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      Richard Roat, Seen on ‘Cheers,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld,’ Dies at 89

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      A familiar TV face for years, he appeared on many of the most popular prime-time shows of recent decades.Richard Roat, a versatile character actor whose half-century-long career was punctuated by notable guest appearances on three of the most popular sitcoms of recent decades, “Cheers,” “Friends” and “Seinfeld,” died on Aug. 5 in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 89.Kathy (Arntzen) Roat, his wife and only immediate survivor, said the cause was a heart attack. She said Mr. Roat, who lived in Glendale, died in a condo while on vacation.On a 1985 episode of “Cheers,” as the imperious boss of the barstool habitué Norm Peterson (George Wendt), he threatened to fire Norm if he didn’t accept a promotion (and raise) to become the company’s “corporate killer” — the person who terminates people.“Studies have shown that it’s particularly humiliating when you’re fired by someone who is clearly and markedly superior to yourself,” Mr. Roat’s character tells Norm coldly. “That wouldn’t be the case with you, Norman. You’re just an ordinary Joe. We checked out your home life. You have absolutely nothing that anyone could possibly envy or resent.”In 1996, on “Seinfeld,” Mr. Roat was a dermatologist who labeled Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) a “difficult” patient when she sought treatment for a rash. His character turned from friendly to stern when he checked her patient history.“Well, that doesn’t look serious,” he says, barely examining her. “You’ll be fine.” He then adds notes to her history when she complains that the rash is “really itchy.”And on “Friends,” in 2000, he was a professor at the college where Ross (David Schwimmer) taught. At one point he tells Ross that he was violating campus rules by dating a student.“They’re going to fire you,” he says.“Really, it’s not just frowned upon?” Ross asks.Mr. Roat worked primarily in television, starting in 1962 with two very different series about police officers: the sitcom “Car 54, Where Are You?” and the drama “Naked City.” He was a regular on the daytime soap opera “The Doctors” from 1963 to 1964, and over the next 45 years was seen on comedies like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Murphy Brown” and “Ellen” and dramas like “The Fugitive,” “Columbo,” “Matlock” and “Dynasty.”In a 1986 episode of “The Golden Girls,” as the boyfriend of Rose (Betty White), he dies in bed after they sleep together.He also worked regularly in regional theater. He starred with Jo Anne Worley in Ken Ludwig’s theatrical farce “Moon Over Buffalo” at the Pasadena Playhouse, and in William Luce’s one-man show “Barrymore,” about the actor John Barrymore, at the Dorset Theater Festival in Vermont. He played the title role, based on Lyndon B. Johnson, in Barbara Garson’s political satire “Macbird!” at the Players’ Ring Gallery in Los Angeles, and a married character in Mart Crowley’s “The Boys in the Band,” about a group of gay men, at what is now the Montalbán Theater, also in Los Angeles.In 1962 he played Mark Antony in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Julius Caesar.” Mr. Roat, seated, with Jay Leno and Ellen Reagan in the 1978 television movie “Almost Heaven.”G Stein/ABC via Getty Images
      Richard Donald Roat Jr. was born on July 3, 1933, in Hartford, Conn. His father was a glazier, and his mother, Lois (Bowan) Roat, was a homemaker.After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Hartford in 1956, Mr. Roat acted with the Mark Twain Masquers and other local theatrical groups. He also earned a living by driving a bakery truck and holding other odd jobs.In 1961 he made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Michael Ebert in “The Wall,” a play about Jews in occupied Poland during World War II. Mr. Roat played Dr. Jerry Chandler during 172 episodes of “The Doctors” and told The Portland Press Herald that he felt grateful for the opportunity to act regularly.“There’s room for less than one percent of the new actors in nighttime television,” he said. “Unless you’re a ‘regular’ and get a running assignment for a season-long series, your chances in nighttime television are practically nil.”His last television role was in the drama “24” in 2009.Mr. Roat had another long-running role, which he pursued as an actor and continued after he retired that year: as a tax preparer for people in the entertainment business. During a slow period in his acting career in the late 1960s, he took a job in an accountant’s office. On April 15 of that first year, the accountant had a nervous breakdown, Kathy Roat said, and Mr. Roat “took some tax forms and decided to become a tax preparer.” More

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      in Movies

      Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich: A Marriage Built on Monsters

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      In 20 years and several “Resident Evil” films, the couple has found their love language in action — and a lot of blood and dust.The filmmaker Paul W. S. Anderson has directed Milla Jovovich in no less than four films in the apocalyptic “Resident Evil” franchise, and written two more she starred in. That’s in addition to directing her in “Monster Hunter” (2020) and a 2011 version of “The Three Musketeers.”But what might sound like a series of genre nightmares is in fact a dream arrangement: Anderson and Jovovich are married, with three children. A shared love of visual storytelling — often in the form of Jovovich destroying monsters in Anderson’s postindustrial wastelands — has energized them during a 20-odd-year collaboration, which began with “Resident Evil” (2002), an adaptation of a video game that both had played. (A separate “Resident Evil” series is now on Netflix.)Jovovich in the Anderson-directed “Monster Hunter,” one of many films the couple has collaborated on. Screen Gems/Sony PicturesOn a recent video call, I spoke with the cheery couple about their partnership: Jovovich, 46, from Los Angeles, having recently wrapped “Breathe,” a dystopian thriller; Anderson, 57, from Krakow, Poland, where he is in preproduction on their next project, “In the Lost Lands,” based on a short story by George R. R. Martin. The family business continues with their daughter Ever Anderson, who stars as Wendy in David Lowery’s forthcoming “Peter Pan & Wendy.” This interview has been condensed and edited.How did you first meet?PAUL W.S. ANDERSON We were going into Pinewood Studios [outside London] to start production on “Event Horizon,” and they were tearing down these really cool-looking sets for “The Fifth Element” [starring Jovovich] that had just finished shooting. Our paths almost crossed there. And then we were at a premiere together, separately.MILLA JOVOVICH A premiere?ANDERSON Yeah! A Drew Barrymore movie. “Never Been Kissed.”JOVOVICH I can never imagine you watching a rom-com like that! That’s hilarious.ANDERSON I was obviously drawn for another reason, because you were there. Then I finally met Milla officially for the first time in 2000, right before we did “Resident Evil.” She was sitting on the steps outside my office. I thought she was the coolest-looking woman in the world. And I had just seen this really cool truck parked on the street outside — and it was her truck.What was it like giving notes on your first movie together?JOVOVICH Oh, my God, it was a disaster. I had read for a certain version of the movie, and I got the new rewrite the night before I had to go to Berlin [to shoot]. Paul had pretty much written me out of the movie. I was the damsel in distress that Michelle Rodriguez was saving constantly — the “Look out! Behind you!” girl. So by the time I got to the hotel, Paul’s very sweet producing partner was there with flowers, and I grabbed the flowers and said, “I want to see Paul in my room within the hour. There won’t be any script readings in the morning!” Then I quickly changed, did my makeup, put on a really low-cut top and met for some script revisions. [Laughs] He said, “What’s the problem?” I said, “OK, let’s start: Page 1!”Do you work together at all on writing the stories now?JOVOVICH Paul is the writer, I just ask questions, trying to understand where my character fits in. He does the heavy lifting, and I come in and put a kink in the works occasionally.ANDERSON But that’s a hugely important part of the process, and Milla’s really good on script. I remember on “Resident Evil: Afterlife” [2010], I’d written the script, and Milla was like, “It’s just missing something. It needs some signature action scene where I do something, some kind of aerial combat. And I had a dream last night: I was jumping down an elevator shaft.” And I thought, oh, my God, that’s a great idea. I went away and did a big rewrite. And “Resident Evil: Afterlife” opens with this needle-dive sequence, where it’s in this underground skyscraper. She was right!The couple working on “Resident Evil: Afterlife.” She said, “Paul is the writer, I just ask questions.” He added, “But that’s a hugely important part of the process, and Milla’s really good on script.”Rafy/Screen Gems, via Everett CollectionWhat do you feel are each other’s strengths in terms of filming action?JOVOVICH Paul is the action master. It made a lot of sense when I found out that he was the Dungeon Master [as a kid] because you have to have that imagination to direct five nerds playing Dungeons & Dragons for 18 hours at a time. And he still does it with our kids now. It’s so much fun. I’ve always been fascinated by the way Paul’s mind works, because you’re the nicest guy, but in your head you’ve got these horrifying, disgusting visions and fantasies.ANDERSON Monsters from the id!JOVOVICH Who knows what would have happened if you couldn’t take it out in your movies? You’d be having this conversation from prison.Milla, your mother was an actor. Was that an influence for you?JOVOVICH My mother was a movie star in the former Soviet Union. We defected in 1981 or something to America, my parents literally starting from zero. My mom tried to teach me what she knew to help us get a leg up in a new country. So for me, acting was not really a choice. It was more of a necessity. I feel like maybe part of the reason it’s so hard for me to watch myself onscreen is because I never truly had that belief in myself that I could be as good as her. But I don’t resent my mom for it; now I’m really grateful for it, because with my own daughter [Ever Anderson], I feel like I really nurtured her talent.Paul, were there filmmakers that have inspired you?ANDERSON The Scott brothers were a huge inspiration, because Ridley and Tony came from the north of England as well. It used to be shipbuilding and coal mining, and by the time I was a kid, it was all industrial decay and unemployment.Is the industrial decay a key to all the postapocalyptic landscapes in these movies?JOVOVICH Paul is the king of industrial decay. My mom always complains. [Russian accent] “Why you never put her in evening gown and make beautiful, glamorous hair. Always dirty. Always filthy. Always blood. Always horrible locations. Disgusting.” [Anderson laughs]ANDERSON I remember going into the makeup trailer of “Resident Evil: Extinction” in the desert in Mexico [on a visit to the set of the 2007 film directed by Russell Mulcahy]. Milla’s in there and the makeup artist was just putting on so much dirt. I’m like, that’s enough dirt! And you could see Milla was a little disgruntled. I see her outside a minute later, she’s chasing a truck around, because it’s kicking up all this dust. And she’s just trying to get extra dirty!JOVOVICH I’m telling you, nothing suits me better than blood and dust. More

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      in Theater

      Black Film and TV Actors Get a Chance to Shine on Broadway

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      On Broadway this fall, it’s less about new playwrights making their debuts and more about established stars giving the stage a shot.One of the most exciting parts of the 2021-22 Broadway season was the number of people who looked like me, both onstage and behind the scenes. We saw the Broadway debut of seven plays by Black playwrights, starring Black actors, in an art form that too often tokenizes people of color, alienates them, misrepresents them or ignores them altogether.But even when productions are bathed in the bright lights of Broadway, they can still be overlooked: Many of last fall’s works seemed to disappear as quickly as they appeared in the tough post-shutdown return period. This fall, Broadway may not have as many new works by Black playwrights, but it will serve old favorites with promising casts of versatile Black actors who have built careers not just on the stage, but also in film and TV.One of last season’s highlights was the playwright Alice Childress receiving her long-overdue Broadway debut with the stunning comedy-drama “Trouble in Mind.” So, what better time to give even more neglected writers of color their moment in the spotlight? The experimental Black playwright Adrienne Kennedy will follow this November with a similarly belated premiere, a production of her harrowing 1992 play “Ohio State Murders,” starring the stage luminary Audra McDonald as a writer who returns to her alma mater to speak about the violent imagery in her work.A lethal mix of present-day racial injustice and unrelenting racial trauma from the past, “Ohio State Murders,” directed by Kenny Leon, will have an exciting peer in a revival of August Wilson’s 1987 play “The Piano Lesson,” directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson (a cast member of the 2009 Broadway revival of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” to cite another Wilson work). Her husband, Samuel L. Jackson, who originated the role of Boy Willie in “The Piano Lesson” at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1987, will also join this revival, now in the role of Doaker Charles, Boy Willie’s uncle who recounts the titular piano’s history. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play follows siblings who are at odds over whether to sell a piano bearing depictions of their enslaved ancestors.The appeal of these plays doesn’t just come down to the material and the ethnicity of the casts, however; the Black casts this season represent captivating newcomers and veterans from various realms of theater, film and TV. So those only familiar with Jackson’s explosive acting style in, say, an action-packed Marvel movie or a brutal Quentin Tarantino film, will now see how the actor’s energy translates to the stage. The same will be true for Jackson’s castmate Danielle Brooks, a star of the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” who made an acclaimed Broadway debut in “The Color Purple” in 2015 and tickled audiences as the brassy Beatrice in the Public Theater’s 2019 production of “Much Ado About Nothing.”Film and TV are, after all, a different ballgame than the theater, where actors must respond in real time to the action onstage and perform with a resonance that will reach the upper echelons of the balcony. That will be the challenge for John David Washington (“Tenet,” “BlacKkKlansman”), who is new to the theater and will be making his Broadway debut in “The Piano Lesson.”Elsewhere on Broadway this season, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will transition from his arresting roles on TV (“Watchmen”) and film (Jordan Peele’s “Candyman” reimagining) in a revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Topdog/Underdog,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning work that follows the daily rituals of two impoverished brothers named Lincoln and Booth. He will make his Broadway debut opposite Corey Hawkins, who played the charming cab dispatcher Benny in John Cho’s film adaptation of “In the Heights.” Hawkins also played Dr. Dre in “Straight Outta Compton” and Macduff in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” and was nominated for a Tony Award for his role as the con man Paul Poitier in the 2017 Broadway revival of John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation.”Most of these plays are contemporary, dating only from the last three decades or so. (The neglect or erasure of early works by Black artists and other artists of color is, unfortunately, common.) But a West End and Young Vic revival of “Death of a Salesman” reconfigures Arthur Miller’s beloved 1949 classic into a story about a Black family, starring Wendell Pierce, André De Shields and Sharon D Clarke, who won an Olivier Award for best actress for her portrayal of Linda Loman in the British production and is known stateside for her knockout performance in last season’s “Caroline, or Change.”So anticipation is running high this season not just for the polished onstage products — the glamorous and funny, tense and heart-rending Black productions — but also for the array of Black talent, from the Broadway of decades past to today’s Hollywood stars, that will meet, creating something utterly of the moment. More

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      in Theater

      Lea Michele On ‘Funny Girl,’ ‘Glee,’ Her Career and Those Rumors

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      She’s landed her dream role in “Funny Girl.” Now she’s tasked with rescuing the faltering Broadway show and proving that she is not the person she once was.Fifteen years ago, Lea Michele was sulking in her “Spring Awakening” dressing room, heartbroken over a guy, when the Broadway show’s director offered her a bit of advice.The director, Michael Mayer, suggested that she watch “Funny Girl,” which, he explained, was about a performer learning to not let a man drag her down.“I gave it to her as a kind of comfort,” Mayer said in a phone interview last month. “You’ve got this great career, you’re the lead in this significant new musical, and you’re young still.”Michele watched the movie that night. Dazzled, she watched it again the next night, resolving to one day land the lead role of Fanny Brice. A few weeks later, she gushed about “Funny Girl” and its star, Barbra Streisand, at dinner with a television producer, Ryan Murphy, who went on to create a new series, “Glee,” with Michele in mind.This is where it gets meta: Playing a glee club captain who graduates to become a striving theater actress, Michele’s character lands her dream role in the first Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” since its debut in 1964.Murphy’s plan to transfer Michele’s Fanny Brice from the TV screen to stage never materialized. But on Tuesday, a tale that feels to many like life imitating art culminates with Michele’s first performance as Brice, a 20th-century Jewish performer, at the August Wilson Theater.Like the two other actresses who occupied the lead role this year (first Beanie Feldstein, then her standby Julie Benko), Michele must seek to avoid the shadow of Streisand’s star-making performance in the original musical and movie.Unlike the other actresses, Michele, 36, must contend with another shadow: her past self. Two years ago, she faced a wave of criticism from former colleagues who publicly accused her of bullying behavior and a prima donna attitude. And she must step into a show whose behind-the-scenes machinations and cast changes have been one of the juiciest running stories on Broadway this summer, prompting reams of coverage and gossip.Michele during a “Funny Girl” rehearsal. She is playing Brice with the character’s feverish energy dialed up a bit higher than the two Fannies before her this year. Jenny Anderson“I feel more ready than I ever have before, both personally and professionally,” Michele said in an interview three weeks before her debut. She spoke from a dressing room vacated by the actress Jane Lynch, who ended her run as Brice’s mother earlier than planned, ensuring that the former “Glee” co-stars would never perform together onstage.The allegations prompted an “intense time of reflection” about her conduct at work, Michele said — which, she believes, has equipped her to be a part of, and lead, a Broadway company for the first time since leaving “Spring Awakening” in 2008.“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” she said. “It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not. And that wasn’t always the most important thing for me.”For Michele, who temporarily stepped away from performing after the birth of her son, Ever, in 2020, the explosive internet reaction to her “Funny Girl” casting was not, perhaps, the return-to-Broadway narrative she had imagined.Before the news was announced, Feldstein, who had generally received underwhelming reviews in the role, said on Instagram in July that she would be leaving the show two months earlier than expected, writing that the production had “decided to take the show in a different direction.” The announcement fueled speculation that Feldstein’s departure had something to do with Michele, who was rumored to be taking over the part.“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” Michele said. “It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesRebukes of Michele resurfaced online, with some questioning whether she should have been offered the role at all.To go back to June 2020: After Michele tweeted a message with the Black Lives Matter hashtag, Samantha Marie Ware, a Black actress who appeared on “Glee,” said Michele had been responsible for “traumatic microaggressions” toward her, saying that Michele had threatened to get her fired and made a humiliating remark in front of castmates.A deluge of criticism followed, including from former “Glee” actors who described Michele as exclusionary and demeaning to colleagues. The meal-kit company HelloFresh, saying it “does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind,” ended its partnership with her.Another co-star from “Glee,” Heather Morris, tweeted at the time that it had been very unpleasant to work with Michele, writing that “for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she should be called out.” (Morris did not respond to an interview request.)Michele apologized in 2020 for her past behavior. In the interview last month, she declined to address the specifics of Ware’s account, saying she doesn’t “feel the need to handle things” through the media. Ware declined to comment, but shortly after Michele’s “Funny Girl” casting was announced, Ware posted a tweet in which she said, “Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness.” Her account and tweets have since been made private.Michele now acknowledges that her work style is intense, sometimes to a fault. “I have an edge to me. I work really hard. I leave no room for mistakes,” she said. “That level of perfectionism, or that pressure of perfectionism, left me with a lot of blind spots.”She traced that psychology to her days as a child actress on Broadway, where, she said, the expectation to perform at a consistently high level often put her in a “semi-robotic state.”Her performance career started unexpectedly when she was 8, living in Tenafly, N.J., with her father (a Jewish deli owner) and her mother (an Italian-Catholic nurse). As Michele tells it, her mother was asked to drive a friend’s daughter, whose father had just had a heart attack, to an audition for the Broadway production of “Les Misérables.” Michele insisted on coming along, and she ended up landing the dual role of Young Cosette and Young Éponine. Hungry for more, Michele was 9 when she was cast in the new musical “Ragtime.”At 14, she met Mayer when she landed the role of Wendla in a workshop of “Spring Awakening.” The role, as a teenager exploring her sexual desires within the strictures of a 19th-century German household, left no questions about her dedication to the theater. Michele was beaten with a switch onstage by her co-star, Jonathan Groff, and when she was older, she was asked to bare her chest and simulate sex onstage.Groff, who formed a close bond with Michele during the run, remembers Michele being upset by the uncomfortable laughter that beating scene would elicit from audiences.“It would really crush her,” he said, “like, ‘Oh gosh, are we not doing the scene well enough? The people are laughing!’”Groff was the person who invited her to dinner with Murphy, setting the stage for Michele’s “Glee” role. At 22, Michele became known to the world as Rachel Berry, an anal-retentive high school glee club member whose middle name, Barbra, is after a certain Brooklyn-born diva.By the time Berry lands the “Funny Girl” role in the series, her affinity for the musical is well established, having already sung “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and the movie-specific “My Man.” In the show’s fifth season, Berry belts “I’m the Greatest Star” on a Broadway stage, with Lynch watching from the audience.You can be forgiven for mixing up which plot points belong to Michele and which to Berry. “It all kind of morphed together a little bit,” Michele said.In a moment of Rachel Berry-like perfectionism, she admitted that during a “Glee” concert tour, she asked that “Don’t Rain On My Parade” be removed from the set list because she had messed up during a live performance.Behind the scenes, Michele said, she was getting a “quick education on addiction” while dating Cory Monteith, her co-star who had long struggled with substance abuse. Monteith died in 2013 of a combination of heroin and alcohol, devastating Michele and other cast members.Performing in 2010 with Cory Monteith, who died of a combination of heroin and alcohol in 2013.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesNot long after, Michele got within reach of her dream role, as Murphy snagged the rights to a Broadway revival of “Funny Girl.” It was a difficult time, Michele said, and she felt uncertain about the plan because she had just performed many of the show’s songs on TV.“I didn’t feel like there was anything new that I could bring,” she said.The new emotional material came in the years since — when, as Brice does in the show’s second act, Michele got married and had a child, reordering her priorities.Her friends started to notice changes. Groff recalled that at Michele’s wedding to Zandy Reich, a businessman, in 2019, Murphy, who officiated, told a story about his first dinner with them as a couple. According to Groff, Murphy lightheartedly said, “This was the first time I’ve had dinner with Lea where the main topic of the conversation wasn’t about her, what she wanted to do next creatively.” (A representative for Murphy said he was unavailable to comment for the story.)Michele gave birth to Ever the next year after months of pregnancy complications. He was still a baby when the team behind the London production of “Funny Girl” was casting for the transfer to Broadway. Mayer said that even though Michele was at the top of the list for Brice, he sensed she would not be ready to return to work.After the show cast Feldstein, Mayer had a conversation with Michele to explain the decision. “I said, ‘Look, I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but this is what we’re doing,’” Mayer remembered telling Michele.Down the road, he added, “‘I would love to do ‘Funny Girl’ with you some time.’”Michele said she had not been set on returning to Broadway until November 2021, when she performed in a one-night-only “Spring Awakening” reunion concert. Around that time, she said, she had another conversation with Mayer, in which she said that if Feldstein’s run ended, and they wanted a replacement, she would be “honored” to step in.After Feldstein initially announced her planned departure in June, the wheels for Michele to take over were set in motion, Mayer said. He added that he loved Feldstein’s performance and stands by her “100 percent.” Asked why Feldstein decided to leave earlier than expected, he said he was unsure.“I haven’t spoken to her about it,” Mayer said. “I think it was hard for her once she knew she was going to be leaving and that someone else was taking over.” (A representative for Feldstein didn’t respond to requests for comment.)Mayer said Michele’s deal went through relatively quickly because she and Feldstein had the same agent, who already knew the details around the show. By late July, Michele was in the rehearsal room. Benko took over as Brice for the month of August, with the assurance she’d perform one show a week in the role after Michele’s debut.On one of Michele’s first days with the full cast, she sang “Don’t Rain On My Parade” onstage, and an ensemble member, Leslie Blake Walker, said she remembered watching her perform the song on “Glee” — Walker’s first exposure to “Funny Girl.”Rehearsing “Greatest Star” onstage last month, Michele played Brice with the character’s feverish energy dialed up a bit higher than the two Fannies before her this year. The comedy was her way of taking things to the extreme: grabbing a fistful of Jared Grimes’s sweatshirt when trying to convince him of her talent, or hoisting herself on top of the piano, as Mayer suggested, standing partially on the keys.Referring to her “Funny Girl” colleagues, Michele said, “Everyone here has been through a lot, and I just have to come in and be prepared and do a good job and be respectful of the fact that this is their space.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesThe structure of the show itself will see some changes, including a new interlude of a Brice song, “I’d Rather Be Blue Over You,” that Streisand sings in the movie.Michele, like her predecessors, has tried to remove the pressure of the comparison, saying, “​​I will never be as good as Barbra Streisand.” Whatever performance she delivers, it will not be eligible for a Tony: Only the originating actress in that production, Feldstein, can be considered for the award.But the pressure on her to save this revival is hard to dismiss. Mayer said he sees this as a “second chance” for “Funny Girl,” whose ticket sales had been on the decline, dropping to an average weekly gross of about $760,000 in Feldstein’s final month from $1.2 million in the first two, according to data from the Broadway League. Prices have now skyrocketed for Michele’s debut: The most expensive ticket on her first night is more than $2,600, as of Wednesday.Despite the evident star power, Michele seems aware that she should avoid behaving like a diva.“Everyone here has been through a lot, and I just have to come in and be prepared and do a good job and be respectful of the fact that this is their space,” she said.A humbling element of the process is that she had to learn how to tap dance from square one, practicing with a nursery rhyme tap video one of the show’s choreographers, Ayodele Casel, sent her. (After the first tap rehearsal, she said, she cried in the bathroom, wondering if she really could pull this role off, before the steps eventually clicked.)Still, Michele admits that she is only just learning how to be publicly vulnerable. Online hatred of her can verge on gleeful, and she fears that if she responds to criticism — or a bizarre rumor that she is illiterate — it will fuel the fire.“I went to ‘Glee’ every single day; I knew my lines every single day,” she said. “And then there’s a rumor online that I can’t read or write? It’s sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn’t be the case.”Right now, Michele said, she is focused on what’s in front of her: inhabiting the role, and this time, doing it as a wife and mother rather than a fame-hungry former glee club captain.Maybe Rachel Berry would throw a fit if her performance was ineligible for a Tony Award, but present-day Lea Michele insists that she isn’t bothered.“You might think that’s the biggest piece of bull that I’m going to say to you all day,” Michele said, using the stronger version of the word, “but I really don’t care about that at this point. It’s just about being able to play this part.” More

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      in Television

      Lea Michele Is Well Aware That the Pressure Is On

      by

      She’s landed her dream role in “Funny Girl.” Now she’s tasked with rescuing the faltering Broadway show and proving that she is not the person she once was.Fifteen years ago, Lea Michele was sulking in her “Spring Awakening” dressing room, heartbroken over a guy, when the Broadway show’s director offered her a bit of advice.The director, Michael Mayer, suggested that she watch “Funny Girl,” which, he explained, was about a performer learning to not let a man drag her down.“I gave it to her as a kind of comfort,” Mayer said in a phone interview last month. “You’ve got this great career, you’re the lead in this significant new musical, and you’re young still.”Michele watched the movie that night. Dazzled, she watched it again the next night, resolving to one day land the lead role of Fanny Brice. A few weeks later, she gushed about “Funny Girl” and its star, Barbra Streisand, at dinner with a television producer, Ryan Murphy, who went on to create a new series, “Glee,” with Michele in mind.This is where it gets meta: Playing a glee club captain who graduates to become a striving theater actress, Michele’s character lands her dream role in the first Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” since its debut in 1964.Murphy’s plan to transfer Michele’s Fanny Brice from the TV screen to stage never materialized. But on Tuesday, a tale that feels to many like life imitating art culminates with Michele’s first performance as Brice, a 20th-century Jewish performer, at the August Wilson Theater.Like the two other actresses who occupied the lead role this year (first Beanie Feldstein, then her standby Julie Benko), Michele must seek to avoid the shadow of Streisand’s star-making performance in the original musical and movie.Unlike the other actresses, Michele, 36, must contend with another shadow: her past self. Two years ago, she faced a wave of criticism from former colleagues who publicly accused her of bullying behavior and a prima donna attitude. And she must step into a show whose behind-the-scenes machinations and cast changes have been one of the juiciest running stories on Broadway this summer, prompting reams of coverage and gossip.Michele during a “Funny Girl” rehearsal. She is playing Brice with the character’s feverish energy dialed up a bit higher than the two Fannies before her this year. Jenny Anderson“I feel more ready than I ever have before, both personally and professionally,” Michele said in an interview three weeks before her debut. She spoke from a dressing room vacated by the actress Jane Lynch, who ended her run as Brice’s mother earlier than planned, ensuring that the former “Glee” co-stars would never perform together onstage.The allegations prompted an “intense time of reflection” about her conduct at work, Michele said — which, she believes, has equipped her to be a part of, and lead, a Broadway company for the first time since leaving “Spring Awakening” in 2008.“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” she said. “It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not. And that wasn’t always the most important thing for me.”For Michele, who temporarily stepped away from performing after the birth of her son, Ever, in 2020, the explosive internet reaction to her “Funny Girl” casting was not, perhaps, the return-to-Broadway narrative she had imagined.Before the news was announced, Feldstein, who had generally received underwhelming reviews in the role, said on Instagram in July that she would be leaving the show two months earlier than expected, writing that the production had “decided to take the show in a different direction.” The announcement fueled speculation that Feldstein’s departure had something to do with Michele, who was rumored to be taking over the part.“I really understand the importance and value now of being a leader,” Michele said. “It means not only going and doing a good job when the camera’s rolling, but also when it’s not.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesRebukes of Michele resurfaced online, with some questioning whether she should have been offered the role at all.To go back to June 2020: After Michele tweeted a message with the Black Lives Matter hashtag, Samantha Marie Ware, a Black actress who appeared on “Glee,” said Michele had been responsible for “traumatic microaggressions” toward her, saying that Michele had threatened to get her fired and made a humiliating remark in front of castmates.A deluge of criticism followed, including from former “Glee” actors who described Michele as exclusionary and demeaning to colleagues. The meal-kit company HelloFresh, saying it “does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind,” ended its partnership with her.Another co-star from “Glee,” Heather Morris, tweeted at the time that it had been very unpleasant to work with Michele, writing that “for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she should be called out.” (Morris did not respond to an interview request.)Michele apologized in 2020 for her past behavior. In the interview last month, she declined to address the specifics of Ware’s account, saying she doesn’t “feel the need to handle things” through the media. Ware declined to comment, but shortly after Michele’s “Funny Girl” casting was announced, Ware posted a tweet in which she said, “Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness.” Her account and tweets have since been made private.Michele now acknowledges that her work style is intense, sometimes to a fault. “I have an edge to me. I work really hard. I leave no room for mistakes,” she said. “That level of perfectionism, or that pressure of perfectionism, left me with a lot of blind spots.”She traced that psychology to her days as a child actress on Broadway, where, she said, the expectation to perform at a consistently high level often put her in a “semi-robotic state.”Her performance career started unexpectedly when she was 8, living in Tenafly, N.J., with her father (a Jewish deli owner) and her mother (an Italian-Catholic nurse). As Michele tells it, her mother was asked to drive a friend’s daughter, whose father had just had a heart attack, to an audition for the Broadway production of “Les Misérables.” Michele insisted on coming along, and she ended up landing the dual role of Young Cosette and Young Éponine. Hungry for more, Michele was 9 when she was cast in the new musical “Ragtime.”At 14, she met Mayer when she landed the role of Wendla in a workshop of “Spring Awakening.” The role, as a teenager exploring her sexual desires within the strictures of a 19th-century German household, left no questions about her dedication to the theater. Michele was beaten with a switch onstage by her co-star, Jonathan Groff, and when she was older, she was asked to bare her chest and simulate sex onstage.Groff, who formed a close bond with Michele during the run, remembers Michele being upset by the uncomfortable laughter that beating scene would elicit from audiences.“It would really crush her,” he said, “like, ‘Oh gosh, are we not doing the scene well enough? The people are laughing!’”Groff was the person who invited her to dinner with Murphy, setting the stage for Michele’s “Glee” role. At 22, Michele became known to the world as Rachel Berry, an anal-retentive high school glee club member whose middle name, Barbra, is after a certain Brooklyn-born diva.By the time Berry lands the “Funny Girl” role in the series, her affinity for the musical is well established, having already sung “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and the movie-specific “My Man.” In the show’s fifth season, Berry belts “I’m the Greatest Star” on a Broadway stage, with Lynch watching from the audience.You can be forgiven for mixing up which plot points belong to Michele and which to Berry. “It all kind of morphed together a little bit,” Michele said.In a moment of Rachel Berry-like perfectionism, she admitted that during a “Glee” concert tour, she asked that “Don’t Rain On My Parade” be removed from the set list because she had messed up during a live performance.Behind the scenes, Michele said, she was getting a “quick education on addiction” while dating Cory Monteith, her co-star who had long struggled with substance abuse. Monteith died in 2013 of a combination of heroin and alcohol, devastating Michele and other cast members.Performing in 2010 with Cory Monteith, who died of a combination of heroin and alcohol in 2013.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesNot long after, Michele got within reach of her dream role, as Murphy snagged the rights to a Broadway revival of “Funny Girl.” It was a difficult time, Michele said, and she felt uncertain about the plan because she had just performed many of the show’s songs on TV.“I didn’t feel like there was anything new that I could bring,” she said.The new emotional material came in the years since — when, like Brice does in the show’s second act, Michele got married and had a child, reordering her priorities.Her friends started to notice changes. Groff recalled that at Michele’s wedding to Zandy Reich, a businessman, in 2019, Murphy, who officiated, told a story about his first dinner with them as a couple. According to Groff, Murphy lightheartedly said, “This was the first time I’ve had dinner with Lea where the main topic of the conversation wasn’t about her, what she wanted to do next creatively.” (A representative for Murphy said he was unavailable to comment for the story.)Michele gave birth to Ever the next year after months of pregnancy complications. He was still a baby when the team behind the London production of “Funny Girl” was casting for the transfer to Broadway. Mayer said that even though Michele was at the top of the list for Brice, he sensed she would not be ready to return to work.After the show cast Feldstein, Mayer had a conversation with Michele to explain the decision. “I said, ‘Look, I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear, but this is what we’re doing,’” Mayer remembered telling Michele.Down the road, he added, “‘I would love to do ‘Funny Girl’ with you some time.’”Michele said she had not been set on returning to Broadway until November 2021, when she performed in a one-night-only “Spring Awakening” reunion concert. Around that time, she said, she had another conversation with Mayer, in which she said that if Feldstein’s run ended, and they wanted a replacement, she would be “honored” to step in.After Feldstein initially announced her planned departure in June, the wheels for Michele to take over were set in motion, Mayer said. He added that he loved Feldstein’s performance and stands by her “100 percent.” Asked why Feldstein decided to leave earlier than expected, he said he was unsure.“I haven’t spoken to her about it,” Mayer said. “I think it was hard for her once she knew she was going to be leaving and that someone else was taking over.” (A representative for Feldstein didn’t respond to requests for comment.)Mayer said Michele’s deal went through relatively quickly because she and Feldstein had the same agent, who already knew the details around the show. By late July, Michele was in the rehearsal room. Benko took over as Brice for the month of August, with the assurance she’d perform one show a week in the role after Michele’s debut.On one of Michele’s first days with the full cast, she sang “Don’t Rain On My Parade” onstage, and an ensemble member, Leslie Blake Walker, said she remembered watching her perform the song on “Glee” — Walker’s first exposure to “Funny Girl.”Rehearsing “Greatest Star” onstage last month, Michele played Brice with the character’s feverish energy dialed up a bit higher than the two Fannies before her this year. The comedy was her way of taking things to the extreme: grabbing a fistful of Jared Grimes’s sweatshirt when trying to convince him of her talent, or hoisting herself on top of the piano, as Mayer suggested, standing partially on the keys.Referring to her “Funny Girl” colleagues, Michele said, “Everyone here has been through a lot, and I just have to come in and be prepared and do a good job and be respectful of the fact that this is their space.”Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesThe structure of the show itself will see some changes, including a new interlude of a Brice song, “I’d Rather Be Blue Over You,” that Streisand sings in the movie.Michele, like her predecessors, has tried to remove the pressure of the comparison, saying, “​​I will never be as good as Barbra Streisand.” Whatever performance she delivers, it will not be eligible for a Tony: Only the originating actress in that production, Feldstein, can be considered for the award.But the pressure on her to save this revival is hard to dismiss. Mayer said he sees this as a “second chance” for “Funny Girl,” whose ticket sales had been on the decline, dropping to an average weekly gross of about $760,000 in Feldstein’s final month from $1.2 million in the first two, according to data from the Broadway League. Prices have now skyrocketed for Michele’s debut: The most expensive ticket on her first night is more than $2,600, as of Wednesday.Despite the evident star power, Michele seems aware that she should avoid behaving like a diva.“Everyone here has been through a lot, and I just have to come in and be prepared and do a good job and be respectful of the fact that this is their space,” she said.A humbling element of the process is that she had to learn how to tap dance from square one, practicing with a nursery rhyme tap video one of the show’s choreographers, Ayodele Casel, sent her. (After the first tap rehearsal, she said, she cried in the bathroom, wondering if she really could pull this role off, before the steps eventually clicked.)Still, Michele admits that she is only just learning how to be publicly vulnerable. Online hatred of her can verge on gleeful, and she fears that if she responds to criticism — or a bizarre rumor that she is illiterate — it will fuel the fire.“I went to ‘Glee’ every single day; I knew my lines every single day,” she said. “And then there’s a rumor online that I can’t read or write? It’s sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn’t be the case.”Right now, Michele said, she is focused on what’s in front of her: inhabiting the role, and this time, doing it as a wife and mother rather than a fame-hungry former glee club captain.Maybe Rachel Berry would throw a fit if her performance was ineligible for a Tony Award, but present-day Lea Michele insists that she isn’t bothered.“You might think that’s the biggest piece of bull that I’m going to say to you all day,” Michele said, using the stronger version of the word, “but I really don’t care about that at this point. It’s just about being able to play this part.” More

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      Robert LuPone, Actor Who Became a Behind-the-Scenes Force, Dies at 76

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      After playing a critical Broadway role in “A Chorus Line,” he helped start the vibrant Off Broadway MCC Theater. TV watchers knew him from “The Sopranos” and “Law and Order.”Robert LuPone, an actor and dancer who originated the role of the driven director-choreographer in the musical “A Chorus Line” on Broadway and later helped run a vibrant Off Broadway theater company known for thought-provoking new works, died on Saturday in Albany, N.Y. He was 76.His wife, Virginia (Robinson) LuPone, confirmed the death, at a hospice near his home in Athens, N.Y. She said the cause was pancreatic cancer.Mr. LuPone was familiar to television audiences from his roles on “The Sopranos” and the “Law & Order” franchise. But his first love, like that of his sister, Patti LuPone, was the theater.By 1975, when Mr. LuPone auditioned for “A Chorus Line,” he had been dancing since childhood and had been in a few Broadway shows. Initially cast as Al, one of the dancers vying for a spot in the chorus line of a Broadway musical, Mr. LuPone persuaded Michael Bennett, who conceived and directed the show, that he could play the director, Zach, after Barry Bostwick, who had been cast in the part, left the show during the workshop phase.“Michael has trouble directing actors,” Mr. LuPone said in an interview on the website of the Muny, the musical theater in St. Louis, when it staged “A Chorus Line” in 2017. “No, let me put it this way: Michael has trouble directing egos. He has a tremendous ego. And I have a tremendous ego. Barry Bostwick obviously has a bigger ego than I do.”At the Public Theater, and then on Broadway, “A Chorus Line” was an enormous hit. When it opened at the Shubert Theater — where it would run for 15 years — Walter Kerr wrote in The New York Times that as Zach, Mr. LuPone “retires to a godlike perch at the rear of the auditorium and wheedles out of the brassy and the giggly, the pleading and the nonchalant, snippets of their pasts.”The show was nominated for 12 Tony Awards — Mr. LuPone received a nomination for best featured actor in a musical — and won nine, including best musical. That year, his sister was nominated for best featured actress in a musical, for “The Robber Bridegroom.”“A Chorus Line” proved pivotal for Mr. LuPone: His future was no longer in dancing.Ms. LuPone said that her brother had been an “extraordinary dancer,” and that his decision to give up dancing “haunts me.” In an email, she wrote, “I think he couldn’t take the dictatorial environment that choreographers at that time created.”Mr. LuPone said that dancing in musicals had become a “hollow experience.” In an oral history interview in 2018 with Primary Stages, an Off Broadway theater company, he said, “I wasn’t really able to speak, and the ideas were, for me, superficial.”That realization led him to study at the Actors Studio and perform with the Circle Repertory Company. He began teaching acting at New York University in 1981 and showed a very direct demeanor that his students at first found surprising.“Who was this guy from musical theater talking to us actors?” Bernie Telsey, one of those students, said in a phone interview. “He’d never taught before. But it became the best class ever.” Some students continued to study with him after they graduated.In 1986 Mr. LuPone and Mr. Telsey formed the Manhattan Class Company, which later became MCC Theater. Will Cantler soon joined them as associate artistic director and was named an artistic director in 2011.Over nearly 40 years, the company has sought to produce challenging, original plays and musicals, with a view to what Mr. LuPone called a “third act” — affecting audience members enough to keep them talking about the shows after they returned home.Three MCC productions transferred to Broadway and received Tony nominations for best play: “Frozen,” the story of the aftermath of a 10-year-old girl’s murder, which opened in 2004; “Reasons to Be Pretty” (2008), about people’s obsession with beauty; and “Hand to God” (2014), a dark comedy about a teenager and his profane, possibly demonic sock puppet. An Off Broadway MCC production of “Wit,” Margaret Edson’s play about a woman’s reflections on dying after she learns that she has ovarian cancer — which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Drama Desk Award for outstanding play in 1999 — also moved to Broadway.Mr. LuPone in the 1998 Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge.” He was also a familiar face on “The Sopranos” and “Law and Order.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRobert Francis LuPone was born on July 29, 1946, in Brooklyn and grew up in Northport, N.Y., on Long Island. His father, Orlando Joseph LuPone, was an elementary school principal in Northport. His mother, Angela (Patti) LuPone, a homemaker, encouraged Robert and Patti’s show business ambitions, driving them to classes. Robert and Patti danced together as children, winning third prize at a Jones Beach talent contest.“I still have the trophy,” Ms. LuPone said. “It was a tango.”Robert took tap lessons after school before enrolling in the Martha Graham School, where as a teenager he studied modern dance with Graham, José Limón and Antony Tudor. He attended Adelphi University, on Long Island, but, spurred by meeting a dancer better than he was who had gone to the Juilliard School, he transferred there. He majored in ballet and minored in modern dance and graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree.By then he had been in the ensemble of a 1966 production of “The Pajama Game” at the Westbury Music Fair (now the NYCB Theater at Westbury) on Long Island. He made his Broadway debut as a dancer in 1968, in “Noël Coward’s Sweet Potato,” and danced in three more Broadway shows before his agent sent him to audition for “A Chorus Line.”Mr. LuPone worked steadily as an actor in theater, in movies and on television. He played the Apostle Paul in the film version of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (1973); was in six daytime soap operas (earning a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for his role on “All My Children”);was seen on series like “Gossip Girl,” “Ally McBeal” and “Billions”; and, between 1997 and 2001, was in Broadway productions of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge,” Sam Shepard’s “True West” and Herb Gardener’s “A Thousand Clowns.”In six episodes of “The Sopranos,” he played Bruce Cusamano, Tony Soprano’s neighbor and physician, who recommends that Tony see a psychiatrist.In addition to his wife and sister, Mr. LuPone is survived by his son, Orlando, and his twin brother, William.Mr. LuPone’s acting career was secondary to his work at MCC, where he not only developed, oversaw and produced four or five shows a year but also raised money for the theater’s permanent home, the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on West 52nd Street in Manhattan, which opened in 2019.“Bob was fearless,” Mr. Telsey said, adding that playwrights often found it hard to accept the candid notes that Mr. LuPone would write them during previews. “They’d be so stressed, but three days later realized that Bobby was right. He pulled no punches.” More

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      in Movies

      Charlbi Dean, Star of ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ Dies at 32

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      A South African-born actress and model, she had a breakout role in the satirical “Triangle of Sadness,” due in theaters in the fall.Charlbi Dean, an actress and model who plays a lead role in the film satire “Triangle of Sadness,” which won the top award at the Cannes Film Festival this year and will be released in the fall, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 32.The death, in a hospital, was confirmed by a representative from her publicity agency. The cause was not given.“Triangle of Sadness,” an English-language satire of the ultrawealthy from the Swedish director Ruben Östlund, stars Ms. Dean and Harris Dickinson as models aboard a luxury cruise that goes awry. It took the Palme d’Or prize at Cannes and is scheduled to play at both the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival in September. The independent studio Neon is expected to release the film to theaters on Oct. 7.The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote that the film was a “blunt, ugly sendup of class politics” that “sharply divided critics.”In a promotional interview for the film, Ms. Dean welcomed such a polarized response.“Hopefully people will leave the theater wanting to talk about it and discuss it,” she said. “Those are my favorite films: the ones that get my mind going, piss me off a little, make me laugh and cry.”In a statement posted on Instagram, Mr. Östlund called Ms. Dean’s death “a shock and a tragedy.”“Charlbi had a care and sensitivity that lifted her colleagues and the entire film crew,” he wrote.Charlbi Dean Kriek was born on Feb. 5, 1990, in Cape Town, South Africa, to Johan Kriek and Joanne Muller. In 2008 and 2010, she appeared on the covers of the South African editions of GQ and Elle magazines.She appeared in her first feature film role in 2010, playing a popular boarding school student alongside Troye Sivan and John Cleese in the movie “Spud.” From 2018 to 2021 she portrayed Syonide — a villain with deadly marksmanship skills — in the CW Network superhero drama “Black Lightning.”She is survived by her parents; her brother, Alex Muller; and her fiancé, the South African actor and model Luke Volker. More

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      Laura Linney to Return to Broadway in New David Auburn Play

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      “Summer, 1976,” about a friendship between two women in Ohio, will open next spring at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater.Laura Linney will return to Broadway next spring, in a new play by David Auburn about a friendship that arises between two women during America’s bicentennial.The play, called “Summer, 1976,” will be presented at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater by the Manhattan Theater Club, or M.T.C., which is one of four nonprofit organizations with Broadway houses. M.T.C. had previously announced plans to stage the play this fall, Off Broadway, but on Tuesday announced that Linney had agreed to lead the cast and that the production would now be delayed to spring and moved to Broadway.Linney, 58, is well known for her work on film (“The Savages”) and television (“Ozark”); she has won four Emmy Awards and has been nominated for three Academy Awards.She has returned often to the stage, performing in 12 previous Broadway productions, and has been nominated five times for Tony Awards. Her most recent Broadway role was in early 2020, just before the pandemic closed theaters, when she starred in the solo play “My Name Is Lucy Barton,” which was also produced by M.T.C.Auburn, the playwright, is best known as the author of “Proof,” which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in drama, as well as the Tony Award for best play. That play was also produced on Broadway by M.T.C.“Summer, 1976” will be directed by Daniel Sullivan, who won a Tony for directing “Proof,” and who also directed Auburn’s 2012 Broadway play, “The Columnist.” Sullivan has directed Broadway productions featuring Linney three times previously, including most recently a 2017 revival of “The Little Foxes.”M.T.C. said that previews for “Summer, 1976” would begin April 4; it did not announce an opening date or other members of the cast. The organization described the new play as about an unexpected friendship between two Ohio women, “a fiercely iconoclastic artist and single mom” played by Linney, and “a free-spirited yet naïve young housewife.” The characters “navigate motherhood, ambition and intimacy, and help each other discover their own independence.” More