Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 75 Shares129 Views

    in Theater

    Jim Parsons Takes the Romantic Lead

    The Emmy-winning “Big Bang Theory” actor “could’ve done anything he wanted.” Now starring in the tear-jerker film “Spoiler Alert,” he’s forging his own path.Ten years ago, the actor Jim Parsons, riding high on the success of the sitcom that would lead to his eventually making the Forbes list as the highest paid actor in television, casually told The New York Times that he was gay and in a long-term relationship. He remembers not wanting everything from 2012 forward to be about his sexual orientation.Now starring in the romantic drama “Spoiler Alert” (in theaters), of which he was also one of the producers, and having just wrapped an Off Broadway run of the musical “A Man of No Importance” — both of which have him playing gay leads — he says he wouldn’t trade the work he’s been able to do for anything.“Right after that piece came out, I felt power in being part of a group that I had not known I could feel,” Parsons, 49, said on a recent video call. He added that he was happy not to end up pigeonholed as an actor who could only do gay roles, even if more work came his way featuring gay characters.“It became a beautiful exploration of myself,” he said. “Not to say I feel completely satisfied and that there’s not plenty I still want to do, but I don’t know how I could be much happier or feel more fulfilled.”Parsons ties this feeling of catharsis to a lifelong quest to find himself worthy of love and acceptance. Growing up gay in a Houston suburb, he said he spent his first two decades with a “very real understanding that love would be lost” to him in certain corners of his life. Years into a successful career, he still considers himself on a journey to overcome the feeling that it is “overwhelming and a bit difficult to accept that much love from so many people at once.”He said that his recent projects have reflected that journey. “It’s kind of funny, since so many of them I didn’t pick,” he said, “but this chance to discover these things about myself, and other humans in the process, feels like a gift.”Parsons, center, as Alfie Byrne in the musical “A Man of No Importance.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Spoiler Alert” is adapted from a memoir by the television journalist Michael Ausiello, recounting the cancer diagnosis of his husband, Kit Cowan, and the difficult path on which it set the two. It presented Parsons with an “open vein” of emotion that appealed to his lifelong fascination with mortality, one he said was deepened by the death of his father in a 2001 car accident, and the loss of his dog years later.“Both experiences were so painful, yet offered me a view of the preciousness of my time here that I had not experienced before, and I’ll forever now view my life through that lens of having loved and lost,” he said. “The thing that really crept up on me in the book was the story of two people who have this tragic, but also unique and rare, opportunity to go through an experience as close to two naked souls as you can be. It cracks open both of their hearts to see the risks that must be taken in order to live and love fully.”Parsons and Ausiello had interacted on red carpets and press junkets throughout the 12-season run of “The Big Bang Theory,” of which the journalist was a vocal fan, but it wasn’t until he asked Parsons to host a promotional Q. and A. for his book in 2018 that the actor learned Ausiello’s story.Jim Parsons’s Expanding UniverseThe actor stars in the tear-jerker romance “Spoiler Alert,” adapted from the memoir by the television journalist Michael Ausiello.‘Spoiler Alert’: The film follows the rocky romance — from meet cute to cancer — between Michael, played by Parsons, and Kit.On Stage: “He knows not only what marks to hit but exactly how to hit them,” our critic wrote of Parsons’s performance in “A Man of No Importance,” in which he starred this fall.‘The Big Bang Theory’: Parsons played the dorky physicist Sheldon Cooper in CBS’s hit comedy for 12 seasons. He won four Emmys for best actor in a comedy for the role.From the Archives: In 2012, Parsons led a Broadway cast for the first time in a revival of “Harvey.” He spoke with The Times about measuring up against Jimmy Stewart in the comedy.“I remember going back through Michael’s Instagram after reading the book, and seeing this picture of us at the Emmys,” Parsons said. “I saw the date on it and realized he’d been in the thick of all this when we took it, and I had no idea. I never met Kit, I didn’t know he was sick, I wasn’t friends enough with Michael to know, but I couldn’t shake that feeling.”Parsons became attached to the overlaps he saw between Ausiello and Cowan’s partnership and his own relationship with his husband and producing partner, Todd Spiewak. (A tweet from Ausiello, posted on the day of Parsons’s 2012 Times interview, points to two of these main parallels.)Ausiello recounted by phone always being drawn to Parsons’s comic rhythms, on- and offscreen, as well as his surprising career choices, like taking on a supporting role in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures” after having won four acting Emmys for “The Big Bang Theory.”Parsons, left, as Sheldon Cooper, with Mayim Bialik on “The Big Bang Theory.”Michael Yarish“We had this interesting rapport and snarky banter that made our interviews so much fun,” Ausiello said. “I looked forward to talking to him because it was going to be an entertaining experience; he was going to give me as much as I’d give him, and never miss a beat.”For the book Q. and A., this time it would be Parsons in the interviewer chair. “He shows up at this Barnes & Noble with pages of notes — he did his homework,” Ausiello said. “It was backstage, before we walked out, that Todd mentioned to me that they were interested in optioning the book; that was the first time I found out, and I was like a deer in the headlights.”For Parsons, the film proved to be the most involved he had been in any project. Though he mainly stayed out of its financial aspects, he played a central role in production, down to selecting his English co-star Ben Aldridge’s vocal coach — the same one he had as a student at the University of San Diego.The past few years have seen Parsons taking the reins more often through the production company he and Spiewak started in 2015, as well as stepping into more leading roles. This month, he finished a run in the Classic Stage Company revival of “A Man of No Importance,” about a closeted man’s efforts to lead a theater troupe. The Times critic Jesse Green wrote of his performance, “With his confident voice, unlined face and television polish, he never seems hopeless or, viewed from our time, too old for a new start.”His last stage outing before that, in the 2018 Broadway revival of “The Boys in the Band” (a 2020 film adaptation followed), saw him play opposite Matt Bomer, who also attained mainstream recognition through television before coming out as gay in 2012. In a phone interview, Bomer explained that he’d known Parsons as a “legend” in the suburban Houston high school drama circuit. (Though born a few years apart, both men grew up in Spring, Texas.)Parsons with Matt Bomer in the 2018 Broadway production of “The Boys in the Band.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHe said he came to respect Parsons’s leadership and “fearless approach to the character” while working on the production, in which he played an often unlikable colead.“Jim achieved the type of television success that happens once in a generation, and he could have done anything he wanted after that,” Bomer said. “He’s translated it into these really thoughtful choices and performances, and taken creative responsibility for a lot of projects that are so interesting and that I really respect.”Three years removed from playing Sheldon, the role that made him a household name, Parsons isn’t sure that this new film and the recent musical point to a new career phase of leading roles, as opposed to the ensemble projects for which he’s been known.“Both projects required such tremendous, constant communication with my partners, and I like having a lot to do,” he said. “It’s much easier, if I’m a lead, to be constantly needed on set or onstage than it is to have swaths of time off, where I can get in my own head. Because I’ll find something else to do, I promise you, and it won’t be nearly as healthy as just doing the work.” More

  • 113 Shares119 Views

    in Television

    Chelsea Handler Needs More Jennifer Coolidge in Her Life

    The comedian, whose new Netflix special is “Revolution,” talks about siblings, Kristin Hannah and no longer being annoyed when people talk about gratitude.Early in the pandemic, one of Chelsea Handler’s sisters moved in with her. That wouldn’t have been a problem, except that she brought her three adult children.“I didn’t have children on purpose, and everyone knows that,” Handler said in a phone interview this month. “Just because I have five extra bedrooms doesn’t mean I’m looking for company.”Handler’s new comedy special, “Revolution,” is equal parts Covid diary — Covid sex, Covid pets, Covid houseguests — and social commentary, particularly on the fraught subjects of power, gender and race.“My brother was like, ‘Chelsea, not all white guys are bad guys,’” she says in the special, which begins streaming Dec. 27 on Netflix. “I go, ‘Nobody said that. Nobody ever said that. But now you sound suspicious.’”Handler spoke with us about what it took to move her family out (“I had to put my house on the market and sell it”) as well as some of her favorite things, including skiing, oysters and fiction by Madeline Miller and Kristin Hannah. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Future Islands Somebody turned me on to the band Future Islands about six months ago, and I’ve been loving it. It’s nice and mellow. It’s great background music when I’m home. It’s my cup of tea. You can only listen to so much Top 40 before you want to rip your eyes out.2. My Siblings It’s really nice to have adult closeness with all of your siblings. They’re the only people in your life who understand exactly what you went through with your parents growing up. We’ve gotten closer and closer as we’ve gotten older. There are five of us. We’re a big pack, a unit. My most meaningful relationships are with my siblings.3. “The Great Alone” Kristin Hannah’s “The Great Alone” is a book about something that I would never normally read about: Alaska, the wilderness, living off the grid, all things that I have no interest in. It’s really about aloneness and survival and Mother Nature and what it brings to everybody in terms of mood, in terms of stability, in terms of livelihood — and it’s one of the most beautiful books ever. It’s far out of my comfort zone, and I like it a lot when I enjoy something that I normally wouldn’t have an appetite for.4. “Circe” Madeline Miller’s novel “Circe” is a book that took me to another planet. It was so beautifully written. You would read the end of a chapter and just have to put it down and think about what you just read because it’s so poetic. It’s kind of a metaphor for life and the people that come in and out of your life, and loss and love and death and, again, aloneness. For a long time I was very scared of spending time alone and reading about people being alone. That’s why “The Great Alone” and this book both struck me so much. It made being alone seem like something almost mythical and mystical.5. Oysters My favorite in the world are the grilled oysters at Blue Plate Oysterette in Santa Monica. But I will eat oysters almost every night before I go onstage, whenever I’m somewhere that they’re going to be fresh. I try not to have them in Iowa.6. Gratitude I’d heard people banging on about gratitude for a long time, and it usually just annoyed me. Then someone told me that you can actively shift your energy by writing down everything that you’re grateful for. So, a few months ago, I started writing down 20 things I’m grateful for every morning. I can’t describe to you what a difference it makes. You are on a higher vibration and frequency when you wake up and start counting all the things that you’re happy about.7. Stand-Up Comedy To be able to get onstage and command an audience of a few thousand people every night feels really good. Strangers are sitting next to each other, laughing at the things that you’re saying. That is the best gift that you could give anybody.8. Martha’s Vineyard When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was go to the Jersey Shore with the rest of my friends, and my parents were like, ‘You’re not going to the Jersey Shore. We have a house in Martha’s Vineyard. That’s much nicer.’ Now that I’m older, I think it’s one of the most magical places. I have the best memories of being there with all of my family. We grew up there every summer of our lives. We still go there every summer. It’s one of the milestones of my life.9. Skiing I’m not very coordinated, so 10 years ago I decided to pay somebody to teach me how to be a good skier. I wanted to be good enough to be able to ski off anything. I had a private ski guide for seven years and now I’m an expert skier — I can heli-ski, I can ski off the top of anything — and that was a big dream of mine. I take skiing very seriously.10. Jennifer Coolidge She’s been great in “The White Lotus.” Everything she serves up in all of her performances is everything that we could all use a little bit more of. The ridiculousness, the kind of wide-eyed, bushy-tailed approach to life, and the kind of unapologetic nature of who she is, I think, is a great example for all women not to take ourselves so seriously. We all need a little bit more Jennifer Coolidge in our lives. More

  • 63 Shares199 Views

    in Television

    Best of Late Night 2022

    After a year of significant change, as hosts like Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee signed off, the future of late-night TV has never seemed more uncertain.The landscape of late night has changed significantly since the beginning of 2022, with the departures of several hosts and the end of two weekly shows.With audiences and advertising revenue dwindling, networks are in a precarious place. By the end of the year, the diversity of a format long known as a white-guy haven had dwindled even further, and the future of late night was ever more uncertain amid the growing dominance of on-demand streaming, where topical monologue fodder has little value and talk-show experiments have repeatedly failed.Trevor Noah, for one, was ready to try something else. In November, heshocked viewers and colleagues by saying he would step away from “The Daily Show” after seven years as host. He said that he wanted to devote more time to stand-up, and debuted a new Netflix special and a tour during his last few weeks on air.Noah signed off on Dec. 8 with a tearful exit thanking supporters as well as the Black women who raised him, giving them credit for his success.“I’ve often been credited with, you know, having these grand ideas. People will be like, ‘Oh, Trevor, you are so smart.’ And I’m like, who do you think teaches me? You know? Who do you think has shaped me, nourished me and formed me? From my mom, my gran, my aunts, all these Black women in my life, but then in America as well. I always tell people, if you truly want to learn about America, talk to Black women. Yeah, because unlike everybody else, Black women can’t afford to [expletive] around and find out.” — TREVOR NOAHComedy Central announced that an array of famous funny people will fill in until a permanent replacement for Noah can be found. The guest host lineup includes Wanda Sykes, Chelsea Handler, Kal Penn, Al Franken, Sarah Silverman, D. L. Hughley, John Leguizamo, Hasan Minhaj, Marlon Wayans and Leslie Jones.Noah wasn’t the only host who decided to leave: In April, James Corden announced that he would depart “The Late Late Show” sometime in 2023.CBS hasn’t announced plans for a replacement for Corden, who this fall seemed to be preparing for life after late night by returning to his acting roots. He starred in the Amazon dramedy “Mammals,” which premiered in November.Unfortunately for him, the show’s debut was overshadowed by a slightly ridiculous mini-controversy involving accusations of rude behavior at a restaurant, which Corden eventually was forced to address on air.“I have been walking around thinking that I hadn’t done anything wrong, right? But the truth is, like, I have — I made a rude comment and it was wrong, and it was an unnecessary comment. It was ungracious to the server.” — JAMES CORDENThis year also saw the end of Showtime’s Bronx buddy comedy, “Desus & Mero.” The show shifted its format and time slot several times over four seasons before signing off in July after an apparent falling out between the two co-hosts.Another well-regarded late-night show came to an end in July, albeit involuntarily. TBS canceled “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” which won its second Emmy two months later, in the short-form category.Trevor Noah’s 7 Years on “The Daily Show”The host, who took the reins of the show from Jon Stewart in 2015, exposed America’s many blind spots through witty and passionate commentary.Time to Depart: Trevor Noah announced that he would be stepping down in September, citing a desire for a better work-life balance.Saying Goodbye: In his final episode of “The Daily Show,” Mr. Noah told viewers not to be sad and called the night “a celebration.”An Outsider: The talk-show host, who grew up in South Africa and represented a part of the world often neglected by American news, helped his audience see through his eyes.His Best Moments: Noah’s comic perspective set him apart from other late-night hosts. Here are the highlights.At the Creative Arts Emmy ceremony, where that award was announced, the staff expressed hope that the show would be picked up elsewhere. So far there have been no takers, and Bee’s departure leaves Amber Ruffin as late night’s sole female host, with her “Amber Ruffin Show” maintaining its Friday night spot on Peacock.Which leaves the broadcast big guns, the white guys, most of whom will be under contract for several more years. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are all staying put for now, and will likely spend 2023 desperately trying (and often failing) to make jokes about anything other than the former president.Insurrection reflectionThe fallout from the Capitol riot has been a late-night focus all year, with Colbert going live after the first night of televised hearings held by the Jan. 6 committee. Colbert presupposed the hearings would be “this summer’s most compelling drama,” but the hosts decided the proceedings just weren’t hot enough for prime time.“What they need to do, you want people to watch in America, is you have to spice things up. You know, have a kiss cam going for the witnesses. Yeah, get Shakira to do a halftime show.” — TREVOR NOAH“The hearing is being produced by a former ABC executive, which is why it’s being marketed as, ‘Extreme Takeover: Capitol Building Edition.’” — JAMES CORDENNot long after the hearings began in June, some “Late Show” staff members were arrested at the Capitol complex while filming a segment featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the comedian Robert Smigel, who voices the puppet, but the charges were dropped in July.“The Capitol Police are much more cautious than they were, say, 18 months ago, and for a very good reason. If you don’t know what that reason is, I know what news network you watch.” — STEPHEN COLBERTTrump TVTrump may have left office in 2021, but he continued to be a part of the news cycle even beyond his involvement with Jan. 6. Topics like his continued denial of the election results and his company’s fraudulent tax schemes frequently dominated late-night monologues, the hosts unable to resist low-hanging fruit like the news, in February, that he had been dropped by his longtime accounting firm.“Now he’s going to need someone else to do his taxes. I suggest H&R Cellblock.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’d say he needs a good lawyer, but that’s been true for a while now.” — SETH MEYERSHosts also kept on top of news out of Mar-a-Lago, particularly the revelation, in August, that Trump had taken classified documents from the White House and kept them for himself. (He claimed he had “declassified” them.)“Let me just break down Trump’s defense: He says the F.B.I. planted fake evidence to frame him, and now he wants them to return the fake evidence. Even O.J. is like, ‘Yo, bro, you wildin.’” — DESUS NICE, guest hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live”“How do you explain this to our allies? ‘Don’t worry, Prime Minister, your country’s nuclear secrets are perfectly, safely stored at the Mar-a-Lago waffle bar between the syrup and the Nutella bucket.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Imagine being a guest at Mar-a-Lago and using the bathroom, and out of the corner of your eye you just notice something and are you like, ‘Hang on, is that — is that Norway’s nuclear codes?’” — JAMES CORDEN“Trump’s argument is that you can just declassify things in your mind. It’s officially declassified as long as you believe it’s declassified. That’s according to Trump’s new legal adviser, Tinkerbell.” — SETH MEYERSTrump’s 2024 campaign announcement was both expected and lackluster, something Kimmel called “the moment none of us have been waiting for.” It was quickly followed by his widely covered dinner with Kanye West and the white nationalist Nick Fuentes.“Now, just in case ‘Holocaust denier’ doesn’t get the point across, Fuentes is not a good guy. He has spread antisemitic conspiracies, he is considered a white supremacist by the Anti-Defamation League, attended the Unite the Right in Charlottesville in 2017 and the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6. That is the alt-right EGOT, as in, EGOT zero hugs as a child.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“You know it’s a bad sign when Kanye West is only the third most controversial person at your dinner table.” — JIMMY KIMMELBrace for impactWith Georgia a key state in the midterms, Noah took “The Daily Show” to Atlanta for a week of shows, with guests like Stacey Abrams, the ultimately unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor. Noah’s monologues were more like his stand-up than his usual desk fare, suggesting the stage is where he truly shines.While some midterm candidates attempted to distance themselves from Trump, others embraced the association, which didn’t always work out. Late-night hosts homed in on two such candidates in particular: Dr. Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker.“On the bright side, Dr. Oz now can go back to doing what he does best, which is analyzing the shape and color of our stool.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“A former girlfriend of Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker claimed in a new interview that Walker paid for her to get an abortion in 2009. And the only way that will hurt him with Republicans is if some of that money went to pay down her student loans.” — SETH MEYERSA ‘devastating’ decisionReproductive rights were a hot late-night topic in 2022, spurred by the leak of a Supreme Court decision challenging Roe v. Wade and then the eventual ruling, in June, overturning it. Chelsea Handler, guest hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” discussed her abortions during her monologue, while Meyers brought on Alexis McGill Johnson, the CEO of Planned Parenthood, to discuss the decision’s implications and potential solutions with three of the show’s female writers.Samantha Bee delayed a summer hiatus and went on air while she had Covid to address the “devastating” decision.“It’s not just about voting in November. It’s about doing everything in our power to help vulnerable people access abortion across state lines. And we have to raise hell in our cities, in Washington, in every restaurant Justice Alito eats in for the rest of his life. Because if Republicans have made our lives hell, it’s time to return the favor.” — SAMANTHA BEEReclaiming her timeKimmel has been a champion of Quinta Brunson, reuniting the “Abbott Elementary” creator and star with her inspirational sixth-grade teacher in an early 2022 episode. But when Kimmel appeared at the Emmys, many viewers were less than thrilled with his refusal to leave the stage during a bit that took time and space away from Brunson’s big win for outstanding writing for a comedy series.Kimmel then apologized to Brunson on his show, offering her the chance to interrupt his monologue and continue delivering her thank-yous.Alternative viewsNoah scored a coup near the end of his run on “The Daily Show,” landing the first sit-down interview in which Will Smith substantively discussed his Oscars slap of Chris Rock. But it was Noah’s frank discussion of the late Queen Elizabeth II that illustrated just how different a perspective he brought to late night. While hosts like Corden, a Brit, gave sad remembrances of the matriarch upon her death, Noah addressed how the British Empire’s colonialism affected people in Africa and India and shaped their perceptions of her reign. “You can’t expect the oppressed to mourn the oppressor,” he said.“And I know some people would say ‘Look, Trevor, the queen wasn’t really in charge. She’s just a figurehead. You can’t blame her for the atrocities the British Empire committed.’ Yeah, fair enough, but you also understand in her entire reign, she never repented, she never once made amends, right? There wasn’t even one, like, Notes app apology on her Twitter — nothing!” — TREVOR NOAHBest of the restThe Jimmys played a joke on their audiences, switching shows for April Fools’ Day and pranking fans.“Hi, I’m Jimmy. Please, please settle down, you’re going to offend the other Jimmy.” — JIMMY FALLON, hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live”“We swapped everything — we swapped shows, bands, even wives. Bad news, Nancy, Fat Jimmy’s coming home.” — JIMMY KIMMEL, hosting “The Tonight Show”Corden took “The Late Late Show” to London, where he invited Lizzo for a spin on “Carpool Karaoke.” It was a memorable installment of the segment viewers will surely miss most when Corden leaves next year.Finally, Jon Batiste, a five-time Grammy winner, sat down for the Colbert Questionnaire before taking what was described at the time as a hiatus from his post as the “Late Show” bandleader.Batiste ultimately decided not to return to the show, his TV home for seven seasons. It was one more late-night departure in a year largely defined by them. More

  • 125 Shares119 Views

    in Theater

    Review: In ‘Between Riverside and Crazy,’ Real Estate Gets Real

    Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2014 play finally comes to Broadway, its hilarious, loving and unvarnished vision of the universal human hustle intact.A retired, recently widowed New York City police officer sits in a wheelchair at his kitchen table with a woman from São Paulo he variously calls Church Lady, Miss Brazil and a purveyor of “jungle boogie.” She has come to offer him communion, but exactly what kind isn’t clear. Their bristling, flirtatious, shape-shifting argument, which touches on cookies, devils, freedom and faith, would be enough to make this among the great scenes in recent American drama, equal parts comedy, philosophy and cat-and-mouse game.Then it goes further. Way further.And that’s barely midway through “Between Riverside and Crazy,” the astonishing Stephen Adly Guirgis play that opened on Monday in a Second Stage production at the Helen Hayes Theater. First seen Off Broadway in 2014 and in 2015 — after which it won the Pulitzer Prize for drama — it is only now receiving its Broadway debut, tied up in a big foul-mouthed holiday bow by the director Austin Pendleton.As there wasn’t much to improve, what you see is mostly the same, with Stephen McKinley Henderson (as Walter, the police officer) and Liza Colón-Zayas (as the Church Lady) brilliantly re-creating their roles, along with most of the rest of the original cast. (The one newcomer is Common, playing Junior, Walter’s son.) The expressive revolving set, so crucial to a tale about who gets to live where, still reveals what the real estate ads don’t: the mess down the hallway, the joists beneath the floor, the bricks behind the plaster.The script, too, is mostly unaltered, except for the addition of a comment firmly rooting the story in 2014. It focuses on crusty Walter, who in the wake of his wife’s death has allowed himself and their rent-controlled Riverside Drive apartment to deteriorate. Junior now runs a fencing operation from his bedroom, which he shares with Lulu (Rosal Colón), a girlfriend supposedly studying accountancy but who seems more likely to be a prostitute. Oswaldo (Victor Almanzar), a recovering addict but not for long, likewise lives on Walter’s largess. A dog of uncertain provenance uses the living room as a toilet.Each of them, probably even the dog, has a rich back story and a richer, crosscutting problem; Guirgis is masterly at getting a boil going without seeming to work too hard at it. But the central crisis is Walter’s. Having been shot by a fellow policeman eight years earlier, in what he says was a racially motivated crime — Walter is Black and the shooter was white — he has always refused to sign the nondisclosure agreement that was among the city’s requirements for a payout.“An honorable man doesn’t just settle a lawsuit ‘no fault’ and lend his silence to hypocrisy and racism and the grievous violation of all our civil rights,” he tells Junior, who is less than impressed with the virtuous display.“Well, that’s a nice story,” he answers.When Walter’s former patrol partner and her fiancé bring news that the city is offering a new deal, that story finally turns. Over a home-cooked dinner of “shrimps and veal,” the partner, Audrey O’Connor (Elizabeth Canavan), urges Walter to accept the deal so he can secure his shaky hold on the apartment, which even at $1,500 a month — a tenth of its market rent — is a stretch on his pension. But she has other motives, too. The fiancé, Lieutenant Dave Caro (Michael Rispoli), is a slick operator hoping to enhance his department prospects by settling the case without a public-relations nightmare.Are Audrey and Dave right, despite their mixed motivations, to push Walter toward resolution? In any case, Walter insists on a deal of his own, the terms of which will make you gasp and then make you think.That all of this is the same as in 2014 doesn’t mean the play hasn’t changed. Great works always revise themselves, as time finds endless new lenses to put in front of them. The past eight years have underlined in “Riverside” the story of white police officers shooting Black men — even fellow officers — and blaming the victims, as Walter is blamed, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those crimes, and their concomitant defenses, retint the story with outrage.Walt Spangler’s revolving set, the backdrop to a tale about who gets to live where, reveals the cracks in the plaster and the joists beneath the floor that real estate ads leave out.Sara KrulwichBut the play puts a natural brake on such interpretations, because Guirgis, entering any complicated debate, can’t help himself from complicating it further. Walter’s story, like everyone else’s, is open to question. Is he out for justice or just revenge? And against whom? The wheelchair, we quickly learn, isn’t his.Complications like that are unpleasant for absolutists; Guirgis’s needling of victimhood may please as few people on the left as his needling of Rudolph Giuliani may rile those on the right. Along with anyone who can’t tolerate profanity, which is basically the play’s linguistic glue, they will have a hard time warming to a playwright who isn’t interested in telling us what’s right. He only wants to show us what’s real.Everyone should see it anyway, to experience the pleasure of a great cast making a shrimps-and-veal meal of the incredibly rich material, even as it flips between comedy and tragedy on its way to the truth in between. Actually, that meal may even be too rich at points; the final scene can’t quite digest all that came before, and there are brief moments throughout when the actors’ love for the material itself begins to show through the facade of character, like those bricks behind the plaster.For the most part, though, Pendleton’s production is amazingly confident, featuring not just Walt Spangler’s set, but also top-notch lighting by Keith Parham, sound and music by Ryan Rumery and, especially, costumes by Alexis Forte, which tell their own story on top of Guirgis’s. And when the scene changes are as expressive as the actors’ attention to every nuance of each other’s actions, staging becomes a kind of emotional choreography: thrilling, precise, impossible to pin down.That’s Guirgis’s sweet spot. In plays like “Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven,” “Our Lady of 121st Street,” “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” and “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” — all premiered or revived in New York in the past five years — he consistently writes about characters for whom the world as it is, or at least as it seems, offers no reliable templates for creating a credible self. A nice girl can be a prostitute. An addict can be loving. A hero can cry wolf. A fraud can make a miracle.That’s scary and yet also liberating. As the Church Lady repeatedly tells Walter, “Always we are free.” At any moment we can choose to be something better, or worse, than we are — or, in Guirgis World, most likely both.Between Riverside and CrazyThrough Feb. 12 at the Helen Hayes Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. More

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    Drew Griffin, CNN Investigative Journalist, Dies at 60

    His reporting on delayed care for military veterans at Veterans Affairs hospitals led to the resignation of the secretary of the department.Drew Griffin, an investigative journalist whose reporting for CNN on delayed care at Veterans Affairs hospitals prompted the resignation of the secretary of the department, died on Saturday at his home in the Atlanta area. He was 60.Chris Licht, CNN’s chief executive, announced the death in an email to staff members on Monday. The cause was not immediately made public, but Mr. Griffin had cancer.“Drew’s death is a devastating loss to CNN and our entire profession,” Mr. Licht said. “Drew’s work had incredible impact and embodied the mission of this organization in every way. He cared about seeking the truth and holding the powerful to account.”Mr. Griffin joined CNN in May 2004. During his time with the network, he covered a range of issues, including sexual assault allegations against Uber drivers, fraud claims against Trump University during Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol. His work on the Capitol attack was cited in court filings by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to CNN.Mr. Licht noted that Mr. Griffin “was even working on an investigation until the day he passed away.”In January 2014, Mr. Griffin led a team that investigated the deaths of at least 19 military veterans after their appointments at Veterans Affairs hospitals had been delayed. Thousands of other veterans were experiencing similar delays for treatment.After CNN’s report, Eric Shinseki resigned under pressure as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other department officials were later fired.“We don’t have time for distractions,” President Barack Obama said at the time. “We need to fix the problem.”CNN’s report earned a Peabody Award, one of the most prestigious recognitions in television and radio, in 2014. The reporting also earned an Edward R. Murrow Award.“Our goal in this reporting wasn’t just to shed light on this problem,” Mr. Griffin said when accepting the Peabody Award. “We wanted to effect change, to hold these politicians and bureaucrats responsible.”Mr. Griffin also earned a National Press Foundation Award in 2007, and Emmy Awards in 2005, 2006 and 2007, according to CNN.Though Mr. Griffin’s work centered on investigations, he also volunteered to cover breaking news stories, CNN said.In 2017, Mr. Griffin was about to do a live report on Hurricane Harvey from Beaumont, Texas, when a man nearby drove a truck into floodwater. Mr. Griffin and a photojournalist ran to rescue the man from the truck as it began to sink, a moment that was aired live.Andrew Charles Griffin was born on Oct. 21, 1962. His father, Michael James Griffin, served in the Army and later worked as a civil engineer with the Cook County, Ill., Highway Department. His mother, Judith Anne Griffin, was a lawyer.Mr. Griffin earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and began his career in journalism as a reporter and cameraman for WICD-TV in Champaign, Ill. He went on to work in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Washington, according to CNN.In January 1994, Mr. Griffin joined CBS 2 News in Los Angeles, where he was a reporter and anchor, and helped create an investigative reporting team. While working for that organization, Mr. Griffin reported from New York City to cover the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he earned a number of local awards for his investigative reporting.Mr. Griffin is survived by his wife, Margot; his children, Ele, Louis and Miles; his brothers Peter and Michael; and two grandchildren.Sheelagh McNeill More

  • 88 Shares199 Views

    in Theater

    New Broadway Labor Agreement Includes Pandemic-Prompted Changes

    The deal, ratified by members of Actors’ Equity, provides salary increases for performers and stage managers, and allows producers to make short-term hires.The union representing theater actors and stage managers has ratified a new contract that provides pay increases for those working on Broadway and, in a move prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, allows producers to make short-term hires to cover absent actors.Actors’ Equity Association announced Monday that its membership had voted in favor of the three-year contract, which by late 2024 would raise the minimum salary for performers working on Broadway to $2,638 per week. That reflects three years of pay increases: 5 percent this year, 4 percent next year, and 4 percent the following year.The Broadway contract, negotiated by Equity and the Broadway League, applies to commercial productions on Broadway, as well as to so-called sit-down productions, which are extended runs of commercial shows elsewhere in the country.The contract is important because Broadway is the segment of the American theater world where artists can most reliably make a living wage, and also because provisions in this contract influence others in the industry. The union will next turn its attention to negotiating contracts for touring shows and regional theaters (the regional theater contract also applies to the four New York nonprofits that operate Broadway houses).This Broadway contract, which goes into effect immediately, is the first negotiated since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. As shows returned, the challenge of staying open when company members tested positive for the coronavirus called attention to the important work of understudies, swings and standbys who keep shows going when illness strikes, and also highlighted the tension between a historic show-must-go-on ethic and disease transmission.The contract is the first to provide paid sick leave for anyone working on an Equity contract; previously, those earning above a certain amount were not entitled to paid sick days. In another first, the contract caps how many roles a swing can cover in one performance.And the contract allows for the use of short-term actors, with rehearsal time, to cover performer absences. The provision was a concession by the union to the producers.The union also highlighted a few wins for its members: a limited number of very long rehearsal days, and fewer rehearsal hours post-opening.The contract includes several new provisions prompted by discussion within the industry, and the broader society, about diversity concerns. Among them: commitments to employ technicians for certain hair styles, to consider gender identity when identifying spaces for dressing rooms and bathrooms, to set up a committee to talk about onstage intimacy, and to improve casting notices for those with disabilities.Kate Shindle, the president of Actors’ Equity, said the deal was a compromise reflecting the economics of the moment. The contract was ratified by a smaller margin than some previous pacts, suggesting disagreement within the union’s membership about whether it was good enough.“The industry is not entirely back yet, and while we were looking to reinvent the whole way the theater industry operates, we’re also faced with real financial considerations,” Shindle said.She said the wage increases were significant at a time when inflation is high, as are real estate costs in New York (which, of course, is where many Broadway workers live). She also noted that many in the industry had not had work while theaters were shut down, making their current salaries more important.Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League, said in a statement that she was pleased with the ratification of the agreement, “which we believe represents a significant step forward for our industry.”She said several provisions “were ultimately directly responsive to the push from the union for less time spent in rehearsal and more time off for actors,” and she also hailed the diversity provisions, which were, she said, “in the forefront of our priorities.”“A key component to these changes is language that will allow us to hold everyone, including actors working on our productions, to the same standards when creating a safe and inclusive working environment for all,” she said. “We were able to achieve all of these significant improvements for each side while providing a meaningful and yet responsible economic package.” More

  • 150 Shares199 Views

    in Television

    What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ and Mariah Carey

    Martin McDonagh’s latest dark comedy airs on HBO. And Mariah Carey performs in a Christmas special on CBS.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Dec. 19-26. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (2022) 7 p.m. on HBO. Heated language and cold fingers fly in this dark comedy from Martin McDonagh, about two old buddies, Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), whose friendship meets a sudden end. Set on a fictional Irish island in 1923, the movie kicks into action when Colm announces, seemingly out of foggy air, that he’s had enough of Padraic. What follows is surreal and downbeat, with ambitious performances from Farrell, Gleeson and a supporting cast that includes Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan. “It’s not necessary to believe what you see — it may, indeed, not be possible,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times, “but you can nonetheless find yourself beguiled by the wayward sincerity of the characters and touched by the sparks of humanity their struggles cast off.” The movie is positioned to be part of the awards conversation in the lead-up to the Oscars in March.DEAD FOR A DOLLAR (2022) 8:10 p.m. on Showtime 2. This throwback, low-budget western from Walter Hill (“The Warriors,” “48 Hours”) centers on a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) searching for a businessman’s wife (Rachel Brosnahan), whose reasons for having gone missing are not what they seem. It is “solidly and proudly a B picture,” Scott wrote in his review for The Times. But, he added, “in an age of blockbuster bloat and streaming cynicism, a solid B movie — efficiently shot (by Lloyd Ahern II) and effectively acted (by everyone) is something of a miracle.” The cast also includes Willem Dafoe, Hamish Linklater and Benjamin Bratt.THE WHEEL 10 p.m. on NBC. The British comic Michael McIntyre has hosted a few seasons of this quiz show overseas for the BBC; it makes its stateside debut on Monday night. The show — whose set looks something like a gigantic roulette wheel — pairs contestants with celebrity guests who are sometimes experts on the trivia subjects, and sometimes very much not. Guests on Monday’s episode include the actress Christina Ricci, the comic Amber Ruffin and the television journalist Steve Kornacki.TuesdayMariah Carey, center, in “Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas To All!”James Devaney/CBSMARIAH CAREY: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! 8 p.m. on CBS. For the fourth consecutive year, Mariah Carey’s 1994 single “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has recently topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, despite its age. That feat should add extra flair to Carey’s performance of the song during this two-hour special, which was filmed in Manhattan at a bedazzled Madison Square Garden.WednesdayHOMEWARD BOUND: A GRAMMY SALUTE TO THE SONGS OF PAUL SIMON 9 p.m. on CBS. The first Grammy Award that the singer-songwriter Paul Simon ever won was for “Mrs. Robinson,” the 1968 Simon & Garfunkel hit he wrote for the Hollywood classic “The Graduate.” So perhaps it makes sense that this Grammy-hosted tribute to Simon took place in Los Angeles, despite Simon’s associations with New York. Filmed in April at the Hollywood Pantages Theater, the concert includes performances of Simon’s songs by a multigenerational (and multigenre) group of artists, among them Brandi Carlile, Rhiannon Giddens, Angélique Kidjo, Dave Matthews and Irma Thomas.ThursdayTHE LION IN WINTER (1968) 5:30 p.m. on TCM. Ahh, Christmas 1183 at King Henry II’s chateau, where holiday cheer is overtaken by familial scheming. (If this sounds like your own end-of-year gathering, consider that this one includes actual jousting.) At issue is who will take over the throne of the aging king (Peter O’Toole). Will it be Prince John (Nigel Terry)? Prince Richard (Anthony Hopkins)? In the end, the real winner is surely Katharine Hepburn, who won an Oscar for her performance as Eleanor of Aquitaine, the king’s wife.FridayTHE 24TH ANNUAL A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS AT THE GROVE 8 p.m. on CBS. Gloria Estefan is the host of this benefit program, which tells positive stories of adoption from foster care. It also brings out musical performances, with this year’s lineup including Andy Grammer, Mickey Guyton, David Foster and Kat McPhee, and Little Big Town.SaturdayJohn Cho, left, and Kal Penn in “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.”Darren Michaels/Warner Brothers PicturesCHRISTMAS EVE PROGRAMMING on various networks. Even among those who celebrate, Christmas of course means different things to different people. And nowhere is this more apparent than on TV this Saturday, when you can catch the stoner comedy A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR CHRISTMAS (2011), at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on IFC; then flip over to see Pope Francis lead CHRISTMAS EVE MASS from the Vatican, which begins at 11:29 p.m. on NBC.Also on offer are several adaptations of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” including FX’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL, a dark 2019 rethink with Guy Pearce that will air at 9:40 p.m. on FXM, and A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938), a classic black-and-white adaptation that stars Reginald Owen and will air at 10 p.m. on TCM. See also: A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on TNT; LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on BBC America; and THE GRINCH (2018) at 8 p.m. on FX.SundayZiwe Fumudoh in “Ziwe.”Gwen Capistran/ShowtimeZIWE 11 p.m. on Showtime. Ziwe Fumudoh will wrap up the second season of her sharp variety show on Sunday by bringing on Wayne Brady, with whom she discusses the commercialization of Juneteenth, and several other guests, including the actress Laura Benanti and the comic Larry Owens. More

  • 150 Shares129 Views

    in Television

    Austin Butler Sings ‘Blue Christmas’ With Cecily Strong in Her Last ‘SNL’

    After a surprise announcement hours before the broadcast, Strong, an 11-season veteran of the show, bid a tearful goodbye.“Saturday Night Live” was lucky to have had Cecily Strong for as long as it did. Since joining the show in 2012, she has contributed memorable recurring characters, like The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party, and an array of celebrity and political impersonations, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kyrsten Sinema and Jeanine Pirro. She performed at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and was a co-anchor of the Weekend Update desk.There was a moment, at the end of the 2020-21 season, when Strong appeared to be saying goodbye to “S.N.L.” — singing “My Way” as she doused herself in a tank that was supposed to be filled with wine — but she nonetheless returned the following year.And while she was not part of the exodus of cast members that preceded the start of its current 48th season, she did not appear in the first three live episodes — instead, she was performing a one-woman show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” in Los Angeles. And now her time on “S.N.L.” has indeed come to an end.The announcement of Strong’s departure was made online just a couple of hours before the start of this weekend’s broadcast, hosted by Austin Butler and featuring Lizzo as its musical guest.Strong herself got to bid farewell to “S.N.L.” in a Weekend Update segment in which she played her recurring character Cathy Anne, a disheveled woman who is always yelling outside Michael Che’s window.In her Cathy Anne guise, Strong said that she was wearing a Santa hat because “it’s covering up a giant open wound — I got a little bit scalped.” (She explained further that this had happened because she “fell asleep on the escalator.”)Strong went onto say that she was “a little emo tonight, because, truth is, I’m here to say goodbye.” She explained that she was going to prison because all of the crimes she had confessed in her various appearances had finally caught up with her: “You know, drug use, trespassing, destruction of property, crack, impersonating a police horse, meth and crack.”But, she said, she hoped prison would give her “much needed stability, and I’m not too scared ’cause I got friends on the inside — they seem to be doing OK.” (Here, the screen showed a graphic of the “S.N.L.” alumnae Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, wearing orange jumpsuits and prison tattoos.)Strong gradually slipped out of character as she addressed the audience, saying: “Everybody has to go to jail at some point, right? It’s just my time now. But I had a lot of fun here. And I feel really lucky that I got to have so many of the best moments of my life in this place with these people that I love so much.”The tears came later, at the end of the episode, when Butler, who played Elvis Presley in the recent film “Elvis,” joined Strong, Kenan Thompson and several other “S.N.L.” cast members to sing a sentimental cover of “Blue Christmas.”But at the end of her Weekend Update segment, Strong told everyone not to be sad because, as she sang once again to the tune of “My Way”: “I did it high, Che.”Cold open of the weekFormer President Donald Trump pretty much handed “S.N.L.” a script for its opening sketch when he announced on Thursday that he would begin selling a set of digital trading cards depicting him as various fantastical characters.James Austin Johnson brought his studied nonchalance to his recurring role as Trump, pitching the $99 offer — “seems like a lot, seems like a scam, and in many ways it is,” he said — while also mocking the larger concept of NFTs: “You can also get them for free by just going online and just looking at them, maybe, I don’t know, maybe taking a screenshot.”“But we’d really prefer it,” he added, “if you sent the $99.”Celebrity impersonation of the weekIt has been less than a week since HBO aired the season finale of “The White Lotus.” But if you already find yourself missing its star and muse Jennifer Coolidge, then Chloe Fineman has you covered in this holiday-theme segment where she captures Coolidge’s breathless amazement at everyday occurrences.In “Jennifer Coolidge Is Impressed by Christmas Stuff,” Fineman oohs and ahhs about Christmas lights. (“One year I got the blinking ones,” she explains; “I left my Christmas tree on all night and learned my cat was epileptic.”) And she blithely asks a pianist, played by Michael Longfellow, if he was the composer of the tune he just played — that tune being “Jingle Bells.”(Fun fact: the real Coolidge auditioned for “S.N.L.” in the 1990s, along with the future cast members Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri, but she didn’t get the gig. She has yet to host the show, wink wink!)Questionable holiday treat of the weekPerhaps on some Christmas past, you had the misfortune of being served some dry, brittle candy made out of marzipan and formed into some improbable shape like a cash register or a bunch of bananas. (And if not, consider yourself lucky.)But clearly someone in the “S.N.L.” writing staff had a score to settle with marzipan and channeled it into this exceptionally silly sketch in which Thompson and a group of excitable British children (played by Butler and the cast) fail to make it sound appealing, even when they try to sing marzipan’s praises.As Thompson explains, “Just remember, don’t eat it within 12 hours of going to sleep, or after 12 hours of waking up.”Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on Trump’s entry into the NFT market and the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX:Jost began:Insiders are saying that the House Jan. 6 committee will refer at least three criminal charges against Donald Trump, but after this week, I think he’s pretty much locked down that insanity plea. [His screen shows a trading-card image depicting Trump as a comic-book hero with lasers coming from his eyes.] Semiretired maniac Donald Trump has launched a collection of digital NFT trading cards depicting him in various costumes, including cowboy, superhero and, most unbelievable of all, guy who didn’t dodge the draft.As the screen beside him showed an image of Trump wearing a fighter pilot suit, Jost continued:I’m honestly just relieved that he’s wearing an American military uniform. It’s such a funny move to get into NFTs after the whole market just crashed. It’s like getting into Kanye now. Which Trump also kind of did.Che picked up the thread:Sam Bankman-Fried, the former C.E.O. of the cryptocurrency company FTX, was arrested on fraud charges in the Bahamas — I’m going to guess while swimming in a T-shirt. Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried took funds from FTX customers to make large political donations. That money will now be used to make sure the cameras outside his jail cell aren’t working. More