Eliana Willis
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- in Theater
Broadway Opened 12 Shows in 9 Days. Here’s What That Looked Like.
Even at a challenging time for a pandemic-weakened industry, they found razzle-dazzle.Broadway Opened 12 Shows in 9 Days. Here’s What That Looked Like.Broadway is in the midst of a rolling celebration — of artistic expression, of audience enthusiasm, of song and dance and storytelling itself.The overlapping runs constitute a risky bet by producers and investors, who have staked tens of millions of dollars on their ability to sell seats. Even in the best of times, most Broadway shows fail, and these are not the best of times: Production costs have soared, and season-to-date attendance is 18 percent below prepandemic levels.But the shakeout comes later. First: fanfare and flowers, ovations and optimism.WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17‘The Wiz’Easing on down the road … to BroadwayDeborah Cox, left, who plays Glinda the good witch, and Nichelle Lewis, who plays Dorothy, at the opening night of “The Wiz.” Many of the 1,600 in attendance wore green for the Emerald City.A revival of a 1975 musical that reimagines “The Wizard of Oz” for an all-Black cast.Of course “The Wiz” was going to have a yellow carpet. The show’s recurring song is “Ease on Down the Road,” and that road is the yellow brick one — the path to Oz, but also, to self-discovery.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
- in Television
Stephen Colbert Scolds Kristi Noem for Killing Her Puppy
“No! Bad, psycho governor! No! Sit down!” Colbert said on Monday’s “Late Show,” spraying water from a bottle.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.Bad Governor!The South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, an aspiring vice-presidential candidate, has gotten some negative press over her forthcoming book, in which she describes killing a family dog.“Warning: If you like puppies, you’re not going to like Kristi Noem,” Stephen Colbert said on Monday.“Look, I know it sounds terrible, but it’s much worse. Because this wasn’t some rabid 90-pound hellhound on a meth bender — it was a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer named Cricket. Yes, a puppy named Cricket. Reminds me of Stephen King’s first draft of ‘Cujo,’ ‘Snuggles.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“No! Bad, psycho governor! No! Sit down! Bad! Stay! Stay away from dogs!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I don’t know how big her staff is, but I’m guessing she has at least a dozen people working for her, probably more. Not one of those dozen or dozens of people raised a hand and said, ‘Uh, governor? Do you think maybe not a great idea to share that story about shooting a whole petting zoo at your house? Maybe we save shooting a puppy in a gravel pit for the next book, you know?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“By the way, the actual title of Noem’s book where she tells this story is ‘No Going Back.’ Better than her first drafts, ‘Old Yeller 2: He Had it Coming’ and ‘All Dogs Go to Gravel Pit.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Governor Noem, if you don’t like untrainable animals that wolf down chickens, I have bad news about your party’s nominee.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (John Wick Edition)“When you’re trying to win over voters, I’m not sure being the bad guy in a John Wick movie is the best way to go.” — JIMMY FALLON“But who among us hasn’t seen a dog running through the fields, not a care in the world, and thought, ‘You deserve to die’?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, people are really going to hate her next book, ‘Kristi Noem: Then I Ate It.’” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s one thing to kill a dog named Cricket; it’s another to brag about it in your book. What’s the book even called, ‘I Did It’?” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingAnne Hathaway and Melanie Lynskey played a new game called “Reverse Charades” on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightJerry Seinfeld will discuss his new Netflix film, “Unfrosted,” on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This Out“Challengers,” starring Josh O’Connor and Zendaya, has a number of sultry moments.Metro Goldwyn Mayer PicturesErotically charged films like “Saltburn” and “Challengers” show that sex is making a comeback in cinema. More
- in Theater
‘Ash’ Review: Elfriede Jelinek Confronts Environmental Collapse
Elfriede Jelinek’s latest play deals with collective calamity and individual grief, but is let down by a chaotic production.Twenty years ago, when the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize in Literature it was a surprise that the award had gone to an author who was barely known outside the German-speaking world. It set off a scandal, too. A juror from the academy that makes the decision resigned, calling Jelinek’s work “unenjoyable, violent pornography.”Despite her Nobel and the controversy that it engendered, Jelinek is still hardly a household name in the English-speaking world. In Germany and Austria, however, the premiere of a new play by this prolific and divisive writer is always an event. When the Münchner Kammerspiele presented the opening night of Jelinek’s “Ash” on Friday, every seat in the playhouse’s main theater was full.Outside Europe, Jelinek is known, if at all, for her novels, which include “The Piano Teacher” (adapted into a 2001 movie by Michael Haneke) and “The Children of the Dead,” a gruesome 500-page opus that has just appeared in English, nearly 30 years after its original publication. But in Germany and Austria, she is the most widely performed female playwright writing in German, according to her publisher, having written nearly 50 scripts since 1979.Like most of her stage works, “Ash” bears little resemblance to a conventional play. Jelinek’s signature dramatic form is the theatrical monologue: lengthy paragraphs of discursive text without clearly indicated characters, stage directions or conventional plot. It is left to directors to determine the size of the cast and to divide up Jelinek’s finely chiseled writing, which is by turns poetic, punning, allusive and philosophical.Yet sadly, Jelinek’s prose is poorly served by the director Falk Richter in his hopelessly cluttered production of “Ash.” Throughout, our attention is diverted from the text by a barrage of ominous projections, creepy AI-generated video and the distorted sound design.“Ash” continues the exploration of ecological themes that Jelinek has addressed, often with alarm, in much of her recent work, including her 2013 “stage essay” “rein GOLD,” which brings together Wagner and environmentalism, as well as her plays “Black Water” and “Sun/Air,” with which “Ash” constitutes a loose climate trilogy.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
- in Theater
A Starry Cast Navigates ‘Uncle Vanya’ and ‘Every Emotion Under the Sun’
Steve Carell, William Jackson Harper, Alison Pill and Anika Noni Rose discuss the new translation of Chekhov that brought them to the farm.Broadway shows usually come with a back story about the yearslong slog it took to get them there. Not so with Heidi Schreck’s new translation of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” which arrived at Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont Theater not even 12 months after its inception.Directed by Lila Neugebauer, it is Schreck’s first Broadway show since “What the Constitution Means to Me,” in 2019, and the ensemble is a starry one. Steve Carell is making his Broadway debut as Vanya, who believes he has wasted his life running a provincial estate and its farm alongside his niece, Sonia, played by Alison Pill, to support Sonia’s largely absentee father, portrayed by Alfred Molina.William Jackson Harper, best known for “The Good Place,” plays Astrov, the eco-nerd doctor whom Sonia loves. Anika Noni Rose, a Tony Award winner for “Caroline, or Change,” is the glamorous Elena, Sonia’s stepmother, for whom both Vanya and Astrov yearn.In mid-April, a week before the show’s opening on April 24, Schreck, Neugebauer, Carell, Harper, Pill and Rose gathered to talk over their dinner break in a room off the Beaumont lobby. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.Along with Harper and Carell, both at left, the play also features Alfred Molina, Jayne Houdyshell and Mia Katigbak in supporting roles.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWhat was your relationship to “Uncle Vanya” and Chekhov before this show?HEIDI SCHRECK I lived in Russia right out of college for two years. When I moved back to Seattle, I started this theater company with my husband, and there was this Russian company who would come and perform Russian plays. They invited me to be the translator. Basically I would do live interpretation.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
- in Theater
What to Expect From the 2024 Tony Awards Nominations
The contenders from a crowded season will be announced by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renée Elise Goldsberry.At a time when Broadway is overflowing with plays and musicals but could use more ticket buyers, this season’s Tony Award nominations will be announced on Tuesday, offering a boost to some shows and dashing the hopes of others.Here’s what you might want to know about the Tony nominations, which this year will recognize plays and musicals that opened on Broadway between April 28, 2023, and April 25, 2024:When and how are the nominations announced?A few categories are to be made public shortly after 8:30 a.m. Eastern on the Tuesday broadcast of “CBS Mornings.” (CBS airs the Tonys, so it has first dibs on the news.) The full list of nominees will be announced on the Tony Awards YouTube channel starting at 9 a.m. Two previous Tony winners, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renée Elise Goldsberry, will read the list of nominees.The New York Times’s live coverage of the announcements will continue all day, with the list of nominees as well as news and analysis.How were the nominees chosen?The Tony Awards have a nominating committee made up of people knowledgeable about theater (many are theater artists or administrators), but who do not have a financial stake in any of the season’s shows. This season 36 Tony-eligible plays and musicals opened; nominators were required to see all of them.The nominating committee started with 60 members, but then — as always happens — some had to recuse themselves because they couldn’t get to all the shows or because a conflict of interest arose. About 45 nominators are expected to vote.What are the leading contenders?The race for best musical — generally the prize with the biggest economic impact — is wide open, with 15 eligible contenders, none of which have immediately broken out as a unanimous critical darling or a box-office smash. Five to seven shows will be nominated for the best musical award.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
- in Television
What’s on TV This Week: ‘Catfish’ and ‘Welcome to Wrexham’
The show, hosted by Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford, begins its ninth season on MTV. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s soccer series on FX is back for Season 3.For those like me who still haven’t cut the cord, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, April 29-May 5. Details and times are subject to change.MondayERIN BROCKOVICH (2000) 8 p.m. on Pop. Anyone growing up with dreams of saving the world can probably find inspiration in Julia Roberts’s performance as Erin Brockovich. She is a single mom down to her last few dollars, but she’s smart and resourceful and possesses highly developed investigative Spidey senses. Based on a true story, this fictionalized movie follows Brockovich as she gets a low-level job at a law firm and finds a cover-up of toxic exposure that is threatening lives. A.O. Scott, in his review for The New York Times noted that after a robust, creative opening, Roberts and the director, Steven Soderbergh, rely heavily on clichés, and Scott ruefully submits to the same technique, writing that the movie “will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you stand up and cheer. ‘Erin Brockovich’ is the feel-good movie of the year.”From left: Cher and Nicolas Cage in “Moonstruck.”MGMMOONSTRUCK (1987) 8 p.m. on TCM. If you’re in the mood for desire on Monday night instead of the fighting spirit of Erin Brockovich, see Cher and Nicolas Cage in this slightly chaotic but ultimately dreamy romantic comedy. Cher plays Loretta, a widow who finds herself falling in love with her new boyfriend’s younger brother, Ronny (Cage). This movie offers “further proof that Cher has evolved into the kind of larger-than-life movie star who’s worth watching whatever she does,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The Times.TuesdayCATFISH 8 p.m. on MTV. In an ideal world, anytime someone ghosts you on a dating app, Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford (and let’s throw Max Joseph into this fantasy for old times’s sake) would materialize next to you and put that person in their place. And for the people who write in to the show — that is basically what happens. “Each episode unfolds like a detective show, with the, host Nev Schulman, summoned to untangle truth from lies, to take relationships that exist only on computers and phones and drag them into our three-dimensional reality,” Maya Salam wrote in a recent feature in The Times about the show, which is back for its ninth season.WednesdayPRISONER IN RUSSIA: THE BRITTNEY GRINER INTERVIEW 10 p.m. on ABC. In March of 2022, Brittney Griner, a WNBA center, was detained in Russia on drug charges. She ended up pleading guilty in a Russian court and being sentenced to nine years in prison. In December of that year, nearly 10 months later, she was released via a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer. For the first time, she is sitting down for an interview — with Robin Roberts — to discuss her time in prison.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
- in Television
Colin Jost Falls Flat at White House Correspondents Dinner
The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has occasionally featured some great stand-up comedy. This “S.N.L.” veteran’s set will not join that list.People in the media have long worried about the impact of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on journalism. The concern is that it makes the press look too chummy with politicians it’s covering. But what is the impact on comedy?A high-ceilinged hotel ballroom filled with television anchors and network executives is a tough room for stand-up, but no more so than an awards show. Trevor Noah was funnier two years ago at the dinner than he was at this year’s Grammys.A murderer’s row of comics, among them Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and Wanda Sykes, has taken this assignment because it’s one of the most high-profile live comedy sets of the year. And there has been one truly great performance (Stephen Colbert), some very good ones (Seth Meyers, Larry Wilmore) and one so thrillingly biting (Michelle Wolf) that the next year they replaced the comic with a historian.Colin Jost’s set this year does not belong in that pantheon. Without his Weekend Update partner Michael Che next to him, he came off muted, vanilla, less assured than usual. With long pauses between jokes, eyes darting side to side, he occasionally took a drink of water and at least once acknowledged the lack of laughter in the room. His jokes leaned on wordplay more than a specific or novel perspective. “Some incredible news organizations here,” began one of his pricklier jokes, finished by: “Also, some credible ones.”He focused much fire on former President Donald J. Trump. “Now that O.J.’s dead, who is the front-runner for V.P.?” he asked. “Diddy?” Like Biden, Jost has always benefited from low expectations. No one that handsome could be funny, right? But he has grown into his role at “Saturday Night Live,” proving to be an especially strong straight man adept at the comedy of embarrassment. You could see his timing in one of the odder moments when he said Robert Kennedy Jr. could be the third Catholic president and the C-SPAN camera cut to President Biden (the second) clapping. Jost retreated on Kennedy’s chances one beat later: “Like his vaccine card says, he doesn’t have a shot.”For the third year in a row, President’s Biden’s age played a big role in the comedy (“Technology wasn’t invented when he was in high school,” Jost said of Biden), even in the president’s own set. Two years ago, Biden joked that he was friends with Calvin Coolidge. Last year, he referred to his “pal Jimmy Madison.” The president took a slightly different and more confrontational approach this time. “Age is an issue,” he said early. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.”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
