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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ and ‘Yannick’

    “What We Do in the Shadows” returns for a third season on FX. And PBS airs a documentary about the orchestra conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Aug. 30-Sept. 5. Details and times are subject to change.Monday8:46 FILMS (2021) 8 p.m. on BET. This program — named for the amount of time that the former Minneapolis police officer, and now convicted murderer, Derek Chauvin was originally reported to have knelt on the neck of George Floyd — collects four short films that explore Black love and joy. The films, directed by Camrus Johnson, Marshall Tyler, Zoey Martinson and Gibrey Allen, include a comedy about three children who play matchmaker for their school bus driver and an animated piece about an older woman who escapes to a dream world. The running time of each film is 8 minutes and 46 seconds.TuesdayFUTURE OF WORK 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This new documentary series looks at the ways American jobs are changing as a result of cultural and technological shifts (including the increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence and digital nomads), as well as how the pandemic has accelerated such workplace trends. The three episodes are built around case studies of several individuals whose careers have been affected by these larger shifts, and include interviews with experts who talk about them.WednesdayWHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS 10 p.m. on FX. “Humans are so [expletive] stupid and boring and lazy,” the filmmaker Taika Waititi told The New York Times in 2019, “that given the gift of immortality, you’d never get around to doing anything.” He was talking about the logic that drives this proudly silly TV series, which was born of his and Jemaine Clement’s 2015 mockumentary movie of the same name. The show’s plot centers on a group of vampire roommates living on modern-day Staten Island. Its third season, which debuts Wednesday night, picks up where the second season left off: with members of the group facing the realization that one of their own is actually a vampire hunter.ThursdayCMA SUMMER JAM 8 p.m. on ABC. Over two nights in July, several country music stars — including Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton — performed at a large outdoor theater in Nashville. This special combines footage of those large-scale performances with recordings of more intimate ones shot at other Nashville locales, including a nightclub and a pedestrian bridge.FridayYannick Nézet-Séguin, the subject of “Great Performances: Yannick – An Artist’s Journey,” conducting the Metropolitan Opera.Metropolitan OperaGREAT PERFORMANCES: YANNICK — AN ARTIST’S JOURNEY 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Audiences in the Northeast are expected to have many chances to see the star orchestra conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin in person this fall, in performances with the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra; he is the music director of both organizations. So now is a good time for PBS to air this documentary about him, which charts his background and rise through interviews, home movies and behind-the-scenes moments, like Nézet-Séguin coaching younger artists including the soprano Gabriella Reyes. Given Nézet-Séguin’s astounding number of commitments (he’s also the artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal), there should be no shortage of backstage footage. “I am very busy and high energy, but I am not hyperactive,” Nézet-Séguin told The Times in 2019. “The loneliness of studying a score is one of the things that attracted me to becoming a conductor.”SaturdayTahar Rahim and Jodie Foster in “The Mauritanian.”Graham Bartholomew/STXfilmsTHE MAURITANIAN (2021) 8 p.m. on Showtime. In his 2015 memoir, “Guantánamo Diary,” Mohamedou Ould Slahi wrote about American national security operatives ripping him from his life as an electrical engineer and telecommunications specialist in Nouakchott, Mauritania, torturing him and eventually imprisoning him at Guantánamo Bay, where he remained for over a dozen years — even as the charges against him fell away. (He’d come under suspicion for having connections to Al Qaeda.) This adaptation of the memoir casts Tahar Rahim as Slahi. It focuses on a period in which a defense attorney (Jodie Foster) is working to get a hearing for Slahi.HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004) 10:30 p.m. on E!. Twenty years ago this summer, Alfonso Cuarón released “Y Tu Mamá También,” his film about a love triangle that forms between two teenage boys and a somewhat older woman during a road trip in Mexico. It was a landmark film for Cuarón and his stars, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Maribel Verdú — and a box-office smash with a sexual openness that generated both controversy and praise. Cuarón’s next move was surprising: The boundary-pushing director helmed this third installment of the “Harry Potter” series. It was a departure, though it could be argued that the dynamic between the emotionally mature woman and two comparatively juvenile young men in “Y Tu Mamá También” also applies to Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, whose complicated friendship is as much a focus of this movie as the fight against evil wizards.Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel in a scene from “News of the World.”Bruce W. Talamon/Universal PicturesNEWS OF THE WORLD (2020) 8 p.m. on HBO. With their 2013 action movie, “Captain Phillips,” Tom Hanks and the director Paul Greengrass pulled thrills out of an actual 21st-century event: the famous 2009 hijacking of a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean. Seven years later, Hanks and Greengrass turned to a historical setting — and a fictional story — with this spare western. Based on a novel of the same name by Paulette Jiles, “News of the World” casts Hanks as a former Confederate captain who, five years after the end of the Civil War, takes it upon himself to escort a young, orphaned girl (Helena Zengel) to a faraway aunt and uncle. It’s a treacherous trip and a classic western setup. Greengrass, A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times, “honors the genre tradition rather than trying to reinvent it.”SundaySINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) 6 p.m. on TCM. When this MGM musical about late-1920s Hollywood debuted in New York in March of 1952, the Times critic Bosley Crowther praised the “music, dance, color, spectacle and a riotous abundance,” which have since helped make it a classic. “All elements in this rainbow program,” Crowther wrote, “are carefully contrived and guaranteed to lift the dolors of winter and put you in a buttercup mood.” It’s still summer right now — but many of us could probably use something to put us in a “buttercup mood,” so in that sense, the timing of this broadcast is quite good. More

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    The D’Amelios Are Coming for All of Your Screens

    TikTok’s most famous family wants to reintroduce itself on TV. Whatever that means now.Peak screen was achieved this spring, beaming into a business meeting with Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, social media’s starriest sisters, and their parents, Marc and Heidi.Three D’Amelios idly thumbed their devices as a masked cameraman swung in for a close-up, gathering footage for the family’s upcoming documentary series on Hulu. With my own phone, I snapped a photo of the scene on my laptop’s display. Four layers of looking-glass: Marshall McLuhan would have turned cartwheels.Celebrity has changed radically since McLuhan declared “the medium is the message,” and Exhibits A and B are C and D, Charli and Dixie. The sisters’ names might elicit either eye rolls of over-familiarity — perhaps you followed along online as their wisdom teeth were removed? — or blank stares, depending on one’s proximity to TikTok.

    @charlidamelio Stay home & do the #distancedance. Tag me & the hashtag in your video. P&G will donate to Feeding America & Matthew 25 for first 3M videos #PGPartner ♬ Big Up’s (feat. Yung Nnelg) – Jordyn, Nic Da Kid In 2019, Charli and Dixie began posting short, playful videos from their bedrooms (bathrooms, too) and accumulating enormous, unexpected internet followings. This has led to deals selling iced coffee and hummus and social-distancing messages (Charli); several song releases, some quite raunchy (Dixie); dancing with J. Lo before the Super Bowl (Charli); hosting a talk show (Dixie) and sitting front row at Prada in Milan (Charli).Together they have joined and left the Hype House, a content-making collective in Los Angeles; weathered periodic torrents of scorn from commenters; started a podcast; worked on a makeup collection that they daub on each other’s faces with Michelangelo-like care; and through it all frequently updated their fans. In the popular imagination, they are very much a unit, even if it was not always so.Dixie and Charli, who practically overnight became TikTok sensations, have spun that success into sponsorship deals, a music career, an appearance at the Super Bowl and a social distancing campaign.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesOn this video call, they were discussing marketing plans for a line of clothing called Social Tourist: crop tops and pleated miniskirts and items for the dog (the D’Amelios have four). The name refers not to ethical globe-trotting but to online interaction and identity exploration. “We thought about space travel, about digital versus organic and reflecting what life was like prior to having a cellphone in your hand all the time,” said Nathalie Kossek, the brand’s art director.Remember life before cellphones, when everyone could hum the jingles for Cheerios and Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms learned from commercials? To conjure that nostalgia, one white crew neck sweatshirt priced at $60 would be delivered in a Social Tourist cereal-like box to the 100 fastest-clicking customers.Marc was focused on practical matters. “How is this getting shipped?” he asked. “It should be packaged well — within the package — so it gets there looking good.” Besides being TikTok’s First Father, he has worked in the apparel business for 30 years. Now, he is packaging his family. Having seen hundreds of household names become yesterday’s news, “I want them both to appreciate the fact that nothing’s promised, and chances are it won’t last forever,” he told me later.The D’Amelios were joining the call from Los Angeles, where they moved in the summer of 2020 from Norwalk, Conn., to pursue the many business opportunities that arose after their online fame mushroomed. I was languishing in New York. Downstairs, my 13-year-old was screaming at a video game.“Ask her about the Dino nuggets,” he’d instructed, referring to how Charli, during a dinner catered by a private chef and filmed for the family’s YouTube channel, had suggested breaded chicken as a substitute for the escargot that had triggered Dixie’s gag reflex.The gaffe, or the adolescent ingratitude and entitlement it seemed to punctuate, had cost Charli a million-odd followers on TikTok — a minor setback on the way to her current total of 123 million, the highest number on the platform. A freckled and shiny-haired trained competitive dancer, she is 17. In an earlier era she might have been a cover model for the magazine of that name, which at this time of year would be selling many copies of a 300-page back-to-school print issue filled with ads for concealer and tampons and Famolares.

    @dixiedamelio skinnn thx to my #hideandpeekconcealer now at @ultabeauty 🤍 ps my NEW @morphe2 limited edition personalized bag drops tmrw 4/27! #morphepartner ♬ original sound – MorpheOfficial Mothers then thought those magazines were trash. Now mothers are themselves on TikTok, performing herky-jerky duets and trios with their daughters, wearing loungewear and sheepish grins. That includes Heidi, 49, a former model and personal trainer whose own following is 9.5 million. Marc, 52, a onetime candidate for Connecticut’s State Senate, has a million more. Dixie, 20, has more than 54 million. Belle, Cali, Codi and Rebel, the dogs, are collectively lagging at 850,000.The D’Amelios are not, to use the old showbiz cliché, bigger than the Beatles. But in their toggle between suburban rooms and gleaming event venues, on the moving sidewalk of Instagram and amid the rotten eggs of Twitter, they might well be surpassing the Partridges. The question is, can they sustain the attention of America for more than one-minute online chunks? Can anything?“The D’Amelio Show,” which captures the family’s life at home, follows a well-worn format but with a focus on mental health.Philip Cheung for The New York Times‘A Living Social Experiment’TV no longer really “airs,” the oxygen we all breathe, but “streams” in little rivulets onto computers, phones and other devices. Nor is there really a water-cooler conversation, but rather many little individually filled Hydro Flasks.The electronic hearth of the middle 20th century is now a multitude of electronic hand and lap warmers.But in a way “The D’Amelio Show,” which arrives in a gush of eight episodes on Sept. 3, is a throwback: the latest iteration of a now well-established genre exposing the fights and flaws and foibles of famous families in their habitats. There were the Osbournes; there were the Gottis; and most inescapably there have been the Kardashians, who ended their show after 14 years in June, creating an opening.Sisters sell: the Olsens, the Hiltons, the Hadids and so on. Stabbing at a soup can with a knife in one episode as her boyfriend, Noah Beck, watches dismayed, the dimple-chinned, goofy Dixie conjures Jessica Simpson in “Newlyweds,” wondering if her Chicken of the Sea tuna was chicken. (Also when she wears a glittery cowboy hat and falls off a mechanical bull in the video for a song she released to some censure in May, “F***Boy.”)Like Ms. Simpson’s younger sibling, Ashlee, Charli underwent nose surgery — but in public, for medical rather than cosmetic reasons. And while Ashlee was pilloried after being exposed for lip-syncing her own songs on “Saturday Night Live,” this generation lip-syncs on social media overtly, ironically, often before breaking into self-deprecating laughter and tumbling out of frame.Charli, with her dancing, and Dixie, who studied violin and piano, were naturals at these casual pastiches. Issued MacBooks and smartphones early and sans much parental angst — “something told me this is going to be the future,” Marc said — they grew up watching and imitating YouTube personalities. (“I don’t know if I was a sucker, or what,” Heidi said of Charli’s insistence on doing homework with background entertainment flowing into her headphones.)

    @heididamelio My guy @marcdamelio ##EpicRecordsPartner ♬ Beat It – Michael Jackson But broadcasting from the comfort of home has its peril. Where do you retreat when the calls for cancellation come — when the audience feedback is instant, constant, pinging in your palm?Weirdly, TV, the erstwhile idiot box, has become not the place for further exposure, but a safe — or at least safer — space, where professionals set boundaries, supply context and order the chaos of online interaction. In the show, negative comments the sisters receive on social media pop up onscreen like the annotations of VH1’s music video heyday, taking the audience into the psychic cage of the phone; each episode is bracketed with public service announcements about mental health.“Inside a phone, on an app, people can be dehumanized — not just us, everybody,” Marc said. The television show, he hopes, will give people “a fair assessment of who we really are.”Belisa Balaban, the vice president of original documentaries at Hulu, said she hoped “the show inspires dialogue between parents and kids about social media. It’s evolving so fast. They are a tight-knit family, and we know a lot of kids aren’t lucky enough to have that.”Sara Reddy, the showrunner and an executive producer who previously worked on “Toddlers and Tiaras” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” assembled a small crew that filmed from four to eight hours on weekdays and stayed out of the girls’ therapy sessions — though they were allowed in when Dixie broke down in convulsive tears over negative reactions to a video diary she did for Vogue. “Wanting to not be part of the problem, that was really important to me, because I could see that the girls were struggling with all the scrutiny,” Ms. Reddy said.When first pitched the D’Amelios, Ms. Reddy “had no clue who they were, none,” she said. “I’m not a teenager. I really found it easy to roll my eyes at social media during Covid. Then I dug in, and what really struck me was I felt like the family was a living social experiment that they didn’t necessarily sign up for. I came into their life right as fame was changing for them. They had the fun rise up — and as we do to people we put on a pedestal, people were starting to take them down. And I thought this can be a much more complete, interesting story than just, ‘Hey, this family’s famous.’”“I felt like the family was a living social experiment that they didn’t necessarily sign up for,” said Sara Reddy, the showrunner.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesCharli and Dixie, IRLWhen they aren’t dolled up for something like Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards, where Charli in a strapless formal gown was doused in green slime like a latter-day Carrie, the sisters seem to recede into soft, blurry situations: dipping into ice cream, disappearing into hoodies and under blankets, hugging Squishmallows. Charli is scared to drive. “Curbs, curbs, curbs, curbs, curbs,” she mutters on the show, practicing. “Every time I’m free, I just want to be in bed on my phone, which is so bad,” Dixie says. The only sign that they might be ready to fight back is their manicures, which are incongruously sharp and pointy — talons, really.These they waggled at me in person one morning after rainstorms flooded the subways of Manhattan, in an enormous penthouse apartment with views of the Hudson River — and, Dixie noted, dramatic lightning strikes. The obvious metaphor hung in the air.Asked not about Dino nuggets but the moment when it all changed, Charli said, “I don’t know. It wasn’t like a snap that happened. More like, ‘This is happening, but I still feel the same.’ And now it’s happening on a much bigger scale, and I still feel the same, so I don’t know.”Dixie would like eventually to settle in New York, where her parents courted a quarter-century ago, before cellphones became commonplace, rollerblading in Central Park. “I want to be here,” she said.As for Charli: “I have no idea. I like everywhere. I kind of want to live in the middle of nowhere.” she said. “On a farm. Or like in the middle of L.A. Who knows. I go back and forth.”Any anxious parent of quaran-teens, sequestered for so many months with their portals to heaven-knows-what — their temporary avatars out there for all eternity like so much space junk — could sympathize with this impulse to vanish into the pastoral. And also not hold her to it, on the eve of a Hollywood debut.

    @charlidamelio @dixiedamelio ♬ Be Happy – Dixie “I think people are going to be surprised about the maturity of the show,” Dixie said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh my God, watch us do TikToks all day.’ It’s very deep, it’s very true, it shows our emotions, it’s caught us in real time having breakdowns and not wanting to do social media anymore. And the thing is, I don’t want people to be like, ‘Oh, they’re doing this for sympathy or attention.’ We just want you to take a look into our lives and take what you want from it.”“I’ve heard that people like to come to our pages for a little bit of an escape,” Charli said dryly.And should that escape feels like a trap, the most popular girl on TikTok offers the simplest of solutions. “I feel like it’s very important to take some time off whenever you feel like you need it,” she said. “You don’t even tell yourself, ‘Time to take a break.’ You kind of just let it go.” She waggled her fingers again, as if sprinkling magic dust. “Drop your phone for a little bit.” More

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    William G. Clotworthy, ‘Saturday Night Live’ Censor, Dies at 95

    A self-described “professional square,” he fell in love with the show, and worked with its writers to tweak questionable material. Cast members called him “Dr. No.”William G. Clotworthy, who as the in-house censor for “Saturday Night Live” from 1979 to 1990 decided whether Eddie Murphy could say “bastard,” whether Joe Piscopo could make fart jokes and whether inebriated Romans could vomit on network television, died on Aug. 19 in Salt Lake City. He was 95.His son Robert confirmed his death, at a hospice facility.Mr. Clotworthy, who described himself as “a professional square,” had never seen an episode of “Saturday Night Live” when he arrived in 1979, coming off a career of nearly 30 years in advertising and looking for a midlife career change.His predecessors had struggled with the late-night sketch show’s limits-pushing humor and had often rejected entire skits. Mr. Clotworthy was different. A trained actor, he fell in love with the show and its brand of satire, and he worked with its writers to tweak questionable material.“A writer once asked me what was the first thing I did when I read a script, and I said, ‘I laugh,’” he wrote in his memoir, “Saturday Night Live: Equal Opportunity Offender” (2001). “After I laugh, then I go to work with the scissors and blue pencil, screaming or begging.”Mr. Clotworthy, by then in his mid-50s, was liked and respected by the show’s anti-authoritarian young cast and writing staff. He chuckled along when they called him “Dr. No” and guffawed when one cast member, Tim Kazurinsky, took to interrupting skits as the prudish censor “Worthington Clotman.”“He was an ally,” said the former United States senator Al Franken, who as a longtime “Saturday Night Live” writer and performer often clashed with Mr. Clotworthy — but who also considered him a friend. “Sometimes I’d lose, sometimes I’d win, but he was always sophisticated in his understanding of what we were doing.”Another writer, Kevin Kelton, recalled one of his earliest skits, in which Mr. Murphy, playing his recurring character Mister Robinson — a riff on Mister Rogers — finds a baby outside his apartment door. Like Mister Rogers, Mister Robinson often had a “word of the day” written on a board for his purported juvenile audience. The word for that episode was “bastard.”Mr. Clotworthy said no, they could not say “bastard” on network TV. But instead of shutting down the skit, he and Mr. Kelton negotiated. Eventually they came up with a compromise: The word would appear on the board, but Mr. Murphy would be pulled away by a visitor before he could say it.“He had as tough a job as anyone had there, but he was very friendly,” Mr. Kelton said in an interview. “Even though he was the censor, he understood his job wasn’t to impede the show.”By his own admission, Mr. Clotworthy wasn’t perfect. He regretted killing a sketch in which several fraternity brothers, in the middle of lighting their farts, are interrupted by a parody of Smokey Bear, played by Mr. Piscopo, and he equally regretted giving approval to “Vomitorium,” in which Roman men drink and eat too much and then throw up.“I wish I had the script so I could recall why the heck we ever let that one in,” he wrote in his memoir.“A writer once asked me what was the first thing I did when I read a script, and I said, ‘I laugh,’” Mr. Clotworthy wrote in a memoir published in 2001. “After I laugh, then I go to work with the scissors and blue pencil, screaming or begging.”
    William Griffith Clotworthy was born on Jan. 13, 1926, in Westfield, N.J. His father, William Rice Clotworthy, worked for AT&T, and his mother, Annabelle (Griffith) Clotworthy, was a homemaker. He traced his family line to 11th-century England and his American roots to Jamestown, the first English settlement in North America.His first two marriages ended with his wives’ deaths. Along with his son Robert, he is survived by his third wife, Jo Ann Clotworthy; another son, Donald; his daughters, Lynne and Amy Clotworthy; his stepsons, Peter Bailey and Bradford Jenkins; and a grandson..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1gp0zvr{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:25px;}Mr. Clotworthy entered the Navy after graduating from high school and later attended Yale and Wesleyan before enrolling at Syracuse University, where he studied theater, graduating in 1948.He headed to New York City intent on an acting career and arrived at the dawn of the television era, something he got to watch firsthand after being hired as an NBC page. The premier program at the time was “Texaco Star Theater,” hosted by Milton Berle, and among Mr. Clotworthy’s tasks was escorting Mr. Berle’s mother up to Studio 8H before every performance.He left NBC after eight months and, after a brief, unsuccessful stab at acting, took a job with the advertising agency B.B.D.O.William Clotworthy, right, in the mid 1950’s during a recording session with Efrem Zimbalist Jr.via Clotworthy FamilyFirst in New York and later in Los Angeles, he worked as an agency representative. In the early days of television, many shows were owned by corporations, some of them B.B.D.O. clients, and it was Mr. Clotworthy’s task to see that their interests were protected. On “General Electric Theater,” for example, he made sure that there were no gas ranges on kitchen sets.He became especially close friends with the host of “General Electric Theater,” Ronald Reagan, and was among those encouraging him to move into politics in the 1950s. When Mr. Clotworthy told Reagan he should run for mayor of Los Angeles, he recalled, Reagan replied, “Nah, it’s president or nothin’!”Mr. Clotworthy returned to New York in 1974, and five years later he went back to NBC, this time as the head of standards and practices for the East Coast.The job had him overseeing several programs, including soap operas, movies and, later, “Late Night With David Letterman,” where he would visit comics in their dressing rooms and ask them to run through their acts just minutes before going on air.“He was not a jovial, yuck-a-minute guy,” said Carol Leifer, a former writer for “Saturday Night Live” who often appeared as a stand-up comic on “Letterman.” “I would always be more relaxed when I went on because I knew my routine couldn’t go over as badly as it did with Bill.”But the bulk of his time was spent on “Saturday Night Live.” He would sit in on the first script read-through, on Wednesday, raising flags and suggesting edits. He would remain in and around the studio up through the broadcast, watching nervously from the control room to make sure no one let slip an obscenity.Mr. Clotworthy, center, with his son Donald and Ronald Reagan in 1994. He was friends with Reagan and was among those who encouraged him to move from acting into politics.via Clotworthy FamilyThat’s just what happened in February 1981, when one of the show’s cast members, Charlie Rocket, uttered a forbidden four-letter word toward the end of a skit.“The control room went absolutely silent, then, as on swivels, every head turned to look at me,” Mr. Clotworthy wrote in his memoir. “I saw this through my fingers, mind you, as my hands were covering my face, just before I beat my head against the console.”The word was deleted from the tape before it aired on the West Coast. With the show’s ratings already sinking, Mr. Rocket was let go a month later, along with two other cast members, four writers and the producer.Mr. Clotworthy retired in 1990, after which he became an amateur historian and wrote several books, including one in which he recounted visiting every site that claimed “George Washington slept here.”Mr. Clotworthy rarely socialized with the cast or writing staff, and he kept his personal and political opinions to himself, especially when the show poked fun at his old friend President Reagan. It was, he later wrote, all about the delicate balance between enforcement and negotiation, between taking a hard line and letting things slide.“The hardest part of the job,” he wrote, “is to say ‘No’ and make them like it.” More

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    Lloyd Dobyns, Co-Anchor of an Innovative TV Newscast, Dies at 85

    He teamed with Linda Ellerbee on “NBC News Overnight” in 1982 to set an unusual tone for network news in an equally unusual time slot.Lloyd Dobyns, an award-winning NBC News correspondent who in the early 1980s was the co-anchor of the innovative television newscast “NBC News Overnight,” died on Sunday in Mebane, N.C., northwest of Raleigh. He was 85.His son Kenneth said the cause was complications of a series of strokes.Mr. Dobyns worked for NBC News in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and won more than two dozen awards for reporting, writing and anchoring. He was probably best known for working with Linda Ellerbee on “NBC News Overnight,” the first of several late-night news programs begun by the broadcast networks in an attempt to compete with the 24-hour news coverage introduced in 1980 by CNN.Lloyd Allen Dobyns Jr. was born on March 12, 1936, in Newport News, Va. After serving in the Army, he began his broadcasting career in 1957 as a reporter for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Va. Three years later, he became a news anchor at WAVY-TV, the NBC affiliate in Virginia’s Tidewater area. He later became the station’s news director.In 1969 he moved to New York, where he worked first as managing editor for news at WNEW-TV, then as part of the NBC News team. He was a foreign correspondent before returning to New York to anchor the TV newsmagazine “Weekend,” for which he won a Peabody Award in 1975.Mr. Dobyns set the style for “Weekend” with a wry and witty style as both a writer and a reporter that was later complemented by the equally droll and irreverent Ms. Ellerbee. The two were teamed again in July 1982 for “NBC News Overnight,” which was seen from 1:30 to 2:30 a.m. weekdays and 2 to 3 a.m. Saturdays.Reviewing “NBC News Overnight” for The New York Times in 1982, John J. O’Connor called it “one of the classier new acts in television news” and noted, “Both Mr. Dobyns and Miss Ellerbee take some pride in their writing abilities and, more than anything else, their collaborations in this area lend the program its appealing personality.”But the program’s ratings were poor, and NBC canceled it in November 1983. “It was our finest hour of news and remains the model for an hour news product,” Reuven Frank, the president of NBC News, said at the time. “But merely being best is not enough when the cost is so much greater than the income.” (Mr. Dobyns had left by then to anchor the NBC newsmagazine “Monitor,” which also had a short life because of low ratings.)In a statement, Ms. Ellerbee called Mr. Dobyns “a friend, teacher, troublemaker, and a world-class journalist.”Mr. Dobyns retired from NBC in 1986 and later taught journalism at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Ala.In addition to his son Kenneth, he is survived by his wife, Patti; two daughters, Denise and Alison; and eight grandchildren. Another son, Brian, and a brother, Norman, died before him.The New York Times contributed reporting. More

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    JoJo Siwa to Have First Same-Sex ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Partner

    The “Dance Moms” alum and TikTok personality will join the ABC show as the first contestant to compete in a same-sex pairing.On Thursday, “Dancing With the Stars” history was made with the announcement that the dancer and social media personality JoJo Siwa would be the first contestant on the ABC program to compete with a same-sex partner.The executive producer Andrew Llinares shared the milestone during a “Dancing With the Stars” Television Critics Association panel.IM SO EXCITED https://t.co/EN1ygC5Jj3— JoJo Siwa!🌈❤️🎀 (@itsjojosiwa) August 26, 2021
    (The show also announced that the gymnast and Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee would be featured in its 30th season, and that other celebrity competitors would be revealed on Sept. 8 on “Good Morning America.” The season begins Sept. 20.)“I have a girlfriend who is the love of my life and who is everything to me,” Siwa told USA Today in an article published Thursday. “My journey of coming out and having a girlfriend has inspired so many people around the world.”“I thought that if I chose to dance with a girl on this show, it would break the stereotypical thing,” she said, adding that it would be “new, different” and a “change for the better.”Siwa came out as part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community earlier this year, when she posted a photo of herself wearing a T-shirt that read “Best Gay Cousin Ever” on Instagram. In April, she told People that “technically I would say that I am pansexual.”At the critics’ association panel, the model and TV personality Tyra Banks — who hosts and executive produces “Dancing With the Stars” — said that she supported the move.“You’re making history, JoJo,” she said. “This is life-changing for so many people. Particularly because you are so young doing this. For you to say this is who you are and it’s beautiful, I’m so proud of you.”Siwa, known for her sparkling hair accessories and bubbly personality, met her girlfriend, Kylie Prew, on a cruise. They began dating in January, and in June, the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization Glaad had named her in their 20 Under 20 List.Glaad’s head of talent, Anthony Allen Ramos, lauded the show’s move in a statement on Thursday. “At 18, JoJo Siwa is once again using her platform to inspire and uplift the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” he said. “As one of today’s most watched and celebrated programs on television, ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and Tyra Banks are making the right decision to feature JoJo Siwa competing alongside a female professional dancer.”“The show has such a wide, far-reaching audience,” he said, “and there is a real opportunity here for people to celebrate the same-sex pairing and root for JoJo and all L.G.B.T.Q. young people.” More

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    Micki Grant: ‘I Wanted to Open Eyes’

    The composer and lyricist, who died at 92, was a trailblazer in virtually every field she touched.Theater in Manhattan was bristling with Black voices in the early 1970s, but these tended to be heard in smaller spaces like the New Federal Theater, the Negro Ensemble Company and the Urban Arts Corps. Micki Grant’s “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” spent time in such theaters before winding its way to Broadway in 1972, making it the first time a woman had written the book, music and lyrics to a Broadway musical.The result — four Tony Award nominations, a run of more than two years — was a testament to Grant, a trailblazer in virtually every field she touched. She died on Aug. 21 at 92. But the success of the show also stemmed in part from its image of Black America, one that Grant created through a blend of conviction and calculation.Just as “Hair” channeled the era’s countercultural passions into a package that (most) staid Broadway theatergoers could handle — Joe Papp, who squired that show to Broadway from his brand-new Public Theater in 1968, described it as “marvelous for middle-aged people” — “Don’t Bother Me” took a cleareyed but rarely confrontational stance at race relations. At one point, the cast members raised clenched fists, which then turned to peace signs.“I wanted to open eyes but not turn them away,” Grant told me in a 2018 interview about the work, which she described as a conscious divergence from more incendiary pieces by such Black playwrights as Ed Bullins and Amiri Baraka. “I wanted to come at it with a soft fist.” (Grant had just come home from the hospital when we met, but was still energetic enough to shave more than a decade off her stated age at the time without raising any suspicions.)And so the show discussed slavery and slumlords but also Flip Wilson and Archie Bunker, resulting in what the New York Times theater critic Clive Barnes described as “a mixture of a block party and a revival meeting.”As it happens, Grant was in a rare position to call the shots on these decisions. She had spent several years as a contract performer on a soap opera — one of the first Black actors to do so — playing an attorney, Peggy Nolan, on “Another World.” (She also starred in “Don’t Bother Me.”) She would go on to find success writing advertising jingles, winning a Clio award along the way.In 2018, Grant and Savion Glover, the choreographer and director, led a table reading of “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope” at New York City Center.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut the advertising and soap opera industries aren’t exactly known for cultivating auteurist voices. Theater gave Grant a chance to write every syllable and every note of “Don’t Bother Me,” which earned her half of the show’s four Tony nominations. (Her frequent collaborator Vinnette Justine Carroll, who became the first Black woman to direct on Broadway, was also nominated.)It came up blank at the 1973 Tony Awards — “A Little Night Music” and “Pippin” also opened that season — but “Don’t Bother Me” showcased a musical voice equally comfortable with calypso, spoken-word, soul, funk, jazz, and even what could be described as proto-hip-hop. Not to mention gospel, which came to the forefront in “Your Arms Too Short to Box With God,” and other subsequent shows that Grant wrote or co-wrote.Dabblings in Black musical idioms were nothing new for Broadway, of course: Cole Porter never met an Afro-Caribbean rhythm he couldn’t use, while Frank Loesser all but trademarked the still common use of a gospel-style roof-raiser to get the crowd agitated near the end of a show. But Grant’s wide range of repurposings was of an altogether different nature, because it drew so heavily from her own background.This versatility turned her into a go-to lyricist for pre-existing melodies by Eubie Blake (“Eubie!”) but also Harold Arlen (“Sweet & Hot”) and Jacques Brel (“Jacques Brel Blues”), and it also earned her a spot on the all-star writing team of 1978’s “Working” alongside James Taylor, Stephen Schwartz and Mary Rodgers. When I spent long college afternoons listening to published Broadway scores, one particularly fast passage in her “Working” song “Lovin’ Al” had me hitting rewind on the library’s cassette player for a solid half-hour.Grant, a former national chairwoman of the Actors Equity union’s Equal Opportunity Employment Committee, viewed as her biggest professional disappointment “Phillis,” a 1986 musical about the pioneering Black poet Phillis Wheatley. In a recent interview for American Theatre magazine, published after her death, she blamed the white director for the show’s failure, saying he had no knowledge of or sensitivity to the subject matter.But Grant bounced back from this, as she had done from the many other setbacks along the way in becoming her own sort of pioneer. “There’s so little time for hatred,” Grant sang almost 50 years ago in the show that earned her a place in history. Her hand was equally capable of clenching tight and relaxing into a peace sign. The fist was soft, but it held considerable force. More

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    Giant Puppet of Syrian Refugee Angers Some on Walk Through Greece

    “Little Amal” is on a 5,000-mile journey from Turkey to Britain to highlight the plight of Syrian refugees. But in Greece, some have objected to her presence, saying it could encourage more migrants.ATHENS — A giant puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl named Amal has been traveling across Turkey and Greece for much of the past month. It is the first leg of a 5,000-mile journey, one that is rich in symbolism as a new migration crisis looms in Europe following the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.The puppet is the lead character in an ambitious theater project called “The Walk” that aims to draw attention to the refugee experience by following a route similar to that taken by some Syrians who escaped the civil war in their country. “Little Amal” and her handlers plan to cross eight countries and dozens of cities in an 8,000-kilometer bid to shine a light on the plight of millions of displaced refugees.But Amal, who is 12 feet tall and “walks” with the aid of the team of puppeteers accompanying her, is not welcome everywhere.On Monday, the local council of Meteora, a municipality in central Greece, voted to ban Amal from walking through a village in the area, which is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its cluster of Orthodox monasteries built on towering rock formations.The objection raised by several council members was that a puppet depicting a Muslim refugee should not be permitted to perform in a space of such importance to Greek Orthodox believers. The local bishop opposed the project for that reason, while a local heritage group complained that the initiative could bring more refugees to a country that has already taken in tens of thousands.The tensions in this corner of Greece come as Europe wrestles once again with the inflammatory issue of migration amid the escalating crisis in Afghanistan.Greece was particularly hard-hit by the migration crisis of 2015-2016, which saw more than 1 million refugees stream through the country — mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.Meteora, central Greece, in May. The local council voted to ban the puppet from “walking” through the area.Dimitris Tosidis/EPA, via ShutterstockThen, many Greeks, particularly on the Aegean Islands, pitched in to help. Over time, however, solidarity was replaced by frustration, which intensified during a standoff at the land border with Turkey in March 2020 when thousands of migrants tried to enter Greece. Since then, Greek authorities have toughened their stance, extending a metal fence at the land border and drafting legislation to accelerate deportations.During a debate in Parliament on the bill on Friday, the migration minister, Notis Mitarachi, said that Greece “will not allow itself to become a gateway to Europe for illegal migration flows, as it was from 2015 to 2019.”The local heritage association in Meteora said it was particularly worried that the puppet initiative could encourage a new wave of refugees to Greece.“How much solidarity can Greece show?” Grigorios Kalyvas, the association’s head, said. “Isn’t there a limit to what we can do and how many we can take?”In a session of the local council on Monday night, the mayor of Meteora, Theodoros Alekos, said his concern had to do with the presence of a “Muslim doll from Syria” in an area rich in Orthodox significance and popular for religious tourism. Worries that the local walk, which had been planned for Sunday, could exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus at a time of record infection levels in Greece also factored into the decision to stop it, he said.The puppet would not be prevented from crossing the municipality’s main town of Kalambaka on its way through Greece, the council decided, but would not be allowed in villages close to the monasteries.For the local heritage association, this was not good enough. “If they enter the town, there’ll be protests,” Mr. Kalyvas said, saying the puppet’s presence would be an “insult.” He added: “If they keep her wrapped up in the box, that’s fine.”David Lan, one of the producers of “The Walk,” said in a telephone interview from Greece that he had not anticipated opposition to the project, but wasn’t surprised given how some people in Europe perceive refugees. “It’s a very live issue with Afghanistan,” he added.The plan had been for Amal, whose name means “hope” in Arabic, to walk near the monasteries and have a picnic with local children, Mr. Lan said, adding that his team had secured approval from regional authorities for the event. But they now planned to go elsewhere. “If we’re not welcome, we don’t go.”“The Walk” evolved out of the “The Jungle,” an acclaimed play about refugees that had runs on London’s West End and at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.The project involves Amal and her puppeteers traveling from Gazientep, Turkey, to Manchester, England, with numerous detours along the way. Gaziantep was chosen as it is home to tens of thousands of Syrians, and Manchester because of its high concentration of asylum seekers.Along the way, Amal joins events with local artists, children and refugee groups.In Gazientep, excited children held up lanterns to guide Amal through the city. And on the Greek island of Chios, choirs sang to welcome her as an orchestra played.“The meaning’s obvious,” Mr. Lan said, referring to the aim of the project. “It’s ‘Don’t forget about us.’”Niki Kitsantonis More

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    Broadway Power Brokers Pledge Diversity Changes as Theaters Reopen

    To address Black artists’ concerns, the pact calls for forgoing all-white creative teams, renaming theaters for Black artists and establishing diversity rules for the Tonys.Fifteen months after the George Floyd protests called renewed attention to racism in many areas of society, some of the most powerful players on Broadway have signed a pact pledging to strengthen the industry’s diversity practices as theaters reopen following the lengthy shutdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.The agreement commits Broadway and its touring productions not only to the types of diversity training and mentorship programs that have become common in many industries, but also to a variety of sector-specific changes: the industry is pledging to forgo all-white creative teams, hire “racial sensitivity coaches” for some shows, rename theaters for Black artists and establish diversity rules for the Tony Awards.The document, called “A New Deal for Broadway,” was developed under the auspices of Black Theater United, one of several organizations established last year as an outgrowth of the anger Black theater artists felt over the police killings of Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Black Theater United’s founding members include some of the most celebrated performers working in the American theater, including Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Wendell Pierce, Norm Lewis and LaChanze.The signatories include the owners and operators of all 41 Broadway theaters — commercial and nonprofit — as well as the Broadway League, which is a trade organization representing producers, and Actors’ Equity Association, which is a labor union representing actors and stage mangers. Their pledges are not legally enforceable, but they agreed to “hold ourselves and each other accountable for implementing these commitments.”The document was negotiated at a series of virtual meetings that began while theaters were closed because of the pandemic; the changes are being announced as two Broadway shows have begun performances this summer, with 15 more planning to start, or restart, in September.“We convened all of the power players in our industry — the unions, the theater owners, producers and creatives — and had conversations about changing habits, structures and creating accountability,” said the director Schele Williams. “We knew that before our theaters robustly started opening in the fall, everyone deserved to know who they were in the space, and how they would be treated, and that’s something none of us have known in our careers.”One of the key changes being called for is that creative teams — which include directors, writers, composers, choreographers and designers — should be diverse. A section signed by directors and writers vows to “never assemble an all-white creative team on a production again, regardless of the subject matter of the show,” while a section signed by producers says, “We will make best efforts to ensure true racial diversity on all future productions.”The meetings, which started in March, were funded by the Ford Foundation and facilitated by Kenji Yoshino, director of the Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University School of Law. “Everyone came in ready to make change,” the producer David Stone said.Among the changes that will be most visible to the general public: The three big commercial landlords on Broadway — the Shubert, Nederlander and Jujamcyn organizations — each pledged that at least one theater they operate would be named for a Black artist. Jujamcyn already operates the August Wilson Theater, the only Broadway house named for a Black artist.“This is a movement that is going to make change, and we’re happy to be part of it,” said Robert E. Wankel, chairman and chief executive of the Shubert Organization..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The document’s signatories are committing to changes that would affect many aspects of the theater business, from casting to hair care. But Broadway is a highly unionized work force, and the only labor unions that signed the agreement are those representing actors, stage managers, makeup artists and hairstylists.That leaves some conspicuous gaps — there is pervasive concern about low levels of diversity among Broadway stagehands, musicians and design teams, for example — and the leadership of Black Theater United said that although the group has endorsements from individuals working in those areas, it will continue to work to win more organizational support for the document.The actor NaTasha Yvette Williams said that she expected more groups to embrace the calls for change. “It’s only a matter of time before they come around,” she said.The director Kenny Leon acknowledged frustration that his own union, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, was not a signatory. “I am disappointed that my directing union hasn’t signed on yet,” he said. “But as a Black member of that union, I’m going to keep fighting for that.”The executive director of the union, Laura Penn, said the organization was “deeply committed to the principles” of the agreement, but opted not to sign because much of it is “beyond the scope of the union’s purview.”Jeanine Tesori, a composer, said she is hopeful that the variety of professions represented in a show’s music department will jointly commit to creating more opportunity in what can be a tough area to break into. “We have to invite newcomers in,” she said.The signatories pledged to create a new, mandatory, industrywide training program for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging. And, with an eye toward further diversifying the industry, they also committed to “mentoring and sponsoring Black talent in our respective fields on an ongoing basis.”“Everybody has a Black Lives Matter statement out,” said the actress Allyson Tucker. “The words are no longer enough. What is the action?”Among the other commitments: remove “biased or stereotypical language” from casting notices; insist on diversity riders prioritizing inclusivity as part of director and author contracts; search more widely for music contractors, who are the gatekeepers to orchestra staffing; and abolish unpaid internships. “Internships had a reputation of being for people who could afford to not be paid any money,” said the actor Darius de Haas.The signatories also commit to “sensitivity” steps for shows dealing with race. “For shows that raise racial sensitivities, we will appoint a racial sensitivity coach whose role is akin to an intimacy coach,” the document says. And separately, it says, “While acknowledging that creatives can write about any subject that captures their interest or imagination, we will, when writing scripts that raise identity issues (such as race), make best efforts to commission sensitivity reads during the drafting process to assist in flagging issues and providing suggestions for improvement. Playwrights and/or those individuals or entities with contractual approval rights will retain creative control to accept or reject the sensitivity reader’s recommendations.”“We have to tell difficult stories,” Schele Williams said. “But we also must take great care.”The document does not detail what kinds of diversity rules the group is seeking for the Tony Awards. But the actor Vanessa Williams said the document’s call for diversity “requirements for Tony Award eligibility” was inspired by new rules for the Academy Awards that will require films to meet specified inclusion standards to qualify for a best picture nomination. More