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    Jimmy Fallon: Trump Wanted a General With Coup Appeal

    “You can tell a leader really knows his stuff when he uses the phrase ‘do a coup,’” Fallon said of Trump, who belittled a general for fearing he might try to stay in power.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.‘I’d Coup You’In a new book about Donald Trump’s final year in office, the authors write that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, feared Trump would attempt to stage a coup to remain in power after losing the election. Trump responded on Thursday: “If I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is Gen. Mark Milley.”“You can tell a leader really knows his stuff when he uses the phrase, ‘do a coup,’” Jimmy Fallon joked on “The Tonight Show.”“For the next 15 minutes, he named all the people he would do a coup with: ‘I’d coup you. I’d coup you. You’re coup-able.’” — JIMMY FALLON“OK, you’ve clearly put some thought into this thing you’re ‘not into.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“We really need to come up with a better early warning system than tell-all books. ‘We’re in danger — quick, get me a typewriter!’” — SETH MEYERS“In a new book, Milley reveals that following the election night, he thought the ex-president ‘was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military,’ saying, ‘This is a Reichstag moment.’ No surprise — the last president was very popular with the alt-Reich.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Of course, the Reichstag fire was in 1930s Germany, when an attack on the country’s legislative branch was used as a pretext to solidify fascist control. What the MAGA crowd did this year was totally different — because it was in English.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Olivia Rodrigo Edition)“During a visit to the White House yesterday, pop star Olivia Rodrigo made a surprise appearance at the afternoon press briefing to help promote youth vaccinations, which should have a big impact on the millions of teens who watch the White House press briefings.” — SETH MEYERS“That’s right, pop star Olivia Rodrigo made a surprise appearance at the afternoon press briefings. It was almost as surprising as when Sarah Sanders would appear at one.” — SETH MEYERS“Side note here — it’s nice to see a real celebrity at the White House after the last four years, when the previous president could only manage to dig up the likes of Ted Nugent or Scott Baio.” — SETH MEYERS“Biden’s got huge celebrities helping him out with an unprecedented nationwide campaign to get Americans vaccinated against a deadly disease, and all Trump could muster was 18 holes with Kid Rock and his flag pants, which look like something you buy for six bucks at a truck stop because you tore the [expletive] out of your good pants rock-climbing on peyote.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingBarry Jenkins, an Oscar-winning screenwriter and director, talked to Desus and Mero about telling stories of Black trauma onscreen.Also, Check This OutDavid Byrne, center, with Chris Giarmo, left, and Tendayi Kuumba in “American Utopia.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBroadway is finally back, with new Covid safety protocols and productions in previews still working out the kinks. More

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    New Playwrights Horizons Season Includes Will Arbery World Premiere

    Arbery’s “Corsicana” was added to the theater’s slate for next summer, along with four plays previously announced for 2021.Nearly a year ago, Playwrights Horizons’ new artistic director Adam Greenfield unveiled a four-play season for 2021, with all the titles directed by women and written by nonwhite authors.All four titles — Aleshea Harris’s “What to Send Up When It Goes Down,” Sylvia Khoury’s “Selling Kabul,” Dave Harris’s “Tambo & Bones,” and Sanaz Toossi’s “Wish You Were Here” — now have opening dates as part of Playwrights Horizons’ 2021-22 season, which is set to begin in September. And the lineup has an exciting addition: Next summer, the nonprofit theater on West 42nd Street will present the world premiere of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Will Arbery’s “Corsicana,” directed by Sam Gold.“I wanted to make good on the plays we had already scheduled and show that I was committed to these writers,” Greenfield, who is now in his second year as artistic director, said in a phone conversation on Tuesday. “Each of these pieces demands to be heard.”Arbery, who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” his depiction of contemporary conservatism that premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2019, is set to return to the nonprofit Off Broadway theater in June 2022 with “Corsicana.” The play tells the story of a woman with Down syndrome and her younger half brother as they grapple with their mother’s death in a small city in Texas and become entangled with a reclusive local artist. It will be directed by Gold, who won a Tony Award for helming “Fun Home” on Broadway and will also direct a staging of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” at New York Theater Workshop in its 2022-23 season that had originally been planned for 2020, and whose starry cast includes Greta Gerwig and Oscar Isaac.The rest of the 2021-22 season is set to start in September with “What to Send Up When It Goes Down,” a ritual-as-play by the Obie winner Aleshea Harris that honors Black lives lost to racialized violence. A co-production with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the show recently concluded a run at BAM Fisher under the direction of Whitney White (“Our Dear Dead Drug Lord”), who will stay on when the production moves to Playwrights. The New York Times critic Maya Phillips praised “What to Send Up” as “a series of cathartic experiences” for audience members of color at BAM.Next up in November is Khoury’s “Selling Kabul,” a thriller set in Afghanistan that examines the human cost of immigration policy, and which will be directed by Tyne Rafaeli. The play was initially slated for the 2019-20 season and was in rehearsals when the pandemic closed theaters in March 2020.“It tracks the experience of those Afghans who were left behind as we’ve been leaving Afghanistan,” Greenfield said. “That is a subject that has been in the news increasingly over the last year.”Then in January comes the world premiere of Dave Harris’s “Tambo & Bones,” which is being billed as a “hip-hop triptych” about two characters trapped in a minstrel show. It will be directed by Taylor Reynolds. In April, the theater will stage Toossi’s dramatic comedy “Wish You Were Here,” which follows best friends who grapple with cultural upheaval amid the Iranian Revolution. It will be directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch.Greenfield said that a new show by the “Slave Play” writer Jeremy O. Harris — “A Boy’s Company Presents: Tell Me If I’m Hurting You,” which was originally scheduled to open in May 2020 before being scuttled by the pandemic — will not be part of the 2021-22 season.“There was a backlog of plays that had been discussed, and some just made more sense to reopen with,” Greenfield said, adding, “It’s still in discussions.”(After this article was published, Harris wrote on Twitter that he had told Greenfield he had “no interest” in staging his play at Playwrights Horizons any longer, and that his treatment by the theater had been “disrespectful.” “We’re not discussing anything,” he said.)Along with its main productions, Playwrights offered details about its other projects. Eleven writers have been commissioned to produce work for the second season of the theater’s scripted fiction podcast series, “Soundstage.” The company is also continuing its new performance series, Lighthouse Project, that aims to fill the periods between scheduled productions with installations, performances and events by in-house artists rather than renting space to outside groups. More

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    17 New York Arts Organizations Are Among Those Receiving $30 Million

    The Queens Museum, Harlem Stage and 44 other groups were chosen to receive aid from Bloomberg Philanthropies for digital innovation.The Queens Museum is among 46 cultural nonprofit organizations selected for a new $30 million program by Bloomberg Philanthropies that is intended to support improving technology at the groups and helping them stabilize and thrive in the wake of the pandemic. A Bloomberg Tech Fellow is being appointed at each organization, the philanthropies announced Tuesday.Heryte Tequame, assistant director of communications and digital projects at the museum, was chosen as its fellow in what is known as the Digital Accelerator program and will be in charge of developing a digital project of her choice. In an interview she said that in 2020, the museum “realized where we needed to expand our capacity and invest more.”“I think now we’re really taking the time to see what we can do that has longevity,” Tequame said. “And not just being responsive, but really being proactive and having a real future-facing strategy.”The organizations don’t know exactly how much of the $30 million each will receive yet, but Tequame said she wants to use at least some of it on the museum’s permanent collection.Another recipient, Harlem Stage, selected Deirdre May, senior director of digital content and marketing, as its tech fellow.That performing arts center — which largely focuses on artists of color — aims to use the assistance in part to increase accessibility, Patricia Cruz, its chief executive and artistic director, said in an interview. “People who cannot leave their homes, for example, would be able to see some of the finest artistic performances that could be made,” Cruz said, because “that’s the core of what we do.”The 46 organizations selected for the program include nonprofits in the United States and Britain. Among them are 26 in the United States, and 17 of those are in New York City, including the Apollo Theater, the Ghetto Film School and the Tenement Museum. The chief executive of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Patricia E. Harris, said in a statement that when the pandemic hit, cultural organizations had to get creative to keep their (virtual) doors open.“Now we’re excited to launch the Accelerator program to help more arts organizations sustain innovations and investments,” Harris said, “and strengthen tech and management practices that are key to their long-term success.”As Cruz from Harlem Stage put it, “We’re ready to be accelerated.” More

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    Review: ‘Schmigadoon!’ Has a Song in Its Heart, and Everywhere Else

    The Apple TV+ series both mocks and embraces the glories of classic musicals like “Brigadoon,” “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel.”Welcome to Schmigadoon, “where the men are men, and the cows are cows,” a magical musical land where Melissa and Josh (Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key) find themselves stranded during a trip meant to rehabilitate their romance. At first they think it’s like Colonial Williamsburg, or a warped Disney experience, but they quickly buy into their new reality: They’re trapped in this wholesome, old-timey parallel universe until they learn the lessons about true love it is meant to impart. More

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    Covid Surge Shuts Down West End Shows

    Many London theaters are canceling performances, and people in the industry fear that more productions will have to close when England ends distancing and mask-wearing requirements next week.LONDON — The cast and crew of “Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner,” an experimental play at the Royal Court, were just two weeks into their run when they received some bad news: One member of the company had tested positive for the coronavirus, and everyone had to quarantine.On July 4, the theater canceled performances for a week.The next day, the producers of “Hairspray” at the London Coliseum announced that they were canceling nine days of shows, because a member of the production team had tested positive, and later that week the Globe called off a performance of “Romeo & Juliet,” because an actor in the show had, too.This Monday alone, “The Prince of Egypt” at the Dominion Theater; another “Romeo & Juliet,” at the Regent’s Park Theater; and “Bach and Sons,” at the Bridge were all canceled for at least five days because of confirmed or potential cases.The spate of abandoned shows comes at what was supposed to be a celebratory moment for British theater. Starting Monday, playhouses in England will be allowed to open at full capacity for the first time since the pandemic began, as the country ends restrictions on social life in an effort to restore normalcy while living with the virus. Audience members will no longer have to wear masks inside theaters, although many are encouraging patrons keep them on.Yet with coronavirus cases soaring in Britain because of the more contagious Delta variant, theaters fear more cancellations, given that many young actors and crew members are not yet fully vaccinated. “We are all ready for it to happen again,” Lucy Davies, the Royal Court’s executive producer, said in a telephone interview. “It’s going to be fragile all summer.”“The Prince of Egypt,” at the Dominion Theater, shut down on Monday along with two other London shows.Matt CrockettCalled-off shows will cause further financial stress on cash-strapped theaters, Davies said, especially because no commercial insurers in Britain offer cover for coronavirus-related cancellations. And producers say the British government’s coronavirus rules are part of the problem. When people test positive here, they are required to quarantine for 10 days, as must all of their “close contacts” — defined as anyone who has been within about six feet of an infected person for 15 minutes.In Britain, more than 42,000 new coronavirus cases were recorded on Wednesday, a number last seen in January when the country was in lockdown to prevent its health system from being overwhelmed. Sajid Javid, the health minister, said on Monday that daily numbers were likely to rise to over 100,000 a day during the summer, although hospitalizations and deaths are expected to be much lower than in previous waves of infection, because two-thrids of adults have been fully vaccinated.In the first week of July, more than 520,000 people in England were told to quarantine as close contacts, according to official figures. They have to isolate even if they test negative for the virus or have had two vaccination shots.Eleanor Lloyd, a producer who is the president of the Society of London Theater, said that most of the cancellations were because of close contacts who were told to isolate, rather than positive cases.The Regent’s Park Theater said in an emailed statement that several of its staff members had been told to stay at home and were still in quarantine, despite later testing negative. “We do need an alternative to automatic self-isolation for our acting company and crew, as the current situation is simply unsustainable,” the statement said.Starting Aug. 16, fully vaccinated close contacts will no longer need to quarantine. “It’ll be better from then,” Lloyd said. But that is still a month away, and the risks may continue longer. So she is considering employing more understudies for a forthcoming production of Agatha Christie’s “Witness for the Prosecution.” That would have a cost, too, she said.London theaters have adopted safety measures to try to limit the risk of outbreaks. In most, casts and crew are tested several times a week, and masks and distancing are typically required offstage. But “people are traveling to and from the theater, and that is a risk, however safe our environment is,” Davies said.Joel MacCormack and Isabel Adomakoh Young in the title roles of the Regent’s Park Theater production of “Romeo and Juliet.” The show’s producers also had to call off performances.Jane HobsonThe safest productions seem to be those created especially for these pandemic times, with social distancing among the players both onstage and behind the scenes. The Globe has used this approach for shows like its “Romeo & Juliet.”Even so, last Saturday, Will Edgerton, who is playing Tybalt, learned that he had the virus after performing a home test.The Globe canceled that afternoon’s show so that a new actor could rehearse the role, then went ahead with the evening performance. “We are unique, as Shakespeare’s plays can be presented with distancing,” Neil Constable, the theater’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview. “But when you’ve got a major musical like ‘The Prince of Egypt,’ which costs millions of pounds and has lots of people onstage, you don’t have that option.”He said the British government should underwrite theaters’ risks, a sentiment that echoes calls by other leaders from Britain’s theater industry for a state-run insurance program. Last year, the government introduced a similar initiative for TV and movie shoots, but it has not announced anything for other forms of cultural life, as European governments like those of Germany and Austria have done.“We understand the challenges live events have in securing indemnity cover and are exploring what further support may be required,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s culture ministry said in an email.Davies, the Royal Court executive, said a safety net was badly needed, especially for commercial theaters that don’t receive public subsidies.She had a recent experience of the benefits of insurance, she said. On Monday, the cast and crew of “Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner” were scheduled to return to the stage for their first performance since completing their quarantines — but then a severe storm flooded the theater’s basement and the show was canceled again.“It was devastating — it was their comeback,” Davies said, before adding that the theater’s insurers had covered some of its losses that night. “We’re insured for flooding,” she said, “just not Covid.” More

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    In ‘Bach & Sons,’ a Composer Stares Down Death

    The new play at the Bridge Theater in London and two other productions on the city’s stages examine characters facing the end.LONDON — Few actors could stare down mortality better than Simon Russell Beale in “Bach & Sons,” a problematic new play at the Bridge Theater that benefits from a piercing central performance. Telling of the often testy relationship between the composer Johann Sebastian Bach and two of his 20 children, both sons who were musicians as well, the writer Nina Raine has come up with a research-heavy play that could be described as “Amadeus” lite. Like that play, Peter Shaffer’s celebrated take on Mozart, “Bach & Sons” features extended discussions of the nature of mediocrity, and also leans toward the scatological. Amid an expletive-heavy script, one character makes a passing reference to “a turd in the tureen.”Nicholas Hytner’s production boasts an evocative design from Vicki Mortimer, with cascading keyboards hanging above the stage; as in “Amadeus,” the dialogue often cuts off to make way for excerpts from the composer’s output. Beale with Racheal Ofori as Anna Magdalena Wilcke in another scene from “Bach & Sons.” Manuel HarlanOver time, Bach Sr. loses his sight and cedes ground to his son Carl (a vivid Samuel Blenkin), whom the father derides as musically “efficient” — a decided slight from a visionary who likes his art messier and more inspiring. Yet all Carl wants is simply to be loved. (Another son, Wilhelm, is played by Douggie McMeekin as an artistic prodigy doomed to failure.)The family chat consists largely of extolling the power of music, when you can’t help but feel that, really, they would have gotten on with making it. A climactic discourse on dissonance reminded me of Georges Seurat’s quest for harmony in the musical “Sunday in the Park With George,” to cite a more moving depiction of the creative process than “Bach & Sons,” with its boilerplate pronouncements about the value of art. Even so, Beale commands attention as the aging and worn Bach fades away. The composer’s canon, we’re told, can be characterized as a meditation on “the variety of grief,” and Beale communicates a man who has lived that grief himself: The actor cuts against the sentimentality of the writing to catch directly at the heart. “You can’t go on living and living and living,” says a character at the start of Nick Payne’s “Constellations” — and so it’s not altogether surprising when this 70-minute play turns toward confronting death in its second half.Payne’s one-act two-hander was first seen at the Royal Court in 2012 before transferring to the West End and then Broadway. The elegant staging from the director Michael Longhurst is now being revived at the Vaudeville Theater through Sept. 12, with the designer Tom Scutt’s buoyant cloudscape of balloons intact.Peter Capaldi and Zoe Wanamaker in Nick Payne‘s “Constellations,” directed by Michael Longhurst at the Vaudeville Theater.Marc BrennerThis time, there are four casts rotating across the run, and London theatergoers have so far had the opportunity to see two of them. (Among those still to come is a gay coupling that will feature the TV and stage name Russell Tovey.) The changing players reveal wildly contrasting takes on a tricky if accessible text in which events, large and small, are replayed with different outcomes, in accordance with Payne’s interest in the existence of a “multiverse.” That notion of alternate worlds coexisting alongside ours fuels a play that explores the infinite variability of life’s every moment, except the final one, which is always death.Peter Capaldi and Zoe Wanamaker, the oldest duo of the four, are also the more actorly of the two seen so far: You feel Wanamaker, especially, standing outside her character, Marianne, a Cambridge brainiac who holds forth on quantum mechanics and string theory. The parts don’t feel like a natural fit for either performer, though Capaldi, a onetime Doctor Who on TV, compensates with an abundance of charm. A much younger company brings together Sheila Atim (who won an Olivier for her role in “Girl From the North Country”) and Ivanno Jeremiah, who have a visceral connection onstage. Jeremiah is immediately likable as Roland, a beekeeper who meets Marianne at a barbecue and engages with her in a strange conversation about licking your elbow — to be honest, such exchanges work much better with the younger cast. Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah in “Constellations.”Marc BrennerAnd when Marianne confronts her possibly foreshortened life, the astonishing Atim communicates the gravitas of the situation even as Payne’s play makes clear that her fate can be rewritten with a happier ending in a parallel universe. These two are so good that, on a fourth viewing of the play, I felt as if I were seeing “Constellations” afresh: Atim and Jeremiah replay familiar material so it seems new — a virtue in a play that makes so much of repetition.If “Constellations” is late in raising the specter that its leading woman will die too soon, we know from the start that this is what will happen to the heroine of “Last Easter,” the 2004 play by Bryony Lavery at the intimate Orange Tree Theater through Aug. 7. (The show will be livestreamed on the theater’s website on July 22 and 23.) The director Tinuke Craig’s nimble production finds surprising levels of comedy in this story of June (the excellent Naana Agyei-Ampadu), a lighting designer with terminal cancer who goes on a pilgrimage with three friends to Lourdes, France, because — well, why not? Maybe a miracle will happen.June, it seems, is especially fond of the painter Caravaggio, and the first act veers away from anything maudlin toward lessons in art history one minute, a jaunty snatch or two from the song “Easter Parade” the next. The tone is unexpectedly breezy, and the camaraderie between June and her pals, also theater practitioners, is nicely done. These friendships keep June’s spirits buoyant, even as her body starts to let her down.From left, Naana Agyei-Ampadu, Jodie Jacobs and Peter Caulfield in Bryony Lavery’s “Last Easter,” directed by Tinuke Craig at the Orange Tree Theater.Helen MurrayYet after the intermission, as June’s condition worsens, the writing turns more self-conscious. June’s devoted buddy Gash (Peter Caulfield) twice calls out “cliché alert,” and several events are described as “undramatic,” an unusual choice of adjective for a dramatist. (The quartet also includes the character of a heavy-drinking actress who soon wears out her welcome, both as written and performed.)The imminence of death seems to defy this gifted writer, who goes for the sort of deathbed scene that has been seen onstage and in movies many times over. Whatever the reason for “Last Easter’s” prosaic closing scenes, they share with “Constellations” a sense that mortality comes best in good company.Bach & Sons. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. Bridge Theater, through Sept. 11.Constellations. Directed by Michael Longhurst. Vaudeville Theater, through Sept. 12.Last Easter. Directed by Tinuke Craig. Orange Tree Theater, through Aug. 7. More

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    Stephen Colbert Tackles Books About Trump’s Time in Office

    Tell-alls about the Trump presidency include “Landslide,” “Betrayal” and “Nightmare Scenario,” “which is also how the former president describes having to read a book,” Colbert joked on Wednesday.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.Good Reads“We’re learning a lot of new details about the last days in office of former president, the Turd Reich,” Stephen Colbert joked on Wednesday of Donald J. Trump. Those books have names like “Landslide,” “Betrayal” and “Nightmare Scenario,” which Colbert said was “also how the former president describes having to read a book.”“Other new books are using titles that are actually quotes of his, like ‘I Alone Can Fix It,’ and ‘Frankly, We Did Win This Election.’ Those, of course, join the ranks of other great titles, like ‘People Are Flushing Toilets 10 Times, 15 Times,’ ‘The Kidney Has a Very Special Place in the Heart,’ ‘Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV: The Book,’ and, of course, ‘In Europe, They Live, Their Forest Cities. They Are Called Forest Cities, They Maintain Their Forests, They Manage Their Forests. I Was With the Head of a Major Country — It’s a Forest City.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The big bombshell from these books is an account of the infamous moment during the D.C. Black Lives Matter protest when the big strong law and order president hid in an underground bunker. The ex-president was so embarrassed when his little hidy-hole adventure was leaked that he reportedly said, ‘Whoever did that, they should be charged with treason,’ adding, ‘They should be executed.’ Careful, sir, if you start executing people for leaking, you’ll have to find a new lawyer.” — STEPHEN COLBERTTonight’s Monologue: Trump says whoever ‘leaked’ info on his White House bunker stay should be ‘executed,’ the Olympics’ new weird medal rule, and Biden’s “red phone” with China. #FallonMono #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/hm3CYZwVps— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) July 15, 2021
    “In Trump’s defense, he didn’t want to stay in that bunker, but once he went down all those stairs, there’s no way he’s going back up.” — JIMMY FALLON“Speaking of Trump, a new book just came out that describes ‘anarchy and chaos’ in the final days of his administration. Yeah, the final days were ‘anarchy and chaos,’ as opposed to the early days of Omarosa and Scaramucci that were a well-oiled machine, I guess.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Good 4 You’ Edition)“Pop star Olivia Rodrigo met with President Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci today to discuss coronavirus vaccine outreach. That story, again: America’s No. 1 teen idol met with Joe Biden and Olivia Rodrigo.” — SETH MEYERS“Vaccination rates are especially low among the younglings, so today pop star Olivia Rodrigo went to the White House to promote vaccines. Rodrigo told everyone who has already been vaxxed, ‘Good for you, you look happy and healthy.’ If you didn’t get that reference, I’m guessing you’ve been eligible for a vaccine since December.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“There she is about to enter the same door used by historical figures like James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln and Kid Rock.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian Phoebe Robinson, who was the guest host on Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” surprised the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion Zaila Avant-garde with an appearance from Bill Murray.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightLorde will perform her new single, “Solar Power,” on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutIn “Ted Lasso,” Jason Sudeikis plays a character he helped create in 2013 for NBC Sports promos. “It was like, What about just playing a good guy?” he said.Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesJason Sudeikis and the creative team behind the Apple TV+ show, “Ted Lasso,” which returns for a second season on July 23, talk about its surprise success. More

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    Court Orders Resentencing of Joe Exotic in ‘Tiger King’ Murder-for-Hire Plot

    An appeals court upheld the conviction but ruled that the trial court had miscalculated the sentence for hiring people to kill Carole Baskin.The 22-year prison sentence given to Joe Exotic, the central character in the popular Netflix series “Tiger King,” was vacated as improper on Wednesday by a federal appeals court that affirmed his conviction but ordered him resentenced for hiring people to kill his nemesis, Carole Baskin.Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was sentenced to prison last year after he twice tried to hire people — including an undercover F.B.I. agent — to kill Ms. Baskin, a self-proclaimed animal-rights activist who had criticized his big cat zoo’s treatment of animals.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s appeal that his sentence was too long. He argued that a Federal District Court in Oklahoma did not group his two murder-for-hire convictions when his sentence was calculated. If the court had grouped the two counts together instead of considering the counts for separate sentences, his prison term could have been as low as 17 and a half years, according to the court ruling.In addition to two counts of murder-for-hire, Mr. Maldonado-Passage, 58, was found guilty of falsifying wildlife records and violating the Endangered Species Act for his role in trafficking and killing tigers. The court on Wednesday upheld his convictions.In a recording his lawyers provided to The Times, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said after the ruling that he believed his original sentence was “absolute crap.” He also said that Ms. Baskin said she would help him get out of prison if he supported the Big Cat Public Safety Act, a congressional bill limiting the trade of big cats.Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s lawyer for the appeal, Brandon Sample, said in a statement on Wednesday that he was optimistic that the court’s decision was the first of many victories for his client.“I knew when I agreed to represent Joe that an appeal would be difficult,” Mr. Sample said, “but I also knew that the law was on Joe’s side.”Carole Baskin at her Big Cat Rescue compound near Tampa, Fla., in 2017.Loren Elliott/Tampa Bay Times, via Associated PressThe contentious relationship between Mr. Maldonado-Passage and Ms. Baskin, 60, was one of the main plot lines of “Tiger King.” He owned a zoo, the G.W. Exotic Animal Park in Wynnewood, Okla., that housed lions, tigers and big cat crossbreeds, which Ms. Baskin condemned, prosecutors said. Ms. Baskin operated her own big cat facility in Florida, but she described hers as a sanctuary that did not crossbreed big cats.The feud escalated when Mr. Maldonado-Passage renamed his cat shows “Big Cat Rescue Entertainment,” a name similar to Ms. Baskin’s sanctuary, “Big Cat Rescue.” Ms. Baskin won a $1 million lawsuit against him over the name dispute, and he filed for bankruptcy because he could not afford his legal fees, prosecutors said.“It was a rivalry made in heaven,” the court ruling said.Mr. Maldonado-Passage decided to retaliate by hiring two people in 2017 to kill Ms. Baskin in Florida, a federal jury found. He paid his zoo employee, Alan Glover, $3,000 to travel to Tampa and cut off Ms. Baskin’s head.But Mr. Glover “got no further than partying on Florida beaches,” the appeals court ruling said.A month later, Mr. Maldonado-Passage offered a $10,000 payment to a man who turned out to be an undercover F.B.I. agent. He was arrested in 2018.“Despite all his efforts, Maldonado-Passage’s murderous plans failed,” the court ruling said.Mr. Maldonado-Passage now awaits a new sentence as he languishes in a Texas prison, the same place where he tried and failed to persuade President Donald Trump to pardon him. He’s hoping that President Biden will free him.“President Biden, if you are listening,” Mr. Maldonado-Passage said in the recording, “this is the time that you need to be a world hero and sign that pardon.”John M. Phillips, another lawyer for Mr. Maldonado-Passage, said in a statement that his team has new evidence that could change the outcome of the case. The lawyer claims that Ms. Baskin’s husband, Howard Baskin, had spoken years ago with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about infiltrating Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s zoo.“People should know what they saw in television isn’t the full truth,” Mr. Phillips said. “It isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.”Mr. Baskin did not immediately respond to requests for comment. More