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      Broadway Theaters Will Require Masks at Least Through June 30

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      Broadway theaters will continue to require ticketholders to wear masks at least through June 30, industry leaders said Friday.The Broadway League, a trade association representing theater owners and producers, said the owners and operators of all 41 theaters had agreed to the extension of the mask policy. The decision comes at a time when New York City has declared a “high Covid alert.”Earlier this week, city officials strongly recommended medical-grade masks in public indoor settings, but Mayor Eric Adams has rejected reimposing mask mandates. But a number of performing arts venues have opted to stick with more restrictive policies in an effort to limit the spread of the virus.“The safety and security of our cast, crew, and audience has been our top priority,” the League’s president, Charlotte St. Martin, said in a statement. “By maintaining our audience masking requirement through at least the month of June, we intend to continue that track record of safety for all, despite the Omicron subvariants.”Most Broadway theaters this month stopped checking whether patrons are vaccinated; only a handful of Broadway theaters operated by nonprofits are continuing to enforce a vaccine requirement for patrons.But mask requirements have been in place in Broadway theaters since they reopened last summer, and the industry has been renewing that requirement on a month-by-month basis. There have been occasional confrontations over the policy — earlier this month the actress Patti LuPone, who is starring in a revival of the musical “Company,” rebuked an attendee at a post-show talkback for the patron’s refusal to fully cover her mouth and nose with a mask. But for the most part, compliance has been high.There are 35 shows running on Broadway, and last week 246,003 people attended a performance. And if this year follows prepandemic patterns, attendance will pick up over the next few weeks with an increase in tourism after Memorial Day. More

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      Lorraine Hansberry Statue to Be Unveiled in Times Square

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      A life-size likeness of the pioneering playwright will be unveiled in June as part of a new initiative to honor her legacy.When the Los Angeles-based artist Alison Saar was commissioned a little over four years ago to sculpt a statue of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, she had just one thought: “Am I the right person for the job?”“I don’t really work with likenesses,” said Saar, 66, whose artwork focuses on the African diaspora and Black female identity. “But they said, ‘No, no, we want it to be more of a portrait of her passion and who she was beyond a playwright.’”The request had come from Lynn Nottage, the two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright, as part of an initiative she was developing with Julia Jordan, the executive director of the Lilly Awards, which recognize the work of women in theater. The Lorraine Hansberry Initiative was designed to honor Hansberry, who was the first Black woman to have a show produced on Broadway.“She’s just part of my foundational DNA as an artist,” Nottage said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Throughout my career, if I needed to look to structure, or storytelling, or inspiration, I could go to ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ this perfect piece of literature.”The statue, a life-size likeness of Hansberry surrounded by five movable bronze chairs that represent aspects of her life, and, Saar said, invites people “to sit and think with her,” will be unveiled in Times Square on June 9. The event will include performances and remarks from Nottage and Hansberry’s 99-year-old older sister, Mamie Hansberry. It will remain in Times Square through June 12, and then begin a tour of the country over the next year or so on its way to its permanent home in Chicago, Hansberry’s birthplace.Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, the year she made history when she became the first Black woman to have a play reach Broadway. David Attie/Getty ImagesBut, Nottage said, they also wanted a more forward-looking way to honor Hansberry, leading to the initiative’s second prong: A scholarship to cover the living expenses for two female or nonbinary graduate student writers of color who create for the stage, television or film. Beginning next year, the $2.5 million scholarship fund will give its first recipients $25,000 per year, generally for up to three years — the typical length of a graduate program. (LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Lena Younger in the 2014 Broadway revival of “Raisin,” the Dramatists Guild and the National Endowment for the Arts are among the initial donors.)“So many graduate programs for writers at elite institutions like Juilliard, Yale and Brown now offer free tuition,” Nottage said, “but you see people not taking a place because they can’t afford to take three years off to pay for rent, computers, food and travel, which could be, on average, anywhere from $15,000 to $35,000 per year.”“It would’ve made a huge difference for me,” Nottage said of the scholarship fund. “When I was at the Yale School of Drama, one of the actors told me I could get public assistance to pay for groceries and electricity, and when I showed the welfare department in New Haven my financial aid package — I was doing work-study — they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re living below the poverty line.’”Hansberry, who was just 34 when she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965, is best known for “Raisin,” a semi-autobiographical family drama that tells the story of an African American family living under racial segregation on the South Side of Chicago. The play, which opened on Broadway in 1959 with Sidney Poitier in the cast, would go on to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best play, making Hansberry, at 29, the youngest American and first Black recipient of the award.The life-size statue shows Hansberry holding a flame. It will be surrounded by five movable bronze chairs that represent aspects of her life and work. Nolwen Cifuentes for The New York TimesHansberry was also active in political and social movements, including the fight for civil rights, regularly writing articles about racial, economic and gender inequality for the Black newspaper Freedom. She also wrote letters signed “L.H.N.” or “L.N.” — for Lorraine Hansberry Nemiroff (her husband’s last name) — to The Ladder, a monthly national lesbian publication. In those letters, she wrestled with issues she faced as a lesbian in a heterosexual marriage and the pressure on some lesbians to conform to a more feminine dress code.Her older sister, Mamie, recalls Lorraine being bookish from a young age. Their parents allowed them to sit out on the sun porch during visits from prominent individuals, such as the poet Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and activist. “Daddy wanted us to be able to listen to some of the distinguished people who came by the house,” she said.Lorraine Hansberry would write letters to congressmen — “My mother would find them when she was cleaning her room,” Mamie Hansberry said. “She was free to write to anyone,” Mamie said, “and they would answer!”It is that spirit that Nottage and Jordan said they hope to cultivate in the next generation of playwrights. The statue’s tour will begin with stops at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem (June 13-18) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (June 23-29) before traveling to cities like Atlanta, Detroit and Los Angeles. It is also set to make stops at historically Black colleges and universities, including Spelman College in Atlanta and Howard University in Washington.Jordan said the initiative will also work with local theaters and artists to present Hansberry’s work, as well as the work of contemporary writers of color, in conjunction with the sculpture’s placement. New 42, the nonprofit organization behind the New Victory Theater, has also created a resource guide to teach middle- and high-school students about Hansberry and “Raisin,” which will be free for schools and organizations to use.“I do think that if Hansberry had continued to write and develop as an activist, one of the things she would’ve done was amplified voices of other women of color,” Nottage said.Jordan said she and Nottage had already raised $2.2 million of their $3.5 million goal for the statue construction costs, tour and scholarship fund. By 2025, Jordan said, they expect to support a total of six playwrights per year.“Everyone wants to produce these women,” Nottage said. “But we want to make sure people are prepared — that they’re secure in their voices and secure in their craft — so they don’t fail when they get that opportunity.” More

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      ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ at 40: The Plant That Conquered the World

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      Members of the cast and creative team from the original production, as well as the current Off Broadway revival, look back on how the show came together and discuss its enduring influence.“Little Shop of Horrors” was Alan Menken’s last shot.It was the winter of 1979 when Menken, a young composer, and Howard Ashman, the lyricist, playwright and director, were coming off a disappointing Off Broadway run of a musical version of the Kurt Vonnegut novel “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.”So, when Ashman called with the idea to develop a low-budget musical comedy about a murderous plant, based on Roger Corman’s semi-obscure 1960 black comedy film, Menken made a deal with himself: He would give musical theater one more shot. If it didn’t work, he would commit to writing advertising jingles full time.Of course, the off-the-wall, low-budget musical would go on to become an improbable success, selling out houses at the 98-seat WPA Theater in the East Village before transferring to the 347-seat Orpheum Theater, where it would run for a little over five years. In the decades since, it’s reached cult classic status and become one of the most produced shows at high schools across the country.On the 40th anniversary of the original Off Off Broadway production, which opened on May 20, 1982, at the WPA Theater, members of the original cast and creative team, as well as some from the current Off Broadway revival and family members of Ashman, who died in 1991 from AIDS, at 40, reflected on how it came together, its improbable success and why it still resonates. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.Howard Ashman directing Ellen Greene, who played Audrey. “He just loved me, and when a director just adores your creativity, your creativity blooms,” she said. Estate of Howard AshmanThe seed that would become “Little Shop of Horrors” had been planted in Ashman’s head for a few decades, ever since he saw Corman’s black-and-white horror spoof of the same name when he was around 14. But revisiting it proved a bit tricky.SARAH ASHMAN GILLESPIE (sister of Howard Ashman) My husband and I were the only people Howard knew who had the Betamax, and we rented “Little Shop” — the movie — for us all to watch. Except for Howard, we were appalled. We didn’t think it would be a good idea at all to do the show. Of course, he ignored us entirely. That was Howard’s way; when he had a vision for something, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.And Ashman had the perfect partner in mind: The composer Alan Menken, with whom he’d just collaborated on “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.”BILL LAUCH (Ashman’s partner) Howard had the idea that “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” had an Off Broadway sensibility, but it was just too expensive. He resolved that the next musical he was going to do is going to have a very small cast — under 10 characters. And it was going to have some kind of element at the heart of it that would be so unusual that it would just demand attention.ALAN MENKEN (composer) I hadn’t seen the film, but a few weeks after he told me he wanted to make a musical, it showed up on cable TV. My God, there were so many fun elements!40 Years of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’The off-the-wall musical comedy about a murderous plant, which debuted in 1982 Off Off Broadway, continues to resonate.  Revisiting a Classic: The comedy becomes a morality tale for the age of universal celebrity in Michael Mayer’s revival, which opened in 2019. Leading Man: Conrad Ricamora just ended his run in the revival as Seymour, the show’s nebbishy hero.Inhabiting Seymour: The actor Jonathan Groff took on the iconic role in 2019. From the Archives: In 1982, our critic described “Little Shop of Horrors” as a show “for horticulturists, horror-cultists, sci-fi fans and anyone with a taste for the outrageous.”The production at the WPA had to come together quickly, cheaply and without the reassurance of big names in the cast.MENKEN The theater was run by Howard and Kyle Renick, and they used to joke that WPA stands for “We’ll Produce Anything.” Howard and I paid for Marty Robinson to be able to construct the first Audrey II, and I played [the piano in] the show myself.FRANC LUZ (Orin Scrivello, Audrey’s sadistic dentist boyfriend in “Little Shop”) They sent me the script, and I turned the audition down. I was like, “How did this get at the highly regarded WPA with lines like, ‘Oh, Seymour?’” It wasn’t until I heard the demo cassette tape Howard and Alan had made that it made sense. I thought, “Jesus, this is really special.”LEE WILKOF (Seymour) I originally auditioned for the dentist. But Alan Menken, who I had known from a revue I did some years earlier, was giggling at me in the toupee — I’d been bald since I was 18 — so I took it off. And Howard Ashman said, “You’re a Seymour!” It came down to me and Nathan Lane for the part, and Connie Grappo, who was Ashman’s assistant director, told Howard to cast me. That’s why I married her! [Laughs]Christian Borle, left, as the dentist and Jonathan Groff as Seymour in the Off Broadway revival that opened in October 2019.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesNext was his most important piece of casting: The person who would design, build and perform the murderous plant, Audrey II.MARTIN P. ROBINSON (puppeteer) Howard told me later that when he presented the challenges of the script — the need for a plant that would start small and get bigger in increments, as well as talk, sing and take over the stage, then the world — most people he talked to said, “Well, you’re going to have to give up this.” I was the only guy who said, “Yeah, sure, you can do all that.”Rehearsals began in earnest, with Menken and Ashman continuing to prune their project as the actors settled into their roles.ELLEN GREENE (Audrey) Howard lived on Greenwich Avenue right around the corner from the Pink Tea Cup, and Alan would be sitting at the piano, and Howard would pace up and down shouting. He was a very strong director — very bright, with a dry sense of humor and tremendous heart. Alan wanted to please Howard, and it was like a dance between the two of them. It was glorious to watch.LUZ Ashman had that kind of intellect that goes at 100 miles faster than everybody else. He would remember lyrics, and he knew every bit of music from the ’60s and ’70s.MENKEN Howard could be impatient about music because it was the one thing he couldn’t directly do himself! [Laughs]For the score, Menken opted for a blend of pop, rock and Latin music.MENKEN It’s the dark side of “Grease,” but there are also elements winking at the late ’50s and early ’60s — beach blanket horror movies with people dancing on the beach while some monster came in from the water to terrorize people — as well as Phil Spector rock, which is apocalyptic in tone. And then our narrators were a girl group derived from the Ronettes and the Shirelles. It was a real cocktail of really dark themes and fun spoof elements.Thanks to his father, Menken had an idea for the stage musical that would become iconic.MENKEN My dad, who was a dentist, was actually president of the New York chapter of the American Analgesia Society, which is a society of dentists who promote the use of nitrous oxide as safe. So I had the idea that Orin was obsessed with nitrous oxide and put the mask on himself to enjoy the sadomasochistic joy of drilling teeth and then get the mask stuck. Howard thought it was hilarious. My dad actually provided the slides for the “Look, Seymour, this could happen to you” part!Ashman was an intense, demanding director, but his dry wit captured the hearts of the cast.LUZ Even if we fought about something — “You know, I don’t think this character would do that” — he’d say, “Oh, he would, he would.” Eventually, you just learned that he was always right.GREENE Howard and I had a respect and a free-flowing love between the two of us. We just got each other. He just loved me, and when a director just adores your creativity, your creativity blooms.MENKEN He was brilliant, and I don’t say that lightly.Meanwhile, the enormous, man-eating Audrey II puppet was taking shape in Robinson’s apartment.ROBINSON I started with the imagery in the Corman film, but I made the shape a little more sophisticated, with curved sharp teeth hidden on the inside that you didn’t see until she started talking. It’s carpeted inside, with a red, hairy interior. It was a workout moving those arms, but I was 28 and I was jacked. I see pictures of myself back then and say, “Oh, my God.”LUZ Marty started the show as this tall, skinny guy with this big Afro, and by the end of it, he had a swimmer’s body. He was like Adonis.Finally, after two weeks of previews, opening night arrived on May 20, 1982.WILKOF We blew the roof off the first night.MENKEN People just went absolutely crazy.WILKOF We were all just floating during that performance. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my career.“Little Shop of Horrors” was a smashing success — and quickly became the hottest ticket in town.WILKOF I was going around the week before opening night handing out fliers, and casting directors would go, “What the hell is this?” And two weeks later, they were calling and asking — no, begging — me for tickets.Rick Moranis as Seymour in the 1986 film.Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS, via Alamy After a month of performances at the WPA, “Little Shop” transferred Off Broadway to the Orpheum. When it closed on Nov. 1, 1987, it was the third-longest-running musical and the highest-grossing production in Off Broadway history.MICHAEL MAYER (director of the current Off Broadway revival) The buzz around it was incredible. It walked to the razor’s edge of being a satire of a kind of B movie, and yet it had so much true heart.The musical went on to receive Los Angeles and West End productions in 1983 before being turned into a film in 1986, which starred Greene as Audrey and Rick Moranis as Seymour. More than two decades after its original opening night, it finally debuted on Broadway in 2003. Ashman, who had declined a Broadway transfer, believing a smaller house was needed to preserve the impression of the plant’s massive size, never got to see it.LUZ It’s still a shock and a shame that we lost him so young. In October 2019, the current Off Broadway revival opened at the Westside Theater, starring Jonathan Groff as Seymour, opposite Christian Borle as the dentist.MAYER I never saw the film, so I tried to be true to my memory of what Howard did as director.CHRISTIAN BORLE (Orin Scrivello in the current Off Broadway revival) Obviously it has to be funny, but the abuse stuff is so ugly, especially in this day and age, that I felt compelled to play that stuff as straight and dark and awful as possible. Ultimately, he has to be worthy of being fed to the plant.Though the original cast and creative team have gone on to other careers, including Menken’s award-winning run with Disney’s animated musicals, they all agree: They’ve never come across another project like “Little Shop.”ROBINSON When you’re 28, you think, “Oh, this happens all the time.” But that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.MENKEN Howard and I jokingly called “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid” “Somewhere That’s Wet.” “Little Shop” is the DNA of everything that ended up exploding at Disney, in a funny way.MAYER It resonates more than ever right now — the idea of the Faustian bargain you make for fame and success in a world where people are making a living being TikTok performers and Instagram influencers, and people are famous for being famous more than at any other time in history. It examines the dark side of the American dream, and because it’s so funny and entertaining and moving, it isn’t going to bum you out so much. More

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      Tony Awards 2022: Who Will Win (and Who Should)

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      A critic’s picks in a hard-to-predict Broadway year, plus nods to shows from Off Broadway and other, odder corners.Though I see hundreds of shows a year, I’m not a seer. Nor am I the kind of theater lover who easily sorts treasured experiences into tranches of good, better and best. Nevertheless, here I am with prognostications and preferences for the Tony Awards that will be given out on June 12.The Will Win category simply lists my predictions in a hard-to-predict year. The Should Win category indicates how I would vote if I were allowed to, with an exception: I get more wiggle room, including the chance to select two “winners” in some cases. Even then, I was often torn, cherishing nearly equally some shows and artists likely to win and some that weren’t nominated at all.Which brings us to the Should Have Been Nominated category. A larkish Times tradition allows me to include not just other work seen on Broadway but also (as indicated by an asterisk) artists and productions hailing from Off Broadway and other, odder climes.Potential “nominees” in this category are always too numerous to acknowledge — and this year I’m skipping some I’ll probably get to champion next year, like the cast and team behind “Kimberly Akimbo,” a terrific musical that played at the Atlantic Theater Company this past winter and transfers to Broadway in the fall.But even then I wanted to celebrate more of the work that helped us feel less alone in a chaotic year — hence my introduction of a noncanonical best ensemble category. After all, this was a season when merely making theater was a victory.Best PlayWILL WIN“The Lehman Trilogy”SHOULD WIN“Skeleton Crew”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED“Dana H.”“Pass Over”“A Case for the Existence of God”*The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, which will be given out on June 12, are the first to recognize shows that opened following the long pandemic shutdown of Broadway’s theaters.Season in Review: Thirty-four productions braved the pandemic to open under the most onerous conditions.Game of Survival: During a time unlike any other, productions showed their resourcefulness while learning how to live with Covid.A Tony Nominee: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.The Missing Category: This Covid-stalked Broadway season has made clear that a prize for best ensemble should be added, our critic writes.Best MusicalWILL WIN“A Strange Loop”SHOULD WIN“Girl From the North Country”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED“Oratorio for Living Things”*Best Play RevivalWILL WIN“Trouble in Mind”SHOULD WIN“Trouble in Mind”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED“Cyrano de Bergerac”*“Wedding Band”*Best Musical RevivalWILL WIN“Company”SHOULD WIN“Caroline, or Change”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED“Into the Woods”*Best Actor in a PlayWILL WINSimon Russell Beale, “The Lehman Trilogy”SHOULD WINDavid Threlfall, “Hangmen”orDavid Morse, “How I Learned to Drive”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATEDJon Michael Hill, “Pass Over”James McAvoy, “Cyrano de Bergerac”*Best Actress in a PlayWILL WINLaChanze, “Trouble in Mind”SHOULD WINDeirdre O’Connell, “Dana H.”orMary-Louise Parker, “How I Learned to Drive”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATEDEmily Davis, “Is This a Room”Mary Wiseman, “At the Wedding”*Brittany Bradford, “Wedding Band”*Best Actor in a MusicalWILL WINMyles Frost, “MJ”SHOULD WINJaquel Spivey, “A Strange Loop”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATEDJay O. Sanders, “Girl From the North Country”Best Actress in a MusicalWILL WINJoaquina Kalukango, “Paradise Square”SHOULD WINSharon D Clarke, “Caroline, or Change”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATEDKearstin Piper Brown, “Intimate Apparel”*Best Featured Actor in a PlayWILL WINJesse Tyler Ferguson, “Take Me Out”SHOULD WINChuck Cooper, “Trouble in Mind”orRon Cephas Jones, “Clyde’s”SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATEDBrandon J. Dirden, “Skeleton Crew”Brandon J. Dirden, “Take Me Out”Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Why the Tonys Need an Award for Best Ensemble

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      The playwright Paul Rudnick scripted a delicious red-carpet moment into “In & Out,” his 1997 movie whose comic plot is set in motion by an acceptance speech at the Academy Awards.Before the ceremony, an entertainment reporter played by Tom Selleck snags an interview with a nominated film star, played by Matt Dillon.“Basically, to me, awards are meaningless,” the star says, with a slouching self-righteousness. “I’m an artist, it’s about the work, all the nominees are artists, and we shouldn’t be forced to compete with each other like dogs.”“Well, I hear ya,” the reporter says. “Good point. So then why are you here?”“Case I win!” the star says, and flashes a smile.Showbiz awards are inherently fraught. They’re also inherently tantalizing. That’s why we — artists and audience members alike — get so exercised about who goes home with a statuette. For performers, the investment is obvious: Winning can mean more and better work. And we spectators love to see our tastes confirmed when people we admire get the glory we believe they deserve. So when the Tony Awards are handed out on June 12, we’ll be rooting, as always, for the voters to have gotten it right — and grousing, as always, about who they’ve robbed.Still, I can tell you right now that there will be one egregious omission, a category that needs honoring. One in which cast mates would not have to compete with one another, like dogs or otherwise.There is no Tony Award for best ensemble. And there really ought to be.“Six” is a classic ensemble piece, in that it doesn’t actually want its performers to eclipse one another.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIF THIS CHAOTIC, Covid-stalked Broadway season has taught us anything, it’s that theater is a team sport.In theory, we knew that already: It takes a collection of artists working together to make each show. But during the industry’s fitful comeback — with its pandemic-fueled moods of terror and celebration, defiance and wariness — we knew it in our bones.We knew it each time we opened our programs to find those little paper slips, telling us which understudies were stepping into which roles for which actors who’d tested positive for the coronavirus. We got familiar with the uh-oh reflex those notices evoked in us — a gut-level assumption proved wrong each time we lucked into a wonderful understudy. We got familiar, too, with the relief we felt when we opened our programs to find no substitutes.The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, which will be given out on June 12, are the first to recognize shows that opened following the long pandemic shutdown of Broadway’s theaters. Season in Review: Thirty-four productions braved the pandemic to open under the most onerous conditions. Game of Survival: During a time unlike any other, productions showed their resourcefulness while learning how to live with Covid. A Tony Nominee: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process. The Missing Category: This Covid-stalked Broadway season has made clear that a prize for best ensemble should be added, our critic writes.A cast is a delicate organism, each actor altering the chemistry of the whole. But what ravishing theater a company can create when all its parts work in harmony — the group drawing as needed on the artistry of each member, including those who most nights fill the bench.WHEN A SHOW wins best play or musical, or best revival, the glory goes to the authors — and maybe even more to the producers, who tend to throng the stage. Those categories aren’t really about the casts. If actors win an award, it’s for a star turn.Not every piece is built for those, though — “Six,” for example, whose eight Tony nominations, best musical among them, include none in the acting categories. The show’s conceit as a singing competition would seem to encourage lunges for the spotlight. But “Six” is also a concert, and it makes sense that it succeeds best when its actors work in concert: that is, together.The first time I saw it, in London before it came to Broadway, I realized only afterward that two alternates had been on, one especially strong. But the entire cast had been impressive. It was impossible for me to pick a favorite — because “Six,” a classic ensemble piece, doesn’t actually want its performers to eclipse one another.I’m not arguing for an award limited to ensemble shows, though, or honoring only supporting players, which is another definition of ensemble. What’s needed is a prize for the entire cast of any kind of Broadway play or musical.It’s hardly an unprecedented idea. The Drama Desk Awards recognize an outstanding ensemble: This year, “Six.” As theater Twitter likes to point out, the Screen Actors Guild Awards have ensemble categories, too — though with eligibility for inclusion based on contract and billing. The Tonys could be more encompassing than that.As an adverb in French, “ensemble” means “together.” Which is the only way for actors to achieve the elusive, interconnected oneness of a truly great cast. And a cast that’s brilliant through and through is some kind of miracle.Sharon D Clarke, the star of “Caroline, or Change,” received the musical’s lone nomination for acting, bolstering our critic’s belief in the need for an ensemble award.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBACK IN THE FALL and winter, when I was so obsessed with the Broadway revival of “Caroline, or Change” that I saw it eight times, I would be tempted, on my way home from Studio 54, to send a tweet rhapsodizing over a supporting performance or two.I never did, because whenever I started drafting one in my head, the list always grew too long. I couldn’t possibly mention Arica Jackson as the ebullient singing Washing Machine, and Tamika Lawrence as Caroline’s wry friend, Dotty, without acknowledging the vocal powerhouse Kevin S. McAllister, who played the Dryer and the Bus.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      ‘A New Old Play’ Review: Even the Clown Show Must Go On

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      Qiu Jiongjiong’s absurdist epic of 20th century China is both a movie and a play, both tragedy and farce.Per the title, Qiu Jiongjiong’s magnificently layered historical epic, “A New Old Play,” draws as much from Brecht and Beckett as from cinematic traditions. At once tragedy and farce, it breathes new life into a story as old as civilization.The opening scene is disorienting at first, not least for the film’s protagonist, Qiu Fu (Yi Sicheng), a well-known actor from a Sichuan opera troupe. We meet him when he is old and stooping, in a crumbling mountain village enshrouded by fog. It is China in the 1980s, and the Japanese, the nationalists and the communists have wreaked their havoc in turn. Now two raggedy demons have arrived in a broken-down bicycle rickshaw to cart Qiu off to the underworld.Still, something feels uncanny, demons notwithstanding. The entire mise-en-scène of the film, we discover, is artificial, an assembly of stage props and hand-painted scenery. Qiu has always played the clown, shuffling from scene to scene, a hapless pauper harassed by need and political fashion. Even his wife (Guan Nan) may not miss him when he’s gone. Somehow he, like the film, maintains a sense of humor. Such is life for a poor player.Qiu isn’t keen to leave, but his time is up — as the demons remind him, it’s no use trying to outrun fate. Also, the King of Hell is a fan, and Qiu’s failure to appear would make them look bad.But first, let’s drink and play mahjong in purgatory, where Qiu awaits final passage to oblivion. Absurdities and indignities mount as he reminisces about a life spanning wars and famine, revolution and betrayal. The director’s cleverest trick is having also found joy there.A New Old PlayNot rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Meat Loaf, Britney and a ‘Cancel Culture’ Musical

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      At Theatertreffen, an annual celebration of the best in German-language performance, music plays a profound, and intelligent, role.HAMBURG, Germany — During the five and a half hours I spent immersed in “Die Ruhe” (“The Calm”), a performative installation that was one of the 10 productions selected for this year’s Theatertreffen, I put a live worm in my mouth, cut off a lock of my hair and held a giant African snail.I also participated in a group therapy session, during which a severe doctor pushed us to share our secrets and fears, and drank bitter mushroom tea (non-psychedelic, I hope), vodka and schnapps.Along with the other 34 ticket holders for that day’s performance in the Altona district of Hamburg, I had checked in as a prospective patient at a fictional facility for people exhausted by modern life.At once intimate and visionary, “Die Ruhe” was far and away the most unusual and daring title in the remarkable first live Theatertreffen since the start of the pandemic. After spending the past two years online, the festival, which celebrates the best in German, Austrian and Swiss theater, came roaring back to life with a wide-ranging and eclectic lineup that highlighted the creativity, resourcefulness and persistence of German-language theater in 2021.Originally staged by the Deutsches Schauspielhaus theater here, “Die Ruhe” was the brainchild of SIGNA, a Copenhagen-based performance collective led by the artist couple Signa and Arthur Köstler, which has specialized in large-scale, site-specific performance installations for the past two decades. SIGNA was previously invited to Theatertreffen, in 2008, with an eight-day performance held in a former rail yard in Berlin. This time around, the installation was too complicated to transfer to Berlin, where all the other Theatertreffen performances have taken place, so in a break with tradition, “Die Ruhe” has been mounted in the former post office in Hamburg where it was originally seen in November.With the other members of my small group, I was guided through a sinister sanitorium whose inhabitants — patients and doctors alike — seemed to have all suffered a psychological collapse. Upon entering the post office, we were welcomed to the institute by being asked to lie down on mattresses on the floor. Shortly afterward, we changed out of our clothing and into the institute’s baggy uniform of gray hoodies and sweatpants.Simon Steinhorst in “Die Ruhe,” which was staged in Hamburg.Erich GoldmannAs I was led with the group through dimly lit corridors and rooms — including a simulated forest filled with damp earth and dry leaves — by a fragile and haunted guide, Aurel, it became clear that the institute was the center of a threatening and shamanistic sect. Over the multiple floors of the post office, SIGNA and its large cast (there’s an almost even number of paying participants and institute members) formulated a holistic worldview for the cultlike institute, complete with an origin story and a rigid creed that its adherents, even the mild-mannered Aurel, were fanatically devoted to: a vision of Edenic return symbolized by becoming one with the forest.Aesthetically, this stylishly designed immersive experience seemed to take inspiration from movies: from recent films of dystopian horror, including Yorgos Lanthimos’s “The Lobster” and Ari Aster’s “Midsommer,” as well as Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, masters of atmospheric dread. As a marathon plunge into a complex and intricate world, “Die Ruhe” resembled another recent and more infamous project: the scientific institute DAU, devised by the Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky in Kharkiv, Ukraine, between 2009 and 2011, which was recreated in Paris in 2019. Like that controversial performance, “Die Ruhe” contained deeply unsettling elements: a strong, pervasive atmosphere of menace, as well as a demanding (and at times exhausting) format that forced the viewer-participant into disturbingly close confrontations with cruelty, manipulation and violence.Back in Berlin, none of the other Theatertreffen shows I saw came close to “Die Ruhe” in sustained intensity and startling originality, but the productions I caught were of a consistently high caliber, and formally innovative.A scene in Claudia Bauer’s “humanistää!,” an exploration of texts by the experimental Austrian writer Ernst Jandl.Nikolaus Ostermann/Volkstheater One of the lineup’s most striking features was how profoundly, and intelligently, musical many of the shows were. In several of the best plays, live music played a fundamental role in generating a distinctive aesthetic as well as meaning. In thinking so musically about theatrical practice, it seemed that many directors at the festival were pushing against the limits of language.From the hits by Britney Spears and Meat Loaf crooned by the cast of Christopher Rüping’s “Das neue Leben — where do we go from here,” to Barbara Morgenstern’s vast and haunting original score for Helgard Haug’s “All right. Good night,” a hypnotic and mostly wordless production about the 2014 Malaysia Airlines disaster, this Theatertreffen seemed to insist on the primacy of music both to conjure and to enrich intellectual and emotional states.The single most astonishing show on a traditional stage was Claudia Bauer’s “humanistää!,” a surreal and dazzlingly inventive exploration of poetic and dramatic texts by the experimental Austrian writer Ernst Jandl.Bauer is one of Germany’s leading directors, and she created this breathtaking theatrical immersion in Jandl’s playful linguistic cosmos at the Volkstheater in the poet’s native Vienna, which is where I caught the production several months ago. (It remains in the company’s repertoire and is also available to stream on Theatertreffen’s website until September.)In “humanistää!,” 10 works by Jandl attain new vitality through conventional monologues, onstage projections and elaborate vocal performances reminiscent of Jandl’s radio plays. Bauer complements the torrent of highly musical texts with startling visuals and energetic performances that beautifully match the rhythm of Jandl’s sound poems. Eight actors perform vigorous and highly choreographed pantomimes and dances amid Patricia Talacko’s shape-shifting set, which is spectacularly lit by Paul Grilj. Throughout, Peer Baierlein’s propulsive music, performed live, accompanies the performers as both their bodies and their voices twist through Jandl’s linguistic games.Lindy Larsson in Yael Ronen’s “Slippery Slope,” an English-language musical about cancel culture.Ute LangkafelText and music combine in a much more straightforward, yet no less riotous, way in the Israeli director Yael Ronen’s “Slippery Slope,” an English-language musical about cancel culture with infectious songs and foul-mouthed lyrics by the singer-songwriter Shlomi Shaban. When it premiered at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin in November, it was an immediate cult sensation. It’s not hard to see why.The plot, about a disgraced Swedish pop star (Lindy Larsson) trying to stage a comeback, and his protégé (Riah Knight), whose meteoric rise is inversely proportional to her mentor’s fall, is both sordid and deliriously enjoyable.What’s more, the five actors in the show can actually sing — a true rarity at German theaters — and they belt out Shaban’s rousing and cheeky numbers with gusto. For perhaps the first time I can remember, Broadway-caliber musical entertainment has come to a German dramatic stage. (It’s the only production from a Berlin repertory theater at the festival.)Cultural appropriation, political correctness, #MeToo debates and social media trolling are gently skewered in a production that is eye-popping and outrageously glam. At the same time, everything is so loopy and chock-full of schlock that there’s little danger of anyone’s taking offense at this vulgar and punchy musical burlesque. Although its themes are urgently contemporary, “Slippery Slope” handles them with a lightness and wit that are rare in theaters here. I’m glad that the Theatertreffen jury, a high-minded bunch of tastemakers if there ever was one, selected it alongside the festival’s more straight-faced entries. It’s a sign of their belief in theater’s ability to startle, to provoke and, yes, to entertain.TheatertreffenThrough May 22 at various theaters in Berlin, and at the Paketpostamt in Hamburg; berlinerfestspiele.de. More

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      Review: In ‘Exception to the Rule,’ Detention Is Sinister

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      Teenagers bond after school in a sort of classroom purgatory. And, where is the teacher?Detention is a drag. For the students in “Exception to the Rule,” it’s also emblematic. Whatever landed them in the after-school slammer, these teenagers were already trapped by forces far beyond their control.They barrel in one after another, their voices ricocheting around the Black Box Theater, where the Roundabout Underground production opened on Wednesday night. In a space no bigger than a classroom, the audience, sitting on three sides, is spitball distance from the bickering, the posturing and revelations of what lies beneath.There’s Mikayla (Amandla Jahava), who balks at her reputation as a bad girl while relishing the attention; the goofball Tommy (Malik Childs), who claims he’s “not tryna holla” at Mikayla while very obviously taking his shot; Abdul (Mister Fitzgerald), who appears guarded and pensive, preferring to keep his head down; Dayrin (Toney Goins), who is quick-tempered but eager for a laugh; and the sweet but tart Dasani (Claudia Logan), whom Dayrin mockingly calls Aquafina (as in the other bottled water brand).Then there’s Erika (MaYaa Boateng), otherwise known as “college-bound Erika,” whose late entrance comes as a shock to the bunch. Upwardly mobile and buttoned-up, she’s what Dayrin calls “the whitest person in a room full of Black people.” What could she have done wrong? And where is the teacher, anyway? They can’t go home until he signs them out.As for the show’s conceit, the playwright, Dave Harris, borrows from both “Waiting for Godot” and John Hughes’s classic portrait of detained and misunderstood youth, “The Breakfast Club.” It’s doubtful that the students’ savior will ever come, and discovering what they’re in for, and what that says about their stations in life, propels the story forward. Throw in a few romantic sparks between opposites, and it’s all a bit too familiar.But what appears at first like a mundane exercise in remedial discipline sours into something more sinister. The P.A. system starts to glitch, no one can tell the time, and bars slide over the window as the school goes into after-hours lockdown (sound is by Lee Kinney). Take away the desks, and the scuffed floors and cinder-block walls could just as easily be the setting of a prison (the set is by Reid Thompson and Kamil James). And the flicker of fluorescents and red glow of the hall suggest a kind of purgatory (lighting is by Cha See).As the kids clash and open up to one another, surreal elements creep up, appearing to represent the systems and obstacles — poverty, redlining, over policing — that can entrap many Black people in rooms like this, and worse. And the students’ back stories illustrate how they try to maneuver against such repression: Dasani has stolen food because she’s hungry; Mikayla made her own too-short skirt out of necessity. (“You think I got money for all that extra fabric? I look sexy on a budget.”)Under the direction of Miranda Haymon, the performances have an exaggerated quality that keeps the characters at a distance, despite the action being in your face. Each one has subtler, more grounded moments, but there’s a heightened sense to their personas that hints they’re stand-ins for broader ideas. Even as the even-keeled Erika, Boateng has an almost mechanical, doll-like carriage that evokes the concept of what it takes to escape social constraints rather than someone with one foot out the door.As in his previous work “Tambo & Bones,” Harris toys with stereotypes about Blackness in order to turn them inside out, pointing to the history, circumstances and motivations behind ways of thinking and behavior. It’s an exercise performed for the benefit of audiences presumed to be in need of instruction, and for some it will no doubt be an eye-opening lesson.But there’s a restlessness inherent to every schoolroom timeout, and to theatergoers being positioned as pupils. What happens once we can see people for who they are and then dig deeper into their contradictions? Understanding how lives are shaped by their limitations, as Harris details here with an ultimately pat sort of logic, is foundational to social justice. But in order to see that there’s more to people than what keeps them in margins, first we may have to set them free.Exception to the RuleThrough June 26 at the Black Box Theater at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theater, Manhattan; roundabouttheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More