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    Review: ‘To My Girls,’ a Toast to Millennial ‘Instagays’

    Put three gay frenemies in a Palm Springs Airbnb and what happens? In JC Lee’s new comedy, not enough.They don’t seem to like one another very much, these three gay besties weekending together at a tacky Airbnb in Palm Springs.Castor, an Asian American writer scraping by as a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Sherman Oaks, doesn’t want to room with Leo, a Black “Queen of Queer Theory” with whom, on previous vacations, he’s had fights about marriage equality.He and Leo do agree, though, that Curtis, a hookup hound with cheese-grater abs, is an irredeemable narcissist, unable to curb his buff white privilege for more than 30 seconds no matter how many times he’s called out for it.Curtis just wants everyone to have a good time, as long as it’s on his own terms. He treats Leo as a good-luck charm and Castor as a throw pillow: comforting and disposable. His loyalty is to his Instagram followers.If this round-robin of frenemy fire puts you in mind of “The Boys in the Band,” Mart Crowley’s 1968 play about catty and self-hating gay men a year before Stonewall, you aren’t far off. JC Lee’s muddled new comedy, “To My Girls,” which opened on Tuesday in a Second Stage Theater production, does function, in part, as a millennial update to the earlier and much more pointed work. Call it “The Boys in the Sand,” set not at the dawn of liberation but at its eyes-wide-shut dusk.Like Crowley’s play, “To My Girls” assembles a clutch of 30-somethings — Castor (Maulik Pancholy), Leo (Britton Smith), Curtis (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and a fourth who arrives later — in a safe space where they can be themselves. Here, the space isn’t a mod Greenwich Village apartment but a midcentury bungalow bursting with winky accents that create what one character calls a “Jonathan Adler aesthetic.” (The eyestrain-inducing room and the fake palms outside it are by Arnulfo Maldonado; the desert glare and rippled reflections by Jen Schriever.)“To My Girls” also echoes “The Boys in the Band” in providing contrast to the bickering, self-involved central characters with two outsiders: Bernie (Bryan Batt), the 60-something gay Republican who owns the Airbnb, and Omar (Noah J. Ricketts), a happy 20-something hottie Castor brings back from a bar. To Omar, no less than Bernie, the others look like weird exhibits in a museum of unnatural history.From left, Bryan Batt, Johnson, Smith and Pancholy performing for followers of one of the play’s Instagram-obsessed characters.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThat effect is apparently what Lee wants. “Imagine the future archaeologist who has to sort through social media to write their thesis on millennial queens,” Leo says, not thrilled by what he assumes the archaeologist will conclude.If “To My Girls” is a first draft of that thesis, it’s not a convincing one; its arguments, which are little more than quips, point in too many directions. Do “Instagays” posing “topless with Maya Angelou quotes as their caption” signal, as Castor suggests, the death knell of queer fabulousness? Or, as Leo counters, is heteronormativity the poison? Or, as the play itself seems to demonstrate, is everything really just fine?Lee, whose play “Luce,” from 2013, is as tightly wound as this one is aimless, seems to want it all ways. Social media and conformity may be killing gay culture, but everyone participates joyfully in the music video Curtis is making to attract more followers. It’s the jolliest thing in the show: a synchronized dance to the Pussycat Dolls song “When I Grow Up,” performed in heels, wigs and diaphanous floral-print caftans. (The costumes, and lack thereof, are by Sarafina Bush.)“I wanna be famous/I wanna be a star,” they lip-sync with no irony.That the routine must pass as one of the play’s high points is part of the problem, indicating how little is happening otherwise. Yes, one character sleeps with another, upsetting a third, but nothing much comes of it. The political and generational arguments, not exactly fresh in the first place, change no one’s mind, perhaps because, as in “The Boys in the Band,” everyone’s blitzed within minutes of arrival. (The play’s title is a toast.) What the high-octane margaritas do for the characters, the quick-sketch rhythms of the writing do for the drama: delink action from reaction. Expediency is all.Noah J. Ricketts, center, with Batt, left, and Pancholy in JC Lee’s comedy, directed by Stephen Brackett.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWhen the jokes are good enough, that’s diverting in small doses. Castor, analogous to Harold, the “ugly, pockmarked Jew fairy” in “The Boys in the Band,” gets the best lines, often at his own expense — and Pancholy sells them well. In the play’s most compelling scene, with Ricketts’s witty Omar, you can see Castor growing out of his old, self-hating self toward something new, even as you wonder whether he has done so before, perhaps many times, and reverted.Though the setup of that scene is not credible, and it lasts only five or six minutes, I could have watched a whole play that built its smart observations into meaningful conflict that alters characters. Unfortunately, the actual play disposes of such moments instantaneously, and thus, under Stephen Brackett’s keep-it-snappy direction, has no cumulative power. At the end, everyone’s basically where they started, except hung over. You don’t doubt that another weekend in another few years would play out just the same.Which is not how life goes — and certainly not how gay life does. Change has been so big and breakneck since “The Boys in the Band” that you can hardly tell the backlashes from the front ones. Even a comedy should acknowledge that, as Drew Droege did in “Bright Colors and Bold Patterns” and “Happy Birthday Doug,” a pair of scalding one-man shows about those left mangled on the tracks as the gay rights locomotive chugs on.No one is mangled, or even much moved, in “To My Girls,” a play that asks gay men to “protect the fire that keeps you flaming” but never shows what the fire is made of. Tequila, perhaps?To My GirlsThrough April 24 at the Tony Kiser Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Will the Virus Cooperate With Broadway’s Spring Rebound?

    Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.After a gloomy winter in which the Omicron variant shriveled Broadway’s lucrative holiday season, New York’s vaunted theater industry has been betting on a big spring, nearly doubling the number of shows on offer as the pandemic-battered business thirsts for a rebound.Adding all those plays and musicals — 16 new productions plus three returning from hiatuses are opening over a five-week stretch — was always going to be a gamble, since no one knows, in this not-yet-post-pandemic era, whether there are enough tourists and theatergoing locals to sustain that many shows.And now the stubborn persistence of the coronavirus is complicating matters even further. A rising number of cases in New York City, coinciding with the arrival of the virus’s BA. 2 subvariant, has once again rocked Broadway, infecting some of its biggest stars, including Daniel Craig, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and forcing four shows to temporarily cancel performances.“Our hope is that this isn’t a moment, but rather this is the way we will function now,” Parker said as she reflected on the high number of spring Broadway openings.OK McCausland for The New York Times“What we thought we were entering into this spring, which was always going to be busy and crowded, over the last week has changed dramatically,” said Greg Nobile, the lead producer of a new farce, “POTUS,” which, while still in rehearsals, has had to adapt as four of its seven actresses tested positive for the coronavirus. “Somehow it feels like, ‘This again?’ The answer is yes, but this time, we need to ask the question, how do we truly keep the show on, and what are the ways we are adjusting to what is a new normal?”Broadway’s big spring began on a cold night in late March with the opening of a revival of “Plaza Suite,” a Neil Simon comedy starring Parker and Broderick that was initially scheduled to start performances on March 13, 2020. Broadway shut down for the pandemic the day before that performance, and the Hudson Theater remained vacant, with the married co-stars’ names on the marquee and the set on the stage, for two full years before they returned to try again.“Every time I can walk a red carpet, I know it’s going to bring green currency to our city,” Mayor Eric Adams of New York said at the “Plaza Suite” opening.OK McCausland for The New York Times“Our hope is that this isn’t a moment, but rather this is the way we will function now,” Parker, in a pink satin gown with a beaded tulle overlay, said opening night at the end of an 80-foot-long preshow red carpet. “We have restaurants waiting to reopen still, we have hotel employees waiting to come back, we have delis that have been hit, we have ushers who are wanting to work the front of the house.”The crowd that came out to cheer her on, which included Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laura Linney, Cynthia Nixon and Martin Short, was buoyant.Broderick, finished with the gauntlet of camera crews arrayed inside a translucent tent, remarked how much he had enjoyed returning to the theater as an audience member, and now as a performer. “We’re learning to live with the pandemic or endemic — whatever you want to call it now — so the stronger theater and everything New York gets, the more normal life is,” he said. “This is part of the world coming back.”But eight days later, he tested positive, and two days later, so did she.Broadway openings remain starry, even in an era of few parties. Among those at the “Plaza Suite” opening: Anna Wintour, the longtime Vogue editor. OK McCausland for The New York TimesThe crowd that came out to cheer Parker and Broderick on included Mikhail Baryshnikov and his wife, Lisa Rinehart.OK McCausland for The New York Times“Plaza Suite” has been closed since Thursday, as has “Paradise Square,” a new musical which was already struggling at the box office and can ill afford the lost revenue. Craig’s show, a revival of “Macbeth,” canceled 10 days of its preview period. And “A Strange Loop,” a new musical which won the Pulitzer Prize based on its Off Broadway run, has postponed the start of its previews. All cited positive coronavirus tests among company members as the reason; all hope to resume performances this week.The latest virus-related cancellations were all at new shows; shows that have been running longer had more time to prepare for cast absences, and have been able to soldier on with understudies. Most notably, a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” that opened last December temporarily lost six of its principals to positive coronavirus tests in April, including its lead actress, Katrina Lenk, but the show went on. (Its best known performer, Patti LuPone, was not among those stricken, possibly because she had tested positive in late February and missed 10 days then.)And the effects are not limited to Broadway: Off Broadway, shows including “Suffs,” at the Public Theater, and “At the Wedding,” at Lincoln Center Theater, have also temporarily canceled performances.The industry is undergoing a stress test of sorts, as the annual crush of Broadway openings, which tend to cluster just before an end-of-April deadline to qualify for the Tony Awards, is even bigger than usual because some productions postponed their start dates in the hopes of avoiding the peak of the Omicron variant. This month features the highest number of Broadway openings in any April for more than a decade.So many shows are opening that Times Square rehearsal space is scarce, so the farce “POTUS” turned to Union Square. Among those in the cast are Julianne Hough, front left, and Vanessa Williams, front right.OK McCausland for The New York TimesBroadway is always a risky business, in which far more shows fail than succeed. Some producers acknowledge that having a glut of new shows vying for attention and audience at the same fraught time is less than ideal, but they tend to be optimists, and each seems to believe that theirs is the show audiences have been waiting for.“You can play a bit of chicken-and-egg,” said Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which runs five Broadway houses. “Should we wait until every tourist is in town? But why is every tourist going to be in town if we wait? At some point we have to decide that we’re going to live.”This is actually Broadway’s second attempt at a rebound. The first began gradually last June, with the return engagement of Bruce Springsteen’s wildly popular evening of songs and storytelling. The first play began performances last August, and in September, with a moment of hope and celebration, the biggest musicals returned.Julie White, right, was among the members of the “POTUS” cast who tested positive during rehearsals. On White’s first day back, still coughing and wearing a mask, the play’s director, Susan Stroman, helped silence prop watches.OK McCausland for The New York TimesEarly box office grosses and attendance were encouragingly robust. But then the Omicron variant arrived in New York, contributing to the premature closing of nine shows and crushing attendance at the worst possible time of year: Only 62 percent of Broadway’s seats were occupied during the week ending Jan. 9.Through late winter, there were only 19 shows running in Broadway’s 41 theaters. With little competition, many of those left standing — mostly established hits or shows with famous titles — did quite well. By the week ending March 20, 92 percent of seats were occupied.Now, as the number of shows grows, and untested titles join the hits, average attendance is slipping, with 85 percent of seats filled during the week ending April 3. Overall, 224,053 people were at the 31 shows running that week, which is the highest number of ticket holders this year, but is substantially lower than the 315,320 who attended the 38 shows running during the comparable week in 2019.“The reopening of these shows is a real celebration of moving forward,” said Tom Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance, which is marking this busy spring with a display of 10-foot-tall Playbill monoliths erected on a theater district pedestrian plaza. He noted that while Times Square was growing livelier, it is still quieter than it used to be: In March there were about 255,000 people passing through the neighborhood on an average day, he said, down from about 365,000 daily visitors before the pandemic.The play did not miss a day of rehearsals, despite cast absences; in this scene, Anita Abdinezhad, seated, filled in for Rachel Dratch. OK McCausland for The New York TimesUntil the pandemic, Broadway was booming, with 14.8 million ticket holders spending $1.8 billion at the box office during the 2018-19 season, which was the last full season before the coronavirus. But travelers to New York City, who before the pandemic accounted for two-thirds of the Broadway audience, have not returned in prepandemic numbers; the city’s tourism agency is projecting 56.4 million visitors this year, down from 66.6 million in 2019.That helps explain why Mayor Eric Adams had been celebrating Broadway at every opportunity — showing up at the openings of “The Music Man” and “Paradise Square” and attending a student performance of “Hamilton” in recent weeks.“Every time I can walk a red carpet,” Adams said in an interview at the “Plaza Suite” opening, “I know it’s going to bring green currency to our city.”On Sunday, he too tested positive for the coronavirus.The play is a comedy by Selina Fillinger about seven women who try to shore up a problematic president. OK McCausland for The New York TimesNow, as the city has dropped vaccine mandates at restaurants and other public spaces, Broadway must decide whether to do the same. Its current safety protocols, which require that all ticket holders show proof of vaccination to enter theaters and remain masked while inside, except when eating or drinking, are in place through April 30. Theater owners and operators had planned to announce by April 1 whether they would extend those rules, but they postponed that decision until April 15 as case counts rose.At the same time, the new shows keep coming. So many are opening this month that “POTUS,” whose stars include Julianne Hough and Vanessa Williams, wound up rehearsing at the Daryl Roth Theater, in Union Square, because the production could not find suitable space in the theater district.On a recent Saturday, the cast gathered to work on scenes on a makeshift White House set. One of the stars, Rachel Dratch, was still out with the coronavirus, so her part was rehearsed by an understudy, Anita Abdinezhad, while another star, Julie White, was back for the first time since finishing her isolation period. White, who had kept an eye on rehearsals via video while recuperating, was still coughing beneath a mask, but had her lines down cold, and she leaned in to the comedy.As she arrived, she was visibly delighted to be back at work. She noted her relief at finally seeing negative results on her daily coronavirus test, saying, “It was so good to see that single line this morning.”Audio produced by More

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    Actors in ‘Waitress’ Tour Seek to Join Labor Union

    Employees of a nonunion production are seeking improved compensation and safety protocols, saying a union version of the same musical pays better.A group of actors and stage managers employed by a nonunion touring production of the musical “Waitress” is seeking union representation, emboldened by a growing focus on working conditions in the theater business and by the labor movement’s recent successes in other industries.Actors’ Equity Association, a labor union representing 51,000 performers and stage managers, said it had collected signatures from more than the 30 percent of workers required to seek an election, and that on Tuesday it had submitted an election petition to the National Labor Relations Board, which conducts such elections.The number of people affected is small — there are 22 actors and stage managers employed by the tour, according to Equity — but the move is significant because it is the first time Equity has tried to organize a nonunion tour since an unsuccessful effort two decades ago to unionize a touring production of “The Music Man.” (The union also sought a boycott of that production.)Union officials said the “Waitress” tour was an obvious place for an organizing campaign because of an unusually clear comparison: There are currently two touring companies of that musical, one of which is represented by the union and one of which is not. The workers in the nonunion tour are being paid about one-third of what the workers in the union company are making, and have lesser safety protections, Equity said. (The minimum union actor salary is $2,244 per week.)“We thought it was not right and not fair, so we approached them to see if they were interested in us representing them,” said Stefanie Frey, the union’s director of organizing and mobilization. Frey said that the productions were so similar that some of the nonunion performers have been asked to teach performers in the union production, and that some have moved from the nonunion production to the union production. “It’s an obvious group of people getting exploited,” she said.Jennifer Ardizzone-West, the chief operating officer at NETworks Presentations, the company that is producing the nonunion “Waitress” tour, declined to offer an immediate reaction, saying, “Until we see the actual filing, it is premature for me to comment.”Tours are an important, and lucrative, part of the Broadway economy. During the 2018-19 theater season — the last full season before the pandemic — unionized touring shows grossed $1.6 billion and were attended by 18.5 million people, according to the Broadway League. Similar statistics are not readily available for nonunion tours, but Frey said, “The nonunion tour world has grown over the last 15 years.”Equity is in the process of hiring two additional organizers as it seeks to expand its efforts, according to a union spokesman, David Levy, who noted recent successful efforts to organize some employees at REI, Starbucks and Amazon. The National Labor Relations Board said last week that the number of union election petitions has been increasing dramatically.Frey said the long pandemic shutdown of theaters had also contributed to a new interest in organizing in the theater industry. “Workers are feeling a little bit more of their power and want to fight for what they deserve in a different way,” she said. More

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    Laurence Fishburne Cools Down With Classic Jazz and Cashmere Blankets

    The actor is back on Broadway for a revival of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.” He discusses his other must-haves, like a chef’s knife, trampolines and crystals.“I have a working knowledge of what my gifts are,” Laurence Fishburne said. “I’ve been blessed with a wonderful voice. And I have a real innate sense of the dramatic.”Fishburne, 60, was speaking, in that velvet baritone, a few hours before his call at Circle in the Square for the Broadway revival of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” a brisk study in hustle and flow.Though best known for his film work (the original “Matrix” trilogy, “Boyz N the Hood,” the “John Wick” series), which trades on his sleek looks and natural authority, Fishburne is a Tony-winning actor. He has rarely stayed away from theater for long.He last appeared on Broadway in 2008, in the one-man show “Thurgood.” And it took him more than a decade to find another stage role that he wanted: Donny, the avuncular owner of a shabby junk shop. With his friends Teach (Sam Rockwell) and Bobby (Darren Criss), Donny agrees to a plan to rob a wealthy customer of a valuable coin.“He’s the father figure in this triangle of these three men,” he said of Donny. “He’s trying to guide them and protect them and school them as best he can.”“American Buffalo” was in rehearsals when the pandemic hit. Fishburne and his colleagues kept working on the play for months afterward, which Fishburne said had allowed him to dig into his role more deeply and better present the precise rhythms of Mamet’s language.“He works with these seemingly simple words that are loaded with a lot of tension, a lot of subtext, a lot of nuance,” Fishburne said of Mamet’s script. “It’s like a beautiful piece of music.”From his home, an apartment on the Upper West Side where he keeps a mini trampoline and assorted crystals, he discussed the items, artworks and philosophies that help him shake that tension off. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. A chef’s knife I’m an only child and both my parents worked. Sometimes I had to fend for myself. So I did kind of grow up cooking. A chef’s knife with a great handle and a great edge, that’s what you need. It can chop your onions and your celery, smash your garlic, do all your prep work so you can eat well. I love to cook Caribbean-style food, Italian-style food, Asian-style food. There’s a fish I like to do with tomato and saffron, Cornish game hens, roasted with jam and port wine. I’m pretty good in the kitchen.2. James Allen’s “As a Man Thinketh” I was given this book when I was about 30, and it really changed my life. It’s a book about meditation and the power of thought and the reality of life and truth. I started meditating and my life got better. My life has improved.3. A good pair of shoes These feet, they carry us around. We’ve got to be good to them. It’s not a brand thing. The foot is as individual as the fingerprint. It’s just whatever feels right, whatever feels comfortable, whatever supports your foot well. Right now I’m wearing a pair of beautiful, lace-up wingtip boots. They fit great. And I have some shoes made by my friend Ozwald Boateng that are my dress shoes.4. My favorite music I listen to mostly music that was made in the last century. I’m not allergic to music that is being made today. I just need a booster. I need somebody young to introduce me to the music that’s happening now. Some of my favorite music would be Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue,” “John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman,” “Identity” by Airto Moreira, “Band of Gypsys,” Cassandra Wilson, the Beatles, the Stones. Howlin’ Wolf, Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson.5. A great neck pillow and a warm blanket I’m a good napper. Actors, we have to use our energy like cats — we lie around and sleep a lot and then we have to get up and perform. So having a little place to lay down with a pillow that cradles the neck, supports the head, keeps the spine in alignment, it’s all good. Cashmere makes a great blanket. I actually have one of those in my dressing room at the theater. It’s fantastic.6. Moroccan mint tea There’s a restaurant in Los Angeles that I’ve been eating at since I was a kid, Moun of Tunis. At the end of the meal, they serve mint tea and almond cakes. Mint is such a wonderful taste and smell, such a wonderful flavor. It just brightens everything up. Makes me happy.7. A mini trampoline It’s low impact, gets your blood going. Kind of like jumping rope, without jumping rope. You get to defy gravity, seconds at a time. I have a mini tramp at both my homes. I do a routine, but there’s nothing rigid about it.8. Crystals I got into crystals around 1988. My house in Los Angeles, I’ve got a bunch of crystals there. I only have a few here in New York. But I have a medicine bag of them that I sleep with. There’s a Herkimer diamond in it. There’s a piece of moldavite in it, a piece of smoky quartz, a piece of tourmaline. I get a good sound sleep every night. And my dreams can be very vivid. Crystals are medicine, man.9. Meditation A calm and serene mind is the product of calm and serene thoughts, positive thoughts. You can train the mind like you can train a muscle. I try to meditate daily for at least 15 minutes. I generally sit down in a sort of lotus position. Sometimes I lie down. When I started meditating, I became very centered and very grounded. I began to take responsibility for my life, for my thoughts, my words and my deeds. I’ve just gotten an Oculus and there’s a wonderful meditation app on it called Trip that’s just out of this world fun.10. Movies of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s In my library I have “Lawrence of Arabia,” “To Sir, With Love.” Another movie with Mr. Poitier, called “Brother John.” Another O’Toole film called “The Lion in Winter.” What else do I have? Oh, “The Man Who Would Be King.” Great movie. “The Fugitive Kind.” That’s with Marlon Brando. “My Favorite Year.” Seeing these movies makes me hungry. Makes me happy. Makes me hungry. More

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    Joel Grey, on Making a Space for Art and Dreams

    The prolific actor, writer and photographer just turned 90, in a 1970s-style West Village loft that speaks to his many passions.Rain threatened on a recent Tuesday morning, and there was a chill in the air. But inside Joel Grey’s loft in Manhattan’s West Village, it was spring.Yellow roses — some doing a solo act, some in a clump — pink and yellow tulips, and pink and purple hyacinths sat in various containers on the round table in the open kitchen, on the glass coffee table, on a side table and on the skinny, rectangular dining table. Yet more multicolored roses, splayed atop a cabinet, were — how to put this nicely? — pushing up daisies.Mr. Grey, who won a Tony in 1967 and an Oscar in 1973 for his ineradicable portrayal of the feverishly rouged M.C. in the musical “Cabaret,” stood at the kitchen counter trying to arrange a new grouping of tulips. (He spends $50 a week on flowers at the local Whole Foods.) But these seemed to be an uncooperative bunch. “You kids are being difficult,” he told them, turning away for a minute to say hello to a visitor.Based on the evidence of an admittedly small sample — a reporter, a photographer, a publicist — the eternally pixieish Mr. Grey greets guests as though they were the winning lottery tickets that he thought he’d lost.But perhaps some of this ebullience was situational. “You know, it’s almost my 90th birthday,” he announced, clapping his hands like a delighted child, and leading the way to his office. There, on a hanger, was an orange sweatshirt with “1932” emblazoned in large black numbers on the front. (For the record, April 11 was the day.)“A darling friend gave a sweatshirt to Duane Michals for his 90th birthday, in February,” Mr. Grey said, referring to the photographer. “And I told her, ‘I want one too!’”The Tony- and Oscar-winning actor Joel Grey lives in a loft in the West Village, where he is surrounded by art and the souvenirs of his travels.Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesJoel Grey, 90Occupation: Actor, writer, photographerNot by design: “My style is not eclectic, but rather serendipity. I’m truly Mr. Serendipity. Nothing I’ve bought was planned. Everything in here is about the moment.”He bought the apartment in the late 1990s, based on a floor plan.“I wanted to be in the Village. It was a whole new world to me,” said Mr. Grey, who had been living on the top floor of the Hotel Des Artistes on West 67th Street in an apartment that was put together, room by room, from former maids’ quarters, and had a skylight and a terrace. “But my brother told me, ‘You can’t live down there.’ At the time, it was very scrubby and scruffy on the streets near the West Side Highway. The place where the boats came in — the piers — it was all very undone.”But what was scrubby and scruffy when measured against proximity to the Hudson River? Mr. Grey watches it roll by from the built-in daybed where he drinks his morning coffee and reads his morning paper: “It’s my friend and my partner and my serenity.”He was further captivated by the “wet-clay” possibilities of a new-construction building. “It was about open space,” he said, “which I found so alluring, and about the mystery of how to make it a home. It was an adventure.”Mr. Grey’s well-traveled Vuitton trunks have been repurposed as side tables.Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesA very personal adventure. There’s no interest here in showing off designers or making vignettes. Minimalist and neutral, with clean lines, columns and concrete floors, the apartment is part 1970s SoHo loft, part midcentury-modern design, with a cowhide rug on the floor of the bedroom, a cowhide-covered butterfly chair and a Jens Risom woven chair.“But I don’t think about periods,” Mr. Grey said. “I think about exclamation points.”Perhaps the exclamation points are the works of art: by, among others, Richard Tuttle, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, Joan Miró, Sally Gall and Mr. Michals. Woodcarvings of antelope heads stand in a row on a windowsill. African sculptures dot the piano. There’s a galley wall in the primary bathroom.Mr. Grey is, of course, best known as an actor and director (of the acclaimed 2018 Yiddish version of “Fiddler on the Roof”), and he continues to perform. He is part of the cast of “The Old Man,” a series scheduled to premiere on FX in mid-June. “I am not the old man,” he said, before anyone has a chance to ask.When Mr. Grey directed a Yiddish version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” his assistant gave him an appropriately themed pincushion. Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesBut over the past dozen and a half years, Mr. Grey has also made a name for himself as a photographer. His work has been the focus of gallery shows and of several monographs. His most recent book of photographs, “The Flower Whisperer,” published in 2019, paid tribute to the nether regions of daisies, sunflowers, lilies, daffodils et al.Stuck inside during the pandemic, Mr. Grey began looking for — and photographing — the faces he saw in dried petals. They will be the subject of his next book. “Look up there. It’s a whole new world,” he said, pointing to a detail in the image of a dead blossom hanging on a partition in his office. “I see a bow tie.”Art and design have long been a part of his life. Growing up in Cleveland, the 8-year-old Joel fantasized about getting lost at the local museum and shut in overnight. Later, as work began taking him out of town, he invariably returned to New York with crafts. When, at the age of 19, he went to London to play the Palladium, he visited Positano, Italy, “and now I am looking at these monkey candlesticks I brought home,” he said, nodding toward the coffee table.A friend gave Mr. Grey a sweatshirt as a 90th-birthday present.Stefano Ukmar for The New York TimesShelves in Mr. Grey’s closet/dressing room display marionettes from Mexico; figures, bowls, vases and baskets from European ports; and, a little closer to home, collages made by his mother, Grace.The mother-son relationship, as chronicled in Mr. Grey’s 2016 memoir, “Master of Ceremonies,” was complicated. But it was because of Grace, he said, that even as a struggling actor, he cared deeply about his surroundings.“I always did up my apartments, even if I only spent a dollar and a quarter,” he said. “My mother and father taught me the importance of being professional and of making a place for myself. And my mother was all about making a space for art.”He has made the place and made the space. “It was all about, ‘Let’s figure this out,’” Mr. Grey said. “‘Let’s dream a little here.’ I’m a big believer in dreams.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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    Stephen Colbert Laughs Off Trump’s Shilling for Dr. Oz

    “Come on, he’s a con man. And so is Dr. Oz,” Colbert joked of the former president.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.Con Men ClubOver the weekend, former President Donald Trump endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race.“Come on, he’s a con man. And so is Dr. Oz,” Stephen Colbert joked.“Now, I’d like to list all the scams Dr. Oz has tried to foist on his audience, but we only have an hour show.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Among the many snake oil supplements he has peddled are raspberry ketones for fat burning, lavender soap for leg cramps and strawberries for teeth whitening. None of these work, of course, but hey, there is one simple trick to make you healthier: Take two household bananas, then jam one in each ear until you can’t hear Dr. Oz anymore. You’ll be fine, or you’ll be better!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Aw, grandpa thinks his TV friends are his real friends. [imitating Trump] ‘You know who should be attorney general? That nice lady from “Murder, She Wrote.” She solved all of the murders in Cabot Cove. Also, when are they going to make Pat Sajak secretary of transportation? He knows wheels!’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Pumpkin Crown Father Edition)“CNN got their hands on text messages between Don Jr. and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Nov. 5, 2020. D.J.T.J. sent Meadows a number of ideas of how to ‘win’ the election they lost. He said, ‘We have multiple paths. We control them all.’ Junior would have texted his dad directly, but apparently Trump didn’t add him to the family plan.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Listen, if you’re gonna text your plans to overthrow an election, at least disguise it with emojis: ‘I got an idea: ballot box, trash can, American flag, poop emoji, pumpkin, crown, father.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Junior was so confident in the plan that he was concerned that not everyone was looped in, texting, ‘This is what we need to do. Please read it and please get it to everyone that needs to see it.’ Oh, I’m pretty sure the F.B.I. has seen it.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingBen Stiller, the director of “Severance,” sat down with Trevor Noah on Monday’s “Daily Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightGillian Anderson will talk about playing Eleanor Roosevelt in “The First Lady” on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This Out“Ava is controlled chaos,” Janelle James said of her character on “Abbott Elementary,” a mockumentary-style sitcom on ABC praised for both its humor and its poignancy.Kendall Bessent for The New York TimesJanelle James, the breakout star of “Abbott Elementary,” loves playing a hilariously terrible elementary school principal. More

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    Review: ‘The Little Prince,’ a Lumbering Circus

    A stage version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic of children’s literature lands on Broadway but remains stubbornly earthbound.Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince,” a megaselling classic of children’s literature first published in 1943, begins with a crash landing. Now, an adaptation of the beloved tale has made a similarly unfortunate entrance on Broadway.The show is trying to juggle theater, dancical, circus, cabaret and everybody’s favorite: philosophical musing. It’s a mix that Cirque du Soleil, especially with the shows directed by the mastermind Franco Dragone, has fine-tuned into cohesive spectacles. And the company’s achievements seem even more remarkable in comparison to this underwhelming mishmash, which opened on Monday at the Broadway Theater.This “Little Prince” is an uncomfortable hybrid, neither fish nor fowl nor sheep. When the childlike being (his age is unclear in the book, which is part of the point) runs into a stranded aviator at the start of the show, he asks, “Please, draw me a sheep.” Enter a flock of actors, prancing and dancing in shapeless outfits, and bleating like the sweet, lovable animals. This is when, a few minutes into a nearly two-hour-long production, the realization hits that this “Little Prince” is going to be a long day’s journey into whimsy.Saint-Exupéry, a Frenchman who doubled as a pilot in the 1920s and ’30s, wrote and illustrated “The Little Prince” while exiled in New York during World War II. The book was first published here in 1943, which is why the manuscript is in the Morgan Library & Museum’s collection. Well, except for right now because it is on loan to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs for an exhibition, the precious artifact’s first trip to France in almost eight decades.New York, for its part, is getting this stage version, which premiered in Paris in 2019 and has toured extensively since. It’s hard to fight the sneaking suspicion that we have been shortchanged.Zalachas, left, and Aurélien Bednarek as the Aviator in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe aviator (Aurélien Bednarek) and the Little Prince (the adult Lionel Zalachas, his blond, spiky hair making him look like Sting in the original “Dune” film) meet cute in the Sahara: one’s plane went down and the other is visiting from a tiny asteroid. As the aviator tries to repair his engine, the Little Prince tells him of his surreal encounters with a series of creatures on various intergalactic worlds, including a fetching rose (Laurisse Sulty), a number-crunching businessman (Adrien Picaut), a manipulative snake (Srilata Ray) and a wise fox (Dylan Barone), who delivers one of the story’s most famous lines: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”The book is a parable so rich in flights, ahem, of fancy that it has been adapted over the decades into plays, musicals, movies, operas, graphic novels and games. (Connoisseurs of Hollywood kitsch may fondly remember Stanley Donen’s film, from 1974, in which Bob Fosse conclusively established that a snake can smoke and do jazz hands.)The structure lends itself well to a circus-like, vignette-based show because each encounter can become a number, and you can string one after another with minimal interference from a traditional plot. Still, those who have not read the book — and even those who have — may wonder what the heck is going on, and the staging and performances are not strong enough to prevent the mind from wandering to such questions.Zalachas, left, and Laurisse Sulty as the Rose he leaves behind.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesA central issue is the leaden onstage narration by Chris Mouron, who also wrote the adaptation and is a co-director with the choreographer Anne Tournié. Cutting an androgynous figure in a green do and a steampunk-butler suit, Mouron haltingly declaims her lines (in English) as if delivering Racine monologues, and effectively sucks all of the potential levity from the show. Like the best children’s literature, Saint-Exupéry’s book is bittersweet, and even touches upon tragedy, but it also has a poetic grace and many touches of surreal humor — few of which are in evidence here.Instead the show lumbers from one scene to the next, with a few aerial feats and a too-brief apparition by the ring-like apparatus known as a Cyr wheel drowned out by too much bland dancing and way too much of Terry Truck’s recorded neo-Classical, New Agey score. Contributing to the mood — make of that what you wish — are Peggy Housset’s merely serviceable costumes and video design by Marie Jumelin that looks like a Photoshopped jumble of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte paintings, the head-trippy 1970s animated film “Fantastic Planet” and Roger Dean’s illustrations for Yes album covers.Despite the performers spending time suspended about the stage, the production remains stubbornly earthbound. Until, that is, what turns out to be a somewhat perverse move: the single showstopping scene, in which Antony Cesar flies over the audience, happens after the curtain call, when there is no show to stop anymore.The Little PrinceThrough Aug. 14 at Broadway Theater, Manhattan; thelittleprincebroadway.com; Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. More

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    Benedict Lombe Wins the Blackburn Prize for ‘Lava’

    The British Congolese playwright earned the $25,000 prize for her memoir-monologue that deals with Black identity and displacement.For the first time in the 44-year history of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to a female, transgender or nonbinary playwright who writes for the English-language theater, the honor has gone to the writer of a debut play.Benedict Lombe, 30, a British Congolese playwright based in London, received the award on Monday for “Lava,” a one-woman memoir-monologue that deals with Black identity and displacement.“It feels incredible,” Lombe said in a phone conversation on Monday evening en route to the award ceremony at the Globe theater in London. “It’s a huge play that allows me to create a space where Black people can leave taller than when they walked in.”The Blackburn Prize comes with $25,000, as well as a signed print by the abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning. Many of its recipients have gone on to great acclaim (among them, the Pulitzer Prize winners Annie Baker, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Paula Vogel and Wendy Wasserstein).Lombe’s “Lava” was commissioned by the Bush Theater in London, and debuted there in July 2021. Ronke Adékoluejo starred in the one-woman show, directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike. In reviewing the work for The Guardian, Kate Wyver praised Adékoluejo’s indefatigable charisma, writing that she “controls the stage with such ease, oozing charm and confidence.”But under the bright joy of Adékoluejo’s performance, Wyver wrote, “fury rumbles in Lombe’s text.”“With hindsight, she takes us through incidents and aggressions from her life, each one being pushed into the pit of her stomach, gnawing at her, getting heavier as she carries the cumulative weight,” Wyver wrote.“Lava,” which Andrzej Lukowski of Time Out London characterized as a “freeform poetic eruption,” tells the story of a British Congolese woman who discovers a tale of quiet rebellion when she has to renew her British passport and wonders why her South African passport — a country she is also a citizen of — does not carry her first name. It takes place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during the time of Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship; post-apartheid South Africa; Ireland; and London.“It was gratifying to be able to celebrate Black people in fullness,” said Lombe, who wrote the play in the summer of 2020, “and to uplift us when so many people were feeling the opposite when they walked in.”Along with Lombe, the nine other finalists for the Blackburn Prize were honored. They received $5,000 each, and included Zora Howard, who was honored for her play “Bust.” One of Howard’s previous works, “Stew,” was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.Last year, Erika Dickerson-Despenza won the Blackburn Prize for her play “cullud wattah,” a look at the water crisis in Flint, Mich., through the lens of one family. It went on to be produced at the Public Theater last fall.Is a New York run also in the cards for “Lava”?“I mean, fingers crossed,” said Lombe, who is in residence with the National Theater Studio in London and working on new commissions. “I hope so. We’ll see what happens.” More