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      Review: In ‘Ye Bear & Ye Cubb,’ Colonial America Takes the Stage

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      A play first performed in a tavern in 1665 survives with its title, and the court case it precipitated, intact — but nothing else.The first scripted performance in colonial America took place in a Virginia tavern on Aug. 27, 1665. Not a line of it remains, not a character name, not a whisper of plot. Even its genre — comedy, satire, arboreal drama? — is lost to time. But its title, “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” has survived. So has the court case it precipitated. Because as long as there has been theater in America, there has been someone around to hate on it. The actors were promptly arrested, and what we know about the play we know from court records.These dregs of history are the fermenting agent for “Ye Bear & Ye Cubb” at 59E59 Theaters. Those responsible for the original were charged with public wickedness. The devisers of this new version, which includes a cream pie and several fart jokes, don’t really know how to behave, either. Created by No. 11 Productions and directed by Ryan Emmons, “Ye Bear” is a fantasia on colonial themes — messy, overstated, indifferently competent. It is also tenacious and generous, with a sweet-tempered approach to its audience interactions.After an unnecessary dream sequence (so much in the script, credited to six company members, is unnecessary), the action begins in Fowkes’ Tavern. William Darby (Steven Conroy, who also plays a version of himself) has written a play, and he recruits two friends, Cornelius Watkinson (Anthony Michael Martinez) and Philip Howard (Erin Lamar), and an unknown person in a bear costume (or possibly an actual bear, it’s unclear) to perform it there. After the players are arrested, they are asked to perform it again, in full costume, before the court.So far, this matches the historical record. But while the court reports are silent on the contents of the play, No. 11 voices an imagined version, with lines like: “The goose is loose/by the beard of Zeus/the fawn is gone/are we amidst a con?” (The play’s name references Ben Jonson’s masques, a dubious inspiration.) These sequences are, at best, embarrassing, as is the alliteration-heavy courtroom drama that ensues. Clearly, this verbiage is bad on purpose — which doesn’t make it any easier to endure. Every character stops the show for a monologue. Few of them should. If the script reveals a decent knowledge of theater history, it never offers immersion in what life might have been like in early America, what excitement these players might have felt or the risks they took — knowingly or otherwise — in giving this performance.The script’s insufficiencies are softened by the company’s attitude — warm and inclusive — toward the audience. From the first, the spectators are invited in (considering the cramped layout of the upstairs theater, there are few alternatives) and encouraged to buy drinks at the onstage bar. Later, they are recruited as seamstresses, as witnesses, as a bailiff and a miscreant. Theater, the play suggests, is a communal effort. No. 11 puts that into action, with free beers for the spectators charged with sewing a doublet.We know so little about theater in America’s first century. The earliest report of professional actors here is of a troupe that had been kicked out of England for violating a licensing act in the 1750s, nearly 150 years after the first colonists settled. If theater happened previously — and it did, in some form, in schools and churches and the occasional tavern or purpose-built playhouse — it meant that small groups of people, all of whom had other jobs and priorities, met in small rooms and made something together.This is what “Ye Bear & Ye Cubb” seeks, in its shambling way, to honor. “Let’s raise a glass,” Conroy, as himself, says late in the play, “to the artists and the work that we don’t know and the names that never got written down.” Would those 17th-century artists enjoy what No. 11 has wrought? That, too, is unknown. But let’s hope they wouldn’t sue.Ye Bear & Ye CubbThrough Dec. 23 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. More

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      ‘There’s No Way to Do a Good Job if You’re Judging the Character’

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      The actor K. Todd Freeman has worked with Steppenwolf Theater since 1993. His roles, however challenging, usually don’t exact a personal toll. Bruce Norris’s incendiary “Downstate,” which debuted at that Chicago theater in 2018, is different.“After three or four months of doing the play,” Freeman said, “it’s like, OK, I need to stop.”Like many of Norris’s works (including “Clybourne Park”), “Downstate,” a drama about a group home for men who have committed sexual offenses against children, is in part a provocation, a goad to presumed moral certainties. It focuses on four men: Dee (Freeman), who had sexual contact with a 14-year-old boy; Felix (Eddie Torres), who molested his daughter; Fred (Francis Guinan), a former piano teacher who abused two of his students; and Gio (Glenn Davis), who committed statutory rape.So inflammatory are its themes that Steppenwolf, having received threats, had to hire additional security for the show’s run. And the production, now at the Off Broadway theater Playwrights Horizons in Manhattan after a subsequent run at London’s National Theater, continues to attract controversy, such that anyone who describes it positively risks being seen as endorsing its subject matter.From left: Guinan, Eddie Torres (partially obscured), Davis, Susanna Guzman and Freeman in the play, which is at Playwrights Horizons through Dec. 22.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAfter the Washington Post critic Peter Marks posted a link on Twitter to his favorable review, conservatives, including Senator Ted Cruz, attacked him. They claimed that the play and by extension the review were sympathetic to pedophiles.On a recent weekday, at a restaurant near the theater, three of the actors — the Steppenwolf regulars Freeman and Guinan, and Davis, one of the company’s artistic directors — discussed what it takes to imagine men who have done the unimaginable and how much of their own sympathy they can extend. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Did you do much research into men who have offended against children?FREEMAN There was a literary department at Steppenwolf that provided a great research packet. They gave the laws, what jail time we all would have had, what sort of rehab we would have had, how we got from the crime to this house. And there were documentaries that were made available to us. It was never overwhelming to me.“I don’t believe in the term ‘monsters’ for human beings. I don’t like the otherness of that,” Freeman said.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesWas there anything you learned that surprised you or made you question how the country prosecutes and treats sex offenders?DAVIS I talked to Bruce about why he wrote the play. He said, “We live in a country in which you can murder someone, go to prison, come out, and have some approximation of a decent life afterward. But if you’re marked with this scarlet letter, this follows you forever.” He said, “I want to explore how we feel about that as a culture.”GUINAN I was rather shocked by the fact that all you have to do is go online and they’ll tell you exactly where all of these people live. Primarily, it ends up being in really poor neighborhoods. I was just shocked at how many convicted child molesters there are within walking distance of my house in Illinois.FREEMAN I was like, why isn’t there a registry for murderers? I would like to know when there’s a convicted murderer moving into my neighborhood. That’s a pretty horrible thing, killing people. Why aren’t we up in arms about that as well?Have these characters fully reckoned with their actions?GUINAN Fred, while he acknowledges what a terrible thing it was, then says, “I don’t know why the Lord would make me this way.” So I don’t think so. I don’t think he has.FREEMAN There are people who like to define their lives by their past and their scars. Do they need to? And is it bad if they don’t? It’s easy to judge these people. I don’t believe in the term “monsters” for human beings. I don’t like the otherness of that. It helps us think that we’re better or different — that we could never do that. We all could.Guinan said that the role has “opened the question of ‘what about the unforgivable in your own life?’ That’s a question I really have not answered for myself.”Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesCould we? I can’t imagine a circumstance in which I would abuse a child.FREEMAN I can’t either. But most child abusers have been abused. Maybe if you had that past? We just don’t know.Did you ever find yourself judging the characters or feeling repulsion for the characters?FREEMAN That’s just not what you do as a performer. There’s no way to do a good job if you’re judging the character.DAVIS There’s a part of you that understands, psychologically, that what this character has done is wrong, egregious. And then in honoring the story, honoring the character, you divorce yourself of that judgment. If I’m playing a character and I’m not going as far as I can because of my own judgment, I should probably let someone else have it.If you were withholding judgment, why then did the play begin to weigh on you?DAVIS It’s not an easy world to live in every day. You have to prepare yourself for what you’re about to hear and do.FREEMAN These four walls are basically the characters’ entire world. Trying to believe in the reality of that, just believing in the given circumstances, it’s a weight.Is it important to you that the audience empathize with these characters?DAVIS I don’t think we as artists can predetermine the response from the audience. What I owe to the audience is a realistic portrayal of the given circumstance and to let them decide for themselves if they want to feel compassion.FREEMAN To me, this is not a play about pedophiles. To me, pedophilia is a metaphor for the limits of our compassion, our mercy, our grace.“Whether I extend a little bit of grace or a lot of grace or no grace at all, my job is simply to portray what this character was thinking, what they were after, why they do what they do,” Davis said.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesWhat do you make of the criticism that this play is sympathetic to pedophilia?FREEMAN I don’t think there’s a single line in there that suggests that. But it’s seeing them as human.DAVIS It’s a play that forces you to look at these people outside of the worst thing they’ve ever done. For some people, that’s too much.What has been the experience of having to extend your own humanity to the most reviled?DAVIS It’s not any different, in terms of any other character that I might play who does nefarious things. These characters have done particularly egregious acts. But whether I extend a little bit of grace or a lot of grace or no grace at all, my job is simply to portray what this character was thinking, what they were after, why they do what they do. So I don’t know if I would necessarily put it in those terms, that I’m extending my humanity, because it can sound like I’m forgiving them on some level. As an actor, I simply need to get inside of them.GUINAN For myself, it’s opened the question of “what about the unforgivable in your own life?” That’s a question I really have not answered for myself. Do you let yourself off the hook? And how do you do that?FREEMAN This is one of the best roles I’ve ever done. Because it is dangerous. And because it is scary. And incendiary. Who wants to do something that’s forgettable and nice? More

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      Tony Awards to Be Staged in Manhattan’s Washington Heights

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      The annual ceremony honoring Broadway’s top productions and performers is moving to the New York neighborhood where the musical “In the Heights” was set.After 75 years of ceremonies in and around New York’s theater district, the Tony Awards next year will move uptown, holding the annual best-of-Broadway awards ceremony in Washington Heights.Tony Awards administrators made the surprise announcement Tuesday morning, saying that the next ceremony would take place on June 11 at the United Palace, an ornate theater in northern Manhattan that was constructed as a movie theater and is now used for religious and cultural activities.The administrators did not immediately offer a rationale for the move, but it brings the ceremony to a neighborhood with a large Hispanic population, and to a theater that has been championed by one of Broadway’s best-known stars, Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Miranda’s first Broadway musical, “In the Heights,” is named for, and takes place in, the neighborhood.)The ceremony, which will honor plays and musicals that opened on Broadway between April 29, 2022 and April 27, 2023, will be broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+. The nominations will be announced on May 2.The United Palace is a landmark building that opened in 1930 as a Loew’s “Wonder Theater,” which were large and luxurious movie palaces. The building has 3,400 seats, which makes it the fourth largest theater in Manhattan — it is significantly smaller than Radio City Music Hall, where the Tony Awards have often taken place, but larger than the Beacon Theater, where the awards have sometimes been staged in recent years.The Tony Awards have, since 1947, changed locations multiple times. They were initially held in hotel ballrooms, then Broadway theaters before switching to larger venues in the 1990s.The Tony Awards, formally known as the Antoinette Perry Awards, were founded by the American Theater Wing and are now presented by the Broadway League and the Wing. Next year’s ceremony will be directed by Glenn Weiss, who has frequently played that role; Weiss and his longtime collaborator, Ricky Kirshner, will produce the broadcast with the League and the Wing. More

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      Review: ‘Merrily We Roll Along’ Returns, the Way It Never Was

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      Maria Friedman’s rethinking of the much-loved, much-monkeyed-with 1981 Sondheim-Furth flop gets very close to coherence, and all the way to enjoyable.Many people love something about “Merrily We Roll Along” but few people love everything.It has that brilliant Stephen Sondheim score! It has that meshuga George Furth book! It’s a comedy of misbehavior, a tragedy of cynicism, a big Broadway musical, a tiny domestic drama, a timeline in search of a story that’s never found and, anyway, doesn’t make sense. Even if it did, no one is old enough/young enough to convincingly perform roles that age in reverse from 40 to 20. And if they do, they can’t sing.What no one wants is to leave the 1981 flop alone. Though too often lifeless in its many incarnations, it is also somehow deathless, rising repeatedly from the glossy grave of its beloved original cast album — remembered more fondly than the messy if emotional original production — in hopes of a transfiguration that finally makes it work.The revival that opened on Monday at New York Theater Workshop, after earlier iterations at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London and the Huntington Theater Company in Boston, comes closer to meeting that goal than any of the many I’ve seen before. Maria Friedman’s staging brings the intelligence of the songs fully alive and justifies the baroque construction. Her framing snaps the picture almost fully into focus. And with Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez as the show’s central trio of backward-tumbling friends, it is perhaps for the first time perfectly cast.Is that enough to make it great, the way it never was?The question resonates with the material — which, being about show business, is always involved in a meta-conversation with itself. Groff plays Franklin Shepard, a hacky movie producer in 1976, trailing two wives with a third on the way, who gradually evolves (backward) into a promising theater composer in 1957. Radcliffe plays his word man, Charley Kringas, who, in a nationally televised meltdown in 1973, spectacularly splits from the oldest of his old friends. Mendez plays the third wheel, Mary Flynn, an embittered (what else?) theater critic and washed-up novelist whose fog of alcohol slowly burns away to reveal, by the final curtain, a hopeful innocent in love forever with the unavailable Frank.Groff as Franklin Shepard, who’s a hacky movie producer when the musical opens in 1976.Sara KrulwichFriedman clarifies this rangy structure from the first image, which replaces the ensemble scenes of previous productions with Frank standing completely alone in the ruins of his life. As disembodied voices sing the opening phrases of the upbeat title song we quickly understand that we will be focusing not on the triangle so much as its apex. No one else in the story, not even his besties and exes, is quite real to Frank anyway; they are props in his monodrama, and often mangled. This is going to be the story of a brilliant young man who, failing to grow up, inevitably punches down.Happily, Groff has the glamour and fury to shoulder that interpretation. No Frank I’ve seen has been so unapologetic in his solipsism, so sure he deserves a get-out-of-jail-free card to life’s every complication. And when someone crosses him, as Charley does singing “Franklin Shepard, Inc.” on that TV show, Frank is so livid, staring straight ahead as if his friend no longer exists, that you wait in terror for what will happen next. What you get, even worse, is what happens before.The laminated ironies of Furth’s timeline, lifted from a 1934 Kaufman and Hart play with the same title and a similar arc, have always seemed better integrated into Sondheim’s ingenious score than into the plot itself. The songs are structured like a musical in reverse, with reprises preceding instead of following fuller versions, and bits of accompaniment later revealing themselves as new melodies. By the time you hear “Our Time,” the exquisite hymn of hopefulness that ends the show, you will recognize that it has already been cannibalized for parts; a few of its bleached bones show up as early as the second number, “That Frank,” with much more cynical lyrics.Friedman’s staging for the first time raises the story to nearly the same level of expressiveness. The dialogue, which in most productions sounds like movie lines instead of actual speech, has been put through some sort of sanding machine that removes its polish and restores real texture. Even in the songs, phrases that can seem too perfectly crafted are now engorged with specifics that inform the actors’ delivery and thus our understanding. For “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” Radcliffe seems to have written a Bible of back story, giving wild spins to every line that help send the song into orbit.Visually too, Friedman simplifies, reinforces and focuses what we see. Soutra Gilmour’s costumes, though changing with the years, are similar enough to immediately specify everyone in the cast. (Frank is usually in a black suit, Charley in eye-jarring argyle, Mary in busy print shmattes.) And since all the action takes place within the cold unit set representing Frank’s midcentury Bel Air house (also by Gilmour) we never wonder why we’re watching a scene, even if it nominally takes place somewhere else. We’re watching it because it’s his brain.From left: Reg Rogers and Krystal Joy Brown, with Groff, Mendez and Radcliffe.Sara KrulwichBut those fixes, however successful, are also compromises. The Bel Air house, fairly hideous and mostly blank to allow for its transformations, necessitates a lot of choral furniture-handling that works against the sleekness of the material. Though the cast, especially Mendez, is vocally splendid, the original Jonathan Tunick orchestrations, vastly reduced to nine players from 19, have undergone a radical deglamorization, making it a smart if sad choice to drop most of the brilliant overture. And if dancing doesn’t really fit Friedman’s more interior approach (the limited choreography is by Tim Jackson) the general lack of Broadway pizazz leaves the show feeling deprived of half its inheritance.With the Off Broadway run (through Jan. 22) all but sold out, and commercial producers teed up for a transfer, we may yet find out what “Merrily” can be at its best. For now, it’s just at its best so far. That means some scenes work as they never have; the Act II opener, “It’s a Hit,” which often lays an egg, is for the first time hilarious, thanks in large part to Reg Rogers as Frank and Charlie’s producer. The unlikely progress through the story of Gussie Carnegie — the producer’s secretary, then wife, then star, then ex, but in reverse — suddenly seems clear and, in Krystal Joy Brown’s fetching performance, charming if not credible.Yet at the same time, some things that used to work no longer do. The supporting characters, heavily doubled, are mostly a blur. The song “Old Friends,” which at its root is about the fatal compromises that keep people together, has a case of fake giddiness. And “Bobby and Jackie and Jack,” a comedy number about the Kennedy family that the three friends perform in a downtown club in 1960, lays the egg that “It’s a Hit” no longer does.Musicals are mysterious. Even the best are games of Whac-a-Mole: Fix one problem and another pops up. It’s therefore no small thing to say that in her effort to drag a half-living thing like “Merrily” to full life, Friedman is more than halfway there. Maybe, finally, it’s a hit.Merrily We Roll AlongThrough Jan. 22 at New York Theater Workshop, Manhattan; nytw.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      Best Arts Photos of 2022

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      These are the images that defined a remarkable time across the worlds of art, music, dance and performance.Sinna Nasseri photographed Weird Al, left, and Daniel Radcliffe at a playground in Lower Manhattan in August before the release of their biopic, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesCulture comes to life through a progression of ideas and images: Artists create works, and our photographers then capture these creators and their offerings — in turn creating photography that shares with us moments of intimacy we wouldn’t otherwise witness. Over the past year, photo editors at The New York Times have commissioned thousands of photographs of the movie stars, choreographers, opera singers, musicians and artists who made memorable contributions to the cultural world.In one frame by Chantal Anderson, the actor Caleb Landry Jones sips from a coffee mug at his kitchen counter, last night’s dishes piled high in the sink, as sunlight pours in from the window above. In another, Rosie Marks gives us an inside look at Charo being Charo: working out at home, full hair and makeup, in a gym frozen in time. In Michael Tyrone Delaney’s photograph of Awol Erizku, the artist stands before his work, his gaze set on his toddler. It’s an image that speaks to both his personal relationship with his child and his art’s relationship to her.Together, these photographs capture a narrative about a year in the arts, building a collection of evolving scenes and inner worlds. We asked some of the photographers to discuss the intentions behind these frames and the stories they saw within them. Now that the year is coming to a close, take one more look back at how we saw culture this year. — JOLIE RUBEN, senior photo editorDecember 2021When it comes to comedies, “I don’t get cast in them,” Nicole Kidman told The New York Times late last year about her role as Lucille Ball in the film “Being the Ricardos.” That might be the result of a career spent in dramas or “it might be my personality, too.”Jody Rogac for The New York TimesJanuary“Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within,” the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo’s New York Philharmonic festival, was a self-portrait of the musician, who is also an impresario and a community organizer. “I’m not interested in any artist because of their fame,” he told The Times.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesI like to think about this portrait of Anthony Roth Costanzo in the spirit of early stage plays, a sort of dollar-store version of world building, where rudimentary means of expression invite the smoke and mirrors to be an active part of the world rather than obscure it. I created a stage set as a field of flowers in a perpetual state of bending in the wind. The twine that suspends the flowers was both practical but also meant to dispel any illusion of the wind being real; showing my cards, as it were.— Erik Tanner“When I look back, I don’t remember it as suffering,” Penélope Cruz said of playing Janis in “Parallel Mothers,” because “for me, she was alive.” The film was her seventh collaboration with the director Pedro Almodóvar.Camila Falquez for The New York TimesThe Broadway veteran Kenneth Ard and the jazz vocalist Kat Edmonson were cast in “The Hang,” a jazz opera from the performer Taylor Mac.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesThe way that Kat Edmonson draped her arm over Kenneth Ard’s, the way that his body lay back on this stool, the texture of the stool, the color of their costumes, the lighting overhead and the fog from the smoke machine. As a queer person, it felt like a metaphor for how it feels to walk out of the closet: It’s like an exhale, an aha moment where everything has meaning, feels connective and lush, but only if you allow yourself to experience it in that way. — Justin J WeeFebruaryTo play a superstar at a vulnerable moment in the rom-com “Marry Me,” Jennifer Lopez said, “I had to remind myself in this movie that this was actually a safe place to let those feelings out.”Chantal Anderson for The New York Times“It’s so in my bones,” Beanie Feldstein said of playing Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” on Broadway. “I used to run around the house in my pajamas screaming ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade,’ pretending my dog was the tugboat.”OK McCausland for The New York TimesI brought the flowers as a prop for Beanie. Yellow roses, as featured in “Funny Girl” the movie, starring Barbra Streisand. I wanted to evoke the idea of a torch being passed. — OK McCauslandThe dancer and choreographer Angela Trimbur (squatting) champions low-stakes, accessible and intuitive movement. Dancing, she said, “is the way that I talk to myself.”Cait Oppermann for The New York Times“I wanted this work to focus on joy and celebration and love,” said the choreographer Kyle Abraham of his evening-length work “An Untitled Love,” set to songs by D’Angelo.Lelanie Foster for The New York TimesAs a former dancer and D’Angelo fan, I was inspired by these two worlds of dance and R&B. I only asked Kyle if he could improvise a little bit for me. Soon enough I was in the midst of an intimate solo performance in the BAM lobby. — Lelanie FosterSam Waterston, best known for “Law & Order,” began his career on the stage but soon branched into TV and film, taking on drama and comedy. “I’ve always wanted to prove that I can do all kinds of things,” he said.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesJerry Saltz, New York magazine’s senior art critic, and a figurine of himself. He was photographed for an essay by the New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott about the physical objects of our pop culture obsessions.Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesMarchThe Spanish pop singer Rosalía smashed together new sounds from the Latin world and beyond on her latest album, “Motomami.” “I just want to hear something I haven’t heard before,” she said.Carlos Jaramillo for The New York TimesThe guitarist, singer, actress and comedian Charo has felt underestimated “all the time, all the time,” she said. “But it never gave me a complex. I have fun. As long as people enjoy it, I don’t care. Because once I have that, I have the power of the stage.”Rosie Marks for The New York TimesI wanted to capture the slight chaos of Charo at home on her compound. There is a lot going on in the frame: the artificial grass carpet, the rusty weights, the old TV, a missing piece of the mirror — and then her in the middle, wearing a bright yellow outfit right out of an ’80s workout video, with hair and makeup that could be taken right out of one of her sold-out Vegas shows. She insisted we stay after the shoot and served up several cheese and meat platters. — Rosie MarksSand in Death Valley, Calif., was manipulated in different ways for the soundscape of “Dune,” Denis Villeneuve’s film based on Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesI watched “Dune” three times before heading to this shoot, taking notes on my yellow legal pad each time. The sound engineers did such an incredible job immersing the audience in this alien world, I wanted the images to at least attempt to do the same thing, like we were reporting from the surface of Arrakis. — Peter FisherThe vocalist, flutist and producer Melanie Charles singing at a rehearsal in her Brooklyn home. Her music uses electronics and calls for something heavier than an upright bass. “Musicians like me and my peers, we need some bump on the bottom,” she said.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesInstead of trying to separate different elements in the frame, sometimes I want my photograph’s different parts to connect and flow together to create shapes and lines. The neck of the bass guitar meets the circle of the bass drum, and Melanie Charles’s foot connects with the bass, which forms a diagonal line with Jonathan Michel’s finger. Melanie’s living room was inundated with music, with instruments. You get the sense that there’s not much separating her life from her music. — Sinna NasseriWith an exhibition at the Gagosian this year, Awol Erizku, above in his studio, was able to reach a broad audience. “I want to be remembered for Black imagination,” Erizku said, “to expand the limits of Black art.”Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York TimesWalking into Awol Erizku’s studio is like walking into his mind. It’s a large warehouse, filled with striking imagery and sculptures in progress. He asked to get one photo with his daughter, Iris. A lot of his work is made with his daughter in mind. For me, this image embodies the themes of legacy building and cultivation of Black imagination. — Michael Tyrone DelaneyThe reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian and the prolific drummer Travis Barker, who got married this year, kiss on the Oscars red carpet in March.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesAprilThe actor and musician Caleb Landry Jones at his Los Angeles home. His role in the Australian drama “Nitram” earned him a top prize at Cannes.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesBefore the Broadway debut of “Mr. Saturday Night” — a musical version of his 1992 movie about an aging performer who won’t accept that his time in the spotlight is up — Billy Crystal said, “The worst nightmare is, do you wake up one day and you’re not funny anymore?”Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesSarah Silverman during a break from rehearsals of “The Bedwetter,” about a 10-year-old Silverman who suffered from the embarrassing condition of the title. “It will be familiar to so many people,” Silverman said about how the musical explores the emotions raised by divorce.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesNicolas Cage, who starred as “Nick Cage” in this year’s “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” said, “I don’t want to be one of those actors — and there are a lot of them, I won’t mention any names — who are high on their own supply.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesI had about 10 minutes with Nicolas Cage in a Manhattan hotel. The story was about his newest movie, which has a meta quality to it: Nic plays himself at different stages of his life. I thought a mirror would represent that well. The side of his face is the foreground, and there’s also the lesser foreground of his hand. The middle ground shows his circular reflection while the background is another reflection of Nic. And there’s a further background beyond that. The depth of this frame is a big part of its power. — Sinna NasseriAlexander Skarsgard said working on the Viking saga “The Northman” was “the greatest experience of my career but, God, it was intense.”Robbie Lawrence for The New York TimesMay“I don’t want to be a celebrity,” Ethel Cain said ahead of the May release of her debut album, “Preacher’s Daughter.”Irina Rozovsky for The New York TimesWhen I met her, Ethel Cain was living in a small house in a small town somewhere in Alabama. It was a total time warp with no obvious signs of modernity — video tapes, crocheted table settings, wood paneled walls, quilts. In this photo, we were in Ethel’s bedroom, where she sleeps and records, the microphone just a few feet from the bed. We were talking about her childhood in the church. She was lying down, and I was on my knees beside her with the camera, a pious sight in and of itself. — Irina Rozovsky“I’ve made it clear to people that I’m never going to make a record that’s the same as another,” Bad Bunny said. His fourth album, “Un Verano Sin Ti,” was a smash hit.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesMichael Che, known mostly for “Saturday Night Live,” said there had been a certain amount of trial and error in developing his own show, the HBO Max series “That Damn Michael Che,” and in figuring out his career: “Everything looks easy till you start doing it.”Andre D. Wagner for The New York TimesOne of my favorite ways to make photographs is to be out on the streets and in the world; I love playing off juxtaposition and chance encounters. Even the streets know that Michael Che is PURE GENIE-US! — Andre D. WagnerFans respond to Austin Butler, above, the way they did to a young Leonardo DiCaprio, said the “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesAnson Boon said he “loved the intensity” of playing Johnny Rotten, the Sex Pistols frontman, in “Pistol,” a Hulu limited series.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times“I have spent a lot of time with different choreographers, all with different processes, so I also told myself: There are no rules,” said Janie Taylor, a former City Ballet principal, whose dances were featured in the L.A. Dance Project’s Joyce Theater season.Thea Traff for The New York TimesEach morning in Los Angeles, there’s typically a layer of fog (the “marine layer”) that clouds sunlight. We were incredibly lucky the morning of this shoot — there was no fog, only direct, beautiful California sunlight. The light was also low enough in the sky to create a beautiful shadow across half of Janie Taylor’s body. I asked her to dance in a way that felt reflective of her work, and she gave so much expression and movement in this light. — Thea Traff“My job was to capture their genius and not take shots that were superfluous,” said Marty Callner, who directed the first specials of Robin Williams, Steve Martin and George Carlin.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesLars “Bala” Lyons stands by while a red-tailed hawk (magnified by binoculars) perches above near Tompkins Square Park in New York. “For the Birds,” a star-studded, 242-track collection of songs and readings inspired by or incorporating birdsong, was released this year.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesFor this story I embedded myself with New York City’s birders — people who are obsessive about tracking birds, while the rest of us just go about our lives. I wanted to show that difference in one photo, so I split the frame by holding binoculars to the top half of my lens, which I focused on a red-tailed hawk, while the bottom half reveals a man on the ground just walking, unaware of the magnificent creature above him and the fandom surrounding the city’s birds. — Sinna NasseriWhen Oscar Isaac was offered “Moon Knight,” a Marvel series on Disney+, he wasn’t sure he was ready for another action blockbuster. “As fun as they can be, you’re outputting a lot of energy, and then you leave and you’re just exhausted,” he said.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesJuneIf the filmmaker Taika Waititi stepped back and considered all of his projects, “I’d probably have a panic attack,” he said. “I know there’s too many things.”Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesFrom left, Terry Elliott Lamont, Michael Turner Jr. and Von Williams in the McCulloh Homes public housing project, which was used as “The Pit” in “The Wire.” This year, a Baltimore photographer considered the HBO drama’s impact on the city where he was raised, 20 years after the show’s debut.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesWhen I was a kid growing up in Baltimore, I was lucky enough to have a group of queer friends. We called ourselves “The Pridelights.” The three people in this image, Terry, Michael, and Von, were among the core members of the group and, in many ways, the core of my childhood. The composition is a nod to the iconic “Destiny Fulfilled” album cover, an album that was so central to us when it was released. We fought constantly about who in our group was Beyoncé (Von and me), Kelly (Michael) and Michelle (Terry). There are almost no images of us together when we were children. Looking at this image now, it feels corrective. — Gioncarlo ValentineJuly“I wanted to build a framework for myself, for how to keep art sacred,” the singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers said of her detour to Harvard Divinity School during the pandemic. Her second major-label album, “Surrender,” was released this summer.OK McCausland for The New York TimesAugustDecades in the making, Michael Heizer’s “City,” a massive mile-and-a-half-long sculpture set in a remote Nevada valley, was finally revealed this year.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesIt is nearly impossible to distill the experience of Heizer’s magnum opus “City” in one frame. From dusk to dawn, I had the rare opportunity to wander the immense space, allowing the light to be my guide. Standing in the bitter cold, I made a handful of exposures around 10 seconds long. Seeing “City” under moonlight made me think of how humans have been building mysterious structures on this planet for thousands of years, many in relation to the heavens above. — Todd HeislerThe photographer Sinna Nasseri captured images of present-day New York City as it might have been predicted by science fiction films of the 1980s. Here, a delivery robot serves food at Lilya’s Restaurant & Grill in Staten Island, N.Y.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesAbbi Jacobson’s series version of “A League of Their Own,” on Amazon Prime Video, expanded upon the 1992 film. “The movie is a story about white women getting to play baseball,” she said. “That’s just not enough.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWhat I love about Abbi Jacobson is how relatable the characters she plays are — you really feel like you know her and are friends with her from watching her. When I found out we were going to be taking photos in L.A., I thought of Art’s Delicatessen & Restaurant as the perfect place to meet up. It’s a family-owned spot you go back to over and over again with friends. There’s an intimacy and history there that I wanted in the images. — Chantal AndersonAhead of her album “Hold the Girl,” Rina Sawayama said, “I think the temptation, as an artist these days, is to look online and see what the fans want. But I’m going to write something that’s meaningful and worth people’s time.”Olivia Lifungula for The New York TimesFinishing touches underway on Wolfgang Tillmans’s retrospective, “To Look Without Fear,” at the Museum of Modern Art, which ends on New Year’s Day.Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesWolfgang Tillmans and I shot this couple melting into one viewer before a photo in his MoMA survey at the same time, he on his iPhone and me with my camera. I’m guessing his pic is better. — Daniel ArnoldSeptemberThe choreographer Gisèle Vienne at her parents’ home in Grenoble, France. She returned to New York in October with the U.S. premiere of “Crowd,” a magnetic work that places 15 dancers, consumed with love and longing, at an all-night party.Sam Hellmann for The New York TimesGisèle Vienne had given me a tour of the house, and this room was straight away my favorite. The light through the dirty windows, her mother’s sculptures, the dried plants, the floor. This was taken toward the end of the shoot so she had been dancing for a while, and it was terribly hot outside. I couldn’t tell she was sweating so much, though the flash revealed it. That’s when it began to be truly interesting. She was letting go, and I was finally becoming invisible. — Sam HellmannMoneybagg Yo has grown into the biggest rap star to emerge from Memphis in a generation.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesMost punk shows don’t have an audience that can comfortably fit under the lip of the stage. Or fans that headbang atop the shoulders of their heavily tattooed papas. But that was the scene at a Linda Lindas show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York this summer.OK McCausland for The New York TimesThe sculptor Fred Eversley, an unheralded pioneer of the Light and Space movement, with one of his parabolic lenses that is installed on the ground floor of his five-story building in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. “I don’t like art that you have to know art history to appreciate,” he said.Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York TimesDaniel Clark Smith, a chorister, reviewed sheet music at a dress rehearsal of “Medea” at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan. It was the Met’s first production of the Cherubini work.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesYvonne Rainer, a giant of choreography with more than a half-century of work behind her, went out swinging with “Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees?,” which took on themes of race and resistance.Erik Tanner for The New York TimesFrom left, the artists Coreen Simpson, Randy Williams and Lorraine O’Grady in the Founders Room of the Museum of Modern Art. Just Above Midtown, an incubator of some of the most important Black avant-garde art of the 1970s and ’80s, was the subject of an exhibition.Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York TimesToward the end of my time with the group, I came back into the darkened conference room to see them arranged in a loose circle as they shared stories. I’d technically finished photographing them, but they were so immersed in conversation and used to my presence. This particular photograph, of Lorraine O’Grady holding court, ended up being my favorite. — Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.Tyler Mitchell in his Brooklyn studio alongside test prints of images from his London exhibition. The photographer is part of a generation that’s “blending fashion into art and art into fashion,” an Aperture magazine editor said.Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York TimesAbel Selaocoe, a classically trained South African artist, is best known for his work on the cello, but is also a singer and improviser. He drew on musical traditions from across the globe for his debut album, “Where is Home (Hae Ke Kae).”Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesOctoberWhether it’s Jamie Lee Curtis’s return to her horror roots in “Halloween Ends” or her buzzy performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” freedom is what the actress is after. “I feel all the feels, all the time,” she said.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesTaking a raw Southern sound to the top of the pop charts, Lil Baby could have come only from one place: Atlanta, where the rap scene is one of the world’s most consequential musical ecosystems.Kevin Amato for The New York TimesThis year, Michael Imperioli, best known for playing crooks and cops, appeared in the comedies “This Fool” and “The White Lotus.” “I don’t really know how to be funny,” he insisted.Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesBest known for playing nice guys, Jake Lacy won acclaim as a privileged jerk in HBO’s “The White Lotus.” In the Peacock drama “A Friend of the Family,” he went even darker.Nathan Bajar for The New York TimesThe prolific choreographer Twyla Tharp told new stories with two classic works at New York City Center this fall: “In the Upper Room” and “Nine Sinatra Songs.” “I was looking for some kind of spirituality or personal redemption,” said Kaitlyn Gilliland, dancing here with Lloyd Knight.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesNovemberJeremy Pope, a Tony-nominated actor, segued to the big screen in the gay military drama “The Inspection.” “I feel so blessed that I’m able to do this fully in my Blackness and in my queerness,” he said.Erik Carter for The New York TimesIn the Hulu series “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg play two halves of a splintered couple. “Playing a married person with kids, I was at greater risk of taking it home than I have been with other projects,” Danes said.Thea Traff for The New York TimesIt’s tough to pose two people in a dynamic way when they’re inclined to just stand or sit side by side facing the camera. Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg play a recently divorced couple in the show, so I came to set with the idea to pose them as if they were embracing or slow-dancing, in a pose that felt reflective of their characters. — Thea TraffIn the drama “Causeway,” Jennifer Lawrence played a military engineer who returns home from Afghanistan after a brain injury. It’s the kind of indie she hasn’t really starred in since her breakthrough in 2010. “I don’t know how I can act,” she said, “when I feel cut off from normal human interaction.”Robbie Lawrence for The New York TimesThe choreographer Neil Greenberg at a rehearsal of his dance “Betsy.” His beaded headpiece was inspired by a cast member’s flowing hair. “They’re a little like Las Vegas’s idea of a sheikh,” Greenberg said.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times“I think it’s one of the best costumes. It’s so furry and smooth and nice. But it’s also really hot,” said Eleanor Murphy, left. “I like throwing the cheese,” said Taiga Emmer. The two alternate as the Bunny in the New York City Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker.”Erik Tanner for The New York TimesThe eminent composer Steve Reich, who is in his 80s, released two important albums and a conversations book this year. His next premiere, “Jacob’s Ladder,” is expected in fall 2023.Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesLaura Poitras’s documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” tells a complex story of the photographer Nan Goldin’s personal trauma and protest. “It’s my voice telling my story with my pictures, so it has to be true to me,” said Goldin, above.Thea Traff for The New York TimesThe choreographer Katja Heitmann collects the quotidian habits and mannerisms of volunteers — how they walk, stand, kiss, sleep and fidget — for her ongoing dance project “Motus Mori” (meaning “movement that is dying out”).Melissa Schriek for The New York TimesAdditional production by More

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      ‘Off Peak’ Review: Caught in Limbo on the Northbound Track

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      Two passengers share more than just an eerie commute aboard a train headed upstate.The set of the new play “Off Peak” could have earned its own section in the Umberto Eco essay “Travels in Hyperreality” — doubly so since it is a hyperreal representation of travel. We are in a meticulous facsimile of a Metro-North car, three rows from the door. New Yorkers will be familiar with those blue and maroon vinyl seats, with that floor, encrusted with the grime of a million commutes. A newspaper and a paper coffee cup have been left behind, for good measure.This is so close to life that you expect a conductor to come in at any second. But that never happens, because despite intercom announcements letting us know that the train is the local to Poughkeepsie, Brenda Withers’s play feels as if it’s taking place in an almost ghostly limbo at odds with Sasha Schwartz’s lifelike replica of a set: “They don’t take our tickets, they don’t check on us, no one comes through,” a passenger named Sarita (Nance Williamson) says.She’s talking to Martin (Kurt Rhoads), the only other person in the play and, apparently, on the train — except for the unseen conductor (voiced by Doug Ballard), who gives intermittent updates on station arrivals. Soon enough, he informs Martin and Sarita that the train has to make an emergency stop.The pair, who are in their mid-50s, haven’t seen each other in almost 20 years and are catching up, a little awkwardly at first. After a few minutes of chit-chat, it’s obvious that they used to be a bit closer than mere acquaintances. The conversation continues — for longer than either would have expected, thanks to the delay — and whoa, Martin and Sarita are a lot more than near-strangers on a train.She is the livelier character, and there is a lovely quickness to Williamson’s performance, with a soupçon of neurosis and a touch of defensiveness (maybe that’s why Sarita tends to prattle a bit). Rhoads does whatever he can with a more stolid role. He and Williamson must be accustomed to spending time together in tight quarters: They have been married for almost four decades and regularly act together — they played the title characters in Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” this summer. Jess Chayes’s production of “Off Peak,” currently at 59E59 Theaters, originated nearby, at the Westchester County home of the presenting Hudson Stage Company.If Martin appears to play offense, it’s because he has a past, and an agenda. After he whips out an envelope filled with $4,000, it takes Sarita way too long to realize that it was not chance that placed them in the same car of the same train at the same time. He cornered her — there is no other word for what he’s doing — because he wants to make amends. He has grown up since they were together, he tells Sarita (whose behavior when she first saw him now makes more sense), and he even starts bandying about words like “patriarchy” and “sexism.”To Withers’s credit, “Off Peak” does not veer into account-settling, because Sarita refuses to play Martin’s game. She is not swayed by his new allyship and its accompanying self-flagellation, does not want to be stuck in the role of victim he is trying to assign her. What Withers is less comfortable doing is making a good case for why Sarita sticks around and endures Martin when she could just move to another seat in another painstakingly detailed car.Off PeakThrough Dec. 23 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. More

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      ‘Ain’t No Mo’’ to Close on Broadway

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      The play, a biting comedy by Jordan E. Cooper, will have its final performance on Dec. 18, just over two weeks after opening.“Ain’t No Mo’,” a raucously funny and provocative new Broadway play imagining that the United States tries to end racism by offering to send Black Americans to Africa, will close on Dec. 18, a little more than two weeks after opening.The play is the third show this fall to abruptly truncate its planned run based on poor ticket sales, following the musical “KPOP” and Gabriel Byrne’s one-man show, “Walking With Ghosts.”“Ain’t No Mo’,” written by and starring Jordan E. Cooper, had a well-received Off Broadway run at the Public Theater in 2019. The Broadway run at the Belasco Theater opened Dec. 1 to positive reviews, but sold poorly from the get-go.Just before the show began on Friday night, Cooper wrote in an Instagram post that the show is being forced to depart and urged fans to buy tickets to keep the show going. “Now they’ve posted an eviction notice,” he wrote. “But thank God Black people are immune to eviction notices.”In a speech at the curtain call, Cooper was rueful. “It’s a hard time for shows of color on Broadway right now,” he said, adding, “If we learned anything over that pandemic, it’s that the world has to change, whether we want it or not, and it’s Broadway’s turn to do the same.”Last week — the week that ended Dec. 4 — the show grossed a paltry $120,901, which is well below its weekly running costs, and had an average ticket price of $21.36, which was the lowest on Broadway. (The average ticket price for all shows that week was $128.34.)The show, directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, was the first Broadway producing venture by Lee Daniels, the Hollywood screenwriter, director and producer, and the producing team ultimately included Black Entertainment Television, the drag queen RuPaul Charles, the playwright Jeremy O. Harris, the actors Lena Waithe and Gabrielle Union, the football player CJ Uzomah, the former basketball player Dwyane Wade and others. The show was capitalized for up to $5.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that money has not been recouped.At the time of its closing it will have played 22 preview performances and 21 regular performances. More

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      Interview: Off Main Stage bring Christmas cheer

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      Polly Waldron and Cameron Corcoran on Christmas Tales

      OffFest Nominated Off Main Stage (read our 4 star review of their most recent production Wolf here), are all set to bring some Christmas cheer to White Bear Theatre this December with three seasonal stories: Freaks, Bike and Scrooge. Ahead of the show, Cameron Corcoran and Polly Waldron discuss why they decided to make not one but three Christmas plays.

      What can we expect from Christmas Tales then?

      Well there are three plays. They’re about Christmas. Freaks is about two sisters clearing their dead aunt’s house over Christmas. Bike is about a step-mum buying her step-daughter an extravagant gift, and Scrooge is about – can you guess? I guess Scrooge is different because it’s a modern one-man version, where Scrooge is a lawyer with grand ambitions.

      Is there an over-arching theme within the three plays?

      I think we wanted something to show the audience that was cheerful for a change; we have a track-record for putting on plays that have a very dark tone. This was a chance to bring the lightness in and maintain what works for us: the absurdity of being. The over-arching theme, then: togetherness.

      So why Christmas?

      I mean it’s the most beautifully absurd thing, isn’t it? It’s like being British we hold back our emotions and our generosity and then we just unleash it over the Christmas period. It’s the best reminder that we’re human beings. It’s fun. Our plays are fun. Maybe if it was Christmas every day like Slade wishes we’d always be kind…

      Cameron Corcoran and Emily Wallace rehearsing Bike

      Tell us about the writing process you go through?

      We’re both big believers in having a script in the room, but that it’s not sacred: it’s limited to one person’s imagination and when you’re in a room there’s multiple imaginations to feed off. We can’t let the script get in the way of creativity, but of course we are faithful to the story being told, but sometimes rehearsals create a magic out of nothing and we always know that the script will develop for the better over the process – this is the sixth project we’ve done together and it’s worked for us so far…

      Annoying each other yet?

      Always.

      How are rehearsals going?

      Strangely. We are doing three plays, Polly is in Freaks, I’m in Bike and Tom Newton is in Scrooge. Due to schedules, we often have to rehearse the plays in separate locations, so we haven’t always been able to be present for each teams’ work in process. When we are though it’s reassuring to see that the work looks great and is actually really funny… and heartfelt… and relevant to the times we’re living in.

      Why should we come and see the play?

      Great question! They are human stories that we can all relate to. They’re exciting, provocative at times, sometimes uncomfortable, but deeply into the spirit of Christmas… and they’re all very funny. It’ll get you into the Christmas mood… and they serve a good pint downstairs.

      Our thanks to Cameron and Polly. You can visit Off Main Stage’s website here and follow them on Twitter here.

      Christmas Tales plays at the White Bear Theatre on 19 and 20 December. Further information and bookings can be found here. More