Awards, Decorations and Honors

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      MacArthur Foundation Announces 25 New ‘Genius’ Grant Winners

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      The 2022 awards are going to artists, activists, scholars, scientists and others who have shown “exceptional creativity.” The grants are a bit bigger than before: $800,000 over five years.The 2022 MacArthur fellows include a sociologist working to understand what drives people to own guns; an astrodynamicist trying to manage “space traffic” and ensure that satellites don’t crash into each other in Earth’s orbit; and a lawyer seeking to expose inequities in the patent system that stifle access to affordable medications.The 25 winners of the fellowship, announced on Wednesday, study things as small as molecular materials and as vast as outer space. They are esteemed in their fields, if not yet all household names. And now, in addition to being publicly celebrated for their work, they will have more funding to keep it going.Known colloquially as the “genius” award — to the sometime annoyance of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation — the MacArthur Fellowship comes with a no-strings-attached grant of $800,000 to be awarded over five years. (Program officials noted that the size of the stipend has increased for the new group of fellows, from $625,000.)The class includes scholars tackling some particularly timely topics. Jennifer Carlson, 40, investigates the motivations and assumptions that shape gun culture in America. The longtime activist Loretta J. Ross teaches a class that works to combat so-called cancel culture. And some of Yejin Choi’s work involves using computational linguistics to help detect everything from fake consumer reviews to fake news.“I didn’t think much of myself,” said Professor Choi, 45. “I thought this award was supposed to be for other people out there — not ever for me.”“Being an immigrant, being a woman — I had to overcome a lot,” she said. “I had impostor syndrome.”The fellowship is meant for those who “show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future,” according to the foundation.The purpose “has always been to provide recipients with unrestricted financial support so that they might further their creative work and their creative inclinations with as much freedom as flexibility as possible,” said Marlies Carruth, director of the MacArthur Fellows program.Few honors carry the prestige — and mystique — of the MacArthurs. Potential fellows cannot apply but are suggested by a network of hundreds of anonymous nominators from across the country and narrowed down by a committee of about a dozen people, whose names are not released.Professor Ross said she was driving when she got a call from the foundation. She assumed, at first, that someone wanted an employment reference: “I told them, kind of rudely, ‘I’m driving right now, I’ve got to teach today, call me back at 4:15.’”She did not give the caller time to explain. “I don’t drive and talk,” she said.The foundation called back at 4:15 p.m., as instructed.“I felt honored and I felt a little bewildered,” Professor Ross said. “The hardest part is that they told me a month ago and I had to keep it all to myself.”Much of the winners’ work feels urgent. Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer, investigates the scale and pathways of plastic pollution and is among the researchers who provided the first estimate of the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean annually (eight million metric tons).Moriba Jah, 51, the astrodynamicist, is an advocate for a different kind of environmentalism: space environmentalism, which calls for treating Earth’s orbit, which now contains almost 30,000 human-made objects, as a finite natural resource.Priti Krishtel, 44, the lawyer, is trying to change the patent system so that pharmaceutical companies can no longer file multiple patents on small changes to existing drugs — a move aimed at increasing access to affordable medications.In some cases, the urgent work is the study of the past. The literary historian P. Gabrielle Foreman founded the Colored Conventions Project, a digital initiative that documents Black organizing efforts between 1830 and the 1890s.“We know about white-led movements for social change in a way that has a tendency, in the public square, to overshadow Black brilliance, Black leadership and Black organizational capacity,” Professor Foreman said.“Why don’t we know about Black-led movements? One reason is because they are saying the same thing we are saying today,” she continued, noting that the conventions dealt not just with ending slavery but also with issues like equal pay, labor rights, voting rights and other issues that remain pressing almost two centuries later.There are multiple artists in the class as well. Among them is Amanda Williams, whose “Embodied Sensations” installation was at the Museum of Modern Art in 2021. There are also musicians like Ikue Mori, who, over five decades, transformed the use of percussion in improvised music, and the jazz cellist and composer Tomeka Reid.The youngest fellow is Steven Prohira, 35, a physicist engineering new tools to detect subatomic particles. The oldest, at age 69, are Professor Ross and Robin Wall Kimmerer, a plant ecologist known for environmental stewardship that is grounded in both scientific research and the body of knowledge cultivated by Indigenous peoples.Steven Ruggles, 67, is also among this class of fellows. A historical demographer, he built the world’s largest publicly available database of population statistics.“I’m not the most obvious candidate for something like this,” he said, noting that he is older and has already procured considerable grant money. Still, he, conceded, “It’s a humbling thing.”This year’s fellows also include: the artists Paul Chan, Sky Hopinka and Tavares Strachan; the mathematicians June Huh and Melanie Matchett Wood; the historian Monica Kim; the writer Kiese Laymon; Danna Freedman, a synthetic inorganic chemist; Martha Gonzalez, a musician and scholar; Joseph Drew Lanham, an ornithologist and naturalist; Reuben Jonathan Miller, a sociologist, criminologist and social worker; and Emily Wang, a primary-care physician and researcher.Professor Choi, a computer scientist with expertise in what is known as natural language processing, has focused much of her recent research on common sense knowledge and reasoning — and developing artificial intelligence systems that can reason with that common sense.“People really looked down on me,” she said, recalling that someone had once chased her down at a conference to convince her that attempting to study common sense was a fool’s errand.Getting a MacArthur, she said, has been “enabling” — both financially and mentally, Professor Choi said. The same person who had sought her out at the conference asked her years later to recommend reading for a class the person wanted to teach, she said. The topic of the class? Common sense. More

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      Harvey Awards to Induct New Hall of Fame Members

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      Neil Gaiman, Marjorie Henderson Buell, Gilbert Shelton and Roy Thomas will be honored for their comic book work at New York Comic Con on Oct. 7.The Harvey Awards, which honors exemplary comic book work, will be adding members to its Hall of Fame at New York Comic Con in October. The new inductees are Neil Gaiman, whose best-selling series The Sandman was recently adapted for Netflix, the underground cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, and Roy Thomas, a prolific writer and editor for DC Comics and Marvel Comics.Marjorie Henderson Buell, who died in 1993 and was the creator of Little Lulu, will be inducted posthumously. Little Lulu debuted in 1935 as a single-panel cartoon in The Saturday Evening Post. The character proved popular and Buell, who was known as Marge and who controlled the rights to Little Lulu, spun her into a syndicated newspaper strip and later, comics, cartoons and all manner of merchandise.“We’re thrilled to return to New York Comic Con for our first in-person Harvey Awards ceremony since 2019 and to induct four legendary creators into our Harvey Awards Hall of Fame,” said John Lind, a chairman of the Harvey Awards steering committee. The awards began in 1988 and were named after Harvey Kurtzman, the cartoonist who created and founded Mad magazine, who died in 1993.The Harvey Awards honor comic book work in six categories, including book of the year, best manga, and best adaptation. The nominees are determined via a survey of about 200 industry professionals, librarians, educators and creators who submit candidates for each of the categories. The selections are tallied and pulled into a ballot, which is then open to a vote by all industry professionals, creators and librarians.Looking back, Gaiman shared some fond memories of his Harvey experiences. “The first time I was given a Harvey award, it was 1991, 31 years ago, I had a whole career or two ahead of me and Harvey Kurtzman was still alive. It was the award that bore his name, and was thus the most important award I had ever received,” he said in a statement. “Now, with over three decades of comics career behind me, it’s just as thrilling to hear that I get to join a Hall of Fame named for Harvey. He was one of the greats, and so many of the people who have been inducted already have been people I looked up to over the years. So this is an unalloyed delight for me.” More

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      ‘Succession’ Wins Best Drama at Emmys as HBO Triumphs Again

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      “Succession,” HBO’s portrait of a dysfunctional media dynasty, won best drama at the 74th Emmy Awards on Monday night, the second time the series has taken the prize.Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, also took home the Emmy for best writing, the third time he’s won in that category. And Matthew Macfadyen won best supporting actor in a drama for the first time for his performance on the show.It was the sixth time in eight years that HBO has taken the television industry’s biggest prize for a recurring series, making it yet another triumphant night for the cable network. HBO, as well as its streaming service, HBO Max, won more Emmys (38) than any other outlet, besting its chief rival, Netflix (26).“The White Lotus,” the cable network’s beloved upstairs-downstairs dramedy that took place at a Hawaiian resort, won best limited series, and tore through several other categories. The show won 10 Emmys altogether, more than any other series. Mike White, the show’s creator and director, won a pair of Emmys for best directing and writing. And performers from the show, Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge, both received acting Emmys.“Mike White, my God, thank you for giving me one of the best experiences of my life,” Bartlett, who played an off-the-wagon hotel manager, said from the Emmys stage.But HBO’s chronicles of the rich were not the only winners on Monday night.“Ted Lasso,” the Apple TV+ sports series, won best comedy for a second consecutive year, as the tech giant continues on an awards show tear. Apple TV+, which had its debut in November 2019, won best picture at the Oscars (“CODA”) earlier this year. And Jason Sudeikis repeated as best actor in a comedy as the fish-out-of-water soccer coach in “Ted Lasso.”There were other big moments in the comedy awards. Quinta Brunson, the creator of the good-natured ABC workplace sitcom, “Abbott Elementary,” about a group of elementary schoolteachers at an underfunded Philadelphia public school, won for best writing in a comedy. It was only the second time a Black woman won the award (Lena Waithe was the first, in 2017, for “Master of None”).In one of the night’s most electric moments, Sheryl Lee Ralph won best supporting actress in a comedy for her role on “Abbott Elementary” as a veteran teacher at the school. Ralph began her Emmys speech by singing “Endangered Species” by Dianne Reeves, and received a standing ovation from the room full of nominees. Her victory was also historic: It was only the second time a Black woman won the award. The last time was in 1987, when Jackée Harry won for her role in the NBC sitcom “227.”This has been the most competitive Emmys season ever: Submissions for all the categories surged, and 2022 is very likely to set yet another record for the highest number of scripted television series.But there was also a sense of concern among the executives, producers and agents in attendance at Monday night’s Emmy Awards, that 2022 represents the pinnacle of the so-called Peak TV era, which has produced the highest number of scripted television series, nearly every year, for more than a decade.Netflix, which lost subscribers this year for the first time in a decade, has laid off hundreds of staffers and is reining in its spending. HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, has shelved projects and is about to lay off a significant number of employees. NBC executives are considering ending its prime-time lineup at 10 p.m., and handing the hour over to local stations.Business challenges aside, the night was mostly a feel-good celebration. Zendaya won her second Emmy by taking best actress in a drama for her role as a troubled teen in HBO’s “Euphoria.” Jean Smart repeated as the best actress in a comedy for her role as a Joan Rivers-like comedian in HBO Max’s “Hacks.”“Squid Game,” the blood-splattered, South Korean Netflix series, won a pair of awards: Lee Jung-jae for best actor in a drama, and Hwang Dong-hyuk for directing. Those wins represented a major breakthrough for a foreign language show as television becomes more global, and as American audiences are increasingly receptive to series with subtitles.Michael Keaton, who played a small town doctor in “Dopesick,” took the best actor award in a limited series. And Amanda Seyfried won best actress in a limited series for her well-received performance as Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout.”Emmy voters often have a habit of finding a winner, and sticking with it, and this year was no different. John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” won the best talk show category for a seventh consecutive year, and “Saturday Night Live” took the best variety sketch series for a sixth straight year.This year’s ceremony was the first return to the Microsoft Theater since the pandemic. Producers for the Emmys incorporated an element that it experimented with at last year’s ceremony, which took place inside a tent: Instead of theater-style seating, nominees were gathered around tables with bottles of champagne and wine around them.This year’s host, Kenan Thompson, the “Saturday Night Live” veteran, opened the ceremony in a top hat and led a group of dancers in a bizarre interpretive dance to theme songs of famous TV series like “Law & Order,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Game of Thrones.”During his monologue, Thompson took a dig at Netflix’s recent woes.“If you don’t know what ‘Squid Game’ is, it is the contest you enter when you’re in massive debt and desperate for money,” the host said. “Joining the cast next season? Netflix.” More

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      in Theater

      She Won a Tony. But Deirdre O’Connell ‘Can’t Think About That.’

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      When Deirdre O’Connell returned to work two days after winning this year’s Tony Award for best performance by a leading actress in a play, the production staff of her current show, “Corsicana” at Playwrights Horizons, greeted her with a balloon arch and cake. O’Connell, 68, enjoyed it. For a little while, anyway. But “Corsicana,” a lonesome, oblique quartet by Will Arbery, is in previews. It begins press performances soon. O’Connell needed to rehearse. So she put the celebration aside.“I just went, ‘Well can’t think about that anymore,’” she said, later that same day. “I have to work.”Perhaps you saw last fall’s “Dana H.,” the show that won her the Tony, in which she spent a harrowing hour and change lip-syncing a woman’s recollections of her abduction by a white supremacist. Or maybe you have already caught “Corsicana,” in which she seems to unseal her character’s soul as casually as you or I uncap a beer. Or, at some point in the last four decades, you might have witnessed the performances that earned her Obies, Lucille Lortels, and a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Prize.O’Connell in “Dana H.,” lip-syncing and “brilliantly pulling off one of the strangest and most difficult challenges ever asked of an actor,” Jesse Green wrote in his review.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut possibly you have never seen O’Connell onstage, so here is what I can tell you: She is an actress of rigor and possibility. She will abandon herself to a character without apology or vanity or self-preservation. Some actors are simply better at the business of being alive, at seeming to present life onstage, and she is one of them.Her absolute focus, Lucas Hnath, the “Dana H” playwright, told me, “creates an opening for something — call it life, call it the spirit. Something ineffable and wild rushes in to fill the space.”Or here is how Les Waters, the director of “Dana H.,” put it: “She is available to life.”O’Connell — Didi, to her intimates — is petite and nimble, with a queenly nimbus of red hair and a default expression, offstage anyway, of intent curiosity. She grew up in western Massachusetts, the granddaughter of a Ziegfeld girl and the daughter of Anne Ludlum, an actress and playwright. As a child, she was, as she put it, “a classic theater nerd,” shy and uncomfortable offstage. “And then strangely comfortable and excited” when performing, she said.Jamie Brewer, left, and O’Connell in the Will Arbery play “Corsicana,” now in previews at Playwrights Horizons.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAfter two years of college, she made her way to Boston, apprenticing with an experimental theater company there, and then joining others — in San Francisco, in Baltimore. That scene took a lot out of her. “I felt a little too vulnerable just having my life swallowed up by it,” she said, so in her mid 20s she moved to New York, determined to become what she called “a regular actress.” (Has anyone ever thought of O’Connell as “regular?”) Yet she carried experiment with her. Even in her most controlled performances — “Dana H.” among them — there is something feral, ungovernable at the heart.She spent the next five years pouring drinks, pouring coffee, learning how to audition, learning how to act. In her late 20s, right around the time she found the rent-stabilized East Village apartment (with a bathtub in the kitchen) where she still lives, she booked the national tour of John Pielmeier’s “Agnes of God.” Except for the five years she spent in Hollywood, amassing just enough jobs for a nest egg and a Screen Actors Guild pension, she has rarely been offstage since. Screen acting, it turns out, never gave her what she wanted, a feeling of un-self-consciousness, of surrendering to a role in a way that sounds a little like religion, a little like ego death.“I’m into the numinous experience,” O’Connell explained. “I’m into the thrills.”She hadn’t expected to win the Tony on Sunday night. With good reason. “Dana H.,” which required O’Connell to mouth along to prerecorded interviews with the playwright’s mother, demanding complete submission to the text and its rhythms, is more challenging than most Broadway fare. And it had closed in November, meaning that some Tony voters might already have forgotten it. Besides, three of the four women in her category (LaChanze, Ruth Negga and Mary-Louise Parker) are far better known.O’Connell had watched the Tonys for decades, once in person, but much more often at home, in that same rent-stabilized apartment that she shares with her partner, Alan Metzger, an educator. She knew that at the moment an award is announced, everyone stares at the losers. So as the Tonys entered its final hour, she prepared herself.“I was ready to be so awesome and classy,” O’Connell recalled.But she didn’t lose. And so O’Connell, who had appeared on Broadway only twice before, found herself walking up the aisle of the Radio City Music Hall, in a black jumpsuit from Rent the Runway. On that jumpsuit: “I thought it was going to be a little more Cinderella, but then I was like, I guess not, I guess I’m old,” she said. (None of the designers her producers contacted offered to dress her. Their loss.)O’Connell in her dressing room at Playwrights Horizons. “There should be a pamphlet that helps people get through the days after,” she said of the post-win experience. “You really don’t know how to behave.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesA person could argue that this award was the culminating moment of a nearly five-decade career. And yet, O’Connell — who looked awesome, classy and indisputably shocked — used her 90 seconds of speech time to look forward, manifesting the theatrical future she hopes to see.Holding her statuette, she said, “Please let me standing here be a little sign to you from the universe to make the weird art.”After receiving the award, a golf cart shunted her to one press room, then another. The ceremony had ended by then. She had left her purse at her seat when she walked onstage. “What New Yorker walks away from their keys and their phone?” she said. Still, she managed to reunite with Metzger, and they attended an after-party at the Plaza and a second one at the Omni and then it was after 3 a.m. and she was in a car, heading back to that bathtub in the kitchen.The next day, Monday, she slept late and then read through congratulatory texts and emails, too many to ever answer. Washing dishes, she suddenly felt devastated that she hadn’t thanked Metzger in her speech; she had felt too reluctant to reveal any of her private life. Which is to say, there were a lot of feelings, most of them good.“There should be a pamphlet that helps people get through the days after,” she said of the post-win experience. “Because you’re so suddenly shot out of a cannon, and you really don’t know how to behave.”On Tuesday, after cake, she spent some hours rehearsing the role of Justice, a librarian, an anarchist, a would-be lover, a friend. Sam Gold, the director of “Corsicana,” who in an email noted both her “free and open energy” and her extreme technical precision, gave her notes. She catnapped. Then she performed — baring her character’s soul, without showiness or fuss.“I like the excavating of finding another person inside me,” she said of her process.After bows, she changed her clothes and tidied up. Just past 10 p.m., she emerged into the fetid air of Hell’s Kitchen, greeted a few friends and fans, and went to find a restaurant that was still open.Even offstage, over a mediocre dinner at a sidewalk table on a block that smelled of sewage, it was something fine and rare to be held in her attention, to be, for a moment, her collaborator.This, anyway, has been Arbery’s experience. “It almost feels a little unfair to get to work with someone so good,” he told me.She marveled that she had been able to keep going for typically long hours, at typically low pay, for all of these years. That cheap apartment helped, she said. As did the fact that she has no children, though she is close to Metzger’s. The Tony could have come to her earlier. “I could have taken it at 48. I could have used it,” she said. But she has never felt that she missed out on much. The numinous experience, the thrills, they have always been near at hand. And she is happy to have received the prize now.“I certainly didn’t think that it was going happen this way,” she said. “It wasn’t a plan. But it’s pretty sweet.” More

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      in Television

      Best and Worst Moments of the Tony Awards

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      With Joaquina Kalukango’s high notes and Billy Crystal’s lowbrow jokes, the Tonys celebrated Broadway’s return after a tumultuous season.The Tony Awards returned to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday for the first time since June 2019. And after such a roller-coaster ride of a year, the ceremony was a welcome chance to celebrate all those people (from understudies and swings to stage managers and Covid safety officers) who made sure the show went on again (and again). Ariana DeBose, the former theater understudy turned recent Oscar winner, was the host of the three-hour broadcast portion of the ceremony on CBS. But it was Darren Criss and Julianne Hough, hosts of the first hour of the ceremony on Paramount+, who delighted one of our writers with their endearing eagerness to put on a show. As for the awards themselves: There were a few pleasant surprises but voters showed that they were craving the familiar. Here are the highs and lows as our writers saw them. NICOLE HERRINGTONBilly Crystal during a performance from his show, “Mr. Saturday Night.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Schtick: Billy Crystal Makes Silly CompellingThe telecast was professional, smooth, well paced and bland. Part of the problem: the generally lugubrious choice of musical material. Another: the overly careful and inoffensively middlebrow tone. Which may be why one of the few moments that broke through the taste and torpor was Billy Crystal’s lowbrow schtick from “Mr. Saturday Night,” the new musical based on his 1992 film. Actually, the “Yiddish scat” he performed — nonsense guttural syllables and spitty consonants sung in the manner of an Ella Fitzgerald improvisation — has been part of his act forever, with good cause: It’s so stupidly funny you can’t help but fall for it. And when he brought it out into the audience, and threw it up to the balcony, he showed how precision delivery and command of a room can make even the oldest, silliest material impossibly compelling. JESSE GREENMichael R. Jackson accepting the award for best book of a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Mid-Show Relief: A Win for ‘A Strange Loop’For the first half of the ceremony, I was sweating over the fact that “A Strange Loop,” which had been nominated for 11 awards, hadn’t won anything. I was expecting the Pulitzer Prize-winner to make a full sweep, but once the broadcast was underway, it was clear that the Tony voters had been more inclined toward the predictable picks for the winners’ circle. So when “A Strange Loop” won its first award of the night, for best book of a musical, it was thrilling to see Michael R. Jackson take the stage to celebrate his “big, Black and queer-ass American Broadway” show. Jackson’s boundary-pushing, thought-provoking script manages to be both hilarious and devastating, as well as wide-ranging in every sense of the word. MAYA PHILLIPSMallory Maedke, center, as Jane Seymour in “Six: The Musical.” Maedke, the show’s dance captain, replaced Abby Mueller, who tested positive for Covid-19 just hours earlier.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Shout-Out: Nods to Understudies and SwingsIn the weeks leading up to the Tony Awards, a buzz had been building — on various social media platforms — around demands that the Tonys honor swings, understudies and standbys. In a season often disrupted by Covid-19 transmission, these performers filled in for named players at show after show, sometimes at just a few moment’s notice.As the evening’s host Ariana DeBose noted in her opening monologue: “A show is put on by many people, not just the faces that you know and love.”No understudy could be nominated, but winners and presenters found ways to salute them. During the “Act One” special on Paramount+, the director-choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, a winner for “MJ,” shouted out “all the swings and understudies who kept us onstage this season. I bow to you.”During the main program, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, a winner for “Take Me Out,” thanked his own understudy. Patti LuPone, a winner for “Company,” hailed not only understudies, but also the Covid-19 compliance officers. And in the big production number, DeBose, took another moment, while being hoisted into the air, to thank the swings.Perhaps the greatest tribute came during the production number for the musical “Six.” Playing Jane Seymour was Mallory Maedke, the show’s dance captain, who had subbed in hours earlier after the actress who usually performs the role, Abby Mueller, tested positive for Covid-19. Maedke stepped in. The show went on. ALEXIS SOLOSKIDarren Criss and Julianne Hough during the “Act One” opening number.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest ‘Glee’ Alum: Darren CrissIt’s fitting that Darren Criss was one of the hosts at the 2022 Tony Awards: Before starring on Broadway, he got his big break in “Glee,” a series that was instrumental in bridging pop music and Broadway. He and Julianne Hough — a former “Dancing With the Stars” pro who didn’t miss a step even as her costume was coming off before the scheduled moment — had a sparkly showbiz quality peppered with an adorably enthusiastic nerdiness during their hourlong hosting gig of the “Act One” portion of the Tonys. And their opening number, written by Criss, for the Paramount+ stream, had more zest than Ariana DeBose’s opener in the flagship section hosted by CBS. ELISABETH VINCENTELLIAriana DeBose, this year’s Tonys host, sang directly to audience members.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorst Display: The Evening-Long AmnesiaImagining alternate worlds and stepping right into them is what theater people do. But there was some serious cognitive dissonance on display in the collectively imagined world of the Tony Awards ceremony, a four-hour celebration of a post-shutdown Broadway season that made it through thanks to stringent Covid-safety measures — most visibly, masks strictly required for audience members.Disturbingly, the picture that the industry chose to present to the television cameras at Radio City Music Hall was a sea of bare faces, as if Broadway inhabited a post-Covid world. In the vast orchestra section, where the nominees sat, there was scarcely a mask anywhere.A brass band from “The Music Man” paraded through the aisles; Ariana DeBose, this year’s Tonys host, sang right in audience members’ faces; and three winners from the revival of “Company” — Patti LuPone; her director, Marianne Elliott; and their producer Chris Harper — made mocking reference to a mask-refusing audience member at their show. Funny, sure, but they, too, were now barefaced in a crowd.For all the loving shout-outs that the Tonys and Tony winners gave to understudies, swings and Covid safety teams for their indispensability in allowing so many productions to go on, it was hard not to wonder about Broadway choosing a normal-looking TV visual over caution, knowing how scary it can get when positive test results start rolling in. LAURA COLLINS-HUGHESBilly Porter during the “In Memoriam” performance.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesVanessa Hudgens’s big, gold abstract planetary earrings.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Look: Theater Stars Deliver Shine and SparkleThe Tony Awards aren’t exactly known for being a major fashion event, at least compared to the other awards shows that make up the initials of EGOT. But maybe it should be. On Sunday, we saw major stars in major looks, with the biggest trend being found in high shine and sparkle, befitting of theater’s big night.Just look at Joaquina Kalukango, who won the Tony for lead actress in a musical while wearing a golden gown dripping in gems, tied with an electric lime green bow — a dress that was designed, she said in her acceptance speech, by her sister.Then there was Ariana DeBose’s head-to-toe black sequined gown; Kara Young’s metallic two-piece ball gown; Utkarsh Ambudkar’s suit covered in pearly buttons; Vanessa Hudgens’s big, gold abstract planetary earrings; and Billy Porter’s space-age jacquard silver tuxedo. There were women who wore their crystals and beading like armor. There were men who channeled Michael Jackson (with fringed epaulets) and Elvis (in a high-collared, low-cut shirt) — bringing enough glitz, glamour and intricate embroidery to occupy several Broadway costume designers. JESSICA TESTAMyles Frost and ensemble members in a performance from “MJ.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorst Attempt at Nostalgia: Not So ‘Smooth Criminal’I have numerous grievances about “MJ,” the Michael Jackson jukebox musical, so perhaps it’s no surprise that I found the Tonys performance — the star, Myles Frost, and some of the company performing “Smooth Criminal” — a bit lackluster. The musical is inherently hollow; the opacity of Michael Jackson and his life of traumas and controversies make it difficult to find material compelling and cohesive enough to tell a story onstage. So the name of the game is nostalgia, and the show moonwalks by with the momentum of fans happy to see and hear some of the most iconic performances of Jackson’s career. But everything is an impression, with even the choreography restrained to the tried and true with little nuance and variation. The airless enormity and formality of the Tonys stage drained what little bit of charisma “MJ” might have otherwise had — though by the end of the evening the show was still a big winner, with Frost nabbing the best leading actor in a musical award. MAYA PHILLIPSThe Off Broadway veteran Deirdre O’Connell won best leading actress in a play for “Dana H.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Experimental Inspiration: Love for ‘Weird Art’Deirdre O’Connell’s win for “Dana H.”— which earlier in the evening presenters had referred to as both “Donna H.” and “Diana H.” — came as a marvelous surprise. O’Connell, 70, an actress of absolute passion and precision, has made her career Off and Off Off Broadway, enriching the work of two generations of playwrights, in works both traditional and very strange. (She is currently starring in Will Arbery’s “Corsicana” at Playwrights Horizons.)In “Dana H.,” she lip-synced to harrowing audio recorded by the mother of the playwright, Lucas Hnath. And in her acceptance speech, which came midway through a ceremony in which more traditional fare was typically rewarded, O’Connell dedicated her Tony to every artist who has worried if the art they are making would prove too esoteric for Broadway. She insisted that her presence should inspire haunting art, frightening art, art that no one else may understand.“Please let me standing here,” she said, “be a little sign to you from the universe to make the weird art.” So go ahead, writers and directors of Tonys future: Make the weird art. ALEXIS SOLOSKIBen Power accepts the Tony for best new play for “The Lehman Trilogy.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Spotlight: A Playwright MedleyOn typical Tony Awards shows, playwrights are about as prominent as animal trainers and child wranglers. (It’s a permanent embarrassment that they seldom get to talk even if their work wins.) This year’s presentation may not have heaped upon them the glory they deserve — they are, after all, at the heart of the entire enterprise — but it gave them a longer-than-usual segment that was also clever and insightful. Each of the five best play nominees answered a few simple questions about themselves and their work; their answers were edited together like a medley. What one word would Tracy Letts, the author of “The Minutes,” use to describe it? “Hilarious,” he said, with a self-serving twinkle. What is Lynn Nottage’s favorite line from “Clyde’s”? “A little salt makes the food taste good. Too much makes it inedible.” And how would Ben Power, the author of “The Lehman Trilogy,” describe a play about his own life? “As long as ‘The Lehman Trilogy,’ but with a happier ending.” JESSE GREENEnsemble members in the gender-flipped “Company” at the Tonys on Sunday night. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorst Trend: Rewarding Marquee NamesThe worst part of the evening was not a single moment but the fact that almost every time the most famous person or show won. It felt as if the voters were craving something familiar for the first full post-Covid Broadway season — even when that familiarity was draped in a seemingly (but not really) edgy concept like a gender-flipped Sondheim show (“Company”) or a fun retread of the Spice Girls (“Six”).There were two major exceptions to that trend: the Off Broadway veteran Deirdre O’Connell winning best actress in a play for “Dana H.” and Michael R. Jackson’s bracing “A Strange Loop” winning for best musical. ELISABETH VINCENTELLIJoaquina Kalukango singing “Let It Burn,” during a performance from “Paradise Square.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBest Heroine: Joaquina Kalukango Lifts ‘Paradise Square’“Paradise Square” is not the best musical. And that makes Joaquina Kalukango’s moving performance, as the show’s tough-broad-heroine Nelly O’Brien, that much more impressive. In an otherwise drab Tonys broadcast, the excerpt from “Paradise Square” brought some much-needed vitality to the stage. Beginning with an ensemble song and dance that showed off the musical’s jaunty choreography, the segment then turned into a solo showcase for Kalukango, who blazed through her character’s big number “Let It Burn.”Thanks to the camera close-ups (something we don’t often get in the world of theater) we got to see the particulars of Kalukango’s performance; her face seems to open up into a dauntless roar, and by the end of the song her whole visage darkens with tears. It’s no surprise that she later won the award for best actress in a musical; watching her perform is like watching the bursting of a Roman candle in a starless night — that kind of powerful, that kind of beautiful. MAYA PHILLIPS More

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      in Theater

      The 75th Tony Awards: Time, Hosts and How to Watch

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      The ceremony returns to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night.The Tony Awards, which honor plays and musicals performed on Broadway, will take place this year on Sunday, June 12, with a four-hour ceremony that begins on a streaming service and continues with a television broadcast.The evening is the first Tony Awards ceremony to recognize shows that opened after the long shutdown of theaters brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The theater season was extraordinarily challenging, with ongoing Covid disruptions and fewer tourists than normal, and the ceremony is expected to highlight Broadway’s perseverance.The nominators spread out their admiration quite widely: Of the 34 eligible shows, 29 got at least one nod, including the critically scorned “Diana.”Here’s what to look out for on Sunday night:How Do I Watch?The main event, at Radio City Music Hall, starts at 8 p.m. Eastern time and is to be hosted by Ariana DeBose; it will be both broadcast on CBS and available to stream on Paramount+.The broadcast show will be preceded by a one-hour segment, hosted by Darren Criss and Julianne Hough, that will begin at 7 p.m. Eastern time and be viewable only on Paramount+. That hour is expected to include the announcement of many of the design and writing awards, as well as some performances.The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Hosting Duties: Ariana DeBose, who will host the ceremony, vows that this edition will celebrate the often unsung actors who have stepped in during the pandemic.Ruth Negga: The actress, who is nominated for her role as Lady Macbeth in Sam Gold’s staging of the play, infuses the character with intensity, urgency and vitality.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.Choreography: Musicals like “MJ” and “Paradise Square” take on dances of the past but miss some opportunities to elevate the dancing; “For Colored Girls” effectively weaves language and motion.There will also be a red carpet earlier in the evening; New Yorkers with Spectrum cable can watch coverage of the red carpet starting at 6 p.m. on NY1.What Should I Expect?The broadcast will feature performances from all six shows nominated for best new musical — “Girl From the North Country,” “MJ,” “Mr. Saturday Night,” “Paradise Square,” “Six: The Musical” and “A Strange Loop” — as well as from two of the three shows nominated for best musical revival, “Company” and “The Music Man.” And, of course, many awards will be bestowed.Some of the presenters include Chita Rivera, Cynthia Erivo, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Silverman, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bebe Neuwirth. Paris Jackson and Prince Jackson, two of Michael Jackson’s children, are expected to spotlight “MJ,” a jukebox musical about their father that is nominated for 10 awards, including best new musical and best book of a musical.Among the other expected highlights: a tribute to the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who died in November; a 15th anniversary reunion of the cast of “Spring Awakening”; and a lifetime achievement award for Angela Lansbury.What Are Some of the Key Races?Best new play: This Tony Award seems certain to go to “The Lehman Trilogy,” a riveting history lesson that chronicles the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers financial empire. Two dark comedies are also in the running: “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, is set in a sandwich shop employing recently incarcerated individuals; and “Hangmen,” by Martin McDonagh, takes place at a bar run by Britain’s second-best executioner just after that country banned capital punishment. The other contenders are “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about a group of workers at an automotive plant facing shutdown, and “The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’s look at the dark secrets kept by a small-town governing body.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      The Grammys Have a New Award: Songwriter of the Year

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      The honor is part of a slate of changes, including a best score soundtrack award for video games and a merit award for best song for social change.Coming to the Grammy Awards next year: a new prize for songwriter of the year.That award, given in recognition of “the written excellence, profession and art of songwriting,” is one of a handful of tweaks to the Grammy rules for the 65th annual ceremony.Four other new categories are coming, including best alternative music performance, Americana music performance, spoken word poetry album and score soundtrack for video games and other interactive media, the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, announced Thursday. There will also be a new merit award for best song for social change, as chosen by a special committee.The biggest change is the songwriter award. Since the first Grammy ceremony in 1959, song of the year has been one of the most prestigious prizes, going to the composers of a single song. The first winners were Franco Migliacci and Domenico Modugno, for “Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu” (better known as “Volare”), and the most recent prize went to Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak and two collaborators for “Leave the Door Open.”In recent years songwriters have been lobbying the Recording Academy for greater recognition, which has come gradually. At the 60th annual Grammys in 2018, songwriters were added to the ballot for album of the year, though only if they contributed to at least 33 percent of an LP; for the 2022 show, that limit was eliminated, allowing any credited songwriter of new material to be nominated. (Samples don’t count, nor do the writers of old songs — hence Cole Porter’s omission this year for Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett’s album “Love for Sale.”) In 2021, the academy created a Songwriters and Composers Wing for its members.The new category, officially called songwriter of the year (non-classical) — though no classical counterpart exists — will go to a single songwriter or a team of writers for a given body of work. A similar approach has long been taken for producer of the year.“The intent with this new category is to recognize the professional songwriters who write songs for other artists to make a living,” said Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the Recording Academy. “This dedicated award highlights the importance of songwriting’s significant contribution to the musical process, and as a non-performing songwriter myself, I’m thrilled to see this award come to life.”Among the other changes this year is the establishment of “craft committees” in three classical categories. Teams of specialists will have the final say in who makes the ballot for producer of the year (classical), best engineered album (classical) and best contemporary classical composition. The change follows some grumbling in the classical world about last year’s nomination of Jon Batiste — the jazz bandleader and TV personality who won album of the year — for the contemporary composition prize. (The award went to Caroline Shaw.)The change is notable since last year the academy eliminated its controversial nominating committees, which acted as an invisible hand in dozens of categories, though craft committees were kept for categories like engineering and packaging that require special expertise.The new categories arrive after a series of reductions more than a decade ago. In 2011, for example, the academy dropped 31 categories, consolidating many separate male and female awards and cutting some in fields like classical and Latin. Two years earlier, the polka category — where annual submissions had dwindled to as few as 20 titles — was cut after a 24-year run.The latest Grammy ceremony, in April, had 86 categories. At the first one, there were 28. More

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      in Movies

      Angela Lansbury Will Receive Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement

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      The star of stage, film and screen has already won five competitive Tony Awards, and starred in several Stephen Sondheim musicals.Angela Lansbury, an acclaimed and beloved star of stage, film and television, will be honored this year with a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement.Lansbury, 96, who has already won five competitive Tony Awards, will receive the lifetime achievement award on June 12, when this year’s ceremony is set to take place at Radio City Music Hall and to be broadcast on CBS.Lansbury first appeared on Broadway in 1957, in a farce called “Hotel Paradiso,” and in 1964 she starred in her first Broadway musical, “Anyone Can Whistle,” a flop that is remembered mostly because the songwriter was Stephen Sondheim.She was already a three-time Oscar nominee, notably for “The Manchurian Candidate” in 1962, when she landed her breakout Broadway role, starring as the free-spirited title character in “Mame” in 1966. She won her first Tony Award for that performance. More