Theater

At first, it seemed unthinkable that the spring musical would happen. But school leaders quickly decided that it should go on.“We all believe that the arts are crucial to life, but especially to processing anything so traumatic,” said Jackie Gonzalez-Durruthy, who works with Arts Bridging the Gap, a nonprofit that helps run the school’s theater program. More

Betsy Wolfe shines as the inventor of the Miracle Mop in a largely dull Off Broadway show.A cynic could question the very existence of a musical about the inventor of the Miracle Mop. But consider that there have been movies about Beanie Babies (“The Beanie Bubble”), Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (“Flamin’ Hot”) and Pop-Tarts (“Unfrosted”), and “Joy: A New True Musical” does not seem so random anymore. And unlike Cheetos, the self-wringing mop at least made women’s lives a little bit easier — for it is they who still handle most of the housecleaning.The title inventor and entrepreneur is Joy Mangano, who had already inspired the 2015 film “Joy,” in which she was portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence. In Ken Davenport and AnnMarie Milazzo’s show, it’s the Tony Award nominee Betsy Wolfe’s turn to don the title character’s sensible slacks. Wolfe (“& Juliet”), a dead ringer for Mangano, has a down-to-earth warmth and precise comic timing, and she is a confident singer. She is the main reason to catch the wholesome, low-boil production now running at the Laura Pels Theater.The word “miracle” comes up so often in the show — starting with the mop’s name and ending with the grand finale, “Go Make a Miracle” — one might assume the action is set in Lourdes instead of on Long Island. Joy’s rags-to-QVC-riches story did not hinge on divine providence, but on very human ingenuity, guts and persistence.We first meet our heroine in the early 1990s, and her life is a mess: She’s has split from her ne’er-do-well husband, Tony (Brandon Espinoza); just lost her job with an airline; and is stuck between her separated parents, the philandering Rudy (Adam Grupper) and the agoraphobic Toots (Jill Abramovitz).Fortunately her imagination can’t be tamped down, and Joy — always bursting with gadget ideas — comes up with a design for a more efficient mop. After failing to find distribution, she finally gets a break when QVC lets her peddle her ware on TV.Davenport’s book takes a few liberties with Mangano’s journey, but they don’t impact the big picture — or appear to trouble Mangano, who’s plugging the show on her website. The stage Joy has only one child, Christie (Honor Blue Savage), instead of the real-life three; Ronni (Gabriela Carrillo) has morphed from Mangano’s longtime friend to a supportive QVC employee.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Parton’s life and career have always been rooted in Tennessee. For her fans, it was only fitting to see the debut of her biographical musical here, too.They came from across the country and drove in from the rest of Tennessee on Friday, braving the steamy heat of Nashville after a summer storm in sparkling boots, sequined jackets and butterfly accessories. There was even a blonde wig or two, piled high.It was fitting for the first public performance of the musical biography of the woman Tennessee proudly claims as one of its own: Dolly Parton.“She wanted her people to see it,” said Kim Mynatt, 61, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., the first in line with her husband at least two hours before the curtain rose at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on Friday. “That’s one of the things I love about her.”Nashville, of course, has its own Broadway: the downtown strip of honky-tonks and performance venues that has cultivated generations of musical talent. Yet it is an unusual place for a theater production, already aiming for a 2026 opening on Broadway in New York, to hold its world premiere.Unless, of course, that show is the story of Dolly Parton.Mallory Peterson, 7, center, of Erwin, Tenn., going through the Dolly Parton makeup with her mother, Jasmine Peterson, right, 28, and aunt, Caelyn Maden, 16.William DeShazer for The New York TimesKim Mynatt of Murfreesboro wears Dolly Parton shirts and jewelry.William DeShazer for The New York Times“Dolly’s what got me here,” said Mynatt, who wore a 1989 Dollywood seasonal shirt — one of at least 30 Parton-themed shirts she owns — and one of Parton’s official pink butterfly statement necklaces. “The woman has never disappointed.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

His work was seen in “Angels in America” and Victoria’s Secret runway shows. He also made outlandish ensembles for Heidi Klum and Marc Jacobs.Martin Izquierdo, a theatrical costume designer whose career took off after he designed the feathery wings that gave phantasmic flight to the spiritual messenger in “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1991 play, both onstage and in the 2003 HBO version directed by Mike Nichols, died on June 25 at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.The cause was cardiovascular disease, his partner, the costume designer John Glaser, said.At the conclusion of “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches,” the first part of the two-part play, the angel of the title makes an impressive entrance, crashing through the ceiling of an AIDS-stricken gay man’s New York apartment and proclaiming, “The great work begins.”Ellen McLaughlin and Stephen Spinella in a scene from “Perestroika” (1993), the second part of Tony Kushner’s two-part play “Angels in America.” Mr. Izquierdo designed the wings.Joan MarcusIt was Mr. Izquierdo’s ingenuity, and his flamboyant imagination — assisted by a certain amount of technical wizardry — that allowed Ellen McLaughlin, who played the angel on Broadway, and Emma Thompson, the angel in the HBO version, to hover convincingly some 30 feet overhead, framed by prodigious wings that were illuminated from behind. Those wings became a symbol of the production itself, an indelible part of its “astonishing theatrical landscape,” as Frank Rich of The New York Times described the show in a 1993 review.Their creator arrived in the United States in the 1940s, a young undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had been recruited to do agricultural work in California.Mr. Izquierdo (pronounced IZZ-key-AIR-doe), who never became a citizen, eventually gravitated to a career as an artist, painting scenery for the theater before becoming a costume designer. In 1978, he left California for New York, where he opened his own studio and spent nearly four decades making costumes and props for film, theater, and the music and fashion industries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More