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      5 Things to Do This Thanksgiving Weekend

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      Our critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually and in person in New York City.Art & MuseumsReframing FreedomOne of the murals of Shaun Leonardo’s “Between Four Freedoms,” on view at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park on Roosevelt Island through Tuesday.Anna LetsonThe making of Shaun Leonardo’s latest public artwork — “Between Four Freedoms,” the exhibition of which has been extended to Tuesday at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park on Roosevelt Island — is predicated on the notion that the four freedoms cited in Roosevelt’s 1941 speech don’t apply to everyone equally. How would our most vulnerable citizens interpret them? In a series of workshops leading up to the installation, Leonardo attempted to answer that question. For one, he pointed to the freedom from fear: How can it be considered attainable when children continue to be incarcerated? How can people declare it when for them fear persists in the shadows?The culmination of these exercises is represented in a series of large vinyl murals of hand gestures (which sometimes speak louder than words) that Leonardo applied to the granite walls at the entrance to the park. Words haven’t been completely ignored, though. QR codes surrounding the works link to audio recordings of workshop participants discussing what freedom — or its lack — means to them.MELISSA SMITHKIDSSetting Hearts AflutterAn emerald swallowtail butterfly, which is among the species in the American Museum of Natural History’s butterfly exhibition, on view through May 30.D. Finnin/American Museum of Natural HistoryThe butterflies are back in town.That may seem like a puzzling announcement in November, but at least one Manhattan site considers it routine: the American Museum of Natural History. After a yearlong pandemic-induced hiatus, the institution is once again presenting its annual exhibition “The Butterfly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter,” on view through May 30.Mimicking a light-filled 80-degree rainforest, this 1,200-square-foot vivarium provides close encounters with as many as 500 creatures, such as monarch, viceroy, blue morpho and emerald swallowtail butterflies, and atlas and luna moths. (Timed entry is required, and visitors must buy tickets that include special-exhibition access.) For curious children, the thrills of wandering among the show’s blossoms and greenery include seeing these free-flying international travelers alight on an outstretched hand or emerge from a chrysalis.Small visitors who prefer to keep insects at a distance can enjoy several exhibits outside the conservatory’s doors. Among them are a short film about metamorphosis and displays on butterfly habitats and adaptations. Owl butterflies, for instance, have large spots that resemble owl eyes — a way to fool predators — while monarchs contain foul-tasting toxins. Those bright orange wings are nature’s own caution sign.LAUREL GRAEBERFilm SeriesOf Instincts and BuboesSharon Stone in Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct,” one of the films IFC Center is showing for a retrospective of the director’s work in anticipation of his latest, “Benedetta.”Rialto PicturesBefore Paul Verhoeven’s latest provocation, the 17th-century lesbian-nun drama “Benedetta,” opens on Dec. 3, IFC Center invites viewers to revisit his scandals of yore. While his early Dutch outrages aren’t much represented (other than “Spetters,” one of the most phallocentric movies ever made, screening on Saturday), you couldn’t ask for a more ice-pick-sharp Friday-night selection than “Basic Instinct” (also showing Sunday through Tuesday), the subject of protests — even during filming — for its depiction of Sharon Stone’s bisexual murder suspect. It stands, along with Verhoeven’s return to Holland, the gripping World War II drama “Black Book” (on Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday), as the high point of his mastery of the erotic thriller.Perhaps less seen, but relevant to “Benedetta,” is “Flesh + Blood,” screening on 35-millimeter film on Sunday. Rutger Hauer’s character leads a group of mercenaries who claim a divine mandate, but the encroaching plague proves impervious to superstition. “Benedetta” will close the series on Dec. 2.BEN KENIGSBERGComedyNo Topic Too HotD.L. Hughley will be at Carolines on Broadway on Friday and Saturday.Phil ProvencioThey say the Thanksgiving table is no place for certain subjects, but those are just the kind of scraps D.L. Hughley can turn into a feast.The comedian, who hosts a nationally syndicated afternoon radio show with a companion series on Pluto TV’s LOL! Network, has been making waves since the late 1990s, when he starred in his own sitcom on ABC and toured as one of “The Original Kings of Comedy” alongside Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac, who died in 2008.Hughley had the political savvy to host his own CNN show and the mainstream appeal to compete on “Dancing With the Stars.” In 2012, he created and starred in “D.L. Hughley: The Endangered List,” a mockumentary for Comedy Central that won a Peabody Award. This year, he published his fifth book, “How to Survive America.” He’ll certainly have plenty to talk about when he performs at Carolines on Broadway on Friday and Saturday at 7 and 9:45 p.m. Tickets start at $60, with a two-drink minimum.SEAN L. McCARTHYFive Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      Broadway Is Back. Here’s What It’s Like for Theatergoers.

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      Seeing theater these days can involve waiting in lines to show proof of vaccination and getting rapid coronavirus tests for young children. Many fans seem undeterred.The long-awaited return of Broadway has brought back many familiar preshow rituals — and also spurred a few that are new. One takes place a few hours before curtain time in middle of Times Square, under a canopy with a sandwich board sign proclaiming: “Broadway Show Testing Site.”It is there that some of the most dedicated theatergoers in the city — children under 12 who are ineligible for the vaccines theaters require — are taken by their parents to submit to nasal swabs so they can get the negative coronavirus test results they need to see shows.Remy Keller, a 5-year-old from Chicago who needed a test so she could see “The Lion King,” was among a crowd there on a recent Saturday, bracing herself for the swab. There were a few tears.“There’s a lot of things we all have to do to minimize the effects of the virus on vulnerable people; I’m not saying I’m not willing to jump through the hoops, but why are we putting the kids through all this?” her mother, Avery Keller, said, noting that her daughter has already had to be tested dozens of times for school. “I think we’ve got to really weigh the mental health impacts of this on our children.”The return of live performance — on stages from Broadway to Carnegie Hall to Lincoln Center to the Brooklyn Academy of Music — after the long shutdown has been a cause for celebration for culture-starved theatergoers and music and dance lovers. But as with so many things in the age of the coronavirus, coming back has entailed a few adjustments: the ability to deftly juggle proofs of vaccination and photo IDs and tickets to get inside; preshow announcements that now urge people to keep their cellphones off and their masks on; and the absence of intermissions at some concerts and dance performances.Najah Hetsberger, 21, who returned to Broadway on a recent weeknight to see a show for the first time since before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, was delighted to find that her fellow theatergoers were actually doing what they had been told.Some of the most dedicated theatergoers in the city are children under 12, who must get coronavirus tests to see Broadway shows since they are not yet eligible for the vaccines.John Taggart for The New York Times“I didn’t see anyone with their mask down, even below their nose,” she said after emerging from a performance of the play “Chicken & Biscuits.” “Everyone was following directions. I think people know, and want theater to come back and stay.”Theaters have grown more adept at swiftly managing the lines of people waiting to get in. In most cases, people get their vaccine status checked first, then move more briskly through security and into the theater, where ushers scan their tickets. Still, it pays to get to the theater a little early these days: The checks do sometimes result in delays, and some music and dance companies have had to hold their curtains a few minutes to give the people waiting in line extra time to get inside.Once inside a venue, other changes await. In the minutes leading up to performances of “American Utopia,” the David Byrne concert show, ushers stroll up and down the aisles of the St. James Theater with poster-size signs that urge: “Please Mask Up.” The usual preshow announcements admonishing people to turn off their cellphones now also have other business to attend to. “God told me to tell you to keep your mask on,” ran the radio-style announcement at a recent performance of “Chicken & Biscuits.” “He did, so don’t question it.”And, at a recent performance of “The Lehman Trilogy,” the audience chuckled knowingly at a newly written line about the flu pandemic of 1918 and the ensuing “protests in San Francisco, against the wearing of masks.”In interviews, theatergoers almost universally agreed that they were willing to tolerate longer, slower lines, wear masks for hours on end and take their children to get properly timed coronavirus tests if that was what it took to see live theater again.“I feel comfortable and safe because I know everyone here had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test,” said Heather Teta, of New York, who came to “The Lion King” with her 9- and 6-year-old daughters. “They have negative tests and are all masked. We’ll do whatever we need to do to get back.”In interviews, theatergoers agreed that they were willing to tolerate longer, slower lines and wear masks to see live theater again. A crowd waited in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square recently for discounted tickets.John Taggart for The New York TimesBroadway and union officials say that the reopening has been free of the sort of dramatic dust-ups some flight attendants have experienced while trying to enforce masking rules on planes. “Thankfully, so far so good,” said Carol Bokun, the theatrical business representative with IATSE Local 306.Disney Theatrical Productions shared survey data collected from people who attended “The Lion King” that appeared to suggest that the testing requirements for children had not been a major deterrent. The self-reported data showed that 29 percent of parties attending the show so far this fall had included children, an increase from 21 percent in late 2019, before the pandemic shutdown.When it comes to snacks and drinks, theaters are taking various approaches. Several Broadway theaters now offer concessions — including “featured cocktails” that can run to $22 a pop — and allow people to lower their masks briefly while eating or drinking. Other venues have yet to reopen their food and beverage service, reluctant to encourage any masklessness at all. The Metropolitan Opera has closed most of its concession areas, but its bar in the airiest section of the Grand Tier is now open, along with its restaurant. To encourage mask-wearing, a security guard politely asks people not to take their food or drink outside the designated areas.And intermissions are growing rarer. The New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall and New York City Ballet have all experimented with slightly shorter programs with no intermissions, in part to minimize the amount of time patrons are thrust together in crowds. The faster evenings, which get out earlier, are proving popular with some music lovers, even if the long intermissionless stretches test the bladders of others.The vaccine mandates for live performances are not that different from the ones required to dine indoors in New York City, which may have made the adjustment smoother. There has been some opposition, though: A group of small Off Broadway theaters and comedy clubs in Manhattan have formally objected to the mandates in court. They recently sued Mayor Bill de Blasio over the city’s vaccine mandate, claiming it had been enforced unequally.And there are still some situations that can be difficult to navigate. To get into a theater, adults must show that they have been fully vaccinated. But the entry rules are slightly different for children under 12. Since vaccines have not yet been authorized for children that age, they are required to present either a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the performance to get into a Broadway show, or a negative rapid test taken within six hours of curtain time. (The Met Opera and Carnegie Hall are not yet allowing unvaccinated children in at all; New York City Ballet has said it will allow children under 12 to attend its 47-show run of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” with a negative PCR test.)Survey data provided by Disney Theatrical Productions collected from people who attended “The Lion King” appeared to suggest that the testing requirements for children had not been a major deterrent in keeping families from seeing the show.John Taggart for The New York TimesThe new theater rules posed a difficulty for Gary Spino, 59, who was planning to see “Stomp” the other day with his son, Nicholas. But Nicholas had turned 12 just days earlier, so he had been unable to get his second dose of the vaccine. The show’s rules, though, said that as a 12-year old, Nicholas needed to be fully vaccinated..css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}.css-1in8jot{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1in8jot{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1in8jot:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1in8jot{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}What to Know About Covid-19 Booster ShotsThe F.D.A. authorized booster shots for a select group of people who received their second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at least six months before. That group includes: vaccine recipients who are 65 or older or who live in long-term care facilities; adults who are at high risk of severe Covid-19 because of an underlying medical condition; health care workers and others whose jobs put them at risk. People with weakened immune systems are eligible for a third dose of either Pfizer or Moderna four weeks after the second shot.Regulators have not authorized booster shots for recipients of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines yet. A key advisory committee to the F.D.A. voted unanimously on Oct. 14 to recommend a third dose of the Moderna vaccine for many of its recipients. The same panel voted unanimously on Oct. 15 to recommend booster shots of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine for all adult recipients. The F.D.A. typically follows the panel’s advice, and should rule within days.The C.D.C. has said the conditions that qualify a person for a booster shot include: hypertension and heart disease; diabetes or obesity; cancer or blood disorders; weakened immune system; chronic lung, kidney or liver disease; dementia and certain disabilities. Pregnant women and current and former smokers are also eligible.The F.D.A. authorized boosters for workers whose jobs put them at high risk of exposure to potentially infectious people. The C.D.C. says that group includes: emergency medical workers; education workers; food and agriculture workers; manufacturing workers; corrections workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; public transit workers; grocery store workers.For now, it is not recommended. Pfizer vaccine recipients are advised to get a Pfizer booster shot, and Moderna and Johnson & Johnson recipients should wait until booster doses from those manufacturers are approved. ​​The F.D.A. is planning to allow Americans to receive a different vaccine as a booster from the one they initially received. The “mix and match” approach could be approved once boosters for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson recipients are authorized.Yes. The C.D.C. says the Covid vaccine may be administered without regard to the timing of other vaccines, and many pharmacy sites are allowing people to schedule a flu shot at the same time as a booster dose.“We don’t know if they’re going to let us in because he only has one shot,” said Spino, who acknowledged that the situation was causing considerable stress. “Honestly we were thinking about pretending that he’s still just 11.”They made it in: Reached after the performance, Spino said checkers had let Nicholas attend “Stomp” with proof of a negative rapid test he had taken earlier in the day.At some shows, adults who have been unable to show proof that they have been fully vaccinated, and children who lack the proper test results, have been politely pulled off the lines to get in. If they cannot satisfy the requirements, they are offered a refund or a chance to exchange their tickets for a later performance.Several Broadway officials said they could not or would not provide specific data on exactly how many people are prevented from entering shows each evening, or how many returns or exchanges they have processed this fall. But they insisted such cases were isolated and limited in number.“It’s a very small handful across all our theaters,” said Todd Rappaport, a spokesman for the Shubert Organization, which owns and operates a number of Broadway theaters.Many theatergoers are happy to be back. Amy Ferreira, 46, of Millbury, Mass., said she had to pay roughly $167 for a PCR coronavirus test for her 10-year-old daughter, Eva, before coming to New York, but that it was worth it to see “Hamilton.” It was Eva’s birthday, and her family had gotten tickets months ago. Together, they had watched the Disney+ version many times, and Eva was singing the chorus to “My Shot.”They had decided they could not throw theirs away.“She goes to school and wears a mask,” Ferreira said of her daughter. “So she’s out and about. This was as safe as it can possibly get at this point. We can’t live in a bubble.”Michael Paulson, Julia Jacobs and Laura Zornosa contributed reporting. Susan Beachy contributed research. More

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      ‘All About My Sisters’ Review: Family Matters

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      Wang Qiong’s debut feature traces the tragic effects of China’s one-child policy on her family.Often in “All About My Sisters,” the Chinese filmmaker Wang Qiong’s documentary portrait of her family, you might forget that what you’re watching is filtered through a camera. Over a period of seven years, Wang filmed her parents, siblings and relatives from within the emotional thicket of their lives, capturing moments of piercing, private intimacy. Her approach yields a film bristling with the kind of familial rancor that usually only emerges behind closed doors.There’s plenty to warrant this bitterness, starting with the fact that Wang’s younger sister, Zhou Jin, was abandoned as a newborn before being retrieved and then given to an uncle to raise. That was in the 1990s, when the combination of China’s one-child policy and a widespread cultural preference for sons had tragic consequences. As we learn over the course of the film’s epic (yet impressively brisk-moving) three-hour arc, Jin’s is one of the many stories of abandoned babies, sex-selective abortions and female infanticide that haunt Wang’s family history.Wang is neither a staid observer nor a formal interviewer, but an active participant in the scenes she captures, often intervening gently from behind her hand-held camera. “Have you ever thought that induced abortion is horrible to baby girls?” she asks her older sister, Wang Li, whose husband is desperate for a male heir. Li’s response is simple but profound: “The world is horrible to us, too. Every move is a risk.”At times, Wang’s candor can be unsettling: I wondered about the ethics of her unflattering portrayal of Jin, who is seen being cruel to her toddler, as if re-enacting her own traumas. In such moments, “All About My Sisters” teeters discomfitingly between the personal and the political, revealing how little separates the two.All About My SistersNot rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 54 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Clint and Ron Howard Remember When They Were Just ‘The Boys’

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      In a new memoir, the showbiz siblings recall their experiences growing up on “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Star Trek” and other Hollywood classics. But they weren’t all happy days.Growing up, Clint and Ron Howard never had to dream of stardom, because as children they’d already achieved it. Ron was just 6 when he was second-billed on “The Andy Griffith Show” and 8 when “The Music Man,” featuring him crooning “Gary, Indiana,” was released. Clint, his younger brother, was racking up roles on “Bonanza,” “Star Trek” and “Gentle Ben.”Today they are both Hollywood veterans: Ron, 67, is an Academy Award-winning director (“A Beautiful Mind”) and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment, while Clint, 62, is a prolific character actor who’s shown up everywhere from “Seinfeld” to the “Austin Powers” movies.But their lives were transformed by their time as child actors and the influence of their parents, Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard, who left Oklahoma to pursue their own ambitions of becoming actors — goals that were surpassed countless times over by the accomplishments of their two sons.Ron and Clint Howard retrace this formative period in a new book, “The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family,” which will be released by William Morrow on Tuesday. In their alternating accounts, the Howards look back on their parents’ lives, their own upbringings and their success at staving off the darker aspects of their profession — at least until the realities of adolescence and adulthood reared their heads.“The Boys” will be released on Oct. 12.William Morrow, via Associated PressWhen the brothers spoke in a video interview last month, they talked about how writing “The Boys” had helped reconnect them to each other and to their family history.“We’ve remained close, but we’re 3,000 miles apart and busy with our own families,” Ron Howard said, adding that the book “has everything to do with trying to put our lives into the context of who our parents were and what they gave us.”“We wouldn’t have done it just to tell our story,” he added. “Once again, Mom and Dad pulled us together.”Clint and Ron Howard talked about their early starts in show business, their earliest brushes with fame and how their parents helped them keep it together. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.It’s well-known that you’re the children of actors, but you’re not exactly Barrymore scions. What were your parents like? How did they find it in Hollywood?RON HOWARD There’s no reason they should have succeeded. They didn’t know a thing about where they were going. They weren’t bohemians, they weren’t hippies, but they certainly were not conservatives. But they had this dream. They had to chase that horizon. And when they got to the horizon, they never really fit in. They were always a little cornpone. Hence the term that they applied to themselves, sophisticated hicks.Were you ever made to feel that you were the breadwinners of your family?CLINT HOWARD We didn’t take show business home with us. Both Dad and Mom worked their tails off. Mom was just a championship mom. She was on the P.T.A., she was a basketball mom, she was a baseball mom.RON Dad was a kid-actor whisperer. But he said, I work with you boys because you’re my sons and I think you can learn something. I don’t think he believed this was our career for the rest of our lives. I don’t think he wanted to project that desire upon us.The book he and his brother wrote, Ron Howard said, “has everything to do with trying to put our lives into the context of who our parents were and what they gave us.”Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesYou probably could have lived much larger on the money you were earning — why didn’t you?RON We always lived on Dad’s salary. Somebody wanted to do an Opie line of clothing — I’m sure it would have meant hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of the day. Mom and Dad turned that down for me because they didn’t want me wasting my time on that.CLINT We were never short for anything. But we didn’t go on vacation. They didn’t buy new cars. Once a year, Ron and I got new school clothes. No one was chasing those intoxicating elements that modern life or show business can overwhelm you with.As children, you were regularly crossing paths with venerated Hollywood artists. Clint, you got to meet Walt Disney when you were working on “The Jungle Book.” What was that like?CLINT I was completely blown away when Walt walked in and said, “You’re doing a fine job, Clint.” I was truly a Disney baby. But I was a little irritated that I hadn’t worked in more Disney shows. [Laughter.]RON Too bad you didn’t just say, “What took you so long? Walt, how many times have I been to Disneyland? Where’s the quid pro quo here, Walt?”CLINT These people all seemed pretty friendly but they weren’t handing out the contracts. I never got on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”Were either of you ever jealous of each other?CLINT Our age difference was ideal. Being five years apart, I would look at my brother and go, there’s no chance that I can kick his butt. There were a few times we would get into a fight over baseball cards or a toy, and Dad would physically pull us apart. He would say, you boys are going to want to be good friends when you grow up. So why don’t you just knock it off?RON He would say you have a chance to be good friends when you grow up.There’s a period you describe in the book, where things were starting to wind down for Ron on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Clint was beginning to take off on “Gentle Ben.” Did that create tension between you?RON I felt envy over what Clint was achieving. He was really popular at school, an excellent athlete, gregarious, smart, confident. Things that I don’t necessarily feel or exude. And I admired that about his persona. And I could see it in the work he was doing as well. He was a hell of a good child actor. The system is set up to make child performers feel like failures as they go through adolescence, that most vulnerable period, and I was beginning to experience that. Clint experienced a version of it later.CLINT I worked on “Gentle Ben,” I was one of the coleads of a television series that was really popular for a short period of time. What really knocked my chin in the dirt was getting hired to work on a TV series called “The Cowboys.” The job ended up just sucking. It was a bad show. I was still making money but the work was poor. That, and then pimples. Dad and Mom warned us about this period of show business. We knew it was coming. There was just no way to really quantify how I was going to feel about it.“We were never short for anything,” Clint Howard said. “But we didn’t go on vacation. They didn’t buy new cars. Once a year, Ron and I got new school clothes. No one was chasing those intoxicating elements that modern life or show business can overwhelm you with.”Rozette Rago for The New York TimesIn an era and an industry where drugs were prevalent, Ron avoided them fastidiously while Clint had a long period of addiction and recovery. Why do you think you had such different experiences?RON I was very introverted and my group of friends were likewise. I wasn’t really allowed to go to parties. If I was invited once or twice, I think my parents said no. But Clint was in a different group, much more socially mature. I also resented some of the restrictions that my parents put on me, and I was constantly imploring them to use a lighter hand with Clint.CLINT I had just some sort of odd fascination with smoking weed. To the point where I literally practiced — I took some pencil shavings from my pencil sharpener and I twisted up a joint and tried to smoke it. Ron was the first, he was a little more nerdy. I was socially more outgoing. I ended up with a group of friends where it was no big deal. The problem is, once that train leaves the station, it can get going pretty darn fast. It’s a slippery slope and I was throwing down the Crisco.Ron, did you ever feel guilty that you had somehow let your little brother down and hadn’t protected him from this?RON Yes, I did feel that. When we knew Clint was smoking pot, I said, look, it’s not the horrible curse of the demon you fear it might be. But as Clint started to go further, by then I was married and beginning to have kids. I was concerned and I tried to offer support and go to meetings. I continued to work with Clint and cast him when it made sense. I remember telling him pretty late in his period of abuse — we used a lot of baseball terminology — I said, you’re a bona fide .300 hitter who’s batting about .217.CLINT I have that letter. You wrote it on stationery from a New York hotel room.RON I was thinking about you while I was on the road. But I was very proud of Clint for having navigated it. That achievement meant so much to Mom and Dad, probably more than anything any of us had achieved.CLINT My recovery wasn’t easy-peasy, clean and snazzy. Ron had a lot to do with it and Dad had a lot to do with it, too. I struggled with Mom passing away, but I was very proud of the moment I could drop my nine-year chip in her coffin. I only wish it was a 10-year chip.What’s your favorite performance that your brother has given?RON Clint was tremendous in “The Red Pony.” But as I was doing research for this, I had forgotten that we had both been on “The Danny Kaye Show,” and there was this sketch where I was supposed to be this kid James Bond character and Clint was my boss. He nailed that scene. When I watched it, I said, my God, look how present he is. He really is playing a 50-year-old, hard-bitten guy, and I buy it.CLINT He talks about me being in “The Red Pony,” but I never got a chance to do what he did in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.” There’s a scene in that movie where he has this panic attack that turns into a tantrum, and he just was so believable. I’m going, the guy’s got chops. Also, as a young man, he did a movie, “Act of Love.” That was weighty material and he nailed it.RON That was a euthanasia story, based on a real event, where a younger brother had been beseeched by the other to end it after a horrible accident. There’s a courtroom scene where he’s talking about how much he loves his brother and Clint was going through a difficult time during this period. It was one of the most personal moments I ever generated onscreen, because I was channeling my own sense of love and despair for what Clint was going through. The tears and the emotions were real — they came from my own gut. More

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      5 Things to Do on Labor Day Weekend

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      Our critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually and in person in New York City.Art & MuseumsMoMA PS1’s Engaging CourtyardNiki de Saint Phalle’s “La femme et L’oiseau fontaine” (1967) will be on view in MoMA PS1’s courtyard until Monday.Niki Charitable Art Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris; MoMA PS1; Marissa AlperIn 1997, the courtyard at MoMA PS1 became the main venue for “Warm Up,” a summer event that mingled art, music and design in order to draw new audiences. But things change. “Warm Up” certainly hasn’t gone away, but last fall, the institution began “PS1 Courtyard: an experiment in creative ecologies,” a program testing out ways to use the outdoor space that encourage community engagement.The initiative’s projects include a fountain from Niki de Saint Phalle, part of a larger exhibition at PS1 that closes on Monday, and Rashid Johnson’s “Stage.” Visitors are welcome to get up on his installation’s large yellow platform and freely use its five live microphones of varying heights. By showing a microphone as a dynamic social tool, Johnson’s piece, which will be on view through the fall, indicates the many things a stage can represent: a site of protest, music making, solidarity and, most important, amplification of your voice.MELISSA SMITHFilm SeriesScenes From Every SeasonA scene from “A Summer’s Tale,” one of four features in Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, all of which Film Forum will screen through Sept. 9.Janus FilmsThe maximalist moviegoing event of Labor Day weekend is “Lawrence of Arabia,” screening on Saturday and Sunday on 70-millimeter film at the Museum of the Moving Image. But for a minimalist alternative, try Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons — four features, each set at a different time of year, that Rohmer, the most conversation-oriented French New Wave director, turned out from the late 1980s through the late 1990s. (Together, the running times total roughly two showings of “Lawrence of Arabia.”) With the changing of the seasons, Film Forum is showing all the titles separately from Friday through Sept. 9.Watching them in tandem illustrates how Rohmer — superficially so consistent and serene — subtly toys with structure and variation, recombining types of characters in friendships and romances that rarely develop as expected. The most summery is, naturally, “A Summer’s Tale.” Melvil Poupaud plays a commitment-phobe vacationing in Brittany who somehow winds up juggling a surfeit of commitments to women.BEN KENIGSBERGJazzCelebrating a Visionary Record LabelCharles Tolliver at the 50th anniversary of Another Earth in 2019. Through Saturday, he will be celebrating another 50th anniversary at Birdland — that of the record label he started with Stanley Cowell, Strata-East.Lev Radin/Pacific Press, via Getty ImagesIn 1971, seeking refuge from an exploitive, increasingly commercialized jazz industry, the trumpeter Charles Tolliver and the pianist Stanley Cowell founded Strata-East, a record label offering artists creative freedom and relative commercial control. Though short-lived, Strata-East inspired Black musicians in other cities to undertake similar efforts. And it captured a moment in time: Nearly every Strata-East album simmers with the heat and tension of the Black Power era, delivering terse, syncopated rhythms and pushing jazz linguistics into a more spare, confrontational zone.Cowell died last year after a prolific career, but Tolliver, 79, continues to perform. At Birdland through Saturday, he is celebrating the label’s 50th anniversary with an ensemble of all-stars, including some who recorded on Strata-East in the 1970s: the tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, the pianist George Cables, the bassist Buster Williams and the drummer Lenny White. Sets are at 7 and 9:30 p.m. The late show on Saturday, which will also be livestreamed at dreamstage.live, will feature a guest appearance by the storied bassist Cecil McBee and will be hosted by the actor Danny Glover.GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOComedyNo Labor for These LaughsErik Griffin in his Showtime special “AmeERIKan Warrior.” He is headlining at Carolines on Broadway through Saturday.ShowtimeEven workaholics know they should take it easy this weekend, and fans of “Workaholics” will recognize the headliner at Carolines on Broadway through Saturday: Erik Griffin, who played Montez Walker on that Comedy Central sitcom. Griffin also portrayed a stand-up in “I’m Dying Up Here,” a dramedy about comedy in the 1970s on Showtime, where you can find two of Griffin’s comedy specials. At Carolines, he will perform one set at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and two sets at 7 and 9:30 on Saturday. Tickets start at $31.25.On Sunday at 7 and 9:30, Carolines will welcome Rosebud Baker, who released her debut special, “Whiskey Fists,” in August on the Comedy Central Stand-Up YouTube channel. Tickets are $27.25 and up.There will be a two-drink minimum at each show.SEAN McCARTHYKIDSThis Is How They RollA child at an NYC Unicycle Festival event in 2019. The 12th edition of the annual celebration takes place throughout the boroughs this weekend.Kenneth SpringleIn New York, casual basketball games are about as common as strutting pigeons. But the contest scheduled on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Bronx should result in a lot of head-turning, not to mention wheel-turning.That’s when the King Charles Unicycle Troupe will play — while riding its favorite vehicles — at the basketball court in Clinton Playground in Crotona Park. (Enter at Clinton Avenue and Crotona Park South.) A beloved local circus act, these guys can double-Dutch jump rope on one wheel, too.Their show is a highlight of the 12th annual NYC Unicycle Festival, a free outdoor celebration presented by the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. The festivities also include long-distance group rides on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which proficient young unicyclists can join if they’re accompanied by an adult. (Details are on the festival’s website.) Experienced riders can participate in a post-performance pickup game with the King Charles players on Saturday, too, along with a free-throw basketball contest and a unicycle obstacle course.Neophytes, however, can do more than watch. On Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m., at Grant’s tomb in Morningside Heights, the festival’s conclusion will offer instruction and youth-size equipment for children who want to give unicycling a whirl.LAUREL GRAEBER More

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      ‘Arthur’ Is Ending After 25 Years

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      The world’s most popular student aardvark is retiring, at least from the big-hearted series that bears his name. PBS said there may be “additional Arthur content” in the future.These wonderful kind of days in a neighborhood where aardvarks, rabbits and other animals go to school, learn about life and play are ending. More

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      She Never Saw Herself in Children’s TV Shows. So She Created Her Own.

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      For Chris Nee, the producer behind the popular “Doc McStuffins” series, diversity and representation aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re the things she wished TV producers considered when she was a kid.“I am writing to my own experience as a kid.”— Chris Nee, producer of “Doc McStuffins”In Her Words is available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.In early June, Chris Nee, the award-winning children’s show writer and producer, found herself at a loss for words. She could not name a single TV show from her childhood that had left a lasting impression on her.“Maybe ‘Quincy’…?” she said in a recent interview over Zoom from her house in the Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her face scrunched up with a mix of confusion, bewilderment and disappointment as she tried to recall another show — any show — from the late ’70s and early ’80s. “I was not growing up in a great era of TV,” she concluded.It is, of course, not lost on Ms. Nee that part of the reason she — a gay “relatively butch” woman, as she put it — didn’t connect with any shows was because she never saw herself represented onscreen. She simply wasn’t like the little girls that TV glorified back then. Ms. Nee felt uncomfortable in a dress and in social situations, feeling early on that she was “different.”Ms. Nee came out as gay when she turned 18 in the ’80s — a time when being openly gay was an incredibly heavy burden to carry. The AIDS epidemic, still little undersood at that point, was exploding around the country, killing hundreds of thousands of L.G.B.T.Q. people. The Reagan administration treated the epidemic as a laughing matter, publicly making jokes about the disease and further marginalizing L.G.B.T.Q. people who watched friends and loved ones die. And, in the broader context, there were few pop culture and entertainment icons who were openly gay; even Elton John only publicly revealed that he was gay in 1992.“It was just a really different space,” Ms. Nee said, of that time. “And I carry that stuff with me. I can still touch those feelings of hurt and anxiety and fear.”In large part, Ms. Nee’s artistry has been capturing that not-fitting-in-ness in the heart of her stories; stories that touch on the idea of difference as the very “thing that can give us great strength.”“I always say that the answer you’re supposed to give when you’re asked ‘who are you writing for?’ isn’t kids,” she said. “I am really not writing for the kids, I am writing to my own experience as a kid.”“We Are Doc McStuffins”In 2012, Disney released “Doc McStuffins,” an animated children’s show pitched and produced by Ms. Nee. The lead character is a 7-year-old Black girl, Doc, who dreams of becoming a doctor, like her mom, and spends her days carrying around a “Big Book of Boo Boos” and tending to her toys that fall sick. It was also the first Disney show to air an episode featuring an interracial lesbian couple.A scene from Chris Nee’s animated Disney series “Doc McStuffins.”Disney Junior“Doc McStuffins” quickly became one of the most popular children’s TV shows, running for five seasons and viewed by millions of children, age 2 to 5. In fact, in 2016, the first episode of Season 4 reached more than four million children, according to the book “Heroes, Heroines and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children’s Entertainment Media.” The show was nominated for several Daytime Emmy Awards and, in 2014, it won a Peabody Award for children’s programming.Most importantly, the show helped shift perceptions of Black medical professionals, spurring thousands of female physicians to post pictures of themselves on social media with the caption “We are Doc McStuffins.” In a recent tweet, Dr. Rachel Buckle-Rashid, a pediatrician in Rhode Island, posted that a little girl had just jumped into her arms assuming she was “Doc.” “Maybe Disney Junior has done more for me as a Black woman in medicine than most D.E.I. initiatives,” Dr. Buckle-Rashid added.In a 2018 survey by the Geena Davis Institute, a research organization focused on representation in film and TV, more than 50 percent of over 900 girls in school and college named “Doc McStuffins” as the show that left enough of a lasting impression on them to pursue a career in STEM.Interestingly, Ms. Nee noted that boys were watching the show, too, pointing to data from the time indicating that they made up about 49 percent of “Doc” viewers, which exposed them to ideas of more empowered girls as well. Breaking New GroundMs. Nee originally wanted to be an actor. But with her shaved head and baggy T-shirts — “I was deeply queer in the old school sense, which was actually hard-core punk rock,” she explained — she didn’t know who would cast her or how she could fit in. Instead, she decided then to get into production, taking on a role as an associate producer with Sesame Street’s international arm, which took her from Jordan to Mexico to Finland. It was, as she described it, “the coolest job in the world.”She eventually realized, though, that her greatest strength was writing. She began working on scripts for shows like “Blue’s Clues” and “Wonder Pets,” even as she continued to work as a producer (TV production was and, in large part, still is a freelance-driven business). At one point she was producing “Deadliest Catch,” a reality TV show about Alaskan king crab fishermen, during the day and writing children’s TV shows at night.“The first Christmas special of the ‘Wonder Pets’ was written from the barracks on the islands of Unalaska,” she said.The idea for “Doc McStuffins” came to Ms. Nee in the shower one morning. Just a few days prior, her family had rushed to the hospital in an ambulance because her son, 2 years old at the time, was dealing with severe asthma. It was one of many trips in and out of the doctor’s office and the emergency room that they would make. “It was all so brand-new for him,” she said. “And I was like, why hasn’t somebody done something to make this less scary for kids?”When she took the concept to Disney, the company said yes almost immediately.“It was one of those times where you said to yourself ‘Oh, why didn’t I think of that?’” said Nancy Kanter, who at the time was the creative head of Disney Junior. “The idea was simple and brilliant.”Ms. Kanter had just one suggestion for Ms. Nee: Instead of making Doc a little white girl, why not make her a little Black girl?“That was an easy yes for me,” Ms. Nee said.There was early pushback and hesitancy from the business side of Disney that a female lead might not have mass appeal. The prevailing wisdom at the time of the perfectly bifurcated pink and blue worlds of children’s TV was that a girl would watch an action-packed “boy’s show” but a boy wouldn’t watch a “girl’s show”. There was also a concern that a Black lead, rather than a white lead, might not sell as much merchandise, one of the biggest revenue drivers for children’s entertainment.But Ms. Kanter was undeterred. “I said, ‘You may be right but we’re not going to change it,’” she recalled. “I was willing to stick my neck out.”In the end, both of the business-side assumptions proved false. The show inspired so many little girls of all races to dress up in lab coats and carry their own stethoscopes that within a year, “Doc McStuffins” merchandise generated about $500 million in sales, making it one of the top-selling toy products featuring a nonwhite character. And Ms. Nee added that girls and boys were tuning in in almost equal numbers. “Rules are rules until somebody breaks them,” she said.Since the release of “Doc McStuffins” in 2012, children’s TV shows have hit a milestone that Hollywood and the broader entertainment industry have not yet crossed: 52 percent of children’s TV shows now feature female leads, according to a 2019 analysis by the Geena Davis Institute. Compare this with the top 100 Hollywood movies of 2018, where women held 39 percent of leading roles. And, the analysis found, female characters in children’s shows are now more likely than male characters to be depicted as leaders, which wasn’t the case for the top Hollywood movies.A Blue SuitIn the coming weeks, Netflix will begin streaming two of Ms. Nee’s latest shows. “We the People,” to be released on July 4, is a series of animated civics lessons created in collaboration with Higher Ground Productions, the company run by the Obama family. And “Ridley Jones,” set to be released on July 13, is the tale of 6-year-old Ridley who lives at the natural history museum that her mom manages.Chris Nee’s new show “Ridley Jones”NetflixIn the first episode of “Ridley Jones,” Ridley discovers that at night the creatures in the museum come to life. That’s when she meets Fred the Bison.“Is Fred a he or a she?” she asks one of her new friends.“I don’t know, they’re just Fred,” he replies.“Cool,” Ridley says, and off she jets on a mission to rescue a necklace.In another episode, Ridley and her gang have to attend a ball at the museum, but they find out that Fred doesn’t want to go because they didn’t feel comfortable wearing the dresses they’ve always worn.By the end of the episode, all is resolved: Fred ends up attending the ball in a blue suit. And Fred’s blue suit just happens to resemble a blue suit Ms. Nee used to love wearing when she was a kid. More

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      5 Things to Do on Memorial Day Weekend

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      Our critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually and in person in New York City.Art & MuseumsExpressions of FreedomZaq Landsberg’s “Reclining Liberty” will be on view in Morningside Park until April.Zaq LandsbergIn 2005, Zaq Landsberg created a new nation in rural Utah called Zaqistan, on the premise that our ideals around governance were worth re-evaluating. In Harlem’s Morningside Park, his yearlong installation “Reclining Liberty” — a 25-foot-long Buddha-like version of the Statue of Liberty — is another re-examination, this time of a quintessential American symbol. More