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    Onstage, ‘Designing Women’ Sheds the Shoulder Pads, Not Its Politics

    The hit sitcom, which ended in 1993, is back as play, premiering in Arkansas. But how do its laughs land in our more pointed political landscape?FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the Emmy-nominated writer and producer, started hearing voices earlier this year, voices she hadn’t heard in nearly 30 years. Those voices wouldn’t shut up.“I told my husband, I’m going to have to get a gun and shoot them,” Bloodworth-Thomason said during a recent phone conversation.She didn’t know how else to make them stop.The voices were those of Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker, Mary Jo Shively and Charlene Frazier, the characters from “Designing Women,” the half-hour sitcom that premiered on CBS in 1986. Nominated for a slew of Emmys, it won only one, for outstanding achievement in hairstyling. Set in Atlanta, and centered on a quartet of mouthy women who orbit an interior design firm, it combined feminist politics with click-clack comedy rhythms, celebrating the New South with wit and pluck and shoulder pads.The show earned her, Bloodworth-Thomason said, citations from both Mitch McConnell, who had praised an antipornography episode, and the A.C.L.U. The A.C.L.U. one she framed.The show wrapped in 1993. Prime time and popular culture moved on. But friends and fans would often ask Bloodworth-Thomason what Julia, the outspoken founder of the design firm, played by Dixie Carter, might say about same-sex marriage or the #MeToo movement or the election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency.More recently, Bloodworth-Thomason began to think about answers.Those answers coalesced into a two-act comedy, “Designing Women.” Directed by Bloodworth-Thomason’s husband, Harry Thomason, the play had its premiere recently at TheaterSquared, in Fayetteville, Ark. (Thomason grew up in Hampton, Ark.; Bloodworth-Thomason in Poplar Bluff, Mo., just over the border.) The play runs through the end of October. It will also be available to stream, starting Oct. 15.The cast of the original “Designing Women” included, clockwise from bottom left: Jean Smart, Alice Ghostley, Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Meshach Taylor.Fotos International, via Getty ImagesA sleek, glass-walled building, a paper airplane’s flight from the University of Arkansas campus, TheaterSquared occupies a busy-ish corner. It has two theaters: the West, where “Designing Women” plays, which seats 275, and the Spring, which seats 120. The building hosts rehearsal spaces, administrative offices, scene and wardrobe shops, a flexible lobby performance space and a welcoming cafe where pastry always seems to be baking.Its programming favors lively dramas and musicals from contemporary playwrights of diverse backgrounds. This season includes Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop,” Mike Lew’s “Tiger Style!” and Kristoffer Diaz’s “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.” Fayetteville, where more than 77 percent of residents identify as white, is not itself especially diverse.“If you’re a theater company that sets as its mission creating a more equitable community, then you want to bring people along,” Martin Miller, the theater’s executive told me. He had found me on the cafe’s patio, in early September, demolishing some local goat cheese. I’d come to northwest Arkansas for a few days of table work and rehearsal because I had wanted to see if an ’80s sensation, a sensation I had loved as a kid, still had anything to say to a 2020s audience. And, if I’m honest, I wanted to know just what this sensation was doing in Fayetteville.In “Designing Women” — the theatrical version — the diversity centers on the class backgrounds of its characters, their religious beliefs, their voting patterns, as the TV one had. Set in the very recent past, the script eavesdrops on the women and a few new characters as they contend with the pandemic, the possible financial collapse of their firm and the 2020 presidential election. It is no spoiler to say that the women ultimately triumph, bridging their differences stylishly. The creators and producers hope that it will encourage audiences across the political spectrum to build some bridges, too.“We just need to look at each other with more grace and more love, that’s what I’m gathering from this play,” Carmen Cusack, the Tony-nominated actress who plays Julia in the theatrical version, said. “At the end of the day, what’s most important is just appreciating that we’re all in this together.”The original “Designing Women” wore the skirt suits and heels of a workplace comedy. But the workplace occupied Julia’s living room, so it was a domestic comedy, too. Part of a late ’80s boom in women-centered shows that included “Roseanne” and “Murphy Brown,” it wrestled — sometimes explicitly, sometimes obliquely, often in heels — with the feminist discourse of the day.Joan Williams, the director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, described the series as a helpful fiction suggesting that women could have both careers and families without apparent conflict. “It opened a fantasy, a conceptual space, an idealized image that it was going to be possible for women to be very successful professionals and very successful mothers,” Williams said.The fantasy largely favored an empowerment agenda, implying that if a woman just tugged on her big-girl panties and stood up tall in them, she could bend the world to her will. But episodes also exposed systemic problems — sexual harassment, violent pornography — without offering easy answers.“‘Designing Women’ really did try to speak to the particular political moment, even as it attempted to negotiate it within the politics of television,” said Alfred Martin, a media and cultural studies scholar at the University of Iowa.The show’s director, Harry Thomason, far left, with Jason Lynch, the production lighting designer, and Austin Bomkamp, the programmer, at a tech run.Rana Young for The New York TimesThe show wasn’t entirely progressive. Its sole character of color, Anthony Bouvier (Meshach Taylor), had a subordinate role in the firm, and queer characters were rare. But it gave its characters divergent attitudes, insisting that the experience of women wasn’t uniform. In a logline, the characters might have come across as stereotypes — hardass, bimbo, pragmatist, naïf — yet as played by Carter, Delta Burke, Annie Potts and Jean Smart, they had smart minds and big hearts. Even as they fought, they supported one another.That’s what makes this theatrical version of “Designing Women” more than an attempt to capitalize on familiar intellectual property. As a television show, it straddled the political divide, allowing both progressive and conservative women to see themselves represented, glamorously. Those divides are wider now. But if these characters can still talk to one another onstage, maybe audience members can continue those conversations offstage, with or without repartee.Though TheaterSquared announced the show in early 2020, Bloodworth-Thomason didn’t start writing it until this year, ultimately amassing some 7,000 pages. (Those voices really wouldn’t shut up.) The September draft flaunted her practiced style, a rapier wit with a bedazzled handle, and included a few callbacks for dedicated fans, like a riff on Julia’s “the lights went out in Georgia” speech.The feminism still isn’t especially intersectional, even as the firm now includes a co-owner who is Black and queer, Anthony’s cousin Cleo (Carla Renata). But the script has updated its politics. The first line has Julia instructing Hayley (Kim Matula), the new receptionist, in temperature checks for clients. “If they refuse, kick ’em out,” Julia says. “If they’re wearing a MAGA hat, don’t let ’em in.” In the background a voice mail message plays, calling Julia a “lying socialist slut.”Bloodworth-Thomason dreams of a tour of the South for the play and an eventual berth on Broadway. But it’s dialogue like this that explains why she and Thomason chose TheaterSquared for the tryout. Washington County, which encompasses Fayetteville, went for Trump in 2020, though by a somewhat narrow margin — 50.39 percent to Trump, and 46.49 percent to Joseph R. Biden’s ticket — and the theater attracts spectators who don’t all vote the same way.“I know that not everybody who walks in the door would automatically agree with me in a conversation over a beer,” Miller told me. But the theater deliberately programs plays that prompt those conversations. And the cafe has 16 local beers on tap.On a Tuesday, about two weeks before previews began, the theater thrummed with activity — set painting, costume stitching, wig combing. The scenery was half assembled, and a variety of faux topiary dotted the back of the auditorium. The theater had recently announced new Covid protocols, which require that audience members offer proof of vaccination or a recent negative test, and Miller had to devote several hours to handling angry responses, like an email describing the protocols as “an imperialist act against our democracy” — only a step or two removed from “lying socialist slut.”A rehearsal in early September. Thomason said he wanted the play’s cast members to capture some of the aura of the original actresses, without quite impersonating them.Rana Young for The New York TimesUpstairs, in the rehearsal space, the masked actors arrayed themselves around several folding tables, with cookies and water bottles in reach. Bloodworth-Thomason had hoped to join them, but an illness had kept her at home in Los Angeles. (A glitchy Zoom connection made table work possible.) Though the characters ought to be in their 70s by now, the actresses, and a few male love interests, were mostly in their 50s, suggesting either a suspension of disbelief or some superb plastic surgeons. The mood was friendly, while also faintly tense, a reflection of the work ahead.Playing beloved characters — characters associated with even more beloved actresses — applies deep-tissue pressure. Most of the actors had seen the show during its original run. (Cusack, who grew up in an evangelical Christian household, is an exception.) They spoke, feelingly, about what it had meant to see smart women, funny women, Southern women, beamed into their living rooms. Several of them voiced an obligation to honor those performances.“I do feel a responsibility, particularly to the fans,” Elaine Hendrix, who plays Charlene, said.In an interview the next day, just before rehearsal, Thomason said he hoped that this cast would capture some of the aura of the original actresses, without quite impersonating them. “That’s all one can hope for,” he added. “Because if you try to just duplicate them, then the audience will not forgive you.”During the rehearsal, as coffee bubbled in a percolator, everyone tried to inhabit the characters, old and new, even when the characters voiced opinions that diverged from the actors’ own.“It’s the challenge, right?” said Matthew Floyd Miller, who plays Suzanne’s latest ex-husband, a Trump supporter. “How do you sympathize and humanize somebody who has diametrically opposed views than you do?”But what will audiences forgive? What will get them in the door? There’s already a glut of reboots, reimaginings and screen-to-stage variations. And not everyone wants to see “Designing Women,” which was overtly political to begin with, revived for our era. Thomason had heard from friends about some people’s plans to protest the show, even before they knew a lick of its plot or a line of the script.That didn’t faze his wife. “I would love to see a big crowd outside with a lot of signs,” she said.It did, however, give some of the actors pause. “I’m a little nervous because I say some stuff that is blunt and is hard-core and is extremely politicized, and I’m a Black person in Arkansas,” Renata said.When Cusack told her mother about the show, her mother told her she planned to be among the protesters. Cusack didn’t try to dissuade her. “I said, ‘Mom, I’ll buy your plane ticket,’” Cusack recalled. “‘Come. Bring it. Let’s have the discussion.’” More

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    Late Night Hits Trump With Colonoscopy Jokes

    A new book by a former White House press secretary said that the former president feared late night hosts would poke fun at him if he went under for the medical procedure.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.‘They Had to Film It in Imax’A new book by the former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now,” revealed some fun facts about Donald J. Trump on Tuesday. One of the biggest bombshells was about the former president’s mysterious visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 2019, which Grisham said was for a colonoscopy that Trump stayed conscious for, in part to keep late night television hosts from finding out and making fun of him.“I have to say, it gives me a lot of satisfaction, as a late night talk show host, to know that he opted to stay awake while they augered his innards with a sewer snake specifically because he didn’t want us making fun of him,” Jimmy Kimmel said.Kimmel said he felt cheated, finding out such vital information so late in the game: “Because when a president, especially this president, gets a colonoscopy, it is my duty — that’s right, duty — to make jokes about it.”“The president’s doctor decided to schedule this procedure after the White House toilet killed itself.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It took a while because the doctor kept accidentally sticking the camera in his mouth.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“As soon as they switched the camera on, Trump turned around and said ‘Hey doc, how are the ratings?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Afterward, the whole medical team kept saying, ‘Wow, what an unbelievable [expletive].” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The doctors said the hardest thing about giving Trump a colonoscopy was getting the camera around Mike Pence’s nose.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yeah, colonoscopy was no big deal — they only found three polyps and Rudy Giuliani.” — JIMMY FALLON“Well, sure, with this president, they had to film it in Imax.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Oh, my God, that had to be terrible — for the doctor who had to give a colonoscopy while the guy on the table kept screaming about how he won Michigan.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (The ‘Music Man’ Edition)“The book also says a White House official known as the ‘Music Man’ would play Trump his favorite show tunes like ‘Memory’ from ‘Cats’ to pull him from the brink of rage. It makes sense because Trump’s presidency is exactly like ‘Cats’ — awkward, bizarre and no one had any idea what the hell was going on.” — JIMMY FALLON“And if they wanted to drive him to the brink of rage, they’d show him the movie ‘Cats.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yep, Trump listened to ‘Cats’ to cheer himself up while the rest of his staff remained ‘Les Misérables.’” — JIMMY FALLON“One thing I know for sure: Some day, when Ryan Murphy eventually makes an ‘American Crime Story’ about the Trump White House, I am definitely playing the ‘Music Man.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Tuesday’s “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” the “Late Night” writers Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel poke fun at white neighborhoods and gay dating apps.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightStephen Colbert will welcome Anita Hill to Wednesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutJocelyn Nicole Johnson, a public school art teacher for 20 years, is the author of “My Monticello.” Matt Eich for The New York TimesAt 50, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson saw her debut collection, “My Monticello,” publish to great acclaim, and she also scored a Netflix deal. More

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    Ego Nwodim Used to Be Obsessed With Jay-Z. Now She Is Again

    The ‘S.N.L.’ comedian talked about navigating life with ‘The Four Agreements’ and why “The Town” will always be her favorite movie.The new season of “Saturday Night Live” was less than a month away. But Ego Nwodim’s brain was telling her she had plenty of time to do more.An avowed workaholic, Nwodim intended to pack her schedule to overflowing before returning to 30 Rock with her Dionne Warwick impression. Earlier this summer, she had traveled to Italy for a single day of shooting on the comedy “Spin Me Round,” opposite Alison Brie, and then flitted from Venice to Milan to Positano to Florence, with stops in between, “in that sort of nonsensical way,” she said.More recently she’d wrapped “Players,” a Netflix rom-com with Gina Rodriguez and Damon Wayans Jr. And just the day before she’d done a little audio tweaking for the second season of “Love Life” with Anna Kendrick, which begins Oct. 28 on HBO Max.“Today I counted how many jobs I did on my hiatus,” she said. “And I was like, ‘You actually did a lot.’ Because there was a point this summer where I go, ‘You haven’t done anything or enough.’ My brain told me that.”Nwodim rather famously majored in biology at the University of Southern California, a deal she made with her family so that she could move from Maryland to Los Angeles, where she honed her comedy chops at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. “I didn’t enjoy the bio major — it’s not my passion clearly,” she said. “But I have an aversion to quitting.”“I don’t encourage people to be like me,” she added with a laugh. “It’s sometimes good to quit.”In a video call from her light-filled Brooklyn apartment, Nwodim elaborated on a few of her cultural essentials, including “The Four Agreements” guide to living, the gold jewelry that makes even sweats look intentional and the cool quotient of Jay-Z.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz It is such a simple guide as far as how to approach so much of life and so many of the stressors that I encounter. I always start with, Don’t take anything personally. That’s not the No. 1 agreement, but that’s the one I find myself constantly going back to. Everything people do and say is a reflection of them and where they are in their life, even positive stuff. That is a fascinating one because it feels easy to apply to criticism. But I’m also not going to take praise personally? That’s tough.2. Jay-Z In college, I was obsessed with him. I used to get in arguments with people about how cool he was. Then I took many years off, calmed down and I was like, “That’s not a way to live.” And now, I’m back. I’m such a huge fan of his journey as a person, from drug dealer to corporate businessman and father, husband, son to Gloria Carter. I really admire his work ethic and the way he moves about the world. Look at me [smiling and laughing]! But this isn’t a crush. I just have the utmost respect for this person. I think he’s so freaking cool. And every time I go, “OK, enough about how cool Jay-Z is,” he just gets cooler.3. Ben Affleck’s “The Town” I know it’s not some art house film. But I like heist movies, and I saw that movie in theaters maybe six times. No joke. I still talk about this movie. I still quote this movie. Everyone sort of rolls their eyes at it. People have been like, “It’s just the white man version of ‘Set It Off,’” which probably sounds about right. Key moment: When Ben Affleck goes to Jeremy Renner, “We got to go do something. Can’t ask me what it is. Don’t ask me later.” And Jeremy goes, “Whose car are we driving?” That is best friendship.4. Gold Jewelry Before I had “S.N.L.,” I had a lot of gold rings that were not real gold because I was broke. I’m still not rich, by the way. I ran into my friend Khoby [Rowe] at a Comedy Central Emmys party, and I go, “I think I’m going to treat myself to a real gold ring — one that I can wash my hands and put lotion on and not have it turn.” And she was like, “Hell yeah. This ring on my hand, I treated myself, too.” And when I got “S.N.L.,” her text to me was like, “I think you’re allowed to get yourself a ring.”5. Yerba Mate I would watch friends develop coffee addictions. It became such a part of the routine, like, “I literally can’t get my day started without this.” And I basically want a life where I don’t need anything to function besides water and food — you know, Maslow’s hierarchy. So I don’t like to drink coffee, and if I do it’s because I’m really in a pinch. I prefer yerba mate. I feel like I get energized, and it’s natural, so they say. It could very well be a placebo effect, but I’m OK with that.6. “Death, Sex & Money” Podcast It’s about the human experience. “Death, Sex and Money” does a great job of reminding us that we’re connected. And so much of our experiences are shared regardless of race, gender, religion. Think of all the ways we are divided as a people. So, I love that podcast. Big fan. The tagline is “things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” And it’s true.7. Prayer and Meditation I am a person of faith, is how I’d like to describe myself. And praying is just a conversation with God. I was listening to a podcast, and a guest, who I believe is sober, said that every thought, action and word is an offering to God. Kind of like everything’s a prayer. And if you can remember that in the moment, that’s really beautiful.8. Offerings in Los Angeles I lived in L.A. for 12 years, and I get disappointed any time a friend is in a different city and I need to send them flowers. Can’t find them elsewhere. Just the most beautiful floral arrangements. I’m so excited to hear people’s reactions to receiving those flowers, because they always have something to say. I sent them to Melissa Villaseñor once, and she goes, “I feel like a queen.”9. Solange’s “A Seat at the Table” What a beautiful body of work, top to bottom. I remember when I first heard it, I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom in Santa Monica, and I was thinking, “Great, this’ll be background noise while I get ready.” But I felt stopped in my own tracks. I was like, “Whoa, what am I listening to?” I got to see her on tour for that album at the Hollywood Bowl, and I wondered, “How is she going to be able to fill this space?” Because I think of neo-soul as such an intimate experience and the Hollywood Bowl is huge. And she did — someone’s essence and artistry can do that — and I was brought to tears.10. My Niece Sophia was born on July 25, and a picture came to my phone, and I was instantly in love. Then I go home to Maryland, and I get to hold her, and my heart just grows a hundred sizes in a way I did not know it could until maybe I had my own children. I would sit there and just stare at her sleeping. It’s cool to find out where your heart can take you. I’ve never felt that kind of love, and I think that love opened me up to other love. More

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    Theater’s New Glass Menageries

    Some of the most innovative set designers and directors are placing actors within transparent boxes, posing novel aesthetic questions in the process.IN A WORLD filtered through screens, a condition made even more acute during pandemic lockdown, the theater’s most anachronistic thrill would seem to be watching lives unfold before us. The actors may not literally be within our grasp, but the lack of a barrier between them and us, the illusion that we are, for once, actually in the room — the sound of the human voice in anguish or joy, a carafe of water crashing to the floor — has never seemed more stirring and essential.Or perhaps not. Even before Covid-19, many ambitious productions had been taking place not in the three-sided black boxes that defined the experimental zest and emerging punk of the late 1970s, or the crowd-pleasing theater-in-the-round pioneered in ancient Greece and Rome and revitalized in the mid-20th century, but in elaborately engineered glass cubes that evoke the International Style’s high Modernism and the minimalist penthouses of the contemporary metropolis. There would not seem to be a more flagrant violation of dramatic immediacy.Photograph by Kyoko Hamada. Set design by Todd KnopkeAnd yet the design is, as of late, ubiquitous. After a long Broadway hiatus, “The Lehman Trilogy,” directed by Sam Mendes, opens next month at the Nederlander Theater; during its nearly three-and-a-half-hour duration, three actors play a cavalcade of characters from the more than 160-year history of Lehman Brothers, the infamous investment house, encased in a revolving transparent box conceived by the British designer Es Devlin. The 2016 Young Vic production of Federico García Lorca’s “Yerma” (1934), directed by the then-31-year-old Australian Simon Stone, was restaged in 2018 at New York’s cavernous Park Avenue Armory in what was essentially a giant terrarium. That same year, the German designer Miriam Buether built a glassed-in room with a huge tilting mirror as the back wall for a revival of Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women” (1991), directed by Joe Mantello on Broadway. And for his 2017 National Theater adaptation of the film “Network” (1976), which came to Broadway the following year, the Belgian auteur Ivo van Hove put his stage manager in a large glass box, casting him as a character who ran both the actual play and the mythical television broadcast at the center of the plot.Photograph by Kyoko Hamada. Set design by Todd KnopkeA thoroughly contemporary material, glass creates what Buether calls “an ultimate filmic quality, like looking through a lens.” Even before fear of infection drove us behind protective plexiglass shields and reduced most human interaction to Zoom, theater audiences had come to appreciate the trippy perceptual effects of multimedia innovations — video projections have become commonplace onstage, particularly as pioneered by van Hove and others. Such effects are now part of the theatrical experience, a way to warp audience expectations. Once, updating a classic with, say, modern dress or gender-blind casting was provocative and transformational, allowing us to see the text anew; now, the stage itself has become the terra nova that jolts us, a glass cage making literal these works’ themes of isolation and vulnerability.FOR THE VIEWER looking at something through it, glass offers both a subtle shift and a seismic one; it alters everything while visually changing very little. “You know that what you’re watching is different, but you can’t quite tell why,” says Buether, 52, who, for the second act of “Three Tall Women,” created two rooms — mirror images of each other — separated by a wall of plexiglass, and then placed a mirrored wall behind them, creating multiple images of the characters and echoing the play’s notions of identity and time. “It’s like making the fourth wall tangible, as though peering into a display case. You adjust to it quickly — I mean, it’s transparent — but it never really disappears.”For Stone, who has set shows behind glass a half dozen times, beginning with his 2011 production of Henrik Ibsen’s “The Wild Duck” (1885) at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theater, the conceit works best with a particular part of the canon: intimate plays “that plumb the dark night of the soul,” he says. A specialist in reviving the works of domestic naturalism that distinguished European theater in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he believes that using glass, often in near-bare environments, has enabled him to reinvent these plays for a new generation. Back when Ibsen was writing, Stone notes, it was radical to set works in bourgeois living rooms instead of castles and fields, but such environments now seem banal. “I thought to myself: ‘What would happen if you actually put the glass between the action and audience?’” he says. “‘What if you make it an obstacle that has to be overcome, that the audience has to lean into?’” A production of “The Wild Duck” from Sydney’s Belvoir St Theater, at the Barbican Theater’s International Ibsen Festival, 2014.Theatrepix/Alamy For “Yerma,” he wanted the title character’s descent into madness after she’s unable to bear a child to seem inescapable; for “The Wild Duck,” he was seeking to add a clinical aspect to a plot that culminates in a young girl unexpectedly shooting herself in the chest: “I was very conscious of not turning it into suicide porn,” he says. He used a series of revolving stacked glass boxes — roughly evocative of a Modernist chalet — for his 2017 Theater Basel production of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” published in 1901, “because it made the realities of their lives even more brutal and confined.” Paradoxically, actors thrive in the glass box, he adds: “Sometimes being fully exposed can inhibit them. You have too close a connection to the audience; you are too aware. The illusion that they are in a private room makes them feel safe.”The Young Vic’s production of “Yerma” at the Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2018.Stephanie BergerStill, working behind glass is not without its unique technical challenges. If you put your cast in a box, especially one with a lid, you cut off all possibility of acoustical naturalism. Many plays these days are miked, but the amplification is designed to be undetectable, creating the illusion of proximity; once there is a closed cube, verisimilitude becomes more complex. “Yes, you lose the sound of the natural voice,” says Stone, “but you gain extreme aural intimacy.”Devlin, 50, who has designed tour sets for Billie Eilish and Beyoncé, as well as for operas, is also accustomed to the trade-offs of a glass box. For her and Mendes, who began as a theater director before moving to film, this kind of spare set provides a juxtaposition to an epic historical work like “Lehman.” The boardroom, as well as the other office spaces in which the play unspools, “conveys both claustrophobia and expanse, intruding on the audience’s domain,” she says, and winks at the glassed-in conference spaces that have become corporate America’s heavy-handed attempt at conveying “transparency.” Inside, the box is divided into three chambers with internal glass partitions on which the actors scrawl the names of the Civil War dead and the price of commodities. The rectangle’s perimeter is formed by glass panels between which are open gaps, which improve the acoustics and act like apertures, allowing the action to move from wide screen to close up. That the box also revolves creates the equivalent of a Hollywood tracking shot: “Sam loves that, of course,” Devlin says.A revolving glass box returns to Broadway in “The Lehman Trilogy.”By Nicholas CalcottBut cramming the action into a single room also has a deeper significance. When Devlin worked with the director Trevor Nunn on the 1998 London revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” (1978), which took place in a deconstructed facsimile of a domicile in which the windows were mere outlines on the walls, she referenced the British sculptor Rachel Whiteread’s 1993 “House,” a ghostly, solid cast-concrete replica of a rowhouse, which stood on an East London street for three months. Together, the sculpture and the production reminded viewers how the confines of home can be both solid and ephemeral. For “Lehman,” Devlin was also inspired by “Tango,” a semi-animated eight-minute 1981 short by the Polish director Zbigniew Rybczynski, in which dozens of people seem to simultaneously inhabit a small front parlor, their elaborate dance compacting time and space. “There’s a message embedded in a single room,” says Devlin, “that architecture itself is the vessel through which history — whether intimate or monumental — is enacted. Glass helps you make that message explicit: A room is more than just a passive container. It remembers life.”Set design: Todd Knopke More

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    Stephen Colbert Projects Joe Biden Is Still President

    The “Late Show” host celebrated the results of an Arizona audit that confirmed Trump’s 2020 loss.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 Biggest LoserStephen Colbert was happy on Monday night to project that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is still president 11 months after the election, following a Republican-led audit in Arizona’s largest county that confirmed that President Biden not only beat Donald J. Trump, but by a larger margin than previously counted.“He really did get tired of winning!” Colbert said of Trump.“So Trump and the Arizona G.O.P. were humiliated after they spent millions to hire a group of right-wing tech weirdos called the Cyber Ninjas, which sounds like an off-brand action figure your grandma would buy you at the Dollar Store.” — SETH MEYERS“And turns out, not only did the Ninjas find ‘no substantial differences’ between their tally and the official count, they actually found 99 more votes for Biden and 261 fewer for Donald Trump. I would have loved to have been there when they broke that news to him.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Maybe Trump and the G.O.P. will just have to keep bringing in crazier right-wing groups with dumber and dumber names until they finally get the results they want, like the Robo Rockets or the Digi Pirates or the Crypto Cowboys.” — SETH MEYERS“So they hired MAGA fans and even they couldn’t say that No. 45 won. That’s like hiring your mom to judge the handsomest boy contest and still losing to a 78-year-old guy from Delaware.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Bearing Arms Edition)“Well, guys, this afternoon President Biden received his Covid booster shot on camera, in front of reporters. When they offered Biden the booster, he said, ‘I’ll take one in my arm and another for my approval rating.’” — JIMMY FALLON“This comes just a few days after both the F.D.A. and C.D.C. approved it. How did Biden get to the front of that line? I reckon he knows someone.” — JAMES CORDEN“The actual shot only took a second, and then Joe Biden spent 10 minutes haggling over which flavor lollipop he could have.” — JAMES CORDEN“The good news is, it should give President Biden the all-clear to join the Brooklyn Nets for the start of the N.B.A. season, so you’ve got that to look forward to.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingOn “The Daily Show,” Roy Wood Jr. portrayed Francis Scott Key while breaking down Key’s iconic banger, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightGabrielle Union will appear on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutBeck Bennett, a veteran “Saturday Night Live” cast member, is not returning to the show. Its 47th season begins Saturday.Dana Edelson/NBCBeck Bennett, known for his impersonations of Wolf Blitzer and Mike Pence on “Saturday Night Live,” will exit the show after eight years. More

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    Review: ‘A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet’ Is Missing a Few Notes

    In this new musical, a singer’s future hangs on one song, but entrusting it to an inexperienced songwriting team is not, perhaps, the shrewdest choice.Once upon a time, Regina Comet was a pop star who filled arenas. Now that her career desperately needs a reboot, she and her team have a brilliant idea: They will come out with a perfume — sorry, a fragrance, called Relevance — and peg her comeback to it. Because of course listeners will just follow that scent all the way to Regina’s big concert.Adding a thick frosting of improbability to this far-fetched cake, Regina hires a pair of young songwriters so unhip that they idolize Barry Manilow — in 2021 — to pen the song her future depends on, the jingle for the fragrance.The focus of the story is not, as you might expect, Regina Comet, but rather the untried tunesmiths who simply, coyly, are called Man 2 and Other Man, and are portrayed by the show’s creators, Ben Fankhauser and Alex Wyse. Starring roles notwithstanding, Bryonha Marie Parham plays the title character in “A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet” with tireless zest and good humor.“Jingle” is mostly set in the office of the writers, where the walls are lined with so many notes, papers and photos that you might think they are TV detectives tracking a criminal. (Wilson Chin did the scenic design, which appears to have been labor-intensive.) But the object of their obsessive hunt is even more elusive than the Zodiac Killer: They desperately want to write “One Hit Song.” This would be a realistic goal only in a universe in which the Billboard cast-album chart decisively influenced mainstream pop culture.Man 2 and Other Man invite Regina (who always wears a shapeless ’80s-style tracksuit) to brainstorm. She’s open to a samba, or maybe some bossa nova, but the resulting song, “Say Hello,” sounds like a show-tune-ized single from Backstreet Boys or ’NSync. It is the most enjoyable number of the evening, yet it also reflects the production’s uncertain tone: Are we meant to laugh with the ingenuity of the Men or at their ineptness?The most frustrating element of the show is that despite a last-minute sort-of plot twist, Regina mostly serves as an unwitting wedge between the rookies. Their relationship gets so tense that in one particularly brutal dispute they chuck their notebooks to the floor in disgust.The production, directed by Marshall Pailet, moves at a steady clip, and Fankhauser and Wyse throw so much at the wall that once in a while, a joke acquires a bizarre kind of sheen through sheer surrealism.“I read she has an honorary degree in astrophysics,” Man 2 says of Regina. “That makes sense,” Other Man replies, “because her voice is so … good.”In the role of Other Man, Wyse, looking like an overgrown summer camper in his neat shirt and shorts — another costume decision that’s hard to parse — excels at this kind of exchange. Add his character’s penchant for borscht belt humor (“Take my Grandma, for instance,” one line starts, “no really, take her —”) and you’re halfway to an actual comic role.“A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet,” an Off Broadway production, is the first new in-person musical to open since Covid-19 shut down theaters last year, and it feels like the first pancake to come out of the pan: It’s a little undercooked, a little misshapen, but we’ll eat it anyway because hey, it’s still a pancake.A Commercial Jingle for Regina CometThrough Nov. 14 at DR2 Theater, Manhattan; 800-447-7400, reginacomet.com. Running time: 80 minutes. More

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    It’s His Party, and He’ll Cry if He Wants To

    “Slave Play” received a record number of nominations, though took home none. Still, Jeremy O. Harris found reasons to celebrate.Upstairs, removed from the bouncing party celebrating his Tony-nominated drama, “Slave Play,” the playwright Jeremy O. Harris cried — out of happiness for his friends who won awards but also frustration with himself for believing he would too.Mr. Harris’s buzzy, polarizing Broadway debut, in which an imaginary sex therapy retreat for interracial couples is used to examine the legacy of slavery in America, set a Tonys record for nominations — 12, including best play — but didn’t take home any prizes. (The last time a Black playwright won for best play was 1987. This year it went to “The Inheritance,” written by Matthew López, the first Latino writer to win the award.)Mr. Harris, 32, who developed his play while attending the Yale School of Drama, has secured his place as a shape-shifting cultural voice, or as one partygoer said: “the coolest guy in New York.” He attended Sundance for the premiere of the film “Zola,” which he co-wrote; released a capsule collection; signed a deal with HBO; modeled for Gucci; made a cameo on “Gossip Girl”; smoked a cigarette on the steps of the Met Gala; is set to appear on the next season of “Emily in Paris”; and will bring “Slave Play” back to Broadway in November.Sipping Casamigos tequila, dressed in Zegna and Cartier, Mr. Harris held tightly to the hand of his 11-year-old niece, who joined him at the Tonys. He had never expected to win, but for a minute, he imagined it.Mr. Harris’s niece, Kyra, accompanied him throughout the night.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times“I decided to take the wall down for a second when they were saying the nominees,” he said. “And I think, in that one moment, I felt really excited. And I felt all the emotions of it, and then it didn’t happen,” he said, as tears broke through his sentences.“I know for a person like me, to hope that the systems that you agitate will affirm you, is a lost cause,” he continued. “If I’m hitting a nerve that people don’t like to be hit, there’s no reason for them to be like, ‘Now come, I’m going to give you a prize for that.’”Mr. Harris spent the day leading up to the awards show with his mom, niece and high school drama teacher. He wrote a speech, took a picture of it, then burned the paper, afraid putting anything down would be bad luck. In it, he thanked everyone who had helped him — let him sleep on couches, invited him to parties and brought him to dinner.“That award would have been some sort of evidence and recognition of everyone that sat in those audiences — that the work was not just real, but worthy,” he said. “And not that it is any less worthy now, because it truly is.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesAdrienne Warren, who took home the award for best leading actress in a musical.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesRobb Nanus, the executive director of Broadway Advocacy Coalition.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesDownstairs, a crowd still came out late on a Sunday night to NeueHouse, a plant-filled co-working space and private club on a quiet street in the East 20s. Dressed in leopard prints, tuxedos, sequins and ball gowns, guests submitted Covid-19 test results and vaccination cards for entry, then went mostly maskless. Pizza trucks waited outside and the D.J.s Oscar Nñ and Mazurbate played Latin New Wave.Unlike previous years, post-Tonys festivities were limited — New York City said no to the request for an official after-party on the street — and there were only a few official events.The space was filled with Broadway performers including Adrienne Warren, who won a Tony for her role in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”; Dyllón Burnside, who will soon appear in “Thoughts of a Colored Man”; and Chalia La Tour, who was nominated for a Tony for her role in “Slave Play.” There was also Antwaun Sargent, a director of Gagosian Gallery, the photographer Tyler Mitchell and DeRay Mckesson, an activist.The party was co-hosted with the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which was honored for a special Tony Award for its efforts to challenge racism through storytelling and theater. Attendees were invited to write down their biggest dream for change in the industry. In the back, an artist translated the messages into a drawing on a dry erase board.Ms. Warren, who co-founded the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, said she hopes the industry will start re-examining and reimagining itself.Dyllón Burnside and Josh WyattRebecca Smeyne for The New York Times.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesDeRay Mckesson, left.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times“The truth is, I don’t know where Broadway is going to go. I can only have these dreams of where I hope it will go,” she said. “We are at a true turning point, and it is up to this industry to decide where they want to turn.”Mr. Mckesson said he is interested in ways to get more people into the theater, and opportunities to make it easier for New Yorkers to see plays.“What would it look like to proactively invite communities to come that otherwise might not?” he asked. “Are we doing everything we can to invite people into these spaces that have historically excluded them?”Hari Nef, the actress and model, said she would also like to see more stories that push audiences.“I would like to see confrontation and pleasure and little payoff. It runs the risk of feeling a little orderly if we’re not careful,” Ms. Nef said. “There would be maybe a little violence. It would be upsetting.”The party was scheduled to end at 1 a.m., but Mr. Harris led the group further downtown to the lounge Socialista. For him, the night was still young.“I’m going to party until 5 a.m. I have two hotel rooms, one at the Edition and one at the Bowery. I’m going to choose which one feels the best to me,” he said. “And I might not sleep at all tonight.” More

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    'Slave Play' Is Returning to Broadway

    The play, which had been nominated for 12 Tony Awards, will return to Broadway in November.“Slave Play,” the buzzy and provocative drama that was nominated for 12 Tony Awards but won none, will return to Broadway this fall.The playwright, Jeremy O. Harris, announced the plan just after midnight Monday morning, about an hour after the award ceremony shutout, at an after-party held to celebrate “Slave Play” and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, an antiracism group.Harris had been planning the return engagement, win or lose. And he said on Twitter that he never expected to win.“Slave Play has never won one of the major awards of any of the great voting bodies but changed a culture and has inspired thousands of ppl who didn’t care about theatre before,” he wrote on Twitter. “I saw someone randomly reading the play in Slovenia. We already won.”The play’s 12 nominations made it the most nominated play in history, and had it won as best play, it would have become the first play by a Black writer to claim the Tony since 1987. It lost to “The Inheritance,” a sweeping drama by Matthew López that explores 21st century gay life in the aftermath of AIDS; López was the first Latino to win the prize.“Slave Play” imagines a radical form of role-playing for sexually frustrated interracial couples as a way of exploring the lingering effects of slavery in America.“Slave Play” becomes the eighth play by a Black writer slated to run on Broadway this season, so far, a record number. It’s also one of several return engagements by shows whose runs had ended before the pandemic, including “American Utopia,” “Freestyle Love Supreme,” “Springsteen on Broadway” and “Waitress.”“Slave Play,” which had an Off Broadway run at New York Theater Workshop, ran on Broadway from Sept. 10, 2019 through Jan. 19, 2020. It did not recoup its capitalization costs, but that is not unusual for plays.The producers said the return engagement would be at the August Wilson Theater, and would run from Nov. 23 to Jan. 23. They then plan to transfer the production to Los Angeles for a run at the Center Theater Group.The Broadway run will again be directed by Robert O’Hara, and will feature much of the original cast, including Ato Blankson-Wood, Chalia La Tour, Irene Sofia Lucio, Annie McNamara and Paul Alexander Nolan. However, Joaquina Kalukango will not rejoin the cast in the role of Kaneisha; she is starring in a new musical, “Paradise Square,” scheduled to start previews in February, and will be replaced by Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, who previously played the role in a developmental production at Yale.The lead producers are Greg Nobile and Jana Shea; among the other producers is the actor Jake Gyllenhaal. The producers pledged to make 10,000 tickets available for $39 each and to hold invitation-only “Black Out” performances, as they did during the initial run, for Black audiences. More