Eliana Willis

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    What to Watch in Sports Right Now

    The N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. titles were claimed, the N.H.L.’s Stanley Cup won and the French Open champions crowned — all in the last three weeks. But there’s still a lot for sports fans to look forward to. Here, some of the biggest events of the next week. FootballIn Week 6 of the N.F.L. season, the Cleveland Browns test their fierce rivalry with the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at 1 p.m. E.T. Sunday, Oct. 18, on CBS; they are followed by Aaron Rodgers’s Green Bay Packers at Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 4:25 p.m. on Fox; and the N.F.C. West showdown between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers at 8:20 p.m. on NBC. On Monday, the reigning Super Bowl champion, the Kansas City Chiefs, take on the Buffalo Bills at 5 p.m. on Fox and the NFL Network. Both teams are coming off their first losses of the season.After a lot of back and forth, the Power Five conferences — the Big Ten , Pac-12, Southeastern, Atlantic Coast and Big 12 — decided to bring college football back this fall (other sports, not so much). But recent outbreaks have postponed several games, including Louisiana State at Florida, Oklahoma State at Baylor and Vanderbilt at Missouri.One of the biggest games will have Coach Nick Saban’s Alabama team facing off against Tennessee at 3:30 p.m. on CBS on Saturday, while Notre Dame takes on Pitt on ABC at the same time. Auburn battles Mississippi on the SEC Network at noon, while Syracuse squares off against Clemson on ESPN also at noon.BaseballThe World Series starts Tuesday on Oct. 20 at Globe Life Field, in Arlington, Texas, times to be determined. A limited number of fans will be permitted to attend, rather than the cardboard cutouts the league has usually been using throughout the pandemic.And for the fans who clung to South Korean baseball while M.L.B. teams were halted, the Korea Baseball Organization’s regular season ends on Oct. 30, after which playoffs start. Watch on ESPN2 at 5:30 a.m. weekdays.SoccerMajor League Soccer is now in its regular season. On Monday, the New England Revolution will play the Philadelphia Union at 7:30 p.m.; Nashville and FC Dallas meet on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. And the Seattle Sounders take on the Portland Timbers at 10:30 p.m. Thursday. All games are on M.L.S. Live on ESPN+.Abroad, the English Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga are all holding matchdays. Leeds United takes on Wolverhampton Wolves at 3 p.m. Monday. Most Premier League games are on fuboTV or NBC and NBC Sports Network; fuboTV also carries La Liga. Bundesliga and Serie A are on ESPN+.TennisAfter a riveting French Open for women’s and men’s tennis, eyes turn to the Ostrava Open in the Czech Republic starting Monday. Qualification lists are still being decided, but Elina Svitolina, ranked fifth, aims to come out on top after being defeated in the quarterfinals of the French Open. Stream it on DAZN, once finalized.Matteo Berrettini, ranked eighth overall, will vie for the top spot at the European Open in Antwerp, Belgium, after he tanked out of the French Open in the third round. The tournament starts Sunday Oct. 18 and continues through the 25th. Watch it on the event’s official site. More

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    Jerry Harris Is Denied Bail in Child-Pornography Case

    CHICAGO — The “Cheer” star Jerry Harris will continue to be held in jail by orders of a judge who ruled Friday that he would be a potential “danger to the community” if released as his child-pornography case proceeds.U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather K. McShain said Mr. Harris has “no control over his urges” and said it would be “impossible” to ensure he wouldn’t violate the conditions of his release.Mr. Harris was charged with one count of production of child pornography on Sept. 17 and has been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago since then.On Wednesday, four potential custodians testified that they would be willing to house Mr. Harris, 21, if he were released on bail. At that hearing, the mother of two teenage boys who sued Mr. Harris also testified, urging Judge McShain to keep him behind bars.Judge McShain, who took 35 minutes to read her decision, said she only considered whether Mr. Harris would be a danger to the community rather than a flight risk.Judge McShain commended the four who offered to act as custodians of Harris, but said, “While I have no doubt that the four third-party custodians would act in good faith to attempt to protect the defendant from accessing the internet,” the type of monitoring required “would be virtually impossible.”“I also have found that the defendant lacks control,” she added.At one point during the hearing, the court disappeared from the feed, but the defense and prosecution remained connected, along with Mr. Harris and his supporters.Mr. Harris, not sure of what happened, could be heard saying, “Hello, hello?” A supporter, presumably one of his potential custodians, responded by saying: “I’m here, I can hear you; love you, kiddo,” to which Harris said, “I love you too.” Mr. Harris said “thank you” before someone alerted those on the call that they could be heard by everyone on the line. After a few minutes, the court re-established the connection and Judge McShain continued reading her decision.Judge McShain noted that Mr. Harris overcame a difficult childhood and excelled in the cheer community, but said those positive attributes did not outweigh the allegations against him.Prosecutors had argued in a motion filed on Tuesday that Mr. Harris had “exploited and violated at least 10 minor boys.”Mr. Harris’s lawyers, in a motion for his release filed on Wednesday, noted that pretrial release had initially been recommended, but he had been unable to arrange for a custodian. Since Mr. Harris has identified custodians and because he is asthmatic, which places him at risk of contracting the coronavirus, they argued he should be released on bail.His lawyers were not immediately available to comment on Friday. More

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    in Theater

    Lois Smith Says Her Tony-Nominated Role ‘Was a Pleasure Every Day’

    It’s taken almost 25 years but Lois Smith is once again a Tony Award nominee, this time for her performance as Margaret in Matthew Lopez’s play “The Inheritance.” (Her most recent nomination was for her featured role in Sam Shepherd’s “Buried Child,” in 1996.)She stood out in her role as the caretaker of a sanctuary for men dying of AIDS-related illnesses, though only appearing in Part 2 of this six-and-a-half-hour epic directed by Stephen Daldry. In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley called Smith’s acting “quietly brilliant.” We spoke with Smith after her nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play was announced. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.How does this compare to your previous nominations in 1990 and 1996? Obviously, this has been a difficult and complicated year.Oh my goodness, has it ever. Let me say that this is a kind of a stimulating day and professional stimulation has been in short supply this last six or eight months. Last week, we showed the “Angels in America” scenes, which amfAR had made, and that was extremely interesting. All the actors involved, we shot in our own rooms. Mine was a monologue. There was a lot of movie magic put into it. It was in no sense a Zoom reading. It was quite different. And last week, I remember saying to my family and friends, “It makes me feel like I’m working, even though I know I’m not.” I suppose today is similar.What’s it like compared to the others? Outside our doors there is dread and misery abounding. That of course is a great difference in life right now.Does the nomination mitigate the disappointment of theaters shutting down in March?It’s a lovely thing to have happened. We knew we were going to close. We were very fortunate compared to all our colleagues in the neighborhood that day in March because so many of them — really the majority of them — thought they were getting ready to open and that had to be so bitter and so difficult.You were the only female cast member in “The Inheritance.” Does that affect how you feel about being nominated?The whole experience of being in this play was like nothing else. There were two long three-act plays and I was only in Act III of the second play so I went to work three times a week late at night.To answer your question: No, I hadn’t thought about that. I loved this cast and they could not have been more embracing and enveloping and lovely to this “only female.” That was a pleasure every day.You mentioned doing these different projects during the shutdown that gave you a feeling of being at work. What else have you been doing to keep yourself busy?I have been fortunate to be spending time with my family who lives in Philadelphia — my daughter lives here — so I haven’t been by myself. I am certainly longing for the public life, which is one of the things about New York City I treasure and love. And I very much miss my friends.There have been some pluses for me. I am certainly comfortable and I’m with people I love. I have three grown grandchildren in their twenties and I’ve gotten to spend some time with them. They were also home, which they might not have been in ordinary times. I feel better acquainted with all of them. So there has been that bonus, in my life.There are, for some, some unexpected bright spots.That’s true. In private life. Yes. More

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    in Theater

    Full List of the 2020 Tony Award Nominees

    The Tony Award nominees were announced Thursday by James Monroe Iglehart, who won a Tony in 2014 for his performance as Genie in “Aladdin.” Below is a list of the nominees.Best Musical“Jagged Little Pill”“Moulin Rouge! The Musical”“Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Play“Grand Horizons”“The Inheritance”“Sea Wall/A Life”“Slave Play”“The Sound Inside”Best Revival of a Play“A Soldier’s Play”“Betrayal”“Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune”Best Book of a MusicalDiablo Cody, “Jagged Little Pill”John Logan, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Original ScoreChristopher Nightingale, “A Christmas Carol”Paul Englishby, “The Inheritance”Lindsay Jones, “Slave Play”Daniel Kluger, “The Sound Inside”Jason Michael Webb and Fitz Patton, “The Rose Tattoo”Best Direction of a PlayDavid Cromer, “The Sound Inside”Stephen Daldry, “The Inheritance”Kenny Leon, “A Soldier’s Play”Jamie Lloyd, “Betrayal”Robert O’Hara, “Slave Play”Best Direction of a MusicalPhyllida Lloyd, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Diane Paulus, “Jagged Little Pill”Alex Timbers, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Best Leading Actor in a PlayIan Barford, “Linda Vista”Andrew Burnap, “The Inheritance”Jake Gyllenhaal, “Sea Wall/A Life”Tom Hiddleston, “Betrayal”Tom Sturridge, “Sea Wall/A Life”Blair Underwood, “A Soldier’s Play”Best Leading Actress in a PlayJoaquina Kalukango, “Slave Play”Laura Linney, “My Name Is Lucy Barton”Audra McDonald, “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune”Mary-Louise Parker, “The Sound Inside”Best Leading Actor in a MusicalAaron Tveit, “Moulin Rouge!”Best Leading Actress in a MusicalKaren Olivo, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Elizabeth Stanley, “Jagged Little Pill”Adrienne Warren, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Featured Actor in a PlayAto Blankson-Wood, “Slave Play”James Cusati-Moyer, “Slave Play”David Alan Grier, “A Soldier’s Play”John Benjamin Hickey, “The Inheritance”Paul Hilton, “The Inheritance”Best Featured Actress in a PlayJane Alexander, “Grand Horizons”Cora Vander Broek, “Linda Vista”Chalia La Tour, “Slave Play”Annie McNamara, “Slave Play”Lois Smith, “The Inheritance”Best Featured Actor in a MusicalDanny Burstein, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Derek Klena, “Jagged Little Pill”Sean Allan Krill, “Jagged Little Pill”Sahr Ngaujah, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Daniel J. Watts, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Featured Actress in a MusicalKathryn Gallagher, “Jagged Little Pill”Celia Rose Gooding, “Jagged Little Pill”Robyn Hurder, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Myra Lucretia Taylor, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Lauren Patten, “Jagged Little Pill”Best Scenic Design of a PlayBob Crowley, “The Inheritance”Soutra Gilmour, “Betrayal”Rob Howell, “A Christmas Carol”Derek McLane, “A Soldier’s Play”Clint Ramos, “Slave Play”Best Scenic Design of a MusicalDerek McLane, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Riccardo Hernandez and Lucy Mackinnon, “Jagged Little Pill”Mark Thompson and Jeff Sugg, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Costume Design of a PlayDede Ayite, “A Soldier’s Play”Dede Ayite, “Slave Play”Bob Crowley, “The Inheritance”Rob Howell, “A Christmas Carol”Clint Ramos, “The Rose Tattoo”Best Costume Design of a MusicalEmily Rebholz, “Jagged Little Pill”Mark Thompson, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Catherine Zuber, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Best Lighting Design of a PlayJiyoun Chang, “Slave Play”Jon Clark, “The Inheritance”Heather Gilbert, “The Sound Inside”Allen Lee Hughes, “A Soldier’s Play”Hugh Vanstone, “A Christmas Carol”Best Lighting Design of a MusicalBruno Poet, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Justin Townsend, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Justin Townsend, “Jagged Little Pill”Best Sound Design of a PlayPaul Arditti and Christopher Reid, “The Inheritance”Simon Baker, “A Christmas Carol”Lindsay Jones, “Slave Play”Daniel Kluger, “The Sound Inside”Daniel Kluger, “Sea Wall/A Life”Best Sound Design of a MusicalJonathan Deans, “Jagged Little Pill”Peter Hylenski, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Nevin Steinberg, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best ChoreographySidi Larbi Cherkaoui, “Jagged Little Pill”Sonya Tayeh, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Anthony Van Laast, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best OrchestrationsJustin Levine, Matt Stine, Katie Kresek and Charlie Rosen, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Tom Kitt, “Jagged Little Pill”Ethan Popp, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” More

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    in Theater

    Head of Huntington Theater Company Resigns Amid Internal Strife

    The artistic director of the Huntington Theater Company in Boston has resigned, the company said on Wednesday, after months of upheaval over the workplace environment and an airing of grievances about the conduct of senior leaders.The director, Peter DuBois, led the company for 12 years before his departure, according to a statement from the president and chairman of the company’s board of trustees. The statement did not offer a clear reason for the resignation but said it had come at a time when the challenges of the pandemic had “illuminated concerns about the theater’s workplace environment and issues of structural imbalance.”A spokeswoman for the theater company, Temple Gill, said that DuBois’s resignation followed a board investigation that began after a complaint was received last month. She declined to elaborate on the nature of the complaint but said that 20 staff members had been interviewed and had spoken about a variety of issues surrounding workplace culture.The Boston Globe reported that a group of employees had sent an email to board leaders last month expressing concerns about “retaliation from supervisors and an overall lack of accountability in leadership.”In a statement by email, DuBois said that “during a time when the theater is not producing, and during a time of truly hopeful cultural transformation, I am no longer the right person for the job.”In August, an Instagram account called Boston BIPOC Theater, using an acronym for Black and Indigenous people and people of color, was created to publish descriptions of anonymous experiences from arts workers in the city amid an industrywide outcry around institutional racism.Many of the posts on the account were directed at the Huntington. Anonymous people who identified themselves as current or former employees wrote about “deep rooted issues with institutional racism” at the company and took issue with the ways in which the company had terminated workers during the pandemic.At one point, the Huntington was called on to respond directly to the Instagram posts, and it did, commenting, in part, “While we feel social media is not the best medium to conduct these complex conversations, we hear your voices and are working on these issues daily.”In recent months, the Huntington laid off 11 employees and furloughed about 46 others, Gill said. The company, which has paused its season indefinitely, estimates that it has lost about $6.3 million as a result of canceled shows and lost rental income.In the company’s statement on Wednesday, the board leaders wrote that the Huntington was using the time while it was not producing shows to “become a more equitable institution” and to increase “dialogue with our BIPOC staff and artists.”DuBois said in his statement that he was proud of the progress that had been made in diversity at the Huntington during his tenure, noting that if the pandemic had not struck, more than half of the theater’s actor contracts last season would have gone to artists of color. He added that he hoped people of color would be considered to replace him.“I hope that by resigning I can create an opening,” DuBois said, “which allows the theater to continue on its journey of structural transformation.” More

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    Jerry Harris’s Child-Pornography Case Back in Court

    Lawyers for Jerry Harris and prosecutors made their cases before a judge in a federal court in Chicago on Wednesday as to whether Mr. Harris, a star of the Netflix series “Cheer,” should be transferred to home detention while he awaits a trial after his arrest on a child-pornography charge.U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather McShain said she would “get a ruling out quickly” in the case.Four potential custodians who know Mr. Harris said that they would be willing to let him live with them if he were released. They said they understood their potential responsibilities and would not have a problem turning in Mr. Harris if he violated conditions of his release — including if they “even got wind” of his having a cellphone or internet access.Earlier in the nearly two-hour hearing, the court heard by phone from the mother of 14-year-old twin brothers who filed a lawsuit against Mr. Harris last month. She said it was “very, very important that Mr. Harris be kept in custody until he stands trial.”In a motion to keep Mr. Harris in custody that was filed by prosecutors on Tuesday, they wrote that he had “exploited and violated at least 10 minor boys.” They argued that if he were allowed to return home, even “third-party custodians” would not be sufficient to prevent him resuming contact with minors.“It really terrifies me to think that another child can be harmed if he is released,” the boys’ mother said at the hearing.Mr. Harris’s lawyers filed a motion for his release on Wednesday. They noted that pretrial release had initially been recommended, but he had been unable to arrange for a custodian.Now he has identified potential custodians, the motion said, adding that since Mr. Harris is asthmatic, continued time in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago places him at risk of contracting the coronavirus. He has been housed there since his arrest on Sept. 17.In an interview with law enforcement officials last month, Mr. Harris, 21, acknowledged that he had exchanged sexually explicit photos on Snapchat with at least 10 to 15 people he knew were minors, had sex with a 15-year-old at a cheerleading competition in 2019 and paid a 17-year-old to send him naked photos.Production of child pornography carries a sentence of between 15 and 30 years in prison.Robert Chiarito contributed reporting from Chicago. More

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    How 2020 Blew Up Campaign Reporting

    “I miss you guys,” John Heilemann says. He is sitting in the desolate courtyard of a Brooklyn pizzeria with three slices on his table, talking by phone with the other hosts of Showtime’s weekly political documentary “The Circus.” In a normal election year, Heilemann, Mark McKinnon, Jennifer Palmieri and Alex Wagner would be together in some swing state, just back from a campaign rally, hanging out in a dimly lit restaurant and dissecting each candidate’s strategy over a meal and some booze. But the pandemic has all but erased that campaign trail, and so the group is meeting virtually: Heilemann from the pizza parlor, McKinnon from an empty Denver brewpub, Palmieri from a Hudson Valley coffee shop and Wagner from a goat farm. “It sucks not to be having a round-table with the round-tablers,” Heilemann laments.Still, the show must go on — and so the team dives in. It’s August, and Joe Biden is days away from choosing his running mate, a decision McKinnon predicts will be “tectonic.” Biden has pledged to pick a woman, but Wagner notes that the previous two female picks — Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin — were “Hail Mary” selections by trailing candidates. “This could play badly for Biden,” she warns. When Biden chooses Kamala Harris, Heilemann heads to a mostly empty Delaware high school gym for the ticket’s first joint appearance. “This has been a flawlessly executed and, in most respects, totally normal vice-presidential rollout,” he concludes, “until this event. There’s no applause. There’s no energy in the room.” McKinnon travels to Iowa for a Trump rally, where Mike Pence tells the crowd that Harris once supported dietary guidelines that would reduce Americans’ consumption of red meat. (“We’re not gonna let Joe Biden and Kamala Harris cut America’s meat!”) “That,” McKinnon sagely notes, “is a little preview there of the attacks.”Two months later, the optics and stage-managing of the Harris selection are forgotten, but the 30 minutes “The Circus” spent obsessing over them serve as a useful reminder of how political reporters have tried, and often failed, to craft conventional narratives out of this decidedly unconventional election. The race has featured, in just the past few weeks, Donald Trump’s taped remarks to Bob Woodward (admitting he downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic), the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the revelation of Trump’s income taxes and Trump’s becoming infected with the virus. By early October, the pressing questions for reporters didn’t involve the results of polls, but of Covid and blood-oxygen tests. The standard models of campaign reporting didn’t seem up to the task of explaining the race. And nowhere is that more evident than in a show like “The Circus.” More