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    Review: A New Lens on Auschwitz in ‘Here There Are Blueberries’

    Archivists are the heroes of a documentary play about a photograph album depicting daily life among the perpetrators of the Holocaust.You do not expect a camera to be the first thing you see in a play about the Holocaust. Yet even before “Here There Are Blueberries” begins, a spotlight illuminates a Leica on a pedestal. A period advertisement projected behind it promotes it as “the camera of modern times.”That’s apt for a dramatized documentary that looks at its subject from an unusual angle: the discovery of photographs taken at Auschwitz and the archivists who brought them to light.“Blueberries,” which opened on Monday at New York Theater Workshop in a co-production with Tectonic Theater Project, focuses on the so-called Höcker album, which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired from an anonymous donor in 2007. Uniquely, none of the album’s 116 photographs depict victims of the Nazis — only the Nazis themselves, going about the banal daily business of living and enjoying their lives at the camp.That the play takes a similar approach, keeping the victims mostly out of frame, is a blessing and a problem. A blessing because in so doing it avoids both active horror and the cynicism of Holokitsch, in which the murder of six million Jews is appropriated to zhuzh some emotion that might otherwise be absent.But in backgrounding the tragedy, even with the noblest intentions, “Blueberries” (conceived and directed by Moisés Kaufman; written by Kaufman and Amanda Gronich) gets caught in a different dramatic problem: a problem of moral scale. What it’s about, however worthy, is so much smaller than what it insistently isn’t.It’s not just that the album at the center of the story, being the keepsake of an assistant to the commandant of Auschwitz in 1944, makes no reference to major atrocities in its portrayal of minor pleasures like the title blueberries. We do not see — as we do in the film “The Zone of Interest,” which features some of the same characters and locations — smoke from crematories or glowing evil light at night. In keeping with the museum’s efforts to “avoid undue attention to the perpetrators,” the play’s Nazis are characterized almost as little as their victims.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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    Tony Awards 2024: Print Your Ballot!

    Best New Play
    “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
    ☐ “Mary Jane”
    ☐ “Mother Play”
    ☐ “Prayer for the
    French Republic”
    ☐ “Stereophonic”
    Best New Musical
    “Hell’s Kitchen”
    “Illinoise”
    ☐ “The Outsiders”
    ☐ “Suffs”
    “Water for Elephants”
    Best Play Revival
    ☐ “Appropriate”
    ☐ “An Enemy of the People”
    “Purlie Victorious”
    Best Musical Revival
    ☐ “Cabaret”
    ☐ “Gutenberg! The Musical!”
    “Merrily We Roll Along”
    “The Who’s Tommy”
    Best Book
    of a Musical

    Bekah Brunstetter,
    “The Notebook”
    Kristoffer Diaz, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Rick Elice,
    “Water for Elephants”
    ☐ Adam Rapp and Justin
    Levine, “The Outsiders”
    ☐ Shaina Taub, “Suffs”
    Best Leading Actor
    in a Play
    ☐ William Jackson
    Harper, “Uncle Vanya”
    Leslie Odom Jr.,
    “Purlie Victorious”
    ☐ Liev Schreiber, “Doubt”
    Jeremy Strong,
    “An Enemy of the People”
    ☐ Michael Stuhlbarg, “Patriots”
    Best Leading Actress
    in a Play
    ☐ Betsy Aidem, “Prayer for
    the French Republic”
    0000
    Jessica Lange, “Mother Play”
    Rachel McAdams, “Mary Jane”
    Sarah Paulson, “Appropriate”
    ☐ Amy Ryan, “Doubt”
    Best Leading Actor
    in a Musical
    ☐ Brody Grant, “The Outsiders”
    ☐ Jonathan Groff, “Merrily
    We Roll Along”
    Dorian Harewood,
    “The Notebook”
    ☐ Brian d’Arcy James,
    “Days of Wine and Roses”
    ☐ Eddie Redmayne, “Cabaret”
    The New York Times
    2024 Tony Awards Ballot
    Best Leading Actress
    in a Musical
    Eden Espinosa, “Lempicka”
    ☐ Maleah Joi Moon,
    “Hell’s Kitchen”
    Kelli O’Hara,
    “Days of Wine and Roses”
    ☐ Maryann Plunkett,
    “The Notebook”
    ☐ Gayle Rankin, “Cabaret”
    Best Featured Actor
    in a Play
    ☐ Will Brill, “Stereophonic”
    Eli Gelb, “Stereophonic”
    ☐ Jim Parsons, “Mother Play”
    Tom Pecinka, “Stereophonic”
    Corey Stoll, “Appropriate”
    Best Featured Actor
    in a Musical
    ☐ Roger Bart,
    “Back to the Future”
    ☐ Joshua Boone, “The Outsiders”
    ☐ Brandon Victor Dixon,
    “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Sky Lakota-Lynch,
    “The Outsiders”
    ☐ Daniel Radcliffe,
    “Merrily We Roll Along”
    ☐ Steven Skybell, “Cabaret”
    Best Featured Actress
    in a Play
    ☐ Quincy Tyler Bernstine,
    “Doubt”
    ☐ Juliana Canfield,

    “Stereophonic”
    Celia Keenan-Bolger,
    “Mother Play”
    Best Direction
    of a Musical
    ☐ Maria Friedman,
    ㅁㅁㅁ ㅁ
    “Merrily We Roll Along”
    Best Lighting Design
    of a Musical
    ☐ Brandon Stirling
    Baker, “Illinoise”
    Michael Greif, “Hell’s Kitchen”

    Isabella Byrd, “Cabaret”
    Leigh Silverman, “Suffs”

    ☐ Jessica Stone,
    “Water for Elephants”
    ☐ Danya Taymor, “The Outsiders”
    Best Scenic Design
    of a Play
    Natasha Katz, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Bradley King and David
    Bengali, “Water for Elephants”
    ☐ Brian MacDevitt and Hana S.
    Kim, “The Outsiders”
    Best Sound Design
    dots, “An Enemy of the People” of a Play
    ☐ dots, “Appropriate”
    Derek McLane,
    “Purlie Victorious”
    David Zinn,
    “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
    David Zinn, “Stereophonic”
    Best Scenic Design
    of a Musical
    ☐ AMP featuring Tatiana
    Kahvegian, “The Outsiders”
    ☐ Robert Brill and Peter
    Nigrini, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Tim Hatley and Finn Ross,
    “Back to the Future”
    ☐ Riccardo Hernández and
    Peter Nigrini, “Lempicka”
    ☐ Takeshi Kata,
    “Water for Elephants”
    David Korins, “Here Lies Love”
    ☐ Tom Scutt, “Cabaret”
    Best Costume Design
    of a Play

    Dede Ayite, “Appropriate”

    Dede Ayite,
    “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
    ☐ Sarah Pidgeon, “Stereophonic” ☐ Enver Chakartash,
    ☐ Kara Young, “Purlie Victorious”
    Best Featured Actress
    in a Musical
    ☐ Shoshana Bean,
    “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Amber Iman, “Lempicka”
    Nikki M. James, “Suffs”


    Leslie Rodriguez
    Kritzer, “Spamalot”
    Kecia Lewis, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Lindsay Mendez,
    “Merrily We Roll Along”
    ☐ Bebe Neuwirth, “Cabaret”
    Best Direction of a Play
    Daniel Aukin, “Stereophonic”
    ☐ Anne Kauffman, “Mary Jane”
    Kenny Leon, “Purlie Victorious”
    Lila Neugebauer, “Appropriate”
    Whitney White,
    ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
    “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
    ☐ ☐
    “Stereophonic”
    ☐ Justin Ellington and
    Stefania Bulbarella,
    “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
    ☐ Leah Gelpe, “Mary Jane”
    ☐ Tom Gibbons, “Grey House”
    ☐ Bray Poor and Will
    Pickens, “Appropriate”
    ☐ Ryan Rumery, “Stereophonic”
    Best Sound Design
    of a Musical
    ☐ M.L. Dogg and Cody Spencer,
    “Here Lies Love”
    Kai Harada,
    “Merrily We Roll Along”

    Nick Lidster, “Cabaret”

    Gareth Owen, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Cody Spencer, “The Outsiders”
    Best Original Score
    Will Butler, “Stereophonic”
    ☐ Adam Guettel, “Days
    of Wine and Roses”
    ☐ Jamestown Revival and Justin
    Levine, “The Outsiders”
    ☐ David Byrne and Fatboy
    Slim, “Here Lies Love”
    ☐ Shaina Taub, “Suffs”
    Emilio Sosa, “Purlie Victorious” Best Choreography
    David Zinn,
    “An Enemy of the People”
    Best Costume Design
    of a Musical
    ☐ Dede Ayite, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Linda Cho, “The Great Gatsby”
    ☐ David Israel Reynoso,
    “Water for Elephants”
    Tom Scutt, “Cabaret”
    ☐ Paul Tazewell, “Suffs”
    Best Lighting Design
    of a Play
    ☐ Isabella Byrd,
    “An Enemy of the People”
    ☐ Amith Chandrashaker, “Prayer
    for the French Republic”
    Jiyoun Chang, “Stereophonic”
    Jane Cox, “Appropriate”
    ☐ Natasha Katz, “Grey House”
    ☐ Camille A. Brown,
    “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Shana Carroll and Jesse
    Robb, “Water for Elephants”
    ☐ Rick and Jeff Kuperman,
    “The Outsiders”
    ☐ Annie-B Parson,
    “Here Lies Love”
    Justin Peck, “Illinoise”
    Best Orchestrations
    ☐ Timo Andres, “Illinoise”
    ☐ Tom Kitt and Adam
    Blackstone, “Hell’s Kitchen”
    ☐ Will Butler and Justin
    Craig, “Stereophonic”
    ☐ Justin Levine, Matt
    Hinkley and Jamestown
    Revival, “The Outsiders”
    D Jonathan Tunick,
    “Merrily We Roll Along” More

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    George Clooney to Make Broadway Debut in ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’

    A stage adaptation of the film is planned for next spring, with Clooney playing the journalist Edward R. Murrow.George Clooney is planning to make his Broadway debut next spring in a stage adaptation of his 2005 film “Good Night, and Good Luck.”Clooney will play Edward R. Murrow, the pioneering newscaster whose storied broadcast career in the mid-20th century made him a journalism icon. That role was played by David Strathairn in the film.“Good Night, and Good Luck” portrays the period when Murrow’s work brought him into conflict with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the Republican of Wisconsin who became notorious for the excesses of his anti-Communist crusade.Clooney wrote the movie with Grant Heslov; the two are teaming up again to adapt it for Broadway. Clooney also directed the film, and performed in it as Fred W. Friendly, Murrow’s collaborator.Reviewing the film for The New York Times, the critic A.O. Scott called it “a passionate, thoughtful essay on power, truth-telling and responsibility.”The stage adaptation will be directed by David Cromer, who won a Tony for directing “The Band’s Visit.”The play’s producing team — Seaview, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Jean Doumanian and Robert Fox — announced on Monday the plan to stage “Good Night, and Good Luck” next spring at a Shubert theater, but offered no other details.Clooney, 63, has won two Academy Awards, as an actor in “Syriana” and as a producer of “Argo.” More

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    Sarah Paulson Dares to Play the People You Love to Hate

    Sarah Paulson still doesn’t fully understand why fans call her “mother.”At first, when she started seeing the word used online to describe her, she was bewildered and a bit irritated. She was in her 40s and childless. Did these people really think she looked like their mother?Once she began to understand it as an age-neutral compliment — a term Gen Z likes to use for famous women they adore — she leaned into the meme, appearing on “Saturday Night Live” last year, alongside Pedro Pascal, in a sketch in which he was “father” and she “mother” to a group of enamored high schoolers.“How did this happen to us?” Paulson wondered about her and Pascal, a longtime friend. “We were two 18-year-old kids who used to go to Sheep Meadow and smoke pot and go see Peter Weir movies. How did we become the mother and father of children on the internet?”For Paulson, the answer is a 30-year career that has wound its way from television bit parts to meaty lead roles as fraught real-life people. It is animated by an eclectic cast of characters orchestrated by the television producer Ryan Murphy, including conjoined twins, a Craigslist psychic, a ghost with a past as a heroin addict, an evil nurse and two of the most ridiculed and obsessed-over women of the 1990s.Paulson has long dared to play characters that viewers are liable to dislike — or downright loathe — and the role that has led to her first Tony nomination is one of her most provocative yet.In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s family drama “Appropriate,” her character is often the one audience members are rooting against: a sharp-tongued elder sister who lashes out against mounting suspicions that her recently deceased father harbored racist convictions.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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    At Theatertreffen, the Hobbits Are Yodeling

    A quirky and joyful play based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books joined weightier works at this year’s Theatertreffen drama festival.“Where is Frodo?” an actress dressed as Gollum asked as she crawled past me, sounding slightly panic stricken. It was the first thing I heard when I entered “Gigantic in Middle-earth” (“Riesenhaft in Mittelerde”), an ambitious immersive theatrical experience inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” The work is one of 10 productions selected for this year’s Theatertreffen, the annual springtime celebration of the best of German theater. To step inside the elaborate staging, which originated at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, in Switzerland, was to plunge headlong into a lovingly prepared yet scrappy version of Tolkien’s fantasy world. As much a playful examination of Tolkien superfandom as it was a retelling of the author’s saga, the show came to life humorously, energetically and sometimes epically with music, puppetry, video, dramatic light, swirling fog and blowing leaves. The audience is in the midst of the action, sitting and standing among the nearly 20 constantly moving performers.The forces required for this extravaganza, a collaboration between Schauspielhaus Zürich, Theater HORA and the Helmi puppet theater, were monumental. The show boasted four directors, including one of the Schauspielhaus’s artistic leaders, Nicolas Stemann, who also played piano throughout the evening. “Gigantic in Middle-earth” is a collaboration between Schauspielhaus Zürich, Theater HORA and the Helmi puppet theater.Fabian SchellhornThe most memorable performances came from members of Theater HORA. The Swiss company, which works with actors with cognitive and developmental disabilities, has recently been featured in weighty productions at the Salzburg Festival in Austria and in Liège, Belgium, that explored the challenges of living with Down syndrome and other conditions. Here, it was pure joy to watch HORA’s actors embrace their inner hobbits, dwarves, wizards, orcs and elves — including one that yodels!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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    ‘Sally & Tom’ Frees Sally Hemings From Being a Mere Footnote

    Suzan-Lori Parks’s play is the latest work by a Black writer seeking to prioritize Hemings’s life and perspective to make her fully dimensional.Sally Hemings might be a household name these days, but we still know so little about the relationship between Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Yet, Hemings endures as a figure of endless fascination: American writers aspire to tell her story, and there remains a yearning for a deeper understanding of the enslaved woman who left no firsthand accounts of her inner thoughts.In “Sally & Tom,” Suzan Lori-Parks is the latest writer trying to fill in the gaps in order to present Hemings as a multidimensional character — and, in the process, rescue her personhood onstage. “We don’t know what happened,” Sheria Irving, who portrays Hemings in the play, told me, adding that Parks is “building on this factual account.” (The play has been a hit for the Public Theater and runs there through June 2.)She continued: “We do not have to reimagine, we can really imagine what it is for a 14-year-old to be looked at by a 41-year-old, and not just looked at but to engage in sexual exploitation with this man.”Parks’s fidelity to the history means she doesn’t alter Hemings’s fate. Instead, she experiments with the storytelling by plotting “Sally & Tom” as a backstager, or a play within a play, in which the main character, Luce (also played by Irving), is an African American dramatist who is writing a play about the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson. Luce is playing Hemings in her own play, which is called “The Pursuit of Happiness.”In fact, each cast member plays two parts: Luce’s partner, Mike (Gabriel Ebert), is playing Tom in the production, and Alano Miller plays both Hemings’s older brother, James, and Kwame, a Hollywood actor who has returned to his old theater company. When the historical story and the present-day one collide, they often reveal the sometimes comical and often complicated reality that can arise when mounting a show dealing with race relations in the American theater today.Contemporary woes: Irving and Ebert as a modern couple struggling to produce a play (and overcome race relations in the American theater) in “Sally & Tom.”Jeenah Moon for 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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    A Broadway Star Gets Married With Help From Daniel Radcliffe

    Lindsay Mendez, nominated for a Tony in “Merrily We Roll Along,” married actor J. Alex Brinson in a Monday ceremony officiated by castmate Jonathan Groff. Daniel Radcliffe was their ring bearer.On Broadway, with most shows shuttered, Monday is typically the day actors and crews rest and recharge.Or, if you’re Lindsay Michelle Mendez and John Alex Brinson, it’s the day you get married.Ms. Mendez currently stars as Mary Flynn in the musical “Merrily We Roll Along,” so the wedding was planned not just around her schedule, but that of the officiant and ring bearer’s, too — Ms. Mendez’s castmates Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe.Ms. Mendez and Mr. Brinson, who is also an actor and goes by J. Alex Brinson, first met in 2019 while working on the CBS courtroom procedural “All Rise.” Ms. Mendez played the court reporter and Mr. Brinson the bailiff. In the very first episode, Mr. Brinson’s character jumped up to protect Ms. Mendez and their other castmates during a dramatic scene.“My hero from day one,” Ms. Mendez said. “Even in storytelling form.”Binge more Vows columns here and read all our wedding, relationship and divorce coverage here.At first, the pair were just friends; both were married to other people at the time. Three years and many episodes of “All Rise” later, in the spring of 2022, they took one step closer to becoming something more when Ms. Mendez, who had divorced, asked Mr. Brinson to move in with her … as a roommate.“He was living in a hotel and filming and had to drop his laundry at a random place,” said Ms. Mendez, who has a daughter named Lucy, now 3, from her previous marriage. “I said, ‘you know, I have a 1-year-old at my house and a pullout sofa. I don’t know if that would be interesting to anyone, but you’re welcome to stay if you need a place.’”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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    By the Book Interview With Judi Dench

    What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?That’s an impossible question. The best in 89 years? How do I know? I remember being given A.P. Wavell’s “Other Men’s Flowers” as a birthday present when I was young. It’s a collection of poetry, which opened my eyes to the power of verse. But then I also adored “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” by Patricia Highsmith. My husband, Michael [Williams], bought it for me as a holiday read. I devoured it and didn’t want it to end. I had to ration myself to a couple of pages a day.What’s the last great book you read?“Dormouse Has a Cold,” by Julia Donaldson. It’s a lift-the-flap children’s book, sent to me when I was recovering from a cold.Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?After lights out at boarding school when I was 15. I was in bed under the covers with a torch reading Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories.”How do you organize your books?I don’t. I have so many books, but never enough shelves, so I have books everywhere — piled up on tables, chairs, running along window sills, books in every available nook and cranny. Because of my eyesight I can no longer read, but I love being surrounded by books — they’re snapshots of the past: first-night gifts, holidays abroad, memories of lost friends and loved ones. I still have my father’s individual copies of the Temple Shakespeare from 1903. They’re small, red-leather-bound copies with gilt lettering on the cover, and if I hold one I can be transported back to my childhood and family quizzes about Shakespeare.Shakespeare’s writing, you say in the new book, “has the capacity to make us feel less alone.” What other writing has done that for you?Oh so many — Iris Murdoch, Chekhov, Zoë Heller, J.D. Salinger — any writer who can reflect us back to ourselves and help us discover who we are.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