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    in Theater

    How ‘McNeal,’ a Play About A.I., Lured Robert Downey Jr. to Broadway

    In “McNeal,” the playwright Ayad Akhtar explores the way artificial intelligence is disrupting the literary world and raising questions about creativity.This summer, Ayad Akhtar was struggling with the final scene of “McNeal,” his knotty and disorienting play about a Nobel Prize-winning author who uses artificial intelligence to write a novel.He wanted the title character, played by Robert Downey Jr. in his Broadway debut, to deliver a monologue that sounded like a computer wrote it. So Akhtar uploaded what he had written into ChatGPT, gave the program a list of words, and told it to produce a speech in the style of Shakespeare. The results were so compelling that he read the speech to the cast at the next rehearsal.“Their jaws dropped,” Akhtar said. “It had preserved the speech that I wrote, using those words in such fascinating ways that it was astonishing to everybody there.”Ultimately, Akhtar used only two of the chatbot’s lines. But his attempt to mimic A.I.-generated text — an oddly circular process of a human imitating a computer’s imitation of a human — had an uncanny effect: Downey’s delivery of the final speech feels both intimate and strangely disembodied.“It’s the one secret lie that Ayad tells in the whole play,” Downey said, sitting on the edge of the Vivian Beaumont stage, where he, Akhtar and the play’s director, Bartlett Sher, gathered recently to talk about “McNeal.” “The only thing that isn’t true about this play is that A.I. wrote the final speech.”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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    How Tom Llamas, an NBC Anchor, Spends His Sundays

    Mr. Llamas, who has been racing between hurricanes and election coverage, makes time for baseball with his children and not-so-scary movies with his wife.Five nights a week, Tom Llamas is the face of election coverage for NBC News.But on Sundays, he is about 40 minutes north of NBC’s Manhattan studios working out and hitting baseballs with his son at home in Westchester County, N.Y.“In New York City with kids, you have to get up and go somewhere — whether it’s a car ride, or an Uber, or a taxi — to do anything,” said Mr. Llamas, 45, who moved with his young family to a seven-bedroom home in Purchase in 2022 after five years in a three-bedroom apartment in Midtown East. “As the kids were getting older, the process was starting to weigh on us.”The home — which is outfitted with a gym, a gymnastics area and a record room — is a welcome respite from the busy news cycle. Over the past few months, Mr. Llamas has gone to Paris to report on the Olympics; Chicago and Wisconsin to anchor from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions; and Florida and New Orleans to cover hurricanes.“What people are going through during the hurricane is way worse than what I have to go through, but it’s been incredibly difficult,” said Mr. Llamas, who was born in Miami and recently returned from an assignment covering Hurricane Milton in Florida.Mr. Llamas, who commutes to NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza by either car or Metro-North train, lives with his wife, Jennifer Llamas, 43; two daughters, Malena, 11, and Juju, 8; and a son, Tomas, 7.Mr. Llamas and his family make breakfast together. He said his 8-year-old daughter, Juju, was “pretty good at it, too!”Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    ‘Good Omens’ Season 3 Cut Short Amid Allegations Against Neil Gaiman

    The series is the third production linked to the author to face turmoil after allegations made by five women surfaced this summer.“Good Omens,” a series based on a novel by the author Neil Gaiman written in collaboration with Terry Pratchett, will return for a third and final season, but it will consist of only one episode, Prime Video announced on Friday.“Good Omens” is the third production to face turmoil this year amid allegations, including claims of sexual assault, that five women have made against Mr. Gaiman relating to conduct from 1986 to 2022.The final season of the series will be truncated to one 90-minute episode, and Mr. Gaiman, who contributed to the writing of the final series, will not be working on the production, according to Amazon MGM Studios.The production company did not comment on why Mr. Gaiman, 63, will not be involved. Mr. Gaiman, who also did not respond to a request for comment on Friday, has previously denied any wrongdoing.The first two seasons of “Good Omens” included six episodes each. The changes to the final season of the series came after two other productions related to Mr. Gaiman were halted earlier this year.The actor Michael Sheen in “Good Omens.” Chris Raphael/Amazon StudiosThe allegations played a role in pausing the production of “The Graveyard Book,” an adaptation of the young adult novel by Mr. Gaiman, according to a person at Disney, adding that the allegations were not the sole reason that the production was paused. Disney would not provide any additional reasons.“Dead Boy Detectives,” a TV series based on a comic book by Mr. Gaiman, will not return for a second season, according to Netflix, which did not say why.The turmoil in the productions linked to Mr. Gaiman has come after the five women spoke on the podcast “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.”There are no publicly known lawsuits or open police investigations related to the allegations. Lawyers representing Mr. Gaiman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.Mr. Gaiman is the author of dozens of works, including the “The Sandman” and the novella “Coraline,” which became a popular animated film. Mr. Gaiman’s works have earned many accolades, including multiple Hugo Awards, the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal.“Good Omens,” which premiered in 2019, tells the story of the friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel played by Michael Sheen, and Crowley, a demon played by David Tennant. The final episode will star Mr. Sheen and Mr. Tennant, according to Amazon MGM Studios.Production on the final episode of “Good Omens” will begin in early 2025, and it will premiere on Prime Video. More

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    in Television

    Without Another Debate, the Campaign Became a Duel of TV Scenes

    As the candidates raced to claim different corners of the national screen this week, it was “Undercover Boss” vs. “Roll the clip.”In a typical election season — remember those? — right about now we would be preparing for, or recovering from, the final presidential debate. But Oct. 23, the date of a proposed CNN showdown that Kamala Harris accepted and Donald J. Trump declined, came and went without one.Instead, as Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump raced to claim different corners of the national screen, they were essentially staging a virtual debate, presenting competing versions of themselves on strikingly different stages.Mr. Trump substituted the debate podium with a takeout window, performing a shift on the fry cooker at a closed McDonald’s franchise and violating the occasional job protocol. It was a familiar kind of reality-TV stunt for a reality-TV candidate.This time, however, he was not emulating “The Apprentice” but staging a political version of “Undercover Boss.”On the CBS reality series, which aired 11 seasons from 2010 to 2022, company executives went incognito to work low-level jobs at their companies. The premise was to show bigwigs how the grunts lived. But it also served, in the years after the financial collapse and Great Recession, as a form of prime-time crisis P.R. Chief executives were people too, it told us; they shared common purpose and mutual respect with the rank and file.Mr. Trump’s shift, which lasted less time than a single “Undercover Boss” episode, had different aims. Most overtly, it was a way of using virality — what news producer can resist footage of Donald Trump shoveling fries into a container? — to spread his unsubstantiated claim that Ms. Harris had lied about working at McDonald’s while in college. (As with his birtherism campaign against Barack Obama, media coverage generally noted that his charges were baseless, but the dust still got kicked up, the doubts potentially sown.)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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    ‘Somebody Somewhere’ Is Going Out on a Bittersweet Note

    Ahead of the final season, the creators discuss Midwestern humor, queer communities of faith and why they made a show “about people who aren’t very equipped to talk about their feelings.”Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen met at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where they bonded over being displaced Midwesterners and began writing plays together. A few years later, in early-2000s Manhattan, they met a bawdy, big-voiced cabaret performer named Bridget Everett.“I played harp in a two-girl ukulele band, and we were often on the same bill as Bridget,” Thureen said recently. “Which kind of makes sense.”As the three became fast friends, Bos and Thureen came to believe there was more to Everett than her outsize stage personality, which is perhaps best exemplified by her tendency to rub her breasts in an unsuspecting audience member’s face. They saw a quieter, more vulnerable side, and they wanted to write something that honored both that and her rollicking stage persona.The series the three of them came up with (along with the executive producer Carolyn Strauss), “Somebody Somewhere,” premiered in 2022. Its third and final season debuts Sunday on HBO and Max.“We would keep on doing this show as long as we could, if it was up to us,” Thureen said. “But we also know that it’s not up to us and that in this landscape, more than three seasons of a show our size would be unlikely.”Set in Everett’s hometown, Manhattan, Kan., the series finds quiet drama and humor in a pocket of open-minded Midwestern tolerance, where Everett’s character Sam and her friends, including her best friend Joel (Jeff Hiller), deal with loneliness by creating a sort of found family. They’re all trying to have a good time and create meaningful relationships in their small town. “Somebody Somewhere” also, unassumingly, remains one of the most L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly series on television, a place where church, beers and queerness coexist with barely a shrug.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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    Jimmy Fallon Rallies for Queen Bey

    The “Tonight Show” host was excited about Beyoncé’s plans to appear with the vice president: “What a night — the most powerful woman in the world and Kamala Harris.”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.Texas Hold ’emThe pop superstar Beyoncé will join Vice President Kamala Harris onstage at a campaign rally in Houston on Friday.“What a night — the most powerful woman in the world and Kamala Harris,” Jimmy Fallon said on Thursday.“Woo, baby. Talk about a get! The last time Beyoncé appeared onstage with a presidential candidate was Hillary in 2016, so things are looking good.” — MICHAEL KOSTA“Yeah, Beyoncé will sing ‘Irreplaceable,’ and Biden will be like, ‘Too soon!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Harris is rallying with Beyoncé while Trump will be onstage claiming migrants are eating Snoop Dogg and Doja Cat.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Daddy Issues Edition)“At a Trump campaign rally yesterday in Georgia, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson compared former President Trump returning to office to a father who comes home to give a ‘bad little girl’ a ‘vigorous spanking’ for being disobedient. Wow. I guess for my part, I’m just glad he’s standing behind a podium.” — SETH MEYERS“OK, so this might be why you’ve never been invited to speak at a political rally before.” — MICHAEL KOSTA“You know, most people just clear their browser history, they don’t put it in their speeches.” — SETH MEYERS“Not to fact-check you there, Tuck, but we know from Stormy Daniels that Daddy’s the one who likes to get spanked.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“You see, America? These Trump people — they aren’t weird. They just know that Trump is a big strong daddy that’s coming home to spank us all. Totally normal stuff. I can’t wait to hear Tucker’s thoughts on the economy: ‘Inflation is like a babysitter, and she’s been naughty.’” — MICHAEL KOSTA“I just can’t figure out why they’re having trouble appealing to female voters.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingColbert and Julia Louis-Dreyfus shared their earliest memories during “The Colbert Questionert” on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutBridget Everett in a scene from Season 3 of “Somebody Somewhere.”Sandy Morris/HBOBridget Everett’s small-town dramedy series “Somebody Somewhere” returns to HBO on Sunday for its third and final season. More

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    in Theater

    Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler Revive ‘Romeo + Juliet’ for a TikTok Generation

    Who can forget the classic first line of “Romeo and Juliet”: “How y’all doin’ today?”Well, perhaps not so classic. But as uttered at the start of the play’s 36th Broadway revival, which opened Thursday at Circle in the Square, the words are certainly more welcoming to the production’s youthful target audience than the traditional iambic pentameter ones: “Two households, both alike in dignity.”Not that there are two households in the director Sam Gold’s rec-room adaptation anyway. Romeo’s parents, along with a clutch of other characters, have been discarded. Juliet’s are both played by one actor, with little more than a change of inflection. And though Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, the box-office draws, cover just one star-crossed lover each — he a beagly Romeo, she a beamish Juliet — the other eight cast members take on 17 roles, adorably if often indistinguishably. It’s a puppy pile.But before you wonder whether this production was sponsored by CliffsNotes, with only as much poetry and staying power as an Instagram story, bear in mind that many of the characters are teenagers, and that the play may most usefully be directed at people seeing it for the first time, not the 36th. Certainly Gold has used everything in his formidable toolbox — scissors, hammers, punches, wrenches — to get young people interested in a world that looks more like theirs than Elizabethan London or Renaissance Verona.So after an energetic preshow, filled with flirting, peacocking and snits of aggression, the story begins with that casual greeting from Gabby Beans, the play’s Chorus. Beans, later a hotheaded Mercutio, a beneficent Friar Lawrence and a barely there Prince Escalus, makes a relatable hype woman, introducing the rest of the cast by first name and telling us whom they’ll be playing. If you’re confused — and even a frequent flier might be — you can consult a program insert that visualizes the Montagues and Capulets as a mood board.Feeling the groove: Gabby Beans, far right, leading Tommy Dorfman (center), Kit Connor (far back) and other cast members in a dance in Sam Gold’s “Romeo + Juliet” at Circle in the Square.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Somebody Somewhere’ Is Back for Its Final Season

    The HBO dramedy about a Kansas woman finding love and community after tragedy returns for its third and final season on Sunday.Bridget Everett in a scene from Season 3 of “Somebody Somewhere.”Sandy Morris/HBO“Somebody Somewhere,” a perfect dramedy starring Bridget Everett as a Kansas woman finding love and community after her sister’s death, returns for its third and final season starting Sunday at 10:30 p.m., on HBO. The show is full of ecstatic tenderness and easy warmth, but it avoids pat tidiness.Sam (Everett) is ebullient and loyal, and over the course of the series, her life has stabilized a lot: The cold clutch of grief has loosened, her friendship with Joel (Jeff Hiller, fantastic) continues to blossom, and she’s more comfortable singing in front of everyone. But her battle between vulnerability and defensiveness wages on. As often as “Somebody” is a detailed taxonomy of love — platonic, familial, religious, romantic — it is also a portrait of loneliness. Perhaps there is no such thing as “enough” love, the show admits; things can be wonderful without being perfect, and they can be painful but still worth it. Even the seemingly simple love of a dog comes with complications.One of my favorite parts of “Somebody” is how often the characters laugh. They all find each other screamingly funny, for good reason, and they’re all able to laugh at themselves, too. Usually when we think about Big Acting Moments, they’re quivering, tearful monologues, sobbing or ranting. “Somebody” certainly has those, but its more cathartic scenes are ones of laughter — where the real bonding happens, the real changes, the real surrender. They are also where the ensemble shines the brightest.One of the primary arcs of the show is about Sam’s re-embracing her singing voice, and in the first episode of Season 3, she sings “Smalltown Boy” alone in her car. She moves through various harmonies but then backs off a big wail, sighing that she wishes she could hit that note. But it seems like she could hit it, if she could relax into it and be a little brave.“I’ve never been comfortable expressing my feelings in public, you know?” admits Brad (Tim Bagley), Joel’s prim and adoring boyfriend. “Yeah, I think I understand that,” Sam replies. “I think that’s what’s so great about singing: Somehow the music just makes it so much easier. It’s like you’re not doing it alone.” More