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      Lea Salonga Is Never Getting Tired of Sondheim

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      Nobody doubted that Lea Salonga could sing.She had won a Tony Award at the age of 20 for her breakout role as the besotted Vietnamese teen Kim in “Miss Saigon,” and sung her heart out as Éponine, and later Fantine, in Broadway productions of “Les Misérables.” She provided the crystalline vocals of not one but two Disney princesses: the warrior heroine of 1998’s “Mulan” and the magic carpet-riding Princess Jasmine in 1992’s “Aladdin.”But could the singer handle Sondheim — a composer heralded for creating some of the most challenging, idiosyncratic work seen on the American stage — on Broadway? Could she inhabit a character like Momma Rose, the monstrous, pathologically ambitious stage mother from “Gypsy”? Or Mrs. Lovett from “Sweeney Todd,” the butcher/baker who breaks down the marketing challenges of hawking pies filled with human meat, in a Cockney accent, no less?“Some of it’s hard,” Salonga admitted.But she is doing all that and more in “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” currently playing at the Ahmanson Theater here in Los Angeles after a 16-week run in London’s West End. Scheduled to begin previews on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater next month, the show features more than three dozen songs from some of Sondheim’s biggest musicals, including “West Side Story,” “Gypsy,” “A Little Night Music” and “Into the Woods.” The tribute revue also stars Bernadette Peters, who, no stranger to Sondheim, put her own indelible stamp on the character of Momma Rose in 2003.Salonga, center, stars in “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends” with, from left, Jasmine Forsberg, Beth Leavel, Bernadette Peters, Kate Jennings Grant, Bonnie Langford, Maria Wirries and Joanna Riding.Matthew MurphySalonga, Peters said, “has one of the great Broadway voices, and she just brings down the house.”For Salonga, “I’m getting the chance to sing some of the most incredible lyrics ever written. I’m getting to dip, not just a toe, but my entire body, into this incredible work.”“Nobody was surprised how terrific she was as a performer,” said the show’s producer Cameron Mackintosh, who also cast Salonga in “Miss Saigon” and “Les Misérables.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tramell Tillman of ‘Severance’ Gives Himself a Performance Review

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      This interview contains spoilers from Season 2, Episode 5 of “Severance.”It’s hard to imagine Seth Milchick being late for anything.The manager of the “severed” floor in Apple TV+’s darkly satirical workplace thriller “Severance,” Mr. Milchick, as he is mostly known, is the consummate company man. He is a silky-voiced, coldhearted enforcer and is punctilious to the point of menace.Much less is known about the actor who plays him, Tramell Tillman. Before “Severance,” his résumé consisted mostly of minor TV roles and theater. So when he agreed to meet on a recent weekday afternoon at Manhattanville Coffee, near his apartment in Upper Manhattan, I couldn’t help but half expect him to be waiting for me there, hands folded on the table, wearing a mouth-only smile that barely cloaked his disappointment that I hadn’t shown up earlier.Instead something much more charming, less android-like, had happened: Tillman had gone to the wrong Washington Heights location of Manhattanville.He texted: “I’ll come to you.” Ten minutes later, he blew in the door, apologetic as he unwrapped himself from a thick scarf, ski cap and tan utility jacket. “My bad,” he said. “It’s been a crazy week.”One got the impression it had been a crazy few years for Tillman since the debut of his breakout role in “Severance,” a disturbingly allegorical sci-fi series that follows a group of workers who have had their consciousness “severed” into discrete work and home selves. The show was an instant cultural phenomenon, and a critical darling, when it premiered in 2022 — a particularly claustrophobic time for many, when distinctions between home and office life were rapidly collapsing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ken Wydro, Who Helped Create an Off Broadway Phenomenon, Dies at 81

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      He and his wife, Vy Higginsen, poured all they had into “Mama, I Want to Sing,” a long-shot musical that became an enduring staple of Black theater.Ken Wydro, a playwright, director and producer who with his wife, Vy Higginsen, poured their life savings into the Off Broadway gospel musical “Mama, I Want to Sing,” an enduring work of Black theater that ran for more than 2,800 performances, died on Jan. 21 at his home in Harlem. He was 81.The cause was heart failure, his daughter, Ahmaya Knoelle Higginson, said.“Mama, I Want to Sing” tells the tale of a minister’s daughter who rises to international fame as a soul singer. The show is loosely based on the life of Ms. Higginsen’s older sister, Doris Troy, who honed her singing chops at her father’s Pentecostal church in Harlem and later tasted the big time by co-writing and recording “Just One Look,” which was a Top 10 single for her in 1963 and later became a hit for both the Hollies and Linda Ronstadt.Ms. Troy also made her mark as a backup singer on rock anthems like the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and in 1970 she released a solo album on the Beatles’ label, Apple Records, with a supporting cast that included George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Billy Preston.“Mama, I Want to Sing” is “a Black Cinderella story,” Mr. Wydro said in a 2013 interview with Call Me Adam, an entertainment website. “Coming from behind, finding oneself through loss, pain and family love.”A 1988 performance of “Mama, I Want to Sing” at the Heckscher Theater in East Harlem. Nearly every major theatrical producer in New York rejected the show before it found a home there.Martha SwopeAlthough “Mama” ultimately had a marathon run, success was anything but guaranteed. Nearly every major theatrical producer in New York rejected the show, fearing that a gospel-heavy musical would attract a limited audience.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Theater to Watch at Home: ‘Uncle Vanya’ and an Alice Childress Revival

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      A bare-bones Chekhov, a critically acclaimed revival of “The Wedding Band” and the cult TV series “Smash” are all available for streaming.‘The Wedding Band’Stream it on Stratfest@Home.In 2022, Alice Childress’s play about love and hate, written in 1962, received its first major revival in 50 years, to much acclaim. The following year, “The Wedding Band,” was staged at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, making it a welcome second coming for our theater critic.The play about an interracial couple — a Black woman, played by Antonette Rudder, and a white man, Cyrus Lane — who, in 1918 South Carolina, can’t wed, is a searing examination of a miscegenation nation. Writing for The New York Times, Jesse Green called the 2023 Stratford production, directed by Sam White, a “revelation,” adding that the festival’s revival “confirms the play’s vitality.”From Green’s critic’s notebook:It’s a joyful thing when a great play that seemed to be lost is found. How much more so when its greatness is confirmed and the play takes root in the soil of a new time. That was my experience seeing Alice Childress’s “Wedding Band” … The director Sam White’s production unexpectedly adds another layer of tragedy. Her staging emphasizes the hard-won pleasures of the central relationship, so that something valuable is felt to be lost when the world intervenes. … We see how the tragedy of racism makes victims of everyone.‘Vanya on 42nd Street’Stream it on Amazon Prime, Pluto TV or the Roku Channel.New York is experiencing something of an explosion of Chekhov. “The Seagull” featured prominently in Theaterlab’s recent production of “Nina”; “The Cherry Orchard” is coming to St. Ann’s Warehouse next month, along with “Vanya,” an adaptation of “Uncle Vanya,” starring Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott and Andrew Scott (he plays every role). Its Off Broadway debut comes after a highly praised run in London. The one-man show, adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Sam Yates, won last year’s Olivier Award — Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.But you don’t have to be in a theater to take in Chekhov. If you’ve never seen “Vanya on 42nd Street,” the 1994 Louis Malle film of André Gregory’s production, now is a timely moment to watch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: Idina Menzel Climbs to New Broadway Heights in ‘Redwood’

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      The “Wicked” belter scales a 300-foot tree, and a mountain of songs, in a powerful if woo-woo musical about trauma and resilience.The musical “Redwood,” which opened on Thursday at the Nederlander Theater, features two great stars. One is an awe-inspiring force of nature. The other is a tree.The force of nature is Idina Menzel, who sings in 13 of the show’s 17 songs, of which seven are essentially solos. Has anyone ever belted so much, so tirelessly and hair-raisingly?But the size of the role is nothing compared with its emotional complexity and the depth of Menzel’s immersion in it. Her Jesse is a walking panic attack, an avoidant overtalker, an entitled princess and a grief-stricken mother. More astonishing, she is all of these at once, and right from the start. We meet her speeding westward from New York City with a terrible loss in the rearview mirror and no idea where she’s going.We know, though. The musical, by Tina Landau (book, lyrics and direction) and Kate Diaz (music and lyrics), with additional contributions from Menzel herself, is not named “Redwood” idly. Soon Jesse comes upon a grove of the giant trees near Eureka, Calif., and we meet our other star. She — for Jesse not only genders her but also names her Stella — is 14 feet wide and 300 feet tall and centuries if not millenniums old.I am sure redwoods are awesome in real life; I have never seen one. But the tree that Landau and her designers have put onstage is among the most beautiful and wondrous theatrical creations I can recall.Spectacular video by Hana S. Kim renders the tree’s towering swirl of branches on a series of 1,000 immersive LED panels.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      David Edward Byrd, Whose Posters Captured Rock’s Energy, Dies at 83

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      David Edward Byrd, who captured the swirl and energy of the 1960s and early ’70s by conjuring pinwheels of color with indelible posters for concerts by Jimi Hendrix, the Who and the Rolling Stones as well as for hit stage musicals like “Follies” and “Godspell,” died on Feb. 3 in Albuquerque. He was 83.His husband and only immediate survivor, Jolino Beserra, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was pneumonia brought on by lung damage from Covid.Mr. Byrd made his name, starting in 1968, with striking posters for the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly and Traffic at the Fillmore East, the Lower Manhattan Valhalla of rock operated by the powerhouse promoter Bill Graham.For a concert there that year by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Mr. Byrd rendered the guitar wizard’s hair in a field of circles, which blended with the explosive hairstyles of his bandmates, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.For a 1968 concert at the Fillmore East by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, David Edward Byrd rendered the guitar wizard’s hair in a field of circles, which blended with the explosive hairstyles of his bandmates, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell.Design sketch via “Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd,” by David Edward Byrd and Robert von Goeben; final poster, Bill Graham Archives, LLCMr. Byrd also put his visual stamp on the Who’s landmark rock opera, “Tommy,” producing posters for it when it was performed at the Fillmore East in October 1969 and again, triumphantly, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York a few months later. In 1973, he shared a Grammy Award for his illustration work on the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s rendition of “Tommy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The N.E.A.’s New Gender and Diversity Edicts Worry Arts Groups

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      As the National Endowment for the Arts adjusts to comply with President Trump’s executive orders, “gender ideology” is out and works that “honor the nation’s rich artistic heritage” are in.The National Endowment for the Arts is telling arts groups not to use federal funds to promote “diversity, equity and inclusion” or “gender ideology” in ways that run afoul of President Trump’s executive orders — causing confusion and concern.Black Girls Dance, a Chicago-based nonprofit that trains and mentors young dancers, was recently approved for a $10,000 grant to help finance an annual holiday show called “Mary.” Now the small company is wondering if it still qualifies for the money.It was the company’s first grant from the N.E.A., and Erin Barnett, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, said that receiving it had been “a step of validation — like ‘We see you and we support the work that you’re doing.’” But she said that if the grant were canceled for running afoul of the new requirements, she would persist. “I serve a God that sits on the highest throne of all, and he’s not going to stop this show,” she said.It is unclear what the new rules will mean for groups seeking grants, or for those that already have them in the pipeline. Many arts organizations have pledged to support diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and several groups that have received funding in the past have presented works about transgender and nonbinary people.The new N.E.A. rules require applicants to agree not to operate diversity programs “that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws” and call on grant applicants to pledge not to use federal funds to “promote gender ideology.” They refer to an executive order Mr. Trump signed that declares that the United States recognizes only “two sexes, male and female.”The N.E.A. did not answer questions about whether organizations that have already been told they would receive grant money would be affected.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Henry IV’ Review: Two Plays Become One

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      The relationship between Prince Hal and John Falstaff, a favorite of Shakespeare scholars, is the focus of this condensed adaptation.A young prince and an old knight walk into a tavern …So much of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” plays like a setup, either to a joke or to a significant turning point in English history. It’s perhaps the most defining, and trickiest, element of the Henry plays, which often combine the interpersonal high jinks of a comedy with the politics and knavery of a war drama, sans the typical dramatic structure.In a new production from the Theater for a New Audience, the two “Henry IV” plays are combined into a single adaptation that clocks in at nearly four hours. The script, by Dakin Matthews, condenses and restructures the material, while the direction by Eric Tucker opts for a more classic, toned-down staging. For all the successful work this “Henry IV” does to combat the unwieldy bloat of the two history plays together, it does not probe the central characters enough to uphold the stakes and maintain the tension throughout the lengthy running time. The result is a serviceable production that lacks fresh revelations.The “Henry IV” plays are part of the Henriad, the series of history plays that begin with “Richard II” and end with “Henry V.” Often considered the less glamorous section of Shakespeare’s oeuvre, the plays are about the making and unmaking of kings, the burdens of the crown, revolts, betrayals and the disastrous clashing of many male egos.At the start of “Henry IV,” Henry Bolingbroke (played by Matthews) has usurped the crown with the help of the Percys, a family of English lords who now lead a rebellion against Bolingbroke for that same crown they helped him procure. Meanwhile, Bolingbroke’s son, Prince Hal (Elijah Jones), fetters away his time drinking and palling around with the crooked old knight John Falstaff (Jay O. Sanders) and his reprehensible cohort. Hal and Falstaff’s trivial pursuits are interrupted, however, when they’re called to the battlefield, and by the end of “Henry IV,” Hal has renounced his old habits, brutally rebuffed Falstaff and taken his place on the throne as King Henry V.The relationship between Hal and Falstaff, a favorite of lit majors and Shakespeare scholars, is the true heart of the material. The young prince and the old knight are like father and son, mentor and mentee, but also serve as each other’s foils. They represent opposite sides of age and privilege, and their gradual dynamic shift reveals the nuances of their characters. For all his comedic purpose in the story, Falstaff emerges as a tragic figure — the niggling sideshow act in a grander story about nobility and a nation’s evolution. He’s the sacrificial lamb to Prince Hal’s ascension.Each of the three acts ends with a major scene between Hal and Falstaff, marking another dramatic crux in their story. One of the production’s strengths is how Matthews cleverly structures the script to steadily follow the arc of these two characters. However, the same nuance and decisiveness is less present in the direction and some of the performances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More