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    ‘The Flash’ Actor and Showrunner React to Hartley Sawyer’s Dismissal

    Grant Gustin, who plays the title hero on “The Flash,” and Eric Wallace, the showrunner for the series, spoke out publicly on Monday after the firing of Hartley Sawyer, an actor on the show. Sawyer was dismissed for tweets he made before joining the series in 2017. The tweets, which were recently resurfaced, included jokes about racism and several remarks against women.Gustin wrote on Instagram: “I will say I was shocked, saddened and angry when I saw the tweets. Words matter.”In a joint statement, the network and the show’s producers, Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti Productions, announced that the actor would not return for the new season in the fall. It also stated: “We do not tolerate derogatory remarks that target any race, ethnicity, national origin, gender or sexual orientation. Such remarks are antithetical to our values and polices, which strive and evolve to promote a safe, inclusive and productive environment for our workforce.”On May 30, Sawyer posted an apology on Instagram which read, in part: “I’m not here to make excuses — regardless of the intention, my words matter and they carry profound consequences.”Wallace, who is also an executive producer for “The Flash,” posted his own statement on Twitter. He said: “Concerning his social media tweets, they broke my heart and made me mad as hell. And they’re indicative of the larger problem in our country. Because at present, our country still accepts and protects the continual harassment — unconscious or otherwise — terrorizing and brutalizing of Black and Brown people, which is far too often fatal.”He added, “That’s why our country is standing up once again and shouting, ‘ENOUGH!’ to bring about active change.” More

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    Theater Artists Decry Racism in Their Industry

    More than 300 theater artists — black, Indigenous and people of color — on Monday published a blistering statement addressed to “White American Theater” decrying racial injustice in their industry.“You are all a part of this house of cards built on white fragility and supremacy,” said the statement, which was published on the web. “And this is a house that will not stand.”The signatories include the Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda; the film and television stars Viola Davis and Blair Underwood; and many Tony Award winners, including the actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and the playwright David Henry Hwang, who is the chair of the American Theater Wing.The American narrative is shaped by storytellers,but for too long the White theater community has negated, censored or prevented our stories from being fully told.We must protect,support & amplify the voices of our truth tellers & change seekers #weseeyou https://t.co/Wsbqwtbry5— Lynn Nottage (@Lynnbrooklyn) June 9, 2020
    The statement is the artists’ response to the unrest that has roiled the United States since George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.In the weeks that followed, as discussion of race relations has intensified, numerous black theater artists have taken to social media to describe experiences of racism.Two playwrights have begun surveying theatermakers of color about their experiences.The Broadway Advocacy Coalition, an organization pressing for social change, this week is holding a three-part forum “for the Broadway community to heal, listen, and hold itself accountable to its history of white supremacy.”In Britain, a group of theater artists has put together its own letter, calling for greater disclosure about diversity statistics by theaters there.There is even a petition circulating to make the Apollo Theater, the historic Harlem venue, a Broadway house.The statement addressing “White American Theater,” outlining the ways in which, it argues, artists of color are unjustly treated in the theater world, declares itself to be “in the legacy of August Wilson’s ‘The Ground on Which I Stand’,” an important 1996 speech by the playwright about race and the American stage.Headlined “We See You, White American Theater,” the statement repeatedly uses the phrase “we see you” to punctuate its observations about the theater world, and adds, “We have always seen you. And now you will see us.”It expresses concerns about programming (“We have watched you program play after play, written, directed, cast, choreographed, designed, acted, dramaturged and produced by your rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences”); labor unions (“we have watched you turn a blind eye as unions refuse to confront their racism and integrate their ranks”); media (“a monolithic and racist critical culture”); and nonprofit organizations (“asking us to politely shuffle at your galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners, in rooms full of white faces, without being willing to defend the sanctity of our bodies beyond the stages you make us jump through hoops to be considered for”).The statement comes at a time when most American theaters, including all of those on Broadway, are closed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic and most theater artists are unemployed. As unrest in the country over race relations has intensified, many theaters, as well as many commercial theater productions, have issued statements decrying racism and pledging to support systemic change; some have also opened their doors to protesters.It was not immediately clear who organized the statement, or what the collective’s next steps will be. Several signatories referred press questions to an email address; an inquiry to that address was not answered. The statement was posted as a petition on change.org, where tens of thousands of people signed. More

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    ‘Billions’ Season 5, Episode 6 Recap: Fake It Till You Make It

    Season 5, Episode 6: ‘The Nordic Model’Fakes, forgeries, phonies, fugazis — they’re all very much on the brain of this week’s crackerjack episode of ‘Billions.’ For some characters, faking it is all they know how to do.Take Spyros, Axe Cap’s pompous compliance officer. (Compliance? Please!) He becomes a target of mockery for wearing a fake pin for the high-IQ group Mensa, fronting as if he had taken and passed the membership test. A thoroughly annoyed Bobby Axelrod rips the pin off his lapel and chucks it; Spyros spends much of the ensuing scene on his knees, quietly searching for it in the background.But recovering the bogus pin is just a stopgap measure. Now determined to prove his detractors wrong, Spyros sets out to take the test and earn his membership the hard way. What he doesn’t realize is that his co-workers, dreading the man’s inevitable outbursts of pique and pettiness should he come up short, have hacked the exam and are entering (mostly) correct answers when he inevitably gets them wrong. (Shout-out to Mafee, the project’s mastermind, who aces every question in seconds.)Spyros’s victory lap when he finds out he’s earned his way into the group is so insufferable I was convinced someone would reveal the ruse, but for now the secret is safe. He has no idea his triumph is as phony as … well, everything else about him.His boss, Bobby, has fakes on the brain as well. With the help of his underling Danny Margolis (Daniel Cosgrove) and his dirty-deeds specialist Victor Mateo (Louis Cancelmi), Bobby has been storing replicas of his art collection in a free-port tax haven, reporting them as the genuine article while secretly keeping the real paintings in his residences. But a law-enforcement raid sends Axe and his merry men scrambling, especially when his nemesis Chuck Rhoades gets wind of the scheme: He remembers having seen a Van Gogh in the apartment where his ex, Wendy, has been living on Bobby’s dime, and he is convinced he was in the presence of the master’s authentic handiwork.It takes some doing, but Chuck finally gets his warrant and an art authenticator to go with it, ready to raid the apartment and pin Bobby to the wall alongside his paintings. But when the team arrives, it discovers the place has been turned into a private museum, literally overnight, thanks to a daring helicopter raid by the aforementioned merry men. “I would say you were wasting my taxes,” Bobby says of Chuck’s attempted raid, “if I didn’t have such giant [expletive] deductions.” That’s our Axe. He’s not content just to win, he has to let you know the margin of victory.Chuck’s plan has a bumpy road from the beginning. Early on, he finds himself outmaneuvered by the Manhattan district attorney, Mary Ann Gramm (Roma Maffia), who bigfoots him out of the art case on jurisdictional grounds. Chuck needs to come at her hard in order to get her to back off, and with the help of his sociologist girlfriend, Cat, he finds a way: threatening to throw the book at sex workers, whose profession Gramm has been hoping to decriminalize. (That’s “The Nordic Model” of the episode’s title.)Momentarily, at least, Cat is aghast when she hears Chuck’s idea. Fighting for the rights of sex workers has been a part of her life’s work. Surely this is just an empty threat, right?“Of course it’s a threat,” Chuck says, before adding “which I have to mean, because otherwise it’s not a very good threat.” The fake has to be indistinguishable from the real thing, in other words. And with that mind-set in place, Chuck successfully wrests the case back from Gramm. And while he may not nail Axe the way he hoped, Cat rewards him for not making good on his threat, real or otherwise, by purchasing them the services of a sex worker. The kid-in-a-candy-store look on Chuck’s face indicates he’s pretty happy with this silver lining.Taylor Mason has to fake it too, not once but twice. Landing the business of a promising methane-capture technology firm requires Taylor to think like two completely different men: Bobby, whose cutthroat attitude can be effective but corrosive, and Oscar Langstraat, Taylor’s laid-back ex-boyfriend and chief rival in the bid. (Asia Kate Dillon’s impression of Mike Birbiglia’s Oscar is spot on.) These acts of interpersonal forgery work like a charm, though you have to wonder if Taylor Mason Carbon’s do-gooder mission will be undermined by all the shifty behavior undertaken to get there.The one person who seems truly unhappy with having to fake it is the artist Nico Tanner. A private sketch of his new girlfriend, Wendy, catches Axe’s eye. Recognizing the rarity and value of such a piece, the hedge-fund king effectively orders the painter, who is deeply embarrassed by his representational work, to create a portrait of maybe the single least portrait-worthy character on this show: the treasury secretary and fellow art enthusiast (and tax cheat) Todd Krakow (Danny Strong). Bobby’s gift induces Krakow to help expedite his banking plans. For Tanner, it’s more evidence that working on commission, even for the ungodly sum Bobby is paying him, isn’t worth the price.Of course, there are some things you can’t fake. Neither Chuck, nor Wendy, nor any of Charles Rhoades Sr.’s illegitimate children are a blood-type match for Charles père, who needs a kidney transplant to survive. A high-spirited, heist-infused episode like this one can obscure it somewhat, but “Billions” at its best always digs down to what its brilliant characters can’t fake their way through.Loose change:For “Godfather” reference spotters who enjoyed the last episode’s homage to Don Corleone’s orange-peel smile and subsequent collapse, I hope you got a kick out of it when Chuck’s assistant Karl Allard compared the cops who shooed him from Axe’s apartment to the crooked Captain McCluskey.I really enjoyed the interplay between Mafee and Ben Kim as they watched the slow-motion train wreck that was Spyros’s Mensa exam throughout the episode. “It’s like we’re all being tested.” “For a horrible disease.”Bookmark this for later: Bobby wants to create a food empire out of the (real-world) restaurant Una Pizza Napoletana, and the place’s (fictional) business manager, played by Domenick Lombardozzi of “The Wire,” is sharp enough to do business with him.It’s morally repellent to watch Chuck expressly threaten dire legal consequences for women in the sex trade and their dependent children unless he gets what he wants. Doubly so knowing that he doesn’t actually care about the issue. Triply so seeing him disport himself with a sex worker (he keeps using terms like “hooker” and “prostitute”) as a reward.The episode’s closing scene: Bobby, staring for hours at the secret surveillance cameras he set up outside Nico’s studio and apartment, watching Wendy go in and then come out the next morning. It’s not just the art he has an eye for. More

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    You Live Outside New York. Are You Ready to Return to Broadway?

    New Yorkers are reluctant to return to the theater this fall, according to a survey commissioned by The New York Times. What about out-of-towners, who make up more than two-thirds of the Broadway audience? What would it take for them to be comfortable?We put that question to readers of the Theater Update newsletter (subscribe here) and received hundreds of responses, most of them pessimistic — and pained. Here is an edited sampling:I’m ready now. I’ll wear the mask, I’ll wash my hands, I’ll sit every third or fourth seat. Whatever I need to do to get back in front of a live performance while safely and respectfully protecting my neighbors and theater staff! CORINNE ROSSI, Stonington, Conn.Without a vaccine or a cure, to attend a performance would not be a rational choice. The issue is not the statistical probability of getting the virus. Rather, it is the anxiety of being infected that prevents devout thespians, like yours truly, from going back. I actually had the virus and survived, and I do not wish this experience on anyone. ALEXANDER WAINTRUB, Los AngelesMy husband and I talked about this because we miss the theater so much. He would go back right now to Broadway as long as people were wearing masks. I would go back at 50 percent capacity. BARBARA PARKER, MiamiWhat might it take for us to come to Broadway again? Well, to start, probably a car drive rather than a flight, and socially distanced seating with mask wearing. Does that mean Broadway would have to present twice as many performances to accommodate playgoers at a safe distance? Have to leave that to the analysts, bean counters and presenters. PHILLIP LEVY, Raleigh, N.C. More