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    Before Jussie Smollett Sentencing, His Supporters Ask for ‘Mercy’

    A judge must decide whether to send the actor to prison after a jury convicted him last year of falsely reporting that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime in 2019.Ahead of a sentencing hearing on Thursday, celebrities and racial justice advocates like Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, the actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson; the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., have written letters pleading for leniency for Jussie Smollett, the actor convicted of falsely reporting that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.“Jussie has already suffered,” the Rev. Jackson wrote to the judge handling the case. “He has been excoriated and vilified in the court of public opinion. His professional reputation has been severely damaged.”Mr. Smollett, 39, was convicted of felony disorderly conduct — which carries a maximum of three years in prison — relating to conversations he had with the police just after reporting the attack. But defendants convicted of similar crimes in the past have been sentenced to probation and community service.Many of the letters cite Mr. Smollett’s history of volunteer work, the nonviolent nature of his offense and the reputational damage he had already suffered following charges that the 2019 attack was actually a hoax that he had planned to drum up publicity. Others who have written on his behalf include the actress Alfre Woodard and Melina Abdullah, a founder of Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles.During the trial, the prosecution argued that Mr. Smollett had instructed two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, to attack him near his Chicago apartment building, yelling racist and homophobic slurs at him, punching him hard enough to only create a bruise and placing a rope around his neck like a noose. Both brothers testified against him, acknowledging their role in the incident, which they said had been staged. The actor himself took the stand during seven hours of testimony over two days to deny that he had played any role.Prosecutors have not indicated whether they will push for prison time at the hearing.“It’s the judge who has the total and exclusive authority to impose a sentence,” said Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the Smollett case, has not said whether he will recommend that the actor be sent to prison. Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockAt the outset of Thursday’s proceeding, Judge James B. Linn is expected to rule on a motion by lawyers for Mr. Smollett, who is best known for his role in the hip-hop drama “Empire,” that seeks to have the conviction thrown out or for the actor to gain a new trial.In papers filed with the court last month, the lawyers argued that Judge Linn displayed a “hostile attitude” toward the defense and acted inappropriately when the defense attempted to present evidence that one of the brothers had made homophobic statements and that the attack on Mr. Smollett, who is gay, could have been motivated by bias.In their motion, the defense lawyers cited an instance in which Judge Linn called a line of questioning about a homophobic comment by Olabinjo Osundairo “very collateral matters.”The defense argued that this comment could have swayed the jury and that the line of questioning was central to their argument that the Osundairo brothers perpetrated a “real attack” against Mr. Smollett “driven by homophobia.” (During testimony, Olabinjo Osundairo repeatedly denied being homophobic.)During the trial, Judge Linn rejected the defense’s request for a mistrial at the time, defending his use of the term “collateral” as simply referring to matters outside the direct facts of Mr. Smollett’s case.As part of their bid for a new trial, the defense also argued that during jury selection, prosecutors displayed a pattern of seeking to dismiss Black potential jurors — resulting in a final group that included one Black juror and a Black alternate.Prosecutors argued in court papers that the accusation of discrimination during jury selection was unfounded and that they had provided “race-neutral” explanations for challenging the inclusion of those jurors.Possibilities for Mr. Smollett’s sentence also include restitution, which, in his case, would likely mean paying the city of Chicago for the money it expended while investigating his hate crime report.In a court filing ahead of the sentencing, a city lawyer and the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department urged prosecutors to ask the court to order Mr. Smollett to pay them more than $130,000, explaining that police officers had “worked around the clock” to find the perpetrators of the attack.“The city is a victim of Mr. Smollett’s crimes because his false reports caused CPD to expend scarce resources that could have been devoted to solving actual crimes,” the filing said. The city currently has a pending lawsuit against Mr. Smollett in which they asked for the same amount of money.In their letter to Judge Linn, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson said they have known Mr. Smollett since he was a child and later through charitable work. The Jacksons asked Judge Linn for “mercy” and argued that Mr. Smollett “used his celebrity to impact community outreach work,” including to aid people in Flint, Mich., during the water crisis.In his letter, Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote that he worried about Mr. Smollett’s safety in prison as a “well-known, nonviolent, Black, gay man with Jewish heritage.”In making the sentencing decision, the court will consider Mr. Smollett’s criminal history, which involves a single incident from 2007 in California. He was convicted in that case of driving under the influence, driving without a license and giving false information to the police, all misdemeanors. Mr. Smollett was sentenced to probation and community service and was required to complete substance abuse treatment, according to a pre-sentencing report written by a probation officer and filed with the court.The report was based on an interview with Mr. Smollett after his conviction, in which the actor said he had been suffering from “excessive stress,” dealing with financial problems and asking to undergo substance abuse treatment for a few years. Mr. Smollett told the probation officer that he hoped to pursue directing.The actor, who is out of jail on bond, generally declined to discuss the specifics of his case during the interview with the probation officer. But when asked how his family had responded to the ordeal, he said, “They know me, and they know I did not do this.”Asked whether he planned to stay in his apartment in New York City, Mr. Smollet replied, “Everything is up in the air right now.” More

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    Tony Awards to Announce Prizes in June at Radio City Music Hall

    The 75th ceremony, honoring plays and musicals staged on Broadway, resumes its traditional calendar after a few years of pandemic disruption.This year’s Tony Awards will take place on June 12 at Radio City Music Hall as the theater industry seeks to settle in to some sort of new normal following the enormous disruption of the coronavirus pandemic.The ceremony — like the one last September that coincided with the reopening of many theaters after the lengthy lockdown — will be bisected, with one hour streamed by Paramount+, followed by a three-hour broadcast on CBS that is likely to be heavy on the razzle-dazzle.The Tonys, which honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are an important moment for the theater community because the awards are valued by artists and because the event serves to market the art form and the industry. The awards, formally known as the Antoinette Perry Awards, are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.This year’s ceremony — the 75th since the Tonys were established in 1947 — will honor shows that opened between Feb. 20, 2020, and April 28, 2022. That unusually long eligibility window includes the 15 months when all theaters were shut down to protect public health. (Last year’s Tony Awards ceremony was a much-delayed event that considered only the reduced slate of shows that managed to open before the pandemic cut short the 2019-20 theater season.)The nominators, for the first time since 2019, will have a robust slate of options to consider in all categories.This season features nine new musicals, including the fan favorite “Six”; the critical darling “Girl From the North Country” (which opened one week before theaters shut down); the Michael Jackson jukebox musical, “MJ”; and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Strange Loop” (which arrives next month).In the play category, this season brought a record number of works by Black writers, the best reviewed of which were “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage; “Pass Over,” by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu; and “Skeleton Crew,” by Dominique Morisseau. They will face stiff competition from “The Lehman Trilogy,” a widely hailed exploration of the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers written by Stefano Massini and adapted by Ben Power.The musical and play revival categories are strong as well.Many of the contenders have yet to open. Because of concerns about when audiences would return in large numbers, and then the arrival of the Omicron variant, numerous producers opted to open as late as possible in the season: 16 shows are still to open before the eligibility period closes.The nominees are to be announced on May 3, determined by a nominating committee made up of about 37 actors, theater administrators and others with a close knowledge of the art form but no financial involvement in the eligible shows.Then voting will take place, electronically. There are about 800 Tony voters, many of whom work in the industry and some of whom are employed by or have invested in nominated shows; they can only vote in categories for which they have seen all the nominees, and there are a few specialized categories in which only some voters are allowed to vote.The show, directed by Glenn Weiss, will air live nationally, with the streaming portion starting at 7 p.m. Eastern and the broadcast portion (which will also be streamable) starting at 8 p.m. More

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    Review: ‘The Chinese Lady’ Casts a Long Look at Hate

    Lloyd Suh’s play is a riff on the arrival of the real Afong Moy, possibly the first woman from China in the United States, and a lens on contemporary racism.Afong Moy is known as “The Chinese Lady,” but really she is just a girl — 14 when she arrives alone in New York in 1834, brought by a pair of merchant brothers who struck a deal with her father in China to put her in a museum for two years, on display.Possibly the first Chinese woman in the United States, she is marketed as a curiosity. Crowds pay to ogle her as she brews tea, eats with chopsticks and walks around the room on her bound feet. It’s a performance of cultural identity, and she is happy to enact it — enthusiastic, even, at the start. Cheerfully naïve, unsuspecting of the world’s cruelty, she views herself as an educator, fostering understanding.“Thank you for coming to see me,” she says to her gawkers, who are also us: the audience at the Public Theater, watching Lloyd Suh’s play “The Chinese Lady,” a moving and often sharply funny riff on the story of the real Afong Moy, traversing 188 years of American ugliness and exoticization in 90 swift, heightened minutes. A two-hander, it hopes with all its battered heart that we will, by the end, see Afong in her full humanity, and through her see this nation with clearer eyes. But it is not optimistic.“The Chinese Lady” was first staged in New York in 2018, when Ralph B. Peña directed a profoundly affecting, smaller-scale production for his Ma-Yi Theater Company at Theater Row, on 42nd Street. That was of course before the pandemic — before an American president scapegoated an entire population by calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and before physical attacks on people of Asian descent became an ever-present threat in New York and across the country.Peña’s current Barrington Stage Company-Ma Yi production, presented by Ma-Yi and the Public, retains the same gorgeous cast, with Shannon Tyo as Afong and Daniel K. Isaac as Atung, her cynical, deadpan interpreter. (Cindy Im and Jon Norman Schneider play the roles at some performances.) On Junghyun Georgia Lee’s gilt-framed set — simpler and more capacious than the one she designed for Theater Row — the show is more anguished, more mournful, more urgent than before, and sometimes that makes it heavy-handed.History is told through the eyes of Tyo’s character, Afong Moy, who arrives in the United States to be on display at a museum.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTyo and Isaac’s chemistry, though, has only deepened. In their bickering, their loneliness, their not-quite-solidarity, they remain entirely winning and occasionally devastating. (From here, proceed with caution if you haven’t seen the show.)When they are cut loose from each other, after decades of symbiosis — and years at a P.T. Barnum museum — there is no more forlorn sight than Atung alone, a tiny cog in Barnum’s exploitative machine.Long gone by then are the glamorous days when Afong toured to far-flung American cities and met a president — “your emperor, Andrew Jackson,” she calls him, to us. (If that’s an endearing misunderstanding of his title, it’s also a pretty accurate read on his expansionism.) In a revolting re-enactment, we watch him touch her foot: a cowboy barbarian looking down on her even as he sexualizes her.Afong, for all her childlike naïveté when she first arrived, has always been hungry for knowledge of the United States. She speaks of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and Manifest Destiny; the Chinese men building the railroad out West; the people who were already living on these lands in 1492. She finds the country fascinating, and its self-mythologizing wildly overblown.It is not the place where she thought she would spend her life; she believed she would return to her family, not make a home in a place where she is not sure she belongs. When she realizes she will have to do that utterly on her own — breaking out of the box where American culture wants to keep her, under its hostile gaze — she becomes a roiling force of indignation and self-determination.That happens in the play’s penultimate scene, and Tyo absolutely kills it. So it’s unfortunate that the final scene undermines her with ill-conceived design.As Afong recounts horrific 19th-century acts of brutality against Chinese Americans, projections (by Shawn Duan) that had been subtle and mostly static throughout the show start flashing historical headlines and illustrations, then news coverage of contemporary anti-Asian attacks.The impulse is understandable — to make utterly clear that Chinese Americans, long the targets of racist violence, are still menaced as outsiders in their own country. But the intimate power of Suh’s text and Tyo’s performance would have made that connection potently on their own.The production’s final, upstaging image is a wall of disembodied eyes: a digital crowd, creepy and cold. It’s meant, presumably, to expand our sympathy into the wider world. But whatever moral reckoning the play sets in motion occurs between Afong — living, breathing avatar of generations — and the audience. Yet the lights go dark on her.We do, by the end of the play, fully see Afong Moy. In that last moment, let us look.The Chinese LadyThrough April 10 at the Public Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Leslie Jones Gets Revved Up by Vinyl, Live Tweeting and ‘Euphoria’

    Sometimes even Leslie Jones doesn’t want to be Leslie Jones. That’s why her new comedy series, “Our Flag Means Death,” checks all of the boxes.“I was in as soon as they said, ‘Black pirate,’” Leslie Jones recalled about the offer to play Spanish Jackie in the HBO Max series “Our Flag Means Death.”Even better, Jones — a three-time Emmy nominee during her five audacious years on “Saturday Night Live” and a provocative live-tweeter on everything from Zoom backgrounds to the Olympics — was being asked to leave behind what she called her “crazy, out-there personality.”“We are so happy that Leslie Jones is here, but we don’t want Leslie Jones right now,” the comedy’s creator, David Jenkins, told her, giving Jones the freedom to embrace her inner rogue.“Our Flag Means Death” sends up the historical partnership between Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), an aristocrat turned pirate, and the legendary Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). The marauders first encounter each other in the Republic of Pirates, where Spanish Jackie, in a Prince-style get-up, is a fearsome bar owner with 19 husbands — and out for revenge for the death of the 20th, her favorite.“She came up hard, and she’s probably had to fight so many men and prove that she is the captain of her ship and the boss of her life,” Jones said. “I’m not saying Leslie don’t have a little of that in her, but Spanish Jackie embodies being a badass.”Jones will soon be transforming into another not-so-Jones character — Mrs. Claus — for an as-yet untitled Christmas movie expected in 2023.“Now, if Santa knows when you’ve been naughty and nice, you definitely know Mrs. Claus knows that, right?” Jones said while discussing her cultural appetite in a recent video call from Los Angeles. “If anything, she’s doing most of the work.”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Los Angeles Lifestyle I always was in L.A. before I went to New York to do “S.N.L.” But I don’t think I appreciated L.A. until I moved back, because New York is hardcore. If you stay there longer than two years, you’re going to get sinus infections. It’s terrible. I never thought of New York as a place to actually live, but people do. They love it, you know? L.A. is just more personal space, just the sunshine out here. I love how relaxed it is, because the last seven years have been hectic. It’s like a nice breath of fresh air.2. Vinyl Records My dad was a D.J. forever, and he used to collect albums. I think he had up to 2,000 albums and when he passed, I had to sell the collection because I had nowhere to keep it. I was broke at the time. So now I’m collecting a lot of albums back. I got my little private record player in my office. Then I got one for the house that I could play over the speaker. It’s been so fun to have people send me albums because when you see them again, you go, “Oh my God, I thought it was a dream.”3. The Olympics The Olympics were a very important thing [when I was growing up]. I remember us getting school time off. I remember people taking days off of work to support the Games and the athletes. I always loved it, especially the gymnastics and the figure skating. What it’s come to now is great and how beautiful it is. I’ve always thought that this is the one time that all countries put down whatever it is that they have against each other and just compete in the Games. It’s almost a moment of world peace to me. Of course, it’s not now, with the timing and everything. But I always loved it because you had a team to cheer for. It was like, “Yeah, our country! Yeah, U.S.A.!”4. Mental health accountability in sports This is what people need to understand: It’s not enough just to be physically fit for these Games. You have to be mentally fit for these Games. One doesn’t work without the other. And the pressure that is put on these athletes has to be enormous. The way that they attacked Simone Biles, I was ashamed of our country because, first of all, most of the people that complained were sitting on their fat asses on the couch. You’ll never do a cartwheel and you have the nerve to talk about someone and tell them that they let the country down? We have to start taking accountability that they are not actually superheroes. They do make it look like they’re superheroes, but they are humans.5. Live Tweeting It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I’m going be honest with you — I didn’t actually think people were going to catch on to it. The first time I live-tweeted might have been “Breaking Bad.” It had already been off the air for about five years, but it was so good that I was like, “I’ve got to tell people about this.” So it really did start off as fun. Now it is a job. The politics [commentary] started during Covid and sitting on the couch watching TV, and I don’t think people were paying attention to their backgrounds. I was like, “Does she know she’s in front of — what the [expletive] is that?” I’m always trying to find a way to make people laugh when things are bad. It’s relief. That is what a comic’s job is. We’re jesters.6. “Euphoria” Oh my God, it’s just such a great show. It also proved to me I was a [expletive] nerd if that’s really what’s going on in high school. And I thank my parents because this is the worst version of “Charlie Brown” I have ever seen. What in the absolute hell is going on in that town?7. “Bel-Air,” the “Fresh Prince” reboot I got to go to the premiere of “Bel-Air,” and it is sensational the way they did that. TV in the ’80s and ’90s used to be kind of goofy. But behind some of these goofy shows were great plots. So they took the goofiness out of it and made it an actual dramatic story. I told Will Smith, “This is chef’s kiss.” The Fresh Prince on the basketball court wasn’t just some goofy scene of the ball hitting the dude’s head. People got shot. It was like, “Whoa, so that’s why your mama got so scared to send you to L.A.”8. Stand-up I’ve been a comedian since 1987. All those years of hustling, hustling, hustling to be famous. And then when you become famous, the one thing that you’re so good at is not something that you can just go do anymore, because you’re known as a different person. For a long time, people didn’t even know I was a stand-up — they just thought I came on “S.N.L.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me? That used to pay all my bills.” Doing stand-up in its purest form is still something I love, but it’s not something I always get to do now because it’s hard to go into the clubs. I’m not going in as Leslie the comic, “Hey, can I get a spot?” I’m going in as Leslie Jones, “She’s about to bump everybody off the list.”9. Brown Bag Lady Charity in Los Angeles Everybody should know about Jacqueline Norvell. She literally started out on a bicycle with a basket full of lunches that she would give to homeless people. And now it’s turned into a big thing where she goes out every day. Sunday, she does a whole meal. She brings barbers down. She brings beauticians down. She gets some coats. She’s doing this by herself. I mean, everybody thinks that they can solve homelessness. You are not going to solve it. You just really have to be kind and do what you can. She’s taking that to the next level.10. Bryan Buckley, the director of her Super Bowl commercial Usually those commercials are kind of tedious or annoying. People will be asking you for stuff that you just go, “You’re not going to use that.” He was the first guy that I was like, “Oh, this guy knows what he is doing.” He asked specifically for what he wanted, and it’s just like, “Bam!” I think he’s known to be one of the best Super Bowl commercial directors. I was like, “I hope the commercial turns out OK, because it was so easy to do.” Usually when it’s really, really hard and stuff happens, the project turns out beautifully. I was scared that it was so easy. More

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    Jimmy Fallon Rags on America’s Gas Problem

    “Gas prices are so high, the Indy 500 was just changed to the Indy 5,” Fallon joked.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.How High?President Biden announced a ban of imported Russian oil, gas and coal on Tuesday. The move prompted fears of higher prices at the pump.“Yeah, this is devastating for Russia,” Jimmy Fallon said. “Now their biggest export is bad guys in ‘John Wick’ movies.”“Of course, we’ve got to get oil from somewhere else, which is why today, Biden looked at Rudy Giuliani and was like, ‘Let’s get you in the sauna, buddy.’” — JIMMY FALLON“And luckily America produces a lot of its own oil. There’s Texas, there’s Alaska, there’s Rudy Giuliani, but it’s still not enough.” — TREVOR NOAH“Like, if this keeps up, the next ‘Fast and Furious’ movie will take place on public transportation.” — TREVOR NOAH“That’s right, gas prices were already on the rise, and with the decision to ban Russian oil, they’re higher than ever before. Gas prices are so high, the Indy 500 was just changed to the Indy 5.” — JIMMY FALLON“Gas prices are so high, this morning, parents were like: ‘All right, kids, we’re Amish now. Let’s get in the buggy — we’re taking the horse to school.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Gas prices are so high, Americans are just filling their cars with Red Bull and hoping for the best.” — JIMMY FALLON“But on the bright side, this is the perfect excuse to pretend you’re going to get back on the bike you bought mid-pandemic and rode twice.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Unhappy Meals Edition)“Meanwhile, in the battle, McDonald’s and Starbucks are cutting ties with Russia, both announcing they would temporarily close all locations in the country. No Starbucks, no McDonald’s — that’s a sad life to live. And no pick-me-up in the morning, no Happy Meals — or, as they call them in Russia, meals.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, we don’t want their oil and they can’t have our grease.” — JIMMY FALLON“McDonald’s in Russia is a little strange. It’s the only country that sells unhappy meals.” — JIMMY FALLON“Not to be outdone, Arby’s announced that they are punishing Russia by staying open.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yes. Russia just became a ‘no fry zone.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Some people go for the jugular. America? They go for the McRib.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingDina Gusovsky, a writer for “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” delivered a monologue about reconciling her Russian heritage during the Vladimir Putin era.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightDolly Parton will pop by Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutAt the 2019 “Peaky Blinders” Festival, actors recreated scenes from the show on the streets of Birmingham, England.PA Images, via ReutersThe final season of the crime drama “Peaky Blinders” is currently airing in Britain, where some superfans are staging re-enactments in public. More

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    Review: In ‘Jane Anger,’ Michael Urie Shines as Shakespeare

    Talene Monahon aims to give Shakespeare his comeuppance in this comedy at the New Ohio Theater.In “Jane Anger,” a new comedy by Talene Monahon, everyone is fed up with the endless waves of sickness and quarantine. The year is 1606, and we are in England, which is enduring another outbreak of the plague. But for one man, a late-career William Shakespeare, there are graver concerns: writer’s block.Portrayed as a vain, out-of-touch celebrity by Michael Urie, Shakespeare struts and frets about the dozens of plays his rivals must be writing, angrily tossing the contents of his chamber pot out his window and onto the street below. In an effort to revitalize his career, he settles on adapting “King Leir,” claiming his version — with a slightly different spelling — will be “naturally superior because of the language and the dialogue and the general vibes.”Another (fictional) obstacle to his livelihood lurks outside, one that this uneven play, which opened on Monday night at the New Ohio Theater, clumsily tries to imagine could be his legacy’s true downfall: Jane Anger, a former lover seeking to strike a bargain with him in order to have her proto-feminist pamphlet published.This one-act work — whose full title is “The Lamentable Comedie of Jane Anger, that Cunning Woman, and also of Willy Shakefpeare and his Peasant Companion, Francis, Yes and Also of Anne Hathaway (also a Woman) Who Tried Very Hard” — creates a tidy blend of the past and present. Social and comedic sensibilities converge to highlight the pervasiveness of misogyny and the differing chances of survival across class lines in times of disease. Billed as a “feminist revenge comedy,” this workshop production, first developed online last October, succeeds at creating smart, lightly absurdist humor, but misses the mark in its attempt at a revisionist redemption.It doesn’t help that the play is mostly dedicated to its two male characters: Shakespeare and his servant, Francis (a show-stealing Ryan Spahn). Described as having “the off-putting air of an aged eunuch,” Francis is an unkempt, overeager fan of the writer and his occasional sexual overtures read less as genuine pining and more like a fan’s willingness to ingratiate. Urie (at the top of his game) and Spahn are a longtime couple, and their chemistry lends their characters’ farcical setups an easy, endlessly watchable flow.Amelia Workman as the title character in the play.Valerie TerranovaThough their dynamic is appealing, it takes up most of the play’s run time, practically swallowing the production whole, and leaving little room for the play’s women to make much of an impact.In creating Jane, Monahon (“How to Load a Musket”) has some fun compounding fact and fiction. Jane Anger is the, most likely pseudonymous, name of the author of the first English-language essay to defend womanhood, released in 1589. Here, she is revealed to be the “Dark Lady” about whom Shakespeare wrote a couple dozen sonnets, now working as a cunning woman, a type of medieval folk healer who also developed spells to counter witchcraft.As Jane, Amelia Workman plays up the double meaning of this cunning woman by delivering an arched eyebrow that rivals Joan Crawford’s. But in trying to explode the Western canon through her own feminist intervention, suggested in the first of Jane’s many fourth-wall breaks, Monahon ultimately fails to give Workman much to chew on other than audience-pandering quips. (She’s aided by Joey Mendoza’s set, a medieval apartment with a central window through which she must hoist herself, and Nic Vincent’s lighting, which brightens to involve those present in Jane’s queries.)We know Shakespeare’s behavior is sexist, so why didn’t Monahon address her critiques directly to the men onstage, in true, anachronistic fashion?Not all is lost, however. Monahon is clearly a gifted comedy writer, and a sweet stage presence, too. She shows up, late in the play, as Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s neglected wife. Monahon giddily mines comparisons between her character’s earnestness and her modern namesake, and her sharp writing blends Shakespearean lowbrow humor with contemporary concerns. Under the direction of Jess Chayes, the production has a liveliness that the exceptional cast runs away with, delivering Monahon’s mile-a-minute gags with zest.Jane AngerThrough March 26 at the New Ohio Theater, Manhattan; newohiotheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Conrad Janis, Father on ‘Mork & Mindy’ and Much More, Dies at 94

    His role on the hit sitcom was just one of more than 100 film and television credits; he was also a fine jazz trombonist and co-owner of an art gallery.Conrad Janis, an actor familiar to television viewers as Mindy’s father on the hit sitcom “Mork & Mindy” who was also a skilled jazz musician and a gallerist well known in the New York art world, died on March 1 in Los Angeles. He was 94.Dean A. Avedon, his business manager, confirmed the death.Mr. Janis, a child of the noted art collectors and gallerists Sidney and Harriet (Grossman) Janis, moved easily between the worlds of high art, jazz and acting, sometimes switching one hat for another in the same evening.“Conrad Janis Is Glad to Live Three Lives,” the headline on a 1962 Newsday article read. At the time he was starring in the romantic comedy “Sunday in New York” on Broadway and, after the Friday and Saturday night performances, playing trombone with his group, the Tailgate 5, at Central Plaza in Manhattan. (On Sundays he’d trek to Brooklyn to play at the club Caton Corner.) When not onstage or on the bandstand, he could often be found at his father’s art gallery.Sixteen years later he found himself on one of the most popular shows on television when he was cast on “Mork & Mindy,” which premiered in September 1978, as the father of Mindy (Pam Dawber), a Colorado woman who befriends an eccentric alien (Robin Williams). On Sundays during this period, he played in the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band at the Ginger Man, a club in Beverly Hills, Calif., whose owners included Carroll O’Connor of “All in the Family.”The key to juggling three areas of expertise, Mr. Janis told Newsday, was keeping his personas separate.“It just wouldn’t do to tell a knowledgeable art patron that ‘man, I dig Picasso the wildest,’” he said.Mr. Janis, an accomplished trombonist as well as a busy actor, peformed regularly with the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band. Among the other members of the band, seen in performance in 1980, was his fellow actor George Segal, who played banjo and sang.Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch, via AlamyConrad Janis was born on Feb. 11, 1928, in Manhattan. His parents had a successful shirt-making business early in their married life, which gave them the wherewithal to begin collecting art and, in 1948, open the Sidney Janis Gallery, which became, as The New York Times put it in Sidney Janis’s obituary in 1989, “a major pacesetter for the art world in the 1950s and ’60s.”Harriet Janis also wrote books with the jazz historian Rudi Blesh, including “They All Played Ragtime” (1950). That connection led to Conrad’s musical expertise. Mr. Blesh’s daughter played trombone in her school’s marching band but lost interest; the spare trombone ended up in Conrad’s hands. He particularly studied the music of the influential New Orleans trombonist and bandleader Kid Ory.“I memorized a lot of what he did,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1988.His acting developed alongside his musicianship. When he was 13, a classmate at the Little Red School House in Manhattan told him that “Junior Miss,” a popular Broadway comedy about a teenage girl, was holding auditions for a road company. He auditioned, got in, and spent two years with the tour, advancing to a leading juvenile role. He started doing radio voice work at the same time.“I played kids of 14 and old men of 40” on the radio, he told The New York Times in a 1945 interview.He landed a role in the pre-Broadway run of “The Dark of the Moon,” which got him noticed by a Hollywood talent scout. He remained with the play when it went to New York, making his Broadway debut in March 1945, but within a few months he was on the West Coast to make his first film, the comedy “Snafu,” in which he played a teenager who lies about his age to enlist.It was the first of more than 100 film and television credits. In the movies, he played alongside some famous names: Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple in the notoriously bad “That Hagan Girl” (1947), Charlton Heston and other prominent stars in “Airport 1975” (1974), Lynn Redgrave in “The Happy Hooker” (1975), George Burns in “Oh God! Book II” (1980).He was on television from the medium’s earliest days, playing numerous roles in the late 1940s and ’50s, many of them on shows like “Suspense,” “Actor’s Studio” and “The Philco Television Playhouse” that were broadcast live. Some of those roles took advantage of his familiarity with musical instruments.“All through the ’50s,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1981, “I was in so many TV shows as a young musician on drugs, desperately trying to kick the habit, that I’m sure I helped cement in the public’s mind a relationship between musicians and dope. All they cast me in were shows in which I did or didn’t kick the habit. I was always saying, ‘Hey, man, I just got to have a fix.’”He continued to play small parts on TV in the 1960s and ’70s before landing his best-known role, Mindy’s father. His character operated a music store, but although “Mork & Mindy” ran for four seasons, he never got a chance to play his trombone on the show, something he regretted.“The producers wouldn’t go for it,” he told The Albany Democrat-Herald of Oregon in 1990. “We had a really cute script where I got together with my old Dixieland jazz band, but they didn’t think it was funny enough.”Mr. Janis with Thomas Scott, left, and Steven Scott in the 1996 movie “The Cable Guy.”He continued to work in television after “Mork,” with appearances on “St. Elsewhere,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Frasier” and other shows. His later movie appearances included small roles in “Mr. Saturday Night” (1992) and “The Cable Guy” (1996). He sometimes collaborated with his wife, Maria Grimm, including directing two movies she wrote, “The Feminine Touch” (1995) and “Bad Blood” (2012).Mr. Janis’s acting career also included a dozen Broadway credits, among them the Gore Vidal play “A Visit to a Small Planet” in 1957 and a revival of “The Front Page” in 1969.Throughout his musical and acting adventures, Mr. Janis also kept a hand in the art world.Arne Glimcher, the founder and chairman of Pace Gallery and a friend of Mr. Janis’s for almost 60 years, said Mr. Janis worked for his father at the Sidney Janis Gallery and was responsible for certain artists there, including Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselmann.“His knowledge of 20th-century art and Modernism was really encyclopedic,” Mr. Glimcher said in a phone interview.When Sidney Janis reached 90, he turned the Janis Gallery over to Conrad and his brother, Carroll, who kept it going until 1999.Mr. Janis’s first marriage, to Vicki Quarles, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Ronda Copland. Ms. Grimm, whom he married in 1987, died in September. He is survived by his brother; two children from his first marriage, Christopher and Carin Janis; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.Mr. Glimcher said that in recent years some of Mr. Janis’s old jazz pals would come to his home in Beverly Hills on Thursdays and play. When his wife died, Mr. Glimcher said, Mr. Janis gave her a jazz funeral, then changed the location of those jam sessions.“Every Thursday,” Mr. Glimcher said, “he took the jazz band to her mausoleum and played there.” More

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    ‘Cabaret,’ Starring Eddie Redmayne, Leads Olivier Award Nominees

    A revival of the 1966 musical, with Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles, is up for 11 awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.LONDON — A revival of “Cabaret” that has been a topic of conversation here for its sky-high ticket prices as much as its stellar cast dominated the nominations for this year’s Olivier Awards — Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys — that were announced on Tuesday.The musical secured 11 nominations including a nod for best musical revival, as well as for best actor and actress in a musical for its stars Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley.Its prominence was perhaps unsurprising given the acclaim “Cabaret” has received since opening last December in a production that transforms the West End’s Playhouse Theater into a seedy nightclub straight out of 1920s Berlin.Audiences enter the show through the theater’s backstage corridors, and can even have a preshow meal once inside, partly explaining why tickets cost up to 325 British pounds (or about $420).Matt Wolf, reviewing the show for The New York Times, called it “nerve-shredding” for its portrayal of a world on the verge of Nazism. Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph called it “2021’s kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph,” suggesting readers “dig like your life depended on it into your pockets” to pay for a ticket.Even with such praise, “Cabaret” faces stiff competition in the musical categories, especially from a revival of Kathleen Marshall’s 2011 Broadway production of “Anything Goes” at the Barbican, which secured nine nominations including for best musical revival and a best actress nomination for Sutton Foster as Reno Sweeney. Foster won a Tony in 2011 for the same role.Sutton Foster has been nominated for an Olivier for her role in “Anything Goes.”Peter Nicholls/ReutersIn the nonmusical categories, the nominations are led by “Life of Pi,” Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel telling the story of a boy stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger. That play, at Wyndham’s Theater, has secured nine nods, including a best supporting actor nomination for the seven puppeteers who bring the tiger to life.“Life of Pi” was also nominated for best new play, where it is up against “2:22: A Ghost Story,” a haunted-house thriller that was at the Noël Coward Theater, “Cruise,” a tale set in London’s Soho in the ’80s (that was at the Duchess Theater), and “Best of Enemies,” James Graham’s play about the rancorous 1968 TV debates between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal that was at the Young Vic.One of the most highly contested categories is likely to be best actress in a play, where Cush Jumbo is nominated for her performance as Hamlet at the Young Vic Jumbo is up against Emma Corrin, nominated for her role in “ANNA X” at the Harold Pinter Theater, the singer Lily Allen for “2:22: A Ghost Story” and Sheila Atim for a revival of “Constellations,” at the Vaudeville Theater.The winners will be announced in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Apr. 10. More