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    ‘Beyond Babel’ Review: A Fence Separates Star-Crossed Lovers

    Everyone who has helped Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself” video rack up 1.5 billion views knows that Keone and Mari Madrid can dance. And charm. Unlike some performers married to each other, they have plenty of onscreen chemistry — his happy-go-lucky manner rubbing against her more sober guardedness. They exhibit masterly ease in the style they call West Coast urban dance, with the quick precision to register a pop song’s every beat. As choreographers, they are clever and inventive but also sweet and sincere in their storytelling.The question raised by “Beyond Babel,” which just opened an ambitious 10-week run at the Gym at Judson Church, is whether they can sustain a 100-minute dance drama.The answer, with qualifications, is yes.The story is a “Romeo and Juliet” update. Mr. and Ms. Madrid meet at a dance club and fall in love during one of those everyone-else-disappears, time-stands-still moments. He has a cocky, loyal, hot-tempered friend (the agile, rascally Mikey Ruiz). Rather than a nurse, she has a devoted sister (Selene Haro). Less easily identifiable is an initially masked character (the forceful yet decent-seeming Fabian Tucker), a tortured authority figure who hands out armbands in red and blue.By the end of the first act, the stage is divided by a fence, those with red armbands on one side, those with blue on the other. This vaguely topical obstacle is what keeps these lovers apart.The story is pretty simple, and it needs to be, because it’s told exclusively through a series of dance numbers set to borrowed pop songs. The show, conceived and directed by the Madrids along with Josh and Lyndsay Aviner of the production company Hideaway Circus, is a kind of jukebox musical without dialogue. Tracks by dozens of artists — mostly recent stuff by the likes of Billie Eilish, Chance the Rapper and Mumford & Sons, with a few throwbacks (A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes) to make Gen Xers feel at home — are shoehorned into the narrative.Many of the numbers seem stuck between advancing story or character development and delivering a knockout routine that could ace a TV dance competition. The choreography is engaging and extremely detailed; it keeps showing new ways of hitting the beat, irresistibly, while tossing off astonishing moves. But part of the detail is an acting out of lyrics, and the Madrids habitually rely on the words of the songs to put across their meanings, to both cute and clunky effect. The production has the feel of a pop concert, with the ingratiating performers dancing up the aisles and exhorting the audience to respond. (The young audience surrounding me responded enthusiastically.)Yet, despite a textbook trough at the start of the second act, the show mostly flows — sometimes in advanced patterns, pausing to enter a character’s mind for a number, then rewinding to pick up the tale. Although the story tilts tragic (as in the Shakespeare template, people die), it’s least convincing when reaching for darkness. The guns look like toys, and characters and creators alike seem not to know what to do with them. The emotions, as well as the humor and politics, are all adolescent; they would not be out of place on a Disney teen program. But unpretentious innocence is the core of the Madrids’ appeal, and that kind of love triumphs here.As the shapes crocheted (yes, crocheted!) around the proscenium frame by London Kaye unsubtly declare, this show has lots of heart. That spirit, channeled through dancing of high talent and skill, is enough to make it a winner.Beyond BabelThrough March 25 at the Gym at Judson Theater, Manhattan; beyondbabelshow.com. More

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    ‘S.N.L.’ Imagines the Impeachment Trial That Could Have Been

    If you ended the week hoping that President Trump’s impeachment trial would go on longer, this weekend’s opening “Saturday Night Live” sketch imagined just such a scenario: a parade of self-serving witnesses that wasn’t necessarily an improvement.This week’s episode, hosted by J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans and featuring the musical guest Luke Combs, began with a voice-over lamenting that the president’s trial “wound up consisting of two weeks of dry debate and posturing, and will conclude without any witness testimony or new evidence.” Instead, the sketch promised “the trial you wish had happened.”The scene opened with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. (Mikey Day) vowing that he would conduct the trial with “complete disinterest” — only to be replaced by the reality TV host Judge Mathis (Kenan Thompson), who brought his own gavel with him.[embedded content]Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (Beck Bennett) spoke on behalf of the president, remarking, “I just want to remind the American people that all men are innocent after proven guilty.”Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (Kate McKinnon) also advocated for the president. When Thompson asked her if she was worried about how history might judge her, McKinnon replied, “Where I come from, we have our own history books, and on the cover, a T. rex is handing a Confederate flag to Jesus.”Thompson then called for the testimony of several witnesses, beginning with John R. Bolton (Cecily Strong), the former national security adviser. Strong said the president’s actions left her “deeply worried about the future of democracy,” but when Thompson asked her to elaborate on the contents of a forthcoming memoir, she said: “No, no, sorry, judge, no more free spoilers. But you can pre-order the book now. It’s called ‘Harry Potter and the Room Where It Happened.’”Pete Davidson appeared as Hunter Biden, entering the courtroom on a hoverboard scooter and explaining that he now sat on “the board of a Brazilian money-laundering company called Nepotismo.”Alec Baldwin at last turned up in his recurring role as President Trump, entering the trial with the assistance of a walker.“Your honor, I’m a very sick old man,” Baldwin said. “How could I withhold aid from the Ukraine? I can barely get around the house”Thompson asked him, “Are you trying to Weinstein me right now?”Baldwin replied: “In which sense? Because Harvey and I overlap in a few areas.”There were further appearances from Alex Moffat as Representative Adam Schiff and Kyle Mooney as Joe Pesci’s title character from “My Cousin Vinny.” (“That is too dumb, even for this,” Thompson observed.)Baldwin gave a closing statement in which he said, “Ladies and gentlemen of this government place, what I’ve learned from this trial is that clearly nothing I do or say has any consequence.”Thompson nonetheless found him guilty, fined him $10,000 and ordered him to say one nice thing about Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Football Sketch of the WeekAs you might expect in an episode hosted by an N.F.L. player on the night before the Super Bowl, there were a few sketches in this episode that dealt with football, including a fake ad for Oil of Olay eye black (“Oil of BrOlay”) and a segment that found Watt in an unusual recording session for a football video game.Still, we’ll give the edge to this filmed sketch called “Robbie,” which models itself on inspirational sports movies like “Rudy.” It features Chris Redd as the title character, a spunky member of his college team’s practice squad who has never gotten to suit up for an actual game, and Day, Moffat and Mooney as his well-intentioned teammates, all of whom are willing to give up their spots so that Robbie can finally play.Then there’s Watt as another fellow player, who makes it painfully clear why Redd should not be permitted anywhere near the field.Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors, Colin Jost and Michael Che, continued to riff on the impeachment trial of President Trump.“The impeachment trial is basically over,” Jost began …… is a sentence I could have said two weeks ago when the trial began. We didn’t even get to hear any witnesses in this trial. And by the way, look at the witnesses we could have had. [Shows pictures of Lev Parnas and John Bolton.] You don’t want to hear anything from these guys? They look like the two characters in a video game who give you the best information. My questions for them aren’t even about Trump. My questions are like: “What’s your deal? Walk us through a typical day. What kind of food do you eat? Is it human food?”He continued:It was reported that President Trump pushed for the vote to be on Tuesday so that he could boast about his acquittal during the State of the Union. But now experts are saying that Trump might strike a more humble tone. And we actually have an advance copy of his speech: [Plays an animation of President Trump dancing to MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”]Che, shaking his head, picked up the thread:What better way to start Black History Month than to be failed by the justice system. Why was this impeachment ever a good idea? We would have been better off just yelling, “Citizen’s arrest!” And why didn’t we get Alan Dershowitz? This dude was amazing. He somehow convinced the court that a president should be allowed to break the law as long as it’s good for the country. That’s like telling your girl you only cheated to practice being good at sex for her. You know what? That’s it, I’m a Republican now. I’m tired of losing. I can’t be a Democrat and a Knicks fan. It’s too much heartbreak, man.Black History Month Salute of the WeekEgo Nwodim appeared at the Weekend Update desk as Dr. Angie Hynes, a professor of African-American Studies at Rutgers University, who said that she wanted to spotlight figures who were not as well-known as, say, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. Instead, Nwodim began by singling out a woman named Cynthia Woods, who she said “showed up at my wedding wearing all white.” Nwodim added, “She is black and she is history to me.”She similarly called out an ex-colleague who had sent her inappropriate photographs; her twin sister, Angel, who may or may not have cheated with her husband; and the drugstore chain Duane Reade, which Nwodim called “black Walgreens” but dismissed for “locking up the lotion.”“Duane Reade, you black, and you history,” she said. “CVS, welcome to the cookout, baby.”Gallows Humor of the WeekBowen Yang returned to the Weekend Update desk in his recurring role as the fictional Chinese government official Chen Biao, now promoted to the position of a health minister contending with the coronavirus outbreak. As Yang said of his character’s new gig: “It pays more and it’s a lot sadder. I guess I’m China’s new crisis queen.”Yang explained that he and his colleagues would eventually contain the virus with “patience, diligence” and the use of Burberry surgical masks. He did not seem particularly bothered to hear that American Airlines was halting its flights to China.“Oh no, I can’t fly American Airlines anymore?” Yang said sarcastically. “The only airline where if you ask for a Sprite, they say, ‘Is Sierra Mist O.K.?’ Who will I pay to throw my luggage in the garbage?” More

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    What’s on TV Sunday: ‘The Masked Singer’ and the Super Bowl

    What’s on TVTHE MASKED SINGER 10:30 p.m. on Fox. You may ask yourself two questions while watching this vocal competition: Who’s behind the mask, and how can they breathe in that thing? The series, back for Season 3, has celebrities compete against one another by belting out pop songs while decked out in elaborate disguises. The contestants’ identities are only revealed after they are voted off the show. (Previous singers include a shimmering butterfly and a fox in a top hat.) Nick Cannon returns as host, joined by the panelists Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke.GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET: MADAMA BUTTERFLY 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The film director Anthony Minghella revives this timeless opera by Puccini. The soprano Hui He plays the title role, a geisha waiting for her American husband (Bruce Sledge) to return to Japan in the early 20th century. Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts.SUPER BOWL LIV 6:30 p.m. on Fox. The San Francisco 49ers go up against the Kansas City Chiefs in Miami. The 49ers were last seen at the Super Bowl in 2013, while this is the Chiefs’ first time on football’s biggest stage in 50 years. Jennifer Lopez and Shakira perform during the halftime show, while President Trump and the 2020 presidential candidate and former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg present dueling ads during the commercial breaks. Expect plenty of star power in the other spots, including Bryan Cranston channeling “The Shining” in an ad for Mountain Dew.THE EE BRITISH ACADEMY FILM AWARDS 2020 9 p.m. on BBC America. This annual awards show, commonly known as the BAFTAS, is Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars. Todd Phillips’s comic book flick, “Joker,” leads the contenders with 11 nominations. In the best film category, it’s competing with “1917,” from Sam Mendes; “The Irishman,” from Martin Scorsese; “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” from Quentin Tarantino and “Parasite,” from Bong Joon Ho. Graham Norton (of “The Graham Norton Show”) hosts. What’s StreamingPRECIOUS (2009) Stream on Amazon; rent on Google Play, iTunes, Vudu or YouTube. Gabourey Sidibe will be back on the big screen this month in a new comedy, “Come As You Are.” More than 10 years ago, she burst onto the scene with her breakout role in “Precious,” a drama drawn from the novel “Push.” Set in 1980s New York, the film follows Claireece “Precious” Jones, an illiterate teenager who has never had it easy. Her classmates bully her; her mother (Mo’Nique, in an Oscar-winning role) is physically and verbally abusive; and her father has impregnated her — twice. But there is a glimmer of hope when Precious is transferred to an alternative school and meets a caring teacher (Paula Patton) and social worker (Mariah Carey). A.O. Scott named the film a Critic’s Pick in his review for The New York Times and wrote that Sidibe is the glue that holds it together. More

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    Review: ‘Stew’ Takes Deeper Emotions Off the Back Burner

    It’s early on a Saturday morning, but Mama has already had time not just to make stew, but to let it burn when she was momentarily distracted by a noise outside the house — a shot or a tire blowing out, she can’t be sure.So now Mama is annoyed and stressed, because one way or another, she needs to help feed up to 50 people at a church event later that day.The titular dish is never far from the whirlwind action in Zora Howard’s new drama, “Stew,” at Walkerspace, even when it’s on the back burner — both figuratively and literally, as Lawrence E. Moten III’s set faithfully reproduces a lower-middle-class kitchen, a little worn but loved. The characters often cut and prep vegetables, and the play highlights the kitchen as a haven in the Tucker family’s life, but also a place where skirmishes erupt.Mama (Portia) is matriarch and benevolent dictator rolled into one, and her rules must be followed by those who share her domain. They include her two daughters: 17-year-old Nelly (Toni Lachelle Pollitt) and Lillian (Nikkole Salter), who is in her 30s and appears to have moved back, if only temporarily, with her tween daughter, Lil’ Mama (Kristin Dodson), and her son, Junior (who remains unseen, like all the men in the characters’ lives).Every sign of rebellion is quickly snuffed with a snappy comeback. When Lillian accuses her of always being late, Mama retorts, “I’m always held up is what it is.”The first half of “Stew” is dominated by comic broad strokes and rapid-fire dialogue as the characters banter with practiced zest. The excellent cast and the director Colette Robert handle the material deftly, but it also wears thin and can verge on caricature. The tone feels a bit too obvious for a production by Page 73, the company that nurtured such distinctive recent offerings as “A Strange Loop” and “Catch as Catch Can.”And indeed, Howard is up to something.While the kitchen appears to be where these women reveal their bickering-but-loving true selves, you eventually realize that the hustle and bustle, while obviously heartfelt, also has a performative element — which finds its most striking illustration when Lil’ Mama reveals she’s auditioning for the role of Queen Elizabeth in a school production of “Richard III.”Acting runs deep in the family, and Lil’ Mama’s female relatives have dabbled in the past. Howard, who is also an actor (she co-wrote and stars in the upcoming feature “Premature”), suggests that acting may be part of what keeps a family together by helping to process conflict and hardship.Naturally, Mama — “founder and director emeritus of the Mt. Vernon High Dramatic League as well as the first soloist at the Greater Centennial A.M.E. Zion Church, lead pastor Reverend Winston Rice, for the past 15 years” — takes the lead once again, drastically dialing down the theatrics when she coaches her granddaughter through the scene in which Elizabeth mourns her son.Her emotion comes from somewhere deeper than the High Dramatic League, though — it’s easy to miss the split second when Mama mentions a son who is not around anymore. Howard can be a little heavy-handed when alluding to cycles that keep repeating: the marital frustration, Tucker women getting pregnant at 17.And then there is that loud noise that took Mama’s attention away from her cooking. The world has encroached on the kitchen. A neglected kettle boils, its whistle piercing ears and hearts.StewThrough Feb. 22 at Walkerspace, Manhattan; 866-811-4111, page73.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    Student Suspended Over Dreadlocks Is Invited to the Oscars by ‘Hair Love’ Team

    A black student in Texas who was suspended because his high school said the way he wore his dreadlocks violated its dress code has been invited to the Oscars.The actress Gabrielle Union and the former N.B.A. champion Dwyane Wade, a married couple who were producers of “Hair Love,” an Oscar-nominated short animated film by Matthew A. Cherry, have invited the teenager, DeAndre Arnold, to attend the 92nd Academy Awards on Feb. 9.“As you may have already heard, DeAndre was recently suspended and threatened with not being able to walk in his high school graduation if he didn’t cut his hair and inviting him to the Oscars was the least we could do,” the producers posted on Instagram on Friday with a segment of their announcement on “CBS This Morning.”“Hair Love” is about an African-American father who learns to style his young daughter’s hair for the first time. DeAndre was excited about the Oscars and the couple’s support.“It’s crazy. Like, I never thought that people like DWade and Gabrielle Union would be like on my side,” DeAndre said on the CBS show, where he appeared with his mother, Sandy Arnold.Ms. Union and Mr. Wade were not immediately available for comment on Saturday.Just before winter break, DeAndre was called into the principal’s office and placed in an in-school suspension. DeAndre’s father, David Arnold, said on Saturday that DeAndre was back in school and referred inquiries to his wife, who did not immediately respond for comment.DeAndre has said in interviews with news outlets that he has been wearing his dreadlocks since seventh grade and had no plans to cut his hair. He said his hairstyle had nothing to do with his potential.“Me and my hair kind of grew up together in a way,’’ he said. “It’s like we’re best friends.”Officials in the majority-white Barbers Hill Independent School District, which has nearly 5,400 students, said they were adhering to the handbook regulations on students’ grooming, which focus not on hairstyle but on length. The district is in Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles east of Houston.The school district’s student handbook says that “male students’ hair must not extend below the top of a T-shirt collar or be gathered or worn in a style that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the earlobes when let down.”The guideline has been part of the student handbook for at least three decades, said Jami Navarre, a school district spokeswoman.“Our policy is legally acceptable, and we have an exemption policy for religious and medical reasons,’’ she said.Still, critics of the school district’s decision have said the rule is racist, sexist or both. Black people have long been discriminated against, ostracized or punished for hairstyles consistent with their natural hair textures, such as Afros or dreadlocks.News of the suspension has attracted attention from national news outlets.Bernice King, a daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.; Gavin Newsom, the governor of California; and Houston Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins tweeted in support of DeAndre.This week, DeAndre appeared on an episode of “The Ellen Show.” “Every day I would go to school, I would always be in dress code,” he said during his appearance. “But the thing with them is, if it was let down, I would be out of dress code. If girls can have long hair, why can’t I have long hair?”At a recent school board meeting, the public comments were dominated by debates over DeAndre’s suspension.“This is a policy that’s rooted in racism,” said Ashton P. Woods, a civil rights activist from Houston who attended the meeting with DeAndre and his family.“This is a policy that’s rooted in gender roles, homophobia, transphobia,” Mr. Woods said at the meeting. “Because we’re telling people how they should wear their hair when they’re doing really well in school.”DeAndre’s parents also spoke at the meeting.“You guys don’t call me because he’s a problem,” Ms. Arnold told school board members. “You guys don’t call me because he’s disrespectful. You guys don’t call me for anything. The only call I get is about DeAndre’s hair.” More

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    What’s on TV Saturday: Billie Eilish and ‘When Harry Met Sally’

    What’s on TVAUSTIN CITY LIMITS: BILLIE EILISH 11 p.m. on PBS. The 18-year-old pop singer Billie Eilish, who took home five trophies from last week’s Grammy Awards, including for best new artist, is featured in this hourlong concert. Her set list is largely made up of songs from her debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” (which won album of the year), including the dark, assertive pop hits “Bad Guy” and “You Should See Me In a Crown.” Popular singles like “Ocean Eyes” are featured as well. Though she is a young artist, Eilish has been redefining the pop music genre for years, Jon Pareles wrote for The New York Times, saying that “she’s sullen, depressive, death-haunted, sly, analytical and confrontational, all without raising her voice.”2020: RACE TO SAVE THE PLANET 8 p.m. on The Weather Channel. Three months ago, eight presidential candidates sat down with Weather Channel meteorologists to discuss climate change, one of the biggest threats to America’s economy, national security and the planet’s longevity. The show is back for a second installment, but this time with a particular focus on environmental justice, and a modified cast. Democratic and Republican candidates who weren’t interviewed in the first installment have a voice in this one, including Senator Amy Klobuchar; the former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg; Tom Steyer; and Andrew Yang.What’s StreamingWHEN HARRY MET SALLY … (1989) Stream on Hulu and Sling TV. Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and YouTube. Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) have been best friends for 11 years, and they want to prove that a single man and a single woman can have a platonic relationship. The two are clearly perfect for each other, though, so it’s easy to predict where the relationship ends up. The rest of the movie consists of romantic Manhattan scenes, scattered with hilarious conversations about love and sex between Harry, Sally, and their best friends, played by Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher. Directed by Rob Reiner with a screenplay by Nora Ephron, “When Harry Met Sally” redefined the romantic comedy for a new generation. SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (1954) Stream on BroadwayHD. Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. Shortly after Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel) brings his new wife, Milly (Jane Powell), to his home on the Oregon frontier, his six unruly brothers decide they’d also like to get married. They ask their newlywed brother for advice: He suggests they kidnap women from a nearby town and bring them home. Milly teaches the brothers manners and the rules of courtship. Though Stephanie Zacharek, writing in The Times, once called this “Stockholm Syndrome in Cinemascope,” she also wrote that this musical includes “one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put onscreen.” More

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    Dancer Tries to Quell ‘West Side Story’ Controversy: ‘I Am Not a Victim’

    In the weeks leading up to the opening of the Broadway revival of “West Side Story,” a small contingent of protesters and an online petition have called for the removal of a prominent cast member, Amar Ramasar, who was at one point fired from New York City Ballet after he shared sexually explicit photos of another dancer.On Friday, the woman depicted in those photos, who is Mr. Ramasar’s girlfriend, spoke out. And she made clear that she thought Mr. Ramasar was being unfairly targeted.“I am not a victim in this,” the dancer, Alexa Maxwell, said in a news release. She explained that Mr. Ramasar had expressed his regret over the situation and that she had forgiven him.Ms. Maxwell, 25, has previously tried to keep her name out of the public discussion, but said that the recent protests — one of them held Friday night outside the theater where “West Side Story” is now in previews — prompted her to release the statement.The objections have put a cloud over the production, and over Mr. Ramasar, 38, who has regained his job at City Ballet and resumed his acting career. In “West Side Story” he plays Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, a neighborhood gang.The allegations against him surfaced in 2018 when Alexandra Waterbury, a former student of the School of American Ballet, which is affiliated with City Ballet, sued the ballet and several men, including Chase Finlay, a dancer who had been her boyfriend, as well as Mr. Ramasar.In the lawsuit, Ms. Waterbury accused Mr. Finlay of sharing explicit photographs of her with Mr. Ramasar and others, without Ms. Waterbury’s consent. Mr. Ramasar was accused of sending Mr. Finlay photos of a different dancer, who was not named in the lawsuit but who Ms. Maxwell now says was she. Mr. Finlay resigned from the ballet; Mr. Ramasar and another dancer were fired, but an arbitrator later ruled that their dismissals were too harsh a punishment.In an interview on Friday, Ms. Maxwell said she was exasperated by comments online calling Mr. Ramasar a “rapist” and by private messages chiding her for staying in the relationship despite his behavior.Ms. Maxwell said that while she considered Mr. Ramasar’s decision to share her photos a “misstep in judgment,” she had forgiven him. She said she had told the arbitrator the same.The couple have been together for nearly five years, she said. “He apologized time and time again, and I think that it’s my choice as a woman to forgive him,” she said.During an hourlong phone conversation with Ms. Waterbury after her lawsuit was filed in 2018, Ms. Maxwell said, Ms. Waterbury tried to persuade her to join the lawsuit by saying that City Ballet “is worth half a billion dollars,” and that she would win “a lot” and could have “an entirely new life.”Ms. Waterbury’s lawyer, Jordan K. Merson, said in a statement that Ms. Maxwell’s description of her conversation with Ms. Waterbury was inaccurate, but he did not go into specifics. Mr. Merson said that the timing of Ms. Maxwell’s statement, more than a year after the lawsuit was filed, was “suspect,” but that it helped to demonstrate the “problematic culture” at City Ballet.“It is unfortunate that Ms. Maxwell would try to taint Ms. Waterbury with all that she has done for the #MeToo movement,” he said.Ms. Maxwell’s public statement came as Mr. Ramasar and City Ballet have been seeking to dismiss Ms. Waterbury’s lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The lawsuit accuses the ballet of condoning the dancers’ bad behavior; the ballet has denied that, and noted that it took steps to discipline the dancers as soon as it learned of the allegations and investigated them. Ms. Waterbury’s suit also accused Mr. Ramasar of encouraging Mr. Finlay to send him the explicit photos of her; in court papers, Mr. Ramasar’s attorney noted that Mr. Finlay had already shared explicit images of Ms. Waterbury with others several times before his text exchange with Mr. Ramasar.Ms. Waterbury, 22, joined about two dozen protesters at the demonstration outside the Broadway Theater on Friday night. As ticketholders filed into the building, the demonstrators quietly held signs with statements including “boo Bernardo” and “sexual harassment shouldn’t get a standing ovation.”In an interview outside the theater, Ms. Waterbury, now a student at Columbia University, said that despite Ms. Maxwell’s statement that she was no victim, she still saw Mr. Ramasar’s Broadway role as something to protest.“He still asked for photos of me,” she said. “He still wronged me.”Scott Rudin, who is the Broadway show’s lead producer, said in a statement that Mr. Ramasar is an “exemplary company member,” noting that the behavior in question did not involve the production.“He has more than earned our trust,” he said, “and the ‘West Side Story’ company stands with him.”Ms. Maxwell said that the decision to speak publicly about Mr. Ramasar was her own but that she made sure the musical production was aware before she did so.Michael Cooper and Michael Paulson contributed reporting. More

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    Jack Burns, a Comic Force on Camera and Off, Is Dead at 86

    Jack Burns, who found fame as the hilariously pompous half of Burns and Schreiber, one of the best-known comedy teams of the 1960s and ’70s, then made another mark as a television writer, died on Monday in Toluca Lake, Calif. He was 86.Patti Lawhon, the executor of Mr. Burns’s estate, announced the death. He learned he had pancreatic cancer in 2017.Mr. Burns was a popular comic presence for nearly 40 years, beginning with a brief but successful stint as a partner of George Carlin (and at one point showing up for a brief but less successful run on “The Andy Griffith Show”). After his long and fruitful partnership with Avery Schreiber ended, he went on to produce “The Muppet Show,” writing about two dozen episodes.He also wrote for variety shows like “Hee Haw” and comedy specials starring Flip Wilson and Paul Lynde. And he lent his brash, booming voice to animated series like “Animaniacs” and “Wait Till Your Father Gets Home” as well as to an ad campaign promoting the use of safety belts. He was the voice of a crash-test dummy.But it was Burns and Schreiber that cemented his fame. The two comics became known for routines that were flecked with social satire, exquisite timing and rapid-fire repartee, exemplified by their signature “yeah/huh?/yeah/huh?” bantering.Mr. Burns’s loud know-it-all persona played well off Mr. Schreiber’s warm, low-key one, particularly when Mr. Schreiber, as he so often did, punctured Mr. Burn’s pomposity. That was never more vividly on display than in their best-known sketch, in which a blithely bigoted passenger (Mr. Burns) blathers to a world-weary taxicab driver (Mr. Schreiber).In one version of the sketch, Mr. Burns recognizes Mr. Schreiber from a previous ride and tells him that he sells tinsel for a living.Burns: Tinsel, like you put on your Christmas tree.Schreiber: Like you put on your Christmas tree.Burns: Oh, I remember now, you told me. You’re not of the Christian persuasion.Schreiber: I’m not persuaded.Burns: You’re what we call your Judaic.Schreiber: If it makes you uncomfortable, you know you can get another cab.Burns: Are you kidding? I don’t care what a man is. Besides, I couldn’t get another cab this time of night anyway.When they performed the sketch as part of a Second City revue in Manhattan in 1964, Brian O’Doherty, a critic for The New York Times, praised Mr. Burns as a “connoisseur of vulgarity who apparently can sweat at will” and Mr. Schreiber as “an underplaying comic master attached to a Stalinesque mustache.”They spent parts of a dozen years together, had their own series on ABC-TV in the summer of 1973, and broke up about 18 months after that.Mr. Burns explained their comic chemistry to The Los Angeles Times after Mr. Schreiber died in 2002: “He was Jewish. I was Irish. He was mellow and sweet and optimistic, and I was angry and cynical and pessimistic.”John Francis Burns was born on Nov. 15, 1933, in Boston. His father, Garrette, was a military officer; his mother was Mary (Hogan) Burns. After serving in the Marines in Korea in the early 1950s, he studied at the Leland Powers School of Television, Radio and Theater in Brookline, Mass.By the late 1950s he was a newsman at a Boston radio station, WEZE. When Mr. Carlin went to work there as an announcer in 1959, they struck up a friendship and soon realized that they had each developed a comedic Irish character.“Jack’s guy had more of an edge,” Mr. Carlin said in his autobiography, “Last Words” (2009, with Tony Hendra). “These two guys would talk together for hours. They were great characters for saying things you weren’t quite willing to say yourself.”They became a team only after they left separately for another station, KXOL, in Fort Worth; Mr. Burns remained a newsman, and Mr. Carlin was a disc jockey. They performed locally, then left for Hollywood. Success came quickly.Burns and Carlin, as the act was known, were booked at top nightclubs around the country, appeared on Jack Paar’s “Tonight” show and recorded an album at the Hollywood nightclub Cosmo Alley — although it was released (in 1963, a year after they broke up) as “Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight.”After the split, Mr. Burns joined the Compass Players, an improvisational troupe, then moved to its successor, The Second City, where he met Mr. Schreiber and developed the taxicab sketch.During their run as a comedy team, they pursued other jobs. In 1965, Mr. Burns was cast on “The Andy Griffith Show” as Deputy Sheriff Warren Ferguson, replacing Don Knotts, who had played Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife since the series began in 1960. Mr. Burns had hoped that he would be able to adapt his onstage style to the character and not remind viewers of the beloved Mr. Knotts.But it did not work out, and Mr. Burns lost the role after 11 episodes. Mr. Griffith blamed himself, telling The New York Times, “We tried to force Jack to do those wild, peculiar things that Knotts did — and he was willing to try — but we made a mistake.”Mr. Burns was a guest star on various TV shows from the late 1960s until the late ’90s. He also found a successful second career off camera.For a decade he was integral to the Muppet empire. In addition to his association with “The Muppet Show,” which began in 1976 and earned him two Emmy nominations, he collaborated with Jerry Juhl to write “The Muppet Movie” (1979) and was a writer on two straight-to-video Muppet productions, both released in 1985.He was also as a producer, writer and script supervisor for the ABC comedy series “Fridays.” In 1981, when the guest host, Andy Kaufman, famously started a fight during a sketch with Michael Richards, a cast member, Mr. Burns, who had been off camera, rushed to the stage and traded punches with Mr. Kaufman.One of the show’s producers was later quoted as saying that Mr. Kaufman had planned the brawl as an improvisation and that Mr. Richards had been prepared for it.Mr. Burns, who retired nearly 20 years ago, leaves no immediate survivors.His role as the voice of a crash-test dummy, Vince, was one of his most enduring, running from 1985 to 1999. In the ads — promoting safety belts for the federal Department of Transportation — Lorenzo Music portrayed Larry, another dummy.In one ad, Vince says: “For years, I’ve been eating steering wheels. For what?”Larry: “To prove how safety belts save lives.”Vince: “But thousands die every year in car accidents because they don’t buckle up.”Larry (gesturing to Vince not to put on his belt): “Vince, we’re dummies. We don’t wear safety belts.” More