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    ‘Funny Girl’ Review: Broadway Revival Shows Why It Took So Long

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    Beanie Feldstein stars as the comic Fanny Brice in the show’s return after almost 60 years.It must be a plot. Why else would it have taken nearly 60 years for “Funny Girl,” the hit 1964 musical about the comic Fanny Brice, to be revived on Broadway, when most Golden Age shows with even half a wit left in them — let alone such a fabulous score — have been revived unto exhaustion?And why does the mild version that finally made it, in a production starring Beanie Feldstein that opened Sunday at the August Wilson Theater, seem likely to prolong rather than break the spell?That I can answer in two words: Barbra Streisman.Or so Jerome Robbins, who “supervised” the original production, misspelled the name of an exciting young singer, then about 20, on a list of possible Fannys he drew up around 1962. That list, which also included such established stars as Judy Holliday, Eydie Gormé and Tammy Grimes, put Streisand, as she was properly but barely known, in third place.She was first on Jule Styne’s list, though. The show’s composer deliberately wrote the “toughest score” he could — rangy and histrionic in places, delicate and restrained in others — so “only Barbra could sing it.”And so it has been. As the show developed, coiling itself around Streisand’s offbeat, aggressive, once-in-a-lifetime talent — not to mention her Brice-like nose, which shows up repeatedly in Bob Merrill’s lyrics — the odds of a truly successful successor diminished. And without a stupendous Fanny to thrill and distract, the musical’s manifold faults become painfully evident.Feldstein with Kurt Csolak, left, and Justin Prescott in the show, directed by Michael Mayer.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo rip the bandage off quickly: Feldstein is not stupendous. She’s good. She’s funny enough in places, and immensely likable always, as was already evident from her performances in the movies “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird” and, on Broadway, in “Hello, Dolly!” You root for her to raise the roof, but she only bumps against it a little. Her voice, though solid and sweet and clear, is not well suited to the music, and you feel her working as hard as she can to power through the gap. But working hard at what should be naturally extraordinary is not in Fanny’s DNA.Still, you can’t blame Feldstein for the show’s problems; that would be like blaming the clown for the elephants. The main elephant is the book, written by Isobel Lennart and fiddled with for this production by Harvey Fierstein, to no avail. Tracing Brice’s rise from gawky waif to Ziegfeld star between 1910 and 1927, along with the corresponding decline of her romance with the “gorgeous” gambler Nick Arnstein (Ramin Karimloo), it bites off more than it can chew and then, at least in Michael Mayer’s production, repeatedly refuses to chew it.The highlights-only approach is a problem in most biographical musicals, exacerbated in “Funny Girl” by its unusually high quotient of fictionalization. Brice’s family was well off, not poor, but the rags-to-riches arc made the plot more appealing. When she met Arnstein, she was no innocent, as suggested by songs like “You Are Woman, I Am Man”; she’d been married already — and he still was. The famous Ziegfeld number in which she stuffs her wedding gown to appear pregnant (“His Love Makes Me Beautiful”) never happened, and if it had, she’d have been fired.Feldstein in “His Love Makes Me Beautiful,” a Ziegfeld number that Fanny plays up for laughs by stuffing her wedding gown to appear pregnant.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut those distortions at least make a good story. The bigger distortions — perhaps necessitated by the fact that Ray Stark, who produced the original, was Brice’s son-in-law — avoid one. Arnstein did not get involved in illegal activities because he hated being supported by Fanny; he was a crook and a jailbird who had been gladly sponging off her from the beginning. Yet Brice, knowing all that, still adored him, which makes a far more interesting tale than the bowdlerized one the show offers, of a duped woman finally and regretfully seeing the light.That Arnstein wasn’t remotely gorgeous, and Karimloo totally is, we can allow. Karimloo also sings beautifully and, to the extent the new book tries to beef up the role, he’s got the beef to do it.Unfortunately the effort is counterproductive. The song “Temporary Arrangement,” in which Nick expresses his mounting fury, has been retrieved from the Styne-Merrill trunk, where it was stashed after one performance in 1964 and should have remained; its intensity comes out of nowhere and rips at the show’s thin fabric. A bit later, Nick gets a version of the title song, which though shot for the 1968 film, starring Streisand and Omar Sharif, was cut for good cause.More happily, when Feldstein sings her own version of “Funny Girl” near the end of the show, it’s simple and touching — not overstretched like her merely loud renditions of the big three hits: “I’m the Greatest Star,” “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”Perhaps that’s because she’s finally just sitting down with no one else onstage. (Most of the musical staging, by Ellenore Scott, is hectic.) But if Fierstein’s stabs at strengthening the secondary characters pull focus from the central one, they do help the production in small ways. As Fanny’s mother, the naturally eccentric comic Jane Lynch brings us closest to the Brice spirit, suggesting in “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows?” that zany ambition is a heritable trait. And though Jared Grimes, as Fanny’s pal Eddie Ryan, is somewhat wasted in that song, he earlier makes a fine cameo of the production’s most notable dance, a stunning tap sequence choreographed by Ayodele Casel.Jared Grimes, center, with, foreground from left: Feldstein, Jane Lynch, Toni DiBuono, Amber Ardolino and Leslie Blake Walker.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThat the sequence has little to do with the story is not a deal-breaker; in “Funny Girl,” it may even be an advantage. Nor are Fierstein’s anachronisms and vulgar jokes about sex with chorines and men in trench coats catastrophic. This is not a unified work like Styne’s 1959 hit, “Gypsy,” arguably just as fictional in its portrait of the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee yet one of the indisputably great musicals. In that show, no song was allowed to serve less than double duty; everything pointed back to the plot. “Funny Girl” reaches for the same complexity but most often contents itself, except in its best songs, with mere entertainment.If the revival actually provided enough of that, it might prove irresistible. But Mayer’s staging, which at times seems to aim for the ghostly nostalgia of “Follies,” feels lumbering and underfunded, with cheap-looking sets (by David Zinn), a cast of 22 in place of the original 43 and wan new orchestrations for 14 players, based on the glorious originals by Ralph Burns for 25. (You’re going to sell me “People” with two violins?) Only the aptly gaudy costumes by Susan Hilferty suggest the Ziegfeldian overabundance that shows like “Funny Girl” were designed to purvey.This could all have been predicted; over the years, many revivals have been attempted and defeated because the thing a revival is trying to revive is not to be found in the property itself. It’s in the personality of the necessary star: someone not nice but inevitable, not diligent but explosive, not well-rounded but weird. They don’t grow them that way much, anymore, nor write new material for them. Paging Ms. Streisman!Funny GirlAt the August Wilson Theater, Manhattan; funnygirlonbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes. More

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      12 Things Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2022

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      ‘Better Call Saul’ returns, Cecily Strong stars in a one-woman show, and Faith Ringgold gets an overdue retrospective.As a new year begins in uncertain times (again), our critics highlight the TV, movies, music, art, theater, dance and comedy that promise a welcome distraction.Margaret LyonsThe End of ‘Better Call Saul’Bob Odenkirk stars as Jimmy McGill in AMC’s “Better Call Saul,” which returns for its final season this spring.Greg Lewis/AMC, via Associated PressI’ll be sad forever when “Better Call Saul” is over, so part of me is actually dreading the sixth and final season. I never want to say goodbye to Jimmy or Kim — but man, am I dying to see them again. By the time “Saul” returns on AMC this spring, it will have been off the air for two full years. (Bob Odenkirk, its star, recovered from a heart attack that occurred on set this year.) If there was ever a show that knew how to think about endgames, it’s this one, among the most carefully woven dramas of our time. Of course, thanks to “Breaking Bad,” we know exactly where some of these characters are headed but not how they get there or how they feel about it or whom they’ll hurt along the way. Hurry back! But also, go slow.Salamishah TilletA ‘Downton Abbey’ Sequel Travels to FranceThe sequel “Downton Abbey: A New Era” is partly set in the South of France; from left, Harry Hadden-Paton, Laura Carmichael, Tuppence Middleton and Allen Leech.Ben Blackall/Focus FeaturesOK, so yes, it was weird that my friends Sherri-Ann and Amber and I were the only Black people in the theater when we saw the movie “Downton Abbey” in 2019. At the time, we agreed that despite the absence of people of color in the theater and onscreen, we still found delight in the grandeur — the clothing, the castle, the cast of characters, especially the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley, marvelously played by Dame Maggie Smith. Now that we’ve set our calendars to March 18, 2022, for the sequel, “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” I’m looking forward to seeing how the franchise tries to reinvent itself on the cusp of a new era, the 1930s, and how it fares in the current racial moment. (A Black female face pops up in a trailer.) Partly set in the South of France after the Dowager Countess learns she has inherited a villa there, the movie sends the upstairs Crawley clan and their downstairs employees off on another adventure, with another wedding. While Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton,” has a new show, “The Gilded Age,” premiering on HBO in January — which seems to be a bit more thoughtful in its take on race, class and identity — here’s hoping that this sequel to “Downton” takes a bow in grand Grantham style.Jesse GreenCecily Strong in a One-Woman ShowCecily Strong, left, and the director Leigh Silverman; Strong is starring in “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” at the Shed.Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesJane Wagner’s 1985 play “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” was custom-made for the chameleonic gifts of her life partner (and, later, wife), Lily Tomlin. Who else could have inhabited its 12 highly distinct characters — among them a runaway punk, a bored one-percenter and a trio of disillusioned feminists — with such sardonic sympathy? When Tomlin won a 1986 Tony Award for her work, it seemed to seal the idea that the performer and the play were forever one. But in the kind of casting that makes you smack your head with delight, Cecily Strong takes up Tomlin’s mantle in a revival directed by Leigh Silverman at the Shed, expected to open on Jan. 11. Strong — whose “Saturday Night Live” characters include Jeanine Pirro, the Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party and, most recently, Goober the Clown Who Had an Abortion When She Was 23 — seems like another custom fit, nearly four decades later.Jon ParelesAfrofuturism at Carnegie HallSun Ra Arkestra will perform its galactic jazz as part of the Afrofuturism festival that starts in February.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesStepping outside its own history as a bastion of Western classical music, Carnegie Hall will be the hub of a citywide, multidisciplinary festival of Afrofuturism: the visionary, tech-savvy ways that African-diaspora culture has imagined alternate paths forward. Carnegie’s series is expected to start Feb. 12 with the quick-cutting, sometimes head-spinning electronic musician Flying Lotus. (One challenge might be the main hall’s acoustics.) Shows at Zankel Hall include the galactic jazz of the Sun Ra Arkestra with the cellist and singer Kelsey Lu and the spoken-word insurgent Moor Mother (Feb. 17); the flutist Nicole Mitchell leading her Black Earth Ensemble; and the clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid with her Autophysiopsychic Millennium (Feb. 24); the African-rooted hip-hop duo Chimurenga Renaissance and the Malian songwriter Fatoumata Diawara (March 4); and the D.J., composer and techno pioneer Carl Craig leading his Synthesizer Ensemble (March 19). There’s far more: five dozen other cultural organizations will have festival events.Anthony TommasiniThe Metropolitan Opera Rethinks VerdiThe set model for a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” which is expected to open at the Metropolitan Opera in February.Metropolitan OperaVerdi’s “Don Carlos” may not be a flawless opera. But it’s a profound work; I think of it as Verdi’s “Hamlet.” Written for the Paris Opera, it nodded to the French grand style and included epic scenes and massed choruses. But at its 1867 premiere, it was deemed overly long and ineffective. Verdi revised the opera several times, making cuts, translating the French libretto into Italian, leaving a confused legacy of revisions. The Metropolitan Opera is giving audiences a chance to hear the work as originally conceived in its five-act French version, which many consider the best. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has led superb Met performances of the Italian adaptation, will be in this pit for this new production by David McVicar. The starry cast, headed by the tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, includes Sonya Yoncheva, Elina Garanca, Etienne Dupuis, Eric Owens and John Relyea. When performances begin on Feb. 28, be prepared for a five-hour show with two intermissions; I can’t wait.Mike HaleTrue-Crime, Starring Renée ZellwegerRenée Zellweger is starring in the true-crime mini-series “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThis winter brings more than the usual number of big stars taking time out for the small screen, like Uma Thurman (“Suspicion”), Christopher Walken (“Severance”) and Samuel L. Jackson (“The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray”). The one that piques my interest the most is Renée Zellweger, taking on only her second lead television role in “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC. Zellweger can be hit or miss, but her hits — “The Whole Wide World,” “Chicago,” “Judy” — keep her in the very top rank of American actresses. Here she plays Pam Hupp, who is implicated in multiple deaths and is currently serving a life sentence for one of them, in a true-crime mini-series whose showrunner, Jenny Klein, was a producer on solid TV offerings like “The Witcher” and “Jessica Jones.”Jason FaragoAt 91, Faith Ringgold Gets a RetrospectiveA retrospective of the work of Faith Ringgold opens at the New Museum in February and will include “Dancing at the Louvre: The French Collection Part I, #1,” from 1991. Faith Ringgold/ARS, NY and DACS, London, via ACA GalleriesWhen the Museum of Modern Art opened its expanded home in 2019, its most important Picasso suddenly found itself with a new companion: a tumultuous, panoramic painting of American violence that Faith Ringgold painted in 1967. Ringgold, born 91 years ago in Harlem, has never been an obscure figure: Her art was displayed in the Clinton White House as well as most of New York’s museums; her children’s books have won prizes and reached best-seller lists. But she has had to wait too long for a career-spanning retrospective in her hometown. The one at the New Museum, which opens Feb. 17, will reveal how Ringgold intertwined the political and the personal: first in her rigorously composed “American People” paintings, which channeled the civil rights movement into gridded, repeating, syncopated forms; and then in pieced-fabric “story quilts” depicting Michael Jackson or Aunt Jemima, and geometric abstractions inspired by Tibetan silks and embroideries. The show comes with a major chance for rediscovery: the first outing in over two decades of her “French Collection,” a 12-quilt cycle that recasts the history of Paris in the 1920s through the eyes of a fictional African-American artist and model.Maya PhillipsA Viking Prince Seeks RevengeAlexander Skarsgård in a scene from “The Northman,” a story about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father, directed by Robert Eggers.Focus FeaturesRobert Eggers has directed only two feature films, and yet he’s already known as a maker of beautifully strange, critically acclaimed movies. “The Witch,” from 2016, was followed three years later by the grim and perplexing “The Lighthouse.” Both established Eggers as a stylistic descendant of the Brothers Grimm, a crafter of macabre fables that descend into torrents of madness. Which is why I’m excited to see his third feature film, “The Northman,” expected to premiere on April 22, about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father. Steeped in Icelandic mythology, the story is based on the tale of Amleth, the inspiration for Prince Hamlet, my favorite sad boy of English literature. Eggers wrote the screenplay with the Icelandic poet Sjón, so we can surely expect an epic with epic writing to match. There’s also a stellar cast, including Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe — and Björk as a witch. I’d watch for that alone.Gia KourlasTransformation, Via Tap and Modern DanceA still from Ayodele Casel’s “Chasing Magic”; from left, Anthony Morigerato, John Manzari, Casel and Naomi Funaki.Kurt CsolakThere are times, however rare, when a virtual dance can be just as stirring as a live one. Ayodele Casel’s joyful and galvanizing “Chasing Magic,” presented by the Joyce Theater in April, was just that. Now the tap dancer and choreographer unveils a new version of the work, directed by Torya Beard, for the stage — an actual one — starting Tuesday, barring any Covid cancellations. And the following month, “Four Quartets,” an ambitious evening-length work by the modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz, lands at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Feb. 10-12). Based on T.S. Eliot’s poems, the production features live narration by the actress Kathleen Chalfant, music by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and a set by Brice Marden; in it, Tanowitz continues her exploration of the relationship between emotion and form. It’s true that one is tap; the other, modern dance. What do they have in common? Both have much to say and to show about the transporting, transformative power of dance.Isabelia HerreraThe Rapper Saba Explores TraumaSaba, a rapper from Chicago, will release a new album, “Few Good Things,” on Feb. 4.Mat Hayward/Getty ImagesDiaristic and quietly intense, Saba, a rapper from Chicago, is the kind of artist who navigates grief with a cool solace. In 2018, his record “Care for Me” considered this theme in the aftermath of the murder of his cousin and collaborator, who was stabbed to death a year earlier. Out on Feb. 4, his next album, “Few Good Things,” confronts equally gutting life challenges: the anxiety of generational poverty and the depths of survivor’s guilt. It reprises Saba’s slithering and poetic flows, which breathe out a profound sense of narrative. The beats are still buttery, jazzy and meticulously arranged. But this time around, there is more wisdom — a recognition that living through trauma means finding gratitude and affirmation in the moments you can.Jason ZinomanComedian Taylor Tomlinson on TourThe comedian Taylor Tomlinson in her Netflix special “Quarter-Life Crisis,” from 2020; a new one is in the works.Allyson Riggs/Netflix“Quarter-Life Special,” the debut stand-up special from Taylor Tomlinson, introduced a young artist with real potential. Tomlinson tautly evoked a clear persona (cheerful but not the life of the party; more like, as she put it, “the faint pulse of the pot luck”) and told jokes marked by a diverse arsenal of act outs and manners of misdirection. She covered standard territory (dating, sex, parents, kids) with enough insight and dark shadings to get your attention. Most excitingly, every once in a while, she let her thought process spin out into deliriously unexpected directions, like the story that led her to imagine a test for sadness conducted by the police. “Instead of a breathalyzer,” she explained, “they have you sigh into a harmonica.” This Netflix special made a splash, but it would have probably been a bigger one if it didn’t come out in March 2020. One pandemic later, she has another hour ready, and another Netflix special on the way. She’s now performing it on tour, which is expected to stop in New York in January at Town Hall and then the Beacon Theater. More

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      Little Island Unveils Free Monthlong Festival With Over 450 Artists

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      The festival, which runs from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, features a flurry of music, dance, and comedy performances from both established and emerging artists.Little Island was dreamed up as a haven for the performing arts on the Hudson River, and in its first months, it is also being put forward as a playground for artists who have been kept from the stage for far too long.The operators of the island announced on Tuesday that it would host a free monthlong arts festival starting in mid-August that would feature more than 450 artists in more than 160 performances.There will be dance, including works curated by Misty Copeland, Robert Garland and Georgina Pazcoguin. There will be music, including the pianists Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler, the composer Tyshawn Sorey and the saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin and her band. And there will be live comedy, with television stars like Ziwe and Bowen Yang in the lineup.The festival — which is being produced by Mikki Shepard, formerly the executive producer of the Apollo Theater — is another major effort by New York’s performing arts community to revive the arts after the pandemic darkened theaters and concert halls for over a year. For the performers, it is an opportunity to get paid to create new work and explore where their art is heading after months of pandemic restrictions, and in the wake of racial justice protests that swept the country.“We wanted artists to have a voice in terms of, where are they now?” Shepard said. “Coming out of this pandemic, where do they want to be?”By offering free performances, the festival’s objective is to host an audience that combines typical arts patrons with people who might not normally buy tickets to see live music or dance. The performances in Little Island’s 687-seat amphitheater will be ticketed, but shows located elsewhere on the island will not be, allowing tourists and other park visitors to stumble upon them as they’re walking around the 2.4-acre space.“Nothing about it is refined,” said George C. Wolfe, a senior adviser working on the festival, which is called NYC Free. “It’s to give people a place to play.”Copeland and Garland are co-curating a performance on Aug. 18 that features eight Black ballet dancers from three major companies: American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet and the Dance Theater of Harlem, where Garland is resident choreographer. During the performance, Copeland will read aloud from American history texts on top of hip-hop, soul and funk music.Other dance performances include Ballet Hispánico performing an evening of new works by Latina choreographers on Aug. 18, an evening of dance curated by the choreographer Ronald K. Brown on Aug. 25 and a performance by the tap dancer Dormeshia on Sept. 1.As for music, the first day of the festival on Aug. 11 will feature John Cage’s work “4’33”” — in which the score instructs that no instruments be played. It will be performed by students of the Third Street Music School Settlement, led by Tendler. Other musicians include the jazz duo Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner; Flor de Toloache, an all-women mariachi band; and Ali Stroker, the Tony-winning “Oklahoma!” performer, who will sing and tell stories onstage. The final night of the festival includes an all-women jazz performance, curated by the drummer and composer Shirazette Tinnin.The comedy lineup features a stand-up show hosted by Michelle Buteau and a live show called “I Don’t Think So, Honey!,” hosted by Yang and Matt Rogers, that grew out of a segment on their podcast.The festival is funded by Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island and whose family foundation will bankroll the first two decades of the park’s operations. It will run from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5. More

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      City Center Announces Its 2021-2022 Season

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      The theater will reopen for in‐person performances with the Fall for Dance Festival in October.New York City Center will resume live, in-person performances in October with the Fall for Dance Festival, one of its signature events. The dance showcase will kick off the theater’s 2021-2022 season, which is also set to include a Twyla Tharp birthday celebration, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual holiday season engagement and two new dance series.“We really wanted to reaffirm our commitment to New York audiences, as a very New York institution, and to New York artists,” Arlene Shuler, City Center’s president and chief executive, said of the ambitious season.“It’s such a huge opportunity for artists,” added Stanford Makishi, the vice president and artistic director of dance programs. “The ones with whom I’ve been speaking over the last 16 months, they’ve all been really dying to not only get back on the stage, but also to actually have the interaction with the audiences.”City Center announced four commissions for this year’s Fall for Dance on Tuesday. Ayodele Casel, Lar Lubovitch and Justin Peck will create new pieces that will be sprinkled throughout the festival’s five programs; and the Verdon Fosse Legacy, an organization dedicated to preserving the work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, will reconstruct three dances for the festival. The full lineup and schedule will be released at the beginning of September.In November, Twyla Tharp will celebrate her 80th birthday with “Twyla Now,” a program featuring two world premieres as well as signature works. A host of stars, Sara Mearns and Robert Fairchild among them, will perform, supported by an ensemble of young dancers.City Center’s new dance programming will begin in 2022. Tiler Peck, a principal at New York City Ballet, will inaugurate Artists at the Center, which gives an accomplished dancer the opportunity to craft a program; Peck’s program, March 3-6, will feature works by William Forsythe, Alonzo King and others. City Center Dance Festival, a spring counterpart to Fall for Dance, will follow, March 24 to April 10. It will showcase several New York companies, including Martha Graham Dance Company, Dance Theater of Harlem and Paul Taylor Dance Company.The Encores! series, which revives rarely produced Broadway musicals, will also return in 2022. The three shows, “The Tap Dance Kid” (Feb. 2-6), “The Life” (March 16-20) and “Into the Woods” (May 4-15), were announced last year. The coming Encores! season will be the first under the artistic leadership of Lear deBessonet, who was announced as Jack Viertel’s successor in 2019.More information is available at nycitycenter.org. More

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      ‘I Needed It’: A Well-Timed Outdoor Theater Opens on Little Island

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      The island’s first performances, by Broadway Inspirational Voices choir, were post-pandemic catharsis for both the singers and the audience.The timing could not have been better.After the pandemic drove New Yorkers outdoors for everything from dining to haircuts, a 687-seat al fresco amphitheater opened for its first ticketed shows over the weekend on Little Island, the new oasis on the Hudson River, offering a new place for those tentatively re-emerging into crowds again to gather for open-air performances.The amphitheater opened with an emotionally rousing performance by Broadway Inspirational Voices, a professional choir run by Michael McElroy that is made up of chorus members who sang in Broadway musicals like “Ain’t Too Proud” and “The Lion King” before their theaters were shut down and they were thrust into unemployment.Some cheered, and some wept at the return of sights and sounds that had been in short supply during the many months of strict limitations: of hundreds of people piled into the curved wooden benches of the sleek new amphitheater, few of them masked, watching the sun set over the Hudson as a choir belted out “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin.”Michael McElroy, leader of Broadway Inspirational Voices choir and an artist in residence at Little Island, who started working on the show in January.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe choir, made up of Broadway musical actors, performing at dusk. The audience cheered and wept at the return of live entertainment.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesAt the show, McElroy urged the audience to reconnect with one another, opening with the line, “After the darkness, there is always the light.”Vincent Tullo for The New York Times“This is the first time that I’ve been here, and I’m overwhelmed,” said Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island, before entering the amphitheater for Sunday’s performance.Although an outdoor theater was always part of the plan for Little Island, Diller had no idea how useful it would be as the city emerges from a pandemic — offering culture-starved New Yorkers a place for performances as indoor venues slowly begin to come back to life. “It’s the exact right moment,” he said.His family foundation will bankroll the first two decades of the park’s operations, which includes six days a week of arts programming. Without tickets to the amphitheater, visitors can perch themselves atop one of the island’s overlooks to peer down at the performances. Or, if they’re lucky, they can stumble upon one of the artists hired to perform at various spots on the island, like intentionally placed, well-paid buskers.The audience on Sunday. The sun sun set over the Hudson as a choir belted out “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThis weekend’s program was designed as a sort of post-pandemic catharsis for both the singers and the audience, some of whom rose from their seats to sway and clap along with the choir. It was shepherded by McElroy, whose homiletic interludes urged the audience to reconnect with one another, opening with the line, “After the darkness, there is always the light.”The evening of musical theater and gospel music was punctuated with drama and dance — which revolved around the themes of reawakening and reconnection. The actress Phylicia Rashad delivered a monologue about rediscovering the inner child; Daniel J. Watts and Ayodele Casel imitated sounds like thunder and a babbling brook with their tap shoes; Norm Lewis sang a commanding rendition of “Go the Distance” from “Hercules.”“Out of this space of necessary, required isolation, we come into a place that was created for community,” McElroy said in an interview.The evening featured musical theater, as well as gospel music, drama and dance — with themes of reawakening and reconnection. Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe show was McElroy’s last major performance with Broadway Inspirational Voices, a group that he founded in 1994, at a time when his friends were dying of AIDS and he saw a need for spiritual healing. Twenty-seven years later, McElroy has decided to leave the group to focus his time on other creative pursuits, as well as to serve as the musical theater chair at the University of Michigan.But first, McElroy wanted to put together a show that filled a new spiritual void created by the current pandemic.So in January, McElroy, an artist in residence at Little Island, started planning for a live concert scheduled for June, not knowing how quickly the city would be able to get vaccinated and return to see live theater. For the initial rehearsals, which happened on Zoom, members of the choir would gather virtually to go over the music and ask questions, then mute themselves when it was time to sing.In May, the choir moved to a spacious recording studio, where they sang socially distanced and masked. And at the end of the month, they started rehearsing in a park, and then eventually, on the island itself, which floats over the Hudson River near West 13th Street.“It’s the exact right moment” for outdoor theater, Barry Diller, the mega-mogul who paid for Little Island, said.Vincent Tullo for The New York Times“We were rehearsing on the faith that we would be able to come together and do this concert,” he said. “It all depended on where the world would be at this time.”While Broadway itself still has a few months to go before it returns in full force, about 60 of the industry’s chorus members were able to get onstage to sing songs from some of the most popular musicals of all time, including “Wicked” and “West Side Story,” as well as some of the newer musicals that were shuttered by the pandemic, including “Hadestown” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”Watching from the audience, David Plunkett, 52, started out with his mask hanging from his wrist, then alternated between waving it in the air like it was a handkerchief at a church service, and using it to dab at his teary eyes.“I knew I needed it,” he said, “but I didn’t know how much I needed it.” More

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      New York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination Site

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination SiteThe musician Jon Batiste led a band through the Javits Center to begin half a year of unannounced performances throughout the state.Jon Batiste (center) and his band Stay Human march through the Javits Center during the first NY PopsUp event on Saturday.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021It seemed at first like a small, no-frills concert in a carefully controlled environment: The jazz musician Jon Batiste sitting at a piano in an auditorium at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side, performing for an audience of about 50 health care workers seated in evenly spaced rows — some wearing scrubs, others Army fatigues.The dancer Ayodele Casel began tapping, with no musical accompaniment except a recording of her own voice, her amplified cramp rolls filling the room. And the opera singer Anthony Roth Costanzo performed “Ave Maria” in a countertenor’s angelic tones.Ayodele Casel tapping.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAnd an appreciative audience of health care workers.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBatiste on melodica as the indoor parade passes by.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBut about half an hour in, the performers stepped off the stage and exited the room, turning what had begun as a formal concert into a rollicking procession of music and dancing that grooved through the sterile building — the convention center was turned into a field hospital early in the pandemic and is now a mass vaccination site — where hundreds of hopeful people had come on Saturday afternoon to get their shots.Batiste switched to the melodica, a toylike, hand-held reed instrument with a keyboard, and the troupe of musicians — which had expanded to include a horn section and percussionists — paraded up the escalator and through the convention center, eventually reaching a high-ceilinged room where dozens of people sat waiting quietly for the requisite 15 minutes after getting their vaccinations.This concert-turned-roaming-party was the first in a series of “pop-up” shows in New York intended to give the arts a jolt by providing artists with paid work and audiences with opportunities to see live performance after nearly a year of darkened theaters and concert halls. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced plans for the series, called “NY PopsUp,” last month, declaring that “we must bring arts and culture back to life,” and adding that their revival would be crucial to the economic revival of New York City. The shows are getting underway as he finds himself under fire for the state’s handling of Covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents.Health care workers and vaccine recipients provided and audience for the surprise concert on Saturday at the Javits Center, the first of a series called NY PopsUp.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBatiste, getting serious.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe band, appropriately masked, propels itself through the center on Saturday.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBecause the program is wary of drawing crowds, most of the performances will be unannounced, emerging suddenly at parks, museums, parking lots and street corners. The idea is to inject a dose of inspiration into the lives of New Yorkers — a moment in which they can pause their scheduled lives and witness art during a pandemic year that has limited human contact and imposed tight restrictions on people’s activities.“We need more spontaneity; that’s what the beauty of this is,” Batiste said in an interview. “You don’t know what’s around the corner.”As the troupe of musicians moved through the Javits Center, the audience of health care workers followed them, clapping to the beat and recording the spectacle on their phones. Batiste, who is the bandleader on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” propelled his musicians through the space (most of them have played with the show’s house band, including Endea Owens on bass, Tivon Pennicott on saxophone, and Joe Saylor and Nêgah Santos on percussion).Bre Williams, a 35-year-old nurse in blue scrubs who had come from Savannah, Ga., to help out in New York, looked on wide-eyed.“Y’all do this stuff all the time up here?” she said, laughing.Shortly before the music ended, some of the health care workers rushed off to continue their work day (this concert was happening during their break time, after all).The series is put on by a public-private partnership led by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. Zack Winokur, the director and interdisciplinary artist in charge of the programming, said the group is aiming to put on more than 300 pop-up performances through Labor Day, in every borough and around the state. The performers are chosen by a council of artists — among them Batiste, Casel and Costanzo — who are each asked to tap into their own networks to find participants.“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a live performance,” Winokur said in an interview. “It’s a profoundly needed experience right now.”A pop-up parade with free drinks from a coffee truck.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesOnlookers, some appreciative, peeked out of doorways and windows. At one point, however, objects were hurled at the musicians from an upper-story window.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe NY PopsUp parade takes over a lane in Brooklyn.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAfter the first performance at the Javits Center, the musicians headed to Brooklyn, where they began another flash-mob-style street jam, starting from Cadman Plaza Park and winding their way through Dumbo to end up at a skatepark, where teenagers stared at them curiously before hopping back on their skateboards. The free, mobile concerts are called “love riots” by Batiste, who has previously planned them on social media. This one traveled along sidewalks and slushy snow, sometimes slowing traffic.Prevented from tap dancing on the street, Casel banged out rhythms by clapping the metal plates on her tap shoes together with her hands; Costanzo danced along with the band and at one point grabbed the megaphone to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”While the music was intended to provide a spontaneous display for passers-by, the march itself was as tightly regulated as any pandemic-era event. Security personnel directed members of the musical entourage around uneven terrain and dog waste. Another employee asked onlookers to spread out when they started to break social distancing guidelines.Despite the logistics that went into it, the plan succeeded in being a spontaneous curiosity for the dozens of people who unexpectedly encountered the music. Moving down narrow alleyways and commercial streets, the band caused people to stop, stare and sometimes groove a little bit. Children peered through windows along Washington Street; a doorman darted out of an apartment building to see what all the noise was about; pharmacy employees leaned out of the doorway to film the procession down the sidewalk.Not everyone seemed to appreciate the music, though. At one point, someone inside an apartment building began throwing objects at the marchers from several floors up (one of the security staffers said he thought he saw an orange juice container and a trophy hit the snow).Accustomed to improvising, the band simply dodged the flying objects and marched a bit more quickly, the music never stopping.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Cuomo Announces Pop-Up Performances Across New York

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCuomo Announces Pop-Up Performances Across New York“NY PopsUp” will kick off Feb. 20 and run through Labor Day.A festival celebrating Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River, will coincide with the last days of “NY PopsUp.”Credit…Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2021, 3:18 p.m. ETGov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who has made it clear that he sees the return of art and culture as key components of the economic revival of the state, announced Monday that a series of more than 300 free pop-up performances, “NY PopsUp,” would begin Feb. 20 and run through Labor Day.Mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, announced details of the city’s Open Culture program, which will permit outdoor performances on designated city streets this spring.The state’s pop-up events are part of a public-private partnership, New York Arts Revival, and will feature more than 150 artists including Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, Mandy Patinkin, Renée Fleming and Hugh Jackman.Since the state does not wish to draw large crowds in the pandemic, many of the events will not be announced in advance.“We’re trying to thread the needle,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We want the performances. We don’t want mass gatherings, we don’t want large crowds.”The events, the state said, will take place in parks, museums and parking lots, as well as on subway platforms and in transit stations. People can follow a new Twitter and Instagram account, @NYPopsUp, for details about upcoming performances. Many will be shown online.The series will be spearheaded by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. It is part of an arts revival plan that the governor had announced during an address in January, when he had said the state would organize the pop-up performances beginning Feb. 4.The series will begin Feb. 20 at the Javits Center in New York City with a free performance for health care workers that will feature Jon Batiste, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Cecile McLorin Salvant and Ayodele Casel. The performers will travel across the city to all five boroughs, performing in parks and street corners, as well as at the footsteps of Elmhurst Hospital and St. Barnabas Hospital.Mr. Cuomo said some of the events would use flexible venues that do not have fixed seats, and could therefore be reconfigured to allow for social distancing, including the Shed, the Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage, La MaMa and the Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater.In June, the opening of Little Island, the parklike pier being built downtown in the Hudson River by Barry Diller, and the Tribeca Film Festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary, will add to the expanding arts programming in the city.Little Island plans to hold its own festival from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, which will coincide with the final weeks of “NY PopsUp” programming.Mr. de Blasio announced on Monday that the city would launch a new program to help some of the city’s cultural institutions apply for federal grants. The city’s effort, called “Curtains Up NYC,” will offer webinars and counseling to businesses and nonprofits that are connected in some way to live performances.“We have to make sure that New York City cultural institutions get the help that they need,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference.Asked whether any Broadway theaters could be allowed to reopen as his arts revival plans continue, Mr. Cuomo expressed hope.“I think that is where we are headed, right?” he said. “The overall effort is headed towards reopening with testing.”He announced last week that the state planned to issue guidance to begin allowing wedding ceremonies for up to 150 guests if attendees were tested beforehand.“Would I go see a play and sit in a playhouse with 150 people?” he said. “If the 150 people were tested and they were all negative, yes, I would do that. And the social distancing and the air ventilation system is proper? Yes, I would do that.”Commercial producers have repeatedly said that economics of Broadway preclude reopening at less than full capacity.New York reported at least 177 new coronavirus deaths and 9,923 new cases on Sunday. While the number of new cases has fallen from a post-holiday high last month, the average number of new daily cases and deaths is still far above where it was last summer and fall.Mr. Cuomo said that government had to take an active role to help the city and the state recover from the economic pain wrought by the pandemic. “It’s not going to be a situation where the economy is just going to come back,” he said. “We have to make it come back.”“New York leads,” he added. “And we’re going to lead in bringing back the arts.”Michael Gold contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Little Island Announces Resident Artists

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      @media (pointer: coarse) { .at-home-nav__outerContainer { overflow-x: scroll; -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; } } .at-home-nav__outerContainer { position: relative; display: flex; align-items: center; /* Fixes IE */ overflow-x: auto; box-shadow: -6px 0 white, 6px 0 white, 1px 3px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15); padding: 10px 1.25em 10px; transition: all 250ms; margin-bottom: 20px; -ms-overflow-style: none; /* IE 10+ */ […] More