Eliana Willis

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    In ‘What to Send Up,’ I See You, Black American Theater

    Our critic reflects on the significance of Aleshea Harris’s play, at BAM Fisher, for Black audiences.We didn’t know what to do about this piece.Whether I, a Black critic, should review Aleshea Harris’s breathtaking “What to Send Up When It Goes Down,” even though my former colleague Ben Brantley, a white critic, already reviewed and raved about the show’s initial run in 2018. Whether I should be in conversation with a white critic or another Black critic.This is the piece I came up with: I’m reporting on a moment in time when I, a Black critic and a Black woman in America, felt the safest and most embraced by my Blackness in a theater.On a gloomy Friday evening, I went to BAM Fisher for the play, being presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Playwrights Horizons in association with the Movement Theater Company. I headed to the downstairs lobby, which featured portraits of Black men and women killed by the police. The room was full of Black people.If you can’t imagine the comfort of being with people who look like you in a space where art is being made, it’s something like sipping from a steaming cup in the dead of winter: the warmth is precious, immediate and shocking all at once.Harris, a veritable poet of a playwright who also wrote “Is God Is,” describes the play as “a space in the theater that is unrepentantly for and about Black people” — “a space for affirming, and reflecting.” She calls it “an anger spittoon” and “a dance party.” It’s true that “What to Send Up” feels less like a play than it does a series of cathartic experiences — which isn’t to say it isn’t beautiful theater, because it is still very much that.Early on in the show, directed by Whitney White, in a kind of intimate workshop, one performer (Kalyne Coleman, who is stunning as both a performer and the host) asks the audience members, who are all standing in a large semicircle, to step forward if they’d ever witnessed a race-based act of police brutality or if they’d ever been a victim of a racially motivated act of police brutality. Most people stepped forward after the former. About a dozen people, of the 50 or so in attendance, stepped forward in response to the latter, including a 30-something Black couple.Then a series of skits charts all the horrific ways Black people are stereotyped and generally misrepresented in art and in real life. There are biting parodies of troubling Black tropes in entertainment, like the supplicant servant figures in “Driving Miss Daisy” and “The Help.” And there are surreal monologues (one woman recounts how she snatched the mouth off a white man and how it flopped like a fish) alongside stepping, choral songs and spoken word.This was a show that validated my fear and sorrow as a Black citizen of this country and yet still alerted me to the privilege of having had a sheltered suburban upbringing. I thought about the first time someone directly called me the N-word, casually slinging it to the side of my face while I was walking through Midtown Manhattan one weeknight. I thought of all the times I’ve felt uncomfortable as a Black person in a space — in my career, in academia, in social settings. I thought about my growing discomfort around police officers, especially in the last several years.It’s rare for a play to allow me access to both that validation and that awareness of my privilege — because so rarely is Blackness shown onstage and so pointedly aimed toward a Black audience with all the nuances and variations that come within the experiences of their lives.Denise Manning, left, and Kalyne Coleman in “What to Send Up When It Goes Down.”Donna WardAt one point in the show, there is a symbolic Black death, tender though devastating, followed by an extended moment of silence. At another point, we were invited to write messages to Black Americans — they would join the scores of postcards with messages from other audience members that adorn the walls of the theater. Later we were asked to let out a collective, soul-cleansing scream — something I, an introvert, would usually pass on. But the mighty wall of sound led by Black voices — a great sound of exaltation and frustration and defiance all at once — invited me in, and my own voice, unsteady and hesitant, joined. It was like stretching a muscle I never realized existed; the feeling was overwhelming in its depth and release.But, I wondered, can any such space truly and wholly be for a Black audience, especially when there are white audience members there, too? Some part of me was quietly policing the white people in the theater — how they responded to certain scenes and questions, if and when they laughed at certain jokes, if they seemed to hold themselves accountable, if they were taking up too much space.As a critic and a reporter, part of what I do is read the room — how and why audiences react to the happenings onstage, and what that says about the work. But here, I didn’t want to care. In the show’s final minutes, non-Black audience members were invited to leave the theater and gather in the lobby. When I recounted this to a friend afterward, she asked what the white audiences saw, if anything, but I don’t know and — I know this is shameful to admit — I don’t care.I am concerned only with how Harris’s play made me and the other Black people in that room feel. I noted how the couple from earlier clutched each other through most of the show. At some point, the woman left and returned wet-eyed with a handful of tissues. Her partner lovingly rubbed her back.I also ended the show in tears, which I hadn’t expected — but among Black performers and audience members, I felt newly seen and safe. I had a fresh moment of realization, considering my duty as a Black critic. And as a Black poet, I had a moment of inspiration: I want more art like this.Affirmations, exclamations of joy, moments of commemoration: I’ll skip the particulars of those last few holy minutes that were exclusive to the Black audience. I want to honor and extend the loving, communal Black space Harris creates in an art form that has so few of them. And I want to keep it for myself — and for that couple and for the Black woman who, earlier in the show, had said she wished for a future version of this country where she could feel more “human.”I took a slow tour of the theater after the show, and read the messages others had left. “When you breathe, the universe sings,” one notecard read. Any other day in any other place in America, I’d probably find that sentiment too hokey. When have I ever heard singing when inhaling the air of this supposedly great free nation?But at BAM Fisher on that Friday night, I believed in a song of community, of strength and beauty and Black life despite whatever funereal tune is forced upon the lives of Black Americans. Of course I believe in theater for everyone, but I also believe in theater for Black people, and Black people alone.Leaving the venue, I thought of what a pleasure and privilege it was to receive theater gift-wrapped especially for me. And what a pleasure and privilege it is for me to laud it. But the greater pleasure? To tell you something special happened among the Black people in a theater with a qualifier: This play, non-Black theater lover, is not for or about you, and that’s perfectly fine.What to Send Up When It All Goes DownThrough July 11 at BAM Fisher, Brooklyn; bam.org More

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    With Venues Reopening Across New York, Life Is a Cabaret Once Again

    “Thank you all for risking your lives by coming out tonight,” Joe Iconis quipped, welcoming a socially distanced crowd to the June reopening of the cabaret venue Feinstein’s/54 Below in Manhattan.Iconis, a composer, lyricist and performer beloved among young musical theater fans, was joking, but before diving into an alternately goofy and poignant set with the actor and singer George Salazar — a star of Iconis’s first Broadway production, “Be More Chill” — he added, earnestly, “It’s the most incredible thing to be able to do this show for real human beings, not computer screens.”Moist-eyed reunions between artists and fans have been taking place across the city as Covid-19 restrictions are gradually relaxing. “I hope you’re prepared for how emotional it will be when you’re onstage, because it will be emotional for us, supporting artists we love again,” a fan told the band Betty. In the intimate spaces that house these shows, interaction between artists and those who love them is integral to what the downtown fixture Sandra Bernhard called “the in-the-moment, visceral experience.”Storied establishments like the jazz clubs Birdland and Blue Note, newer spots such as the Green Room 42 and City Winery at Hudson River Park (which both reopened in April), along with the East Village alt-cabaret oases Pangea and Club Cumming are once again offering food, drink and in-the-flesh entertainment, as cabaret veterans — along with other jazz and pop acts, and drag performers — return to the work that is their bread and butter.Fans at Feinstein’s/54 Below snap a selfie before Joe Iconis and George Salazar took the stage.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesAn emotional Salazar onstage at Feinstein’s/54 Below.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesSalazar mingles with fans after the June show.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“To see people physiologically responding to music again — toes tapping, heads bopping — that’s almost better than applause,” said the pianist and singer Michael Garin, one of many who used social media to stay connected with fans during the pandemic, and among the first to resume performances for live audiences.But, Garin noted, “It’s not like we’re flipping a switch and bringing everything back to normal.” Particularly in the spring, not everyone was ready to pick up where they left off. “There were some musicians who were ready to book as soon as possible, and others who said, ‘Let me see — I don’t know if I want to be in an indoor space right now,’” said Steven Bensusan, the president of Blue Note Entertainment Group.The producer and host Scott Siegel, creator of the virtual “Scott Siegel’s Nightclub New York,” said that trepidation is still shared by some patrons: “Everybody’s hopeful, but I hear people say they’re nervous. There are also many who come in from outside the tristate area, and it’s more of an effort to get in.”Iconis rehearsing for his return to the live stage.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“It’s the most incredible thing to be able to do this show for real human beings, not computer screens,” Iconis said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesWith regulations still in flux, both vigilance and adaptability are key. Before Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s mid-June announcement that the state could almost fully reopen, Birdland had planned to return at just 50 percent capacity on July 1. Instead, all 150 of its seats have been accessible from the start, with returning variety-show hosts Jim Caruso and Susie Mosher featuring theater and cabaret luminaries such as Chita Rivera and Natalie Douglas in the first week back. (The club’s downstairs space, Birdland Theater, will remain closed until September.) The Blue Note, which reopened in mid-June at roughly two-thirds capacity, has since made all of its 250 seats available. Proof of vaccination against the coronavirus is not required at either club, though masks are recommended for the unvaccinated at Birdland.By contrast, at 54 Below, where the plan is to build gradually back to a full crowd of about 150, proof of vaccination is necessary, as it is in the 60-seat cabaret room at Pangea, still limited to 80 percent capacity. Both venues were among those that developed streaming series while shuttered. “We originally got into it to remain active, but it became a way to pay staff, and expand the audience,” said Richard Frankel, one of the owners of 54 Below, which will kick off the new series “Live From Feinstein’s/54 Below,” offering live streams direct from the venue, on July 11. “Right now we’re focused on reopening live, but it’s definitely something to continue exploring after the dust settles.”Streaming a performance “broadens the spectrum of who’s able to see things, and that’s so important,” said the singer and actress Lilli Cooper.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesRyan Paternite, director of programming at Birdland, has been similarly encouraged by the response to “Radio Free Birdland,” though he added, “My feeling is that people are pretty burned out on watching shows on their computer or phone — especially if they have to pay for tickets.”Artists generally remain bullish on the opportunities posed by technology. “I’m very pro-streaming,” said the Tony Award-nominated singer and actress Lilli Cooper, who is set to appear at 54 Below on July 28 and August 15. “It broadens the spectrum of who’s able to see things, and that’s so important.” Caruso plans to continue streaming his “Pajama Cast Party” weekly; he noted that the virtual program has allowed him to diversify both his audience (“It has become more colorful, literally and figuratively”) and his talent pool (“I’ve delved into TikTok and Instagram and discovered some thrilling new artists”).Many are hopeful that diversity and inclusivity will be further emphasized in an art form that counts artists of color like Mabel Mercer and Bobby Short as historical icons. “My art is often based on what I’ve gone through, and being a Black man is part of that,” said the Broadway veteran Derrick Baskin, who packed R&B classics into his set list for recent dates at 54 Below.Garin, seen from above performing at the piano at the Roxy Hotel.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“It’s not like we’re flipping a switch and bringing everything back to normal,” Garin added.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesJustin Vivian Bond, scheduled to reopen Joe’s Pub in October, said, “The brilliant thing about cabaret is that you can react, if you’re capable, to what’s going on in the world.” For Bond, the pandemic posed challenges as sobering, albeit in a different way, as those faced by the L.G.B.T.Q. community during another plague: “When AIDS was happening, even when people were dying, you could be with them. What we’ve just been through was a very isolating trauma. I don’t know if I’ll have any brilliant insights about it, but hopefully what I’ll say will resonate with the audience.”Bernhard, who will return to Joe’s Pub in December for the annual holiday engagement she had to skip in 2020, still isn’t sure what insights she’ll be offering. “The head space that I’m in, I don’t even know what the next two months are going to bring,” she said. “I just want to perform, like everybody else does right now.”“My art is often based on what I’ve gone through, and being a Black man is part of that,” Derrick Baskin said.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“I cannot imagine any artist now taking any moment of what we do for granted,” Michael Feinstein said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesPerformers and fans will be greeted with renovations at certain venues, and other enticements. Birdland has reduced its ticket price to 99 cents in July, the fee when the club originally opened in 1949. 54 Below is offering a new menu, created by the “Top Chef” winner Harold Dieterle. The West Bank Café’s Laurie Beechman Theater is getting a “face lift,” said its owner, Steve Olsen — fresh paint, new carpet and bar equipment, upgraded sound and lighting — in preparation for a reopening after Labor Day. The Triad Theater also used its forced downtime to “improve the furnishings, repaint and get new equipment,” said the booking director Bernie Furshpan.But it is the love of performing itself, and the perspective gained after a year of lost shows, that is driving many artists’ emotional responses to returning to the stage. Michael Feinstein, the multitasking American songbook champion and namesake for clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as New York, believes “that anyone who is a performer is coming out of this in a very different place, with a deeper sense of connection and joy and gratitude.”“I cannot imagine any artist now taking any moment of what we do for granted,” he added. More

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    Processing the Pandemic at the Manchester International Festival

    The annual arts event in the north of England suggests that focusing on community and inclusiveness could be a natural, post-pandemic outcome for artists.MANCHESTER, England — “Your City, Your Festival.” The slogan is emblazoned on the 2,000-odd posters strung up around the city center here, above pictures of ethnically diverse faces of various genders and ages. That would be the Manchester International Festival, which, against considerable odds, in a region of England particularly affected by the pandemic, opened on schedule on July 1. (It runs through July 18.)Since its inception in 2007, this festival has had a distinctive identity: It presents only new work, across multiple disciplines, usually through high-octane creative collaborations. But this year, despite the (mostly virtual) presence of artists from 22 countries, the festival feels more local than international, with a strong focus on community, inclusiveness and political engagement, mostly expressed through film and the visual arts.The pandemic’s influence on this is clear. Most of the international participants have not been able to travel to Manchester to research, rehearse or perform. Live performance in theaters is still a risky gamble for producers, and the shared productions that have made ambitious projects financially possible in the past have been off the table.About two-thirds of the 2021 program comprises planned projects that had to be reconfigured “because artists couldn’t be here, or we couldn’t rely on having live audiences,” said John McGrath, the artistic director of the festival. The remainder, he added, were new commissions that “weren’t even previously on our radar.” (The $4.15 million budget is about two-thirds of the previous festival amount, he said.)One of the reconfigured events was Boris Charmatz’s “Sea Change,” which opened the festival on Thursday. Originally planned as an outdoor dance performance before 4,000 people, it instead ran for three hours along Deansgate, a wide central shopping thoroughfare. Timed slots controlled the number of onlookers strolling past the 149 performers, mostly local and nonprofessional, who were arranged in a long, continuous line down the center of the street. As sound reverberated from speakers along the trajectory, the performers gesticulated, shouted, whispered and contorted, before running to touch and displace another in the next group, in an ongoing game of tag.Themes emerged and mutated. One group counted down repetitively from 100; another ran in place in different ways; a third shouted out angry slogans (“My body, my choice!” “Boris, out, out, out!” “Free, free Palestine!”). Others reached out hungrily, lay shrieking on the ground or whooped with exultation. “That’s just how I felt after lockdown ended,” a passer-by said with a laugh to her companion.“All the gestures were linked to current circumstances,” Charmatz wrote in an email after the performance. “The anger about not being able to dance, not being able to touch one another, to be between life and death. Every participant interpreted these ideas in his or her own way.”From left, Sean Garratt, Charmene Pang, Jahmarley Bachelor, Kennedy Junior Muntanga and Annie Edwards in “The Global Playground.” Tristram Kenton“Sea Change” was touching and ambitious in scale but not especially memorable as an artistic enterprise. Neither was the children’s show, “Global Playground,” directed by Sue Buckmaster, which incorporated dance, theater, music, puppetry and ventriloquism. Presented in the round, its central conceit involved a director (Sean Garratt) trying rather haplessly to make a dance movie as first his camera, then a brash puppet, talked back to him, while four charming onstage dancers (Jahmarley Bachelor, Annie Edwards, Kennedy Junior Muntanga and Charmene Pang) eluded his control.Gregory Maqoma’s highly varied choreography for these dancers (as well as Thulani Chauke on two large screens at the sides of the stage — a nod to travel problems during Covid-19) and Garratt’s ventriloquist skills were the best parts of the unevenly paced show, which meandered from one set piece to another. More

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    A Call to Diversify Theater Stage Managers

    New initiatives aim to broaden the pool of stage managers of color and introduce antiracist practices into graduate training.Perhaps the hardest-working people in theater, stage managers oversee all aspects of a production. They work closely with the director to mark down every piece of staging — from where the actors and sets are placed, to the sound and lighting cues. During “tech week,” when a show loads into a theater, they run the rehearsal process to ensure that technical aspects of a production flow smoothly before opening night.The stage manager is also responsible for communicating with all the various backstage teams, from the lighting and sound experts to the dressers helping actors do quick changes.“A stage manager is like a conductor,” said Lisa Porter, who over a 25-year career has worked on shows at the Public Theater and the La Jolla Playhouse, among others. “We conduct the tempo and the tone of rehearsals throughout the entire process.“That’s why,” she added, “I believe fluency around antiracism is so important.”Like many positions in theater, however, stage management has remained stubbornly homogeneous. A study published by Actors’ Equity Association (the union for both actors and stage managers) revealed that between 2016 and 2019, 76 percent of stage managers employed on theatrical productions across the country were white. Only 2.63 percent were Black. As with many industries and areas of the arts, the George Floyd protests forced Broadway into a conversation about representation, and Black stage managers and their white allies have been active participants. They are establishing new organizations for racial equity, creating more opportunities for up-and-coming stage managers of color, and even examining aspects of their job that may do more harm than good.Because stage management is a behind-the-scenes job, many people who grow up doing theater don’t know it exists.Narda E. Alcorn, who is stage managing Shakespeare in the Park’s “Merry Wives” this summer, started as an actress. During her sophomore year at Los Angeles County High School of the Arts, she realized she wasn’t the best in her class, but discovered another set of skills.“I was very aware of diversity, representation, and trying to be inclusive, but I was not actively antiracist” until recently, said Narda E. Alcorn, a veteran stage manager.Simbarashe Cha for The New York Times“I knew how to anticipate people’s needs,” she said, “and how communicate to different types of people, like how to speak differently to an actor versus a director or a production person. I didn’t realize there was a job for it until my teacher, thank goodness, recognized it in me.”Alcorn, who is Black, received a BFA in production management from DePaul University and an MFA in stage management from Yale Drama School, where she met Porter, who is white.They’ve been friends ever since, and are both professors of stage management: Porter at the University of California at San Diego, Alcorn at Yale. They incorporated their respective experiences into their 2019 book, “Stage Management Theory as a Guide to Practice.”“Race has always been a factor when Lisa has received a job and when I’ve received a job, conscious or unconsciously,” Alcorn said. “However, in our country, whiteness is not named: It is the default, the norm. Peers have often cited my race as the reason I was hired, whereas with Lisa they cite her experience and skill. For years I felt diminished and tokenized.” (Porter agreed with her colleague’s assertions.)When Black stage managers do get hired, it can be difficult for them to make their voices heard.After graduating with an MFA in stage management from the Columbia University School of the Arts, R. Christopher Maxwell was hired to work on the acclaimed Broadway production of “Oklahoma!” But instead of being put on the stage management team, he was hired as a production assistant, a lower position in the hierarchy.Maxwell, at center, working on “Mlima’s Tale” at Repertory Theater of St. LouisNeeta Satam for The New York TimesThe play script from which Maxwell calls cues.Neeta Satam for The New York TimesLaying down marks on the stage.Neeta Satam for The New York Times“I didn’t have a voice in the room,” said Maxwell, who is currently assistant stage manager for Lynn Nottage’s play “Mlima’s Tale” at the Repertory Theater of St. Louis.Even on shows where he has been a more prominent part of the production, Maxwell said he has struggled to get others to listen to him. On one show, he said he tried to explain to a white production manager that the dancers in the chorus had to wear a certain kind of shoe that matched their skin tone. “They didn’t listen and bought the wrong kind of shoes,” he said.Before the murder of George Floyd, Alcorn, Maxwell and other stage managers of color had rarely spoken up about their experiences.Lisa Dawn Cave, who has been stage managing since the 1990s, helped found Broadway & Beyond.Simbarashe Cha for The New York Times“After George Floyd, people were able to see the disparity in how people of color are treated,” said Lisa Dawn Cave, a Black woman who has been stage managing since the late 1990s. “It’s not that people didn’t take it seriously, it’s that they didn’t see it as widely as they thought, or they’d say, ‘Yes, it’s happening, but we hired one person of color on the team so it’s fine.’”The statistics from the Equity study show the importance of making sure there are Black stage managers in the pipeline. “I only knew four or five of them,” Maxwell said. “So it became my personal mission to see who was out there.”As part of that mission, he co-founded the Black Theater Caucus, where he is currently vice president of production artists. They have partnered with organizations like Cave’s Broadway & Beyond to create initiatives for stage managers of color who have been overlooked.Maxwell has become a delegate to Equity, where he helped to successfully pass a bill that resolves to track the hiring practices of the union’s bargaining partners, increase digital access to auditions, and recognize Indigenous people in union communications.He has also highlighted Black and Latino workers in an Instagram series called Celebrating 101 Black Stage Managers. The Stage Managers’ Association took notice, offering free membership and setting up meetings with veteran stage managers for those singled out.Matthew Stern, who has been stage managing for more than 20 years, runs the Broadway Stage Management Symposium, an annual networking event that created scholarships this year that allowed five stage managers of color to attend the May conference.Matthew Stern runs an annual networking event which this year created scholarships to bring in stage managers from underrepresented groups.Simbarashe Cha for The New York Times“It makes you realize that of course there are great Black stage managers,” said Stern, who is white. “We just don’t know them because we haven’t been in the same circles, and because of our circumstances and our privilege.”American regional theaters have also stepped up. On June 30, the Alliance Theater in Atlanta announced that Shaina Pierce, a Black graduate of the University of Alabama, would be their first holder of a new fellowship for BIPOC stage managers.For Alcorn, change needs to start with training itself.In the past, she said, “I was very aware of diversity, representation and trying to be inclusive, but I was not actively antiracist, because I didn’t actually recognize it as a value. Now I believe it’s as important as empathy, kindness and striving for excellence.”In a 2020 essay for the theater website HowlRound, Alcorn and Porter admitted that as stage managers, they had “unconsciously and complicitly upheld white supremacy culture within the production process.” Now when she teaches stage management, Alcorn shows students how to dismantle preconceptions that she believes can cause harm, like perfectionism.“Stage managers are human beings who make mistakes and errors like every other member of a team,” she said. “I prefer to teach the value of excellence,” which she defines as “addressing mistakes with grace and generosity, and moving forward with greater understanding.” More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ and Shark Week

    Shaka King’s historical drama about the Black Panthers airs on HBO. And Discovery spends a week with sharks once again.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, July 5-11. Details and times are subject to change. More

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    Delia Fiallo, Master of the Telenovela, Is Dead at 96

    She wrote more than 40 telenovelas, the American soap opera’s addictive cousin, and was one of the most celebrated names in Spanish-language television.Delia Fiallo, the Cuban-born television writer known throughout Latin America as the “mother of the telenovela,” the addictively melodramatic Spanish-language cousin to the American soap opera, died on Tuesday at her home in Coral Gables, Fla. She was 96.Her daughter Delia Betancourt confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.Every fan of the genre knew what to expect: Gypsy maidens. Wicked stepmothers. Wealthy, handsome male heirs. Amnesia, fictional illnesses, mistaken identities, misplaced babies. And at the center of it all, a young and beautiful woman who was often an orphan, but always from a humble background, and with whom the well-born young man would fall madly in love — though the couple would be thwarted through all sorts of swirling Shakespearean complications (murder, faked pregnancies, love triangles, those conniving stepmothers) before coming together in a happy ending, 200 or so episodes later. (American soap operas go on forever, with an unending cast of characters. The telenovela works itself out in under a year, with a finite cast of characters. Mostly, they end happily.)“The essential theme of a novela is the story of a love that is obstructed,” Ms. Fiallo told Variety in 1996. “A couple meet, fall in love, suffer obstacles in being able to fulfill that love and at the end reach happiness.” She added, “If you don’t make the public cry, you won’t achieve anything.”Ms. Fiallo was a master of that operatic, weepy form. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, she wrote more than 40 telenovelas, most of which were produced in Venezuela and then adapted (often by Ms. Fiallo herself) and televised all over the world (and continued to be shown long after her last original drama, a blockbuster called “Cristal,” first aired in 1985). In Bosnia, pirated versions of “Kassandra” — which she adapted from a show originally called “Peregrina,” about a Gypsy maiden who falls in love with, well, you know — were so popular that when the series went off the air in 1998 it caused an international incident. The State Department intervened, pleading with the distributor of the series to donate all 150 episodes to maintain the peace in a small Bosnian town riven by political factions but united over its love of the show.“I want my ‘Kassandra,’” The New York Times reported at the time, “became a complaint of many ordinary Bosnians.”While Ms. Fiallo’s Cinderella stories were global successes, it was in the Americas that they resonated the most.In the United States, three generations of Latin American families often wept together in a nightly ritual that’s hard to imagine today. “You watched what your family watched, every day for weeks and months,” said Ana Sofía Peláez, the Cuban American writer and activist, whose fluency in Spanish came in large part from sobbing with her Cuban-born grandfather through years of Fiallo dramas like “Cristal,” “Esmerelda” and “Topacio.” She recalled both of them losing it when Luis (the wealthy stepson of the head of a modeling agency that is the plot pivot of “Cristal”) sang “Mi Vida Eres Tu” — “You Are My Life” — to his beloved Cristal (the orphaned model whose ruthless boss turns out to be her biological mother).“The essential theme of a novela is the story of a love that is obstructed,” Ms. Fiallo once said. “If you don’t make the public cry, you won’t achieve anything.”Leila Macor/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“My grandfather and I were raised in different countries,” Ms. Pelaez said. “We had different frames of reference. But we found the same things romantic, and we were transported by those stories together.“We were all in,” she continued. “It was a shared experience that I didn’t appreciate at the time but I value so much today. It was a pan-Latin experience. Her shows were Venezuelan. But my parents would say proudly, ‘Of course, pero es Cubana’: She is a Cuban writer.”Delia Fiallo was born on July 4, 1924, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, the only child of Felix Fiallo de la Cruz, a doctor, and Maria Ruiz. The family moved often, from small country town to small country town, and Delia, shy and bookish, began writing stories to combat her loneliness.She majored in philosophy at the University of Havana, and in 1948, the year she graduated, won a prestigious literary prize for one of her short stories. She edited a magazine for the Cuban Ministry of Education, worked in public relations and wrote radionovelas — the precursor to the telenovelas that arrived with television in Cuba in the 1950s — all at the same time, before turning to the form that would make her famous.In Cuba before the revolution, that form flourished thanks to the sponsorship of companies like Colgate-Palmolive, said June Carolyn Erlick, the editor of ReVista: The Harvard Review of Latin America, and the author of “Telenovelas in Pan-Latino Context,” (2018). Writers like Ms. Fiallo honed its central themes: “Love, sex, death, the usual.”Ms. Fiallo met her future husband, Bernardo Pascual, the director of a radio station and a television actor, when they were both working in radio. They married in 1952. (Their daughter Delia said it was love at first sight, just like in one of her stories: “She told herself, ‘That man is going to be mine, ese hombre va a ser mío.’”) After the couple moved to Miami in 1966, Mr. Pascual worked in construction and then started a company that built parking garages. “The family joke is that in exile Bernardo passed from the arts to the concrete,” Ms. Fiallo told The Miami Herald in 1987.Ms. Fiallo first tried to sell her scripts in Puerto Rico, for $15 an episode, but Venezuelan broadcasters offered her four times as much; to prepare, she immersed herself in the culture of Venezuela, a country she barely knew, by reading novels and interviewing Venezuelan exchange students in Miami to learn the local idioms.She took her themes from the news, but also from romance classics like “Wuthering Heights.” She often tackled social issues — rape, divorce, addiction — which meant often butting heads with the censors. A late-1960s drama, “Rosario,” a sympathetic exploration of the trauma of divorce, was suspended for a time by the Venezuelan government. In 1984, the government threatened to cancel “Leonela” if Ms. Fiallo didn’t kill off one of its characters, a woman who was a drug addict.“Some friends say I could have chosen a more literary genre,” Ms. Fiallo told The Miami Herald. “But this is what I feel most comfortable with. You can touch more people this way than with any book. Novelas are full of emotions, and emotions are the common denominator of humanity.”In the late 1980s, as many as 100 million viewers in the Americas and Europe tuned in to watch episodes of Ms. Fiallo’s shows. Her fans were devoted to her characters and their odysseys, and they often called her at home — her phone number was listed — to discuss plot lines. One fan, claiming she did not have long to live, begged Ms. Fiallo to reveal one story’s ending.“The fans are passionate about the characters,” she said in 1987. “I would be embarrassed to have my number not listed. I don’t think it would be quite fair.”In addition to her daughter Ms. Betancourt, Ms. Fiallo is survived by three other daughters, Jacqueline Gonzalez, Maria Monzon and Diana Cuevas; a son, Bernardo Pascual; 13 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Mr. Pascual died in 2019.“I consider myself successful if I can deliver to viewers a world of fantasy, even if only for an hour,” Ms. Fiallo told The Miami Herald in 1993. “Everyone is young at heart. Illusions don’t fade with time, and it is beautiful to rekindle a love affair, even if it’s not your own.” More

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    Review: ‘The Watering Hole’ Can’t Quite Quench a Thirst

    The collaborative project conceived by Lynn Nottage is too heterogeneous and muddled to rally around one clear theme or concept.The day I went to the Signature Theater it was so hellishly hot out that it felt as if the air was clinging to my skin. So I stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the Pershing Square Signature Center for “The Watering Hole,” a theatrical installation conceived and curated by the Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon. What I’d hoped for was refreshment. What I left with was a thirst for a more memorable and neatly composed offering.“The Watering Hole,” directed by Haymon, is a collaborative project featuring work by Haymon and Nottage along with Christina Anderson, Matt Barbot, Montana Levi Blanco, Stefania Bulbarella, Amith Chandrashaker, nicHi douglas, Iyvon E., Justin Ellington, Emmie Finckel, Vanessa German, Ryan J. Haddad, Phillip Howze, Haruna Lee, Campbell Silverstein, Charly Evon Simpson and Rhiana Yazzie. For each 80-minute show, a small audience is split into two groups and led through the lobby, dressing rooms, theaters and backstage areas, where they encounter sculptures, audiovisual installations and interactive activities.Part of the conceit, after all, is locating the theater as a gathering space — a place for collaboration. At least I think it is. The production is too heterogeneous and muddled to rally around one clear theme or concept.The grand staircase of the Signature Center is the first stop. The whole space is outlined with sea-blue walking paths and water drop stickers marking where to stand at a safe social distance. Audio interviews from the artists, in which most of them talk about ancestry, play through speakers. So this show is about heritage and ancestry? Well, no. Because there’s all of the water, like a video of Haddad in which he talks about how he, as a disabled man, learned how to swim. So perhaps it’s about independence and resiliency? Then what about German and Lee’s original song, “This Room Is a Broken Heart,” which plays on a mind-numbing loop in the lobby and talks about water as a symbol of grief? And Anderson and Haymon’s karaoke-inspired piece in a dressing room, where there’s a “Big”-style floor piano that you’re invited to use to accompany a song playing on the TV?These are the parts of the show that fly off into the theater ether, like the piece that shows a projection of a figure in a lotus pose who talks about energies, frequencies and chakras. But then this is paired with more literal meditations on water: In one part of the show, in some back hallway, there’s a corner set up for a “dance break,” with a mound of sand, blue and pink fluorescent lights and some slightly deflated beach balls. In that same hallway there’s a corkboard with beach photos and water-themed poems by Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Ada Limón and Natalie Shapero, among others.The most traditional theater piece, “Spray Cap” (created by Barbot and Chandrashaker with Colon-Zayas), a monologue about yearning to come together and celebrate summer after a time of pandemic and isolation, is also the strongest. It’s not just the straightforward approach but the cohesion of it — the clarity of voice and themes, and the clear tie to the installation at large — that highlights what the rest of the production lacks. Even the set design — a stage with two park benches and some crates arranged around a giant hydrant that puffs out steam — fits perfectly with the speaker’s desire for everyone to “come out” and let themselves go in the brutal heat of a summer when people can finally meet up and touch.“Spray Cap” has one of the few designs that actually work in the installation, unlike the handwritten notes and scrolls with words and reflections taped on the walls throughout the complex. Haddad’s video is played in a dark room with a ceiling that projects water scenes and a reflective floor that matches the same cool blue of the pool. And one of three lobby sailboat sculptures — an ornate medley of trinkets and knickknacks like bird figurines, shells and water bottles, along with a white baby piano — is a stunning visual work by German and Lee.But all this still fails to illuminate the upshot. Because “The Watering Hole” also seems to have an interest in a kind of community service. Nottage has said that the “inspiration and organizing principle” of the project came from a collaborative reflection on the Signature as a meeting place. And so one part of the show invites the audience to write on little “sails” what makes them feel safe and add them to a boat in the lobby. And another boat in the lobby holds postcards that audience members are prompted to fill out and write to incarcerated people. Though well-intentioned, it’s hard to find the connective tissue here or, as Nottage says, the organizing principle.Whatever “The Watering Hole” means to express, it’s drowned in this sea of artists.The Watering HoleThrough Aug. 8 Pershing Square Signature Center, Manhattan; 212-244-7529, signaturetheatre.org. More

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    in Television

    Whitney Peak Has Fun on the ‘Gossip Girl’ Reboot

    The teenage actress is also a brand ambassador for Chanel.Name: Whitney PeakAge: 18Hometown: Born in Uganda and raised in Port Coquitlam, a city outside Vancouver, British Columbia.Now Lives: in a loft apartment in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.Claim to Fame: A teenage actress who first made her mark playing small but pivotal roles in Aaron Sorkin’s “Molly’s Game” and “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” Ms. Peak stars in the reboot of “Gossip Girl.” She is a fan of the original teenage soap opera, and the glimpse of the privileged life it provided. “I just loved seeing people complain about things that were so outside of my world,” she said. “It was so ridiculous, but at the same time so good. And now that I’m living in New York, I catch myself complaining about something like that. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m doing it!’”Olivia Galli for The New York TimesBig Break: In 2015, Ms. Peak was doing background work on the TV series “Minority Report” when she was cast as the younger version of Lara Vega, played by Meagan Good. A co-star, Colin Lawrence, was so impressed that he connected her to his agency, Play Management. “For the longest time, acting was just this little thing that I did on the side, a little hobby,” she said. Things shifted, however, when she started acting classes. “That’s when I stopped looking at it as a hobby and as something I’m actually interested in.”Latest Project: The new “Gossip Girl” is a modern riff on the original from the early aughts, with a new cast of characters populating the hallowed halls of Constance Billard, a tony prep school on the Upper East Side. Ms. Peak, who got the role after just one audition, plays Zoya Lott, a new girl with a secret that is set to upend the school’s social hierarchy. “She’s very young and a little bit naïve,” Ms. Peak said.Next Thing: Ms. Peak was recently named a brand ambassador for Chanel. “There’s such a maturity and sophistication about Chanel, but I have fun with the idea of making it look street style,” she said. “That’s so sick.”Pajama Party: Ms. Peak has a more casual approach to style in real life. “If I need to clear my head or I just want dessert, my friend and I will, in our pajamas, walk over to this bakery, Martha’s,” she said. “They have this gluten-free chocolate fudge cake that is out of this world.” More