Theater

It’s taken almost 25 years but Lois Smith is once again a Tony Award nominee, this time for her performance as Margaret in Matthew Lopez’s play “The Inheritance.” (Her most recent nomination was for her featured role in Sam Shepherd’s “Buried Child,” in 1996.)She stood out in her role as the caretaker of a sanctuary for men dying of AIDS-related illnesses, though only appearing in Part 2 of this six-and-a-half-hour epic directed by Stephen Daldry. In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley called Smith’s acting “quietly brilliant.” We spoke with Smith after her nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play was announced. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.How does this compare to your previous nominations in 1990 and 1996? Obviously, this has been a difficult and complicated year.Oh my goodness, has it ever. Let me say that this is a kind of a stimulating day and professional stimulation has been in short supply this last six or eight months. Last week, we showed the “Angels in America” scenes, which amfAR had made, and that was extremely interesting. All the actors involved, we shot in our own rooms. Mine was a monologue. There was a lot of movie magic put into it. It was in no sense a Zoom reading. It was quite different. And last week, I remember saying to my family and friends, “It makes me feel like I’m working, even though I know I’m not.” I suppose today is similar.What’s it like compared to the others? Outside our doors there is dread and misery abounding. That of course is a great difference in life right now.Does the nomination mitigate the disappointment of theaters shutting down in March?It’s a lovely thing to have happened. We knew we were going to close. We were very fortunate compared to all our colleagues in the neighborhood that day in March because so many of them — really the majority of them — thought they were getting ready to open and that had to be so bitter and so difficult.You were the only female cast member in “The Inheritance.” Does that affect how you feel about being nominated?The whole experience of being in this play was like nothing else. There were two long three-act plays and I was only in Act III of the second play so I went to work three times a week late at night.To answer your question: No, I hadn’t thought about that. I loved this cast and they could not have been more embracing and enveloping and lovely to this “only female.” That was a pleasure every day.You mentioned doing these different projects during the shutdown that gave you a feeling of being at work. What else have you been doing to keep yourself busy?I have been fortunate to be spending time with my family who lives in Philadelphia — my daughter lives here — so I haven’t been by myself. I am certainly longing for the public life, which is one of the things about New York City I treasure and love. And I very much miss my friends.There have been some pluses for me. I am certainly comfortable and I’m with people I love. I have three grown grandchildren in their twenties and I’ve gotten to spend some time with them. They were also home, which they might not have been in ordinary times. I feel better acquainted with all of them. So there has been that bonus, in my life.There are, for some, some unexpected bright spots.That’s true. In private life. Yes. More

The Tony Award nominees were announced Thursday by James Monroe Iglehart, who won a Tony in 2014 for his performance as Genie in “Aladdin.” Below is a list of the nominees.Best Musical“Jagged Little Pill”“Moulin Rouge! The Musical”“Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Play“Grand Horizons”“The Inheritance”“Sea Wall/A Life”“Slave Play”“The Sound Inside”Best Revival of a Play“A Soldier’s Play”“Betrayal”“Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune”Best Book of a MusicalDiablo Cody, “Jagged Little Pill”John Logan, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Original ScoreChristopher Nightingale, “A Christmas Carol”Paul Englishby, “The Inheritance”Lindsay Jones, “Slave Play”Daniel Kluger, “The Sound Inside”Jason Michael Webb and Fitz Patton, “The Rose Tattoo”Best Direction of a PlayDavid Cromer, “The Sound Inside”Stephen Daldry, “The Inheritance”Kenny Leon, “A Soldier’s Play”Jamie Lloyd, “Betrayal”Robert O’Hara, “Slave Play”Best Direction of a MusicalPhyllida Lloyd, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Diane Paulus, “Jagged Little Pill”Alex Timbers, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Best Leading Actor in a PlayIan Barford, “Linda Vista”Andrew Burnap, “The Inheritance”Jake Gyllenhaal, “Sea Wall/A Life”Tom Hiddleston, “Betrayal”Tom Sturridge, “Sea Wall/A Life”Blair Underwood, “A Soldier’s Play”Best Leading Actress in a PlayJoaquina Kalukango, “Slave Play”Laura Linney, “My Name Is Lucy Barton”Audra McDonald, “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune”Mary-Louise Parker, “The Sound Inside”Best Leading Actor in a MusicalAaron Tveit, “Moulin Rouge!”Best Leading Actress in a MusicalKaren Olivo, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Elizabeth Stanley, “Jagged Little Pill”Adrienne Warren, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Featured Actor in a PlayAto Blankson-Wood, “Slave Play”James Cusati-Moyer, “Slave Play”David Alan Grier, “A Soldier’s Play”John Benjamin Hickey, “The Inheritance”Paul Hilton, “The Inheritance”Best Featured Actress in a PlayJane Alexander, “Grand Horizons”Cora Vander Broek, “Linda Vista”Chalia La Tour, “Slave Play”Annie McNamara, “Slave Play”Lois Smith, “The Inheritance”Best Featured Actor in a MusicalDanny Burstein, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Derek Klena, “Jagged Little Pill”Sean Allan Krill, “Jagged Little Pill”Sahr Ngaujah, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Daniel J. Watts, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Featured Actress in a MusicalKathryn Gallagher, “Jagged Little Pill”Celia Rose Gooding, “Jagged Little Pill”Robyn Hurder, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Myra Lucretia Taylor, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Lauren Patten, “Jagged Little Pill”Best Scenic Design of a PlayBob Crowley, “The Inheritance”Soutra Gilmour, “Betrayal”Rob Howell, “A Christmas Carol”Derek McLane, “A Soldier’s Play”Clint Ramos, “Slave Play”Best Scenic Design of a MusicalDerek McLane, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Riccardo Hernandez and Lucy Mackinnon, “Jagged Little Pill”Mark Thompson and Jeff Sugg, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best Costume Design of a PlayDede Ayite, “A Soldier’s Play”Dede Ayite, “Slave Play”Bob Crowley, “The Inheritance”Rob Howell, “A Christmas Carol”Clint Ramos, “The Rose Tattoo”Best Costume Design of a MusicalEmily Rebholz, “Jagged Little Pill”Mark Thompson, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Catherine Zuber, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Best Lighting Design of a PlayJiyoun Chang, “Slave Play”Jon Clark, “The Inheritance”Heather Gilbert, “The Sound Inside”Allen Lee Hughes, “A Soldier’s Play”Hugh Vanstone, “A Christmas Carol”Best Lighting Design of a MusicalBruno Poet, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Justin Townsend, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Justin Townsend, “Jagged Little Pill”Best Sound Design of a PlayPaul Arditti and Christopher Reid, “The Inheritance”Simon Baker, “A Christmas Carol”Lindsay Jones, “Slave Play”Daniel Kluger, “The Sound Inside”Daniel Kluger, “Sea Wall/A Life”Best Sound Design of a MusicalJonathan Deans, “Jagged Little Pill”Peter Hylenski, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Nevin Steinberg, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best ChoreographySidi Larbi Cherkaoui, “Jagged Little Pill”Sonya Tayeh, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Anthony Van Laast, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical”Best OrchestrationsJustin Levine, Matt Stine, Katie Kresek and Charlie Rosen, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Tom Kitt, “Jagged Little Pill”Ethan Popp, “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” More

The artistic director of the Huntington Theater Company in Boston has resigned, the company said on Wednesday, after months of upheaval over the workplace environment and an airing of grievances about the conduct of senior leaders.The director, Peter DuBois, led the company for 12 years before his departure, according to a statement from the president and chairman of the company’s board of trustees. The statement did not offer a clear reason for the resignation but said it had come at a time when the challenges of the pandemic had “illuminated concerns about the theater’s workplace environment and issues of structural imbalance.”A spokeswoman for the theater company, Temple Gill, said that DuBois’s resignation followed a board investigation that began after a complaint was received last month. She declined to elaborate on the nature of the complaint but said that 20 staff members had been interviewed and had spoken about a variety of issues surrounding workplace culture.The Boston Globe reported that a group of employees had sent an email to board leaders last month expressing concerns about “retaliation from supervisors and an overall lack of accountability in leadership.”In a statement by email, DuBois said that “during a time when the theater is not producing, and during a time of truly hopeful cultural transformation, I am no longer the right person for the job.”In August, an Instagram account called Boston BIPOC Theater, using an acronym for Black and Indigenous people and people of color, was created to publish descriptions of anonymous experiences from arts workers in the city amid an industrywide outcry around institutional racism.Many of the posts on the account were directed at the Huntington. Anonymous people who identified themselves as current or former employees wrote about “deep rooted issues with institutional racism” at the company and took issue with the ways in which the company had terminated workers during the pandemic.At one point, the Huntington was called on to respond directly to the Instagram posts, and it did, commenting, in part, “While we feel social media is not the best medium to conduct these complex conversations, we hear your voices and are working on these issues daily.”In recent months, the Huntington laid off 11 employees and furloughed about 46 others, Gill said. The company, which has paused its season indefinitely, estimates that it has lost about $6.3 million as a result of canceled shows and lost rental income.In the company’s statement on Wednesday, the board leaders wrote that the Huntington was using the time while it was not producing shows to “become a more equitable institution” and to increase “dialogue with our BIPOC staff and artists.”DuBois said in his statement that he was proud of the progress that had been made in diversity at the Huntington during his tenure, noting that if the pandemic had not struck, more than half of the theater’s actor contracts last season would have gone to artists of color. He added that he hoped people of color would be considered to replace him.“I hope that by resigning I can create an opening,” DuBois said, “which allows the theater to continue on its journey of structural transformation.” More

In the wake of complaints that “Spotlight on Plays,” a benefit series of Zoom readings, included work only by men, its lead producer announced on Tuesday four more planned shows, all written by women.They are “The Ohio State Murders,” by Adrienne Kennedy; “The Thanksgiving Play” by Larissa FastHorse, a recently named MacArthur fellow; “Dear Elizabeth” by Sarah Ruhl; and “Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous,” by Pearl Cleage.Jeffrey Richards, a veteran Broadway producer, introduced the readings series soon after the pandemic shut down Broadway. Last week, he announced seven shows for this fall, featuring such big-name cast members as Morgan Freeman, Patti LuPone, Laura Linney, Phylicia Rashad and Laurie Metcalf in works by David Mamet, Robert O’Hara, Kenneth Lonergan and others.The series, of one-night events that benefit the Actors Fund, begins on Wednesday night with Gore Vidal’s political drama “The Best Man.”Soon after the announcement, women in the theater world took to social media to point out that all of the writers were men, some also noting that only one of them, O’Hara, was Black.Questions of parity have been front and center in the theater world since the summer, even as very little work is being produced, most of it for short digital runs. Advocacy groups like Black Theater United and We See You, White American Theater have issued demands for change, with promises to hold theaters accountable for what they present and who they hire.Jessica Johnson, a publicist for the “Spotlight on Plays” series, said in a statement that the four spring readings, which don’t yet have casts or run dates, had already been in development.“These plays have been in the works and were decided upon before,” she said. Several additional titles will be announced for the spring within a week, she added. More

This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Maurice Edwards, whose long and varied résumé included directing operas and stage plays, acting in numerous Off Broadway productions and a few on Broadway and helping to found experimental theater troupes and manage the Brooklyn Philharmonic, died on Sept. 23 in Englewood, N.J. He was 97.His executor, James Waller, said the cause was the novel coronavirus. Mr. Edwards’s nephew and closest living relative, Allen Markson, said Mr. Edwards had moved to the Actors Fund Home in Englewood from a nursing home in Queens five days before his death.Mr. Edwards was a man of many interests and seemed to find ways to indulge them all. In 1968 he was a founder of the Cubiculo on the West Side of Manhattan, a seat-of-the-pants theater operation that presented plays, poetry readings, films and lots of dance.“To its growing, usually youthful, public — which often spills out of the 60‐ to 75‐chair seating area — the Cubiculo is unique,” The New York Times wrote in 1970 of the group, for which Mr. Edwards served as program coordinator.In 1974 he was a founder of another adventurous Manhattan troupe, the Classic Theater, which he described as “an Off Off Broadway group specializing in seldom-performed classics.”A production Mr. Edwards directed in 1978 underscored just how committed the troupe was to that mission. It was called “The Country Gentleman,” and Thomas Lask’s review in The New York Times began this way:“The Classic Theater, now holding forth at the Loretto Playhouse, 20 Bleecker Street, has come up with a rarity — a world premiere of a play 300 years old.”The play was a comedy written by Sir Robert Howard and George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, and took potshots at one of the duke’s rivals. King Charles II shut down rehearsals before it could be performed, and it lay dormant for centuries until it was discovered in the Folger Library in Washington. Mr. Edwards heard about it and latched on.He was artistic director of the Classic Theater from 1974 to 1989. The next year he became artistic director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, which he had been involved with for decades, first as assistant manager (when the group was known as the Brooklyn Philharmonia), then as manager and executive director. It was a period in which the orchestra, as The Times noted in 1989, “evolved from essentially a community ensemble to a highly visible part of New York’s musical life.”As artistic director, Mr. Edwards was responsible for the planning of recordings and tours. He served until 1997. In 2006 he told the ensemble’s story in the book “How Music Grew in Brooklyn: A Biography of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra.”He told his own story in “Revelatory Letters to Nina Cassian” (2011), an unusual memoir structured as a series of letters to Ms. Cassian, the exiled Romanian poet, whom he had married in 1998. The letters recounted episodes from his life and pondered their meaning. Eve Berliner, in her online magazine, called the book “a symphony of language and art and dance and music and literature.”Maurice Edward Levine was born on Dec. 7, 1922, in Amasa, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. According to a notation in the archives of the New School, where he donated some papers, he changed his name when he joined the Actors’ Equity Association sometime after World War II because there was another actor with his name.His father, Henry, was a trader in furs and scrap metal, and his mother, Sophia (Manhoff) Levine, was a homemaker.Mr. Edwards grew up in Madison, Wis., and in the 1940s earned a bachelor’s degree at New York University and a master’s in comparative literature at Columbia University. In that same decade he served in the Army, earning a Bronze Star when he, as the citation put it, “displayed great ability and self-sacrificing devotion by moving under fire to secure assistance” when his billeting party came under German sniper fire in April 1945.Mr. Edwards was a busy actor and, if never quite a famous one, worked opposite some who were or soon would be.He made his Broadway debut in 1950 in a secondary role in “Happy as Larry,” a vehicle for Burgess Meredith that lasted only three performances. His next Broadway turn, in 1954, fared better; it was the musical “The Golden Apple,” which helped elevate Kaye Ballard to stardom. He also played Nachum, the town beggar, in the original Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1964, with a cast led by Zero Mostel as Tevye.Off Broadway, his many credits included stepping into the role of Mr. J.J. Peachum as a replacement player in “The Threepenny Opera,” which opened at the Theatre de Lys in Greenwich Village in the mid-1950s and ran until 1961. He was also one of many replacement players in the long run of “The Fantasticks,” taking on the role of the father of the female lead.Mr. Edwards’s list of acting credits was rivaled in length by his list of directing credits. He directed dozens of plays for the Classic Theater, the Cubiculo and other groups. He also directed a number of operas, including several at the Brooklyn Academy of Music presented by the Brooklyn Philharmonic.Ms. Cassian died in 2014. Mr. Edwards had previously been married to Ann Alpert, who died in 1973. A son from that marriage, Jacob, died in 2007. Among those who worked with Mr. Edwards was the composer Leonard J. Lehrman. Mr. Lehrman completed Marc Blitzstein’s opera “Sacco and Vanzetti,” about the Italian immigrants executed in 1927 after having been convicted of murder during a highly questionable trial; Mr. Blitzstein had left it unfinished at his death in 1964. When Mr. Lehrman premiered the work at the White Barn Theater in Connecticut in 2001 he called upon Mr. Edwards to play two different Massachusetts governors: Alvan T. Fuller, who refused to grant clemency in the case, leading to the executions, and Michael S. Dukakis, who 50 years later issued a proclamation affirming that the two had been unfairly tried.“Maurice was quite a character,” Mr. Lehrman, who knew him for 30 years, said by email, “full of anecdotes, stories, puns and insights. It was sometimes not easy to end a phone conversation with him, but seldom did one want to!” More

Facing enormous financial strain because of the shutdown of the theater industry, the health insurance fund that covers thousands of stage actors is making it more difficult for them to qualify for coverage.Currently, professional actors and stage managers have to work 11 weeks to qualify for six months of coverage. But starting Jan. 1, they will have to work 16 weeks to qualify for a similar level of coverage.Nonprofit and commercial theater producers contribute to the health fund when they employ unionized actors and stage managers, but because theaters have been closed since March, those contributions — which make up 88 percent of the fund’s revenue — have largely ceased.“The fact that we have no contributed income is something no one could have foreseen,” said Christopher Brockmeyer, a Broadway League executive who co-chairs the fund’s board of trustees, which is evenly divided between representatives of the Actors’ Equity union and producers. “We really put together the only viable option to cover as many people as possible with meaningful benefits under these totally unprecedented circumstances.”Brockmeyer and his co-chair, Madeleine Fallon, said the fund, which currently provides insurance coverage for about 6,700 Equity members, is facing its biggest financial challenge since the height of the AIDS crisis. At that time, the challenge was high expenses for the fund; this time, it is low revenues.“Everybody is out of work, everybody is panicked, everybody has lost income and can’t make their art, and on top of that their health fund is in crisis,” said Fallon, who leads the union bloc on the board. “It’s been an emotionally difficult journey, but we hope our members will understand that we did find the plan that gives us our best chance to rebuild.”Under the new system, those who work at least 12 weeks can qualify for lower-tiered plans with higher co-payments and more restrictions.Actors’ Equity, which appoints half of the fund’s trustees, but is otherwise an independent organization, opposes the changes.“We all understand that there is no escaping the devastating loss of months of employer contributions nationwide, and no alternative aside from making adjustments to the plan,” the union’s president, Kate Shindle, said in a statement. “But I believe that the fund had both the obligation and the financial reserves to take the time to make better choices.”Shindle said the union had asked its members on the fund’s board of trustees not to support the changes until they conducted a study about the potential impact on union members of color, on pregnant union members, and on union members who live outside New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.A similar battle is unfolding in the film and television industry. Members of SAG-AFTRA, a union representing actors in those media, have loudly objected to changes in their health plan.Stage actors are accustomed to working to earn health care benefits — some take jobs for the express purpose of getting weeks that will help qualify them for insurance. But many actors are not working at all, and can’t qualify no matter how many weeks are required.As a result, some will be uninsured, while others can get coverage through Medicaid, COBRA or the Affordable Care Act. The Actors Fund is providing “health insurance counseling” to those facing a loss of coverage.The Equity-League Health Fund, which is available to unionized actors and stage managers who work in commercial and nonprofit productions on Broadway, Off Broadway, and at regional theaters around the country, informed its beneficiaries of the changes on Thursday.The fund began the pandemic with $120 million in reserves, and is now down to $91 million. Its administrators project that reserves will drop below $20 million by the middle of next year if its eligibility and benefits rules remain unchanged, and that it will be unable to pay benefits at all by the end of next year. More