressing as a woman to escape the mob, and by the end of the show has a more fluid identity.“I’m not going to put myself on this pedestal like, ‘I need it to change today,’” Ghee told The Daily Beast in a recent interview when asked about this season’s Tony Awards categories. “I never go into things expecting to be the person that changes everything. I’m just showing up and meeting the moment.”Tony Awards administrators have quietly been talking about whether to change the gendered nature of their acting awards — awards for designers and directors are not gendered — but it is not clear if, when or how they might do so. There has long been concern that such a change would make it even harder for performers to win the industry’s top honor.“We recognize that the current acting categories are not fully inclusive, and we are currently in discussion about how to best adjust them to address this,” Tony Award Productions said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we are still in process on this and our rules do not allow us to make changes once a season has begun. We are working thoughtfully to ensure that no member of our community feels excluded on the basis of gender identity in future seasons.”The Outer Critics Circle, which grants awards for work both on and Off Broadway, said this year that it would eliminate gendered categories. Several regional theater award competitions, including the Helen Hayes Awards in Washington, the Barrymore Awards in Philadelphia and the Jeff Awards in Chicago, have eliminated gender-specific awards categories. More

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    ‘Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons’ Review: A Thought Exercise, Without Deep Thoughts

    On London’s West End, Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman star in a lightly dystopian comedy that succeeds as a portrait of a troubled couple, but falls short as political satire. The delightfully titled “Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons” is a high-concept romantic comedy on themes of language and communication. Its protagonists, Oliver and Bernadette, are your typical slightly mismatched couple: He’s an idealistic musician, she’s a sensible lawyer; he thinks she’s too careerist, but she reckons he’s just insecure because she earns more than him. Their differences are brought into focus when the government brings in a new law that forbids all citizens from speaking more than 140 words per day. How could any couple survive in such conditions? The so-called “Hush Law” threatens the basis of their closeness, forcing them to water down their conversation to a meager daily quota. But whereas Oliver is affronted and joins a protest movement to try to get the rule repealed, Bernadette, whose instincts are conservative, is initially complacent about its ramifications. Their relationship may or may not be unraveling.This lively debut, by the young British playwright Sam Steiner, enjoyed modest success on the independent circuit a few years ago. It premiered at the Warwick Arts Center in 2015 before moving on to the Edinburgh Fringe festival the following year — and is now enjoying a rather more high-profile second wind at the Harold Pinter Theater in London’s West End, directed by Josie Rourke and running through March 18. The production’s co-stars Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman are relatively big names in British showbiz thanks to roles in the TV series “Poldark” and “Doctor Who.” As Oliver, Turner is sympathetic as the quintessential artsy dreamer — a little self-absorbed, but his heart’s in the right place; Coleman’s Bernadette is prim and sharp, very much the yin to his yang. Together they present a charming and relatable portrait of long-in-the-tooth coupledom, flitting between estrangement and tenderness.Superficially, “Lemons” lends itself to political interpretation. Britain’s government recently proposed a new law that would give the police more powers to break up protests, which it is trying to steer it through Parliament. Against this backdrop, it is tempting to read the scenario portrayed here as a none-too-subtle metaphor for creeping authoritarianism. But the play’s central conceit is too flimsy for political satire. We are told almost nothing about why the Hush Law was introduced, except that the government tried to justify it with benevolent talk of “well-being” and “overstimulation.” The audience must suspend its skepticism — how on earth would it be enforced? — and just go with it. In truth, it’s not so much a dystopia as a thought exercise.Turner and Coleman are relatively big names in British showbiz thanks to roles in the TV series “Poldark” and “Doctor Who.” Johan PerssonSteiner was fresh out of college when “Lemons” first did the rounds in 2015, and there are moments that give it away as early work. When Oliver declares that he finds life under the new restrictions “Orwellian,” it feels like the playwright is holding our hand. As for that 140-word limit, it seems to be a nod to Twitter, which had a 140-character limit before it was doubled to 280, in 2017. But it’s far from clear what connection Steiner is drawing between social media and government suppression of free speech. The concept is a bit muddled, to say the least.The play’s strength is in its playful riffs on language, as Oliver and Bernadette adapt to the new regime of state-enforced quietude. They experiment with Morse code, and coin portmanteaus to save on their daily word quota. (‘Sort of’ becomes ‘sorf’; ‘I love you’ becomes ‘lovou’.) This alters the texture of the dialogue as the couple look to economize their word count. Soul-searching discussions that had been long and involved must be resumed in near-monosyllabic tones. This constraint forces a stripping-down of language at the very point when emotion is most heightened, and the words should be flowing most freely. On the question of whether she wants to have children, the hitherto voluble Bernadette is reduced to a halting staccato, sounding not unlike a telegram: ‘Yes. No. Painful, scary … Time off. Lose cases. Position. Salary maybe.” It’s an intriguing literary experiment that just about justifies the slightly contrived setup.“Lemons” is an unusual twist on a fairly commonplace narrative: the age-old story of a couple whose intimacy has tipped into over familiarity, weighed down by the accumulation of petty resentments and a waning sex life, deciding whether to stick or twist. It is well executed, with smart dialogue — Steiner has a good ear for the rhythms of bickering couples — and disarmingly kooky humor. It would be churlish to dwell on the fact that its core ingredients are inescapably cliché, with characters representing little more than a series of stock traits in binary opposition: pragmatist/dreamer, right wing/left-wing, etc. This is good, clean fun — neither terribly profound nor terribly clever, but entertaining nonetheless.Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons LemonsThrough March 18, at he Harold Pinter Theater, in London; thelemonsplay.co.uk. More

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    Leslie Odom Jr. Plans Return to Broadway in ‘Purlie Victorious’

    Kenny Leon will direct the revival of Ossie Davis’s 1961 play, which is expected to run this summer at an unspecified Broadway theater.Leslie Odom Jr., who won a Tony Award for his breakout performance as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” plans to return to Broadway this summer to star in, and co-produce, a revival of a 1961 comedy about a preacher trying to acquire a church in his hometown while challenging a local segregationist.The play, “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch,” was written by Ossie Davis, the actor and civil rights activist, who also starred in the original Broadway production alongside his wife and frequent collaborator, Ruby Dee. (The original cast also featured Alan Alda.) The play was quickly adapted into a movie, called “Gone Are the Days!,” and then into a musical, simply titled “Purlie.”The revival will be directed by Kenny Leon, who has had a lot on his plate lately: He directed this season’s Broadway runs of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Ohio State Murders,” and is directing an Off Broadway production of “King James” (about LeBron James fandom) this spring and “Hamlet” at Free Shakespeare in the Park this summer.“Purlie Victorious” is a satire of Southern stereotypes, and both Leon and Odom said they believe it will resonate with contemporary audiences. “It explores the truth in a way that we know and we can receive it,” Leon said. “To me, when I read this play, I don’t feel paralyzed, I feel joyous, and I say, ‘What can I do to make our country better?’”Odom, who gave his daughter the middle name Ruby after Ruby Dee, said he has been interested in the play for some time. “First and foremost, we want to make a kick-ass, entertaining, joyful revival production of this great play,” he said. “We want to make a seminal production of ‘Purlie Victorious,’ this thing that hasn’t been seen on Broadway for decades and that was so important to Mr. Davis.”In the years since “Hamilton,” Odom has had a thriving film and television career, with significant roles in “One Night in Miami” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” a guest starring role in “Abbott Elementary,” and he is now in Atlanta, filming a sequel to “The Exorcist.” Before committing to “Purlie Victorious,” which will be his first professional stage play, Odom said he test-drove the material, to reassure himself that it would still work, and that he felt comfortable in the role.“We did a small private reading just to begin the exploration, and what we found is that, absolutely, it holds up,” he said in a telephone interview. “Mr. Davis left us a road map to all the moments of magic that I’m looking for in this play, and it really is a matter of us committing this text to memory and letting it have its way with us.”The revival’s lead producer is Jeffrey Richards. The production said in a statement Wednesday that the revival would begin performances “in late summer 2023” at an unspecified Broadway theater. More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Puts Mike Lindell Inside a Claw Machine

    The MyPillow founder and election denier wanted to appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” again, but the host had one condition.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.The Man in the MachineMike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, who known for his elaborate conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, returned to “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Tuesday, complying with Kimmel’s one condition: that he appear inside a claw machine at an arcade.In his monologue, Kimmel joked that the mustachioed Lindell was “here to finally answer the question: ‘What if Ted Lasso was on the F.B.I. watch list?’”“I do want to make something clear. I did not insist that Mike be in a claw machine because he’s not vaccinated; I insisted he be in a claw machine because it’s hilarious. This isn’t a political statement — this is just for fun.” — JIMMY KIMMELKimmel asked Lindell about his recent failed campaign for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. But Lindell kept bringing the conversation back to his insistence that machines had rigged the 2020 election.“First question, Mike, is why do you think people don’t take you seriously?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Mike, I know that you’re distrustful of machines. Now that you’re inside one, do you feel differently?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, they’re cool, right?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know, one of the differences between you and the claw machine is claw machines let go. And you will not let go of this voting thing, will you?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (That’s a Wrap Edition)“President Biden informed Congress yesterday that he will officially end the coronavirus pandemic emergency declaration in May, which means that everyone can finally stop wearing their mask a year ago.” — SETH MEYERS“The timing makes sense. Might as well squeeze in one more spring break public health emergency for old time’s sake.” — JAMES CORDEN“Take that, Covid, we beat you. Shove that up your nose and rotate it five times!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This has been a long time coming. I wish you could see the smiles on the faces in my audience. And I wish I could, too, because they’re still wearing masks.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’m pretty sure the public ended the health emergency a while ago. Today, I saw a guy open a Starbucks bathroom with his tongue.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Daily Show” correspondent Jordan Klepper spoke with superfans of Donald Trump in South Carolina, some of whom insist he is still in office.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe newly minted Oscar nominee Jenny Slate will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show with James Corden.”Also, Check This OutBonnie Raitt has won 10 Grammys since 1979. She’s up for four awards on Sunday, including song of the year.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesBonnie Raitt has been nominated for four Grammys this year, including her first for songwriting. More

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    Book Review: ‘Reckoning,’ by V (formerly Eve Ensler)

    Writing now as V, the creator of “The Vagina Monologues” tackles racism, colonialism and sexual violence in a raw and free-associative collection.RECKONING, by V (formerly Eve Ensler)Way before #MeToo — not that it’s a contest — there was Eve Ensler, shouting all the way up into the cheap seats. Her breakthrough 1996 play, “The Vagina Monologues,” eventually performed by a rotating cast of celebrities, amplified stories of rape and abuse and helped de-taboo the female anatomy. Two years after that success she founded V-Day, which has raised piles of money to fight violence against women and girls around the world: Galentine, with gravitas.The writer identifies so strongly with the letter “V” that she has taken it as her new name, she announces in a characteristically raw and free-associative memoir, “Reckoning.” This is a gesture that seems — like most of what she has done in a long career — both performative and potent. “V” stands for “vagina,” “V” stands for “victory,” “V” stands for “peace” (we’ll forget about the canned vegetable drink and the old NBC series about aliens wearing human masks), and for Generation Y on social media, a “V” hand signal has become as popular as the thumbs up was for boomers, the former Ensler’s generation. “I am older now,” she laments. “Irrelevant in the cult/ure of youth, followers and TikTok.”“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple,” the English poet Jenny Joseph wrote (to her eventual consternation), and on the back cover of “Reckoning” its rechristened author stands in a fuchsia caftan, raising arms in a V-shape to a rainbowed, sunsetted sky. A little cornball maybe, like a motivational desk calendar in a mall gift shop, but having survived incest, alcoholism, uterine cancer and the occasional mixed review, V, who will turn 70 in May, just Does. Not. Care. She has plenty of fuchsia left to give.For those familiar with Ensler’s work, much of “Reckoning” will feel like a jagged replay of her core stories; amply represented are transcripts of speeches she’s delivered at the conferences and forums where she’s become an honored guest, or pieces previously published in places like The Guardian. She processed her experience fighting cancer in a previous, more humorous memoir, “In the Body of the World” (2013), which was also made into a stage show, and the post-9/11 world in “Insecure at Last” (2006).Now she is examining a term that has become ubiquitous to the point of cliché in American discourse since the murder of George Floyd. For V, as before, the political is intensely personal.Her father’s horrific molestations, which began when she was 5, are further detailed; in what is perhaps the consummate therapy exercise, she expands on the apology she wrote on his behalf in another book. She reveals more of her mother’s complicity by indifference — “I needed her milky breasts. I got cigarette smoke instead” — and her posthumous bequeathal of a musty brown envelope (“Does pain have a smell?” V wonders) with a picture inside of the author as a baby, mysteriously bruised and bloodied. “I spent an entire childhood ducking, fists permanently raised like a boxer, quick but never fast enough, darting, panicked, frenetic, unbearably anxious,” she remembers. “My body was never my body.”In apparent refutation of the patriarchy V wants passionately to upend, “Reckoning” obeys no conventional chronology or form. It’s collaged together with concepts — the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, for example, is linked to birds falling from the skies in 2020 — and exhibits a woman drawn inexorably, as if in repetition compulsion, to sites of even worse suffering than her youth. It’s a kind of Choose Your Own Abomination, from Covid to the concentration camp of Theresienstadt to Congo, where the author has done humanitarian work and tells of murdered infants and children, repeated rape and even forced cannibalism.“How do I convey these stories of atrocities without your shutting down, quickly turning the page or feeling too disturbed?” she wonders in an essay that was originally written for Glamour. Contemplating the ISIS sex market, she imagines “crates of AK-47s, falling from the skies” and “breasted warriors rising in armies for life.”I think V underestimates herself; the jump-cut style she’s refined for decades is actually perfectly suited to people who get their news from TikTok, and her rhythmic singling out of particular words — which she calls “trains traveling through a lush countryside”— presaged hashtag activism.Along the long highway of her argument here, that readers should wake the heck up to injustice and suffering, poems pop up, like little rest stops. “Think of your luxuries, your cell phones/as corpses,” she writes of the mass rapes that occur near coltan mines, which are tapped to manufacture electronic devices. In a section that graphically recalls how AIDS ravaged friends and colleagues, she promises Richard Royal, a collaborator on a magazine called Central Park, that she will not write a poem about the budding trees; he hated pathetic fallacy and echoed Adorno that there is no poetry since Auschwitz. So after his death, in winking homage, she versifies instead his medical woes.“One is always failing at writing,” V acknowledges, in a sentiment any writer understands. And indeed “Reckoning” is, if not a failure, kind of a bloody mess, but defiantly, provocatively, maybe intentionally so. It exhorts readers to confront the worst and ugliest, pleads for progress and peace, and provokes admiration for its resilient, activist author. V shall overcome, someday.RECKONING | By V (formerly Eve Ensler) | Illustrated | 272 pp. | Bloomsbury | $28 More

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    Why Gina Rodriguez Put Mumford & Sons on Her Birth Playlist

    The actress spent her pregnancy making a new TV series, “Not Dead Yet,” and watching “WandaVision.”In the ABC sitcom “Not Dead Yet,” premiering Feb. 8, Nell Serrano is an obituary writer who, according to the subject of one of her assignments — yes, she’s visited by the dead — envies other people’s happiness.Gina Rodriguez, who is expecting her first child, spoke with us last month, saying that she’s in a different, happier place than Nell, whom she plays, but she knows things could change at any time. “I’m learning at every single turn,” she said.Previously the star of the CW television series “Jane the Virgin” and heard in the title role of the Netflix animated series “Carmen Sandiego,” Rodriguez shared some of the music on her birth playlist, as well as other things that have been helping her get by, including “WandaVision” and “Be Here Now.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “WandaVision” I started watching the show during my pregnancy. At first I was like, what is this show? It’s a take on “I Love Lucy”? And then I saw that it’s all wrapped up in her grief. The power of human emotion and the unconscious decisions that we make when we’re in these spaces of love and longing and grief are just wild and awesome. Its portrayal of a human journey through the possibility of action based on an unconscious emotion is really interesting to me.2. Ram Dass My husband discovered Ram Dass and brought him into our relationship. I find the way he viewed the world and the journey he went on to be very helpful to me. We have, like, 14 copies of his book “Be Here Now,” because it’s our No. 1 present we give people. Every time I listen to the audiobook “Becoming Nobody,” I learn something new, and I’m reminded that I fall right back into things, such as feeling like my identity is my everything and my ego gets attached to the identity.3. Failure In my production company, we want to create a safe space for failure because it’s only in failure that you learn. And if you don’t get another chance after failure, it is such an unfortunate missed opportunity for growth. When you have a space where you can fail, you do better, you get stronger and you say, “OK, I’m not going to do it like this, I’m going to try it like this. Or that path didn’t work, let’s try this next path.”4. “The Dawn of Everything” I have always been interested in the history of humankind. It’s so interesting that every time we personify people of the past, they’re not as intelligent and not as civilized. I picked up David Graeber and David Wengrow’s “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” on a Barnes & Noble shopping spree. It’s riveting. It presents such an interesting perspective on the history of humanity, and it makes me think about everything just a little bit more.5. Bidet When we remodeled our home, we had a combination toilet/bidet put in our primary bedroom. It is a game changer. When we go overseas and the bidet is a separate unit, I’m like, this is fabulous. It should be like this everywhere.6. “My Brilliant Friend” After we shot “Annihilation,” Natalie Portman gave me Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels series as a wrap gift. I have read each of them multiple times. Starting with “My Brilliant Friend,” they are the most whisk-you-away, escape-into-another-person’s-world books. I love them so much. It was the best wrap gift I’ve ever gotten. And I always think about Natalie when I read them.7. Mumford & Sons I have a playlist of songs to listen to when I give birth. Several Mumford & Sons songs are on the playlist, including “Little Lion Man,” “Awake My Soul” and “I Will Wait.” They sing like they’re connected to the center of the universe. It makes me feel a sense of closeness to my ancestors, even though it’s not the kind of music my ancestors listened to. There’s just a spirituality to their music. Whether they were writing that or not, that’s what I respond to.8. Bad Bunny My fellow Puerto Rican artist is definitely the music of my ancestors. I think he is super innovative. He’s been able to introduce styles of music, such as merengue, that haven’t been popular in the United States. Bad Bunny makes me feel every nostalgia under the sun of my childhood. And I just think he’s super, super talented.9. Oregon After we started visiting friends in Bend, we fell in love with Oregon, which is now our second home. We try and spend half the year there. It’s such a beautiful state. There are so many different climates and things to see — the mountains, the coast, the woods. I saw my first owl in Oregon. I grew up in Chicago and Puerto Rico. We weren’t seeing owls.10. Oahu Hawaii feels like home. It feels like Puerto Rico. There is a oneness of Mother Nature there that feels like the center of the forest, but it’s beach, and it’s jungle, and it’s water and ocean. Oddly, you find a lot of people who vacation in Hawaii in Oregon, and vice versa. They feel like polar opposites, but they tend to draw people with the same kind of yearning for Mother Nature. More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Takes on Trump’s ‘Sad’ Return to the Campaign Trail

    Kimmel called Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign “the political equivalent of when Michael Jordan went to play for the Wizards.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘Diet Trump’Former President Trump is back on the stump, kicking off his 2024 presidential campaign over the weekend with events in New Hampshire and South Carolina.Jimmy Kimmel said watching Trump return to campaigning was “sad,” calling it “the political equivalent of when Michael Jordan went to play for the Wizards.”“Former President Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign on Saturday at the New Hampshire Republican Party’s annual meeting and said, ‘I’m more angry now, and I’m more committed now than I ever was’ — though it’s never a good sign when your opening pitch is, ‘I’m blind with rage.’” — SETH MEYERS“Trump also warned that if Ron DeSantis runs for president, he would consider it a great act of disloyalty. And, you know, loyalty means everything to the guy who cheated on his third wife with a porn star and thought it might be cool to hang his vice president.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Speaking of DeSantis, I saw that he’s actively preparing for a possible presidential run, and he hasn’t landed on an official slogan yet, but he’s trying a few out. First, there’s ‘DeSantis 2024: Diet Trump.’ Next, there’s ‘DeSantis 2024: DeAmerica DeTruly DeDeServes DeDeSantis.’ And finally, ‘DeSantis 2024: Make America Florida Again.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Brotherly Love Edition)“Guys, I want to say congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles on advancing to Super Bowl LVII. Yeah, to all the Chiefs fans, I want to say, ‘Congratulations.’ To all the Eagles fans, I want to say, ‘Good morning.’” — JIMMY FALLON“You can tell Philly partied hard last night because today the Rocky statue is holding up Tylenol and a Gatorade.” — JIMMY FALLON“Of course, everyone in Kansas City is just as pumped. This is the Chiefs’ third Super Bowl appearance in the last four years. Even Tom Brady is like, ‘Hey, give someone else a chance.’” — JIMMY FALLON“This is interesting, Travis Kelce is going to be playing against his brother in the Super Bowl. His older brother, Jason, plays center for the Eagles. It’s the first time two brothers have ever competed in the Super Bowl against each other, which, that has got to be tough for their parents. I mean, no matter who wins, they’ve gotta take them both to Disneyland, right?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s already a history-making game because Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce will become the first brothers to face off against each other in a Super Bowl. But not the first time family members have played each other. Who can forget the dramatic playoffs matchup between Joe and Hannah Montana?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This is really high stakes because they’re playing for who gets the top bunk.” — JAMES CORDEN“Maybe this is how Prince William and Prince Harry should sort out their issues.” — JAMES CORDEN“I would tell them, I would sit them down and say, ‘Boys, whoever wins is the son we love more and that’s that.’ That’s how Trump does it.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThis week’s “Daily Show” guest host, D.L. Hughley, spoke with Ibram X. Kendi and Nic Stone, co-authors of “How to Be a (Young) Antiracist,” on Monday night.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe actress Jessica Chastain, who stars in Showtime’s “George and Tammy,” will chat with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutJennifer Coolidge and her character’s rant about murderous “gays” are featured in a popular dance mash-up of the theme song from the show “The White Lotus.”Fabio Lovino/HBODanceable remixes of “The White Lotus” theme song have become a hit in music venues and dance clubs. More

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    Cindy Williams, Star of ‘Laverne & Shirley,’ Dies at 75

    The show, in which Ms. Williams and Penny Marshall played roommates who worked in a Milwaukee brewery, was a spinoff of “Happy Days” and became a staple of 1970s television.Cindy Williams, an actress best known for her role on the 1970s slapstick sitcom “Laverne & Shirley,” died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 75.Her death followed a brief illness, her assistant, Liza Cranis, said by phone on Monday, adding that she had died “peacefully.” No cause was given.With Penny Marshall, Ms. Williams starred in the sitcom, which ran from 1976 to 1983 and was a spinoff of the television show “Happy Days.” It followed two young single women working at a Milwaukee brewery in the 1950s. Ms. Williams played Shirley Feeney, an upbeat and demure complement to Ms. Marshall’s brash Laverne DeFazio.“Laverne & Shirley” ran for eight seasons and, for several years, was among the highest-rated shows in the country. Ms. Williams appeared in more than 150 episodes but left in the final season of the show, after considerable on-set tension between her and Ms. Marshall. Ms. Marshall died in 2018, also at age 75.Ms. Williams is survived by her children, Emily and Zak Hudson, who, in a statement on Monday, described their mother as “one of a kind,” noting her sense of humor and “glittering spirit.” Her marriage to the musician Bill Hudson ended in divorce.Ms. Williams signing copies of her book “Shirley, I Jest! A Storied Life” in 2015.Beck Starr/Getty ImagesBefore Ms. Williams debuted in the role that would most define her career, she was cast in the George Lucas film “American Graffiti,” released in 1973. For her portrayal of Laurie in the film, she earned a nomination for best supporting actress from the British Academy Film Awards. The next year, she was in the Francis Ford Coppola film “The Conversation.” American Graffiti” and “The Conversation” garnered best picture nominations at the Academy Awards.Ms. Williams also auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” franchise, a part that eventually went to Carrie Fisher.Later in her career, Ms. Williams was a guest star on well-known television shows such as “Law and Order: SVU” and “7th Heaven” and earned several stage credits including the Broadway production of “The Drowsy Chaperone,” in which she briefly played Mrs. Tottendale.But she was best known as Shirley.“She was sort of an optimist, kindhearted, repressed, temperamental, fun-loving person,” Ms. Williams once said of her character. “I always saw her as having this fear,” she added, noting that while Shirley’s desires were never explicitly played out onscreen, both Laverne and Shirley strove for the comforts of modern life.“That was the sadness of those characters to me,” Ms. Williams added. “What if that never happens, then where are we? And that was sort of my life, too.”Born in Van Nuys, Calif., a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, on Aug. 22, 1947, Cynthia Jane Williams became interested in acting during high school and attended Los Angeles City College, where she majored in theater arts, according to biographies provided by Ms. Cranis. “I’m what you might call a ‘Valley Girl,’” Ms. Williams wrote in her 2015 memoir, “Shirley, I Jest! A Storied Life.”She worked at a pancake house, as well at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub in Hollywood, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ms. Williams went on to perform in commercials for deodorant and sunglasses, some of which never aired, she said in an interview with the Television Academy. Her early television roles included parts on “Room 222,” “Nanny and the Professor” and “Love, American Style.”“I always played the lead’s best friend, always,” she said.Then known for her seemingly guileless American sweetheart presence, Ms. Williams turned that expectation inside out with an exceptionally sly performance in “The Conversation.” In the film, the viewer pieces together her words from a surreptitiously recorded conversation, expecting her to be a helpless victim, not the calculating femme fatale that she is. More dramatic roles might have followed, but she turned to situation comedy instead.Ms. Williams and Ms. Marshall were writing partners at Zoetrope, a production company founded by Mr. Coppola, where they were working on a prospective TV spoof for the bicentennial, when Garry Marshall, Ms. Marshall’s brother, asked if the two women would guest star on his show “Happy Days” as easy dates for Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Richie (Ron Howard). Fonzie claimed Laverne for himself, while Shirley was meant for Richie, reuniting Ms. Williams with her “American Graffiti” co-star, Mr. Howard, who had played her boyfriend in that film.The episode of “Happy Days,” which aired in 1975, was so popular that Mr. Marshall pitched Fred Silverman, a top executive at ABC, about doing a comedy starring the two, arguing that there were no other shows about blue-collar women.The opening credits of “Laverne and Shirley” featured a school rhyme and a heartwarming mission statement that summed up the duo’s playful, hopeful ethic that anyone could relate to: They might just be young working-class women in the big city, but they are going to make their dreams come true.Laverne and Shirley’s high jinks were reminiscent of those of Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz on “I Love Lucy,” but, for this classic comedy duo, Shirley was (usually) the calmer and dreamier of the pair. With her breezy personality, Ms. Williams demonstrated an easy flair for portraying the awkwardness of youth in broad physical comedy.In a review of “Laverne & Shirley” in 1976, John J. O’Connor, the television critic for The New York Times, wrote: “Both title roles are played to a splendid noncondescending turn. Miss Williams and Miss Marshall touch all the best bases, a bit of Barbara Stanwyck in “Stella Dallas” here, a bit of Giùlietta Masina in “La Strada’ there, touches of Lucille Ball, Eve Arden and that crowd all over the place.”Though the actresses shared the screen, Ms. Williams sometimes felt that her co-star got preferential treatment because of her connection to Mr. Marshall. For her part, Ms. Marshall felt that Ms. Williams’s husband at the time, Mr. Hudson, who wanted to be a producer, was too demanding.At the beginning of the show’s final season, viewers watched Ms. Williams marry Walter Meeney — and become Shirley Feeney Meeney. Soon afterward, however, her long run had an ignominious end, with the plot claiming Shirley had followed her new husband overseas, leaving only a note to say goodbye. In reality, the actress had hoped to work with the show to hide and accommodate her pregnancy. She later sued for $20 million; the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.“‘Laverne & Shirley’” ended abruptly for me,” Ms. Williams wrote in her memoir. “When we shot the first episode, I was four months pregnant. But when it came time to sign the contract for that season I realized that the studio had scheduled me to work on my delivery due date.”“In the wink of an eye, I found myself off the show,” she wrote. “It was so abrupt that I didn’t even have time to gather my personal things.”In 2013, Ms. Williams and Ms. Marshall reunited for an appearance on the Nickelodeon series “Sam & Cat,” a modern show that riffed on the themes of “Laverne & Shirley” and starred Jennette McCurdy and Ariana Grande.Ms. Williams published her memoir two years later, and last year she completed a national theater tour of a one-woman show, “Me, Myself and Shirley.” In the show, she chronicled her life in Hollywood as well as her relationship with Ms. Marshall.“You couldn’t slip a playing card in between us because we just were in rhythm,” she said last year in an interview with NBC. “I couldn’t have done it with anyone else.”Sheelagh McNeill More