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    ‘A Wonderful World’ Review: Blowing Louis Armstrong’s Horn Isn’t Enough

    The great jazz trumpeter and sandpaper vocalist gets the old jukebox treatment in a new Broadway musical starring James Monroe Iglehart.Who, having lived through 20th-century pop culture, could fail to recognize that voice like a truck without a muffler? That piercing trumpet and embracing spirit?Who could fail to recognize Louis Armstrong?Yet he is something of a blur in “A Wonderful World,” the Armstrong jukebox musical that opened Monday at Studio 54. Not for lack of a precise embodiment. In the leading role, James Monroe Iglehart has every Satchmo detail perfectly tuned: the rumble, the chortle, the hankie, the beam, the satchel-like cheeks that inspired the nickname. If drama were merely a tribute concert, there would be nothing to complain of.But with such a major figure we want something deeper. And though subtitled “The Louis Armstrong Musical,” the show, with a book by Aurin Squire, spends too little time exploring its subject’s interior life while plumping for his greatness as if the point were in doubt. The score, drawn from songs he performed but (with two exceptions) did not write, makes the case irrefutably already, encompassing the astonishing range of a man who grew up with the blues, changed the course of jazz, excelled at swing, perfected scat and won a Grammy for “Hello, Dolly!”To balance such a rich and varied artistic life, let alone a chaotic personal one, Armstrong deserves more than the standard jukebox bullet-point biography he gets here. Offering little you would not learn from a good obituary, or from a visit to the terrific museum at his home in Queens, “A Wonderful World” compresses 60 years, from youth to death and even beyond, into four discrete chapters defined cleverly but overneatly by decade, locale and wife.The 1910s segment, set in Armstrong’s native New Orleans, introduces wife No. 1, Daisy Parker (Dionne Figgins), a prostitute with a “Kiss of Fire.” After leaving her to join the jazz scene of Chicago in the 1920s, he falls for the pianist and arranger Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming), who polishes his musicianship along with his wardrobe. Nevertheless, he leaves her too; she and Daisy bring down the first act with a furious medley of “Some of These Days” and “After You’ve Gone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Paul Mescal Rides ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ to Brooklyn

    The award-winning production will begin performances in February as part of Brooklyn Academy of Music’s next season.Brooklyn Academy of Music next spring will present an Olivier Award-winning revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire” starring Paul Mescal, the Irish actor, in the role made famous by Marlon Brando.The production is the high point of the next season at BAM, which, like many nonprofit arts organizations, has been struggling to rebuild after a period of economic challenges and leadership change.“Streetcar,” one of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, imagines a down-on-her-luck Southern woman’s disruptive visit to the New Orleans home of her sister and brother-in-law. It was first staged on Broadway in 1947, and this latest revival began at London’s Almeida Theater in 2022, and then transferred to the West End in 2023. Not only did the production win an Olivier, but so did Mescal and Anjana Vasan for their portrayals of Stanley and Stella Kowalski. Vasan will join Mescal in Brooklyn, as will Patsy Ferran, reprising her London performance as Blanche DuBois.The critic Matt Wolf, writing in The New York Times, called the London production “an electrifying ensemble production.”Mescal, an Oscar nominee for “Aftersun,” is also known for the series “Normal People” and the film “All of Us Strangers,” but he is likely to become much better known this month because he is starring in “Gladiator II.” “Streetcar” is his American theater debut.The production, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, will return to the West End from Feb. 3 to 22 at the Noël Coward Theater before transferring to BAM where it is scheduled to run from Feb. 28 to April 6. The producers of the West End production, led by ATG Entertainment, a large British theater company with a growing presence in New York, are credited as presenting partners at BAM.Among the other highlights of the BAM season is a production of “The Threepenny Opera” performed by the Berliner Ensemble under the direction of Barrie Kosky. Joshua Barone, reviewing the production in Berlin for The New York Times, called it “hauntingly enjoyable.”BAM will also present “Macbeth in Stride,” Whitney White’s reimagining of Lady Macbeth “as an indomitable Black female icon.” The production was at Washington’s Shakespeare Theater Company last year; in The Washington Post, Celia Wren called it “an ingenious meditation on ambition and the Bard.”Both of those shows will be in April; the opera is being presented with St. Ann’s Warehouse, and the play is a co-production with Shakespeare Theater Company and Philadelphia Theater Company, both of which staged it last fall, and Yale Repertory Theater, which is staging it next month.There will also be dance (including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Batsheva Dance Company and the annual DanceAfrica event), music (including Max Richter), films and children’s programming. More

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    The Avett Brothers Braved Choppy Waters to Bring ‘Swept Away’ to Broadway

    The Avett Brothers were all ears a decade ago when a determined crew of theater upstarts and veterans came aboard to adapt their maritime album for “Swept Away.”In the early days of the 21st century, before the Top 5 albums and the three Grammy nominations, the Avett Brothers were a band of three young guys, relentlessly touring their blend of folk-rock-country, sprinting from show to show in their van. Between gigs, Scott Avett’s father gave him a copy of “The Custom of the Sea,” Neil Hanson’s book chronicling the 19th-century wreck of the Mignonette, a British yacht, and its tragic aftermath.On the road, Scott would recap the pages he had read, to his brother Seth and their bandmate Bob Crawford. They eventually decided that the harrowing survival story of these crewmen, stranded off the Cape of Good Hope on the South African coast, would be the foundation for their second studio album. It was released in 2004, and they titled it “Mignonette.”Over the next few years, the Avett Brothers were selling out arenas, their style of Americana, including emotionally probing lyrics, establishing them as stars in the genre. And then, one day about a decade after “Mignonette” came out, they received a curious call: A young theater producer named Matthew Masten asked if they would be interested in having the album adapted for a stage musical.“It sounded like a good idea,” said Scott Avett, who sings and plays guitar and banjo in the group. “But ideas are a dime a dozen, and a very small percentage of them seem to happen.”It took another decade, numerous stops and starts, and several regional productions of this unlikely story, but the new musical “Swept Away” has finally reached Broadway. It opens on Nov. 19 at the Longacre Theater.The crewmen of “Swept Away”: Adrian Blake Enscoe as the thrill-seeking Little Brother, Stark Sands as the pious Big Brother, John Gallagher Jr. as the Mate, and Wayne Duvall as the stoic Captain. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Everyone Else Is Giving a Standing Ovation. Do I Have To?

    Theatergoers and other performing-arts lovers are noticing the practice seems to have become the rule, not the exception.Do you have a question for our culture writers and editors? Ask us here.Q: Are standing ovations expected now? It seems like every show or concert I’ve seen lately has ended with one.First things first: You’re not imagining things. Standing ovations have become ubiquitous in recent years. They’re now so frequent that it often feels to me as if the audience members making a statement are those who choose to remain seated, rather than those who rise to their feet.How common is this?Standing ovations are nearly universal on Broadway, but a little more variable Off Broadway — more common for musicals than plays, more common for upbeat shows than those that end in emotional darkness, more common for those with younger audiences, who tend to be more demonstrative (and sometimes more spry).The pattern seems to be similar in the classical music world. Zachary Woolfe, our classical music critic, tells me that standing ovations are now de rigueur at opera and symphony performances in the United States, but less so in Europe.In other areas of the performing arts, ovations aren’t quite as frequent. Gia Kourlas, our dance critic, says it is rarer to see a whole crowd rise after a dance performance — although it does happen at particularly thrilling shows. Jason Zinoman, our comedy critic, says he doesn’t see ovations at comedy clubs, but that big-name comedians will get ovations when performing in theaters.Why is it happening?The act of applauding to signal approval goes way back. It’s not clear when standing ovations began, but they seemed to become more popular in the mid-20th century as a way of acknowledging remarkable performances, and they have become a more routine way of acknowledging performers at the end of a show.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Allison Tolman of ‘St. Denis Medical’ Knows Her Worth

    “Hello, baby,” the actress Allison Tolman said to a handsome male. “Look at your mustache.” He crawled into her lap.This was an afternoon in late September and Tolman, a star of the NBC mockumentary “St. Denis Medical,” which premieres on Nov. 12, was at Meow Parlour, a cat cafe on the Lower East Side. Tolman grew up with cats — alongside dogs, lizards and guinea pigs — and has lived with them for the whole of her adult life. “When you have a home, obviously you put a cat in it,” she said.Her Instagram bio reads “Childless Cat Lady” (also “proud member of the Perfect Breast Community” and “Rich Man”) and on her left ring finger she wears two thin gold bands, one engraved with the name of her first cat, Annie, the other with her current cat, Bud.“I just think I’ll always have cats,” she said. “Cats have their own lives, their own things going on.”Tolman, 42, also keeps busy, selectively. She broke out at 32, with the lead role in the first season of the FX drama “Fargo,” and has spent a decade convincing producers that she is a leading lady, not the co-worker, the best friend, the mom. Choosy, she passes on any role that doesn’t seem substantial enough for her or mentions a character’s weight. (That she is considered a plus-size actress even as she is a straight-size woman “doesn’t make me feel insane at all,” she said dryly.)On “St. Denis Medical,” Tolman, with Kahyun Kim, plays the supervising nurse at an under-resourced hospital.Ron Batzdorff/NBCWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Dune: Prophecy,’ Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV this Week

    Tune into the premiere of the HBO series, see whom Joan Vassos picks for her final rose on “The Bachelorette” and catch up on news.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are available to watch live or stream this week, Nov. 11-17. Details and times are subject to change.Delve into the messy lives of friends and sisters.“My Brilliant Friend,” based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels about the lifelong friends Elena Greco and Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo, is wrapping up its fourth and final season this week. The story began with the two as young girls in postwar Italy and followed as they grew into adults with very different educations, marriages and professional trajectories. “This is, simply put, one of the most incisive portraits of a lifelong relationship ever made for TV,” James Poniewozik wrote in his review of this season for The New York Times. Monday at 9 p.m. on HBO.You know the Chicks’ comically gleeful yet somehow empowering murder ballad “Goodbye Earl”? Sharon Horgan’s “Bad Sisters” is kind of like that but a TV show. The first season covered the death of John Paul, the abusive husband of one of the sisters, as the story flipped between two timelines — before, when the sisters were plotting his death, and after, when they were dealing with a life insurance investigation. The second season begins with the guilt of what they each did creeping up in surprising ways. Available to stream on Wednesday on Apple TV+.From left: Eva Birthistle, Sharon Horgan, Eve Hewson and Sarah Greene in “Bad Sisters.”Apple TV+Will you join me for a dance? And then accept my rose?Though “Dancing with the Stars” took a break last week — for some major political event or something? — it is back for its 500th episode. Joey Graziadei, Ilona Maher, Stephen Nedoroscik, Chandler Kinney, Dwight Howard and Danny Amendola are among the stars still in the competition. To celebrate the long-running show, they will each perform a dance inspired by memorable past “D.W.T.S.” performances. Tuesday on ABC and streaming on Disney+ at 8 p.m.From left: Danny Amendola, Witney Carson, Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson on “Dancing with the Stars.”Disney/Christopher WillardWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘S.N.L.’ Cast Makes Its Case to Stay off Trump’s Enemies List

    The show parodied its own history of mawkish self-seriousness in an episode that often avoided the topic of the presidential election.A serious development in current events can sometimes leave “Saturday Night Live” unable to make any satirical comment on it, and that was briefly how it appeared the show might react to the re-election this week of former President Donald J. Trump.This weekend’s broadcast began with seeming solemnity, as a group of “S.N.L.” cast members, including Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson and Heidi Gardner, took note of Trump’s presidential election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, who had made a surprise cameo on “S.N.L.” just last week.“To many people,” Nwodim said, “including many people watching this show right now, the results were shocking and even horrifying.”Gardner continued, “Donald Trump, who tried to forcibly overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office by an overwhelming majority.”Thompson said, “This is the same Donald Trump who openly called for vengeance against his political enemies.”Now, said Yang, “thanks to the Supreme Court, there are no guard rails.” Nwodim added that there would be “nothing to protect the people who are brave enough to speak out against him. “We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Overlooked No More: Go-won-go Mohawk, Trailblazing Indigenous Actress

    In the 1880s, the only roles for Indigenous performers were laden with negative stereotypes. So Mohawk decided to write her own narratives.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.For a long time, theatrical roles for Indigenous characters were laden with stereotypes: the savage, the tragic martyr, the helpless drunk. And it was rare in stories of any kind, on the page or on the stage, for an Indigenous character to have a starring role.By the late 1880s, the actress Go-won-go Mohawk had had enough. “I grew tired of being cast in uncongenial roles,” like meek princesses or submissive women who were restrained in corsets, she told The Des Moines Register and Leader in 1910. So she decided to write her own roles, ultimately carving out a groundbreaking career in which she told stories onstage about Indigenous people as the heroes of their own lives. She also did it while performing as a man.Mohawk’s primary work was “Wep-ton-no-mah, the Indian Mail Carrier” (1892), which follows the title character, a young Indigenous man, as he saves a young white woman from a stampede, winning her heart and earning the respect of her family.The woman’s father, a colonel, offers Wep-ton-no-mah a position as a mail carrier, which he initially turns down. “I could not start being under the control of anyone but the great Manitou,” Wep-ton-no-mah says, referring to the spiritual power of the Algonquians. “I want to be free–free–free like the birds, the eagles and deers — owning no master but one.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More