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      Ani DiFranco Learned (and Cried) a Lot During Her First Year in N.Y.C.

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      “The lessons that New York has for you around every corner — it was a big part of my young adulthood, this city,” said the singer-songwriter, who will make her Broadway debut in “Hadestown.”Ani DiFranco calls herself the fairy godmother of “Hadestown,” the 2019 Tony winner for best musical. Anaïs Mitchell, its composer and librettist, calls her this too, as DiFranco discovered during a recent publicity event.“I said, ‘OK, it’s settled,’” DiFranco recalled. “Certainly many more people have put in much more time and contributed hugely along the way, but I sort of helped get it from zero to one.”DiFranco had already released a couple of Mitchell’s records on her label, Righteous Babe, when, some 15 years ago, Mitchell revealed that she had a play based on Greek mythology that she wanted to turn into an album. And so they did, with DiFranco singing the part of Persephone. Now DiFranco, 53, will make her Broadway debut in that same role in February.“I couldn’t say no,” she said in a discussion that touched on the importance of the acoustic guitar, punk and “gifts of nature.” “It was too thrilling at this point in my life and career, and at my age, to try something new and be out of my comfort zone and be challenged and grow and learn. I just knew it was a deep, resounding yes.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Abstract ExpressionismIn my late teens I was exposed to the genre of the painting culture known as Abstract Expressionism. It was so inspiring and validating because it was this form of visual representation which was not about meticulously reproducing reality. It was about having a canvas be a window into a moment, and you can feel the sweep of the arm and the energy behind it and the torque and the velocity and the ferocity and the emotion.2Acoustic GuitarHaving an instrument that I — over 10,000 hours and then some — became one with has been like having another limb. Sometimes when there’s nowhere else to turn and nobody, it’s there for me. Sometimes when my own voice is failing me, my guitar can say it for me.3New York CityI moved here when I was 18 or 19 from Buffalo. I cried my way through the first year for every reason that you can imagine. I had experiences that were terrifying, that were life-threatening but also just life-changing and beautiful and culturally mind-blowing. The lessons that New York has for you around every corner — it was a big part of my young adulthood, this city.4PunkYou could be a performer without being a beauty queen. You didn’t have to be a buttoned-up, coordinated, put-together, choreographed, polished, perfected thing. There was something about the punk ethos that just really allowed that in me.5JazzMusic that has improvisation at its epicenter is so profound and essential because that’s what music-making is: watching somebody figure it out and solve the problems and face the adversities that exist on any given night, and inventing a new path to go with your fellow performers.6Feminist LiteratureIn the late ’80s and early ’90s, I started reading Audre Lorde and Alice Walker and Judy Grahn and bell hooks and Adrienne Rich and Lucille Clifton. These poets and philosophers and writers seismically unlocked me to myself. I grew up in a man’s world, and I was taught everything through a man’s eyes in a man’s words. It wasn’t until I read these women that I realized, “Oh, there’s more.”7World MusicWhen I started getting legit gigs at folk and roots music festivals, they would throw you onstage with other performers. There might be a singer from Guam, some Tuvan throat singers, some African dudes with guitars and an Eastern European choir. We didn’t share a verbal language, but we could talk to each other through music and become friends in this way.8New OrleansThe first time I played Jazz Fest, I thought, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Every time I was not on tour, I would go to New Orleans, because I wanted to go where I felt inspired. Then I started renting an apartment, then I fell in love with a local, and he was my reason to stay and make a home. I’ve been there about 20 years, and the shine has not worn off one bit.9Marijuana and PsilocybinI’ve smoked a lot of pot in my day, and I know it to be a really instrumental element of my awakening. I haven’t engaged in mushrooms as much, but I feel like it is also fundamental to human evolution. Whole genres of music and artistic movements have evolved and moved forward hand in hand with these gifts of nature.10ReadingWhen I moved to New York, I was at the New School studying, and I found myself reading books and talking about them. It’s like, Oh my God, this is really important stuff. The format of a book, it’s a road deeply into another person’s mind and life, to a whole other way of being, to whole other worlds, that I don’t find paralleled in any other genre of art. More

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      ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ Will End Its Broadway Run in April

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      The Tony winner for best musical, about a high school girl with a rare genetic disorder and a criminally dysfunctional family, will begin a national tour in September.“Kimberly Akimbo,” a quirky show that combined pathos and comedy to win last year’s Tony Award for best musical, will end its Broadway run in April, nearly 19 months after it began performances.The show’s final performance will be April 28, at which point it is expected to have played 32 previews and 612 regular performances on Broadway.Small and zany, “Kimberly Akimbo” was often overshadowed in a contemporary Broadway dominated by established titles, jukebox scores and celebrity performers. But it has outlasted most of the other productions from the 2022-23 season.Set in a New Jersey suburb in 1999, the musical is about a high school girl with a rare genetic disorder, a criminally dysfunctional family and an anagram-loving friend.Adapted from a play with the same title, “Kimberly Akimbo” opened in the fall of 2022 and is directed by Jessica Stone. It won five Tony Awards, including the prize for best book, by David Lindsay-Abaire (who also wrote the play); for best score, with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics by Lindsay-Abaire; for the leading performance by Victoria Clark, a 64-year-old actress who plays the adolescent protagonist; and for a featured performance by Bonnie Milligan, who plays an amoral aunt.The musical began its life in 2021 with an Off Broadway run at the Atlantic Theater Company. The show has just nine characters, and, unusually, they have been played by the same actors throughout its life; all the actors plan to stay until the closing.The show, with David Stone (“Wicked”) as its lead producer, was capitalized for $7 million, a modest budget for a Broadway musical today; it has not yet recouped those costs.The Broadway run is to be followed by a national tour that is scheduled to begin in September at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. More

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      In a Land of Primary Colors, Home Is Where the Bounce House Is

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      As part of Under the Radar, Nile Harris resurrects his play that weaves together text, sound, minstrelsy and dance to explore the American experience.What makes a house a home? And what constitutes an American home? Planted dead center on the stage in “This House Is Not a Home,” a slippery, ever-shifting work by Nile Harris, is a house — a bounce house. But it’s more than an inflatable plaything.It is at the heart of a web of ideas that touch on national politics, arts funding and a local New York scene — the tiny slice of Lower Manhattan known as Dimes Square. You get a sense of where Harris stands on that bit of geography: In “This House,” there is a fight. Over a vape.Beginning Saturday as part of the Under the Radar festival, “This House” — sad and boisterous, dark yet at times blisteringly funny — will be reprised at Abrons Arts Center, where it was first presented with Ping Chong and Company last summer. (Harris is a member of Ping Chong’s artistic leadership team.)A provocative look at politics and race, “This House” is a critique of the American experience that explores the intersections of modern-day liberalism, the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and well-meaning nonprofit arts institutions. It gets raucous. Will the bounce house survive this insurrection? The idea for what became the work began in the summer of 2020 when Harris, 28, and his friend, the interdisciplinary artist Trevor Bazile, started to fantasize about a bounce house. It reminded them of the Capitol Building, Harris said, but it could also represent any institution — and then morph back into “a preadolescent meme.”Harris started to envision a series of happenings that might incorporate a bounce house: “Should we pull up to a George Floyd protest with a bounce castle,” he said of one idea, “and have people jump for Black lives?”The bounce house idea was placed on the back burner until 2021, when Bazile became the director of New People’s Cinema Club, a New York film festival funded in part by the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a financial supporter of Trump-aligned candidates. “Trevor had a very clear point of view around, like, it doesn’t matter the hand that feeds you — it’s all bad,” Harris recalled. “There’s no clean money.”“With this Peter Thiel money,” he added, “we bought a bounce castle because that was on our forever list to do.”Throughout “This House,” Harris appears in disguises, including Woody from “Toy Story” and a gingerbread minstrel character he calls Timmy.Elias Williams for The New York TimesAs part of the film festival that year, Harris and Bazile hosted a party featuring a bounce house in a Dimes Square loft. But just two days after the festival closed, Bazile, who was 25, died suddenly. (Harris declined to specify a cause.) While “This House” is a running commentary — sonic, spoken, choreographic — on many subjects, it is, at its core, a meditation on grief.It’s also an extension of a manifesto, released by Harris and Bazile as a Google document, about a fictional board meeting. The manifesto, a labyrinth of hyperlinks, poses questions like: “Do you like Black voices or just the voices that say what you want to hear?” “Will you wear your Telfar bag to the race war?”Throughout “This House,” Harris appears in disguises, including Woody from “Toy Story” and a gingerbread minstrel character he calls Timmy, whose face is fixed in a smile. “Maybe there’s some comment there about Blackness and Black life, but it’s a smiling face,” he said. “It’s approachable.”Dyer Rhoads, the production’s dramaturg and set designer, has created a vibrant set that brings to life a universe of primary colors, where paintings, plastic and, of course, the bounce house, function as a larger-than-life diorama. But because “This House” reacts to the events of the moment, it will not be the same show it was last summer.“I always say it’s 60 percent set and 40 percent improvised,” Harris said of the show, which is informed by world events and uses improvisation, including audience interactions. “It responds to current affairs, it responds to the conditions that it’s put in. And we are in a very different state in the world than we were six months ago.”Improvisation means everything to Harris, who added, “How I understand being a moving and performing body is responding to what is presently happening in the room.”“This House” features the performance artist Crackhead Barney employing her daring crowd work; and the dancer Malcolm-x Betts, whose unfurling, out-of-body improvisations lend a vivid vulnerability to an increasingly fractious stage world. To Harris, the work is a play. But the “the play,” he said, “is the people. The play is about me, Malcolm and Barney and our thoughts on the world.”Harris, born and raised in Miami, was a serious theater student growing up. He attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, along with Rhoads, and graduated with a B.F.A. in acting. “I’m an actor for better or worse,” he said. “I don’t know what I am.”Actually, you get the feeling that he does know — or at least that through making art, he’s figuring it out. Harris has created shows since his teenage years; after moving to New York in 2017, he discovered the experimental downtown dance world and took a formative workshop with the choreographer Sidra Bell. “It really cracked open my brain,” he said of her improvisatory approach. “If I have any dance education, that is a point of reference.”“A lot of how I understand my relationship to audience is through the notion of clowning,” Harris said. “There may be laughter, there may be costuming, there’s physicality.”Elias Williams for The New York TimesHe studied clowning, too: “A lot of how I understand my relationship to audience is through the notion of clowning,” he said. “There may be laughter, there may be costuming, there’s physicality.”Creating the physical approach for Betts’s movement in “This House” began when the pair spoke about childhood memories; Betts said that it was as if the bounce house represented the ghosts of children.Betts’s improvisations are rooted in his movement background — Black club house dancing, vogueing, West African dance. “The dancing is very physical,” he said. “The memories are moving through me, and memory can also trigger you to go into a space that you don’t expect to go. It’s triggering in a way that enables something new to unlock.”Even as Harris calls “This House” a play or even an opera — the sound design is an important component, especially the way that vocal amplification is incorporated — he thinks a lot about language in the body. He doesn’t consider himself a dancer, though he has performed as one, and dance is a continuing practice for him, he said, “inside of my greater theatrical concerns and convictions.”“I love dancers,” he said. “I hang out with dancers, I’m in that community of people. There’s just something about that community of artists that is really just moving. If you can commit to valuing impermeable things that barely exist and dedicating your whole heart to it? It’s so not shiny, it’s so not sexy. It’s just, like, that commitment is work. And that feels really important.”That also relates to something Rhoads, the dramaturg, said about “This House”: “In a lot of ways, it’s ended up being about the risks we take for art.”And Harris is open to risks. Big ones. “Do you want to know my dream?” he said. “I really want to create and direct a pop star concert. It’s not narrative — it’s associative, it’s sound based, it’s image based and it’s dancing.”He said he was thinking of a Doja Cat — someone who would get him, someone who would appreciate his affinity for creating interludes with weird little meme jokes. “I want to work with scale,” Harris said. “There’s no opportunities for emerging artists or an artist in New York to work with scale. By hell or high water, I will.” More

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      Vinie Burrows, Acclaimed Actress Who Became an Activist, Dies at 99

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      She got her start on Broadway at 15. But after finding a dearth of roles for Black women, she ultimately turned to one-woman shows that addressed racism and sexism.Vinie Burrows, a Harlem-born stage actress who made her mark on Broadway in the 1950s, but who grew frustrated by how few choice roles were available for Black women and turned her focus to one-woman shows exploring the legacies of racism and sexism, died on Dec. 25 in Queens. She was 99.Her death, at a hospice facility, was confirmed by her son, Gregory Harrison.Ms. Burrows made the first Broadway appearance of her seven-decade career in 1950 alongside Helen Hayes and Ossie Davis in “The Wisteria Trees,” a reimagining of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” by the writer and director Joshua Logan that shifted the drama from an aristocratic Russian estate to a 19th-century Louisiana plantation.Ms. Burrows in a scene from “The Wisteria Trees” (1950), in which she made her Broadway debut, with Ossie Davis, who is sitting beside her, and Maurice Edwards.Martin Beck Theater, via Performing Arts Legacy ProjectHer Broadway career continued to blossom into the mid-1950s. Among the high-profile productions in which she appeared was a 1951 revival of “The Green Pastures,” Marc Connelly’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1930 retelling of Old Testament stories from an African American perspective. In the early 1960s, she appeared with Moses Gunn and Louis Gossett Jr. in a New York production of “The Blacks,” a searing and surrealistic examination of racial stereotypes and Black identity by the subversive white French author and playwright Jean Genet.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?  More

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      Glynis Johns, a Tony Winner and Actress in ‘Mary Poppins,’ Dies at 100

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      In a trans-Atlantic career that endured for more than 60 years, she was also known for her role in the hit 1965 Disney movie “Mary Poppins.”Glynis Johns, the British actress who in a trans-Atlantic career that endured for more than 60 years won a Tony Award for her role in “A Little Night Music,” giving husky, emotion-rich voice to the show’s most memorable number, “Send In the Clowns,” and played an exuberant Edwardian suffragist in the Disney movie classic “Mary Poppins,” died on Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 100.The death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by her manager, Mitch Clem.Ms. Johns was 49 and on the brink of her fourth divorce when the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music” opened at the Shubert Theater in February 1973. The New York Times described her character, Desirée Armfeldt, as “a slightly world‐weary and extremely lovewise actress in turn‐of‐the‐century Sweden.”The critics adored her. To Clive Barnes of The Times, “the misty-voiced and glistening-eyed Glynis Johns was all tremulous understanding.”To Walter Kerr, also writing in The Times, she was “that cousin of bullfrogs and consort of weary gods”; she was “discreet, dangerous … and gratifyingly funny.”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?  More

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      At a Revamped Under the Radar, New York Greets a ‘Global Downtown’

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      No longer at the Public, the annual celebration of experimental theater disperses 17 productions across the city. About half are international works that are getting harder to import.The writer and performer Inua Ellams was born in Nigeria, is based in England and performs internationally. “As an immigrant, I’m most comfortable when I’m not at home,” he said during a recent conversation. “To go to another country and see if my concepts still stand the test of artistry, that’s what I love doing.”Ellams will take that test in early January, at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater, when he performs “Search Party,” during which the audience curates an evening of his poetry by shouting out words that Ellams enters into the search bar of an iPad already loaded with his works.“Search Party” is among the works included in this year’s Under the Radar Festival, a celebration of experimental performance. Having lost its longtime space at the Public Theater owing to the Public’s budget cuts, the 2024 festival will disperse 17 full productions (as well as symposia and a disco) across more than a dozen partner venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn.Of those full productions, about half of them are created by artists based outside the United States. In a year in which the festival, with its budget halved, had to scramble for new partners and new spaces, and considering the rising costs and difficulties of artists’ visas, a roster of local artists might have been an easier sell. But that would undercut the ethos of Under the Radar, which has always mingled international artists with local ones in pursuit of what the festival’s founder, Mark Russell, refers to as “the global downtown.”“I want for our artists to see these other artists from around the world and understand that they’re all part of a larger community,” Russell said.To bring an international show to New York is a process that must begin many months (or ideally, years) in advance. The work has to be scouted and deemed appropriate for an American, English-speaking audience and not so bulky — in terms of both cast size and production design — that the cost of importing it becomes prohibitive.Within these criteria, Ellams’s “Search Party” is especially attractive. It requires only Ellams, who had already received a visa as an individual of extraordinary ability, and his iPad. (“Of all the shows that I’ve had performed across the world, this is probably the most eco-friendly,” Ellams said.) The two other shows that Lincoln Center has brought over, “Queens of Sheba” and Pan Pan’s “The First Bad Man,” are also traveling without scenery, a deliberate simplicity.“International artists are getting smarter,” Jon Nakagawa, Lincoln Center’s director of contemporary programming, said.Funding for these shows must be secured, typically a collaboration between the sponsor theater and the international artists, who can apply in their home countries for government and private grants, which can be used to cover airfare and hotel costs. Visas have to be obtained, typically either a P-3, for an artist or entertainer traveling with a work of unique cultural significance, or an O-1 visa, like the one Ellams travels under, granted to individuals of extraordinary abilities. Each type requires both a stateside approval and an in-person interview, typically in the applicant’s country of origin. As wait times for visa approvals have grown exponentially, many arts institutions now work with law firms to expedite the process.Even so, there can be surprises, usually not welcome ones. The Japan Society, which has long imported experimental Japanese performance, ran into a hitch with “Hamlet/Toilet,” an absurdist, pop culture-inflected work from the playwright and director Yu Murai and Theater Company Kaimaku Pennant Race. As the work is based in part on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Yoko Shioya, the Japan Society’s artistic director, had to argue what made this work culturally unique to Japan. Asked by the consular official to submit further evidence, she focused on the production’s toilets. (Murai is also the author of “Romeo & Toilet.” Toilets are a recurring motif.)“Everybody who first goes to Japan, their jaws drop at the toilets,” she said. The official approved the application.The Japan Society will host “Hamlet/Toilet,” a work from the playwright and director Yu Murai and Theater Company Kaimaku Pennant Race.Takashi IkemuraOther productions have had to rely on U.S. senators and foreign officials to arrange timely appointments at American embassies. When none can be found, artists have been flown to other countries whose embassies are less backlogged. This year, the vice mayor of Milan helped to schedule an expedited appointment for a member of the Italian performance troupe Motus, which will perform “Of the Nightingale I Envy the Fate,” adapted from “The Oresteia,” at La MaMa. A cinematographer with Sister Sylvester’s “The Eagle and the Tortoise,” a work about the history of the aerial view that will play at BRIC, wasn’t so lucky. That colleague couldn’t secure an appointment until 2025 and won’t join the production.“It’s becoming more and more risky and more and more expensive,” Denise Greber, La MaMa’s director of artistic operations, said of importing international work. She noted that the cost of visa applications has nearly doubled in recent years. And she had just received word that the cost of one form was set to increase further. “But we still try. It’s important for people in New York City to have an opportunity to see work from other countries. It’s just really important to have cultural exchange.”It isn’t only New York City residents who benefit. Under the Radar, like other January events such as the Exponential Festival, Prototype and The Fire This Time, is in part a showcase that coincides with the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. Those professionals can reward artists with lucrative touring contracts, and artists can profit in other ways, too.Ellams was looking forward to the conversations among local and international artists, perpetuating his belief in what he called “the global village.”“New York is the concrete jungle of the world,” he said. “It’s where a lot of the world’s conversations begin.” More

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      New Year, New Show: An Original ‘& Juliet’ Star Heads Home

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      Melanie La Barrie thought she would make it through her last performance of “& Juliet” without succumbing to tears.She was mistaken — though contributing factors include that it was the end of a nine-show holiday week; that she originated the role of Angélique, Juliet’s nurse, in this British jukebox-musical riff on “Romeo and Juliet” in 2019; and that she made her Broadway debut in it, at 48, in October 2022.On Saturday night at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, where “& Juliet” is one of Broadway’s poppiest hits, La Barrie sailed through her comic Act I duet with Paulo Szot, who plays Angélique’s long-lost love. But her poignant Act II solo, sung to Juliet (Lorna Courtney), undid her. Embracing Courtney at the finish, La Barrie kept her eyes shut tight against the audience’s ovation, needing to stay rooted in the show.Paulo Szot, who plays Angélique’s long-lost love, gave La Barrie an eloquent onstage tribute.Emily Soto for The New York TimesA Trinidadian Londoner whose West End credits include Mrs. Phelps in the original production of “Matilda,” La Barrie is about to play Hermes in the West End premiere of “Hadestown,” whose first week of rehearsal, in December, she attended on a vacation from “& Juliet.” During her Broadway sojourn, her partner of 15 years, Martin Phillips, a translator, was more often the one traveling back and forth.After La Barrie’s final bow in “& Juliet,” which Szot marked with an eloquent onstage tribute, thanking her “for giving life to the adorable Angélique,” she changed out of her costume and put on a Hermes pendant: a gift from Jeannie Naughton, her “& Juliet” dresser.La Barrie sat for photos, communed with fans at the stage door, declined offers of Jell-O shots from her young colleagues. Then she returned to her dressing room to talk, packing a bit as she did, because she had a New Year’s Eve flight to London the next day. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.“The thing that was the most important to me was for people to know how much I loved Juliet,” La Barrie said.Emily Soto for The New York TimesHow are you doing?I feel so satisfied. I’ve been with this show for such a long time. I did the first workshop of it in December 2017, in London. It was right after Liverpool, where I had played the Nurse in “Romeo and Juliet.” [The director Luke Sheppard] said, “Will you come and read something for me? I can’t really explain what it is, but it’s kind of top secret.”Jeannie Naughton, La Barrie’s “& Juliet” dresser, gave her a Hermes pendant in a nod to the role she is about to play in “Hadestown.”Emily Soto for The New York TimesHow did having played the Nurse affect your approach to Angélique?The thing that was the most important to me was for people to know how much I loved Juliet. They had to know that my entire being was to be an adjunct to Juliet’s wishes. To facilitate them, even reluctantly. Which is Shakespeare’s intention, you know. Everything I do is for Juliet. But this one then veers off and gives me my own story. Which is quite something.It’s a fizzy, funny, midlife romance. Tell me how you made that work so beautifully.Grown-ups don’t get love stories. They say to me at the stage door all the time — it’s always the mamas — they go, “Can my kid have a picture, and then can I have one?” A new love, or a re-sparked love in older people, they eat it up because they say, “I don’t know this. I don’t know this in the context of a jukebox musical or in the context of any musical at all.” I think that is the first thing: the audience’s desire for that. You put me with somebody that I love as deeply as I love Paulo Szot ——“The way that I tell stories comes from a deeply cultural place,” said La Barrie, a Trinidadian Londoner.Emily Soto for The New York TimesWhom you had never met before this show.Never met before. And when I came, I was so clear that I didn’t want to bring any of my experience of the [dynamic from the] London production. It would be very unfair, I thought, to come here and try to make Tony Award-winning Paulo Szot do what Broadway debutante Melanie La Barrie wanted to do. So why don’t we make it anew? He’s an acclaimed opera singer. He runs in serious circles. But he lives in a spirit of collaboration.When I first moved here, Paulo took me out. He took me to see a Brazilian symphony at Carnegie Hall. Then we went to Birdland afterwards, to watch some jazz. It was the best date — [laughs] sorry, Martin — one of the best friend dates that I have ever been on. And he knew that I had never been here before.You had never been here before?I probably, maybe, had a layover once or spent one day.And then you just moved here for over a year.I know. Isn’t that fun?“Grown-ups don’t get love stories,” La Barrie said. “They say to me at the stage door all the time — it’s always the mamas — they go, ‘Can my kid have a picture, and then can I have one?’” Emily Soto for The New York TimesIn March, when “Hadestown” tweeted that it was going back to London, you tweeted, “I am available.”I’d never even seen the show.Had you heard it?No, not really. But I knew that it was amazing.How much freedom do you have to make Hermes your own?One, I’m using my own accent. That brings its own music and its own sensibilities. And the way that I tell stories comes from a deeply cultural place. There’s a [Trinidadian] music called rapso. It’s social commentary, all in rhyme, in time to music. That’s the thing that informed me when I did my audition.We have taken the gender out of Hermes. Hermes is now just Hermes. It was something that I felt very, very deeply about. When I went in to audition, I just dropped all the “Mister” and “Missus.” I didn’t say it. I put in other words. Because I was like, I don’t feel like a Missus Hermes. I just feel like Hermes. And they’re so game for this kind of genderless god from the Caribbean. [laughs]“I love Broadway, and I love New York,” La Barrie said. “That’s also now a part of me, that’s like another lobe of my heart.”Emily Soto for The New York TimesWhat of your “& Juliet” experience will you take with you?This show and this part has changed my life. I probably never would have gotten Hermes if I didn’t play Angélique. People regard me differently. I had to wait until I was nearly 50 years old for that to happen. I think people would have still just had me in those smaller supporting roles if I hadn’t done this, and if I hadn’t done this on Broadway. Which then jumped it up a few pegs in the hierarchy of things.Will Broadway see you again?I hope so. I love Broadway, and I love New York. That’s also now a part of me, that’s like another lobe of my heart. I didn’t expect when I was growing up in Trinidad to ever be given anything like this. It’s like, not miraculous, because I have done the work. But still it’s wondrous. That wonder has been given to me. And that is why I am satisfied. More

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      2024 TV, Movies and More That New York Times Critics Look Forward To

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      “Mad Max” gets a prequel, “The Wiz” returns to Broadway and Larry David gets another crack at a series finale.Holland CotterThe Met Looks to Right a Historic WrongEarly in 1969, the Metropolitan Museum sparked an uproar with an exhibition called “Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968.” Although conceived as the museum’s first big-ticket acknowledgment of African American creativity, it included no visual art beyond documentary photomurals. Black artists, many working in Harlem just blocks north of the museum, angrily picketed the show, denouncing it as evidence of art world racism writ large.As a student visiting New York in 1969 I saw, and was baffled by, that show, so I’m eager to see a new one that can only be viewed as a corrective to it, the marquee-scale survey of paintings, sculptures, photographs and films titled “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” scheduled to open at the Met in February. The announced inclusion of a wealth of African American art considered inadmissible to the Met half a century ago — some represented by rarely seen loans from the collections of some of the country’s historically Black colleges and universities — is, on its own, an exciting prospect. And so is the exhibition’s larger promise to fully position modern African American art not just as a local phenomenon, but as a generator of international modernism itself.Alissa WilkinsonFuriosa Gets an Origin StoryCharlize Theron in the 2015 movie “Mad Max: Fury Road.”Jasin Boland/Warner Bros.Next year brings a lot of sequels: “Inside Out 2,” “Beetlejuice 2,” “Joker: Folie à Deux,” “Gladiator 2,” “Dune: Part Two,” plus new films in the “Quiet Place” and “Venom” and “Paddington” and “Godzilla” and even “Despicable Me” cinematic universes. I rarely get excited for non-original films, since most of them come off as naked cash grabs capitalizing on existing I.P. and risk-averse audiences. But I’m always curious if a sequel (or prequel or side-quel or whatever) will manage to be good, and the one I’m excited for is “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” George Miller returns to direct an origin story for the character that Charlize Theron played in 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with Anya Taylor-Joy in the Furiosa role. I love a dystopia, and few have exceeded the sheer adrenaline and dread of “Fury Road.” I’m revisiting all the “Mad Max” movies in preparation.Mike HaleTom Hollander Tackles Truman CapoteClive Owen as an aging Sam Spade on AMC’s “Monsieur Spade” (Jan. 14), Helena Bonham Carter as the 1970s soap opera star Noele Gordon (“Nolly,” PBS), Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche as Christian Dior and Coco Chanel (“The New Look,” Apple TV+, Feb. 14) — there may have never been a new TV year with so many intriguing bits of casting. But the one that has me the most curious is the wonderfully acidic British actor Tom Hollander playing Truman Capote in FX’s “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” (Jan. 31). Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny and Calista Flockhart play some of the society women Capote befriended and then used as material for his highly unflattering roman à clef “Answered Prayers”; if the thought of Hollander channeling Capote as he calls Happy Rockefeller “that fat-ankled harridan” turns you on, then you must tune in.Salamishah Tillet‘The Wiz’ Returns to BroadwayFrom left: Christian Dante White as the Scarecrow, Ashanti as Dorothy and Joshua Henry as the Tinman in the 2009 Encores! Summer stars production of the musical “The Wiz.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesI tell everyone that my son Sidney is a musical theater kid. So naturally, his favorite movie is “The Wiz.” And, of course, for his eighth birthday, we went to Baltimore, where the musical version first debuted in 1975, and its current tour started this past October. My parents even saw one of its 1,672 performances during its original four-year Broadway run, when it won seven Tonys, including best musical. Because I come from a family of avid “Wiz” fans, I find myself anticipating its return to Broadway this April at the Marquis Theater with more zeal than usual.Based on L. Frank Baum’s children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and with an all-black cast, “The Wiz” is a cultural classic, so its revivals have to come with some powerful updates. Directed by Schele Williams with additional writing by Amber Ruffin, it now features Nichelle Lewis, whose TikTok audition landed her the role as Dorothy; a stirring Melody A. Betts as Aunt Em and Evillene; Kyle Ramar Freeman as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tinman; Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow; and Deborah Cox as Glinda, with Wayne Brady returning to Broadway to play Oz. My sneak peek already has me excited about this dynamic cast, Hannah Beachler’s (“Black Panther”) kaleidoscopic set and the former Beyoncé choreographer JaQuel Knight’s dance moves, especially when Dorothy and her squad of outsiders make their way to Emerald City.Jesse GreenA Double Dose of Itamar MosesTalk about range: February brings to New York stages two exceedingly contrasting works by Itamar Moses, who previously wrote the book for “The Band’s Visit.” Feb. 15 through March 10, the Public Theater presents Lila Neugebauer’s staging of “The Ally,” starring Josh Radnor as a Jewish college professor caught in the crossfire between wokeism and free speech when asked to sign a social justice manifesto. The topicality is off the charts.Then, Feb. 28 through April 7 at the Minetta Lane Theater, Audible reunites Moses with some of his “Band’s Visit” collaborators for “Dead Outlaw.” The musical, directed by David Cromer, with a book by Moses and songs by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna, is about … a mummy. Specifically, the mummy of a failed Old West gunslinger, used as a sideshow attraction for decades before the truth is discovered in a super-gross way. Spoiler alert — I guess literally.Maya PhillipsStylish Spy Moves, Stacked Cast (and One Cat)The concept at the center of “Argylle” — a best-selling author discovers that what she writes comes true — immediately reminds me of one of my favorite films, “Stranger Than Fiction.” (I’m just a sucker for meta stories about the power of storytelling.) Starring Bryce Dallas Howard as a meek spy novelist whose words draw her into the dangerous world of espionage, “Argylle” (opening Feb. 2) is directed by Matthew Vaughn, whose devilishly stylish “Kingsman” franchise suggests he’ll know just how to play to and satirize the spy movie genre. The cast is filled with actors who have taken on action roles but have also shown impressive comedic chops (Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, John Cena and Samuel L. Jackson among them), while the cinematography looks to share the same sleek style Vaughn has made his signature. And an inconvenient, frazzled cat in a backpack? The cherry on top.Jason ZinomanLarry David Does Another FinaleHow in the world did Larry David do it? It’s a question I’ve been hearing a lot lately. How did he make one of the funniest episodes of television ever out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? How did he tackle race, the Holocaust, Trump without getting in trouble? How did he make us care so much about these insufferable rich Hollywood types whining during their golf game? How did he manage the impossible feat of putting on 11 seasons of a show dominated by improvised small talk? The questions are rhetorical, of course, but everyone knows the answer. Larry David is really really (dare I say “pretty preeetty”) good at what he does. So, his last season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which premieres Feb. 4, is a sad occasion. But it’s also one of the few things on television that I will not tape but watch exactly when it airs. I don’t know what the storylines of the next season will be, but here’s one idea to consider: David has already written a much-anticipated finale, the one on “Seinfeld.” I thought it was excellent. Many disagreed. Jerry Seinfeld has said onstage that he will be revisiting this finale in some form. Food for thought.Margaret Lyons‘Girls5eva’ Hit the RoadFrom left: Busy Philipps, Paula Pell, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Sara Bareilles in “Girls5eva.”Emily V Aragones/NetflixWhen Season 2 of “Girls5eva” ended in 2022, my hopes for a renewal were slim; no Peacock original show has actually made it to a third season. But now it isn’t a Peacock show anymore: There is a third season premiering March 14, but it will be on Netflix. Season 1 found the ’90s girl group reuniting, and in Season 2 they put out their album. This season, they’re heading out on tour, an experience for which they are not prepared. I am of course looking forward to the zingy jokes and warped nostalgia, but the even bigger wish is for another absolute banger that will join “Four Stars,” “B.P.E.” and “I’m Afraid” on my playlists.Zachary WoolfeChristmas in Spring at the MetFirst things first: “El Niño” isn’t an opera about weather patterns. In fact, while John Adams’s energetic, eclectic two-hour score is opera-length, it’s not exactly an opera at all. It’s an oratorio, in the tradition of Handel’s “Messiah,” that tells the Nativity story without characters or naturalistic scenes. It’s more of a reflection on the tale; the choral numbers and solos have their texts drawn from the Bible as well as from Latin American poetry, all sewn together by Adams and Peter Sellars.First performed in 2000, the piece isn’t always staged, but for its Metropolitan Opera premiere (April 23-May 17), the company is giving it a grand treatment. The production, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, boasts the conductor Marin Alsop, the soprano Julia Bullock, the bass-baritone Davóne Tines and the mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges — inspired musical forces. It’s a few months late for Christmas, but “El Niño” will be welcome nevertheless.Jon ParelesBrittany Howard Unveils Startling New SongsBrittany Howard returns with a solo album, “What Now,” this year.Rob Grabowski/Invision, via Associated PressUnbridled emotions, sonic ambitions and audacious singing have been the makings of Brittany Howard’s songs since she arrived with Alabama Shakes in 2012. She’s steeped in Southern soul and rock, and her voice has gospel-rooted power. But with Alabama Shakes and then on her 2019 solo album, “Jaime,” Howard moved far beyond revivalism, pushing toward startling new hybrids; her co-producer, Shawn Everett, has also worked with SZA and Kacey Musgraves. Howard’s second solo album, “What Now,” is due Feb. 2, and its advance singles have plunged into the turbulence of a failing relationship, leaping between the percussive and the ethereal. The full album promises even more innovative ups and downs. Howard begins a North American tour on Feb. 6, with New York City shows Feb. 16 and 17 at Webster Hall. More