Eliana Willis

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    What’s It Like to Play the Scariest Girls on TV?

    Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady reflect on “The White Lotus” in a joint interview.After “The White Lotus” premiered, Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady were worried about the extent to which they would be linked to their characters, the terrible Gen Z twosome known as Olivia and Paula.On the show, which HBO has renewed for a second season, the college sophomores are the mean girls of the luxury resort where they are vacationing. Almost always together, they issue scathing judgments of the other guests from behind the covers of highbrow texts.They’re sharp-tongued, they’re blasé, they’re observant and they dress well. What could be more terrifying?“I’m super sensitive, so I was like, ‘Oh, gosh, we’re not that awful,’ and then I’m looking back, and I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, we really did our job,’” Ms. O’Grady, 25, said over Zoom from Long Beach Island, N.J. She was quick to emphasize that her real-life social circle is very different.Ms. Sweeney, 23, who joined the video call from Los Angeles, agreed. “Oh yeah,” she said. “Can you imagine having a friendship with Paula or Olivia?”To other guests at the five-star resort, the two women present a united front. But there are troubles within their relationship and an ever-shifting balance of power.“It’s interesting to watch people analyze our characters and say, ‘Who’s the bully, who’s the victim?’” Ms. O’Grady said.On Monday, the day after the finale aired, Ms. O’Grady and Ms. Sweeney talked about their onscreen dynamic, Gen Z representation in film and making TV during a pandemic.Are Olivia and Paula actually friends?Sydney Sweeney: Their friendship was definitely the definition of the kinds of friendships that Olivia has in her life, where she likes to feel like she is in control and she is No. 1.Brittany O’Grady: Their friendship kind of crumbles under the circumstances of the world and how they view it or their experiences in it. And it’s not necessarily good or bad. It is what it is. But I do think in the beginning that they have this emotional comfort. We kind of created that dynamic together.Sydney: Where we hide from the outside world through what we believe is our knowledge about everyone else.Is there romantic tension between Olivia and Paula?Sydney: I keep reading that. To be honest, when we were doing it, I never thought of it. I didn’t even think about doing it. And now I’m watching, going, “Oh. Oh wow, Olivia.”Brittany: Paula having this experience with someone else when she’s supposed to be bonding with her best friend, I think that totally leans into it and kind of insinuates a romantic tension. I’ve definitely had people ask as well.Sydney, you said in another interview that Mike White (the show’s creator) suggested that you both listen to a podcast to get a sense of what your interactions should be like. What was the podcast?Sydney: “Red Scare.” I mainly listened to it for the frequency of the voices of these girls and the timing and the monotone. It was so dry and drawn out and slow. I would just emulate and copy that as much as I could and then bring it into the present day, Gen Z-esque-type woke Twitter girl. When he first told us to listen to it, I was like, “What is this?” I have never really listened to podcasts.Brittany: I don’t understand it. It’s a whole world. It’s like a different culture.What was it like to work with some of the older, established actors, like Jennifer Coolidge, Molly Shannon and Connie Britton?Sydney: I felt like all of my childhood TV icons were brought to life in front of me. You walk around the resort like, “Oh my God.” I’d call my mom and freak out. I mean, every single one of them I idolize in a different way. The entire process was like this amazing comedy boot camp.Brittany: Our first scene filming with Jennifer was when we were in the buffet line. Jennifer just kept pulling things out of her.Sydney: She kept calling the waiters the funniest names ever.Brittany: Like, “Popeye over there.” And the guy is really ripped. “The guy with the khaki face” or whatever.Sydney: We were like, “What does that even mean?”You were filming in late 2020. What was that like?Sydney: We were locked in our rooms for a couple of days. And then once we got out, we weren’t allowed to leave the property, no one was allowed to come onto the property and we had to test every other day. So the entire time we were walking around wearing masks, or shields if we had makeup on.It’s really difficult for the director as well, because as an actor we get so much off of the director’s notes and facial expression, and especially someone like Mike — there’s so much that goes on, on his face, that he’s trying to explain to you. And so a lot of times we would be like, “What do you mean?”Do you think your characters were an accurate depiction of members of Gen Z?Sydney: I think we were a specific subculture of Gen Z. I don’t think every person in Gen Z is like Olivia and Paula.Brittany: A lot of feedback I’ve gotten has been from millennials, so I don’t really know if it’s an accurate depiction of Gen Z. But I have a little brother who’s Quinn’s age, and he did almost sleep in the laundry room, and there was no air conditioning in there. And he brought his PS5.Sydney: I definitely saw my little brother in the character, too.Brittany: I have an older sister, and I hung around a lot of millennials growing up. So I identify more with millennial culture. But I’m ’96, so I’m right on that cusp of being a millennial and Gen Z. My sister was saying that if you’re in the middle of the two like I am, it depends on what, culturally, you identify more with. One was, which is kind of gruesome, but if you remember 9/11, that means you’re considered a millennial.Sydney: I feel there is a name for that because I’ve talked about this before with a lot of the “Euphoria” cast, where I don’t feel like we identify as either. We’re a little mix of both.This interview has been edited for length and clarity. More

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    Late Night Anticipates the Third Shot

    “Yep, Biden will be making the booster shot announcement as part of his Operation: Change the Subject,” Jimmy Fallon said.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.Third Time’s the CharmThe White House is expected to announce coronavirus booster shots, recommending that Americans receive them eight months after their initial round of inoculation.“And to sell Americans on the idea, the White House is hiring a movie trailer narrator to be like, ‘This fall, Pfizer completes their epic trilogy,’” Jimmy Fallon joked on Tuesday night.“Yep, Biden will be making the booster shot announcement as part of his Operation: Change the Subject.” — JIMMY FALLON“The first people to get boosters will likely be nursing home residents and health care workers, who could get the jab as early as mid-September. So these are autumn shots. The options will be Moderna, Pfizer or pumpkin spice.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So, vaccine sites are about to ramp up again. You hear that, millions of Americans who are still on the fence about the first dose? Because the rest of us are about to go back for thirds. We’re offering you that last slice of pizza before we take it, and in this case, the pepperoni doesn’t kill you.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (One More Shot Edition)“We’re going to get a third shot, OK? So, somehow, they’re going to have to make the vaccination card even bigger. It fits in most midsize sedans.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Honestly, they should just send booster shots to your house like a cheese of the month club like, ‘Oh, honey, look — this month it is AstraZeneca. How exotic!’” — JIMMY FALLON“America can’t even agree on the first shots. We’re like a giant family dinner where half the table wants pizza and the other half wants to die of Covid.” — JULIE BOWEN, guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live”The Bits Worth WatchingOn Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” guest host Julie Bowen explained how she and her family recently helped an injured hiker in a national park.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightMichael Keaton will catch up with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutJohn Shearer/WireImage for MTV.com (Conrad, Montag) ; Glenn Francis/PacificProDigital.com (Pratt)Memes about Delta are harmless fun except for those cast as the variant itself. More

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    Ankara Print Dresses? These Aren’t Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives.’

    Shakespeare in the Park is back, and Dede Ayite’s West African-influenced costume designs are just as lively as Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation.When Saheem Ali, the director of this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park production of “Merry Wives,” thought about which costume designer he wanted to create the clothes for the show, he knew immediately that it should be Dede Ayite. The two have been friends for years, and have worked together on “Twelfth Night” for the Public Mobile Unit, “Fires in the Mirror” at Signature Theater Company and the upcoming “Nollywood Dreams” at the MCC Theater.“Dede fit the bill for this particular project to a T,” he said. Not only because of her artistry, he added, “but because of her identity.” He knew the Ghanaian-born costume designer “would bring an authenticity and a truth to the world that I couldn’t imagine any other designer bringing up for this particular world.”In the playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s modern take on Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” the setting is Harlem instead of Berkshire, England; its characters West African, not English. Falstaff is a lifelong Harlemite; the Pages are Ghanaian; and the Fords are Nigerian. The costumes play as vital a role in reimagining and breathing new life into this work as the acting, the writing, the sets and more. In his review, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, said Ayite’s costumes helped the production look “especially grand.”Ayite, a two-time Tony Award nominee for her work on “Slave Play” and “A Soldier’s Play,” knew that she wanted the costumes to reflect and highlight both the similarities and the differences between the cultures. She and her team sourced fabrics from Kumasi, Ghana, as well as from fabric haunts in Yonkers and the Bronx. She said she hoped that the costumes would add to the production’s celebration of Harlem and other immigrant communities and what contributions, cultural and otherwise, immigrants bring to the places they settle in.Dede Ayite gathered a variety of Ankara prints for her designs in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe patterns and symbols reflect the play’s characters and their personalities.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSara Krulwich/The New York TimesSara Krulwich/The New York Times“I’m hopeful that as people get to experience the show and see these Black beautiful bodies and shapes and people onstage, that they truly see them and embrace them and recognize that they exist and they matter,” Ayite said.She recently spoke about her process, the art of marrying traditional and modern West African styles with modern Western designs and creating costumes that flatter and feel natural on actors with different body shapes.The Pages and the FordsSusan Kelechi Watson as Madam Ford, left, in a lace blouse and wrap skirt that is usually worn by Nigerian women. Pascale Armand, center, and Kyle Scatliffe as the Pages. Armand is wearing a two piece jumpsuit.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe characters Ekua and Kwame Page are from Ghana, and for some of the couple’s clothes, Ayite got woven kente cloth from that country. Madam Page is a traditional woman who still has her finger on the pulse, Ayite said. For one of Madam Page’s dresses, Ayite leaned into a traditional silhouette reminiscent of the 1950s, but it also has modern-day cutouts and design details.“It feels like an Ankara print, but in some ways feels like an elevated or modern version of an Ankara print,” Ayite said, adding that she chose three Adinkra symbols with specific meanings to add a sense of playfulness to the garment. Those symbols — representing strength and humility; unity; and wisdom and creativity — speak more broadly to Madam Page’s personality and character, which viewers become familiar with throughout the play.With each costume, Ayite said, she wanted to create layers that symbolize where a character was from and who they are as an individual.Naturally, the Pages dress quite differently from the Fords, who are from Nigeria.Ayite dove into her own knowledge of the countries and into a well of research about different styles of dress not only within the two countries, broadly, but also within different tribes. The Nigerian couple, for example, are Igbo.For every character, Ayite played around with various silhouettes and shapes. Madam Ford’s dress at the top of the show is a modern take on the traditional aso ebi, a type of uniform dress worn as a show of solidarity for celebrations in Nigeria.Traditionally, Ayite said, “it’s a bit longer, but we shortened it a little bit, so we see a bit more leg.”Falstaff the HarlemiteJacob Ming-Trent as Falstaff, a Harlemite whose interactions with his West African neighbors are reflected in his clothes. The print for the Ghana Must Go bag inspired this pair of shorts.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo bring to life Bioh’s version of Falstaff, the loud, often clownish and inappropriate beer-bellied player of Harlem, Ayite wanted to create a conversation, through costume, of his Harlem roots and his interactions with his West African neighbors.In one scene, when Falstaff goes to speak with Madam Ford, he puts on a colorfully printed Stacy Adams shirt that looks as if it has paint speckled across it. Ayite pointed out that the shirt “is very American,” but there are elements of Africanness in his costumes that fit with his African neighbors. Falstaff has a pair of shorts with the print of the common Ghana Must Go bag. The print on the bag — a colorful red-and-white or blue-and-white plaid — has been around for decades.“It brings me joy just to highlight that as a people, we come from somewhere and the culture is deep, it’s rich, and as much as we might lose certain things, there are essences of it that never leave us,” she said.Doctor CaiusDavid Ryan Smith as Doctor Caius dressed in an agbada or Senegalese boubou. Shola Adewusi plays Mama Quickly, who runs a clinic with the doctor.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDavid Ryan Smith plays the Senegalese Doctor Caius, whose personality is bold, as are his costumes. He’s educated, has a bit of flair, and he has money. Each of his costumes takes up space and demands attention thanks to the silhouettes and striking colors.“He wants to be seen,” Ayite said. “He’s a presence that we feel like we need to acknowledge. You can’t miss him.”Secondary CharactersAbena, right, as Anne Page, who is courted by three suitors, including MaYaa Boateng’s Fenton, left. Dede Ayite gave the younger characters a more fashion forward look.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAyite has traveled to several African countries and when she arrived in the United States 20 years ago, she settled in Harlem. These experiences are perhaps why the show’s costumes feel authentic to all the cultures they represent.The research and her experience come alive with each character, but especially stand out among the younger, perhaps more fashion forward characters, like Anne Page.She is a first-generation American, who wears clothes that could be seen on West 116th Street and in a viral TikTok post. Ayite explored how being a first-generation young woman could factor into how she would dress. One scene, for example, has Anne in a classic, long white button-down. But atop it is a printed corset that feels both old and new, African and American.“I changed the paneling a little bit and the silhouette of that corset, so it feels like it’s pushing against culture a little bit,” she said, “so it feels African, but also feels like — in terms of fashion — she has our finger on the pulse because she has access to YouTube, to Instagram, to TikTok.” More

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    Theater Director With Exaggerated Résumé Quits, Citing Mental Illness

    Christopher Massimine found success as a theater executive in New York and Utah, but resigned after facing questions about errors on his résumé, saying he had mental illness.Christopher Massimine, whose job as the managing director of the Pioneer Theater Company in Salt Lake City was thrown into doubt after a local television affiliate found that he had embellished his résumé with untrue claims, announced Monday that he would resign his post and said that he had long struggled with mental illness.Massimine announced his resignation shortly after The New York Times published an article about his career, and the discrepancies and errors on the résumé that had helped him win the position at the Pioneer, the largest professional theater company in Salt Lake City. “Despite many good things that have happened over the last two years under my direction, effective Aug. 20, 2021, I will resign my position at Pioneer Theater Company in order to address issues in my personal and professional life, stemming from untreated and at times an incorrectly treated mental health condition,” he said in a statement. Massimine, who said that he had battled with mental illness for his entire life, and that most of his friends and colleagues had not known of his condition, had come to the Pioneer Theater from the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene in New York. Massimine was something of an unusual choice to lead the Folksbiene, a small nonprofit with a niche audience. In 2012, when he became an executive with the century-old theater that produces shows for a largely older audience, he was a 26-year-old Italian American Catholic with limited experience as a theatrical administrator and even less with Yiddish.But when he left seven years later, the Folksbiene’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” directed by Joel Grey, was moving from its own theater, within the Museum of Jewish Heritage, to Stage 42, one of Off Broadway’s largest venues. The show had already enjoyed a sold-out run at the museum, and the theater’s revenue had more than doubled in a year to nearly $5 million.“He was smart, dedicated, motivated, professional and always a pleasure to deal with,” said Ron Lasko, a publicist who worked with Massimine at the Folksbiene.To the surprise of many, though, Massimine did not stick around to celebrate the successful transfer of “Fiddler” to a new theater. He instead left the Folksbiene in early 2019 and soon accepted a job as the managing director of the Pioneer Theater Company.“Chris has a proven track record of success,” Dan Reed, a vice president with the University of Utah, which oversees the professional theater on its campus, said at the time of Massimine’s appointment.But two years into his tenure there, Massimine was accused of embellishing his life story with wildly inaccurate depictions of his theatrical pursuits and side gigs.“Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish was so popular at its home theater, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, that it later transferred to an Off Broadway theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorking from public records and tips, Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate KSTU-TV reported earlier this year that Massimine did not have a master’s degree from New York University, as asserted on his résumé. The station said his claims to have helped develop popular video games and some major advertising campaigns did not check out.And, though he said he had received a national arts advocacy award — and released a picture of himself wearing the medal — the bestowing organization does not appear to exist.Adam Herbets, a reporter for the television station, said his sources included people who had seen Massimine’s résumé and found it “unbelievable.”“And, you know,” he continued, “unbelievable sometimes has a positive connotation and sometimes has a negative connotation. In this case it’s literally not believable.”Massimine, whose representatives had denied some of the accusations that he had misrepresented his accomplishments, acknowledged Monday night that there had been “errors” in his résumé. “Local and national news outlets have reported this year that I misrepresented my work history on my résumé, in press releases and interviews, both prior to accepting the P.T.C. position and during my tenure here,” he said in the statement. “There is a fair amount of truth within the reporting, withstanding discrepancies. Regardless, I take responsibility for errors in my résumé but stand by my work product throughout my career.”As it turns out, Massimine’s embellishments extended beyond what the TV station had reported, to include claims that he was born in Italy and was once a full-time employee of the Dramatists Guild.Before the resignation, Chris Nelson, the Utah university’s director of communications, had acknowledged that some “misinformation” had been found on Massimine’s résumé and that his position was put “under review.”Massimine was credited with raising the profile of the Folksbiene, and its revenue doubled in his last year as its chief executive. Richard Drew/Associated PressIn prior remarks, his wife, Maggie Massimine, had said that her husband was on family medical leave and not available for interviews. A spokesman for Massimine, Michael Deaver, had said that some of the discrepancies might have been attributable to misunderstandings on matters such as his client’s work on ad campaigns, where he had been employed by a subcontractor.Maggie Massimine had denied that her husband had exaggerated or misled people, but she did not directly discuss his mental state and said she could not address some of the discrepancies. “Our side of the story has not been told,” she said in an interview several weeks ago. “I really wish I could say more.”At N.Y.U., Massimine earned a bachelor’s degree in dramatic literature in 2007, a university spokesman said, after three years of study. Maggie Massimine said her husband thought he had earned both a master’s and a bachelor’s degree, until KSTU reported he had not. “He was as surprised as everyone else,” she said.A photograph appears to show Massimine at the White House during a 2020 trip to Washington to pick up an award. But the organization said to have taken the photo and bestowed the award does not appear to exist.Massimine’s profile on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, reports that during his college years he also served for more than 18 months as “publications manager and creative affairs coordinator” for the Dramatists Guild, the national trade association for playwrights, composers and others.However, Tari Stratton, director of education for the guild, said it seems Massimine spent only four months there as an unpaid intern. “We do not have any records indicating Mr. Massimine held any paid positions with the guild or had any title other than intern,” she wrote in an email.Massimine did serve in a number of roles with theatrical organizations before joining the staff of the Flea, a small, scrappy New York theater, in 2011. The following year he was hired by the Folksbiene and was promoted to chief executive in 2016.At the Yiddish theater, framed letters from Hal Prince, the legendary Broadway producer and director, hung in Massimine’s office. He counted Manny Azenberg, a producer and eight-time Tony Award winner, among his mentors, and appeared poised to continue advancing through the ranks of Manhattan’s theater ecosystem.Bruce Cohen, a retired publicist who worked with the Folksbiene to promote its Drama Desk-nominated operetta “The Golden Bride,” said Massimine was “a very sweet man” capable of deftly navigating tempestuous artist egos.Beck Lee, who served as a publicist for the Folksbiene during much of Massimine’s tenure, described him as an ambitious hard worker.“He did a great deal to raise the profile of the company,” Lee said, “and was sometimes prone to exaggeration, which I have learned is typically a tool of impresarios and showmen. If anything I thought he was a 21st-century version of a David Merrick, happily pushing his shows to the public and the press with bluster.”Certainly there were issues with a 2018 profile of Massimine that ran in The Daily Beast under the headline, “Meet Christopher Massimine, the ‘Nice Goy’ Running the National Yiddish Theatre.”The piece, based on an interview with Massimine, reported he had come to the United States as an infant from Italy and had appeared on Broadway as a child in shows like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Les Misérables.” But he was born in New Jersey and there are no records of him performing in either show, according to the Broadway League’s database, which is widely viewed as authoritative.Maggie Massimine said her husband had not been born in Italy and had requested a correction from The Daily Beast, a contention that the website recently took issue with.“Our editorial staff has no record of any request from Mr. Massimine for a correction to his profile,” a Daily Beast spokesman said.Despite his success in leading the Folksbiene, the circumstances under which Massimine left the theater are not clear, and its executive director declined to comment. Beck Lee, the former publicist for the theater, said that he was told by theater officials that Massimine was asked to leave after having invested theater funds in an unrelated production without authorization.“He was given the opportunity to admit his behavior, and leave without further incident,” Lee said.A second person with knowledge of the dispute agreed that Massimine had left after an issue over an investment.But Maggie Massimine denied there had been any problem like that, and noted that her husband had been invited back to attend the opening of “Fiddler” at Stage 42 in February 2019.The Pioneer Theater at the University of Utah.Robert ClaytonIn Utah, Massimine was hired at a salary of $152,000 to run a theater with nearly a $5 million operating budget. The school had paid a search firm, Management Consultants for the Arts, nearly $36,000 to recommend candidates.“That résumé was so extraordinary that it probably intoxicated people,” said Brant Pope, chair of the drama department at the University of Texas at Austin and past president of the University Resident Theater Association. “It probably blurred their vision.”Maggie Massimine said her husband had heard of the Utah job through his relationship with Azenberg, the producer who has been an influential backer of the Yiddish theater. Azenberg’s daughter, Karen, a former Broadway stage manager, has served as the artistic director of the Pioneer Theater since 2012.“The search committee was looking for a managing director who would help this theater grow and would support my desire to develop new musicals,” Karen Azenberg wrote in an email.In Utah, Massimine continued to promote his own accomplishments. Two years ago, using information he provided, his new theater put out a news release stating he had been named “Humanitarian of the Year” by the National Performing Arts Action Association and would be honored at a reception in Washington.Jenny Thomas, a spokesman for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that neither she nor several other colleagues who work for similar nonprofits have heard of the National Performing Arts Action Association.No organization by that name has a website or is mentioned by news outlets aside from those that picked up the news release from the theater.But Massimine traveled to Washington in January 2020, purportedly to pick up the award, and later billed the university nearly $800 for his expenses. An image of him on the trip, supposedly taken at the White House and wearing a medal, was credited to the fictitious National Performing Arts Action Association and appeared two months later on a website with an article about Massimine’s relationship with his mother.The writer of the piece said the photograph, caption and credit information were provided by Massimine.Joseph Berger contributed reporting. More

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    Review: Revisiting Four Nobodies in ‘[title of show]’

    For an outdoor residency at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Bridge Production Group breathes fresh life into a 2004 musical.The charm of the early internet era — before the web became an all-consuming necessity and was a seemingly innocent tool for promoting your work — survives in a new revival of “[title of show],” Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell’s autobiographical one-act musical from 2004.And charm is what this Bridge Production Group show, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, has in spades. Documenting its own creation, from inception through the self-hyping vlogs that would eventually lead to its 2008 Broadway run, “[title of show]” is an appropriately low-stakes affair that knows exactly where it stands as a short-and-sweet entertainment. Bolstered by committed performances from its cast of four and an Olympian of a music director, this production of the meta-musical transcends its bare-bones staging by focusing on the simple joys of a shared theatrical space.If playing a character based on a real person presents a unique challenge, playing a character based on the person who originally wrote and performed the role — as Bowen and Bell did — is an unenviable task. As Jeff, Max Hunter (who also directs) more than acquits himself as the goal-oriented book writer, imbuing the character’s snappy dialogue and constant grammar corrections with a simmering self-doubt.He finds an ideal match in the skilled Josh Daniel, who plays the composer-lyricist Hunter Bell, and their alluring chemistry renews itself in every scene. A malfunctioning mic pack at the performance I attended forced Daniel to use a hand microphone, which only helped him further play up his zestful showboating.The two men decide to enter the New York Musical Theater Festival with only three weeks to complete an original work, and enlist their friends Heidi (based on, and originally played by, Heidi Blickenstaff) and Susan (Susan Blackwell, ditto) to round out their small cast. Those very particular real-life women are perhaps the show’s toughest roles, but Keri René Fuller as Heidi and Jennifer Apple as Susan ground themselves in the characters’ earnest love for their friends and their creative process.Apple, having to play an un-actorly personality, is somewhat too mannered for the part, at first forcing Blackwell’s deadpan humor into the ensemble’s peppier cadence. It doesn’t help that she is given the bulk of the book’s most dated jokes (remember “random” humor?). Regardless, she delivers the encouraging “Die Vampire, Die!” song, about banishing creative doubts, with the same tenderness that Fuller lends to her 11-o’clock number, “A Way Back to Then.”Performed outdoors, on the steps of one of the industrial complex’s street-side courtyards, this production relies on Victoria Bain’s lighting design to do most of the technical heavy lifting. As director, Hunter does not employ much of the space’s plain, yet potentially rich, surroundings. This is most felt in the show’s later scenes, when a sudden need for more dynamic choreography kicks in.Still, seeing these artists (and the actors playing them) delve deep into their own creative misgivings, at a time when the theater industry itself is at a crossroads, is a rejuvenating balm. And witnessing the music director, Jason Weisinger (“Larry,” in the meta-narrative), play the keyboard with one hand, while scrambling to fix a variety of technical issues with the other, was a lesson in assertive scrappiness.Outdoors, barely-staged and, on the night I saw it, plagued by acts of god, this production of “[title of show]” became a paean to the uneasy but hopeful footing upon which we all find ourselves. Not to mention that at least two droning ambulance sirens provided the cast a meal of ad-libbed material. I’d be hard-pressed to find a more honest theatrical experience right now.[title of show]Through Aug. 21 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; bridgeproductiongroup.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Colbert on Afghanistan: ‘It’s Heartbreaking’

    “Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a civil war in Afghanistan? We’ve got our own on Capitol Hill,” Stephen Colbert said.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.‘The Right Thing Feels So Wrong’Late-night hosts addressed the news out of Afghanistan this week, with the Taliban taking swift control after President Biden’s decision to pull out American troops.“We have had troops there for 20 years — they fought, they sacrificed, their families sacrificed so that we wouldn’t have a terrorist attack in America planned in a foreign country,” Stephen Colbert said on Monday. “Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a civil war in Afghanistan? We’ve got our own on Capitol Hill.”“The Taliban yesterday entered the city of Kabul and took control of Afghanistan’s presidential palace. Most Americans watched in horror, while some Americans watched for tips.” — SETH MEYERS“As recently as last month, an overwhelming majority of Americans, 70 percent or more, supported Biden’s withdrawal. Seventy percent. You know how few things 70 percent of Americans agree on? I think it’s this and extra cheese, which also often ends badly and faster than you planned.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The U.S. foreign-policy apparatus should not approach Afghanistan the same way I approach trying to install a wireless router: ‘“Connect the router to a broadband gateway from your I.S.P. by inserting the Ethernet cable to the port located on the back of the TP-link extender”? I don’t have the foggiest notion of what I’m undertaking! Do you know how this works?’” — SETH MEYERS“So in the end, you can make us accept that there was no good alternative, but you can’t make us feel good about it. The only people who can feel good about this are the service members and their families who aren’t going to see soldiers sent into harm’s way for no reason that the commander in chief of either party can articulate. But there’s one more thing: For the last 20 years, four separate administrations told the American people to care about the plight of all the Afghan people, especially the women, and we did care and that’s not going to change. All that’s changed is that there’s nothing we can do about it now. So pulling out may be the right thing to do, but it’s heartbreaking; it’s humbling when the right thing feels so wrong.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Blame Game Edition)“Former President Trump released a statement on Friday amid the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and, yeah, he’s enjoying this.” — SETH MEYERS“Pretty weird to blame Biden for withdrawing troops when this summer he was claiming credit for it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So you can’t put all the blame for a debacle you helped set the stage for. That’s like Andrew Lloyd Webber calling ‘Cats’ a terrible movie. You wrote a musical with no plot — how did you think this was going to end?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“You can tell things aren’t good for Biden, because today he said, ‘You know, maybe the election was stolen.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump made a peace deal with the Taliban to end the war, and now after Biden’s withdrawal, they’re back in power. So, on the bright side, it’s nice to have a bipartisan screw-up.” — JIMMY FALLON“I have a hard time believing Trump would have done it in a more orderly way, since nothing he ever did was orderly. He couldn’t even withdraw from an umbrella in an orderly fashion.” — SETH MEYERS“So what’s happening now is the responsibility of both parties, and the American people who voted them into office. So, children and convicts, you’re off the hook. Also, thanks for watching.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe country music star Maren Morris was the guest host on Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightCourtney Barnett will perform on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutJan GrueNTB Scanpix Sipa USA
    Michael J. Fox reviews “I Live a Life Like Yours,” Jan Grue’s new memoir about living with spinal muscular atrophy. More

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    in Theater

    ‘Walden’ Review: Getting Away From It All

    Amy Berryman’s three-character drama, set in a one-room cabin as crises rage outside, asks how much we owe to ourselves and our world.We don’t know exactly how many years into the future Amy Berryman sets “Walden,” her incisive three-character drama. But the climate emergency has already worsened, along with a refugee crisis. Synthetic foods are now widespread. Cloning, too. War rages somewhere. (Everywhere?)“The bombs on Christmas? We could see them through one of our telescopes on the moon,” Cassie (Jeena Yi), a NASA astronaut, says by way of casual conversation.Cassie, recently returned from a lunar mission, has arrived at a secluded cabin in an undisclosed location to visit her twin sister, Stella (Diana Oh), and Stella’s partner, Bryan (Gabriel Brown). Stella had also trained as an astronaut, but she failed NASA’s physical fitness test. Bryan is an avowed Earth Advocate. He holds that the government should put money toward problems on Earth rather than investing elsewhere in the solar system. So the visit, though lubricated by bartered wine and home brew, isn’t an entirely cozy one.TheaterWorks Hartford and the director Mei Ann Teo have given the play, which runs through Aug. 29, an environmental staging, locating it in a functional one-room cabin, ringed with chicken coops and a vegetable garden, in a meadow alongside the Connecticut River. (The set, rough-hewed and ingenious, is by You-Shin Chen; Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew provides the inspired lighting.) If you can’t travel to Connecticut, TheaterWorks has made the play available for streaming, also through Aug. 29.That’s how I saw it. And if it felt wrong to watch a drama so concerned with environmentalism from a laptop, on my sofa, with a window unit whirring quietly in the background, tensions like this interest Berryman. She doesn’t situate herself as smarter than her characters, and distributes her sympathies equally among them. Still, go to Connecticut if you can, especially if you can get there by emissions-friendly means. Because that meadow looks beautiful. And birdsong and crepuscular rays are best experienced in person. Then again, there are no mosquitoes in digital theater. The filming is deft enough, and the performances — layered, unshowy — land even through the screen.“Walden” borrows its name from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden; or, Life in the Woods,” a memoir, harangue, self-help manual and work of autofiction rolled into one clothbound volume. “Walden,” which extols solitude and self-reliance, was a favorite text of Cassie and Stella’s father, also an astronaut. And Walden is the name that Stella gives to the habitat she has designed for Mars. “I sort of think it reads like a whiny hipster’s blog from 19whatever,” Cassie says dismissively of the book. She isn’t exactly wrong.Thoreau went into the woods, he wrote, “because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” While Berryman loads her play with vivid details and plenty of plot mechanics, it’s Thoreau’s question of how to live and what constitutes a good life that animates her. Should we live for ourselves or for others? Engaged with the present or focused on the future? What do we have to sacrifice to live in community and what do we have to forfeit if we live without it?It’s probably that last question, which became a lot less rhetorical during the pandemic, that lends the play its poignancy. The humans of “Walden,” thrust together for this visit, are responding to various disasters — natural, unnatural, interpersonal — and trying their best to treat one another decently.The play never fully resolves its philosophical dilemmas, except to suggest that no philosophy will fit everyone comfortably. Even Thoreau, who preached self-reliance while famously bringing his laundry home to his mother, might have agreed. “Heaven,” he wrote, “is under our feet as well as over our heads.” So why not have both?WaldenThrough Aug. 29 at 100 Meadow Road, Windsor, Conn. and online; twhartford.org/events/walden. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

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    in Theater

    Beanie Feldstein to Star in ‘Funny Girl’ on Broadway

    With the “Booksmart” actress taking on the role originated by Barbra Streisand in 1964, the show is getting its first Broadway revival in 58 years.Beanie Feldstein will star as Fanny Brice, the role that helped make Barbra Streisand a star, in a production of “Funny Girl,” which is returning to Broadway for the first time in 58 years.The revival of the 1964 musical will be directed by Michael Mayer, who oversaw a 2015 revival of the show in London. Producers said performances would begin in the spring, but did not specify a date — though a recent Equity casting call gave April 2 as the first performance. The theater where the musical will be housed will be announced later.“The first time I played Fanny Brice was at my third birthday party, in a head-to-toe leopard print outfit my mom made for me,” Feldstein said in a statement. “So, it’s safe to say that stepping into this iconic role, on Broadway and not in my family’s backyard, is truly my lifelong dream come true.“I am immensely grateful to be able to do so alongside such a remarkable creative team,” she added, “and cannot wait for audiences to get back in theaters again!”Feldstein made her Broadway debut in 2017 as Minnie Fay in “Hello, Dolly!,” which starred Bette Midler, and had memorable roles in the films “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird.” She’ll play Monica Lewinsky next month in the new FX series “Impeachment: American Crime Story.”“Funny Girl” charts the rise of the self-deprecating comedian and actress Fanny Brice, and her relationship with the professional gambler Nick Arnstein. The original production was nominated for eight Tony Awards, including best musical.Streisand won a best actress Oscar for the 1968 film and her performance has cast a long shadow over the title role — a multidimensional character who must sing, generate laughs and succeed against the odds all at once.An attempt to revive the show in 2012, with Bartlett Sher directing the television actress Lauren Ambrose in the lead role, fell apart. So for many theatergoers, the long-awaited return of “Funny Girl” makes it one the most highly anticipated revivals in years.Jule Styne and Bob Merrill’s score includes such classic songs as “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Isobel Lennart’s original book is being revised by Harvey Fierstein. And Mayer has a strong track record, though some of his biggest directing successes have been with rock-inflected material, including “Spring Awakening” in 2006 (for which he won a Tony) and the 2014 revival of“Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”The new production will also feature the choreography of Ellenore Scott and scenic design by David Zinn. Ayodele Casel, an artist in residence at Little Island, will oversee tap choreography for the show.Producers said that additional casting announcements would be released shortly. “Funny Girl” is the second previously unscheduled musical to announce its Broadway opening since the pandemic began. Preview performances for the new musical “Paradise Square” will begin on Feb. 22 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. More