Subterms
The comedian’s first book, “She Memes Well,” balances jokes, autobiography and serious thoughts about the state of the country.When she began drafting her first collection of essays, Quinta Brunson wasn’t sure she had anything meaningful to say. More
The play, which had its run cut short because of the pandemic, centers on a kitchen in Memphis, where a man is trying to concoct award-winning chicken wings.Katori Hall, who has told stirring stories about Black life in America both onstage and onscreen, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “The Hot Wing King,” a family dramedy that centers on a man’s quest to make award-winning chicken wings while personal conflict swirls around him.The Off Broadway play — produced last year by the Pershing Square Signature Center, where it had a truncated run — drew praise for challenging conventional conceptions of Black masculinity and fatherhood.Its main character, Cordell, has recently moved into a home in Memphis with his lover, Dwayne, whom Cordell enlists to help him make his submission to the annual “Hot Wang Festival.” Things get complicated when Dwayne wants to take in his 16-year-old nephew, whose mother died while being restrained by the police — a tragedy for which Dwayne blames himself.In the awards announcements on Friday, the Pulitzer board called the play a “funny, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and how it is perceived, filtered through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family as they prepare for a culinary competition.”Hall, 40, the author of the Olivier Award-winning “The Mountaintop,” wrote a play that was full of frenetic action (stirring pots, dismembering chickens, spicing sauces), emotional exchanges and sitcom-style ribbing.She also co-wrote the book for “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” which is nominated for numerous Tony Awards (including best musical and best book of a musical), and created the Starz drama “P-Valley,” which follows a crew of dancers at a strip club in the Mississippi Delta. Hall is currently working on Season 2 of the series, which is based on one of her plays.With theaters across the country closed during the pandemic, the Pulitzer committee made some adjustments to its qualifications: Finalists were allowed to include works that were performed virtually or those that were canceled or postponed during the pandemic. “The Hot Wing King” opened at the beginning of March 2020 but was not able to finish its run because of pandemic closures.“What’s refreshing here,” Ben Brantley wrote in his review for The New York Times, “is the matter-of-fact depiction of Black gay characters who may be dissatisfied, to varying degrees, with their own behavior but not, ultimately, because of their sexuality.”“Watching Cordell and Dwayne casually snuggle and kiss,” he went on, “draping their bodies over each other, you sense a bond in which erotic attraction has segued into something both more relaxed and more complex.”The other two finalists for the prize were “Circle Jerk,” by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, and “Stew,” by Zora Howard. More
A number of home improvement shows now focus on where you stay when you’re away from home.After more than a year of staring at the walls, Americans are booking vacations again. To help them pack, home-improvement television is offering a summer lineup of shows about where to go and where to stay.TV, it seems, wants to get out of the house as much as the rest of us.Netflix is premiering “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” on June 18, showcasing quirky and unusual spots around the globe — a Mexico City apartment building shaped like a snake, an igloo in Finland, a lighthouse in Alaska. HGTV has renewed two of its vacation shows for second seasons, both airing in June — “Renovation Island,” about a couple remodeling a rundown resort in the Bahamas, and “Vacation House Rules,” about how to fix up your vacation rental to make it more profitable.And when Magnolia Network launches digitally on July 15 as a joint venture with Discovery Inc., it will feature a lineup (available on Discovery+ and the Magnolia app) of shows aimed at rusty vacationers, giving us a refresher on what’s out there and what goes into making a vacation rental shine. Among the on-the-road offerings are “RE(Motel),” which profiles funky roadside motels; “Van Go,” a series about Brett Lewis, who turns people’s vans into tiny mobile homes; and “Inn the Works,” which follows a young innkeeper as she fixes up a retreat in Big Bear Lake, Calif.Lindsey Kurowski, the scrappy star of “Inn the Works” on Magnolia, staining wood as she and her siblings restore a resort in Big Bear Lake, Calif.Magnolia NetworkBut even as these shows whisk us to faraway places, the focus is less on the sights we can see and more on making temporary homes away from home. As we venture out as tourists again, they aim to help us experience travel through the places we book through Airbnb or other sites.“It’s likely no accident that what resonated with us were stories of travel and possibility and wanderlust,” said Allison Page, the global president of Magnolia Network, about how so many travel shows made their way onto a network led by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the darlings of HGTV.The timing for these shows is unexpectedly fortuitous. The network was supposed to launch last October, but was delayed by the pandemic, and its cable television debut, where it will replace the DIY Network, is still on hold until January 2022. Its lineup couldn’t be more on trend, offering viewers “this fantasy that feels attainable: that they could get in their car, shed this sedentary period of life and find something beautiful,” Ms. Page said.In an email, Ms. Gaines, Magnolia’s chief creative officer, said, “I know for us, these shows have served as timely reminders of what makes life so beautiful: family, adventure, and possibility. When you hear these stories and watch how they unfold, you can’t help but want to go out and create or experience something special.”Of all the shows, “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” feels like the one made for this moment. The first episode was filmed in Bali in January 2020, set to the crowded, dynamic backdrop of a prepandemic Indonesia. But in the episodes that follow, mostly filmed after the pandemic began, the world feels strangely empty. Then again, who needs other people when you can stay in a 4,300-square-foot floating mansion in Miami, or a 6,000-square-foot lodge carved out of a cave in the Ozarks?The hosts, Luis D. Ortiz of “Million Dollar Listing,” YouTuber Megan Batoon and travel writer Jo Franco, explore a world on pause. They marvel at their destinations, yet they rarely encounter a hotelier, let alone another guest or local, in their travels. One episode features a luxury private-island resort in the Bahamas, a destination as opulent as you would expect for $15,000 a night. You get the feeling that this island isn’t the only place that’s deserted.On an episode about treehouses, the hosts of “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” stay in one on an alpaca farm in Atlanta.Netflix“We were in these middle-of-nowhere places having the time of our lives,” said Ms. Franco, 28. And maybe that’s a good thing. Our collective anxiety about late-stage pandemic travel could lead to “a really interesting shift in the way we travel now,” she said. “We can dive into the experience, we can get more secluded, we can feel private and safe.”Unlike Anthony Bourdain, who introduced a generation of viewers to rich cultures through the street food found in teeming markets and cramped cafes, this version of travel offers a vacation centered around where you stay, not what you do. Covid restrictions may be loosening, but many travelers are still looking for shelter that’s at a safe social distance.“I think a well-designed vacation rental can offer people a lot of comfort to know that something can be safe, if they are fearing Covid,” said Ms. Batoon, 30, a designer whose YouTube videos frequently focus on do-it-yourself home-improvement projects.While “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals” is all about where to stay, shows like “Inn the Works” focus on the elbow grease involved in turning hotels into places you would actually want to visit. “Inn the Works” chronicles how Lindsey Kurowski enlists her three siblings to help her restore a historic lodge with 13 cabins near the Bear Mountain ski resort in Southern California.In the first episode, as she and her siblings discuss how to renovate the lodge, Ms. Kurowski approaches two guests as they arrive, asking for their understanding about the state of renovation. “In return, I will give you guys a discount,” she tells them. After they shrug off the construction noise and an extension cord that will run out of their room, she hugs them (the first episode was filmed pre-Covid), saying, “I’m so lucky!”The rest of the series was filmed during the pandemic, as Ms. Kurowski continued to rent cabins while a crew filmed the renovations of the four-acre property. “Maybe that isn’t my smartest idea,” Ms. Kurowski, 33, told me. “It’s not ideal to stay at a hotel that is being renovated.”Despite the mess and the pandemic, Ms. Kurowski said the hotel “has been insanely busy” over the last year, which she attributes to the stand-alone cabins that make for an ideal socially distanced destination. She has since bought a second inn, a motel in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, near where she grew up.Vacationers are looking for something different in the places they stay, and it’s not just the pandemic that is driving the shift. Instagram and home-improvement television have managed to turn even our getaways into something demanding the photogenic quality of a big reveal. Ms. Kurowski, who also produces events for corporations, sees the value of “some styling tricks” and a well-staged photo.“People are changing the way they travel, the way they book hotels, everything is different,” she said. “People want bang for their buck, they want the most amenities they can get. They want a personalized experience.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More
“Seems generous until you remember that Biden can’t get anyone else in America to take them, right?” Noah said of the president’s plan to donate 500 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to 100 countries.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now. More
Jodie Turner-Smith portrays the ill-fated wife of Henry VIII in a new mini-series. The show has stirred debate in Britain, which is sort of the point.LONDON — Britain’s most recent rendering of the story of Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII’s six wives, begins at the end. When the new mini-series “Anne Boleyn” opens, it’s 1536, the queen is pregnant and powerful — and has five months left to live.Anne’s story, which occupies a special place in the British collective imagination, has spawned an abundance of fictionalized depictions onscreen (“The Tudors”) and in literature (“Wolf Hall”). It is generally told as a morally dubious young woman seducing an older king into leaving his wife and his church, before she is executed for failing to give birth to a male heir.But the new mini-series, which premiered last week on Channel 5, one of Britain’s public service broadcasters, attempts to reframe Anne’s story, instead focusing on her final months and how she tried to maintain power in a system that guaranteed her very little.In the three episode-long series, Anne is played by Jodie Turner-Smith, best-known for her role in the film “Queen & Slim.” It is the first time a Black actress has portrayed the Tudor queen onscreen.“We wanted to find someone who could really inhabit her but also be surprising to an audience,” Faye Ward, one of the show’s executive producers, said in an interview. Since there were already so many depictions of Anne Boleyn, the show’s creators “wanted to reset people’s expectations of her,” Ward said.Turner-Smith’s Anne Boleyn, center, desperately tries to maintain power in a system that guarantees her very little.Sony Pictures TelevisionAnne (Turner-Smith) and her brother George (Paapa Essiedu).Sony Pictures TelevisionMadge Shelton (Thalissa Teixeira), Anne’s cousin and lady-in-waiting.Sony Pictures TelevisionThe series employs a diverse casting playbook, in a similar vein to the Regency-era Netflix drama “Bridgerton.” But whereas that show’s characters are fictional, in “Anne Boleyn” actors of color play several white historical figures: The British-Ghanian actor Paapa Essiedu plays Anne’s brother George Boleyn, and the British-Brazillian actress Thalissa Teixeira portrays Madge Shelton, Anne’s cousin and lady-in-waiting.Although race does not figure overtly in the show’s plot, the program makers adopted an approach known as “identity-conscious casting,” which allows actors to bring “all those factors of yourself to a role,” Ward said.For Turner-Smith, that meant connecting her experiences with the ways in which Anne, who was raised in the French court, was an outsider and suffered at Henry’s court.“As a Black woman, I can understand being marginalized. I have a lived experience of what limitation and marginalization feel like,” Turner-Smith, 34, said in an interview. “I thought it was interesting to bring the freshness of a Black body telling that story.”Casting Turner-Smith as one of Britain’s best-known royal consorts has caused debate in the press and particularly on social media in Britain, with “Anne Boleyn” trending on Twitter the day after the series premiere.In the newspaper The Daily Telegraph, the writer Marianka Swain called Turner-Smith’s casting “pretty cynical” and wrote that it was designed to have “Twitter frothing rather than adding anything to our understanding of an era.”Others, though, have welcomed the show’s perspective. Olivette Otele, a professor of the history of slavery and memory of enslavement at the University of Bristol, noted in The Independent newspaper that the series arrived at a time when Britain was “soul searching” about how to understand its colonial past. “The past is only a safe space if it becomes a learning space open to all,” she wrote in praise of the series.It was important to the show’s creators to center the narrative around Anne’s perspective, rather than Henry’s (played by Mark Stanley).Sony Pictures TelevisionDuring the show’s press run, Turner-Smith’s comments about the royal family’s treatment of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex — including that having her in the family was “a missed opportunity” for the monarchy — made headlines in Britain.Meghan’s treatment by the palace — which she told Oprah Winfrey in a bombshell March interview had driven her to thoughts of suicide — is representative of “just how far we have not come with patriarchal values,” Turner-Smith said.“It represents how far we have not come in terms of the monarchy and in terms of somebody being an outsider and being different, and being able to navigate that space,” she said, adding that “you can draw so many parallels if you look for them” between Anne and Meghan’s attempts to figure out life within a British palace.“There is very little room for someone brown to touch the monarchy,” said Turner-Smith — who, upon being cast as Anne, fully expected the move to draw criticism in the country.For the actress, that presented even more reason to push back against people’s assumptions about Anne. “Art is supposed to challenge you,” she said. “The whole point of making it this way was for a different perspective. What is going to resonate with somebody by putting a different face to this and seeing it in a different way?”Dr. Stephanie Russo, the author of “The Afterlife of Anne Boleyn: Representations of Anne Boleyn in Fiction and on the Screen,” said there were many reasons for Britain’s fascination with and attachment to the Tudors, and Anne specifically. The “soap opera” of a younger woman disrupting a long-term marriage remains fascinating, she said, as does the rise and fall of a powerful woman.There is also a patriotic element, Russo said: Anne’s daughter was Elizabeth I, the monarch who oversaw Britain’s “golden age,” when William Shakespeare was writing his plays and many historians credit the British Empire as having been born.The series was conceived as a feminist exercise, unpacking what Eve Hedderwick Turner, the show’s writer, called “those big, insulting and detrimental terms” attached to Anne, which at the time included accusations of treason, adultery and an incestuous relationship with her brother.“There is very little room for someone brown to touch the monarchy,” Turner-Smith said.Sony Pictures TelevisionIn the mini-series, Anne falls out of favor with Henry after a stillbirth. No matter how nominally powerful or ambitious she is, she is no match for the forces that seek to extinguish her, which come to include her husband, his advisers and the country’s legal system. All the while, she tries not to show vulnerability in public.It was important, Hedderwick Turner said, for the creators to put “Anne back in the center of her story, making her the protagonist, seeing everything from her perspective.”The political machinations of Henry VIII and his advisers, his internal life and his motivations are largely obscured in the series. Instead, viewers are privy to Anne’s state of mind and her relationship with her household’s ladies-in-waiting.“Henry is spoken about as this great man, because he had all of these wives” and killed some of them, Turner-Smith said. “It’s just like: Actually, there’s a woman at the center of this story who is so dynamic and fascinating and interesting.”Hilary Mantel, the author of the “Wolf Hall” trilogy charting Thomas Cromwell’s life serving Henry VIII, wrote in a 2013 piece for the London Review of Books about how fictionalized accounts of Anne’s life communicate society’s contemporary attitudes toward women.“Popular fiction about the Tudors has also been a form of moral teaching about women’s lives, though what is taught varies with moral fashion,” she said.What, then, does this “Anne Boleyn” say about today’s world?“We’re finally getting to a place where we’re allowing women to become more than just a trope,” Turner-Smith said.Traditionally, when playing a female character, “you’re either the Madonna or you’re the whore, right?” she said. But in this series, “We’re saying we’re unafraid to show different sides of a woman.” More
You streamed it. Now you can buy it at Netflix.shop, a new site that will offer everything from a “Lupin” side table to a “Yasuke” clock.There will be “Lupin” pillows and Netflix-branded boxer shorts.There will be caps, necklaces, charms and hoodies, all of it for sale at Netflix.shop, a site that goes live on Thursday, when the world’s biggest streaming company plants a flag in the territory of e-commerce. More
“Come on, Europe, you can’t judge us. You had fascists; we had fascists. You have rulers that marry their cousins; we have Rudy, who married his cousin,” Colbert joked.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Euro TripPresident Biden embarked on his first presidential trip abroad on Tuesday with hopes of strengthening bonds with European leaders that had been damaged, in part, by Donald Trump.“Come on, Europe, you can’t judge us. You had fascists; we had fascists. You have rulers that marry their cousins; we have Rudy, who married his cousin. You had Nosferatu; we have — we have Rudy. Potato, pot-ah-to,” Stephen Colbert said.“He’s going to see the sites, ride the rails, come back saying words like ‘lorry’ and ‘zed,’ complaining about how bad our butter is over here. Of course, switching from double fisting ice cream to double fisting gelato.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s going to be a little awkward trying to mend fences. Every speech he gives is going to begin with ‘Uh, hey, look, about the last guy — sorry about that.’” — JAMES CORDEN“Yep, Biden’s going to England, Belgium and Switzerland, and he won’t come home until he finds a new host for ‘The Bachelor.’” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, Biden is hoping to repair ties with our European allies. I think he’ll be well received. I mean, for starters, there won’t be a giant baby balloon following him wherever he goes.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Cicada Attack Edition)“The news coverage of Biden’s trip got off to a bumpy start. The White House press plane was delayed almost seven hours because a swarm of cicadas flew into the engine of the plane. If this was a movie, the government would have to go to a cabin in the woods to convince Sully Sullenberger to do one last job.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“United was like, ‘Ooh, that’s good; can we use that?’” — JIMMY FALLON“And they’re so out of touch. They haven’t been aboveground since 2004, and it shows. I mean, look at this one — Ed Hardy shirt, Von Dutch hat, and he’s using a BlackBerry, wearing one of those Live Strong bracelets. It’s embarrassing.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Oh, [expletive], a cicada got Joe Biden? I’m no scientist but I’m pretty sure that means Joe Biden is now going to turn into a cicada.” — TREVOR NOAH, on Biden’s swatting away a cicada on camera“Tomorrow, that cicada will be on Fox News in a neck brace calling for Biden to be impeached: ‘See what he did to me! It’s on tape.’” — JIMMY FALLON“The cicada returned to his buddies like, ‘Damn, the old man’s quicker than I expected.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Forget the Secret Service; that man needs a SWAT team!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meanwhile, Mike Pence was like, ‘Bugs on your head — you’re supposed to save that for the big debate.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingKristen Bell played a game of “You Can Only Keep One” on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightTig Notaro, star of Netflix’s “Army of the Dead,” will appear on Thursday’s “Conan.”Also, Check This OutKevin James and Leah Remini in “King of Queens.” In one episode, James’s character plots to keep his wife thin.CBSA new AMC+ show satirizes the tradition of hot wives with schlubby husbands on network sitcoms. More
The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., will house the archives, which it hopes will include set pieces, audience tickets, press photos and other memorabilia.“Showcase Showdowns” and “Daily Doubles” of yesteryear will no longer be relegated to just reruns.A museum in Rochester, N.Y., announced on Wednesday that it would serve as the home of a first-of-its-kind National Archives of Game Show History to preserve artifacts and footage from programs like “Jeopardy!” “The Price Is Right” and “The $25,000 Pyramid.”The archives will be housed at the Strong National Museum of Play, which is undergoing an expansion that will add 90,000 square feet to its space and that it expects to be completed by 2023.Curators at the museum already have some ideas about what types of artifacts would make an ideal centerpiece and are asking for items from collectors.“The wheel from ‘Wheel of Fortune’ would be iconic,” Chris Bensch, the museum’s vice president for collections, said in an interview on Wednesday. The museum, he said, would gladly accept the letter board, along with a dress from the show’s famous letter-turner, Vanna White.Museum officials said there was a void of preservation groups dedicated to game shows. They represent a key aspect of television and cultural history in America, from the earliest panel shows and the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s to big-money mainstays of evening television.“It is something we feel uniquely qualified to do,” Mr. Bensch said of the museum, which opened in 1982.The archive’s creation is part of the broader expansion at the museum, which is being supported by a $60 million campaign. The cost of the archive is yet to be determined.Several marquee names have already lined up in support of the project, according to the museum, which said that the archive’s co-founders are Howard Blumenthal and Bob Boden, the producers of “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” and “Funny You Should Ask.”The museum, which is already home to the World Video Game Hall of Fame and the National Toy Hall of Fame, has found another key ally: Ken Jennings, the record-setting “Jeopardy!” champion.“There’s like a pleasant nostalgia to game shows for generations of Americans,” Mr. Jennings said in an interview on Wednesday.Calling the preservation effort overdue, Mr. Jennings said that people were starting to realize the importance of game shows the way they did with other great 20th century art forms like jazz and comic books.“I think it’s the game show’s turn,” he said.In a statement released through the museum, Wink Martindale, the veteran game show host, said there was a certain urgency to the preservation effort.“Without this initiative, many primary resources relating to these shows, as well as oral histories of their creators and talent, risked being lost forever,” he said.The museum, which welcomed nearly 600,000 visitors in 2019 before the pandemic, said it was seeking to acquire everything from set pieces and audience tickets to press photographs.“It deserves a place where it can be preserved, a place where scholars, media and the general public can access it,” Mr. Bensch said.The museum is not limiting its focus to those in front of the camera. Officials said contestants, television crews and audience members would play an important role in preserving the history of game shows.“There are so many significant folks who have shaped this industry over the years,” Mr. Bensch said. “They deserve a chance to tell their stories. We also have plans to do video oral histories with key people so we will capture their stories directly and share those with the world.”It seems the museum has a lead on an artifact.“If they want a necktie I lost on ‘Jeopardy!’ with,” Mr. Jennings said, “they’re happy to have it.” More
