Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 113 Shares119 Views

    in Theater

    'Hamilton' Star Leslie Odom Jr. Hosts Tony Awards Concert

    The host of tonight’s Tony Awards concert — the portion of the evening broadcast on CBS — is Leslie Odom Jr., who arrived on Broadway as a replacement in “Rent,” but got his big break when he joined the original cast of “Hamilton” as Aaron Burr.Odom, 40, won a Tony Award in 2016 for “Hamilton,” and this year was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work as both a performer and songwriter for the film “One Night in Miami.”He was also featured in the films “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Harriet,” and will appear in the forthcoming “Knives Out 2.” His work on television has included “Smash” and “Central Park.” Also: he has recorded several albums of music.Raised in Philadelphia and educated at Carnegie Mellon University, he now lives in Los Angeles. He is married to the actress Nicolette Robinson, and they have two children.Odom was an outspoken advocate for profit-sharing by the cast of “Hamilton,” helping to lead a successful campaign to persuade that show’s producers to give a small percentage of the profits to members of the original company. More

  • 113 Shares199 Views

    in Theater

    Adrienne Warren Wins Her First Tony Award, for 'Tina'

    Adrienne Warren is only staying in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” for a few weeks. But now, when she leaves, she can take a Tony Award with her.Warren’s performance as Turner, a role she originated in London and then again when the show opened in New York in 2019, has thrilled audiences. Jesse Green, a theater critic for The New York Times, wrote, “In a performance that is part possession, part workout and part wig, Adrienne Warren rocks the rafters and dissolves your doubts about anyone daring to step into the diva’s high heels.”“I really look forward to the day that the bodies and souls and spirits of those that are involved in these shows that we’re celebrating can be invited and join the celebration with us,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Because those bodies, those bodies, those souls, those spirits, they are what makes Broadway.” “And the second we started making this business,” she continued, “and creating the business and working through the business through the lens of humanity and honoring those, those bodies and those souls and those spirits, the more the art will be transformative. The more the art will change lives, the more the art will change this world because the world has been screaming for us to change.”“I am so grateful for this,” she concluded, “it means the world to me, thank you so, so much.“Tina,” which has been closed since the start of the pandemic shutdown, is scheduled to resume performances on Oct. 8 with Warren in the title role; she is planning to depart the production on Oct. 31, and will be succeeded by Nkeki Obi-Melekwe.Warren is starring as Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, in an upcoming ABC series, “Women of the Movement,” with a producing team that includes Jay-Z and Will Smith. And she recently signed a development deal with another of the show’s producers, Kapital Entertainment.Warren, 34, grew up in Virginia and studied acting at Marymount Manhattan College. She made her Broadway debut in 2012 in “Bring It On: The Musical,” and then four years later had a breakthrough role with her Tony-nominated performance in “Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.”In 2016, Warren was among the founders of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which seeks to to combat racism. The organization is being honored this year with a special Tony Award. More

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in Theater

    Aaron Tveit Wins Tony Award for 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical'

    Aaron Tveit is now a Tony winner.This year was the first time Tveit has been nominated, and the circumstances were unusual: he was the only person nominated in the category, best leading actor in a musical.Still, his win was not guaranteed: to claim the prize, he had to win the support of 60 percent of those who cast ballots in that category. And he did.Tveit, 37, won for his performance as Christian, the besotted bohemian at the heart of “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” which is adapted from the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film.In accepting his award, he said, “We are so privileged to get to do this, to be on Broadway, to have a life in the theater.”He added: “Let’s continue to strive to tell the stories that represent the many and not the few, by the many and not the few, for the many and not the few. Because what we do changes people’s lives. It changes people’s minds. It change’s people’s hearts. We can change the world with this. Let’s not forget that. This means more to me than I can ever say.”Tveit arrived on Broadway as a heartthrob, playing the love interests in “Hairspray” (as a replacement Link Larkin) and “Wicked” (as a replacement Fiyero). His breakout came in 2009, when he starred as a dead adolescent, Gabe, in the hit show “Next to Normal”; he followed that up with a starring role as the con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in the short-lived stage adaptation of “Catch Me If You Can.”Tveit, who is from the Hudson Valley and was educated at Ithaca College, is also known for starring in the “Grease: Live” television special (he played greaser-in-chief Danny Zuko) and for featured performances in a “Les Misérables” film adaptation (as the revolutionary Enjolras), and, most recently, this summer’s Apple TV Plus streamer “Schmigadoon!” (he was the bad boy carnival barker). More

  • 125 Shares119 Views

    in Theater

    'Freestyle Love Supreme' Wins Special Award at the Tony Awards

    The vast majority of the Tony Awards granted on Sunday are honoring shows that have been rehearsed to an excessive degree — every step onstage precisely choreographed, every note and line repeated to perfection.And while the cast of “Freestyle Love Supreme” has undoubtedly put in their share of rehearsal time to do what they do, the show is receiving a special Tony Award for creating something entirely different: an improvised, rapped, beat-boxed musical performance whipped up anew every night from audience suggestions.The honor comes at a fitting time for the industry: It was a production that, by its nature, celebrated the fleeting and constantly reinventive experience of seeing live theater.The show ran for several months at the Booth Theater starting in September 2019, and it is set to return to Broadway on Oct. 7, followed by a national tour starting in San Francisco. But the troupe’s origins go back to the early aughts, when it was established by Anthony Veneziale, Thomas Kail and, most recognizably, Lin-Manuel Miranda — before “In the Heights” and “Hamilton,” both Tony Award winners for best new musical.In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote that it was an “exultant master course in the fine art of hip-hop.” Among the fluctuating cast on Broadway were Veneziale and Utkarsh Ambudkar, with a rotating lineup of surprise guest stars, including Miranda and fellow “Hamilton” alumni Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson and James Monroe Iglehart.Tony viewers who missed the 2019 run will get a taste of “Freestyle Love Supreme” at the end of the ceremony, when the cast is set to give the evening’s closing performance. More

  • 125 Shares159 Views

    in Theater

    Lois Smith Is the Oldest Performer to Win a Tony

    Lois Smith, 90, is at last a Tony winner. And not just a winner — she is now the oldest performer to win a Tony Award for acting.“I love the processes of the live theater,” said Smith, who won for her portrayal of Margaret, the caretaker of a sanctuary for men dying of AIDS-related illnesses, in Part 2 of Matthew López’s more-than-six-hour epic “The Inheritance.”“I first worked on ‘The Inheritance’ in a workshop where Matthew López was finishing a play about the AIDS plague, and it was partly based on E.M. Forster’s book “Howards End,” which had been my favorite novel for as long as I can remember,” she continued. “E.M. Forster gave us — there’s a famous two-word message from “Howards End,” which is so apt, I think, tonight for all of us who are here celebrating the importance, the functions, of live theater: ‘Only connect.’ ”In his review of the play in The Times, Ben Brantley called Smith’s performance as the show’s sole female character “quietly brilliant.” She beat out Jane Alexander, 81, who was up for “Grand Horizons,” as well as Cora Vander Broek (“Linda Vista”), Annie McNamara (“Slave Play”) and Chalia La Tour (“Slave Play”).Cicely Tyson, who died earlier this year at 96, previously held the record. She was 88 in 2013 when she won in the same category for her role in the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.”In an interview with Variety in March 2020, Smith acknowledged that her performance schedule in “The Inheritance” was pretty, well, cushy. She doesn’t appear onstage until late in the play, which was performed in two parts. So she only performed three times per week.“I think to myself, ‘Now what’s going to happen to me?’” she said. “This may be the end of me. Suppose somebody asks me to do eight shows a week, what am I going to say? It’s hard to imagine at this point!”She was first nominated for a Tony in 1990 for “The Grapes of Wrath,” and she was nominated again, in 1996, for “Buried Child” — both times for best featured actress in a play. More

  • 125 Shares109 Views

    in Theater

    Audra McDonald Will Host the Tonys With Leslie Odom Jr.

    Audra McDonald has won more competitive Tony Awards than any other performer, and tonight, when she is a nominee for the ninth time, she is presiding over the awards ceremony.McDonald is splitting the hosting duties with the actor Leslie Odom Jr. She is hosting the streaming portion of the evening, from 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern on Paramount+, when most of the awards will be bestowed; he is presiding over the concert portion, from 9 to 11 p.m. on CBS.McDonald, 51, is a singular figure in the American theater, revered for her lyric soprano as well as her acting prowess, and last year, following the police killing of George Floyd, she helped found Black Theater United to press for change in the theater industry.How did she rack up her record-setting string of Tonys? She has won at least once in every acting category: leading actress in a musical (“Porgy & Bess”), leading actress in a play (“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”), featured actress in a musical (“Ragtime” and “Carousel”) and featured actress in a play (“A Raisin in the Sun” and “Master Class”).This year, she is again a nominee, for her starring role in the 2019 revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” The play was written by Terrence McNally, who died during the pandemic from complications of the coronavirus.McDonald, born in Berlin, raised in Fresno, Calif., and educated at Juilliard, has long been outspoken on social justice issues — her Twitter username is @AudraEqualityMc — and last year she helped pull together a group of Black Broadway stars to form Black Theater United. The organization has already made progress: This summer it persuaded many industry leaders, including theater owners and producers, to sign an agreement pledging to end the hiring of all-white creative teams, to rename a few theaters for Black artists, and to take many other steps to improve racial equity on Broadway.She also has an active career as a recording artist and concert performer, and she works regularly on television, including in “Private Practice” and “The Good Fight.” She is married to the actor Will Swenson, and has two daughters. More

  • 88 Shares139 Views

    in Theater

    'Jagged Little Pill' Producers Respond to Controversies

    “Jagged Little Pill” barrels into tonight’s Tony Awards with 15 nominations, more than any other show — but also with its producers confronting two controversies that have prompted scrutiny and an apology.The show, a musical featuring Alanis Morissette songs and a script that explores a host of social issues, is one of three contenders for best musical, and is a leading contender in the best featured actress and best book categories. It plans to resume performances on Broadway next month.But in the run-up to the Tonys the show’s producers have found themselves responding to criticism over how depictions of a character’s gender identity evolved as the show developed, and over the accusation by a former member of the cast who said they were asked to delay a surgical procedure. (The Tony voting period ended in March, before that accusation became public.)On Saturday, the show’s lead producers, Vivek J. Tiwary, Arvind Ethan David and Eva Price, said that they had hired an employment lawyer to look into an accusation from the former cast member, Nora Schell, who uses the pronouns they and them, and who said the production had asked them to delay a procedure to remove vaginal cysts. The union representing stage performers, Actors’ Equity, also said it would investigate; Schell said a union vice president was among those who mishandled the medical concerns.The statement from the producers came a little more than a week after the musical had issued an apology for its response to concerns about the gender identity of one of the show’s main characters, Jo, who is played by Lauren Patten, a nominee for best featured actress in a musical.During the show’s pre-Broadway run, some people saw Jo as a rare example of nonbinary representation in a major musical; when the show then transferred to Broadway, some of those fans were disappointed with how the role had evolved.“In Jo, we set out to portray a character on a gender expansive journey without a known outcome,” the lead producers said. “Throughout the creative process, as the character evolved and changed, between Boston and Broadway, we made mistakes in how we handled this evolution. In a process designed to clarify and streamline, many of the lines that signaled Jo as gender nonconforming, and with them, something vital and integral, got removed from Jo’s character journey.”The producers said they had “hired a new dramaturgical team (which includes nonbinary, transgender and BIPOC representation), to revisit and deepen the script.”Schell, who was a member of the ensemble when the musical opened in late 2019, voiced their concerns about backstage treatment on Twitter.“During previews for the Broadway run of JAGGED LITTLE PILL I was intimidated, coerced and forced by multiple higher ups to put off CRITICAL AND NECESSARY surgery to remove growths from my vagina that were making me anemic,” Schell wrote.The producers responded with their own statement, declaring themselves “deeply troubled” by the claims and pledging to “take this matter very seriously.”“Broadway shows are by their very nature collaborative human efforts, so there is nothing more important to us than our people,” they said. “We are committed to continuing to nurture a work environment where everyone feels valued and respected.”On Saturday, one of the show’s Tony-nominated stars, Celia Rose Gooding, said on Twitter that she was concerned by the allegations. Responding to Schell’s tweet, she wrote, “this is unacceptable. nobody should have to put off necessary medical treatment for a show, ever.”And, in a more general tweet bidding farewell to the show, which she is leaving for a role in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” she wrote that she “cannot ignore the harm Jagged has done to the trans and nonbinary community.” More

  • 113 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    Jay Sandrich, Emmy-Winning Sitcom Director, Is Dead at 89

    Acclaimed for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Cosby Show,” he also made a crucial casting decision about “The Golden Girls.”Jay Sandrich, a prolific sitcom director who won Emmy Awards for the two series he worked on most often, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Cosby Show,” died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.The cause was dementia, his wife, Linda Sandrich, said.Mr. Sandrich did not think of himself as funny, but he knew how to guide a cast of comic actors through half-hour episodes. He understood the mechanics of directing (move the cameras, not the actors) and knew how to make scenes work.“Sitcom directors have a reputation as traffic cops because it’s a writers’ medium,” James Burrows, whose directing credits include “Cheers,” “Frasier” and “Will & Grace,” and who considered Mr. Sandrich a mentor, said by phone. “But Jay taught me to speak up and say what I thought so that you’re contributing to the show, not just parroting what everybody wants.”By 1970, Mr. Sandrich was a sitcom veteran, but he did not believe he had done “anything great”; his credits at that point included “He & She,” “That Girl,” “The Ghost & Mrs. Muir” and, perhaps most notably, “Get Smart.” Then, after another director dropped out, he was asked to direct the pilot episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”When the cast gathered for a run-through in front of an audience, nothing worked.“It was a disaster,” he told the Television Academy in an interview in 2001. “I don’t think we got six laughs.”Afterward, he told the cast to trust the material and keep rehearsing. By the time the episode was taped, the performances had sharpened and the laughs had been found.The cast of “The Golden Girls,” from left: Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and Betty White. It was Mr. Sandrich who suggested that Ms. McClanahan play the role originally intended for Ms. White, and vice versa.Walt Disney Television, via Getty ImagesReferring to a moment in the scene where Mary Richards, played by Ms. Moore, is interviewing for a television news job with Lou Grant, played by Ed Asner (who died last month), he said, “Ed, I remember, when he said, ‘You’ve got spunk — I hate spunk,’ he did it so loud” that the audience gasped. “He had found the perfect level.”Over the next seven years, Mr. Sandrich directed 118 more episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” including the series finale, and won two Emmys for his work on the show. He also directed other series under the banner of Ms. Moore’s company, MTM Enterprises, including “Rhoda,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Phyllis” and “Lou Grant.”In the late 1970s, he directed 53 episodes of “Soap,” Susan Harris’s parody of soap operas. In 1980 he directed the movie “Seems Like Old Times,” written by Neil Simon and starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. It was a hit, grossing $44 million — about $139 million in today’s dollars — but he never made another feature film.Jay Henry Sandrich was born on Feb. 24, 1932, in Los Angeles. His father, Mark, was a director whose films included the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical “Top Hat.” His mother, Freda (Wirtschalter) Sandrich, was a homemaker.As a child, Jay saw snow falling for the first time — on the set of “Holiday Inn” (1942), with Astaire and Bing Crosby, which his father was directing. It was an exciting sight, even if the snow was plastic.Goldie Hawn in “Seems Like Old Times” (1980), the only feature film Mr. Sandrich directed.Columbia Pictures, via Getty ImagesAfter graduating in 1953 from U.C.L.A., where he studied theater arts and film, he joined the Army and shot training films for the Signal Corps.Following his discharge, he wrote to W. Argyle Nelson, the head of production at Desilu Productions — Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s production company — and he was hired as a second assistant director, working on “I Love Lucy,” “Our Miss Brooks” and “December Bride.” He later discovered that he had gotten the job because Mr. Nelson had been an assistant to his father on a film years earlier. Mr. Sandrich went on to become an assistant director on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour,” the successor to “I Love Lucy,” from 1957 to 1959.He had similar positions on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and on “Make Room for Daddy,” starring Danny Thomas, where he started his directingcareer.“I remember waking up in the middle of the night,” fearful before directing his first episodes of “Daddy,” he told the Television Academy. “I was so scared. Nobody was going to listen to me.”People listened to him for the next 40 years.In the 1980s, he directed 100 episodes of “The Cosby Show,” for which he won two Emmys. In 1985, he directed the pilot for “The Golden Girls,” and he played a critical role in casting Betty White as Rose, the naïve character, and Rue McClanahan as the libidinous Blanche, the opposite of what had been originally planned — in part because Ms. White had already played a similar role, Sue Ann Nivens, on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”“Jay Sandrich, in his genius, said if Betty plays another man-hungry, they’ll think it’s Sue Ann revisited. So let’s make her Rose,” Ms. White said at a 2006 “Golden Girls” reunion in Los Angeles staged by the Paley Center. She added, gesturing to Ms. McClanahan, “They got a real neighborhood nymphomaniac to play Blanche.”Mr. Sandrich at an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences panel discussion in Los Angeles in 2013. His TV career began in the 1950s and continued into the 21st century. Frank Micelotta/Invision for Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, via Associated PressMr. Sandrich continued to work into the 21st century. His last assignment was an episode of “Two and a Half Men” in 2003.He married Linda Silverstein in 1984. In addition to her, he is survived by his daughter, Wendy Steiner; his sons, Eric and Tony; and four grandchildren. His marriage to Nina Kramer ended in divorce.Mr. Sandrich’s association with “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” ended when the series itself did, in 1977. He later recalled that as the cast rehearsed the last episode, Mr. Asner’s emotional line, “I treasure you people,” caused tears to stream from Mr. Asner’s eyes.And when Ms. Moore talked about how much her co-workers meant to her, Mr. Sandrich said, “My only direction to her was to hold off crying as long as you can.”“If you see the show,” he added, “you see the tears well up and I started crying and the audience started crying.” More