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      A Climate Opera Arrives in New York, With 21 Tons of Sand

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      “Sun & Sea,” an operatic installation that won the top prize at the Venice Biennale, is being staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.On a rainy morning last week, a beach arrived at the front door of a theater in Brooklyn.Or at least the raw ingredients for one: 21 tons of sand, packaged in 50-pound bags, 840 of them. Wheeled into the BAM Fisher on pushcart dollies, they were unceremoniously dropped onto the theater’s tarp-covered floor with a dull thud.Once opened and spread around, the sand would form the foundation of “Sun & Sea,” an installation-like opera that won the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and has emerged as a masterpiece for the era of climate change. Neither didactic nor abstract, it is an insidiously enjoyable mosaic of consumption, globalization and ecological crisis. And its next stop is the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where it opens on Wednesday and runs through Sept. 26.Over 20 tons worth of sand were brought to the BAM Fisher for the production in 50-pound bags.George Etheredge for The New York Times“The way it delivers its ideas, it’s totally surprising,” said David Binder, BAM’s artistic director. “It disarms you and lures you in. That’s not the way we’re used to receiving work about the issues of our day — what we’re all facing in this summer of fires and floods and what we’ve done to the planet.”For the work’s creators — Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte and Lina Lapelyte — the reception of “Sun & Sea,” only their second collaboration, has been something of a Cinderella story, as they said in a recent video interview. But as much as it is a fairy tale, the work is the fruit of a friendship that began in the Lithuanian town where they all grew up.Barzdziukaite eventually became a director; Grainyte, a writer; Lapelyte, a musical artist. In working together, they were attracted to opera, they said, because it provided “a meeting place” for their individual practices. As a trio, Grainyte added, “we can listen to each other and dive into this process without fighting or dealing with egos.”The sand was used to create an indoor beach for “Sun & Sea,” which uses the setting for a musical meditation on climate change and globalization.George Etheredge for The New York TimesTheir first project was “Have a Good Day!,” which traveled to New York for the Prototype festival in 2014. Like “Sun & Sea” it approached its subject — the thoughts of supermarket cashiers, and cycles of consumption — with a light touch. The cast of 10 singers, all women to evoke a typical store in Lithuania, shared stories that charmed until, in their accumulation, they took on the nauseating excess of the photographer Andreas Gursky’s similarly themed “99 Cent.”“The idea was to have this zoom-in approach using micro narratives,” Grainyte said, “but also being conscious that we also belong to this part of buying and selling circles.”It was important to the three creators that, while bitterly ironic, “Have a Good Day!” was not polemical. “We tried to really avoid the ‘one truth’ because it’s never black and white,” Lapelyte said. “That goes the same with ‘Sun & Sea.’ When we talk about the climate crisis, it’s never coming with one view.”George Etheredge for The New York TimesGeorge Etheredge for The New York Times“Sun & Sea” is more ambitious: still subtle, intimate and haunting, but sprawling in scale. From a sliver of sand, Barzdziukaite, Grainyte and Lapelyte extract broad implications. The beach, after all, is a battleground of the Anthropocene that both embraces and defies nature. It’s a destination deemed worth flying around the world, expelling tons of carbon, to simply lounge on — though not without a heavy dose of sunscreen to avoid a burn, or worse.The characters in Grainyte’s libretto, which is both plain-spoken and poetic, are overworked and over-traveled, both self-righteously against technology’s intrusion in their lives and welcoming of it. Their stories are told as monologues and vignettes, broken up by choruses of sinister serenity.Often, the characters are oblivious. “What a relief that the Great Barrier Reef has a restaurant and hotel!” one woman sings. “We sat down to sip our piña coladas — included in the price! They taste better under the water, simply a paradise!” Her husband seems unaware that his burnout isn’t so different from that of the earth itself as he sighs melodically, “Suppressed negativity finds a way out unexpectedly, like lava.”“Sun & Sea” in Venice, where it won the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 2019.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSome characters find beauty in the horrors of modern life. “The banana comes into being, ripens somewhere in South America, and then it ends up on the other side of the planet, so far away from home,” one sings. “It only existed to satisfy our hunger in one bite, to give us a feeling of bliss.”Another, in the most unforgettable image of the opera, observes:Rose-colored dresses flutter:Jellyfish dance along in pairs —With emerald-colored bags,Bottles and red bottle caps.O the sea never had so much color!“We didn’t want to be too declarative,” Barzdziukaite said. “At some point, Vaiva was taking off all the words which were dealing with ecological issues directly.” The final work amounted to about half of what was written.George Etheredge for The New York TimesGeorge Etheredge for The New York TimesWhat they didn’t want was to give the impression that they were climate activists. “It would be unfair to say that,” Grainyte said. “If we were activists, we wouldn’t create this work that is traveling the world.” (The production, like many in the performing arts, isn’t the most eco-friendly: For the BAM presentation, all that sand was transported by truck from VolleyballUSA in New Jersey to Brooklyn.)But that doesn’t mean “Sun & Sea” avoids responsibility by design. Political art is a spectrum, and its creators are aware that they are wrestling with unwieldy and urgent topics; they just want their opera to “activate,” as Lapelyte put it.Crucial to that effect are, beyond the text, the music and visual presentation. The electronic score — earworm after earworm — provides minimal accompaniment for the singers, and was written to reflect the ease of leisure.After “Sun & Sea” closes, the sand will be vacuumed up, sanitized and repurposed.George Etheredge for The New York Times“We wanted it to be quite poppy, that it would remind you of a song that you know well but you can’t say which,” Lapelyte said. “And at the same time it’s very much reduced to very few notes, and it’s also repetitive like a pop song.”The action, while largely improvised by volunteers who flesh out the cast, is obsessively managed by Barzdziukaite. Participants are asked to arrive wearing specific colors (mostly calming pastels). While the roughly hourlong opera is sung in a loop, they are instructed not to seem to be acting, nor to acknowledge the audience. For the performers, the experience shouldn’t be any different from a trip to the beach.“We are very much using this documentary approach in every aspect,” Barzdziukaite said. Observant audience members might notice how casually plastic fills the space; a pair of partially buried headphones, or some abandoned toys, will be familiar sights.George Etheredge for The New York TimesIn Venice, audiences left “Sun & Sea” to be confronted by countless cheap souvenirs and towering cruise ships. When the run ended, the city was flooded. Heavy rain will also have preceded the piece’s arrival in Brooklyn, with the storm carrying the remnants of Hurricane Ida having killed over 40 people in New York and three neighboring states. None of this is lost on the creators, who find themselves wrestling with what it means to make subtle art in a world whose natural disasters increasingly have the heavy-handedness of agitprop.“I feel like I’m living in a dissonance and asking myself what’s next and how I should behave,” Grainyte said.Those who attend the BAM production might find themselves asking similar questions. They won’t see tchotchkes crowding Venetian shops, but perhaps on the way home they will take another look at the garbage on the subway tracks or the shelves of miniature Empire State Buildings in Midtown.If there’s any waste they shouldn’t be worried about, it’s all that sand. After “Sun & Sea” closes, it will be vacuumed up, sanitized and repurposed as a beach volleyball court, maybe, or as a playground. But probably never again as an opera.Sun & SeaWednesday through Sept. 26 at BAM Fisher, Brooklyn; bam.org. More

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      Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse’s Wife, Gets Her Due This Fall

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      A dance is never just about the steps. But what if Gwen Verdon hadn’t happened to Bob Fosse?Nicole Fosse, their daughter, has a suspicion that her mother had a good deal to do with Fosse’s steps. Nicole was there when he would ask Verdon to show him a few. He would rearrange them, change the angle. He would connect them.“He’d be trying to find something in his body, and she would get next to him and start imitating him,” Nicole said. “He’d look at her and then all of a sudden there was this symbiotic thing that happened between them: And then there was the step.”This October, as part of the Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, Nicole is giving her mother credit where she believes credit is due. In a festival commission, the Verdon Fosse Legacy — which Nicole formed in 2013 to promote, preserve and protect the work of her parents — presents “Sweet Gwen Suite,” a trio of short dances originally performed on “The Bob Hope Special” in 1968 and “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1969. Each featured Verdon, who will be credited, alongside Bob Fosse, with the choreography. (Verdon died in 2000; Fosse in 1987.)Hat tip: Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon in “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man” on “The Garry Moore Show” in 1962.via The Verdon Fosse LegacyLinda Haberman, a former director of the Radio City Rockettes and a former assistant to Fosse, is providing direction, reconstruction and additional choreography to give the works a sense of flow and arc. “Sweet Gwen Suite” is scheduled for Oct. 13 and 14 (other festival commissions are by Ayodele Casel, Lar Lubovitch and Justin Peck).While it may be impossible to know the exact degree of Verdon’s input, her artistic connection with Fosse — they met in 1955 and married five years later — created dancing that was brazen, lasting and so impossibly stylish that Beyoncé borrowed some of it for her “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” video. If only she had asked.Nicole has no hard documentation to prove what Verdon contributed to the dances in “Sweet Gwen,” but she has studied her parents’ work — and been in the room while they worked. When she was 18, her father choreographed a ballet for her: “Magic Bird of Fire.” Verdon was there, too, and she helped when he would get stuck.“She’d say, ‘Leave the room, Bob, come back in 10 minutes, come back in 20 minutes,’” Nicole said. “And he would peek in, and he’d go, ‘Can I come in?’ And she’d say, ‘No, give us a little bit more time.’ And she would have constructed something. It was like she could read his mind. She knew what he was after. She could sense where he was going with something and then she could create that.”But their creative symbiosis wasn’t limited to rehearsals. “Maybe what even happened in the studio wasn’t their first pass at it,” Nicole said. “Maybe it was in the living room. There was a lot of dancing in the living room. A lot, a lot.”Where does a choreographer stop and a dancer begin? The importance of dancers in the creative process is unassailable, yet power dynamics persist. Should dancers who make up original casts be compensated for their contributions? In the more experimental, contemporary dance world, dancers are regularly cited for their choreographic collaboration, but in ballet and on Broadway — where the chances of making money are higher — dancers are rarely given credit.The situation of a choreographer and muse is murkier. Verdon’s dance lineage includes years with Jack Cole, the Broadway and film choreographer, whom she danced with and assisted beginning in the 1940s. “She trained in Afro-Caribbean and flamenco and East Indian and several disciplines of modern,” Nicole said. “So that’s what she brought with her.” As for Bob Fosse: “You see his style change after he meets my mother,” Nicole said. “It goes from Fred Astaire, Mr. Showbiz to something else.” (Mr. Showbiz being her father.)“Sweet Gwen” is certainly a celebration of that meeting — and of Verdon herself. Taking over her parts is another spirited dancer: Georgina Pazcoguin, the New York City Ballet soloist who has appeared on Broadway and can blaze her way across a stage.“I am in no way, shape or form saying that like, ‘Oh yes, I know this,’” Pazcoguin said. “And that’s what drew me to the project: This chance to really steep myself in a new dance language.”Haberman, who performed in “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” (she was in the original workshop) and “Pippin,” was an assistant choreographer to Fosse on the Broadway show “Big Deal.” In “Sweet Gwen,” the dances, which never had formal titles, are named after the music: “Cool Hand Luke,” “Mexican Shuffle” and “Mexican Breakfast,” which inspired the Beyoncé video. To Haberman, that final number — with its jaunty head bobs and frisky, hip-gyrating walks — feels the most like Verdon.“What I actually think is really interesting about these three pieces is that they’re very soft and sweet, and there’s no dark thing,” Haberman said. “There’s no irony.”They’re also, she said, straightforward. And they add up to more than a pose with a derby hat. In other words, Haberman is drawing out nuance and humor, along with — following Verdon’s lead — generosity and playfulness. It’s what made her dancing so delightful. “To me, that’s why it’s so attractive, and that’s why I hate so much of the interpretations now,” Haberman said of Fosse’s work, “because it’s hard — it all has hard edges and it doesn’t have any intention except kind of like counts and sex.”At a rehearsal in July, Haberman broke down the movement, fixing accents and shifting focus, but also urging the dancers — two men along with Pazcoguin — to be as effortless as possible. “I keep saying, when we get there, it has to be like nothing,” Haberman said. “I mean the beauty of watching Gwen in those videos, it’s just like ahhh. There is just this ease. It was kind of Gwen’s brilliance. It just was easy.”For the new suite of dances, Lynne Shankel has orchestrated and arranged the music, by Herb Alpert, Lalo Schifrin and Johnny Mandel. While Haberman sees the first two works as being choreographed by Fosse in terms of their clear structure, “it doesn’t really matter to me in some way who choreographed it,” Haberman said. “Bob and Gwen — she gave him stuff, he gave her stuff.”“What I actually think is really interesting about these three pieces is that they’re very soft and sweet, and there’s no dark thing,” said Linda Haberman, here rehearsing with the dancers. “There’s no irony.”Their approaches were different. Haberman said that while Fosse would give dancers images for inspiration — “you should feel like a horse behind the starting gate” — Verdon was driven by narrative. Haberman didn’t work with Verdon closely but spent some time with her after “Dancin’” opened and Fosse left to work on his semi-autobiographical movie, “All That Jazz” (1979). Verdon was there to keep an eye on the production. Haberman was rehearsing a pas de deux when Verdon asked her why she was leaving her partner at a particular moment in the dance.“I said, ‘Because that’s the step?’” Haberman said. “And she goes: ‘No. Why are you leaving him?” She wanted a narrative right there. “She’s got a whole dialogue going on in her head, and that’s what’s informing everything she does, but it’s so simple and sort of so innocent. She makes an instant connection with whatever is coming out of her brain.”Haberman’s staging of “Sweet Gwen” is taken from Verdon’s point of view. For the first section, a trio, Haberman told the men they should think of themselves as being Pazcoguin’s best friends. “But for Georgina, it’s how you felt when you were a young dancer and you were starting to make it,” she said. “There’s still a great innocence, and it’s fun and light, and you don’t even know how good you are yet. That’s the beauty of it.”The second section, a solo for Pazcoguin, has to do with being in the middle of a journey, not just as a dancer but as a woman. The dances were created at a particular time in Verdon’s life, after the film adaptation of the musical “Sweet Charity,” in which Verdon originated the title role on Broadway. (The screen role went to the younger, better known Shirley MacLaine.)“By then she had Nicole, and she was older and a mom,” Haberman said. “It’s that time of life when you’re like, Oh. It’s not sad, but it’s all of those feelings. It’s mourning for the past when you were young but hopeful that the future has got better things for you.”It also requires a quality of vulnerability, which doesn’t come completely naturally to Pazcoguin. Generally, she dances strong roles. But it’s happening at a good time: Pazcoguin recently published “Swan Dive,” an incendiary memoir about her life as a ballet dancer.“It’s been a huge practice of vulnerability, just sharing my story in that way,” Pazcoguin said. “I’m looking back to the past and being like that is the past. The past is fact, and the future is possibility. And I think that’s where it bubbles up in my chest and makes me want to cry. That’s what I hope to be able to portray and make the audience feel.”The third piece, Haberman said, is about owning it. “This is like, I can come out here and be sassy and have a good time,” she said. “I can turn around and do my take right back to Beyoncé.”Haberman is drawing out nuance and humor in the dances, along with — following Verdon’s lead — generosity and playfulness. The dancers, in that moment, look into the direction of the audience and give a purposeful nod — as if to say, yes, we know about the video. To Haberman, “people will get it maybe if they’re dancer nerds or they won’t — it doesn’t matter,” she said. “But I think it’s just feeling of a grown, confident woman who owns everything about herself. And that, again, creates an ease because you’re comfortable in your own skin and you can have a good time.”To Haberman, the suite is not about celebrating some sort of Fosse style — she doesn’t buy into that anyway — it’s about dancing. The simple joy of good dancing. That’s what Fosse was after. And Verdon, too. Lee Roy Reams, an original dancer in both trios, said that when Verdon danced, “it was more than that just her body.”“She danced with her face and everything else that went with it,” he said.And with “Sweet Gwen,” Nicole Fosse is hoping for something else. “I would like some of my father’s and mother’s work to have a home outside of being embedded into a Broadway show,” she said. “I think that there’s a dozen or more pieces that can live in the concert dance world.”“Dancin’” is aiming for a Broadway revival in 2022. “I imagine it’s going to have a wonderful run,” Nicole said. “But then when the show closes, it’s gone. And it’s a shame that ‘Big Deal’ or ‘Sweet Charity’ has to run on Broadway for those dances to be seen.” More

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      With a Mess of Fabrics, Broadway’s Costume Shops Return to Work

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      During the pandemic they helped by sewing cloth masks and surgical gowns. Now, they are back in a frenzy to make theater sparkle.The work spaces at Parsons-Meares Ltd., one of New York City’s premier costume shops for Broadway shows, tend to be a spectacular confusion of satin and silk, lace and lamé, milliskin and muslin, scraps of brown paper in unique and strange shapes. Each surface seems on the verge of being inundated by leftover materials of varying hues and textures.“It’s kind of a big mess, because the work creates mess,” said Sally Ann Parsons, the shop’s owner and the only costume shop proprietor to receive a Tony Award. “But I happen to find the mess interesting.”If Parsons-Meares and the dozens of other costume shops like it in the city are a bit cluttered lately, it’s a happy return to form after more than a year of inactivity. When the pandemic shuttered the theater industry in March 2020, Broadway’s dressmakers, tailors, milliners, cobblers, pleaters, beaders, embroiderers, glove makers, fabric painters and dyers were suddenly out of work. Few performers, it turned out, needed painstakingly crafted costumes for all those shows on Zoom.Work at shops like Parsons-Meares ground to a halt during the pandemic shutdown.Yudi Ela for The New York TimesBut as Broadway rolls out its return, costumers are again busy with the meticulous, mess-making handiwork that makes the industry sparkle onstage. Starting this month, the creations of Parsons-Meares will dress anew the casts of shows including “The Lion King,” “Hadestown” and “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” as well as productions of “Hamilton” across the country.“Costume shops are extremely important,” said Catherine Zuber, who designed costumes for “Moulin Rouge.” “A costume might turn out completely different depending on who’s interpreting it. Most designers are very particular about where the costumes get made. It’s really quite a responsibility.”To achieve the sartorial splendor of “Moulin Rouge,” 180 artisans at 37 costume shops spent 36,000 hours translating Zuber’s drawings into 793 unique pieces. For some, part of the job was being able to track down materials in, for example, the perfect shade of red.In other words, all that get-up takes a lot of know-how and can-do.A bodice for a “Moulin Rouge” dress.Yudi Ela for The New York Times“When you need a costume for ‘Hamilton,’” said Donna Langman, whose shop dresses the elder Schuyler sisters in that show, “you can’t just run out and buy it from the 18th-century clothing shop down the street.”And it’s more than just looks. Effective stage clothes are able to withstand vigorous, sophisticated movement for eight performances a week, all year. They also have to facilitate dizzyingly fast costume changes: Think snaps that look like buttons, zippers that look like lacing, and shirts sewn onto pants. They need to be easily alterable by the show’s wardrobe department, and to stay fresh without daily dry cleaning.In a way, costume shops also help coax actors into their roles. “There is a magic that happens in the fitting room with the actor or actress,” Langman said. “We’re the ones that help them become their character. It’s kind of like being a doctor: ‘Hello, nice to meet you. Take your clothes off.’ They are at their most vulnerable in that moment, and our job is to make them feel good about whatever it is they have to go out there and do.”Yudi Ela for The New York TimesYudi Ela for The New York TimesYudi Ela for The New York TimesYudi Ela for The New York TimesAt the height of the pandemic in New York, many artisans, including Parsons and her staff, sewed and donated cloth masks and surgical gowns. Television and film work resumed later in the year, though some shops that are stubbornly loyal to the performing arts — such as Parsons-Meares Ltd. — continued to wait for Broadway’s return. (One lifeline for the shop came from Colorado Ballet, which ordered costumes for “The Nutcracker” a year in advance.).css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}When Broadway did come back, nearly a year and a half later, for costumers it wasn’t as simple as picking up where they left off. Numerous suppliers in the garment district of Manhattan have reduced hours or shuttered entirely, and costume shops report higher prices for fabrics and slower shipping times. Pandemic protocols have affected how the shops operate, such as how work stations are laid out and how fittings are conducted. Many workers have relocated or retired; it hasn’t been easy to find and train their successors.So workshops are frenziedly trying to keep up with demand. Since June, Parsons-Meares has been rushing to fulfill orders for 178 pairs of pants, 120 vests and 125 dickies for “Hamilton” alone.Sally Ann Parsons, the owner of Parsons-Meares, is the only costume maker to receive a Tony Award. “It’s kind of a big mess, because the work creates mess,” she said of the current state of the shop.Yudi Ela for The New York TimesFor some, the crowded opening schedule and the unreasonable demands it places on costume shops feels like the latest example of the indifference with which they are treated by Broadway producers. “We’ve always been the lowest on the totem pole,” Langman said.Profit margins, as ever, are slim, and shops have a long recovery from pandemic closures ahead. The Costume Industry Coalition calculated that its 50-plus member businesses lost $26.6 million in gross revenue last year. (That group includes Ernest Winzer Cleaners, the largely Broadway-dependent, Bronx-based facility that has been in operation since 1908.)Janet Bloor, the owner of Euroco Costumes, said: “We got one payroll protection loan. Sadly, we had no payroll to protect. We may never catch up to the massive amount of back rent we owe. It’s still possible we won’t survive the pandemic without some kind of aid.”A painted skirt from “Moulin Rouge.”Yudi Ela for The New York TimesAs the pandemic continues to loom over the return of live performances, the Broadway season remains precarious. “Everyone’s very nervous,” Langman said. “Are people going to go back to the theater? We’ve got work for the next month or two, and then what?”Brian Blythe, a founding member of the Costume Industry Coalition, said that recovery could take years, adding, “This industry is filled with some of the most resourceful costume experts in the world, but our collective survival depends on continuing to inform our stakeholders of what it takes to do what we do.”Some recognition might help.At “Showstoppers! Spectacular Costumes From Stage and Screen,” a 20,000-square-foot exhibition on 42nd Street, over 100 costumes for theater, television, film, cruise ships and theme parks are on view, along with regular artisan demonstrations such as rhinestone application and 3-D printing.Gillian Conahan at work. Costume shops have been rushing to fill orders for Broadway’s return.Yudi Ela for The New York TimesGiven museum treatment, the exhibition’s costumes can finally be appreciated up close as the remarkable, wearable sculptures they are: the Tudor-meets-Rihanna outfits of Henry VIII’s wives from “Six,” bedazzled with 18,810 studs; the elaborate roping and beading of corsets for “The Lion King”; Miodrag Guberinic’s Medusa for Heartbeat Opera, with its laser-cut snake vertebrae; the intricate bead work for “Aladdin,” which occupied the beader Polly Kinney every day for nearly six months. Even the gravity-defying undergarments worn by performers of “Wicked,” by the foundation wear specialist and Bra Tenders owner Lori Kaplan, get a shout-out.While “Showstoppers” is letting theater-lovers see the art of Broadway costuming in a new way, members of the Costume Industry Coalition hope that Broadway producers might be similarly enlightened.Recovery from the pandemic could take years, according to the Costume Industry Coalition, a group of more than 50 businesses.Yudi Ela for The New York Times“Some people seem to think these are things your mom can sew at home,” said Sarah Timberlake, the owner of Timberlake Studios. “And, because of that, it doesn’t have to be that expensive. There needs to be a rethink at the highest levels as to what’s regarded a living wage, and what we can ask for, in order to make this work.”Langman sees sexism in the treatment of her field, including when it comes to pay, with women making up 70 percent of its work force, according to the coalition. “We’ve always been looked at as ‘the women,’ because the majority of our industry is women, or gay men,” she said. “That’s just the nature of our business. We’ve never wielded as much power or been given as much respect compared to the guys in the scenic department who can swing a hammer.”There is a wider hope that young people will be drawn to the industry. Many leading costumers are approaching retirement age, and the industry stands to benefit from the fresh eyes of young people who might never have realized these careers existed. “It would be great for them to know that this is an option,” Langman said. “For kids to know this is something that you can do with your life that’s creative and meaningful.”That kind of advocacy is starting to feel like a second job, Langman said, but a necessary one. “By their nature costumers prefer to stay backstage, supporting the people onstage,” she added. “But we’ve been forced to push our faces forward — to let everyone know that we’re here.” More

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      Moving to the Theater District and Finding His Community

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      A musical theater educator and audition coach discovers how great it can be to live across the street from “Wicked.”Peace and quiet don’t come easy in Midtown, but Alexander Tom has managed to find it across the street from the Gershwin Theater’s wicked witches.Mr. Tom, 29, is the associate program head of the musical theater program at Pace University in Manhattan; he also moonlights as an audition coach, working out of his apartment and local studios.Moving from his previous apartment in Harlem to one of the city’s busiest neighborhoods this May has, for him, meant surrounding himself not just with theater, but with his community: He’ll often leave his home and see a friend dipping into a theater for rehearsal. West 51st Street can feel, at times, less like a two-way thoroughfare and more like a small town. Moving before rental prices started to rebound from the pandemic slump turned out to be the right move for Mr. Tom.Mr. Tom prefers to decorate his apartment with abstract art, which gives him a “creative mind break” while he’s working at his desk or piano.  Katherine Marks for The New York Times“It’s quiet, but it feels like I can make it as loud as I want,” Mr. Tom said of his one-bedroom apartment. His biggest pandemic purchase was a Kawai piano, which he can play with gusto thanks to his building’s prewar walls. In fact, his next-door neighbor plays the piano too — they could duet, if only they could hear each other.“I don’t hear the hustle and bustle of Midtown,” he said, “but I can walk outside and be just where I want to be.”$2,025 | Midtown WestAlexander Tom, 29Occupation: Associate program head of the musical theater program at Pace University in Manhattan.Favorite local coffee shop: “Bibble and Sip is an AAPI-owned coffee shop, with a llama as their mascot,” Mr. Tom said. “They’ve got great cream puffs, the coffee is great — I love me my Bibble.”The show you need to see right now: Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over.” “The writer does an amazing job of having a conversation onstage, but also provoking the audience to have the conversation with themselves,” he said.Earlier this year, while living in a studio on 125th and Broadway, Mr. Tom found himself itching for more space. The studio was so small that it had taken him months to properly arrange all his furniture in a way that felt livable. He had plans to spend two months this summer in South Carolina, to work on a student production of “Hello, Dolly!” and he worried that rents would increase significantly by the time he returned to the city.Moving downtown was a top priority. The commute from Harlem to Pace’s campus in the financial district — which could take up to an hour and a half, depending on the whim of the M.T.A. — had begun to put a strain on Mr. Tom. Many of his workdays began with 9 a.m. classes and ended with rehearsals that went late into the night, meaning that he would arrive home after midnight and need to be up at 5 a.m. to start all over again. “I’m young and sprightly,” he said, “but I’m not that young, and I’m not that sprightly.”Mr. Tom is still waiting on the marble-topped kitchen island he has ordered, which will double as a dining table. “At a certain point I just said: Ikea is cute, Amazon is cute, but I do need to get real human furniture,” he said.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesThe commute would need to shorten. So he set his eyes on an apartment below 72nd Street and above 14th, looking primarily at apartments in Hell’s Kitchen and Midtown West, or near Lincoln Square. In Harlem, he had become accustomed to certain amenities that he knew he wouldn’t want to part with, namely a dishwasher and a gas stove, which helped narrow down his options. (He loves to bake and regularly makes fresh pasta by hand.)He ultimately found a one-bedroom apartment on 51st street in the heart of the Theater District, with laundry in the building and a small but well-appointed kitchen. The part-time doorman was a bonus, and he was thrilled to be across the street from the Gershwin, where he has plans to see “Wicked,” his favorite musical, for the eighteenth time. It’ll be a celebration of his birthday in early September, but also his first musical post-Covid, and a return to the second musical he ever saw as a child growing up in Arizona.His new living room is about the size of his old apartment, and filled with light despite the density of the neighborhood, which has allowed him to develop his plant-rearing skills. “I’m no longer an over-waterer,” he said with cautious pride. “Some of the plants are thriving, but with some of them, I’m unsure if they’re the angry middle child or just don’t want to exist.”The ample light in his apartment has allowed Mr. Tom to develop his skills as a plant owner. Next, he hopes to buy a larger tree or monstera for his living room.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesWith an influx of plants and an upgraded couch, Mr. Tom has been careful not to crowd his apartment with too many plants, given the importance of acoustics to both his personal piano practice and his work as a coach. When a room includes more things that sound can bounce off, the sound fades more quickly. In his relatively spare living room, he said, “I can play music, and I feel like I’m immersed in the music.”The one piece of art hanging in the room is a large abstract piece that Mr. Tom commissioned from the painter Ariel Messeca, who is a friend. A trio of abstract paintings from Joseph Dermody, a Connecticut-based artist, hang in his bedroom. Abstraction appeals to Mr. Tom: “I sit at my desk and my piano a lot,” he said, “and I like to look at something that doesn’t have a prescribed meaning to it, so I can give myself a creative mind break.”Beyond the ample space and saner commute, this new apartment has allowed Mr. Tom a better work-life balance even when he works in the neighborhood. The location has allowed him to take freelance coaching jobs he would have previously turned down for commuting reasons. Now, when he gets a break for lunch and dinner, he can go home to recharge.For those in the theater industry, “the pandemic forced us to ask: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if the industry was better to us?’ And I think part of that is making sure you can advocate for yourself, and take care of yourself,” Mr. Tom said. “Being around theater is great because I can step into it, but also step out of it for a moment when I need to.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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      Elizabeth McCann, 90, Dies; Broadway Producer With a Formidable Track Record

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      In a career that began in 1976, she won nine Tony Awards and helped bring “Equus,” “Amadeus” and the work of Edward Albee to the New York stage.The veteran Broadway producer Elizabeth McCann with Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theaters and Producers, in 2001.Gabe Palacio/Getty ImagesElizabeth McCann, a theater producer known for what one journalist called her “steel and wit” who in a dizzying four-decade career won nine Tony Awards, many of them as half of McCann & Nugent Productions, and gave New York audiences more than 60 Broadway productions, including such hits as “Equus,” “Amadeus” and “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” died on Wednesday in the Bronx. She was 90.Her death, in a hospital, was announced by her longtime associate and friend Kristen Luciani, who said Ms. McCann had cancer.McCann & Nugent, which Ms. McCann formed in 1976 with Nelle Nugent, had a remarkable five-year winning streak, taking the Tony for either best play or best revival every year from 1978 to 1982. The first was for “Dracula,” a sexy variation on the classic vampire story; the rest were for dramas or satires.These included “The Elephant Man” (1979), the story of a physically disfigured man in Victorian England; “Amadeus” (1981), about the composer Antonio Salieri’s bitter musical rivalry with Mozart in 18th-century Vienna; and “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” (1982), an eight-and-a-half-hour adaptation, imported from London, of Charles Dickens’s 19th-century social satire.After her partnership with Ms. Nugent ended in the mid-1980s, Ms. McCann won four more Tonys: best revival for productions of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” (1998) and “Hair” (2009), one of the few musicals she produced, and best play for Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen” (2000) and Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?” (2002).Her producing relationship with Mr. Albee also included Off Broadway productions of “Three Tall Women,” “Painting Churches” and “The Play About the Baby.”“Getting ahead in business means having an ability to compromise your conscience, and you get better at it the older you get,” Ms. McCann told the business newspaper Crain’s, at least partly tongue in cheek, in 2007. At the same time, she said in several interviews, she still felt a childlike thrill in being able to walk into theaters without a ticket.Ms. McCann was honored by the Tony Awards as part of a “60 Years of Excellence” celebration in 2006. She won nine Tonys in her career, many of them as half of McCann & Nugent Productions.G. Gershoff/WireImageElizabeth Ireland McCann was born on March 29, 1931, in Manhattan, the only child of Patrick and Rebecca (Henry) McCann. Her father was a subway motorman, her mother a homemaker. Both her parents were born in Scotland.Though the McCanns lived in Midtown Manhattan — Elizabeth recalled roller-skating throughout the garment district as a child — they were not a theatergoing family. Elizabeth was 14 when she saw her first Broadway show, “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring José Ferrer; she went only because a cousin from New Jersey had an extra ticket and her mother insisted that she go. Luckily and fatefully, she said decades later, the play, for which Mr. Ferrer won a Tony, “blew me away.”Giving some thought to teaching drama, she graduated from Manhattanville College in 1952 and earned a master’s degree in English literature from Columbia University two years later. She worked in theater for about 10 years, beginning as an unpaid intern for Proscenium Productions, a company based at the Cherry Lane Theater in Lower Manhattan. (“Eventually they paid me $25 a week,” she recalled.) Frustrated with her lack of advancement, she decided that practicing theatrical law might be a way to go.“By the time I got out of law school, I was 35,” she recalled in 2002 in a CUNY-TV interview. After receiving her law degree from Fordham University in 1966 and passing the New York bar, she briefly worked for a Manhattan law firm and took some jobs in theater management.Her big break was not a legal job: In 1967, she was hired by James Nederlander as managing director of the Nederlander Organization. Ms. Nugent was a co-worker there.After teaming up to found their own firm, Ms. McCann and Ms. Nugent became general managers of six productions in their first two years together, including the original Broadway staging of “The Gin Game.” They then tried their hand at producing.Ms. McCann with, from left, the television journalist Pia Lindstrom, former Mayor David N. Dinkins and Woodie King Jr., the founding director of the New Federal Theater, at a benefit for the theater in New York in 2011.Walter McBride/Corbis via Getty ImagesTheir first show, “Dracula” (1977), starring Frank Langella, ran two and a half years and won two Tonys, one for costume design and one for best revival. (The category was called “most innovative revival” that year.) Ms. McCann considered it a sign of good luck when she learned that her mother, who had immigrated from Glasgow in her youth, had sailed on the passenger liner Transylvania.Another notable Broadway hit was “Morning’s at Seven” (1981), about four elderly sisters in the Midwest. Though seemingly bucolic, the production had its dark side. As Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, the play might have looked like a Norman Rockwell painting, but its soul was Edward Hopper’s.When Ms. McCann and Ms. Nugent began their business, they were casually referred to in the industry as “the girls.” After their successes started rolling in, that changed to “the ladies.” But Ms. McCann saw gender as just one facet of a complicated picture.“Sure, we’re women. But you could look at it another way,” she said in an interview with The Times in 1981. “Most of the men in the theater business are Jewish, and I’m Irish Catholic. You could say, ‘How the hell did an Irish Catholic — or a New Jersey Protestant like Nelle — ever get in?’”In an industry “desperate for success and product and ideas,” she concluded, “I don’t think anybody cares as much where those things come from as they think they care.”There were bumps along the way. Investors sued Ms. McCann and Ms. Nugent for fraud after their 1985 show “Leader of the Pack” failed to recoup its investment (the fate of some 80 percent of Broadway productions). A federal jury found the producers not guilty, and a relieved Ms. McCann told the news media afterward: “Nobody’s out to cheat investors. God knows it’s hard enough to find them.”After the partners went their own ways — Ms. Nugent pursued a solo career as well and went on to produce many shows on Broadway — they had a brief reunion in 2002, jointly producing the dark comedy “The Smell of the Kill” at the Helen Hayes Theater. It was not a success and closed after 60 performances.In the early 2000s, Ms. McCann also produced six Tony Awards telecasts, three of which won Emmys.She never married and leaves no immediate survivors.Her last producing credit was Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen,” which had been scheduled to open on Broadway on March 19, 2020, but closed after 13 previews, along with every other Broadway production, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.Ms. McCann’s producing philosophy was simple. “Producing is really about insisting that everybody pay attention to detail,” she told The Times in 1981. “The Titanic probably sank because nobody ordered binoculars for the crow’s nest.” More

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      On London Stages, High Ambitions and Mixed Results

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      In “Rockets and Blue Lights” and “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia,” British playwrights make grand gestures. Sometimes too grand.LONDON — It seems reasonable to expect fireworks from a play called “Rockets and Blue Lights,” a vivid title for an overstuffed, if intriguing, drama with no shortage of things to say.Running through Oct. 9 at the National Theater here, Winsome Pinnock’s play may require a chart to help track the action: Ten actors play 24 roles. But if the intricate plotting takes a while to flare, the ambition of the piece is welcome throughout. In a theatrical climate defined over the last year by solo or small-cast plays, here is writing that thinks big. It also brings Pinnock back to the National, where the author, now 60, made history in 1994 as the first Black British woman to have a play at that address.“Rockets and Blue Lights” was seen briefly in March 2020 at the Royal Exchange Theater in Manchester before the pandemic intervened; a subsequent radio version was adapted for the BBC. The director Miranda Cromwell’s current production tethers a strong cast to a play in which present and past collide. Pinnock’s principal theme is how artists illuminate (or betray) the world around them, and her way in is the work of the English Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner.The reference in the title is to one of two oil paintings by Turner that were exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1840. The other, “The Slave Ship,” might depict the infamous 1781 Zong massacre, which resulted in the deaths of more than 130 African slaves at sea. (Scholars are divided over the work’s inspiration.) The same painting is also known by an explanatory alternate title, “Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon Coming On,” and Pinnock traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the picture for herself.The drama begins in 2007, with two women debating Turner’s achievement. How can such an ugly scene be so beautiful, Lou (Kiza Deen), asks of a painting in which she has a vested interest. An actress, she has signed on for a film in which she will play one of the drowning slaves — an assignment a far cry from her previous starring role, on a TV sci-fi series called “Space Colony Mars.”The action in “Rockets and Blue Lights” plays out on a set designed by Laura Hopkins.Brinkhoff-MoegenburgPinnock then rewinds to the 19th century to address the rapport that develops between Turner himself (a feisty Paul Bradley) and a Black sailor, Thomas (an excellent Karl Collins), whom Turner encounters by the docks. “I can tell by your blistered hand that you’re a man of the sea,” Thomas notes admiringly of the artist. Thomas, though, comes to grief, as befits a play in which the dead haunt the living: The film Lou is making is called, significantly, “The Ghost Ship.”The drama ricochets through enough themes — enslavement, artistic integrity, personal responsibility, among many others — for a play double its two-and-half-hour running time. Through it all, Laura Hopkins’s set allows water to lap at the edges: an apt visual for a play in which the sea is of more than passing interest.That our attention is riveted throughout is due not just to Pinnock but also to Cromwell, a 2020 Olivier Award winner for “Death of a Salesman,” who locates the human pulse in an often dizzying text. The play ends with a moving roll call of the dead and a reminder that art can ennoble the deceased and, in a certain way, give them life.Death also hovers over a second, though vastly different recent London opening: “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia,” at the Almeida through Sept 18. This play by Josh Azouz filters World War II through the lens of the German occupation of Tunisia, a onetime French protectorate, which began late in 1942. In thrall to France’s Vichy regime at the time of the Nazis’ arrival, Tunisia, a useful program essay informs us, was home not just to a predominantly Muslim population but to 90,000 Jews, many of whom did not make it to the protectorate’s liberation, in May 1943.Adrian Edmondson as Grandma, left, and Yasmin Paige as Loys in Josh Azouz’s “One Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia” at the Almeida.Marc BrennerAs his title suggests, Azouz has taken an obvious leaf from Quentin Tarantino and exhibits the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s taste for folding unexpected levity into tales of depravity. The result shares with Pinnock’s play a gratifying appetite for chronicling history anew, but wears out its welcome much faster: After a while, the gallows humor just seems glib.“Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia’s” defining character is a cruel yet smiley Nazi officer who has taken charge of the local community: The opening scene, set in a labor camp outside the city of Tunis, finds an impassioned young Arab, Youssef (Ethan Kai), forced by one of this villain’s minions to urinate on his longtime friend Victor (Pierro Niel-Mee), a Jew. Youssef advises Victor to move to New York after the war, and the talk soon turns to dispossession, and what it even means to call a place home.The two men and their wives exist at the mercy of the tactically cheerful Nazi, who is improbably nicknamed Grandma because he likes knitting and refers to himself as an “old woman” — albeit one unafraid to float the prospect of gouging out the eyes of Victor’s wife, Loys (Yasmin Paige, eloquently furious).The power games unfold on a deceptively drab wooden set by Max Johns that springs open as required, and features holes for characters to poke their heads through, as in Beckett. Yet the more Azouz recalls one forebear or another, the more you register the difficulty he has in navigating shifts in tone; the director Eleanor Rhode brings a comparatively prosaic eye to material that might benefit from some stage wizardry.It’s good to see the charismatic Kai back onstage after his electric performance in “Equus” a season or two ago, and the comic actor Adrian Edmondson deserves credit for never soft-pedaling Grandma’s dark impulses. But for all its laudable intentions, the play sits suspended between historical inquiry, sendup and cautionary fable: audacious, to be sure, but not fully realized.From left, Laura Hanna, Ethan Kai, Yasmin Paige and Pierro Niel-Mee in “Once Upon a Time in Tunisia,” directed by Eleanor Rhode.Marc BrennerRockets and Blue Lights. Directed by Miranda Cromwell. National Theater, through Oct. 9.Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia. Directed by Eleanor Rhode. Almeida Theater, through Sept. 18. More

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      Interview: Burning down the house with Max Mackay

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      Author: Rob Warren

      in Features and Interviews, Podcasts, Runn Radio interview

      8 September 2021

      6 Views

      Max Mackay on The Arsonists, part of Play-doh – The Things That Shape Us Festival

      The second in our podcast interview series features emerging theatre Director, Max Mackay. Max is directing The Arsonists, which will be playing at Southwark Playhouse on 17 September as part of StoneCrabs Theatre Company’s Play-doh Festival for emerging artists.

      The shows will also be livestreamed. Further information and bookings can be found here

      The podcast features the full version of the interview. An edited version was originally broadcast on our Runn Radio show on 8 September 2021.

      You can download this podcast by clicking on the forward arrow and selecting the download option. You can also follow us on Spotify for future editions of our interview series.

      The ET Podcast Series More

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      Review: In ‘Return the Moon,’ Theater Between Phases

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      While insubstantial, this immersive online performance gathers people virtually until they can get together more safely in person.A quirk of astronomy: The phases of the moon appear the same no matter where you stand on Earth. If it’s gibbous in Greenland, it’s gibbous in Argentina; a crescent is a crescent from New Zealand to Uzbekistan. As I write this, a new moon approaches, and all over the world stars shine brighter now. Over the past year and a half, there have been fewer opportunities to watch the same thing at the same time in person, so what a miracle that if any of us were to stand outside, we might, for a moment, see the same bright thing.“Return the Moon,” an immersive online performance from Third Rail Projects, also tries to offer community in the midst of isolation. Though insubstantial — it’s a dandelion of a show — the piece speaks to this liminal moment that seems as though it might soon disappear as theaters reopen. It explores how we sustain ourselves, and one another, when the power goes out.A fairy tale, an act of collective creation and, as Third Rail describes it, “an offering, for dark nights,” “Return the Moon” begins in the most mundane place imaginable: a Zoom waiting room. After a brisk introduction, viewers are sorted into four breakout rooms. Mine was led, warmly and nimbly, by Tara O’Con. We adjusted our lighting, and were told to look out any available window — windows as far away from me as Baltimore and Toronto — and type what we could see into the chat. Then, with our cameras off and our names elided, we were asked to type in our fears and desires.“What we are doing tonight is attempting to make something together,” O’Con said, “to share something together.”Then comes the tale, a thin allegory about what happens to a village when the moon disappears. What’s richer is a subsequent dance, presented in four separate windows to a soundtrack of tinkling piano. Because a laptop camera works better in close-up, these are dances for fingers, hands, heads, an eyeball, a cup. The evening concludes with blessings and a tribute, based on those earlier chat responses; on the night I attended, we collectively gave thanks for, among other things, dolls, gay bars, bus terminals at night and being invited to play Street Fighter 2.Because this is a generous piece, the performance doesn’t quite end there. Online, an audio file arrives a few days later. And offline, a slim envelope lands in your mailbox, with a gift inside and instructions for how to make your own offering.The creators — O’Con, along with Alberto Denis, Kristin Dwyer, Joshua Gonzales, Sean Hagerty, Justin Lynch, Zach Morris, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus and Edward Rice — seem to have learned from earlier online experiments. The piece is short, not much more than an hour, and while it depends on enough audience participation to keep viewers engaged, that participation is comfortable, with anonymity guaranteed. And who doesn’t love a gift in the mail? Yet while “Return the Moon” is purpose-built for a remote audience on Zoom, it also has the feeling of a place-holder: a way of gathering apart until we can more safely gather together.Third Rail’s long-running, immersive “Then She Fell” was an early pandemic casualty. “Return the Moon” is in every way a slighter piece, but it is a gentle one, made with kindness and care. And it provides the useful reminder, necessary as theaters struggle to regroup and reopen, that even a sliver of moon can cast a light.Return the MoonThrough Sept. 30; thirdrailprojects.com. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes. More