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    Three Former Elphabas in ‘Wicked’ Scored Tony Nominations

    The Green Girls are making good.Three women who have starred on Broadway as Elphaba in “Wicked” picked up Tony nominations on Tuesday.Shoshana Bean, who inhabited the role for a year starting in 2005, was nominated as best featured actress for “Hell’s Kitchen,” in which she plays a tough-minded single mother trying to protect her adolescent daughter from the temptations of the street. (This is her second Tony nomination — she was also nominated in 2022 for “Mr. Saturday Night.”)Eden Espinosa, who succeeded Bean as Elphaba in 2006, was nominated as best leading actress for playing an artistically and sexually adventurous painter in “Lempicka.”And Lindsay Mendez, who became Elphaba in 2013, scored a nomination as best featured actress for portraying a hard-drinking novelist in this season’s hit revival of “Merrily We Roll Along.” (Mendez already has one Tony, for her portrayal of Carrie Pipperidge in a 2018 revival of “Carousel.”)Who is Elphaba? Well, “Wicked,” a musical based on a novel by Gregory Maguire, is an imagined back story for the Wicked Witch of the West, and Elphaba is that character. (Reconsidering her actual wickedness is the subject of the musical.) Her name is derived from the phonetic initials of L. Frank Baum, who wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”; her skin is green as a nod to the green makeup worn by Margaret Hamilton in “The Wizard of Oz,” the much-loved film adaptation of Baum’s novel.“Wicked” has been running successfully for so long, with so many companies, and with juicy leading roles for two young women, that it now appears on the résumés of many musical theater performers.The actress playing Elphaba needs a big belt; her iconic song is “Defying Gravity.” The role was originated on Broadway in 2003 by Idina Menzel, who won a Tony for her work, and who is expected to return to Broadway sometime in the not-too-distant future with “Redwood,” a new musical about a woman and, well, trees. (The musical had a production earlier this year at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.)The other main character in “Wicked” is Glinda (traditionally described as a good witch, although again, your mileage may vary); that role calls for a high soprano and was originated by Kristin Chenoweth, who is also hoping to return soon to Broadway — she is starring in a new musical called “The Queen of Versailles,” adapted from the film, that will have an initial production at the Emerson Colonial in Boston this summer. (A 2023 Glinda, McKenzie Kurtz, is currently starring in another new Broadway musical, “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” while Katie Rose Clarke, who had three separate tenures as Glinda on Broadway, is featured in this season’s revival of “Merrily We Roll Along.”)Meanwhile, “Wicked” is heading for the big screen, with Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. The first of the film’s two parts is scheduled to be released in November, as a Thanksgiving weekend movie. More

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    Daniel Radcliffe Earns First Tony Nomination for ‘Merrily We Roll Along’

    The Boy Who Lived is finally the Actor Who Got Nominated (for a Tony).Daniel Radcliffe, who as a child actor became globally recognizable by playing Harry Potter in all eight films, notched his first Tony nomination on Tuesday for his work in one of this season’s biggest Broadway hits: an acclaimed revival of the musical “Merrily We Roll Along.”The nod has been a long time coming — in his post-Potter life, Radcliffe has consistently made artistically ambitious, and occasionally risky, choices in both stage and film roles. He has returned often to Broadway — “Merrily” is his fifth role since 2008, following “Equus” (which required him to take off his clothes), “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (which required him to sing), “The Cripple of Inishmaan” and “The Lifespan of a Fact.”“Merrily” is a 1981 musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth about the gradual implosion of a three-way friendship; in the current revival, Radcliffe plays Charley Kringas, a lyricist and playwright. Reviewing the production in The New York Times, the chief theater critic Jesse Green praised Radcliffe for “wit and modesty,” and said he handled his character’s big song “superbly.” More

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    Tony Awards Nominations 2024: Updating List

    Nominations for the 77th Tony Awards will be announced Tuesday morning. See below for a live list of nominees.Follow our live updates on the Tony Awards nominations.The Tony Awards nominators haven’t had much time. This year, in a crush of openings, 12 Broadway shows opened in the nine days before the eligibility deadline. (To qualify, a Broadway show must have opened between April 28, 2023, and April 25, 2024.)Nevertheless, the nominees for the 2024 Tonys will be announced Tuesday morning, with a total of 36 shows vying for awards.A few categories will be read live on CBS shortly after 8:30 a.m. Eastern; others will be revealed at 9 a.m. via livestream on the Tony Awards YouTube page. The Tony winners Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who won for his performance in the 2022 Broadway revival of “Take Me Out,” and Renée Elise Goldsberry, who won in 2016 for playing Angelica Schuyler in “Hamilton,” will make the announcements.This year’s awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 16, at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater. Ariana DeBose, a stage veteran and Oscar winner, will return to host for the third year in a row.Follow below for a full list of nominees, which will be updated as the announcements are made.Best New Play“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”Read our review.“Mary Jane”Read our review.“Mother Play”Read our review.“Prayer for the French Republic”Read our review.“Stereophonic”Read our review.Best Leading Actress in a MusicalEden Espinosa, “Lempicka”Read our review.Maleah Joi Moon, “Hell’s Kitchen”Read our feature.Maryann Plunkett, “The Notebook”Read our review.Kelli O’Hara, “Days of Wine and Roses,”Read our feautre.Gayle Rankin, “Cabaret”Read our review.Best Leading Actress in a PlayBetsy Aidem, “Prayer for the French Republic” Jessica Lange, “Mother Play”Read our review.Rachel McAdams, “Mary Jane”Read our profile.Sarah Paulson, “Appropriate”Read our group interview.Amy Ryan, “Doubt”Read our review.Best Leading Actor in a PlayWilliam Jackson Harper,“Uncle Vanya”Read our review.Leslie Odom Jr., “Purlie Victorious”Read our group interview.Liev Schreiber, “Doubt”Read our review.Jeremy Strong, “An Enemy of the People”Read our feature.Michael Stuhlbarg, “Patriots”Read our review.Halina Bennet contributed research. More

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    Tony Nominations 2024 Live Updates: First Nods Being Announced

    Nominations for this year’s Tony Awards, which each year honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are being announced on Tuesday morning in New York.A few categories are to be made public shortly after 8:30 a.m. Eastern on the Tuesday broadcast of “CBS Mornings.” (CBS airs the Tonys, so it has first dibs on the news.) The full list of nominees will be announced on the Tony Awards YouTube channel starting at 9 a.m. Two previous Tony winners, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renée Elise Goldsberry, will read the list of nominees.There’s an unusually wide-open race for the coveted best musical prize, with 15 new musicals and no consensus front-runner. Five to seven musicals will be nominated: Look for “Hell’s Kitchen,” the musical loosely based on Alicia Keys’s life and featuring her music, and “The Outsiders,” adapted from S.E. Hinton’s classic coming-of-age novel, to be among the nominees.Film and television stars who appeared in Broadway shows this season and are vying for nominations include Steve Carell, Jessica Lange, Rachel McAdams, Leslie Odom Jr., Sarah Paulson, Daniel Radcliffe, Eddie Redmayne, Liev Schreiber and Jeremy Strong.The best musical revival category has a clear front-runner: “Merrily We Roll Along,” the reverse-chronological look at the implosion of a three-way friendship. In the current revival, those friends are played by Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez, all of whom are likely to be nominees.The best play category is likely to be led by “Stereophonic,” David Adjmi’s fictional behind-the-music drama about a rock band recording an album. Also expected to do well is “Mary Jane,” Amy Herzog’s play about a single mother raising a child with cerebral palsy and other conditions.Among play revivals, look for two dramas set in the American South to lead the pack: New productions of “Appropriate,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2013 play about three siblings wrestling with a family secret, and “Purlie Victorious,” Ossie Davis’s 1961 comedy about a preacher seeking to reclaim a church building from a plantation owner.The nominees were chosen by a group of about 45 people knowledgeable about theater (many are theater artists or administrators) who do not have a financial stake in any of the season’s shows. The nominating committee started with 60 members, but then — as always happens — some had to recuse themselves because they couldn’t get to all the shows or because a conflict of interest arose.This season, 36 Tony-eligible plays and musicals opened during the eligibility period, which ran from April 28, 2023, to April 25, 2024; nominators were required to see all of them.This year’s Tony Awards ceremony will take place on June 16 at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater. The broadcast will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS; it will also be streamed on Paramount+, and will be preceded by a streaming preshow on Pluto TV at which some awards will be handed out. More

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    Broadway Opened 12 Shows in 9 Days. Here’s What That Looked Like.

    Even at a challenging time for a pandemic-weakened industry, they found razzle-dazzle.Broadway Opened 12 Shows in 9 Days. Here’s What That Looked Like.Broadway is in the midst of a rolling celebration — of artistic expression, of audience enthusiasm, of song and dance and storytelling itself.The overlapping runs constitute a risky bet by producers and investors, who have staked tens of millions of dollars on their ability to sell seats. Even in the best of times, most Broadway shows fail, and these are not the best of times: Production costs have soared, and season-to-date attendance is 18 percent below prepandemic levels.But the shakeout comes later. First: fanfare and flowers, ovations and optimism.WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17‘The Wiz’Easing on down the road … to BroadwayDeborah Cox, left, who plays Glinda the good witch, and Nichelle Lewis, who plays Dorothy, at the opening night of “The Wiz.” Many of the 1,600 in attendance wore green for the Emerald City.A revival of a 1975 musical that reimagines “The Wizard of Oz” for an all-Black cast.Of course “The Wiz” was going to have a yellow carpet. The show’s recurring song is “Ease on Down the Road,” and that road is the yellow brick one — the path to Oz, but also, to self-discovery.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Stephen Colbert Scolds Kristi Noem for Killing Her Puppy

    “No! Bad, psycho governor! No! Sit down!” Colbert said on Monday’s “Late Show,” spraying water from a bottle.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Bad Governor!The South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, an aspiring vice-presidential candidate, has gotten some negative press over her forthcoming book, in which she describes killing a family dog.“Warning: If you like puppies, you’re not going to like Kristi Noem,” Stephen Colbert said on Monday.“Look, I know it sounds terrible, but it’s much worse. Because this wasn’t some rabid 90-pound hellhound on a meth bender — it was a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer named Cricket. Yes, a puppy named Cricket. Reminds me of Stephen King’s first draft of ‘Cujo,’ ‘Snuggles.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“No! Bad, psycho governor! No! Sit down! Bad! Stay! Stay away from dogs!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I don’t know how big her staff is, but I’m guessing she has at least a dozen people working for her, probably more. Not one of those dozen or dozens of people raised a hand and said, ‘Uh, governor? Do you think maybe not a great idea to share that story about shooting a whole petting zoo at your house? Maybe we save shooting a puppy in a gravel pit for the next book, you know?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“By the way, the actual title of Noem’s book where she tells this story is ‘No Going Back.’ Better than her first drafts, ‘Old Yeller 2: He Had it Coming’ and ‘All Dogs Go to Gravel Pit.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Governor Noem, if you don’t like untrainable animals that wolf down chickens, I have bad news about your party’s nominee.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (John Wick Edition)“When you’re trying to win over voters, I’m not sure being the bad guy in a John Wick movie is the best way to go.” — JIMMY FALLON“But who among us hasn’t seen a dog running through the fields, not a care in the world, and thought, ‘You deserve to die’?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, people are really going to hate her next book, ‘Kristi Noem: Then I Ate It.’” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s one thing to kill a dog named Cricket; it’s another to brag about it in your book. What’s the book even called, ‘I Did It’?” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingAnne Hathaway and Melanie Lynskey played a new game called “Reverse Charades” on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightJerry Seinfeld will discuss his new Netflix film, “Unfrosted,” on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This Out“Challengers,” starring Josh O’Connor and Zendaya, has a number of sultry moments.Metro Goldwyn Mayer PicturesErotically charged films like “Saltburn” and “Challengers” show that sex is making a comeback in cinema. More

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    ‘Ash’ Review: Elfriede Jelinek Confronts Environmental Collapse

    Elfriede Jelinek’s latest play deals with collective calamity and individual grief, but is let down by a chaotic production.Twenty years ago, when the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize in Literature it was a surprise that the award had gone to an author who was barely known outside the German-speaking world. It set off a scandal, too. A juror from the academy that makes the decision resigned, calling Jelinek’s work “unenjoyable, violent pornography.”Despite her Nobel and the controversy that it engendered, Jelinek is still hardly a household name in the English-speaking world. In Germany and Austria, however, the premiere of a new play by this prolific and divisive writer is always an event. When the Münchner Kammerspiele presented the opening night of Jelinek’s “Ash” on Friday, every seat in the playhouse’s main theater was full.Outside Europe, Jelinek is known, if at all, for her novels, which include “The Piano Teacher” (adapted into a 2001 movie by Michael Haneke) and “The Children of the Dead,” a gruesome 500-page opus that has just appeared in English, nearly 30 years after its original publication. But in Germany and Austria, she is the most widely performed female playwright writing in German, according to her publisher, having written nearly 50 scripts since 1979.Like most of her stage works, “Ash” bears little resemblance to a conventional play. Jelinek’s signature dramatic form is the theatrical monologue: lengthy paragraphs of discursive text without clearly indicated characters, stage directions or conventional plot. It is left to directors to determine the size of the cast and to divide up Jelinek’s finely chiseled writing, which is by turns poetic, punning, allusive and philosophical.Yet sadly, Jelinek’s prose is poorly served by the director Falk Richter in his hopelessly cluttered production of “Ash.” Throughout, our attention is diverted from the text by a barrage of ominous projections, creepy AI-generated video and the distorted sound design.“Ash” continues the exploration of ecological themes that Jelinek has addressed, often with alarm, in much of her recent work, including her 2013 “stage essay” “rein GOLD,” which brings together Wagner and environmentalism, as well as her plays “Black Water” and “Sun/Air,” with which “Ash” constitutes a loose climate trilogy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More