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      Review: 'A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter' at the Public Theater

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      The experimental company 600 Highwaymen is back with theater of the most intimate kind, starring you and a stranger at close range.“So once you go inside,” the usher instructed me at the Public Theater on Saturday, “you’re going to walk onto the stage, and you’re going to take the seat farthest from the door.”“Farthest from the door,” I repeated calmly out loud, while my brain blared in silent alarm: “Wait, what? We’re doing this on the stage?”There are people drawn to center stage like blossoms to the sun, and then there is me, their opposite. Participatory theater scares me — even when, as in this case, it deliberately has no audience. Doing it onstage would make it extra intimidating.Still, I had swooned last fall for “A Phone Call,” the participatory, telephonic first part of the triptych “A Thousand Ways,” by the experimental company 600 Highwaymen. Ever since, I had been rooting for the in-person Part Two, “An Encounter,” to hurry up and get to New York so I could do it: just me and a stranger, following its script together. Now here it was. It’s just that, in my mind’s eye, it had all been much lower-key.None of this dramatic business of returning to the Public for the first time since the shutdown to find the lobby — normally a people-watching nirvana — whisper-quiet, then going upstairs to the Martinson Theater, where for a few minutes I was totally, eerily alone. My first encounter in “An Encounter,” then, wasn’t with my partner in this two-hander but with that familiar space, seen from an unfamiliar vantage, with nearly 200 empty seats staring back at me.As for “An Encounter” itself, my worry was unwarranted. It is a joy; even if it scares you, go. This is a work of inquisitive humanity and profound gentleness, which over the course of an hour buffs away the armor that lets us proceed through our days brusque, numb and antagonistic.Running concurrently in several spaces at the Public, it is seemingly as simple as simple can be. Like “A Phone Call,” which brings together two strangers by telephone and prompts them with an automated voice to share stories and memories, it is a private scripted meeting between strangers, both regular people, face to face across a table, masks on, with a glass panel between them.An arrow indicated which participant was to take each card. Maria Baranova(While you do not need to do Part One to do Part Two, the Public is also offering “A Phone Call” through July 18. The planned third part to “A Thousand Ways,” completing the journey through the pandemic, will be a large-group, in-person show.)In the theater, my stranger and I — I still do not know his name, or the bottom of his face — sat at the table under the stage lights and submitted to the script: a neat stack of printed notecards fitted in a small gap at the bottom of the glass. An arrow, pointing my way or his, indicated who was to take each card. On these we read our lines and stage directions.“Hello,” one stranger begins.“Hi,” says the other.“It’s good to see you,” the first responds, and what is striking is that this line of dialogue turns out to be perfectly true. It also hints at what this exercise asks and allows: that we look closely at each other, but kindly; that we take turns speaking and listening; that we try to imagine the contours of each other’s humanity. In this riven culture, when compassion for the stranger can be in much shorter supply than knee-jerk antipathy, these are not small gestures.Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, a.k.a. 600 Highwaymen, give the strangers in “An Encounter” a common goal — to get through the script together.“In silence, look across from you and imagine what keeps them up at night,” one stage direction reads. “In silence, imagine something they’re coping with,” says another.They have us draw pictures on the glass together with our fingertips (my stranger is a better artist than I am), tell each other scripted stories and ask and answer a laundry list of offbeat yes-or-no questions: “Have you ever broken a bone?” “Have you ever broken a heart?” When my stranger answered yes to that one, his dark eyes got so soulful that I felt his anguish and wanted to know more. But that of course is not permitted.“An Encounter” is less about the details of our lives than “A Phone Call” and more about spending time in the physical presence of another human being. I know that my stranger has a passport, can’t drive a stick shift and likes to dance. I know he has neat handwriting. My guess is that he is an actor and that he, like me, grabbed at the chance for this experience out of eagerness for theater’s return.But is this theater? Not really, though the script has a beautifully solid structure and the ending is both startling and powerful. Rather, this piece uses tools of theater — text, storytelling, the agreement to gather at an appointed time to have a collective experience — to achieve goals of theater, foremost the stoking of empathy and compassion. How extraordinarily “An Encounter” does this struck me only afterward.I am not usually the sort of person who walks around with Sondheim tunes as my internal soundtrack, but I was when I left “An Encounter.” Out on the sidewalk, as I headed toward Astor Place, then down 8th Street, I couldn’t stop scanning the weekend crowds. A snatch of “Another Hundred People” played on repeat in my head: the phrase “a city of strangers,” imbued with more warmth than I’d ever heard it.It sounds weird, and it was, but “An Encounter” left me in an altered state, keenly aware of these many people around me whom I did not know, and who seemed so alive with possibility, complexity, depth. Any one of them might have sat across from me at that table and been my stranger.I made my way through the throngs, trying to imagine the contours of their humanity.A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An EncounterThrough Aug. 15 at the Public Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.orgA Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone CallThrough July 18; publictheater.org More

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      Interview: Aaron-Lee Eyles on “I Didn’t Want This, I Just Wanted You”

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      We’re always looking to highlight those interesting little plays that can so easily be overlooked, yet are the lifeblood of fringe theatre. So when Aaron-Lee Eyles contacted us about his upcoming play, based on the real life story of a man who won $31 million on the lottery, we thought it would be great to chat with him to find out just why he decided this was a story to turn into a musical.

      Hi Aaron, so first things first, give us a quick synopsis?

      The play is about a Home Depot worker and family man Billie-Bob Harrell Jr, who won big on the lottery. The months that followed surely changed his life, but not in the way you might think! What was meant to be a life-changing miracle turned into a tragedy of misery and deceit. The play has been devised by the cast alongside Director/ Composer Rob Hardie and myself as Writer/ Director. A wild, surprising, musical tale that recounts the compelling true story of Billie Bob Harrell and his (mis)fortune. 

      Many recent shows we’ve seen have been set firmly in the here and now, but it looks like this play is something much more set in make-believe. Or have you really won $31 million?

      The play is set in Texas 1997, but our world is a little wild and abstract -but it is a true story, Billie-Bob Harrell Jr. really did win $31 million!

      What was the start point for you then?

      For some time I’ve been keen on making a play based on a lottery winner and the consequences that come with such sudden financial gain. After researching further I discovered Billie-Bob’s story and was amazed by how it was already so fantastical and tragic, I knew that this was the one.

      You said the play is “devised by the cast alongside director and writer” – as the writer, is it an easy thing to watch others change your story?

      I’m incredibly excited to work alongside our cast and co-director Rob Hardie on this project. My own ideas going into rehearsals are only going to be refined and improved by collaborating with the group. I’m credited as ‘Writer’ as I will be contributing a large amount to the text and will be responsible for writing up our script as we go but its very much written by all of us!

      We haven’t even touched upon the fact it’s also a musical, was that always the plan when you started writing?

      Yes! We always planned for this production to have a musical element. Rob and I worked together last year when he wrote original music for my play ‘Freaking Free Mark DeFriest’ – this time we aim for the music to be more lyrical and used to show characters change of emotions and relationships. We also have a fantastic cast with great musical talents, so I can’t wait to see what comes from that.

      So what style of music are we going to hear?

      We’re going to have a mix of styles- there will certainly be some ‘musical chaos’. Rob Hardie, our musical director, says that you will for sure be hearing a blend of country and folk music with a bit of southern rock.

      The show is only playing for a few dates in July, does this mean it’s still a work-in-progress? 

      This is a brand new play and these performances will be the first! But it will be a complete and finished item- we have a couple of dates next month and we are just so very excited to be working again.

      What are your hopes for the show once it’s completed this initial run?

      We do hope to bring the show back, if the demand is there of course! We’ll take on any feedback given and are already thinking about a potential return in the winter. A lot of work and commitment is going into this run so we don’t want that to be the end of it for sure!

      ========================================

      Our thanks to Aaron for his time. I Didn’t Want This, I Just Wanted You is currently scheduled to play:

      Bread and Roses Theatre on 4 July at 2pm and 12 July at 7pm & 9pm. Tickets available here

      Guildford Fringe Festival on 8 July at 7.30pm. Tickets available here More

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      Rezo Gabriadze, Who Created Magic Out of Puppetry, Dies at 84

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      His productions, vivid and fanciful, played all over the world, including at Lincoln Center.Rezo Gabriadze, a playwright, screenwriter and director whose fanciful avant-garde stage works, many using puppets, were presented at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York and numerous other outlets as well as at the theater named for him in his home country, Georgia, died on Sunday in its capital, Tbilisi. He was 84.The Rezo Gabriadze Theater in Tbilisi confirmed his death. The cause was not given.Mr. Gabriadze was known for unconventional works that challenged the audience’s imagination. In his play “Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient,” for instance, which was staged at Lincoln Center in 2004 and toured the United States, Mikhail Baryshnikov, branching out into acting, portrayed a man who thought he was a car.More often, though, Mr. Gabriadze’s stage works were populated not by human performers but by puppets. Perhaps his best-known creation was “The Battle of Stalingrad,” a puppet play first staged in Dijon, France, in 1996. It examined that pivotal World War II battle, but obliquely, through individual stories. Some involved human characters, but there was also a love story between two horses, as well as an ant with a dying daughter.“Writ terribly small, with the delicacy of lacework,” Bruce Weber wrote in The New York Times, reviewing a production at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2000, “‘The Battle of Stalingrad’ compels the audience to unusual concentration, lest the artistry be disturbed. And artistry it is, beautiful, poignant and lingering.”Perhaps Mr. Gabriadze’s best-known creation was “The Battle of Stalingrad,” a puppet play seen here at The Kennedy Center in 2000. It examined the pivotal World War II battle, but obliquely, through individual stories.Mario del Curto/’The Battle of Stalingrad’Another scene from “The Battle of Stalingrad.” It “compels the audience to unusual concentration, lest the artistry be disturbed,” wrote a Times critic. “And artistry it is, beautiful, poignant and lingering.”Vladimir Meltser“The Autumn of My Springtime,” first seen in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2002, was a story about a bird that drew heavily on Mr. Gabriadze’s memories of his childhood. “Ramona,” seen at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2015, was a love story between two trains.These and other works were full of striking stage pictures and cleverly made, adroitly maneuvered puppets designed by Mr. Gabriadze and his expert team.“As characters either powerful or weak,” Mr. Weber wrote, “his puppets, long faced, with a clattery-boned droopiness, seemingly constructed from bird legs and seashell fragments held together with string, share a frailty that feels, well, human.”Mr. Gabriadze, who early in his career was a sculptor and then a screenwriter and film director, was most at home among his puppets.“The puppet theater is the ideal place for me because you can draw, sculpt and truly create your characters,” he told The Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C., in 2017, when he brought his two-trains-in-love story to the Spoleto Festival USA in that city. “This is the maximum of freedom you can achieve in art. I make and do everything in my theater myself. I write the plays, choose the music — I am completely free in my decision-making.”Revaz Gabriadze was born on June 29, 1936, in Kutaisi, in what was then Soviet Georgia. In a 2002 interview with The Times, he recalled having his imagination opened up after World War II when American movies began making their way to Georgia.“Our generation was ‘Tarzan-ized,’” he said. “Tarzan, feminine women, men in tuxedos; this was the first time we saw these things, and it was one part of our spiritual nourishment.”He was artistically inclined.“In my father’s family, the men worked stone,” he told Le Monde in 2003. “They built churches or bridges. There are many delicate and ancient bridges in Georgia. Maybe that’s where my first vocation came from, sculpture.”Those skills would prove useful when he began carving and constructing puppets. But other careers came first.After working for a time as a journalist, he gravitated to filmmaking, writing dozens of screenplays and directing a few movies. “I was making tragicomic films,” he said. “I was always watched by the authorities, and I lacked diplomacy.”Georgia was still under Soviet control, and it was the era of Socialist Realism in film and other genres. Realism, Mr. Gabriadze said, just wasn’t his thing.“I can understand the human urge to put things in order,” he told The Times. “But you can’t divide life between fiction and fact. ‘Tom Sawyer’ may be a novel, but it is also an encyclopedia of childhood.”In Mr. Gabriadze’s play “Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient,” which was staged at Lincoln Center in 2004 and toured the United States, Mikhail Baryshnikov, center, branched out into acting, portraying a man who thought he was a car.Michal DanielHe opened his puppet theater in 1981. (In 2010 it unveiled a newly renovated space designed by Mr. Gabriadze and featuring a deliberately crooked clock tower.)In the early 1990s, with Georgia embroiled in civil war, Mr. Gabriadze relocated to Moscow for several years, working at the Obraztsov State Puppet Theater, where he began to create “The Battle of Stalingrad.” The piece, he said, was in part a response to the civil war. But, like many of his works, it also drew on memories from his childhood.“I was 6 years old during the Battle of Stalingrad,” he said. “I remember the word echoing through childhood.”While taking his puppet productions all over the world, Mr. Gabriadze continued to pursue his love of art. In 2012 the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow mounted an exhibition devoted to his paintings, graphic works and sculpture.Full information on his survivors was not available. A son, Levan, produced some of his shows and, in 2018, made a film about his father’s life called simply, “Rezo.”In an interview with the travel blog Intrepid Feet First, Levan talked about his father and his work.“The thing about Rezo is that he lives in his own bubble,” he said. “We all do. But Rezo brings you into his.” More

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      Headliners and Headdresses Return to Las Vegas. Will Tourists Follow?

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      The first shows to reopen face a challenge: It is hard to draw audiences without tourists, but hard to draw tourists without shows.LAS VEGAS — Penn Jillette, one half of the Penn & Teller magic and comedy act that has helped define nightlife in Las Vegas for decades, bounded onto the stage the other night and looked across a maskless but socially distanced audience scattered across the theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.“We just did 421 days without a live show,” he said, referring to the forced sabbatical that stretched through the end of April, his silent partner, Teller, finally back at his side. “Boy, it’s nice to see people in the theater.”The next morning, less than a mile away, a troupe of acrobats from Cirque du Soleil was somersaulting through the air, all wearing masks, as they warmed up on a steel frame ship swinging over a 1.2 million-gallon pool in anticipation of reopening “O” in July and a second show, “Mystère,” later this month. By the end of the year they hope to have seven Cirque du Soleil shows back at full capacity.Fifteen months ago, this bustling tourist destination in the desert shut down almost overnight, as theaters, restaurants and casinos emptied out and Las Vegas confronted one of the biggest economic threats in its history. The stakes could not be higher as the Strip tries to emerge from the shadow of the pandemic and the first crop of shows face a challenging reality: It is hard to open shows without tourists, and it’s hard to draw tourist without shows.But a walk through its bustling sidewalks last week suggests an explosion of activity, befitting — in its extravagance, and this city’s appetite for risk — what has always made Las Vegas what it is. The change since last spring, as measured by the return of surging morning-to-midnight crowds, is head-snapping. While just 106,900 tourists visited Las Vegas in April 2020, according to the Convention and Visitors Authority, some 2.6 million people visited this April — a big rebound, but still almost a million shy of what the city was attracting before the pandemic.Penn & Teller recently performed for 250 people scattered around its 1,475-person auditorium. But with restrictions easing, they are increasing capacity — and plan to play to full houses by the end of summer.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times“You’re in a town that was very irresponsible before,” Jillette said in an interview, remarking on the exuberance of the reopening. “Not the residents, but the people who come to visit Vegas. People who don’t smoke cigars, smoke cigars. People who don’t drink martinis, drink martinis. People who don’t have irresponsible sex, have irresponsible sex. They are proud of it.”Las Vegas began filling its theaters ahead of New York, where most Broadway shows will not reopen until September, and other cities, though many are now rushing to catch up. “I don’t know if culturally that’s a good thing,” Jillette said. “But I will tell you I believe we’re right this time.”The city’s tourism-powered economy was staggered during the pandemic, as Americans avoided airplanes, restaurants, theaters and crowds. Those days seem to be over.“As soon as the governor and the county said we could open, the resorts wanted us to open,” said Ross Mollison, the producer of “Absinthe,” a cabaret and adult humor show, whose website reassures guests by saying, “When you arrive at Absinthe, the Green Fairy promises you filthy fun in a spotless venue.” Penn & Teller had their first Las Vegas show in 1993, and have performed at the Rio since 2001.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesPenn & Teller started slowly, as they reunited an act whose first Las Vegas show began in 1993, in deference to the wishes of its performers as well as to state and local health regulations. Their first show was April 22, after both men were vaccinated. By last week 250 people were scattered around its 1,475-person auditorium as the lights dimmed one night just after 9 p.m. But with Nevada Covid-19 restrictions lifted as of June 1 by order of the governor, Steve Sisolak, the show is moving to increase capacity: It plans to sell every seat by the end of the summer, said Glenn S. Alai, its producer.They are at the front of a parade. David Copperfield is up and running, as is “Absinthe,” the Australian Bee Gees, Rich Little and a Prince tribute show. A six-show residency by Bruno Mars at Park MGM in July is sold out, and Usher, Miley Cyrus, Donny Osmond, Barry Manilow, Dave Chappelle, Garth Brooks and Bill Maher are all coming to town. Star D.J.s have been lined up by the city’s mega clubs.A dress rehearsal of “O” by Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino. Performances begin on July 1.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesShow business has always been big business in Las Vegas, but it has become even more vital in the decades since the region lost its near-monopoly on legal casino gambling. Before the pandemic, there were more than 100 theaters in Las Vegas, with a combined 122,000 seats, plus 18 arenas that can hold another 400,000 people.About half of the 42 million people who come to Las Vegas in a typical year attend a show, said Steve D. Hill, the president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “It’s a huge draw, it’s a huge part of the city,” he said. “It’s part of what creates the energy of this place.”Ana Olivier, a designer, and her husband, Van Zyl van Vuuren, a data scientist, bought tickets to four shows when they came here from Atlanta for a week’s long vacation.“Honestly, we just want to get out of the house,” Olivier said as they waited to enter Penn & Teller.Las Vegas is marking this moment with characteristic excess: A fireworks display will light up a long stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard on Independence Day, a coordinated display (produced by Grucci, of course) choreographed off the roofs of seven casinos.Cirque du Soleil hopes to have seven shows running in Las Vegas at full capacity by the end of the year. Performers warmed up for a rehearsal.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesThe more cautious approach being taken by most Broadway producers reflects the differences between the two cultures. Broadway theaters tend to be older and smaller, with cramped lobbies, bars, bathrooms and seats. As a matter of pure economics, it is not feasible to socially distance and sell enough seats to cover costs.Theaters in Las Vegas are typically vast and roomy, built into sprawling casino complexes.The pressure to reopen them, from business and political leaders, was huge. Shows are powerful revenue drivers for casinos, not only from box office receipts but for the way they attract tourists and typically require customers to wander through a tempting maze of slot machines, gaming tables, restaurants and bars to find their way to the entrance of the theater.For many shows it has been a slow climb to reopening, as they navigated changing regulations and gauged the eagerness of crowds to return. “Absinthe” tried opening in October, but as it was only allowed to sell a small fraction of its 700 seats, it soon shut down again: Producers decided it was not economically feasible for a show with a large cast and crew. It reopened again in April when it was allowed to increase capacity.Cirque du Soleil performers had to be fitted for costumes and wigs that had been sitting untouched for more than a year.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesFor all the optimism in the air, there are still reminders that this remains a moment of uncertainty. Performers, crew members and visitors to “O” rehearsals were required to get coronavirus tests to enter the theater. Performers wore masks even as they did their midair acrobatics, or went to subterranean dressing rooms to try on costumes and wigs that had been sitting untouched for more than a year. (The mask requirement was waved for swimmers and scuba divers.)Penn & Teller have had to make adjustments. They no longer rush to the door to shake hands with fans as they leave, a tradition for 45 years. And now, when they seek volunteers from the audience to come onstage, they relegate them to a chair at the end of the stage, well away from Jillette or Teller.The rehearse-in-masks requirement was waived for one set of Cirque du Soleil performers: its swimmers.Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times“You won’t find me strolling around in a supermarket without a mask for a while,” Teller said in an interview. “I am going to stick with the most careful protocols that are around. We are dying to have people onstage. Obviously we are not going to jump into that until we are confident that is the safe thing to do.”Signs posted in casinos announce that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks, but that those who have not been vaccinated must cover their mouths — not that there are enforcers walking around the casino floors demanding C.D.C. vaccination cards. That means that “O” cast and crew walk out of the high-precaution Covid-is-still-with-us environment of their theater and into the decidedly laxer world of the rest of Las Vegas.The travel and leisure audience alone will not be enough to assure that entertainment in Las Vegas can return to what it was. The key question now is whether convention business returns after the Zoom era. Alan Feldman, a fellow at the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that was what he was watching most closely, although he said the rising interest in tourism was a good sign. “There is clearly pent-up demand for Las Vegas,” he said.Tourists are coming back, if not yet at pre-pandemic levels. The next question is whether the convention business will rebound after an era where remote meetings flourished.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesProducers, having weathered what most described as the most difficult time of their careers, are hopeful that in the weeks ahead, Las Vegas will show the world that it is safe to return to something close to business as usual.“I am very confident,” said Daniel Lamarre, the president of Cirque du Soleil. “We are selling at a pace that is double what we do normally. It indicates to me that people are just crazy to go out and see humans perform. ”Tourists make up the overwhelming majority of people who come to the Strip, but some Las Vegas area residents venture out as well. John Vornsand, a retired Clark County planner who lives in nearby Henderson, had not seen a show here since Rod Stewart performed in 2019 at Caesars Palace. He was back the other night with his wife, Karen, for Penn & Teller.“I bought the tickets the first day they were out,” said Vornsand, who is vaccinated. “I said, ‘It’s her birthday and that’s it.’”“We don’t feel uncomfortable,” he said. “Although I do have a mask in my pocket.” More

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      ‘Worlds Fair Inn’ Review: You Can Check Out Anytime You Like

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      A lurid story about the serial killer H.H. Holmes gets an absurdist spin at the Axis Theater Company.What have we learned from all of those dark nights, and will anything have changed now that the lights are coming on again? These are the definitive questions of this odd moment, as theater begins its piecemeal reopening. “Worlds Fair Inn,” a new play at Axis Theater Company, offers one deflating response: nothing.At first, of course, a few differences manifest. Like the temperature check at the ticket taker’s table or the spacing between the seats in Axis’s dim, subterranean space. But “Worlds Fair Inn,” a neo-Gothic frippery that runs a brief but somehow labored 50 minutes, could have played at any time in the past two decades since Axis opened its doors.Written and directed by Randy Sharp, the artistic director of Axis, the piece takes obvious inspiration from the exploits of the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who carried out his murders in a building colloquially known as the World’s Fair Hotel. (Some of the victims were attendees of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.) The program mentions that the show is equally indebted to the exploits of the atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. That part doesn’t come through.Sharp gives Holmes’s lurid story an absurdist spin. Three men, dressed like punk-rock versions of Buster Keaton, meet on a stage crowded with whiskey bottles. One of them, Frank (Brian Barnhart), announces a plan to build a hotel to house fair attendees. The other two (George Demas and Jon McCormick) sign on as builders and accomplices. Eventually they lure a man and a woman (Edgar Oliver and Britt Genelin) to the check-in desk, murdering them and then mutilating and reanimating their corpses.Despite its historical sources, the show gives little sense of time or place — or plot or character, for that matter. The dialogue bumbles, though there are a few odd felicities, like Frank’s habit of pronouncing “fair” as “fire” and a lone, lame joke. “So you would do whatever I say even if it goes against your beliefs as a human being?” Frank asks his new colleagues. “I’m a contractor,” one says, by way of assent.This play, like many of Axis’s productions, mostly serves as a pretext for David Zeffren’s tenebrous lighting and Paul Carbonara’s ominous sound design. Though the show concerns interior spaces, “Worlds Fair Inn” never gestures to how long many of us spent inside over the past year. And those of us who want a theater that believes in diversity and equity are likely to find the show’s seemingly all-white cast discouraging. While it feels like a miracle to be allowed sit down in a theater again, program in hand and live actors onstage, that wonder ebbs.Still, what a treat to spend a little time with Oliver. He is an absolutely sui generis actor who resembles nothing so much as an Edgar Allan Poe short story made flesh. (If it matters, I once rode the B67 bus with him and his offstage manner is equally, wonderfully sepulchral.)His character isn’t onstage for very long, though the moments passed with him provide their own peculiar pleasure. Even as we hope that theater will return much more engaged and brave and dynamic and diverse, how nice to see a strange and familiar face.Worlds Fair InnThrough June 19 at the Axis Theater, Manhattan; axiscompany.org. More

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      ‘In the Heights’ Premiere Celebrates the Neighborhood That Started It All

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      As throngs of residents watched, the stars of the movie, set in Washington Heights, walked a sunny yellow carpet outside the United Palace.At the Plaza de las Americas in Washington Heights, fruit and vegetable vendors usually sell produce until dusk. But on Wednesday, it was transformed into a replica of any other block in the neighborhood. There was a mock bodega, decorated with three Dominican flags that hung from an awning, a faux fire hydrant and a plastic fruit stand. Underneath the entire set ran a yellow carpet.The reproduction served as a backdrop for the luminaries attending for the premiere of “In the Heights,” the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning Broadway show. The sunny carpet welcomed the cast and crew back to the Upper Manhattan neighborhood where it was filmed. The premiere, which also served as opening night of the 20th Tribeca Festival, was held at the United Palace, a majestic 91-year-old theater with a projection system that, years earlier, before his success on Broadway, Miranda had helped raise money to buy and then helped install.While the actors, producers and executives streamed down the yellow carpet, pausing for pictures with photographers and interviews with the news media, the real Washington Heights whirred behind them. Waitresses at Malecon, a Dominican restaurant across the street from the plaza, peered outside the windows in between serving heaps of rice, stew chicken and beans, trying to figure out why crowds had formed in front of their restaurant on a sticky 90-degree day.Maritza Luna, left, and Eglis Suarez were among the fans waiting outside the theater for a glimpse of the stars.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDiners at El Conde Nuevo, another Dominican restaurant across the street, stood on the corner also trying to decipher the rumpus outside. And then, Miranda — wearing a pale blue, long-sleeve chacabana, jeans and the same Nike Air Force 1s, often called Uptowns in the City, that he wore to the Broadway opening of “In the Heights” — arrived with his family, and everyone erupted in cheers.Jorge Peguero, 71, was on his way home when he stopped and became a proud member of the crowd.“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this is fantastic,” said Peguero, a resident of Washington Heights since 1969. “It’s a big deal that Tribeca chose to represent the Dominican community, and it’s the first time ever that we see anything like it.”Miranda, who still lives in Washington Heights, had hoped to premiere the movie where it is set.“All I ever wanted was this neighborhood to be proud of themselves and the way they are portrayed,” said Miranda, who was within walking distance of his home and his parent’s home. “I still walk around here with my headphones on, and everyone is just like well, Lin-Manuel is writing.”“I feel safe here,” he added.Lin-Manuel Miranda, left, who wrote the music and lyrics for “In the Heights,” and Anthony Ramos, who stars in the movie.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMany Washington Heights residents have not yet had their encounter with Miranda in the neighborhood. Eglis Suarez, 48, was hoping to change that.“I want to see Lin,” she said. “We are so proud, this is progress for this community and for the city.”Exuberant and critically adored, “In the Heights,” directed by Jon M. Chu, is a look at the shifts that happen between first- and second-generation immigrants. The elders hope to make it out of the neighborhood they left home for, while their younger counterparts plan to stay in the neighborhood they call home. It is a story that has occurred a million times over in the area and one that Hudes, who also lives there, encountered daily while filming.“This isn’t about a hero or a protagonist, it’s about what happens when a community holds hands together and life kind of pushes those hands apart,” said Hudes, who wore large hoops and a flower-print jumpsuit. “It’s about these blocks and these living rooms where you go after school and do your homework or play bingo during a blackout, it’s all here.”Washington Heights has been home to middle- and working-class Dominicans since the 1960s. In the 1980s, the neighborhood, like many others in the city, was flooded with cocaine and crack, making it unsafe for the community. Those days are past now and some residents say it’s time to move on from a narrative in countless movies and rap songs that no longer fits the neighborhood.“I’m so proud of this movie,” said Sandra Marin Martinez, 67, a lifelong Washington Heights resident. “Who wouldn’t be? At least there’s no shooting.”“Everything is dancing, these are my people, I grew up dancing here,” she added as she waited for a glimpse of the cast walking into the theater.“In the Heights” Premiere13 PhotosView Slide Show ›Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesYudelka Rodriguez, 51, was standing with her daughter waiting for the cast to arrive. She was excited to see her hood in the movie and herself represented.“I am so emotional,” Rodriguez said as she leaned on a metal gate. “This is the most beautiful thing, to see that your barrio is involved in this; it’s the best feeling.”That feeling is something Paula Weinstein, an organizer of the Tribeca Festival (which dropped “film” from its name this year), hoped to replicate all over the city with this movie.“This is what we’ve been dreaming of — New York is back,” Weinstein said. “This is a tribute to the Dominican community, this is what is the best of New York. Every generation of immigrants start one place and move into the community, That’s what’s great about New York, that’s what we want to celebrate.”In the theater, Robert De Niro, a founder of the festival, introduced Miranda, who then introduced the rest of the cast. The energy was electric from the stage to the seats. When a title card that read “Washington Heights” appeared on the screen, the crowd whooped and applauded.When the movie’s star, Anthony Ramos, arrived, the makeshift set was surrounded by a small crowd. As he stepped out in black-and-white cheetah-print pants, with a matching shirt and jacket, gingerly placed on his shoulders, the crowd at the corner of 175th and Broadway thundered with applause and cheers.“I didn’t grow up even going to Broadway, and most New York people don’t grow up going to Broadway,” said Ramos, who is a Brooklyn native. “To tell a New York story about a community that’s so familiar and so special to people from New York is particularly special for me.” More

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      No Broadway Shows? No Problem. Walking Tours Fill a Void.

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      Tim Dolan of Broadway Up Close and his crew of tour guides are back on the sidewalks, catering to a growing number of visitors.On a recent weekday morning, a cluster of 10 masked out-of-towners found themselves in the garish maw of Times Square. Tim Dolan, their tour guide, held up an iPad showing a black-and-white photograph of the area in 1900, when it was filled with horse carriages rather than jumbo LED screens. In the photo, a man is shoveling a pile of manure. “The only thing that hasn’t changed is the smell,” Dolan said with affection.Dolan calls himself “probably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.” It’s his neighborhood, he says, even though he lives in an apartment in Hamilton Heights with his French bulldog, Belasco, named after his favorite theater.Archival images of Times Square are incorporated into the tours.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe’s also probably one of the few people who can tell you the story of the actor who appeared in 9,382 performances of “The Phantom of the Opera,” or precisely why there were live lions onstage at the Broadhurst Theater for 14 nights in 1921.Dolan is the founder of Broadway Up Close, whose shamrock-green-shirted tour guides have, for 11 years, led one hour-and-45-minute tours of the area between 41st and 54th Streets, from Avenue of the Americas to Eighth Avenue. They talk about the buildings, the business and backstage gossip of the Theater District — including this newspaper, which gave Times Square its name — tracking its history from Oscar Hammerstein I to “Hamilton.” Dolan is also behind one of Times Square’s latter-day landmarks and photo ops, currently stashed away: a typographical jumble of the letters of “Broadway” near a pedestrian plaza, which looks good on Instagram.Last year, when the Great White Way went dark, Dolan’s tours stopped accordingly. (At the time, they were running 10 to 12 tours a week.) The exsanguine atmosphere of the place was especially heartbreaking for him. He missed his adopted community of performers, stage hands, TKTS staff members. “Even the Naked Cowboy,” he said. “I felt like I saw literal tumbleweeds roll down 44th Street.”A pre-pandemic poster for “Sing Street,” which was supposed to start previews at the Lyceum Theater in March 2020. Amy Lombard for The New York Times“Hamilton” will resume performances on Sept. 14 at the Richard Rodgers Theater on West 46th Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesA poster for “MJ the Musical,” scheduled to open this winter at the Neil Simon Theater on West 52nd Street.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBut now, with coronavirus in retreat and reopening dates appearing on theater marquees, Dolan and his Broadway Up Close tour guides are back on the sidewalks nearly every day, catering to a slowly but surely growing number of visitors.It beats giving the tours virtually, though Dolan still conducts a couple of virtual tours a week. “So much of it is reading the audience, engaging with the audience, picking up on what they’re most interested in,” Dolan said. “It’s hard to do that in a webinar.”Visitors joined Dolan for a recent “Shubert Brothers and Beyond” tour.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesGiven that the tours attract musical lovers and theater die-hards, they are also currently serving as a substitute for actual Broadway. “We would definitely be seeing a show a night,” said Carrie Mershon, a visitor from Kansas who was taking the tour. She had booked the family’s New York trip months ago, in the hopes that Broadway productions would be up and running by now. No such luck; their show tickets had been refunded. “This fills the void a little bit.”At least Dolan can be relied upon to put on a show. Befitting the location, the more over-the-top the story, the better: Know the one about a “Follies” girl who found herself riding a runaway ostrich? How about the music director who dove into a watery orchestra pit after a flash flood at “Evita”? Or the theatergoer who fell out of the window onto the marquee of the Lyceum Theater?Dolan delivers colorful anecdotes and his fact-filled soliloquies with the polished enthusiasm of a jobbing actor. He was last onstage three years ago, in a regional production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and said he had booked a show in Michigan before the pandemic struck.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesHe has an actor’s knack for the emotional overshare too, pointing out his ex-girlfriend in a photo of the original “Hamilton” cast. “She’s with Daveed Diggs now,” one of the younger members of the tour group said, matter-of-factly.“I am aware!” Dolan replied.He moved to the city in 2003 to train at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After graduation, he performed in “Altar Boyz” for two years, and then felt the pressure to get what many in the profession call a “survival job.” He’s still not a fan of the term. “I didn’t want to just get by. I wanted another job that was just as fulfilling as when I’m onstage or in an audition room.”Realizing there was a lack of good Broadway-centric walking tours, he picked up his New York City tour guide license and set out to tell strangers lesser-known stories about his favorite place in the world. He read scores of books and scoured the photo archives of the Museum of the City of New York and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Most enjoyable, he relentlessly picked the brains of other industry professionals.The Broadway Up Close kiosk in Times Square.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesIf anything, he had to rein in his passions: The original version of the tour covered all 40 Broadway theaters open at the time, and was seven-and-a-half hours long. Eventually, Dolan divided it into three separate tours, later adding a historical Alexander Hamilton tour and one on Broadway ghost stories, plus an interior tour of the Hudson Theater that’s currently on pause.Dolan’s eyes light up when describing the very earliest days of Times Square, a time when, for example, you might visit a recreation of a Dutch farm, replete with sheep and windmill, on a 42nd Street rooftop. Perhaps more surprisingly, Dolan is a defender of the 21st-century incarnation of the place. “We lament the loss of the old, while loving the new,” he told the group while his “Shubert Brothers and Beyond” tour stopped in the spot where a beautiful French Renaissance-style theatrical complex called the Olympia used to be. (An Old Navy store is there now.)Amy Lombard for The New York Times“You can have commerce, and art, and a safe neighborhood all at the same time,” Dolan told me. “If you’re looking for the nostalgia amid the ‘Disneyification,’ you just have to know where to look. Wanting to find the old among the new is part of why I started this.”Dolan expects Broadway Up Close to be back to prepandemic levels of business later in the year. By then, he hopes, the area will start to feel like its old self again. “I don’t think it’s in September, when we just have a couple of shows open. I think it’s once we hit maybe December, and there’s a handful of shows, and there’s the yellow Playbills in a sea of people in Times Square. Maybe less masks too. I don’t think New York City will fully be reopened until that moment happens.”Tim Dolan calls himself “probably the only New Yorker who would ever say they love Times Square.”Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBefore that, Dolan has a date, on Sept. 14, with the Gershwin Theater — where “Sweeney Todd” had its premiere in 1979 and “Starlight Express” opened in 1987 — for the return of the musical “Wicked.”“I’ll be the grown man in the last row, crying.” More

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      Jeff Daniels to Return to Broadway in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

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      The production also has a new management team to replace Scott Rudin, who stepped aside after allegations of abusive behavior.Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which before the pandemic was the rare play to have a long and lucrative Broadway run, will resume performances on Oct. 5.It will reopen with a pair of familiar faces onstage: Jeff Daniels, who starred as the righteous lawyer Atticus Finch during the show’s first year, will return to lead the cast, and Celia Keenan-Bolger, who won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Finch’s daughter, Scout, in the original cast, will return to that role. They are planning to remain in the cast until Jan. 2.Offstage, there is more change.This is the first of Scott Rudin’s shows to announce a plan to move on without its lead producer. In April, Rudin said he would step back from producing after facing scrutiny of his bullying behavior.The production will now be overseen by Orin Wolf, who was the lead producer of the Tony-winning musical “The Band’s Visit,” and who is the president of a touring company, NETworks, that before the pandemic had been engaged by Rudin to supervise a “Mockingbird” tour. Wolf’s title will be executive producer, and he will be responsible for the show’s operations, reporting to Barry Diller, a lead producer who will be the producers’ managing member with ultimate responsibility for its financing.“The show was positioned in a strong and beautiful way, and I don’t think my job is to come in and fix anything, but to honor what’s there,” Wolf said in an interview. “I’m not coming in to make artistic decisions.”Wolf said Rudin would not have any role with the production, adding that he has had no recent communication with Rudin. Wolf’s agreement was negotiated with Diller, he said, and a condition of his employment was that Rudin would have no voice in the production.“The Broadway company will no longer pay any compensation to Scott as a producer, and he’ll no longer have any managerial or decision-making role of any kind,” Wolf said. “He does have a small investment position, which is passive.”“To Kill a Mockingbird,” adapted from the 1960 Harper Lee novel, opened on Broadway in December 2018. It has consistently played to full houses; over the course of the play’s prepandemic run, it had an audience of 810,000 people and grossed $120 million, according to the Broadway League. The show recouped its $7.5 million capitalization — the amount of money it took to bring it to Broadway — 19 weeks after opening.Wolf, who has collaborated several times with the director of “Mockingbird,” Bartlett Sher, said he agreed to manage the production in order to try to protect both the show and its 182 employees. “We’re going into uncharted territory,” he said, “but my job is to make sure we’re creating an environment for the artists to do their jobs, to make sure we’re putting the production back up that people loved, and once we’ve done that job, my job is to keep trying to discover what this post-pandemic audience is.”Wolf will also continue to oversee the national tour of “Mockingbird,” which is scheduled to start performances in Buffalo, N.Y., next March and to open in Boston next April, starring Richard Thomas. The British producer Sonia Friedman will oversee a London production, starring Rafe Spall, that is scheduled to begin performances in March. More