Eliana Willis

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    ‘S.N.L.’: Trump Celebrates 100 Years (Oops! Days) in Office

    The Sharpie that never runs dry takes aim at interracial couples in commercials and a declaration normalizing May-December romances.In the first 100 days of his second term, President Trump has already signed more executive orders than any other modern president, and this weekend, “Saturday Night Live” offered its suggestions for even more.This broadcast, hosted by Quinta Brunson and featuring the musical guest Benson Boone, started with a rousing voice-over proclaiming that Trump’s first 100 days “have been the most dynamic since F.D.R.”During that same interval in the 1930s, the voice-over said, President Franklin D. Roosevelt “created vital government departments, forged new alliances and established our nation’s social safety net.”President Trump, the voice-over added, “did the same thing, only in reverse.”Enter James Austin Johnson, in his recurring role as Trump, congratulating himself for these accomplishments.“It’s me, your favorite president and perhaps your next pope,” he said. “Conclave! Well, it’s been 100 years since I became president. Excuse me, days. Wow, feels longer.”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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    ‘Sinners’ and Shows like ‘Severance’ Give an Old Form New Life

    Online, onstage and onscreen, performers are playing multiple parts. The effect of watching someone shape-shift can be both thrilling and unnerving.The much-anticipated season finale of one of my favorite sitcoms was recently derailed when its creator, Shawna Lander, ran into a few snags. In the story I’ve been following for months, a peppy if scatterbrained woman named Jennifer McCallister has gone into labor after a pregnancy that’s transformed her relationship with her sister-in-law (also named Shawna) from antagonistic to amiable. Meanwhile, Jennifer’s mother, Barb — passive-aggressive to a comically villainous degree — is getting drunk on margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant and terrorizing the wait staff when she gets a call to meet Jennifer at the hospital.But just as Jennifer was about to give birth, the story stopped. Lander announced that due to technical difficulties and illness, the audience would have to wait a few days to see what shenanigans Barb got up to, and whether this birth would help her and her son, Jennifer’s brother John, smooth over their rocky relationship. Illness foils shooting days all the time, but typically one creator’s bout of fever wouldn’t force audiences to wait well past the target air date to find out what happens. The difference with Lander’s show, which chronicles the ever-sprawling antics of the McCallister family — most sketches are actually stealth explorations of relationship dynamics — is that Lander is the show. She writes it. She produces and distributes it. She directs and shoots it.Michael B. Jordan as the twins Smoke and Stack in “Sinners.” He’s one of many performers this season playing multiple parts in a production.Warner Bros. PicturesAnd, most important, like several actors in hit TV shows, big-budget films and Tony-nominated Broadway productions this season, she plays every single character: Jennifer, Barb, Shawna, John, other male partners, assorted friends, the waitress, even Shawna’s two small children. They’re all Lander in wigs and different shirts, shot in close-cropped vertical framing for platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where she posts under the handle @shawnathemom. Her performances are so funny and specific that it’s shockingly easy to forget it’s all just her.The McCallister family saga boasts considerable viewership. The chronicles are followed by two million TikTok users, with nearly a million more on Instagram. Add it up, and that’s a bigger audience than watched the Season 3 premiere of “The White Lotus.”Lander’s format — playing every part herself, with shots framed and edited so the characters seem to be conversing with each other — involves a visual vocabulary familiar to comedians on vertical video platforms, who often post satirical sketches about corporate life or marriage. Just recently, a creator who goes by Sydney Jo posted the multi-episode “Group Chat” series, in which she played the multitudinous members of a friend group experiencing mounting drama over one girl’s boyfriend, culminating in a “Real Housewives”-style reunion episode. The series was such a viral hit that Sydney Jo was invited onto the “Today” show to talk about it.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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    Book Review: ‘The Butcher’s Daughter,’ by David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark

    A new novel, “The Butcher’s Daughter,” imagines the haunting past of Mrs. Lovett, the infamous baker who assisted the serial killer Sweeney Todd.THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett, by David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh ClarkFor half a century — much longer, if you go back to the original 1840s penny dreadfuls — people have thrilled to the story of Sweeney Todd, the murderous London barber who cut short the lives of priests, fops, sailors and one especially loathsome judge before he met his own gruesome end. Sweeney’s tragic losses and appetite for vengeance have been well documented, most notably by the musical genius of Stephen Sondheim. But what of his partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett, who popped his poor victims into her pies? Does her tale not need attending, too?David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark’s epistolary novel “The Butcher’s Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett” gives the woman beside the man her own turn in the spotlight. Part Victorian historical fiction, part grisly horror, the book follows a mysterious woman, Margaret C. Evans, a.k.a. Margery, as she recounts her life story to a never-seen (and, we learn at the opening of the book, missing) journalist, who is investigating the disappearance of Mrs. Lovett 50 years before. Though she does not disclose her true identity outright until fairly deep in the novel, it is clear within the first few pages that Margery is Mrs. Lovett, who — in a departure from the source material, where she is killed by Sweeney — is very much alive and confined to a nunnery.Margery’s harrowing tale reframes Mrs. Lovett not as a villain but as a maligned girl fighting to survive. She’s a seductively evocative narrator, making it easy to forget that her every word should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.It will surprise nobody familiar with the musical that this is a gory book. The violence starts early, at Margery’s father’s butcher shop, where she is awakened each morning by the sounds and smells of sheep being slaughtered, and where it is a shame bordering on sin to let anything go to waste.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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    Pierre Audi, Eminent Force in the Performing Arts, Dies at 67

    After turning a derelict lecture hall into the daring Almeida Theater, he had a long career as a director and impresario in Europe and New York.Pierre Audi, the stage director and impresario whose transformation of a derelict London lecture hall into the cutting-edge Almeida Theater was the opening act in a long career as one of the world’s most eminent performing arts leaders, died on Friday night in Beijing. He was 67.His death, while he was in China for meetings related to future productions, was announced on social media by Rachida Dati, the minister of culture in France, where Mr. Audi had been the director of the Aix-en-Provence Festival since 2018. The announcement did not specify a cause.Mr. Audi was in his early 20s when he founded the Almeida, which opened in 1980 and swiftly became a center of experimental theater and music. He spent 30 years as the leader of the Dutch National Opera, and for part of that time was also in charge of the Holland Festival. For the past decade, he had been the artistic director of the Park Avenue Armory in New York.The Almeida Theater in London. Mr. Audi was in his early 20s when he founded it in 1980, and it soon became a center of experimental theater and music.View PicturesAll along, he continued working as a director at theaters around the world. Last year, when the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels cut ties with Romeo Castellucci halfway through his new production of Wagner’s four-opera “Ring,” the company turned to Mr. Audi as one of the few artists with the knowledge, experience and cool head to take over such an epic undertaking at short notice.“He profoundly renewed the language of opera,” Ms. Dati wrote in her announcement, “through his rigor, his freedom and his singular vision.”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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    The National Endowment for the Arts Begins Terminating Grants

    The endowment told arts organizations that it was withdrawing or canceling current grants just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in the next fiscal year.The National Endowment for the Arts withdrew and canceled grant offers to numerous arts organizations around the country on Friday night, sending a round of email notifications out just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in his next budget.The move, although not unexpected, was met with disappointment and anger by arts administrators who had counted on the grants to finance ongoing projects.In Oregon, Portland Playhouse received an email from the endowment just 24 hours before opening a production of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” an acclaimed work that is part of the playwright’s series of 10 dramas about African Americans through the course of the 20th century. The N.E.A. had recommended a $25,000 grant for the show, which would have paid about one-fifth of the production’s personnel costs.“Times are tough for theaters — we’re already pressed, and in this moment where every dollar matters, this was a critical piece of our budget,” said Brian Weaver, the theater’s producing artistic director. “It’s ridiculous.”The emails were sent to arts administrators from an address at the endowment that did not accept replies. “The N.E.A. is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president,” the emails said. “Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”The emails went on to say that the endowment would now prioritize projects that “elevate” historically Black colleges and universities, and colleges that serve Hispanic students. The emails also said the endowment would focus on projects that “celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster A.I. competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”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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    Melissa Gorga Talks Sprinkle Cookies and ‘Real Housewives’ Ending

    The feud between Melissa Gorga and Teresa Giudice, her “Real Housewives of New Jersey” castmate and sister-in-law, has been simmering for more than a decade.Giudice takes pains to point out Gorga’s perceived transgressions, citing rumors of infidelity, gold-digging and a past life as a stripper (all of which Gorga has denied) in fights that became recurring story lines for the show and that divided fans into Team Teresa and Team Melissa.A dispute in Season 3 (shot in 2011) came to summarize the innocuous events that could set off accusations of bad taste when Giudice complained to family and friends that Gorga brought a subpar choice of cookie to her holiday gathering. “She came to my house Christmas Day, and she brought me sprinkle cookies,” Giudice said, specifying that she preferred pignoli cookies, before adding: “Melissa. No one touched the cookies you brought. I threw them in the garbage!”Gorga used the dis as a springboard for Let’s Sprinkle by MG, a direct-to-consumer line of upscale butter cookies with sprinkles — running $29.99 for a box of a dozen — that she says has brought in over half a million dollars in revenue since its December launch. Beyond being a recurring reference on the show, the sprinkle cookies are also an offscreen calling card for audience members firmly on Team Melissa.The sprinkle cookies have become a calling card for audience members firmly on Team Melissa.Yael Malka for The New York TimesGorga and Giudice are no longer talking after a bitter last season that divided the cast so deeply that they could not gather to film the all-important reunion show. It’s uncertain who will return to the series, and there are whispers that the cast will be overhauled, as has happened with the New York and Atlanta franchises.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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    Did a TV Show Hurt You? ‘Fix-Its’ Offer Justice

    This article includes spoilers for “Daredevil: Born Again,” “Severance,” “The Last of Us” and “The White Lotus.”As a longtime player of the Last of Us video game series, Sam Gaitan knew the death was coming. Still, the brutal murder of Joel in a recent episode of the HBO adaptation hit her hard. It was already midnight when she went on Tumblr to read fan reactions. Then, in a fit of inspiration, she started writing.“I was a wreck, and I needed to get those strong emotions out,” Gaitan, a tattooist and artist, said in a recent phone interview. By 5 a.m., she had written 3,761 words featuring Joel and Red, an original character Gaitan had previously created, and an alternative scenario that spares Joel from his onscreen fate.Writing under the alias oh_persephone, she posted the story on AO3, an online repository for fan fiction and other fan-created art, and crashed until her dogs woke her up the next morning.“It probably wasn’t the most coherent thing I’ve written,” she said, laughing. “But I figured other people could use it as much as I did.”In this alternative plot to “The Last of Us,” Joel, the beloved male lead played by Pedro Pascal, avoids being detained and murdered by a rival group.He is saved by Red, an invented heroine who convinces the gunmen that Joel is already dead and sends them off.“Joel’s eyes were on her, watching, a breath away from being up and ready to fight if needed,” oh_persephone writes. “They were both tightly wound coils, waiting to explode.”

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    Trump Seeks to Eliminate the NEA

    The president’s budget proposal also called for getting rid of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences.President Trump proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the budget he released Friday, taking aim once again at two agencies that he had tried and failed to get rid of during his first term.The endowments, along with the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, were among the entities listed in a section titled “small agency eliminations” in his budget blueprint for the next fiscal year. The document said that the proposal was “consistent with the president’s efforts to decrease the size of the federal government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities” and noted that Mr. Trump’s past budget proposals had “also supported these eliminations.”In 2017, during his first term, Mr. Trump proposed eliminating both the arts and the humanities endowments. But bipartisan support in Congress kept them alive, and in fact their budgets grew during the first Trump administration.Since Mr. Trump returned to office this year, his administration has taken aim at the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, canceling most of their existing grants and laying off a large portion of their staffs. But the arts agency had yet to announce major cuts.The proposal to eliminate the endowments drew a quick and furious reaction from Democrats. One, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, vowed to fight the plan to eliminate the N.E.A. “tooth and nail.”Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, who serves as the top Democrat on the House subcommittee overseeing the N.E.A., said in an interview that Mr. Trump was “making a broad-based attack on the arts, both for funding and content.” She cited his proposals to eliminate the endowments as well as his takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and his efforts to influence the Smithsonian Institution.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