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    Bidding Farewell to His Theatrical Flock

    In a 34-year run at New York Theater Workshop, James C. Nicola held that directors and writers are equal partners — and helped send “Rent” and “Hadestown” to Broadway.The Tony Awards ceremony had just wrapped up at Radio City Music Hall, and it was time for the parties. But for one honoree, James C. Nicola, the longtime artistic director of New York Theater Workshop, there would be no stop-off for toasts at the Plaza Hotel or after-midnight carousing at Tavern on the Green.Instead, he headed to a nearby parking garage, and settled behind the wheel of a rental van for the 40-minute ride back to the dorms at Adelphi University on Long Island, where he’d be sleeping that night. As far as he was concerned, there was no other choice: He had pickup duty at 10 a.m. for a group of young artists arriving by train for one of the summer workshops that have been a hallmark of his 34-year tenure at one of Off Broadway’s most beloved theaters.It’s not those gatherings that led the Tony committee to give Nicola a special honor. Or at least not fully. It’s also that his 199-seat East Village theater spawned the Tony-winning best musicals “Rent,” “Once” and “Hadestown.” That the recent hot-button plays “What the Constitution Means to Me”and “Slave Play” ran there. And that the theater’s support made a crucial difference to the careers of such writers as Tony Kushner, Lisa Kron and Doug Wright; the directors Rachel Chavkin, Lileana Blain-Cruz and Sam Gold; and many others.Nicola, center, with fellow Tony honorees Eileen Rivera and Ashruf “Osh” Ghanimah at the Tony Honors cocktail party in early June.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe Tony came as a bonus after Nicola announced last year that he was stepping down, the first of the very long-serving artistic leaders of major nonprofit New York theaters to do so. And while he acknowledged that the theater-world reckoning over the whiteness of its leadership persuaded him it was time to leave, he departed on July 10 with what seems to be an unblemished record.At 72, his gait has slowed. But his ice-blue eyes still blaze when he gets animated about his affection for anagrams or who might star with Daniel Radcliffe later this year in “Merrily We Roll Along,” part of the last Workshop season he programmed. (The freelance director Patricia McGregor, a Black woman who has had an ongoing connection to the theater, is succeeding him in the top job.)Nicola spent five years working as a casting associate at Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival (now the Public Theater). Comparisons with Papp and the far-larger Public are inevitably imprecise. But in his own less grandiose, more self-effacing way, Nicola is among the handful of artistic directors to make the biggest artistic impact on the New York theater world since — a magnet for iconoclastic talents who also helped develop a passel of shows with enormous commercial appeal.Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” was part of New York Theater Workshop’s 1995-96 season, a pivotal time for the theater. The cast included, from left: Jesse L. Martin, Adam Pascal, Wilson Heredia, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Rodney Hicks and Anthony Rapp.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNicola at the theater in 1997. A son of the 1960s, he once imagined he’d be a Baptist minister.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMore personally, he is one of the last of his kind: a son of the ’60s who imagined he’d be a Baptist minister and made a brick-and-mortar building into a flock and a chosen family.In a video acceptance speech for the Tony, Nicola put it this way: “Our community has aspired to be a sanctuary for a certain species of artist — theatermakers who embrace their divinity, who understand their sacred obligation to lead and inspire us.”And in one of several recent conversations that included breaks between work-in-progress readings at Adelphi and lunch at a favorite Hell’s Kitchen diner, he stood firm in his conviction that idealism is the fuel that kept him going, and that bringing people together to be challenged is the goal.“Nothing makes me angrier than to be called a gatekeeper,” he said.He added: “Nothing makes me happier than to be mad when I leave the theater.”RACHEL CHAVKIN HAD BEEN inviting Nicola and his then-associate artistic director, Linda Chapman, to take in her work since she was an M.F.A. student at Columbia University. After seeing “Three Pianos,” a rambunctious reimagining of Franz Schubert as the center of a drunken posse of musicians and fans, Nicola asked Chavkin and Alec Duffy, one of her collaborators on the show, to his denlike office on the second floor of the East Village building that abuts the theater.“I think he opened by saying ‘I think that’s one of the best pieces of theater I’ve ever seen,’” she recalled in a recent phone call. “Our jaws dropped.”Programming “Three Pianos” into the Workshop’s 2010-11 season was a career-changer for Chavkin, who, while continuing to do avant-garde work with the troupe known as the TEAM, also helped to shape the boundary-busting Broadway musicals “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” and “Hadestown.” (She is co-directing at the Workshop again next season, while aiming another musical, “Lempicka,” for Broadway.)Like Chavkin, the now Tony-winning director Sam Gold earned his union card directing at the Workshop, in 2007. He still recalls Nicola’s support when he wanted to hire a scenic designer with opera-world credits to build what would be an ambitious set for Betty Shamieh’s play “The Black Eyed.”“It’s the kind of thing that a director on their first job doesn’t get to do,” Gold said. “Jim would say, ‘I don’t want to limit your imagination.’”And the commitment went beyond a single show — part of Nicola’s belief that directors are equal partners with playwrights in an American theater system that tends to privilege the latter.David Oyelowo, left, and Daniel Craig in Sam Gold’s 2016 production of “Othello” at New York Theater Workshop.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Over the years,” Gold said, “I’ve had very few people genuinely see me as an artist — who can relate one show to another, as someone with a lifelong project.”Whitney White, who was Gold’s assistant on the 2016 Workshop production of “Othello” that starred Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo, speaks of Nicola as a presence in her life, not just a champion of her work. (White directed Aleshea Harris’s play “On Sugarland” at the Workshop this spring.)“I’ve spoken to him about men and love and theater and everything,” she said. “It’s a fully furnished table.”That’s not easy to find, even in nonprofit theaters that don’t have to obsess over the bottom line. “It’s a different style of artistic directorship — that you’re in community, in dialogue, not just a blip,” she added.NICOLA GREW UP OUTSIDE HARTFORD, Conn., gay and closeted, the oldest of four brothers in a middle-class family. In high school and then for a while at Tufts University, he took private singing lessons, imagining a career in opera or choral music. A year studying abroad took him to the Royal Court Theater in London, where he got interested in directing.Eventually, it helped lead him to the writing of the British experimentalist Caryl Churchill, a Royal Court favorite, whose work he helped champion at the New York Shakespeare Festival and at Arena Stage, in Washington, D.C., where he had a one-year directing fellowship that turned into seven more years as a producing associate.What became New York Theater Workshop had been presenting work around Manhattan for nearly a decade when Nicola raised his hand for the top job. In conversations with Stephen Graham, its founder and current board member, he learned that the theater, which was already funding fellowships for directors, was hungry to have a bigger public profile.“They wanted to change the form,” Nicola said. “What better could I hear?”Under Nicola, the theater staged Churchill’s work eight times, more than any other writer. But no figure is more associated with his tenure than the Belgian auteur Ivo van Hove. After seeing his work in Europe, Nicola brought him to direct in the United States for the first time, adapting Eugene O’Neill’s unfinished play “More Stately Mansions,” in 1997.Two years later, his deconstruction of the Tennessee Williams classic “A Streetcar Named Desire” — Blanche, Stanley and Stella each spend stage time in the bathtub — heralded the van Hove/Workshop alliance as one of the most exciting (and divisive) destinations in New York theater.During Nicola’s reign the theater presented eight van Hove productions, capped in 2015 with “Lazarus,” a rock musical with a book by Enda Walsh and songs, new and old, by David Bowie, who was secretly battling cancer during its creation and died during its run.Ivo van Hove has directed eight productions at the Workshop, including the 2015 production of David Bowie and Enda Walsh’s “Lazarus,” with Michael C. Hall and Sophia Anne Caruso.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe circumstances had echoes of “Rent” — a show the theater began developing four years into Nicola’s tenure that had its final dress rehearsal at the Workshop on Jan. 25, 1996. That night its creator, Jonathan Larson, suddenly died of an aortic aneurysm.The “Rent” story — 12 years on Broadway, the Pulitzer Prize, productions all over the world — is show business canon. Royalties from that and other Broadway transfers helped boost the theater’s annual budget from $400,000 to $10 million in the Nicola era. But as he talked about “Rent” and “Lazarus,” Nicola hinted at the ways they might have turned out had tragedy not struck, their creators wrested from the process of art-making too soon.“Lazarus,” which was sped into production and where only van Hove knew of Bowie’s precarious health, was among the most challenging experiences of Nicola’s time at the Workshop. But he pinpoints his darkest days to 2006, when a planned staging of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” a solo play about an American demonstrator for Palestinian rights who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer, was pulled.Kushner and Harold Pinter, among others, accused the theater of capitulating to political pressure; the theater maintained it was only delaying the production, which originated at the Royal Court in London. Nicola had to return from Italy to defuse the situation, which he called a “misunderstanding that was threatening to the very heart of the institution.” (“Rachel Corrie” ended up running at another theater.)More recently, debates over representation in the theater world have encouraged in him a greater self-awareness. He pointed to Jeremy O. Harris’s “Slave Play,” which was championed by his theater and by notable white male critics. He later came to learn that many Black women felt otherwise.“There are impulses that I have that feel like good and positive ones, and then learn that my response is not universal,” Nicola said.“It’s really good to think about the risks and possible outcomes,” he added, “but also not be intimidated by not being able to predict. To not retreat, not get cautious or conservative.”FINISH A 34-YEAR TERM running a major theater and the hosannas will come fast and furious.Besides the Tony, Nicola was celebrated at the Workshop’s annual gala, which had a diner theme in honor of his affection for humble food. There were speeches and a musical performance from some original “Rent” cast members, a drag queen and, for a finale, four veteran stage actresses enacting a “scene” from “The Golden Girls,” a Nicola favorite.“My gratitude to the theater was giving me a sense that the world was bigger,” Nicola said, reflecting on his career. Erik Tanner for The New York TimesWeeks later, several hundred friends and associates surprised him at the theater with a reading of Moss Hart’s backstage comedy “Light Up the Sky,” the last play he had directed at Arena Stage, with a cast that included the playwrights Lucas Hnath, Dael Orlandersmith and Kron; the performer Penny Arcade; and the producers Jeffrey Seller and Jordan Roth. (“I have lived this play my entire adult life,” a grateful Nicola said later.)Uptown and downtown, artful and kitschy — it’s an increasingly illusory divide that Nicola, who soaked up the work of Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, has managed to happily bridge, personally and professionally.“He’ll be talking one minute about [the French director] Ariane Mnouchkine and the next he’ll be doing an Ethel Merman impression,” said Wright, whose Grand Guignol-ish Marquis de Sade play, “Quills,” was, along with “Rent,” in the 1995-96 season that brought a new level of starshine to the theater.Nicola proudly cops to being a musical-theater show queen, quoting “Funny Girl” in his gala acceptance speech and later pointing to a lyric from (shocking!) Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” as explaining his mission: “We taught the world new ways to dream.”The “director in me” decided he needed a ritual way to bring closure to his time at the theater. So he and friends rode the Circle Line on the Fourth of July. “When I board the boat I will be leaving my old life and when I get off it, I will be entering my new life,” he said beforehand.As to what’s next, all he can propose is “opening myself up to new adventures.”In the meantime, he’s taken to writing letters of thanks, sending them into the world without knowing who will (or won’t) respond.One went to the theater department at Tufts.Another to the Little Theater of Manchester, Conn., where he appeared onstage as the Mock Turtle in “Alice in Wonderland,” and was first dazzled by the art of telling a story to an audience in public.“My gratitude to the theater was giving me a sense that the world was bigger — that there were many other possibilities,” he said. “To that 12- or 13-year-old boy, this is everything he aspired to. It happened.” More

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    Phoebe Robinson Is Trash, and She’s Fine With It

    Robinson created and stars in “Everything’s Trash,” a new series that “is a celebration of people who aren’t in a rush to change who they are,” she said.“Everyone is trash,” Phoebe Robinson explained. “We all have our great qualities, but we also have flaws. Sometimes they’re lovable. Sometimes they’re not. And it’s OK.”This was a on a recent summer morning and Robinson — a writer and performer best-known for her essay collections and the podcast-turned-HBO-show “2 Dope Queens” — was sermonizing in between sips of lemonade at a coffee shop in Downtown Brooklyn. She had arrived a few minutes late. (Lateness, she would later explain, is one of her trashiest qualities.) Around the corner stood a blue Bigbelly garbage can ornamented with her image, an ad for her new show, “Everything’s Trash,” which debuts Wednesday on Freeform. Robinson stars as Phoebe, a podcast host facing down adulthood with pluck and hedonism while her very together older brother (Jordan Carlos) runs for state office.Robinson, 37, adapted the show from her 2018 collection, “Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay.” If creating, producing, writing for and starring in a show sounds like a lot of jobs, I should also note that this is the second show from Robinson’s production company, Tiny Reparations; that she runs a publishing imprint of the same name; and that she recently published a third essay collection. She also debuted her first standup special, “Sorry, Harriet Tubman,” last fall on HBO Max. Really, it’s enough to make a person want to go back to bed.In “Everything’s Trash,” Robinson stars as a podcaster stumbling toward adulthood.Giovanni Rufino/FreeformOn this morning, she greeted the day in sequined sandals, pants that matched the lemonade and a crinkly black jacket. (A Hefty bag, but make it fashion.) Under that jacket was a cropped T from U2’s “The Joshua Tree” tour. (Robinson is on record as loving U2 maybe more than anyone alive.) Over that lemonade, Robinson, exuberant and focused, discussed exploiting her young adulthood for laughs and whether she is still trash. Spoiler: “Of course I’m still trash!” she said.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The book is based on the events and missteps of your late 20s and early 30s. How close does the show hew to your actual life?It’s a healthy combination of writers’ room and real life. My brother really is a state rep. But I would not hook up with his political rival. That’s not my vibe. We wanted to have fun with it — the times when I was crazy broke and running around, hustling. The whole wear-and-return thing? I did that for years. I would get a cute outfit for an event. And then I would be like: “OK, no one spill on me. No one sweat. Because I’m going to return this later.” We just mix it all up together. TV Phoebe is certainly messier than I ever was. She’s smart and funny and lovable, but she operates with whatever feels good in the moment. I like to believe I’m a bit more mindful than that. She’s just living her life.When I think of comedies about young women being trash, I think of “Girls” or “Broad City.” Have Black women felt as free to be trash?We know that the answer is no. But there are a lot of great shows out there — “Insecure,” “Abbott Elementary,” hopefully my show — that show people just living their lives. I didn’t create this show thinking about respectability politics. It wasn’t even a topic of discussion. We really just wanted to make a show that was hilarious and honest, and based on stuff that’s happened to the writers in the room. I will always fight for the right to be silly, to be messy, to make mistakes. I don’t want us to get to a place where we aren’t showing characters being human.You were a podcaster, and your character podcasts, too. Is the podcast in the show a version of “2 Dope Queens” or your other show, “Sooo Many White Guys”?It’s invented for the show. But this idea of, “Yeah, I have a podcast that’s successful and I don’t have any money in the bank,” that’s ripped from the headlines, as they say on “Law & Order.” I really just wanted to have fun with it. I love podcasting so much; it’s such a great medium. It’s oversaturated now, so I’m glad that I was able to do it when I did.You’ve joked about being a “melanated Carrie Bradshaw.” But on “And Just Like That,” Carrie Bradshaw has a podcast now. So is she actually the white you?She’s doing her thing. I’m doing my thing. But when I saw that, I was like, Oh, that’s a cute evolution for her character and also feels true to life that she would — I love that I’m talking about her like she’s a real person — that she would be a podcaster now.“I will always fight for the right to be silly, to be messy, to make mistakes,” Robinson said.Donavon Smallwood for The New York TimesA lot of shows that are set in New York aren’t made in New York. This one is. And Brooklyn looks great in it. Why was that important?I’ve been here since I moved out at 17 to go to college, and I really fought for the show to be shot here. Initially, there was some discussion of like, “Maybe we could do it in L.A. on soundstages …” and I was like: “No, no, no. New York is in its DNA.” I’ve lived in Crown Heights, Kensington, Clinton Hill, all those areas. I love all those areas. I want to show actual Brooklyn, not just the parts that have been gentrified.Is there a message you want people to take away from the show?I just want people to embrace where they’re at. We’re always so focused on, Oh, I have to get this next thing and I need to improve in this way. This is a celebration of people who aren’t in a rush to change who they are. They’re just like: “OK, this is who I am. This is my truth. This is my journey.” I hope that when people watch, they laugh a lot, but then maybe apply a little bit of that to themselves.You’re going to see different kinds of Blackness, you’re going to see beautiful Brooklyn, you’re going to see people make mistakes and try to figure [expletive] out and hopefully get more things right than wrong. People just get so down on themselves because they think they’re not doing enough or they’re failing in some way. And I’m like, You’re doing fine.One of the things I really fought for: I didn’t want it to be like, Oh, Phoebe’s so messy, and then by the end, she’s going to settle down, move to Connecticut, have kids. I don’t know how her journey is going to end, and she doesn’t either, and I think that’s OK.I look at you now: You have a production company, a publishing imprint, an apartment with color-coordinated bookshelves, a Peloton. Are you still trash?A Peloton doesn’t make you Mother Teresa. Come on! I’m always 10 to 15 minutes late for stuff. I can be stubborn. I can be forgetful sometimes. Of course I’m trash. Listen, everyone’s trash. M.L.K. Jr. was trash. Let’s be real. He was great. He did a lot of great things. He was also trash. More

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    Adam Scott on His First Emmy Nomination for ‘Severance’

    Scott earned first Emmy nomination on Tuesday, for best actor in drama for “Severance.”To stay afloat and avoid disappointment, Adam Scott said he doesn’t anticipate big nominations. It’s a healthier state of mind, he said, and he’s become accustomed to not hearing his name called.“I did not think I was going to be nominated,” he said. “I was just trying to focus on everyone else and take a walk and put it out of my head.”After learning he received an Emmy nomination for best actor in the Apple TV+ drama “Severance,” Scott said it was an honor to be named next to actors like Brian Cox, nominated for “Succession,” and Jason Bateman, nominated for “Ozark.”“Severance,” which is also nominated for best drama, presents an eerie picture of workplace culture in which employees of an enigmatic, vaguely sinister corporation named Lumon Industries undergo a surgical procedure that severs their work memories from their personal memories, in an effort to keep company secrets confidential. Scott plays Mark Scout, who after losing his wife, Gemma (played by Dichen Lachman), in a car accident, substitutes monotonous shifts pocketing numbers into digital boxes at Lumon for proper healing.In a phone interview on Tuesday, Scott discussed the show’s cliffhanger ending and how he used a personal loss to build his character. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.Where were you when you first heard of the nomination?I was in the middle of walking the dogs when I got the phone call and was surprised and just couldn’t be more flattered and honored. It was really a unique feeling, to say the least.Why do you think the show was so successful?It’s a good question because when we were making it, we, if not daily, very often would stop and look at each other and just be like, “This is really [expletive] weird. Is anyone going to connect with it?” We didn’t know, and then we would just kind of shrug our shoulders and put our heads down and keep going.What were the most challenging scenes for you to film?I was going through a grieving process, because my mom had died before I went out to New York. I walked into that apartment and realized I wasn’t done grieving at all, because my family kind of cushioned me from this at home. And that’s what love is for in a lot of ways, is to help you through a process like that, and we were locked down in Los Angeles so I was able to kind of make it through. But then I got to New York six months later, closed the door and I was by myself and I realized immediately I was not done absorbing this loss. The show was right there, and so I processed my grief through the show.What does “Severance” hope to teach about how to cope with grief?For outtie Mark, that’s what the season was about: grief, and how is he going to handle it? And is he going to handle it? Or is he going to continue pushing it away? And I was asking myself the same question. So, I decided to deal with it, but deal with it along with Mark.There’s a scene where I’m on the side of the road where my wife had a car accident in the show, and we just happened to shoot that scene on the one-year anniversary of my mom passing away. It was just a sheer coincidence. But I was kind of carrying it around with me all day and trying not to kind of zero in on it. It really, again, helped me with my grieving process.What does the show aim to tell viewers about how to manage what happens at work and what happens at home, particularly amid a pandemic when many people have had to work remotely?Work is something that you do to achieve one thing or another. A job is a place where you go, if you can define it like that, and I think people started re-evaluating their relationship with those things. I think we all found out that home and your life, and your life at work, they all started to blend into sort of one thing.How did the cast and the director Ben Stiller compose the last moments of the season finale?The moment where I call Mrs. Selvig “Ms. Cobel” accidentally — while we were shooting, I remember saying to Patricia [Arquette] and Ben, “OK if we have them, if they care at this point in the final episode, if we’ve laid the bread crumbs properly, this moment is going to be so fun and so huge.”But that’s a delicate process, getting to the point where that actually has impact. It’s not easy to put it all together so that actually happens. It could just as easily be a shrug if you’re not invested in the characters or the story or whatever. So, hearing that people threw things at their television or got up and walked out of the room or just screamed at the end of Episode 9 is delightful. We really had no idea if anyone would care. More

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    Sydney Sweeney Scores Two Emmy Nods, for ‘Euphoria’ and ‘The White Lotus’

    Sweeney discussed her first two Emmy nominations as well as some of the controversy surrounding her “Euphoria” character, Cassie.Sydney Sweeney was leaving a fitting when she found out she was nominated for two Emmys Tuesday. Speechless, the first person she called was her mother.“There weren’t many words,” Sweeney said. “It was more of crying and saying how proud she was.”The 24-year-old actress earned nominations for two HBO shows: “The White Lotus,” for supporting actress in a limited series, and “Euphoria,” for supporting actress in a drama. She attributes her success in the shows to creating elaborate books for each character that include their individual back stories and emotional memories.“I’m able to just jump into who they are, and I know how they will react to something because of what has happened in their past,” she said. “I’m able to flesh out these fully vivid characters because I’ve given them life through the work that I put into it.”As Cassie in Season 2 of “Euphoria,” her character sacrifices her friendship with Maddy (played by Alexa Demie), and employs intensive beauty routines and country-music inspired wardrobes to win over Nate (Jacob Elordi), Maddy’s ex-boyfriend. (Zendaya, who plays the troubled Rue, was nominated again for best actress in a drama.)Sweeney’s character Olivia on “The White Lotus” had it easier, vacationing with her friend Paula (Brittany O’Grady), and passing scathing judgments at a luxury resort. The limited series racked up 20 nominations, including five just in the best supporting actress category.In a phone interview, Sweeney discussed the thrill of her first Emmy nominations and what she hopes viewers will gain from Cassie’s transformative arc. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.How did you feel when you heard that you received two nominations?I was definitely in shock, because I was not expecting to get nominated, especially not for two awards. I appreciate the characters that I get to play, so the fact that people have been touched by my character — that’s what means so much to me. It’s an amazing feeling, and I’m very appreciative.Cassie underwent a significant transformation in “Euphoria” last season, going from a sympathetic character to a more questionable one as she complicates her friendship with Maddy by falling for Nate. What was that metamorphosis like for you?It was a fun challenge. I was also very nervous, because I know that Maddy’s character is such a force and people love her. You don’t want to cross Maddy, and Cassie crossed Maddy. So I was a little nervous to see how people would react.Olivia, in “The White Lotus,” was a much more comic role. Was that challenging?I was a little scared because I’ve never done something on the more comedic side, and I was going to be surrounded by such comedic geniuses. But whenever I’m scared, that means I’m going to be challenged. I’m going to try and push myself even further. So I was really excited to be surrounded by these people.Some viewers complained that “Euphoria” hypersexualized Cassie last season. What did you make of that criticism, and what do you hope people take away from the character?I hope people can look deeper inside of Cassie and see the struggles and the trauma that she has gone through, and why she is who she is. Because there’s a reason behind all of it. Does she want to put herself out there all the time? No. She does it because that’s what she thinks other people want from her, and that’s the only way that she’s going to be able to get what she wants from people.I think that shows how women feel and how they’re treated today. I hope that it raises awareness for others, and they’re more aware of how we’re being perceived, how young girls are being raised. And there’s a double side, because I also think there’s strength behind how she feels when she is naked or she’s showing her body. She communicates that way and there’s a beauty, there’s a strength and there’s a sadness with all of it. I hope people can see that. More

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    Jennifer Coolidge Wanted Out of ‘The White Lotus.’ Now She’s Emmy Nominated.

    “It’s really an incredible surprise,” said Coolidge, who on Tuesday received the first Emmy nomination of her long career for the series.Jennifer Coolidge was beloved by comedy fans even before her breakout performance in the HBO series “The White Lotus.” A scene-stealer in hits like “American Pie” and “Best in Show,” her skills as a character actress — full-body commitment, inimitable comic timing — have sustained her through nearly three decades in film and television. But no role has been as juicy or complex as Tanya, the wealthy and bereaved resort guest she plays on “Lotus.” The ensemble limited series, created by Mike White, tied with “Ted Lasso” for the second-most nominations this year after “Succession,” another HBO show. Seven of Coolidge’s co-stars, including Connie Britton, Natasha Rothwell, Alexandra Daddario and Murray Bartlett, were also nominated.In a phone interview, Coolidge discussed why she initially tried to get out of “The White Lotus,” filming the show’s second season in Italy, and what she wants to do next. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.This is your first Emmy nomination. How does it feel?It feels great! I thought I’d already lost. Someone told me that if you’re nominated someone calls you at 5:30 or 6 a.m. So, by 7 a.m., when it didn’t happen, I was like “OK. Oh well,” and sort of let it go. Then when I got a call from my publicist saying it had happened, I was so confused. But it’s even more thrilling. It’s really an incredible surprise.You got your start on television, playing one of Jerry’s girlfriends on “Seinfeld” in the ’90s. Are you thinking about what this means in the longer arc of your career?You know, I’ve never been part of the awards seasons or anything, so you just sort of get used to that. I just thought, “Wow, that’s not my future.” In a million years, I didn’t think this would happen. I just can’t believe it. Really seriously can’t believe it.What did you make of the role of Tanya when Mike first pitched it to you?I certainly didn’t think it was going to lead to this. You know it was a huge risk for Mike to give me this big part. I’m sure he had to jump through hoops to get me approved, and that they were thinking of some more famous actresses. But he gave me this shot, and I’m thrilled because it could’ve gone a different way. I was sort of nervous about it and I tried to get out of it. I truly did. I was nervous about vain things, like not looking right and not being able to deliver somehow. I just didn’t want to fail, and I didn’t want to be the only one in the cast who didn’t pull through. But it’s a great life lesson: When you want to try to get out of something, maybe it’s the best thing you could be involved in.When you were in that phase of feeling like you wanted to get out of the role, what made you change your mind?It was this friend of mine, Chase Winton. I was in her living room and she asked me, “Are you going to go do that show in Hawaii?” I said “No, I’m not. I’m not in good shape. I look like hell.” I was eating pizzas and things through Covid, and I wasn’t … I just said, “I’ll do it another time.” And she just gave me this lecture. “Are you kidding me, Jennifer? Do you know what an idiot you’re being in this moment? I have to talk you out of making a terrible mistake.” If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have done it. I was going to tell Mike that I needed foot surgery or something, some silly excuse. But I’m so glad she talked me into it. Even if it didn’t lead to an Emmy situation, just to go do that job was such a positive thing.What was it about your friend’s lecture that broke through to you?She said, “Just own it, Jennifer, whatever you are. You’re out of shape? You’re not prepared? Just own it. Show up anyway.”Did the character feel different from roles you’ve played in the past?There are other people in my life who have given me some cool roles. But this was really on a different level because Mike knows me really well. He knew that I lost my mother in my early 30s and that it was a big deal, so he wrote this very cool part that was tailor-made for me. There’s no one cooler than Mike White. He loves actors, and he loves writing them great stuff.Have you spoken with him yet?No, he’s in Italy. I’m sure he’s getting lots of messages. But Reggie, you’re my first call.I’m honored. Can you tell me anything about the next season of “White Lotus”?I just did five months on it in Sicily. I got back like two weeks ago. I’ve been instructed that I’m not allowed to leak anything, but I have to say, from what I’ve witnessed, watching what some of the new actors are doing, people will not be disappointed. It’s a very elaborate story Mike is telling, and it was just incredible to be a part of.What do you want to do next?I would love to do a serious play. There’s some original stuff that I’ve heard might be coming my way, but it’s not confirmed yet. I’m just excited because things like this open the door for cool stuff. It’s harder to make things happen when you don’t have a lot happening. And then the minute you have a lot happening, the seas part. So who knows? The sky’s the limit. You get used to thinking in a certain way, and then something like “White Lotus” happens and you start to have bigger thoughts.After me, who’s the first person you want to celebrate with?As you and I were talking one minute ago, I got a FaceTime from Mike White. So I will be excited to call him back. More

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    Amanda Seyfried on Her Emmy Nomination for ‘The Dropout’

    The actress received her first Emmy nomination for bringing nuance to her portrayal in “The Dropout” of the disgraced Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes.Even in a television season rife with grifters, poseurs and con artists, Amanda Seyfried was very good at being bad. In the Hulu mini-series “The Dropout,” she starred as Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and former chief executive of Theranos, a once-hot health technology start-up that promised an easy method for testing blood with a single finger prick.Seyfried, a star of films like “Mank,” “Mamma Mia!” and “Mean Girls,” managed to fashion a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of Holmes, at least at the outset: She begins the series as an ambitious college student with dreams of becoming the next Steve Jobs, and we follow her on her journey as she becomes ever more ruthlessly determined to realize her all-consuming goal.When her downfall arrives, a viewer might almost — almost — feel sorry for Seyfried’s Holmes as her company collapses and she cuts herself off from former friends and colleagues. (A real-life jury, however, did not; Holmes was convicted in January on four counts of criminal fraud.)On Tuesday, Seyfried received an Emmy nomination as a lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie, the first Emmy nod of her career. She spoke by phone from the set of “The Crowded Room,” an Apple TV+ anthology series in which she will star with Tom Holland, to talk about “The Dropout,” Holmes, bad dancing and primal screams. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.This was an almost eight-hour-long story that took several months to produce. How does it feel to receive an Emmy nomination for it?I’ve been making movies since I was 17, and this was different. I almost want to say, it’s different because it was seen. A lot of times, you do things and they don’t get seen, but it doesn’t take away from the experience of making it. With this, I was getting to explore a character in a way that I haven’t before. It’s a pretty insane true story, and it was pretty well-written. I’m glad it turned out the way it did and that people like it.Were you surprised by how sympathetic your Elizabeth was, at least in the pages of “The Dropout,” when compared with what events might have suggested?I wasn’t surprised at all. There’s no point in making this show if you’re not going to try to understand this person. In order to understand somebody, you need to have empathy. It doesn’t matter who it is. Everybody’s human. Everybody’s got layers.Few of us have been in such high-stakes situations, but Elizabeth’s desperation to keep papering over one failure after another, and the escalation of that, felt palpable.During shooting, the way I was able to justify the doubling-down that she did was that she really believed that she was sacrificing in order to actually find the answer. And, quote-unquote, save the world. People are willing to overlook many, many things for the sake of the bigger picture.On a lighter note, at least, you got some opportunities to do some really bad dancing. Is that a form of acting in itself?Well, no. Picture anybody alone in front of a mirror. And then start dancing. The intimacy of being alone and the possibility of what you’re not seeing — everybody’s a 13-year-old, trying on clothes. We can all relate to that. That dancing was a direct line into Elizabeth Holmes’s identity, and it was a genius way of getting into her.The final episode has an indelible moment in which Elizabeth is outside with her dog and lets out a primal scream. You must have had to shoot several takes of that — was it grueling to do over and over?Ugh. Uh-huh. There was even the question of, do we need her to scream? Is it more like an implosion? What would that desperation look like? It was so much pressure, and I tried the scream, and the dog cowered, so we took the dog out. It was not kind to the animal. So that was pretty much the only take where you see the dog, right off the bat — the animal caregivers came over, and I said, I get it. I didn’t know what I was going to do.You can’t really explain to the dog what you’re doing.“Oh, no, we’re just acting, man. Everything’s cool.” I also get really nervous about losing my voice because I’m a singer. I was always in touch with my voice coach for anything, especially the deeper speaking. The scream, I was just like, I don’t think I can do anymore.Since finishing the show, do you feel tempted to use The Voice in real-life situations?To me, it’s an accent. For a long time, I refused to do it. And then after the trial, a couple months later, one of the doormen at the building where I’m staying, they’re like, can you do the voice? And I did it. And I was like, Hmm, it feels good. It’s done me well. More

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    Emmys Nominees 2022 Full List: ‘Succession,’ ‘Ted Lasso’ and More

    This year’s Emmy nominees were announced on Tuesday. The 74th Emmy Awards ceremony will be held on Sept. 12.This year’s Emmy Award nominees were announced on Tuesday, with “Succession,” “Ted Lasso” and “The White Lotus” earning the most nominations. “Squid Game” earned 14 nods, the most ever for a foreign-language show.The 74th Emmy Awards will be broadcast live at 8 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 12 on NBC and will stream live for the first time on Peacock.[Follow live updates of the 2022 Emmy nominations here.]These are the nominees for the Emmy Awards.Best Comedy“Abbott Elementary” (ABC)“Barry” (HBO)“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO)“Hacks” (HBO Max)“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)“Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu)“Ted Lasso” (Apple TV+)“What We Do in the Shadows” (FX)Best Drama“Better Call Saul” (AMC)“Euphoria” (HBO Max)“Ozark” (Netflix)“Severance” (Apple TV+)“Squid Game” (Netflix)“Stranger Things” (Netflix)“Succession” (HBO)“Yellowjackets” (Showtime)Best Limited Series“Dopesick” (Hulu)“The Dropout” (Hulu)“Inventing Anna” (Netflix)“Pam & Tommy” (Hulu)“The White Lotus” (HBO)Best Actress, ComedyRachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”Kaley Cuoco, “The Flight Attendant”Elle Fanning, “The Great”Issa Rae, “Insecure”Jean Smart, “Hacks”Best Actor, ComedyDonald Glover, “Atlanta”Bill Hader, “Barry”Nicholas Hoult, “The Great”Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso”Best Actress, DramaJodie Comer, “Killing Eve”Laura Linney, “Ozark”Melanie Lynskey, “Yellowjackets”Sandra Oh, “Killing Eve”Reese Witherspoon, “The Morning Show”Zendaya, “Euphoria”Best Actor, DramaJason Bateman, “Ozark”Brian Cox, “Succession”Lee Jung-jae, “Squid Game”Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”Adam Scott, “Severance”Jeremy Strong, “Succession”Best Actress, Limited Series or TV MovieToni Collette, “The Staircase”Julia Garner, “Inventing Anna”Lily James, “Pam & Tommy”Sarah Paulson, “Impeachment”Margaret Qualley, “Maid”Amanda Seyfried, “The Dropout”Best Actor, Limited Series or TV MovieColin Firth, “The Staircase”Andrew Garfield, “Under the Banner of Heaven”Oscar Isaac, “Scenes from a Marriage”Michael Keaton, “Dopesick”Himesh Patel, “Station Eleven”Sebastian Stan, “Pam & Tommy”Supporting Actress, ComedyAlex Borstein, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”Hannah Einbinder, “Hacks”Janelle James, “Abbott Elementary”Sheryl Lee Ralph, “Abbott Elementary”Kate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live”Sarah Niles, “Ted Lasso”Juno Temple, “Ted Lasso”Hannah Waddingham, “Ted Lasso”Supporting Actor, ComedyAnthony Carrigan, “Barry”Brett Goldstein, “Ted Lasso”Tyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary”Toheeb Jimoh, “Ted Lasso”Nick Mohammed, “Ted Lasso”Tony Shalhoub, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”Henry Winkler, “Barry”Bowen Yang, “Saturday Night Live”Supporting Actress, DramaPatricia Arquette, “Severance”Julia Garner, “Ozark”Jung Ho-yeon, “Squid Game”Christina Ricci, “Yellowjackets”Rhea Seehorn, “Better Call Saul”J. Smith-Cameron, “Succession”Sarah Snook, “Succession”Sydney Sweeney, “Euphoria”Supporting Actor, DramaNicholas Braun, “Succession”Billy Crudup, “The Morning Show”Kieran Culkin, “Succession”Park Hae-soo, “Squid Game”Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”John Turturro, “Severance”Christopher Walken, “Severance”Oh Yeong-su, “Squid Game”Supporting Actress, Limited Series or a MovieConnie Britton, “The White Lotus”Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”Alexandra Daddario, “The White Lotus”Kaitlyn Dever, “Dopesick”Natasha Rothwell, “The White Lotus”Sydney Sweeney, “The White Lotus”Mare Winningham, “Dopesick”Supporting Actor, Limited Series or MovieMurray Bartlett, “The White Lotus”Jake Lacy, “The White Lotus”Will Poulter, “Dopesick”Seth Rogen, “Pam & Tommy”Peter Sarsgaard, “Dopesick”Michael Stuhlbarg, “Dopesick”Steve Zahn, “The White Lotus”Variety Talk Series“Daily Show With Trevor Noah”“Jimmy Kimmel Live”“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”“Late Night With Seth Meyers”“Late Show With Stephen Colbert”Reality Competition Program“The Amazing Race”“Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls”“Nailed It”“RuPaul’s Drag Race”“Top Chef”“The Voice”Writing for a Comedy SeriesLucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, “Hacks” (“The One, the Only”)Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary” (“Pilot”)Bill Hader and Alec Berg, “Barry” (“starting now”)Alec Berg and Duffy Boudreau, “Barry” (“710N”)Steve Martin and John Hoffman, “Only Murders in the Building” (“True Crime”)Jane Becker, “Ted Lasso” (“No Weddings And A Funeral”)Sarah Naftalis, “What We Do In The Shadows” (“The Casino”)Stefani Robinson, “What We Do In The Shadows” (“The Wellness Center”)Writing for a Drama SeriesJesse Armstrong, “Succession” (“All the Bells Say”)Dan Erickson, “Severance” (“The We We Are”)Hwang Dong-hyuk, “Squid Game” (“One Lucky Day”)Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, “Yellowjackets” (“Pilot”)Jonathan Lisco, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, “Yellowjackets” (“F Sharp”)Chris Mundy, “Ozark” (“A Hard Way to Go”)Thomas Schnauz, “Better Call Saul” (“Plan and Execution”)Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Drama SpecialElizabeth Meriwether, “The Dropout”Sarah Burgess, “Impeachment: American Crime Story”Molly Smith Metzler, “Maid”Patrick Somerville, “Station Eleven”Danny Strong, “Dopesick”Mike White, “The White Lotus”Directing for a Comedy SeriesLucia Aniello, “Hacks” (“There Will Be Blood”)Jamie Babbit, “Only Murders in the Building” (“True Crime”)Cherien Dabis, “Only Murders in the Building” (“The Boy From 6B”)Mary Lou Belli, “The Ms. Pat Show” (“Baby Daddy Groundhog Day”)MJ Delaney, “Ted Lasso” (“No Weddings and a Funeral”)Bill Hader, “Barry” (“710N”)Hiro Murai, “Atlanta” (“New Jazz”)Directing for a Drama SeriesJason Bateman, “Ozark” (“A Hard Way to Go”)Hwang Dong-hyuk, “Squid Game” (“Red Light, Green Light”)Karyn Kusama, “Yellowjackets” (“Pilot”)Mark Mylod, “Succession” (“All the Bells Say”)Cathy Yan, “Succession” (“The Disruption”)Lorene Scafaria, “Succession” (“Too Much Birthday”)Ben Stiller, “Severance” (“The We We Are”)Directing for a Limited SeriesHiro Murai, “Station Eleven”Michael Showalter, “The Dropout”Francesca Gregorini, “The Dropout”Danny Strong, “Dopesick”John Wells, “Maid”Mike White, “The White Lotus”Documentary Or Nonfiction Series“100 Foot Wave” (HBO)“Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy” (Netflix)“The Andy Warhol Diaries” (Netflix)“The Beatles: Get Back” (Disney+)“We Need To Talk About Cosby” (Showtime)Documentary Or Nonfiction Special“Controlling Britney Spears” (New York Times Presents)“George Carlin’s American Dream” (HBO)“Lucy And Desi” (Amazon)“The Tinder Swindler” (Netflix)“We Feed People” (Disney+) More

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    ‘Twelfth Night’ Review: A Shot of Joy Under a Darkening Sky

    At an uptown amphitheater, the Classical Theater of Harlem stages Shakespeare’s comedy with fizzy delight.For so many of us, stress roared in and put down roots. The stress of living at perpetual high alert in a world that has seemed, for the past several years, to be in an ever-shifting state of emergency. Amid all that, in the post-shutdown theater, has come a tsunami of shows dedicated to elucidating social ills and processing cultural pain. Such work is vital now and always; don’t get me wrong.But we desperately require its counterweight, too — shows that usher us into alternate worlds where we can give ourselves over to pure delight. The Classical Theater of Harlem gets that, deeply, and proves it with a delectable “Twelfth Night” so fizzy and fun that you may be surprised afterward at how relaxed your body is, and how much lighter your spirit feels.That’s what communal joy can do. Maybe it’s been a while?Hie thee, then, to the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, where this free, outdoor production directed by Carl Cofield boasts dance as lissome as ever, design that raises the bar on this company’s customary visual wow and a cast whose ease brings a lovely clarity. In Kara Young as Viola, this “Twelfth Night” also has a star as fascinatingly natural in Shakespeare as she has been in any of the contemporary stage roles that have established her as one of New York’s most exciting actors.Washed up on the shore of Illyria, her Viola is immediately surprising — shivery and traumatized, which makes the unseen shipwreck that tore her from her brother, Sebastian, more than a mere plot device to set in motion a rom-com with a mistaken-identity twist. Not that she lingers in her distress; this show gets playful fast. But the emotional stakes are laid, and they will pay off.Needing to survive in this strange country, Viola disguises herself as a young man named Cesario and gets a job working for Orsino (William DeMeritt), a love-struck duke who sends her to plead his amorous case with the countess Olivia (Christina Sajous). The elegant lady spurns Orsino’s messages but is much taken with the messenger, who, in turn, is so smitten with the oblivious duke that she can barely stand to be near him. It’s a triangle of sexual tension, one of romantic comedy’s most deliciously tormented shapes.An intersecting plot involves Shakespeare’s possibly most stellar team of ridiculous idiots: the ever-reveling Sir Toby Belch (Chivas Michael) and his tag-along friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek (an excellently goofy Carson Elrod), who with their raucous compadres stir up trouble for trouble’s sake at Olivia’s house. Their principal target is Olivia’s prim steward, Malvolio (Allen Gilmore), who, despite his name, is not a bad guy, really; he’d just like to get some sleep instead of being kept awake by these cases of arrested development.This beautiful show, at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, works its magic beneath the summer sky as dusk turns to dark.Richard TermineCofield and his creative team are gorgeously in sync as they fully embrace all comic opportunities — not least a memorably silly sword fight between Viola and Andrew, both of them terrified and armed with quasi-light sabers. (Fight direction is by the father-and-son team Rick Sordelet and Christian Kelly-Sordelet.) There is also the laugh-out-loud tableau of Toby, Andrew and the servant Fabian (Donathan Walters) popping their hatted heads up from their hiding place to watch Malvolio fall into their trap. (Set design is by Riw Rakkulchon, costumes by Mika Eubanks and lighting by Alan C. Edwards.)What befalls Malvolio is the one indelible blot on Shakespeare’s play: recreational cruelty that can’t be jollied away. In this production, though, the rest is lively, witty, fresh — and peppered with crowd-pleasing songs performed by Olivia’s scooter-riding jester, Feste (Israel Erron Ford) — in one instance, with Toby and Andrew as backup dancers. (The original music is by Frederick Kennedy, who also did the sound design; choreography is by company regular Tiffany Rea-Fisher.)As with any oft-told tale, the enjoyment of “Twelfth Night” lies not so much in the destination as in the journey. We know that Sebastian (J’Laney Allen) will turn up, that people will confuse him and Viola — the show’s hair designer, Earon Nealey, is instrumental in this illusion — and that it will all end happily with the romantic triangle squared.This is one of those productions that make you feel lucky to be in New York. You have not seen a Viola like Young’s fierce, funny, fully inhabited Viola. And if your nerves are as frayed as so many of ours are, you could do with the beautiful balm that is this show, working its magic beneath the summer sky as dusk turns to dark.Twelfth NightThrough July 29 at the Richard Rodgers Ampitheater at Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan; cthnyc.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More