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    in Theater

    A Playwright Has a Message: Anti-Asian Hate Isn’t New

    Lionelle Hamanaka wrote “Covid Crime” to bring the conversation surrounding such attacks to her neighbors in Manhattan.On Sunday afternoon, a pigeon flew through a performance of “Covid Crime,” a one-act play taking place at a Manhattan intersection, where yellow taxis whizzed by against the backdrop of a halal food cart.The show, written by Lionelle Hamanaka and directed by Howard Pflanzer, was unfolding in Richard Tucker Park, a tiny cobblestone triangle on the Upper West Side. It was more of a reading than a staging — its seven actors sat in metal folding chairs, as did the audience of about 50 people.“I saw this TV coverage of a woman being assaulted on a bus with an umbrella. She was an older woman, an older Asian American,” Hamanaka said last week, before the play. “I thought it would be interesting to see how the community’s affected by it. Because we see the outside story, but we don’t necessarily see every case.”At the start of the pandemic, the coalition Stop AAPI Hate — AAPI stands for Asian American Pacific Islander — formed and began its own tally of such attacks. From March 19, 2020 to June 30, 2021, the group received 9,081 reports of hate crimes against Asian Americans across the United States. That number was not just a mere statistic to Hamanaka, who is Japanese American.“My parents were in the concentration camps, and of course that caused a great deal of hardship for our family,” she said, referring to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. “My grandparents both had businesses, and they had to sell them in one week. They had to pack up all their things and leave. And that leaves a scar in your mind.”The playwright Lionelle Hamanaka spoke to the crowd ahead of her show, “Covid Crime.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesSo Hamanaka, a playwright and onetime jazz singer who describes herself as a senior, funneled her frustration into art. She’s written a series of plays about Covid-19, including “Covid 10,366,” about the April 2020 spike in Covid-19 deaths, and “The Spitter,” about a supermarket dispute over mask wearing. But this is the first time she has addressed the recent rise in anti-Asian American hate crimes in her work.Hamanaka noticed that much of the organizing surrounding the #StopAsianHate movement in New York was taking place in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where about 33 percent of the population identified as Asian in 2019, according to the N.Y.U. Furman Center, which studies housing and urban policy.She wanted to bring the movement to her neighborhood, the Upper West Side, where about 10 percent of the population identified as Asian. “Then the people who are there have to look around and look at Asian Americans in a slightly different way,” Hamanaka said. “‘Like, ‘Have I excluded them? Do I treat them as a foreigner?’”“Covid Crime” was presented by Crossways Theater, a group formed in 2018 by Hamanaka and Pflanzer. It aims to develop playwrights that reflect the diversity of their neighborhood.“The idea is to bring the audience closer to these issues,” said Pflanzer, 77. “Get them to engage and participate in understanding and being aware of this very important issue of anti-Asian hate in our communities.”In the play, the character Dr. Leo Chan (John Bernos) arrives home from a shift at Bellevue Hospital. He lives with his mother, Chunhua (Hamanaka), who is asleep on the couch in the living room.“It’s just me, Ma,” Leo says. Chunhua grunts, and he notices a bandage on her head.“What’s that?” he asks. “What happened?”“Woman hit me with umbrella,” Chunhua says.“Where?” Leo asks.“On a bus,” Chunhua replies. “She say I bring Chinese virus to New York. Now everybody dying.”Bernos, a Filipino American actor from Ann Arbor, Mich., drove nine hours to New York for “Covid Crime.” After the performance, an audience member asked him about the hardest part of the role.About 50 people attended the performance, which was followed by a community forum.An Rong Xu for The New York Times“I’ve had my share of having a person tell me to go back to China,” Bernos said. “It wasn’t cool. So I think the hardest part is having to dig back into that memory and face that again. It’s always tough.”Though the play revolves around Chunhua’s assault, it also features Dylan Omori McCombs as Corky Lee, the only character in the play based explicitly on a real person. Lee was a Chinese American photographer, journalist and activist from Queens. (He died in January at age 73 after Covid-19 complications.).css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“The sad part is that, the more I researched him as much as I could, the more I really wished that he was someone that I had learned about in my history textbooks,” said McCombs, wearing a hoodie that read “Not Your Model Minority.” “He obviously is of the caliber of someone that would be very much worthy of that.”“Covid Crime” ends on a rally set in Chinatown’s Columbus Park.“We’re here today because of the attacks against Asian Americans,” Lee says. “That’s been news in the pandemic, and the news is my business. My photos are proof that we exist — that we do a lot of things.”The performance was followed by a community forum. Shirley Ng, a community organizer at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Jacqueline Wang, the head of marketing and communications at Welcome to Chinatown, both spoke to the small crowd.“Just like the play, many seniors will come home and not know what to do,” Ng said. “They could’ve gone to the police precinct or called 911, but there’s always this fear that they may get turned away, because they don’t have someone who speaks their language, or there’s just this fear of stepping in and not knowing — what is the process?”“Covid Crime” was presented by Crossways Theater, which aims to develop playwrights that reflect the diversity of the Upper West Side.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesThe fund, a 47-year-old national organization based in New York, works to protect and promote the civil rights of Asian Americans — including encouraging seniors to report any hate crimes that may occur. Welcome to Chinatown, founded last year, is a grass roots initiative that supports Chinatown’s businesses and amplifies its voices.“Another thing covered by this play is that, when you don’t know someone — you don’t look like them, you don’t speak their language, you don’t know their culture, you don’t eat the same things — it’s really easy to just label them as ‘other,’” Wang said. “That’s something not new to the pandemic, but something that was exacerbated and highlighted.”In the last act of “Covid Crime,” Dr. Leo Chan speaks a common Chinese phrase. “We have a saying, ‘Swallow bitterness.’ Leave that behind. Won’t work these days!” More

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    in Television

    ‘Succession’ Renewed for Season 4

    The Emmy-winning HBO drama will be back. The premiere date has yet to be announced.HBO announced Tuesday that it has officially renewed “Succession,” its cutthroat drama about a media mogul’s children who strive to become either his favorite, or his destroyer, for a fourth season.Because of the pandemic, the show, which was created by Jesse Armstrong, was on hiatus for two years before returning for its third, nine-episode season earlier this month. It won seven Emmy Awards last year, including best drama series.“Succession” tells the story of the fictional Roy family members and their jockeying for power of the world’s fifth-largest media conglomerate, Waystar Royco.Brian Cox stars as the media mogul and gruff octogenarian patriarch Logan Roy, with Jeremy Strong (Kendall), Sarah Snook (Siobhan), Kieran Culkin (Roman) and Alan Ruck (Connor) playing his four grown children. Nicholas Braun has also become a fan favorite in his breakout role as Cousin Greg.The Season 3 premiere, which aired on HBO and was available to stream on HBO Max, drew more than 1.4 million viewers across all platforms, a high for the series and the best premiere night of any HBO original series since the launch of HBO Max, according to the network. Its renewal is not surprising, but had not been announced before Tuesday.The New York Times chief television critic James Poniewozik wrote that the new season — which he called “scabrously funny” — highlights the growing gulf between the superrich and the rest of the population.“The good guys are not going to win; the good guys are not even in the game,” he added. “You can only hope to see a terrible person do something terrible to a more terrible person.”A premiere date has not yet been announced. More

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    in Television

    Tavi Gevinson Finds Comfort in Legal Pads, Canned Fish and Rumi

    Writing for magazines while acting in “Gossip Girl” and “Assassins” has the 25-year-old staying up too late and looking for ways to quiet her mind.At 25, Tavi Gevinson finds herself caught between worlds.There’s the world of acting — where, starring in both Classic Stage Company’s upcoming “Assassins” revival and HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl” reboot, she already straddles stage and screen — and the world of writing. Launched into the public eye in 2010 when she founded the now-defunct fashion blog Rookie, she continues to write for herself and for magazines, notably when expressing her regrets in Vulture for working with the abusive producer Scott Rudin.But the preternaturally busy digital native is also at a crossroads when it comes to how to best use her time. She says she longs for the 3 a.m. sleepovers of her childhood, an hour which now sees her “sitting at my desk and working on different projects that no one asked for.”It’s not surprising then, that on a video call from her apartment in Brooklyn, Gevinson discussed 10 things that ease her mind and help her feel productive. (An earlier list she’d shared before our conversation was meant to be satirical, but she wasn’t sure how well a shout-out to “rugged individual queen” Ayn Rand would read, and recanted.) These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Canned fish Once I realized I was the first person ever to try canned fish — and that it’s such an easy way to feel like I’ve made something, even though I haven’t done much — it became very pleasurable. It gives me a lot of energy, which is kind of annoying, because when it turns out things are good for me, I’m like, “Damn it, now I have to keep doing this.”2. Google Keep It’s basically Google’s Notes app, but I feel like the Notes app has become such a loaded medium: It makes me feel like I’m writing an apology, and I have nothing to apologize for. So I needed a different app to trick myself into writing by starting on my phone, instead of sitting down at my computer and seeing a blank document and getting freaked out. Plus, Google really needs our help, and really needs the shout-out, so I wanted to include them.3. Legal pads Journals give me anxiety, especially if they’re really nice; even picking out a new journal can take all the fun out of keeping one for me. These are more like my diary. When I was in high school, I would write my diary during class, in my notebooks, and then tear out the pages and compile them. “Books” would be a strong word for what they are.4. The are.na app and website It’s sort of like Tumblr, but more organized; you create different channels, and then you upload blocks with photos, videos, links to articles, PDFs, anything. I don’t know if the good people at are.na would object to this, but the easiest way to describe it is actually as a kind of Pinterest for ideas. I follow channels where people compile readings about subjects I’m interested in, or images that follow a certain theme. Then I use it to organize ideas for things I’m writing. It’s very calming to use.5. Turning childhood keepsakes into jewelry I’ve never made my own clothes or anything, but I found these broken necklaces I made when I was a kid and realized it would be pretty simple to fix them. So I got supplies from a bead store across from Bryant Park, and now I can wear these necklaces I made when I was 5, but have turtles on them. I kind of pile up a lot of DIY projects that sound nice in theory and then rarely follow through.6. Upcycling brands The Series and ThereIsNoMoreStudio! on Etsy are brands that upcycle materials they find, while Samavai makes dresses and shirts out of saris. I have a couple of things from each, and it feels special to wear something that has a built-in history and that someone has very creatively reinvented.I don’t do a lot of browsing on Etsy, though, because I think it’s kind of stressful. More than once, I’ve bought a piece of furniture and then realized, once it came, that it was for a doll house.7. Abandoning books I started finishing a lot more books once I started abandoning ones that I wasn’t compelled to finish, but would just carry around with all of this guilt, and then I would end up looking at my phone instead. So, if by page 30, I’m not interested in turning the page, or I feel I’m not being enriched, then I let it go and I trust that it will either come back to me at the right time, or I’ll die never having read it.8. Conair face steamer A makeup artist on “Gossip Girl” gave this to me and I went, “OK, Amy …” but then I found it really helpful and soothing. You use it and it’s like, “Am I in a spa, or am I on my toilet?” It also seems to be good for your skin — which is the point, yes — but the ritual is also really pleasant to me and feels like it’s helping my skin even more.9. Running to slow songs If I listen to fast songs, I try to run at the pace of the music and can’t keep up. So I like to listen to songs that go at a steady clip, or ideally craft a playlist that starts a little more hyper and then reaches some kind of slow catharsis, with everyone in Prospect Park loving and understanding that I’m having a meaningful experience.Some of the music is excruciatingly sincere, singer-songwriter music. Some is ambient and wonky — Brian Eno is reliable. Sometimes I do show tunes, too, and I’m mortified that people can hear it, and see that I’m angrily running to “The Light in the Piazza.”10. “Don’t Go Back to Sleep” I came across this Rumi poem a few weeks ago in the “Reality Streaming” Substack by Hawa Arsala. Whenever I’d hear people say that they wrote, or made art, in the morning, I would be like, “Well, good for you.” I was resistant to the idea of there being an advantage to waking up early, but I recently tasked myself with trying it for a week and, annoyingly enough, it is very magical to write in the morning. It feels like you have some kind of secret or something.This poem makes me much more eager to go toward that magical little space, because nothing else really gives me that feeling I get out of working alone. It isn’t really fair to be an unpleasant wench all the time, just because I’m mad that I didn’t spend enough time writing, so … yeah, that poem. More

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    Behind the 'Boo!': How Haunted House Actors Scare Guests

    SurfacingWhen ‘Boo!’ Is Only the BeginningWhat does it take to scare the candy corn out of someone? Performers at two of New York’s hallowed haunted attractions explain the secrets behind the shocks.Keenan Loughney, who portrays a nurse at Headless Horseman in Ulster Park, N.Y.Angie Hansen knows what she wants: energy, professionalism, a gift for ad-lib. “And then somebody that really likes to scare people,” she said cheerfully.As the creative director of Blood Manor, a 10,000-square-foot haunted house nestled inside a TriBeCa skyscraper, Hansen assembles 60 performers annually, many of them Blood Manor veterans. She sorts the newcomers into appropriate roles — clowns, killers, corpse brides, victims weeping silicone wounds. In just three or four days of rehearsal, she teaches them to terrify the thousand or so guests who enter Blood Manor, a Halloween staple since 2005, each weekend evening.About two hours north, at Headless Horseman in Ulster Park, N.Y., David Berman leads acting workshops for seasonal scare actors. Because it takes more than ghoulish makeup and vibrating vocal cords to make ticket holders scream.“To just jump out of a closet and just yell, it doesn’t do anything,” Berman said.Nicole Borbone plays a reanimated corpse at Blood Manor.Such haunts — the industry term for a variety of haunted attractions — became popular in the 1980s. Spencer Terry, the president of the Haunted Attractions Association, a trade group, estimates that there are about 1,800 professional haunts in the United States this year. While horror now thrives in sundry forms, these destinations offer something entirely immersive, a 360-degree experience in which audiences can star in their worst nightmares.William Burton is Blood Manor’s mortician.Even as professional attractions move toward more extreme effects — animatronic monsters, plummeting elevators, rippling walls — most still depend on the potential of the human body alone. (Well, the human body and some terrifying face painting.) “Yes, you can scare folks with jump scares, or even puffs of air,” said Beth Kattelman, a professor of performance at Ohio State University. “But what people really remember are the characters, the special things that folks do.”Before Michael Jubie opened Headless Horseman nearly 30 years ago, he worked as a commander of a mounted police unit in Kingston, N.Y. He still projects extreme stoicism, and yet, his actors regularly frighten him. “Oh, I’ve been scared,” he said. “Oh, yes.”Shamia Diaz, a Blood Manor regular, plays the Bride, an asylum escapee. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, we spoke to some of the actors of Blood Manor, amid the hustle of New York City, and Headless Horseman — which operates escape rooms, haunted houses and a very scary corn maze on 65 acres a half-hour drive from the nearest train station — about how they make those scares happen.While some haunted houses use trained actors, most fill their ranks with enthusiastic amateurs. Before the pandemic, applicants came in for interviews and auditions. Now they typically audition remotely, scaring the camera. What makes a great haunt actor? “There has to be at least a little something off about you,” said Will Szigethy, a longtime Headless Horseman actor. But not too off. Most haunts run background checks.Scott Taylor, a packaging engineer for Avon by day, has worked at Headless Horseman for 10 years, with nine of them spent playing a very unsettling clown. “You can tell the people whose heart is in it,” he said. “And you can tell the people that are here just for a paycheck. Those people don’t usually last very long.”Scott Taylor has worked at Headless Horseman for 10 years, playing a clown for most of that time.Veterans take first-timers under their wings, helping them improve their personae and teaching them to scream without shredding their throats. (The trick: Howl from the diaphragm.) Over the course of a season, newcomers will refine characters based on their environment — a morgue, a cemetery, a sideshow — finding distinctive ways to move, to scream, to wield a chain saw or an ax. They will also find their rhythms: a horror variant on comic timing, with a shriek in place of a punchline.Shamia Diaz, a Blood Manor regular, plays the Bride, an asylum escapee. In her blood-smeared hands, the role involves a lot of shaking, a lot of screaming, a lot of encouraging attendees to read scripture from the book of Satan. “You have to find your own mojo, your own vibe,” she said. “Because once you find what works for you, you’re unstoppable.”Jose Torres as Jack, Blood Manor’s masked serial killer.For Dominique Peres, who joined Headless Horseman five years ago as a painfully shy teenager, mojo meant creating a character called Jacket, an exuberant take on a psycho killer. “Jacket is crazy, has an ax, runs rampant, likes candy, likes to make friends,” she said.Some performers specialize in jump scares, popping out from unexpected corners. Others prefer more psychological scares, sidling up to ticket holders, whispering in their ears. (Before Covid-19, some haunts allowed performers to do more than just whisper, but Blood Manor and Headless Horseman have always maintained strict no-contact policies.) Others are more versatile. Amateur psychologists, they vary the scare depending on the mood in the room.Jose Torres, who plays Jack, Blood Manor’s masked serial killer, adjusts his attitude for each new group. “It’s just a connected energy that comes between you and the people walking through,” Torres said.David Berman leads acting workshops at Headless Horseman.That energy, however connected, can be difficult to maintain. While a stage actor will perform once or twice per day, a haunt actor may replay the same scene 10 times an hour, for six to eight hours at a stretch. “It is physically strenuous,” said Meagan Donovan, who oversees a haunted house on the Headless Horseman property. “You’re swinging an ax around all night or just hiding in a small space, being loud.”But the adrenaline rush of eliciting scream after scream keeps performers swinging. “It’s better than a roller coaster,” said Hansen, who spent years playing a Blood Manor victim. “It’s better than sex. It’s better than then the best meal you’ve ever had. The feeling of scaring somebody is what makes you want to do it again and again and again.”Ketara Adolphus plays a character named Stressedgod at Blood Manor.This brand of acting rewards performers in other ways, too. Putting on the makeup and picking up a fake weapon allows them a sense of freedom and disinhibition they may not feel otherwise. “For me, the experience has been very empowering,” Diaz said.Many also treat haunt acting as a form of stress relief. “They use it as a kind of therapy,” said Berman, who plays a gross-out character named Dewey Tewey at Headless Horseman. “You can’t, in your regular day job, tell somebody you’re going to rip their arms and legs off and toss them into the woods.”As Reff, Hector Vega Toro prowls the depths of Blood Manor.Every so often an actor goes too far, continuing to scare a ticket holder who is obviously already petrified. But most know when to quit or even how to lend a helping, blood-covered hand, scooting people out of a room without breaking character. Besides, the best scares, many performers said, are the ones they really have to work for.Nicole Borbone and William Burton, recent college graduates, perform a scene set in Blood Manor’s sinew-stained morgue. They begin with a jump scare, then move into a sequence in which Borbone’s corpse suddenly rises from the table and begs attendees to help her. Burton likes to lock eyes with the customers who look like they’d be tough to scare; Borbone tends to lunge for them. Usually she gets the reaction she wants.“When I make a grown man scream and fall on his knees,” she said, “I’ve done my job.”Dominique Peres performs as Jacket, an exuberant psycho killer.Surfacing is a column that explores the intersection of art and life, produced by Alicia DeSantis, Jolie Ruben, Tala Safie and Josephine Sedgwick. More

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    How to Decorate Your Apartment Like an Artistic Director

    When Charlotte Moore moved into John McMartin’s Upper West Side co-op, it was ‘not pretty.’ Nearly five decades later, that’s been fixed.In 1971, Charlotte Moore auditioned for “A Little Night Music” on the stage of the Winter Garden Theater, where the musical “Follies” was playing. (Readers will soon see that this is not an irrelevant detail.)Ms. Moore, who tends toward the dramatic, a trait that has likely served her well as a founder and the artistic director of the Irish Repertory Theater, insists to this day that her tryout, in front of the director Harold Prince, was “a disaster, a complete disaster — I was in tears and ruins, absolute ruins, embarrassed and humiliated.”But maybe not such a disaster. A year later, Mr. Prince phoned her with an invitation to join the fledgling New Phoenix Repertory Company. “When I decided to throw everything away and come here without knowing anyone at all, it was a ridiculous idea,” said Ms. Moore, whose adaptation of Dion Boucicault’s “The Streets of New York,” originally staged by her at the Irish Rep in 2001, begins performances there again, under her direction, on Dec. 4.“I knew nothing. But I just did it,” continued Ms. Moore, who grew up in a small farming community in Illinois, the granddaughter of Irish immigrants, and studied theater at Washington University in St. Louis.“I wanted very much for Jack to be comfortable,” said Charlotte Moore, who shared a one-bedroom co-op on the Upper West Side with her partner, the actor John McMartin, for more than 40 years.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesShe rented an apartment on Riverside Drive and began to settle in. Not long after signing the lease, Ms. Moore met John McMartin, one of the stars of “Follies,” which had recently closed. Now he, too, was part of the New Phoenix troupe.“I was madly in love with him on Day 1, although I didn’t know anything about him and hadn’t seen him in anything. I didn’t see ‘Follies,’ to my horror,” said the now 80-ish Ms. Moore.That lapse was apparently forgiven. A bit more than a year later, she moved in with Mr. McMartin, a divorcé who owned a large one-bedroom co-op with a private entrance on West End Avenue.She is still there. Mr. McMartin, who died in 2016, bequeathed the apartment to his two children, Ms. Moore said, “but he said specifically in his will that I am to be here as long as I want, and I would never leave.”During her first days in residence, she took the measure of her new home and found it wanting. “Jack had been living the bachelor’s life there since his divorce, and it was not pretty,” she said. “When I say, ‘Not pretty,’ that’s a gross understatement.”There was, for starters, a bed in the living room, mounted on two-by-fours. “Oh, my God, I was stunned,” she said. “I was stunned.”Charlotte Moore, 80-ishOccupation: Actor, co-founder and artistic director of the Irish Repertory TheaterMaking room: “We never did any structural work on the apartment. All I did was kind of refurnish the place, and arranged the spaces the way they were supposed to be.”Forty-five years on, the apartment is structurally as Ms. Moore found it. But she has determinedly changed it from crash pad to adult home.When outfitting the living room, she took her cues from her mother. “She hated modernity and loved classic rooms,” Ms. Moore said. Thus, the pale-green-and-gray velvet sofa with leaf patterning, the accent chair in a floral print, the nicely faded Persian rug and the four high-backed dining chairs that she inherited from her grandmother. Ms. Moore cleverly turned the foyer into a cozy TV room — she disapproves of televisions in living rooms, never mind beds — with a pair of chocolate-brown leather club chairs.Dark wood bookcases in the living room and TV room hold Ms. Moore’s many books about Napoleon (“I don’t know why, but I’m a Napoleon freak”); her books on Ireland (“Obviously, I have lots of books about Ireland”); and a mass of tiny glass and plastic pigs.Ms. Moore converted the foyer of the apartment to a TV room.Katherine Marks for The New York Times“I collect pigs, and Jack McMartin bought me a pig every birthday,” she said. “Napoleon and pigs — I don’t know why they go together.”While Ms. Moore summarily chucked some offending pieces when she moved in — goodbye to the hulking cabinet in the middle of the kitchen — she didn’t completely clean house. A much-loved breakfast table that was surrounded by a pair of rattan chairs and a curved banquette is still there. So is a hutch that holds her substantial cache of delft pitchers, vases, platters, cups and plates. Hanging above is a framed trio of Beatrix Potter illustrations featuring a rabbit, a gift from Mr. McMartin.Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of Ms. Moore’s favorite pieces in the apartment — the two flowered cushions on the banquette, the large, square wood coffee table in the living room and the vintage baby grand — are from stage sets. The piano has a particularly winning provenance: It was part of the scenery in the 1983 touring production of “Private Lives” that starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and featured John Cullum and Ms. Moore.“I’m not swearing to this, but I might have said, ‘You know, Richard, the only thing I hate to leave in this show is the damn piano. I love it so much. I think it’s so beautiful,’” said Ms. Moore, who composed the songs for “The Streets of New York” on that very instrument. “Well, one day, there it was, at the door of my apartment.”“All I did was kind of refurnish the place,” Ms. Moore said.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesMr. McMartin is very much a presence. He smiles from photographs. His books, many inscribed, still line the shelves. The gloves that were part of his costume in a Broadway production of “Chemin de Fer” hang in a frame near the living room. On a recent morning, Ms. Moore reached behind a bookcase and pulled out the cane that Mr. McMartin wielded during the shattering “Live, Laugh, Love” production number at the end of “Follies.”“Jack Cassidy came in here one time,” Ms. Moore said, referring to the Tony-winning actor. “And he said, ‘John, it’s time you did something with this place, because it’s a special place.’ I felt that way about it, too.”“I wanted very much for him to be comfortable and live in a pretty place,” she continued. “No, that’s not it. I wanted to live in a pretty place. I grew up in a nice house — a lovely house, actually — and I wanted this apartment to be wonderful. For both of us.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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    Late Night Is Aghast the G.O.P. Is Allegedly Linked to Jan. 6

    “It’s a real ‘Ocean’s 11’ of people who can’t count to 10,” Stephen Colbert said.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.‘The Legion of Dumb’A new report in Rolling Stone magazine alleged that several members of Trump’s White House staff were involved in planning the rally that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection.Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Louie Gohmert of Texas and “Marjorie Taylor Greene of Mordor” — as Jimmy Kimmel referred to her on Monday night — were just a few of those said to be involved.“It’s a real ‘Ocean’s 11’ of people who can’t count to 10,” Stephen Colbert joked.“What a sad lineup that is. It’s the legion of dumb.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And I, for one, am shocked that Congress had anything to do with it, because it nearly worked.” — SETH MEYERS“One of the organizers said, ‘I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically.’ Yes, I can imagine it’s hard to forget someone who tells you forest fires are caused by circumcised space lasers.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona was named, too. This guy, when he was running for office, six of his siblings — his own brothers and sisters — made an attack ad against him and called him a traitor. Before he was one of the most hated members of Congress, he was the most hated member of his family.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He reportedly told the organizers repeatedly they would get a blanket pardon from Trump and they were all, like, ‘Well, if there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump, he’s as good as his word.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“‘Blanket pardon’ sounds like the kind of made-up fake legal thing these doofuses would say. It’s a weird feature of our politics that the most sinister characters are also the biggest morons.” — SETH MEYERS“You could imagine Paul Gosar or Marjorie Taylor Greene on the phone with the Jan. 6 idiots huddled in their weird little militia hide-out/tree house promising them all kinds of crazy [expletive]: [Imitating Gosar and Greene] ‘You didn’t hear it from me, but I spoke to the chief wizard of the Supreme Court and he said there’s a secret provision written by Benjamin Franklin’s ghost, and it says you can have a blanket pardon, a private plane and a $100 gift card to Golden Corral.’” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (the Facebook Papers Edition)“It is a monumentally bad day for Facebook, the world’s top social media network and Uncle radicalizer.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“A group of U.S. news organizations last week began publishing a series of stories based on internal Facebook documents showing that the social media platform spreads misinformation, incites violence and facilitates human trafficking. Even worse, it gives people from high school a way to get in touch with you.” — SETH MEYERS“Thanks to hundreds of leaked internal documents, 17 news organizations are publishing a series of stories about all of the damage Facebook does, for example, how coordinated groups on Facebook sow discord and violence, including on Jan. 6. That’s in addition to the discord your cousin sows on Facebook by announcing she’s named her twins Dash and Otter.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The documents, which are being called the Facebook Papers, reveal frustration among Facebook’s staff about the company’s direction. Yeah, not so great to have all your personal information stolen, is it, Facebook?” — JAMES CORDEN“I don’t know, are we really surprised by this, finding out ‘What did Facebook know?’ Let me clear it up for you, what Facebook knows: They know everything. They know your Social Security number. They know where you live; what you’re having for lunch. They know the winners of the next five Super Bowls.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They’re basically Specter, but we can’t stop because we have to monitor the weight of our former love interests.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Unsurprisingly, a lot of misinformation has to do with Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg. Last year, he testified before Congress that Facebook removes 94 percent of hate speech, but the company’s own researchers estimated that it was removing less than 5 percent. That’s — that’s a hell of a spread: ‘Mom, I know I said I got 94 percent on the math test, but it was actually 5 percent. I didn’t lie; I just really suck at math.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth Watching“The Daily Show” took a deep dive into Senator Kyrsten Sinema.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightOlivia Rodrigo will perform on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This Out“Judy Justice,” starring Judge Judith Sheindlin, will become available on Nov. 1.Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesJudge Judith Sheindlin has moved on from “Judge Judy” to “Judy Justice.” More

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    Broadway’s ‘Is This a Room’ and ‘Dana H.’ to Close Early

    The two experimental works will end their runs on Nov. 14. They had been scheduled to close Jan. 16.A pair of short experimental dramas that made an unlikely journey to Broadway this fall will close early, reflecting a tough climate for new plays as the industry seeks to recover from the lengthy pandemic shutdown.“Is This a Room” and “Dana H.” will end their runs on Nov. 14. They had been scheduled to close Jan. 16.“While we would’ve loved to run through our original end date, we recognize that we are in a challenging landscape for live performance and we’re grateful to have had a chance to share this work,” the producers, Dori Berinstein, Sally Horchow and Matt Ross, said in a statement Monday.The plays were jointly capitalized for up to $3.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money has not been recouped by investors.The reviews were strong for both works. “Is This a Room,” which is a verbatim re-enactment of the F.B.I. interrogation of Reality Winner, began previews Sept. 24 and opened Oct. 11. The play was conceived and directed by Tina Satter and stars Emily Davis.Deirdre O’Connell in Lucas Hnath’s play “Dana H.” at the Lyceum Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Dana H.,” in which an actress, Deirdre O’Connell, lip-syncs a series of audio interviews in which the playwright’s mother describes being abducted by a man she had been counseling, began previews Oct. 1 and opened Oct. 17. The author is Lucas Hnath, and the play is directed by Les Waters.The plays, which are running at the Lyceum Theater, are the first casualties of the uncertain climate on Broadway this fall. The industry is concerned enough about its economic state that it is not disclosing box-office grosses — a break with decades of practice — so it is hard to know how shows are doing. Producers say that several big musicals, and even some plays, are doing well, but that new plays, long a challenge on Broadway, are struggling. More

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    Why Amazon Is in Business With Judge Judy

    The company hopes a new court show starring the straight-talking judge will help turbocharge its free, ad-supported streaming platform, IMDb TV.CULVER CITY, Calif. — And you thought Amazon’s ambitions in Hollywood were limited to a single streaming service.Amazon Prime Video, of course, ranks as one of the world’s pre-eminent subscription providers of on-demand films and television shows. Last year, Amazon spent $11 billion on entertainment programming, a 41 percent increase from a year earlier. In May, Amazon bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to supercharge its content pipeline even further. For their $13 monthly Prime membership fee, subscribers will soon have exclusive access to “Thursday Night Football.”But the internet giant also owns another streaming service, one that has mostly gone unnoticed. It’s called IMDb TV. Started in 2019 with little fanfare, IMDb TV is free, supported by ads, mostly stocked with reruns — and about to come out of the shadows.Next Monday, IMDb TV will unveil “Judy Justice,” a court show starring the straight-talking Judge Judith Sheindlin, 79, whose wildly popular “Judge Judy” ended in May after 25 years. The new show is essentially a supersized version of the old one — a certified hit, or so IMDb TV hopes, taken from the dying medium of daytime broadcast syndication. The cases being litigated involve amounts up to $10,000. (It was $5,000 before.) Her on-camera courtroom staff has been expanded to include a stenographer and a law clerk.Sarah Rose, 24, a law school student who happens to be Judge Sheindlin’s granddaughter, is the clerk. At the end of each “Judy Justice” episode, Ms. Rose and Judge Sheindlin meet in chambers and chew some fat.“Sometimes I can add something from a younger perspective,” Ms. Rose said, referring to America’s crankiest judge as Nana. “The term LMAO came up on a case the other day, for example, and she needed me to interpret.”“Judy Justice” is similar to “Judge Judy,” which ran for 25 years on broadcast networks.Tracy Nguyen for The New York TimesJudge Sheindlin has ditched the much-discussed clip-on pony tail she wore in the final seasons of “Judge Judy.” (Asked by a reporter to address viewer consternation over her hair, she responded with an epic eye roll.) But she remains defiant — a plain-spoken star at a time when expressing an incongruent opinion can result in vicious blowback online.“I bring eyeballs because, at least for one hour a day, people see that someone is holding the line,” Judge Sheindlin said over lunch. “I’m unafraid to call out irresponsible, un-American behavior. If we settle for mediocrity, we get what we deserve.”A waiter stopped by to top off her glass of rosé. “I think I know the boundary, the limit, of where it’s appropriate to go,” she continued. “I might say to a male defendant: ‘So you’re 22 and you have six kids and no job. Find something else to do with that organ!’ But I don’t say what I would really want to say, which is, ‘Bring it up here to my bench.’”She slammed her knife down on the table. “Whack,” she said gleefully.Amazon is counting on Judge Sheindlin’s chutzpah to help establish IMDb TV as a bigger player in what has become, surprisingly, one of the hottest areas in media: free, ad-supported video on demand. In addition to IMDb TV, which is named after the Internet Movie Database, the crowded field includes Pluto TV, Tubi, Peacock, Roku Channel, Crackle and Xumo. They mostly aggregate older films (“Despicable Me 2,” “Grumpy Old Men”) and reruns (“Little House on the Prairie,” “Good Times”).IMDb TV also offers series like “Mad Men.” Justina Mintz/AMC, via Associated PressOnce seen as dowdy cousins to subscription services like Disney+ and Netflix, which do not carry ads, ad-supported platforms soared in popularity during the pandemic as viewers sought out entertainment comfort food. More viewers than anticipated seem to be willing to put up with a few ad breaks, analysts say. IMDb TV, for one, claims to carry about 50 percent fewer ads than a traditional broadcast network.“Free is always compelling,” said Guy Bisson, executive director of Ampere Analysis, noting that subscription fatigue is setting in among some consumers.Ad-supported streaming services had about 108 million viewers in the United States in 2020, according to eMarketer. The number is expected to climb to 157 million by 2024. (IMDb TV does not disclose raw viewing numbers. In May, it said that year-over-year viewership had increased 138 percent and that 62 percent of viewers were ages 18 to 49, the demographic that advertisers pay a premium to reach.)The online video advertising market is expected to total roughly $82 billion in the United States in 2024, up from $27 billion in 2018, according to Ampere Analysis.IMDb TV is expected to be rebranded, although Amazon has given no date. (Asked if she had complained to Amazon about the awkward name and pressed the company to change it, Judge Sheindlin said, “I have, and they are.” An IMDb TV spokeswoman declined to comment.) At the moment, only 33 percent of entertainment consumers are aware of IMDb TV, ranking the service near the back of the ad-supported pack, according to Screen Engine/ASI. Most competitors are in the 40s.Last year, IMDb TV rolled out its first original drama, “Alex Rider,” based on the popular spy novels for teenagers. A second season is on the way, along with other originals, including a half-hour drama from Dick Wolf, the king of law enforcement TV; a spinoff of “Bosch,” the long-running Prime Video series; a comedy starring Martha Plimpton; and a drama adapted from the 1999 erotic thriller “Cruel Intentions.” Under a new agreement between Amazon and Universal Pictures, Prime Video and IMDb TV will share certain streaming rights to Universal’s theatrical films.In recent months, the IMDb TV app has become available on a wide variety of devices, including iPhones. This fall, Amazon will begin selling its own smart TVs with IMDb TV automatically installed.“Judy Justice” is not without risk. Old “Judge Judy” episodes (there are more than 5,000) continue to run in syndication on local stations, and viewers don’t seem to mind the recycling. About seven million have been tuning in, a decline of only 11 percent from May, when new episodes were airing, according to Nielsen data.How much Judge Sheindlin does one planet need? “You can never have enough of someone who is as smart and as funny and as entertaining as she is,” said Lauren Anderson, IMDb TV’s co-head of programming.The core daytime audience is decidedly senior. Will Judge Sheindlin’s older fans be able to find IMDb TV’s corner of the internet? (Access to IMDb TV programming, including “Judy Justice,” is easiest through Prime Video.)Judge Sheindlin, 79, said she was “relatively worry free” about her new show.Tracy Nguyen for The New York Times“Judy Justice” also represents an experiment for streaming. For the first time, a service is trying to replicate daytime television’s traditional rhythm: New episodes will arrive five days a week and accumulate in a bingeable library. IMDb TV ordered 120 episodes of “Judy Justice,” the largest first-season order ever by a streamer, analysts say. Amazon has an option to order another 120.“We see a space to become a modern broadcast network,” Ms. Anderson said. “While we have seen the ratings decline on broadcast, it’s not because audiences are rejecting the content. It’s about convenience and the delivery route.”Judge Sheindlin deemed herself “relatively worry free” about her new show. Unlike traditional syndication, streaming doesn’t have the pressure of publicly reported ratings. And she doesn’t exactly need the job.“I did the math, and I’ve already got enough for 24-7 nursing care until I’m 150,” she said. (CBS paid her $47 million to tape 260 episodes of “Judge Judy” a year. She declined to discuss her “Judy Justice” salary. Amazon is paying her about $25 million for the first 120 episodes, analysts estimate.)Other television icons — David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, Oprah Winfrey — have approached streaming as a slower, more refined second act. But Judge Sheindlin is sticking with the tried and true. A few weeks ago, she was on the “Judy Justice” set at Amazon Studios doing what she does best — yelling at a dognapper.“Don’t try to talk over me, madam!”Camera operators moved toward her bench for a close-up. Judge Sheindlin, wearing a maroon robe (instead of “Judge Judy” black) with a more stylish collar (begone with you, lace doily), tapped her finger impatiently.“I’m waiting for your proof!” More