Theater

The Upright Citizens Brigade comedy organization, which has been financially troubled in recent years, has announced an effort to diversify its ranks and remake itself, at least in part, as a nonprofit.The group’s founders, Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh, who control operations of the organization’s training program and theaters, said that they have been seeking nonprofit status since February, and that they intend to pass control of their theaters to a new board “of diverse individuals.” They revealed the outline of their plans in an email on Saturday addressed to the “U.C.B. community.”The statement said that they want the board to address “the questions of systemic racism and inequality within the theaters,” among other issues. The news comes less than two months after U.C.B. announced the closing of its two Manhattan locations — a theater in Hell’s Kitchen and a training center on Eighth Avenue — after they had gone dark in response to the pandemic.U.C.B. still has two locations in Los Angeles, and has been operating online improv and sketch classes as part of its efforts to weather the pandemic’s financial impact.Even before it closed its New York locations in April, the organization had been under strain: In what was not the first round of cuts in the last few years, it laid off many employees on both coasts in March, and early last year it closed a third New York location, in the East Village. More

This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.On the streets of New Haven, Conn., Margaret Holloway was known as the “Shakespeare Lady,” a tall, striking woman in ragged clothing who recited dramatic monologues for spare change.Her stage, often, was outside Willoughby’s coffee shop, a hangout for Yale students and professionals. Her repertoire included “The Tempest,” “Macbeth” and the Greek alphabet, which she acted out letter by letter.Many regarded Ms. Holloway as an eccentric local fixture; in the view of some business owners, however, she was an aggressive panhandler and public nuisance. But for those who knew her personal history, her life had tragic dimensions not unlike the material she performed.Ms. Holloway was a 1980 graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a once-promising director, playwright and actor. In the early 1970s she was a drama major at Bennington College in Vermont“She was star of the theater department,” Laura Spector, a college friend, said in an interview. “She was so talented, so powerful, so magnetic.”Ms. Holloway’s career was cut short by mental illness and drug addiction soon after she left Yale. But she never stopped seeking understanding, human connection and, above all, artistic expression.“She loved people — she had relationships with everyone all over New Haven,” said Joan Channick, a Yale drama school professor who struck up a friendship with Ms. Holloway in the 1990s. “She called herself a great thespian. She had a lot of confidence in herself.”Ms. Holloway died at 69 on May 30 at Yale New Haven Hospital. Gloria Astarita, her court-appointed conservator, said the cause was the novel coronavirus.In “God Didn’t Give Me a Week’s Notice,” a short documentary about Ms. Holloway released in 2001, Ms. Holloway said she began experiencing signs of mental illness about 1983. She described her mental landscape this way: “I’m being raped. I’m being raped 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”Living in a dingy rooming house or on the streets, Ms. Holloway performed in the shadow of Yale’s campus, clinging, in a way, to a time in her life when she was healthy, successful and full of promise. Through it all her aspirations remained high-minded.“She would want to have a disquisition about directing some Shakespeare play,” Ms. Channick said. “Having those conversations with someone who was living on the streets, it was jarring. Here’s this person so connected to people, well-educated, with a love of art and theater, whose life was destroyed by mental illness.”Margaret Ann Holloway was born on Sept. 7, 1951, in Albany, Ga., to the Rev. Walter Holloway, a minister, and Bertha (Prince) Holloway, a homemaker. Ms. Holloway became estranged from her family as an adult.Through a nonprofit group that provides scholarships to gifted minority students, Ms. Holloway attended Northfield Mount Hermon, a prep school in Massachusetts. She attended Carleton College in Minnesota for a year before transferring to Bennington, where she came into her own as a drama student.Ms. Spector said she vividly remembered the one-woman autobiographical play that Ms. Holloway wrote, directed and starred in for her senior thesis, a work that dealt with her upbringing as a young black woman in the rural South. “She brought down the house,” Ms. Spector said.After decades out of touch, Ms. Spector reconnected with Ms. Holloway in 2005 after reading a newspaper article about her. She found the same lively, gregarious, emotionally intelligent person she had known. “I knocked on the door and from the top of the stairs she called out, ‘Laura, how the hell are you?’” Ms. Spector said. “She didn’t miss a beat.”Ms. Holloway, who stopped performing in the street about three years ago because of failing health, found a measure of stability and calm in recent times. Residing in a nursing home in New Haven, she had clean clothes, regular meals, a shower and monthly visits from Ms. Channick and other friends, who brought her money and the small luxuries she asked for, like lipstick.“We would talk about what was going on in the world,” Ms. Channick said. “But mostly, we would talk about theater.” More

[embedded content]A virus. A lockdown. A city in crisis. A nation inflamed.And against that backdrop, Broadway — one of New York City’s most recognizable industries and powerful economic engines — shuttered indefinitely.How to reflect this unsettling moment, and provide insight and entertainment to readers who have largely been confined to their homes, was the challenge in creating the debut installment of “Offstage,” a New York Times streaming series about the theater world on pause.First, at 7 p.m. Eastern on June 11, the critic-at-large Wesley Morris will hold a conversation with four African-American artists who had shows in the 2019-20 season: the director Kenny Leon (“A Soldier’s Play”); the actress Celia Rose Gooding (“Jagged Little Pill”) and co-stars Adrienne Warren and Daniel J. Watts (“Tina: The Tina Turner Musical”). The topic: What it’s like to be black on Broadway, and how the nation’s biggest stages should change.On those stages this season: a gender-bent revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”; shows set to the songbooks of Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette; “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”; and the girl-power extravaganza “Six,” which was 90 minutes from opening before Broadway closed down.Dramatically, there was “Slave Play,” perhaps the season’s most provocative production; and “The Sound Inside,” an intense character study that gave Mary-Louise Parker one of her finest roles.[Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris, hosts of the “Still Processing” podcast, will reunite to unpack the reckonings of the past few weeks. R.S.V.P. to join their live conversation, this Friday, June 12 at 4 P.M. E.T.]Following the conversation are the special performances: join the Times critics Ben Brantley and Jesse Green; the theater reporter Michael Paulson; and the editors Aisha Harris and Nicole Herrington as they present highlights from those shows and more.There will be song, dance and discussion — a chance to meet Sonya Tayeh, who choreographed “Moulin Rouge!,” and Jeremy O. Harris, who authored “Slave Play.” You’ll hear from Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and learn how artists stay creative in lockdown.R.S.V.P. for this event. [Join the conversation on Twitter using #NYToffstage. |Sign up for The New York Times Events newsletter and Theater Update newsletter. | Subscribe to Times Events on YouTube.] More

More than 300 theater artists — black, Indigenous and people of color — on Monday published a blistering statement addressed to “White American Theater” decrying racial injustice in their industry.“You are all a part of this house of cards built on white fragility and supremacy,” said the statement, which was published on the web. “And this is a house that will not stand.”The signatories include the Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda; the film and television stars Viola Davis and Blair Underwood; and many Tony Award winners, including the actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and the playwright David Henry Hwang, who is the chair of the American Theater Wing.The American narrative is shaped by storytellers,but for too long the White theater community has negated, censored or prevented our stories from being fully told.We must protect,support & amplify the voices of our truth tellers & change seekers #weseeyou https://t.co/Wsbqwtbry5— Lynn Nottage (@Lynnbrooklyn) June 9, 2020
The statement is the artists’ response to the unrest that has roiled the United States since George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.In the weeks that followed, as discussion of race relations has intensified, numerous black theater artists have taken to social media to describe experiences of racism.Two playwrights have begun surveying theatermakers of color about their experiences.The Broadway Advocacy Coalition, an organization pressing for social change, this week is holding a three-part forum “for the Broadway community to heal, listen, and hold itself accountable to its history of white supremacy.”In Britain, a group of theater artists has put together its own letter, calling for greater disclosure about diversity statistics by theaters there.There is even a petition circulating to make the Apollo Theater, the historic Harlem venue, a Broadway house.The statement addressing “White American Theater,” outlining the ways in which, it argues, artists of color are unjustly treated in the theater world, declares itself to be “in the legacy of August Wilson’s ‘The Ground on Which I Stand’,” an important 1996 speech by the playwright about race and the American stage.Headlined “We See You, White American Theater,” the statement repeatedly uses the phrase “we see you” to punctuate its observations about the theater world, and adds, “We have always seen you. And now you will see us.”It expresses concerns about programming (“We have watched you program play after play, written, directed, cast, choreographed, designed, acted, dramaturged and produced by your rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences”); labor unions (“we have watched you turn a blind eye as unions refuse to confront their racism and integrate their ranks”); media (“a monolithic and racist critical culture”); and nonprofit organizations (“asking us to politely shuffle at your galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners, in rooms full of white faces, without being willing to defend the sanctity of our bodies beyond the stages you make us jump through hoops to be considered for”).The statement comes at a time when most American theaters, including all of those on Broadway, are closed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic and most theater artists are unemployed. As unrest in the country over race relations has intensified, many theaters, as well as many commercial theater productions, have issued statements decrying racism and pledging to support systemic change; some have also opened their doors to protesters.It was not immediately clear who organized the statement, or what the collective’s next steps will be. Several signatories referred press questions to an email address; an inquiry to that address was not answered. The statement was posted as a petition on change.org, where tens of thousands of people signed. More

New Yorkers are reluctant to return to the theater this fall, according to a survey commissioned by The New York Times. What about out-of-towners, who make up more than two-thirds of the Broadway audience? What would it take for them to be comfortable?We put that question to readers of the Theater Update newsletter (subscribe here) and received hundreds of responses, most of them pessimistic — and pained. Here is an edited sampling:I’m ready now. I’ll wear the mask, I’ll wash my hands, I’ll sit every third or fourth seat. Whatever I need to do to get back in front of a live performance while safely and respectfully protecting my neighbors and theater staff! CORINNE ROSSI, Stonington, Conn.Without a vaccine or a cure, to attend a performance would not be a rational choice. The issue is not the statistical probability of getting the virus. Rather, it is the anxiety of being infected that prevents devout thespians, like yours truly, from going back. I actually had the virus and survived, and I do not wish this experience on anyone. ALEXANDER WAINTRUB, Los AngelesMy husband and I talked about this because we miss the theater so much. He would go back right now to Broadway as long as people were wearing masks. I would go back at 50 percent capacity. BARBARA PARKER, MiamiWhat might it take for us to come to Broadway again? Well, to start, probably a car drive rather than a flight, and socially distanced seating with mask wearing. Does that mean Broadway would have to present twice as many performances to accommodate playgoers at a safe distance? Have to leave that to the analysts, bean counters and presenters. PHILLIP LEVY, Raleigh, N.C. More

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This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.One thing people agree on about the theater producer John McCormack: he stopped at nothing to create opportunities for young actors. Also older actors. And young playwrights. And established playwrights who needed a recharge. And Latino playwrights, directors and actors.When 80 or so mostly theater people came together on Zoom to memorialize Mr. McCormack last month, nearly everyone told the same story: he lifted my career. Beyond that, his life was something of a mystery, even to relatives — how he managed financially, his personal world.“Everyone told the same story,” said Chris Messina, who in the mid-1990s knocked on the door of the Naked Angels theater company, where Mr. McCormack was artistic director, and announced himself as “one of the best actors in New York that you never heard of, and so is my girlfriend.”“And he smiled and looked at me and let me in,” said Mr. Messina, who is now an established television actor.The playwrights John Augustine, Jacquelyn Reingold and Warren Leight, whose Tony-winning play “Side Man” began with a basement reading arranged by Mr. McCormack after numerous theater companies had turned it down, all told the same story.Mr. Leight gave a typical exchange with Mr. McCormack: “I want to do this,” an actor would say, “And he said, ‘O.K., you’re going to do it.’ He’d figure out a way. And he did this for so many of us.”Mr. McCormack was a spotlight-averse facilitator of the Off Broadway world, who lived modestly and skipped the customary after-show revels because, as Ms. Reingold said, “He stayed behind and cleaned the bathrooms.”Mr. McCormack was found dead in his Queens apartment on May 20, after suffering heart failure apparently associated with Covid-19, his brother Paul said. He was 61.John Michael McCormack was born on April 13, 1959, in Manhattan, the fourth of six children. His father, Dr. James McCormack, was director of the New York Academy of Medicine; his mother, Ann, had her hands full raising the children in their home in Tenafly, N.J.After graduating from Hamilton College in 1981 with a degree in theater, Mr. McCormack joined the Ensemble Studio Theater, where he became producing director, and later moved on to Naked Angels. He helped start the Zipper Theater and Summer Shorts festival, and founded his own company, All Seasons Theater, before becoming executive director of INTAR, or International Arts Relations, which produces works by Latino playwrights.“When dealing with John, he always made it about you and how he could help you,” said José Rivera, who wrote two plays that Mr. McCormack produced. “That was his way of being the midwife, not being the center.”At one point, Mr. McCormack sublet an apartment from Mr. Leight, and after six months, “There was no trace that he was ever there,” Mr. Leight said. “It gets mystical. Who was this guy?”The answer, perhaps, was in plain sight: in the work and the artists he helped survive and thrive — until the pandemic closed theaters in New York. His next production for INTAR, “Yalit,” by Michael John Garcés, was scheduled to open June 5.He is survived by two brothers and two sisters. More