Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 113 Shares199 Views

    in Theater

    Private Data Shows Broadway’s Hits and Misses After Reopening

    Big shows did well when they returned in the fall after the long pandemic shutdown but new plays struggled, previously undisclosed industry data shows.During the long dark months when the coronavirus pandemic kept Broadway shuttered, a hypothesis took hold in parts of the industry: Once theaters reopened, the audience would include more New Yorkers and fewer tourists, and the result could be a more receptive marketplace for ambitious new plays.It did not turn out that way.Previously undisclosed data about the financial performance of individual Broadway shows reveal that the fundamental modern economics of the industry, in which big brands dominate and adventurous new works struggle to break through, were reinforced, rather than upended, as the industry reopened last fall.The good news: In the months between the reopening of Broadway and the upheaval caused by the arrival of Omicron, the biggest prepandemic hits were doing reasonably well. The disappointment: Many new and unfamiliar plays, including a much-heralded wave of work by Black writers and a pair of experimental plays by white writers, struggled to sell tickets, much as plays have often done in recent seasons.The information about the shows’ financial performance was collected by the Broadway League, a trade association representing producers and theater owners, and distributed to the association’s membership in mid-January. The League, in a break with past practice, has decided not to make show-by-show box office data public this season, saying the circumstances are so unusual that the data cannot fairly be compared to that of other seasons, but The New York Times has obtained access to the numbers.The data, which begins in mid-September, when some of the biggest musicals reopened, runs only through Dec. 12, just before a spike in positive coronavirus tests among theater workers forced as many as half of all Broadway shows to cancel performances. In the weeks since, Broadway has taken a tumble — even though the wave of cancellations has stopped, attendance has been soft and multiple shows have closed.Before Omicron hit, Broadway’s return was going better than some had feared, especially for big-brand musicals. Plays had a harder time.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesBut before the Omicron variant, Broadway’s box office was doing far better than pessimists had feared, given the dearth of visitors and office workers, ongoing concerns about public health, and uncertainty about the effect of vaccine mandates and mask requirements. During the final week covered in the data — the week that ended Dec. 12 — about one-third of the shows running grossed more than $1 million, which has often been seen as a sign of strength. Among them: the musicals “Hamilton,” “Wicked,” “The Lion King,” “Moulin Rouge!,” “Tina,” “Six,” “Aladdin,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Hadestown” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” and the plays “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Lehman Trilogy.”Notably, the club of top grossers included two newcomers, “Six” and “The Lehman Trilogy,” both of which were well-reviewed, small-cast shows that were in previews in 2020 when the pandemic hit, and then finally opened last October. “Six” is still running on Broadway; “The Lehman Trilogy” ended its Broadway run as scheduled on Jan. 2 and on March 3 it plans to begin a monthlong run in Los Angeles.Also noteworthy: “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which during the pandemic shutdown was trimmed from a two-part play to a more traditional one-part show, appears, at least initially, to have benefited from the reconstructive surgery. The shorter version impressed critics and reduced running costs, and its weekly grosses in early December were about $1.7 million, which is significantly better than it was doing during that same period in 2019.During the industry’s best fall stretch — Thanksgiving week — “Hamilton” grossed over $3 million, and “The Lion King,” “Wicked” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” each grossed over $2 million.The effect of the Tony Awards, which were held Sept. 26 in an effort to showcase the reopening of Broadway, is difficult to discern. “Moulin Rouge!,” which won the best musical Tony, sold well through the fall, but less well than it had in the fall of 2019 (the week before Thanksgiving last year, the musical grossed $1.5 million; during that same week in 2019, it had grossed $2 million).The fall was especially tough for plays, which often struggle in an era when Broadway is dominated by big musicals. Critically acclaimed plays like “Pass Over,” “Is This a Room” and “Dana H.” played to houses that were at times between one half and two-thirds empty.The average ticket prices for all the new plays other than “The Lehman Trilogy” were well below the industry average, suggesting that the plays were resorting to steep discounts. During Thanksgiving week, the average ticket price at “Hamilton” was $297, while at “Chicken & Biscuits” it was $35.Other than “Lehman,” the strongest selling of the new plays was “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” which grossed over $400,000 in some weeks. It has since closed, as has every other play that was running on Broadway last fall other than “Cursed Child.”There were also, as there always are, musicals that struggled too. The new musical “Diana,” which opened to harsh reviews and closed a month later, played to 51 percent capacity houses and grossed $374,000 (for seven performances) during the week that ended Dec. 12. “Girl From the North Country,” which has closed but says it plans to reopen in the spring, played to 47 percent capacity audiences that week and grossed $310,000, and “Flying Over Sunset,” which ended its run early, played to 69 percent capacity audiences and grossed $323,000 that week.“Jagged Little Pill,” the musical featuring songs by Alanis Morissette, did better than those shows, but not well enough to sustain a long run. The show was playing to houses that were about four-fifths full in the late fall, and it grossed $768,000 the week of Dec. 12. It closed a week later.Broadway is now in the midst of a particularly grim winter, and there are currently only 19 shows in the 41 theaters, which is lower than it has been for years. But producers say their daily wraps (that’s their net ticket sales) are picking up and they are optimistic about spring; there are already 14 openings scheduled in April. More

  • 163 Shares199 Views

    in Television

    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Missing in Brooks County’ and ‘Sisters With Transistors’

    A documentary about a Texas border region plays as part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” series. And a documentary about women in electronic music airs on Showtime.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, Jan. 21-Feb. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY (2021) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Hundreds of people have died trying to migrate from Mexico to the United States through Brooks County, Tex., in the past two decades. This documentary looks at what makes the region, on the southern end of Texas, so perilous for those crossing the border, and explores work that activists and community members are doing to address the crisis. It focuses on two families who turn to Eddie Canales, the founder of the South Texas Human Rights Center, for help finding missing family members.CELEBRATING BETTY WHITE: AMERICA’S GOLDEN GIRL 10 p.m. on NBC. This hourlong special celebrates the life and career of the comic actress Betty White, who died in December at 99. Many famous people will pay tribute to White, including Drew Barrymore, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Goldie Hawn, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Morgan, Jean Smart and President Biden.TuesdayA scene from “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power.”Greenwich EntertainmentBARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (2021) 8 p.m. on Starz. “A Super Bowl touchdown roar.” That’s how The New York Times described the reception that Representative Barbara Lee received from an audience in Oakland, Calif., at a community gathering in October 2001. The reason for the crowd’s enthusiasm: Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against invading Afghanistan in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. This documentary looks at Lee’s life both before and after that pivotal move. Interviewees include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the CNN commentator Van Jones and the actor Danny Glover.Remembering Betty WhiteThe actress, whose trailblazing career spanned seven decades, died on Jan. 31. She was 99. Obituary: After creating two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history,  White remained a beloved presence on television. Remembered Fondly: Hollywood stars, comedians, a president and seemingly the entire internet paid tribute after her death was announced. Final Prank: People magazine found itself in an awkward spot when a cover for White’s upcoming 100th birthday hit the newsstands right before her death.From the Archives: In a 2011 interview, White shared the memory of a relationship she held dear to her heart — with an elephant.WednesdayLUCY IN THE SKY (2019) 7:15 p.m. and 9:50 on FXM. Earlier this month, the “Fargo” and “Legion” showrunner Noah Hawley released a dark new novel, “Anthem,” that imagines teenage characters several years after the Covid-19 pandemic. For a multiformat double feature, pair the book with Hawley’s film “Lucy in the Sky,” where Natalie Portman is a lovesick astronaut.ThursdayThe composer Maryanne Amacher in a scene from “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary that explores how women shaped electronic music.Peggy Weil/Metrograph PicturesSISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (2021) 6:30 p.m. on Showtime. When the multimedia musician and composer Laurie Anderson mentions “radical sounds” while narrating this documentary, the phrase has a clear double meaning. Not only did synthesizers and other digital technology, a focus of the film, create never-before-heard sounds during the 20th century, but it gave opportunities for female composers like Daphne Oram, Maryanne Amacher and Clara Rockmore to innovate outside of the traditional, male-dominated music industry. The film explores the work of these women and more, arguing that their importance in shaping electronic music has been overlooked. The result, Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times, is “informative and often fascinating.”SCREAM (1996) 8 p.m. on BBC America. The shrieks came with a laugh in “Scream,” Wes Craven’s horror-parody that gave new life to the slasher genre when it hit theaters just over 25 years ago. The movie spawned a slew of sequels — the latest of which came out earlier this month — but even this first entry feels like something of a sequel, so filled is it with references and callbacks to previous, genre-defining movies, including “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” It introduced the character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a suburban teenager who is stalked by a masked killer with a long face. BBC America is airing it alongside its first sequel, SCREAM 2 (1997).Friday2022 WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. on NBC. The Winter Olympics in Beijing formally begin on Friday with an opening ceremony set to include the traditional cauldron lighting and parade of nations. (Other than athletes, American presence at the games will be subdued: The United States is among the countries whose governments have planned for a diplomatic boycott of the games, citing human rights abuses.) The ceremony will be covered live at 6:30 a.m., then rebroadcast at 8 p.m. as a more polished special.STAND AND DELIVER (1988) 10 p.m. on TCM. The actor Edward James Olmos took a break from the sheen of “Miami Vice” to play a schlubby (but deeply gifted) math teacher in this late ’80s drama. Directed by Ramón Menéndez and based on actual events, the film casts Olmos as Jaime Escalante, a teacher at a public high school in East Los Angeles whose ability to motivate his students leads to impressive test scores that were called into question by prejudiced standardized-testing authorities. Olmos plays the part to “inspiringly great effect,” Janet Maslin said in her review for The Times in 1988. (He later received an Oscar nomination for his performance.) “If ever a film made its audience want to study calculus,” Maslin wrote, “this is the one.”SaturdayWillem Dafoe, left, and Bradley Cooper in “Nightmare Alley.”Searchlight PicturesNIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. After its recent release in theaters, Guillermo del Toro’s latest haunted house of a movie hits smaller screens via HBO on Saturday night. Set primarily amid a grimy carnival, “Nightmare Alley” centers on a 1930s con man (Bradley Cooper) who finds success putting on a mentalist act. The real star, though, might be the setting: In her review for The Times, Manohla Dargis praised del Toro’s textured, polished world building, but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the rest of the film. “The carnival is diverting, and del Toro’s fondness for its denizens helps put a human face on these purported freaks,” she wrote. “But once he’s finished with the preliminaries, he struggles to make the many striking parts cohere into a living, breathing whole.”SundayGUY’S CHANCE OF A LIFETIME 9 p.m. on Food Network. Some competition shows offer their winners a cash prize that they can retire on. “Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime” offers an opportunity: Contestants vie for ownership of a Guy Fieri-branded chicken joint in Nashville. A winner will be revealed on Sunday night’s season finale. More

  • 125 Shares119 Views

    in Television

    ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 2 Recap: No One Is Safe

    Prince and Chuck make the world a better place, each in his own underhanded way.Season 6, Episode 2: ‘Lyin’ Eyes’If you’re looking for the future of “Billions,” two quotes from this week’s episode point the way forward, I think. The first comes from Wendy Rhoades, describing to Taylor Mason her fear that their boss, Mike Prince, might suffer from narcissistic personality disorder: “He thinks he’s better than everyone else, and he won’t stop till he gets what he wants.”The second comes from Chuck Rhoades, describing the method to his newfound rabble-rousing madness: “No one is safe.”We’ll tackle Chuck’s half of the episode first. Inspired by the bravado of Gene Hackman’s thief character in the David Mamet crime film “Heist,” which he watches in the comfort of his upstate farm, Chuck returns to New York City with the intention of raising some hell. He finds what he’s looking for in the plight of the city’s doormen, who have worked long and hard on behalf of mega-rich tenants who fled the city when Covid-19 struck, leaving their servants on the front lines of the pandemic.The problem is that despite responding favorably to Chuck’s fiery rhetoric, the doormen’s union is perfectly happy with the 2 percent raise the tenants and property management board are prepared to offer them. So Chuck unilaterally turns up the temperature, first by blowing up the negotiations with a 5 percent ask, then by threatening to sick the tax authorities on the union if they don’t go on strike at his behest.Having successfully cowed the union into doing his bidding, he turns his attention to his prime targets: the billionaires, whom he refers to as “the criminal class,” represented by the rude and ruddy-faced Bud Lazarra (Wayne Duvall). The defiant Lazzara thumbs his nose at Chuck’s threats and convinces the union to call off the strike and take the original deal — but only through bribery, an act caught on camera by Chuck’s lieutenant Karl Allard, who wanders by in full Vincent (The Chin) Gigante bathrobe attire to record the incriminating footage.When Chuck confronts Lazzara with his intel, the bigwig bends … but Chuck betrays him to the press anyway. The message is clear: His war against the billionaires is in full no-prisoners mode.Considering the idiosyncratic behavior of Mike Prince elsewhere in the episode, this may well be the right approach. Oh, things start off well enough, with Prince announcing his intention to tank the stock of an athletic apparel company called Rask because of its use of forced labor in China’s Uyghur mass internment camps.The move makes heads spin all across Michael Prince Capital. Victor Mateo (Louis Cancelmi), the firm’s resident hard case, warns that the company is all but unsinkable. No matter, says Taylor Mason, anticipating the boss’s next move: They’ll use athletes and influencers to ruin the brand’s reputation while they’re busy shorting its stock.Rian (Eva Victor), the rising star of Taylor Mason Carbon, sees an opportunity: There are other players in the sector with even filthier human-rights records, and Mase Carb could easily gobble up the whole sector. When Taylor tells her not to make the play, she does it anyway, leading Taylor to confer with Wendy Rhoades as to whether firing Rian is the right move. They decide it’s too Axe-like by half, and a chastened Rian is spared the ax, no pun intended.Finally there’s Wags, who has the most comical reaction of the whole crew: He is worried on behalf of Rask’s chief executive, with whom he formed an Eagles cover band at a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camp. His surreptitious tip-off almost enables the company to salvage itself with a buyout until Prince and his right-hand man, Scooter Dunbar, force Wags to kill the deal by dishing even more dirt: Rask has been in bed with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un for years. The maneuver kills the company for good, though it also leads to Wags’s expulsion from the band. You win some, you lose some!At this point you may be wondering, where would a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder for Prince come into play here? After all, he did exactly what he said he would do: take down a crooked company.But as Taylor puts it, he is playing on a much bigger chessboard than just the markets. Prince’s real plan was to scupper the Rask-sponsored Olympic hosting duties of Los Angeles, in hopes of relocating the 2028 games to the Big Apple — which would bring his estranged wife, Andy (Piper Perabo), an Olympic-level rock climbing coach, back into his orbit. Indeed, she’s so impressed with his scheme that she takes him up on his offer of dinner, an overture she previously rejected.So maybe it all was a grand romantic gesture, as Wendy and Taylor contemplate — or maybe it was the move of a self-appointed master of the universe, bending world events to his will. But when you have the kind of money and power that Mike Prince has, is there any distinction between personal desires and sociopolitical manipulation? I know the answer Chuck Rhoades would give.Loose ChangeThis week’s appearing-as-themselves guest stars: the rock climber Alex Honnold, the golf expert Michael Breed, and the journalist Olivia Nuzzi. Honnold and Nuzzi were even factored prominently into the show’s story lines, with Honnold leading the charge of online influencers against Rask and Nuzzi outing Lazzara’s bribery scheme.Since I’ve heard directly from several readers who upbraid me when I lose track of this, I’ll state for the record that I spotted two “Godfather” references: Chuck’s reference to Lazzara as the shot-calling Don Barzini of New York’s landed gentry, and Wags’s name-drop of Frankie Pentangeli from “Part 2” when it came time to make a killing on the market. (Rian bucks the trend by quoting a different Francis Ford Coppola film, “Apocalypse Now.”)Though it does depict mask use at large gatherings, such as the meeting of the doormen’s union, the episode occasionally refers to the pandemic in the past tense, as if the worst were behind us when it was filmed. Ah, were we ever so young?One subtle but impressive bit of acting by Corey Stoll as Prince: silently chuckling as he learns that Rask is declaring bankruptcy, its chief executive is being dragged before congress, and the Olympics have withdrawn from Los Angeles. Typically, laughing at the success of your master plan is the stuff of supervillains; Prince has the perspicacity to do it quietly, at least.As an avowed Wags fan, it pains me to learn he’s an Eagles fan; my position on the band is best expressed by the Dude in “The Big Lebowski.” (But speaking as someone who was a teenager in 1992, I was a big fan of opening the episode with “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots.)“I’m definitely against concentration camps, but ——” Let me stop you right there, Ben Kim!Scooter Dunbar working connections in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office to further the anti-Rask ploy. Chuck Rhoades reading Thomas Piketty’s “Capitalism and Ideology.” The times, they are a-changin’.Seeing the Olympics committee dump a host city for human-rights violations is the kind of thing that reminds you what you’re watching is fiction. More

  • 163 Shares199 Views

    in Television

    Howard Hesseman, the D.J. Johnny Fever in ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Dies at 81

    Mr. Hesseman played a fallen radio star who landed in the Midwest on the popular sitcom, which captured the misadventures of a struggling station.Howard Hesseman, the actor and improvisational comedian best known for playing a stuck-in-the-’60s radio disc jockey in the TV sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 81.His wife, Caroline Ducrocq, said he died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of complications from colon surgery last summer.Mr. Hesseman received two Emmy nominations for playing Dr. Johnny Fever on “WKRP in Cincinnati,” which ran on CBS for four seasons from 1978 to 1982.The series portrayed a struggling Top 40 rock radio station, where the staff rages against the age of disco with hard rock and punk songs. Mr. Hesseman’s hard-living character, having been pushed from a Los Angeles station where he was a star, serves as a senior member of the counterculture at the Midwestern outlet after smooth-talking his way into a job.“I think maybe Johnny smokes a little marijuana, drinks beer and wine, and maybe a little hard liquor,” Mr. Hesseman told The New York Times in 1979. “And on one of those hard mornings at the station, he might take what for many years was referred to as a diet pill. But he is a moderate user of soft drugs, specifically marijuana.”Johnny Fever was a cherished character on TV who embodied the essential traits of 1960s counterculture: the worship of rock bands; not-so-veiled drug references; long, shaggy hair.In one scene, he is wearing dark sunglasses while D.J.ing, speaking in a relaxed tone as he leans into the microphone and says in a thick voice, “We’re still rocking on the mighty KRP, where the razor man is standing by to sharpen up your day.”He told WXYZ-TV Detroit in 2012 that the show was made up of “a lovely company of actors, bolstered by a lovely bunch of writers, so it made going to work fun every day.”From left: Tim Reid, Loni Anderson, Jan Smithers and Howard Hesseman at a program in Beverly Hills in 2014 that reunited the cast of “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Michael Tran/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesSome were probably not surprised to see Mr. Hesseman excel in that role. In San Francisco, where Mr. Hesseman helped start an improvisational comedy troupe, The Committee, he worked as a radio D.J. in 1967. At the Bay Area station, KMPX, he played “strange tapes” from the rock movement and smoked “a lot of pot — always against my will, of course,” he told People Weekly in 1979.Mr. Hesseman told The Times in 1979 that he spent 90 days in the San Francisco County Jail in 1963 for selling an ounce of marijuana — a conviction that was later thrown out for entrapment. He would later say that smoking marijuana was “sort of a residual hobby.”Before embarking on his acting and comedy career, Mr. Hesseman spent time in Salem, Ore., where he was born and raised as an only child by his mother and stepfather.An uncle in Colorado told him about acting, and years later, Mr. Hesseman would say, “Every time that I perform, it’s like repaying him a debt.”He briefly attended the University of Oregon, but he left school and moved to San Francisco, where he could focus on his career.Mr. Hesseman, who was also admired for his improvisational talent, played small parts in “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Sanford and Son.”George Spiro Dibie, the former national president of the International Cinematographers Guild, recalled in an interview with the Television Academy Foundation that Mr. Hesseman’s experience was evident on the set of “Head of the Class,” a sitcom that ran on ABC from 1986 to 1991.“He was even telling some directors what to do,” he said. Mr. Hesseman played Charlie Moore, a teacher at a Manhattan high school contending with a class of overachieving students.Mr. Hesseman as the high school teacher Charlie Moore in “Head of the Class.”ABC Photo Archives, via Getty ImagesHe landed roles in cult classics like the mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap,” where he acted alongside Michael McKean, who said on Twitter on Sunday that it was “impossible to overstate Howard Hesseman’s influence on his and subsequent generations of improvisers.”In 1981, after two marriages ended in divorce, he met Ms. Ducrocq, an actress from France who was visiting Los Angeles. Ms Ducrocq’s friend asked her if she wanted to swim at an actor’s pool, and she said yes.“I had no idea who he was,” Ms. Ducrocq said, laughing.She stayed at his place for dinner, and then stayed when he brought out a bottle of Champagne, which, she later learned, he had never drunk in his life. In 1989, they married.He loved listening to jazz, swimming and catching up with his godchildren, she said.Mr. Hesseman once said in an interview that “the smile keeps you feeling younger; work keeps you feeling a little bit more agile.”He is survived by Ms. Ducrocq. More

  • 150 Shares169 Views

    in Theater

    ‘The Collision’ and ‘The Martyrdom’ Review: A Nun Ahead of Her Time

    A classic text by the 10th-century Saxon nun Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim inspires two new plays being performed as a double bill at 59E59 Theaters.Three nuns hard at work at their convent look up to discover that the sky is falling …It could be the beginning of a joke, or a New Yorker cartoon. But it’s the opening scene in “The Collision and What Came After, or, Gunch!,” a play being presented alongside “The Martyrdom” by Two Headed Rep at 59E59 Theaters. Despite the comic potential of this setup, these works, inspired by the writing of the 10th-century nun and playwright Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, are neither as funny nor — at two hours and 40 minutes — as snappy as they could be.In “The Collision,” written by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, the patient Sister Gudrun (Emma Ramos) and the critical Sister Anise (Lizzie Fox) try to teach the young Sister Gunch (Layla Khoshnoudi) the responsibilities of the ideal nun: doing chores, praying, hand-copying Bibles — you know, the usual. But Gunch is foul-mouthed, blunt and curious about more than just God. “All of nature is vile and fecund and touching itself,” she says with lustful wonder, recounting a time she watched one goat mount another.When a giant meteorite lands near the convent, the abbess goes the way of the Wicked Witch of the East and Gunch suffers a fatal attack that she miraculously survives. The event forces the characters to reconsider the lessons in faith they’ve been taught — which messages are prophetic and which ones heretical, and why.The script has a few delicately written passages, for example, when Gudrun describes “gray-black clouds” that gather “as if trying to bind the sky like a wound.” The performers also have some standout moments: Halima Henderson, who plays a couple of secondary characters, has a priceless bit as a messenger with no grasp of social cues. And Khoshnoudi, with her dreamy glances and devilish grin, could have her own play, her own TV series, in fact, as the delightfully peculiar Gunch.As for the story itself, it’s zany, though to what end isn’t always clear; Lily Riopelle’s direction, which incorporates physical humor and playful props (a severed hand, a dead pigeon and a chicken called “little queen,” designed by Liz Oakley), often reads as amateurish. Though the play gets a lot of mileage from its narrative twists and turns, which pull the story into the realms of science fiction and absurdism, the script can’t successfully pull off its final maneuver, an explicit criticism of institutional religion and a grand statement on storytelling.“A story is a snake, and we are mice inside it, swallowed whole but still alive,” a character says at one point. That sentiment can be applied to this play, which swallows its characters — and some narrative logic — in its bizarre contortions.If “The Collision” is more enamored with its quirks than with cohesive storytelling, then “The Martyrdom” is its antipode, a play so procedural that it leaves little space for strangeness and wonder.After a brief intermission, the four actresses return for this second play, the full title of which is so long that reading it requires its own intermission: “The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Irena, by Hrotsvitha the Nun of Gandersheim, as Told Throughout the Last Millennium by the Men, Women, Scholars, Monastics, Puppets, and Theater Companies (Like This One) Who Loved Her, or: Dulcitius.”Layla Khoshnoudi, left, and Halima Henderson in “The Martyrdom.”Ashley Garrett“The Martyrdom,” directed by Molly Clifford, is based on Hrotsvitha’s play “Dulcitius,” about three pious sisters who try to remain chaste despite the intentions of lascivious politicians. “Dulcitius” appears throughout the course of “The Martyrdom,” though in different pieces and different forms.With translation by Lizzie Fox and new text by Amanda Keating, “The Martyrdom” is a history lesson, celebrating the legacy of Hrotsvitha, who is considered to be the first female playwright to have her work recorded, by providing a timeline of major incarnations of “Dulcitius.”So the show begins in a monastery during Hrotsvitha’s lifetime, where a council or monks reviews the playwright’s work. Then centuries later, Hungarian nuns write a modern, vernacular adaptation of “Dulcitius.” Then there are the French artists who use marionettes to tell the tale of the three sisters. Then the British suffragist in the 1800s, and an American nun at the University of Michigan in the 1950s. It’s a clever move for such dated material: In each scene the characters act out parts of the play, each version reflecting the changing context of the material over time. After each section, a fourth-wall-breaking educational moment occurs when the actresses provide more details about Hrotsvitha’s text and its various productions.The result, unfortunately, is colorless and, like “The Collision,” unnecessarily long. “The Martyrdom” tries to stretch out scenes of Hrotsvitha’s play across history to suit its structure, despite the fact that the play’s plot is already pretty anemic, so there’s not enough action to go around.It doesn’t help that Cate McCrea’s set design for the tiny theater, which seats about 50, is rather bland: a plain back wall, a long rectangular bar that bisects the length of the stage, serving as a table or desk or bench as needed.Somewhere between “The Collision” and “The Martyrdom” is a holy middle ground of oddity and structure, chaos and order, that would make even a Saxon nun from the 10th century say, “Amen.”The Collision / The MartyrdomThrough Feb. 5 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    Chita Rivera’s Book Will Introduce Fans to the Real Her

    Over the last seven decades, the Broadway star Chita Rivera has taken on and defined some of American musical theater’s most iconic roles: Anita in “West Side Story,” Rose in “Bye Bye Birdie,” Velma Kelly in “Chicago.”In her forthcoming memoir, Rivera introduces her fans and readers to a character she has rarely played in public: her alter ego of sorts, Dolores. And Dolores, which is Rivera’s given name, can be a little prickly, according to Rivera’s co-author, the journalist Patrick Pacheco.When they first sat down to discuss the memoir in the summer of 2020, Pacheco asked Rivera what people didn’t know about her.“She said, ‘Well, I’m not nearly as nice as people think I am,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Great, let’s introduce the public to her.’”In her still-untitled book, which is due out in 2023 from HarperOne and will be released simultaneously in English and Spanish, Rivera describes her unlikely path to stardom. Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in 1933, Rivera grew up in Washington, D.C., where her mother worked as a government clerk and her father was a clarinet and saxophone player for the U.S. Navy Band.She was so rambunctious and theatrical at home that her mother enrolled her in ballet school. She won a scholarship to George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and went on to land roles in musicals like “Call Me Madam,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Can-Can” and “West Side Story,” where she delivered a breakout performance as Anita in the musical’s original production. Over the decades, she has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards and has won twice, and received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2009, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Early in her career, Rivera, who is of Puerto Rican descent, worked to defy the stereotypes that were imposed on her in a largely white creative industry.“She was always very empowered from the beginning to play anything she felt she was capable of playing,” Pacheco said.Some of the theater world’s most influential composers and choreographers were drawn to Rivera’s magnetism and perfectionism. In her memoir, she describes working with Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Bob Fosse, Hal Prince and Fred Ebb, and her experiences with stars and castmates like Elaine Stritch, Dick Van Dyke, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr.Rivera, who turned 89 this month, has done career retrospectives before, including “The Dancer’s Life,” a musical celebrating her career. But while friends and colleagues had nudged her over the years to write a memoir, she never felt compelled to until recently.“I’ve never been one to look back,” Rivera said in a statement released by her publisher. “I hope my words and thoughts about my life and career resonate and readers just might discover some things about me they never knew.”Though she’s had a lasting influence on theater as a performer, Rivera is not a writer, and Pacheco was a natural collaborator — he first met her in the 1970s and had already interviewed her extensively in 2005 when he was brought on as a researcher for “A Dancer’s Life.”He and Rivera would meet or talk on the phone once or twice a week as they were working on the book, and he urged Rivera to open up about her private life and to be candid about her not-so-nice side, Pacheco said. “Let’s put them in the room with Chita,” he remembered telling her, “but let’s also put them in the room with Dolores.” More

  • 150 Shares109 Views

    in Television

    Joe Exotic Is Resentenced to 21 Years for ‘Tiger King’ Murder-for-Hire Plot

    Joe Exotic, the former Oklahoma zoo owner who was the central figure in the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King,” was resentenced to 21 years in prison on Friday for the failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Carole Baskin, a self-proclaimed animal-rights activist who had criticized his zoo’s treatment of animals, his lawyers said.The new sentence reduces his punishment by one year. The original sentence, for 22 years in prison, was vacated as improper by a federal appeals court last summer.John M. Phillips, a lawyer for Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, said in a statement, “We are unsatisfied with the court’s decision and will appeal.” At a news conference, he said that Mr. Maldonado-Passage was disappointed.In court documents on Friday, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said, “Please don’t make me deal with cancer in prison waiting on an appeal.”In November, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said he received a diagnosis of an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.Mr. Maldonado-Passage, 58, was initially sentenced to prison in 2020 after twice attempting to hire people — including an undercover F.B.I. agent — to kill Ms. Baskin; their rivalry was one of the main plot lines of “Tiger King.” He was also found guilty of falsifying wildlife records and violating the Endangered Species Act for his role in trafficking and killing tigers.Last summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s appeal that his sentence was too long. Lawyers for the reality TV star had argued that a Federal District Court in Oklahoma had not grouped his two murder-for-hire convictions when his sentence was calculated. If the two counts had been grouped instead of considered for separate sentences, his prison term could have been as short as 17 and a half years, the court said.After the ruling, in a recording that his lawyers provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said his original sentence was “absolute crap.”Mr. Maldonado-Passage has always maintained his innocence and waged public campaigns, mostly through social media, for his release from prison. He failed to receive a pardon from former President Donald J. Trump in 2021 after months of petitioning and has since refocused his efforts on President Biden. After he received his cancer diagnosis, Mr. Maldonado-Passage was later transferred to a medical facility in North Carolina, according to his lawyer, Mr. Phillips.The next month, court documents showed that Mr. Maldonado-Passage was delaying treatment until after his resentencing, according to The Associated Press.At the courthouse in Oklahoma City on Friday, supporters of Mr. Maldonado-Passage attended the hearing, some wearing animal-print masks and T-shirts that read: “Free Joe Exotic,” The A.P. reported.Johnny Diaz More

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in Television

    Peter Robbins, Original Voice of Charlie Brown, Dies at 65

    Mr. Robbins, who first gave voice to the “Peanuts” character in a 1965 Christmas special, had struggled with mental illness and addiction in recent years.Peter Robbins, whose voice brought the “Peanuts” character Charlie Brown to life on television in the 1960s but who struggled with mental illness and served prison time later in his life, died on Jan. 18 in Oceanside, Calif. He was 65.The cause of death was suicide, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner.A list of his survivors was not immediately available.At age 9, Mr. Robbins achieved a breakthrough when the producers of the 1965 TV movie “A Charlie Brown Christmas” cast him as the voice of the hapless but endearing central character.Introduced in Charles M. Schulz’s popular comic strip “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown would become a sentimental presence on the screen with his catchphrase, “Good grief!,” familiar yellow shirt and frequent teasing by his friend Lucy.Mr. Robbins, who was born Louis G. Nanasi, would share in the franchise’s success, narrating at least six other television and movie productions, including “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” in 1966 and “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown” a year later.During his career, Mr. Robbins appeared in episodes of the television shows “Rawhide,” “The Munsters,” “Get Smart” and “My Three Sons,” according to IMDb.In the decades after his work as the voice of Charlie Brown, Mr. Robbins was unable to sustain his early success and publicly grappled with mental illness and substance abuse.In a 2019 interview with KSWB-TV, a Fox station in San Diego, he said that he had bipolar disorder. The station spoke to Mr. Robbins after his release from prison, where he had served 80 percent of a nearly five-year sentence for threatening several people, including the San Diego County sheriff and the property manager of a mobile home park near San Diego.In 2013, Mr. Robbins pleaded guilty to threatening his onetime girlfriend and stalking a doctor who performed breast-enhancement surgery on her, the station reported.He was arrested again in 2015 for violating the terms of this probation, according to the station, which reported that Mr. Robbins had made criminal threats toward a judge and written letters from jail offering to pay $50,000 to have William D. Gore, the San Diego County sheriff, killed.“I went on a manic phase where I bought a motor home, a mobile home, two German sports cars and a pitbull named Snoopy,” Mr. Robbins told the station in 2019.The actor said he regretted not getting help sooner for his mental illness.“I would recommend to anybody that has bipolar disorder to take it seriously,” he said, “because your life can turn around in a span of a month like it did to me.”If you are having thoughts of suicide, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.Susan Campbell Beachy More