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    As ‘Come From Away’ Closes, a Newfoundlander Heads Back Home

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    The Canadian actress Petrina Bromley has been in the cast during the show’s surprise hit run on Broadway. It resonated because “it’s about kindness,” she says.On Sunday afternoon, “Come From Away” played its final performance on Broadway, before a raucous sold-out crowd that wept and waved. By Monday morning, stagehands were already taking down and hauling away the real trees that gave the Schoenfeld Theater its forested look.Petrina Bromley, the lone Newfoundlander in the cast, returned to the theater to collect her belongings and to talk about the show, which told the true story of how Gander, Newfoundland — a small Canadian city with a big airport — sheltered thousands of airline passengers forced to land when trans-Atlantic flights were grounded by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.The musical, written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and directed by Christopher Ashley, opened in 2017 and became a surprise hit, with its message of generosity and community resonating at a time when those values seemed in short supply.Bromley, like all members of the cast, played multiple characters, but she is best known as Bonnie, the woman who ran the local animal shelter, and wound up caring for the dogs, cats and two bonobos that had been onboard the planes. (Among the items in her dressing room: a variety of bonobo-related gifts sent by fans.)A scene from “Come From Away,” near the start of its Broadway run. Bromley said that when she first heard the creators’ idea for the show, she thought, “Good luck to you.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBromley, 51, has been with the show off and on for seven years, throughout its development and the Broadway run. All told, she has been in 1,514 performances of “Come From Away,” including pre-Broadway runs in San Diego, Seattle and Toronto as well as 1,362 Broadway performances. She has also been part of two concert presentations in Newfoundland — one before the Broadway run and one last month — and she was part of the cast of the filmed version, shot during the pandemic shutdown.Her status as a Newfoundlander — she is a career Newfoundland actress who was raised on the island and is returning there now that the show has closed — gave her a unique perspective on the show. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.How are you doing?It’s a lot, right? I thought yesterday would be hard, but this is actually harder. The trees are being felled. I’ve come and gone from the show a bunch of times but the space itself has always been here. And now it’s not going to be here anymore.You wound up in the show because you met the show’s writers in Gander on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11?I was in Gander with a local theater company, Rising Tide Theater — we were doing something as part of those events. We walked into the one coffee shop that wasn’t a Tim Hortons, and the only other people in there were this young couple sitting at a table with cue cards, organizing themselves to do an interview. I had the same reaction everybody in Gander had: “Good luck to you. I’m not sure how you’re going to turn that into a show, but have at it.” We stayed in touch through Facebook and stuff like that, and they saw me in a couple of shows in Toronto, and I was invited to audition.Apparently the audition went well.I was on the other side of the doors, waiting to go in, and some incredible person with an incredible voice sang “Let It Go” so incredibly well and loud and high and my inner monologue was, “What are you doing here?” So I abandoned my book and said to them, “You know, I think considering what the show is, and who I am, and where I’m from, I should sing you a song from Newfoundland.” So I sang a very silly song about a talking goat [“The Mobile Goat,” recorded by Joan Morrissey]. I think they were a little confused by it, but it was certainly something they hadn’t heard. And I do credit that tune with getting me the job in the end.Bromley talking with fans outside the theater on Sunday. “People do tell me their pet stories all the time, and it’s beautiful,” she said.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesYou had some apprehension about how Newfoundland was going to be depicted.When you have a culture that is distinct, it’s easy for it to be stereotyped. So the accent, and being poor, and being undereducated became the marks of what it is to be a Newfoundlander. In Canada, the “Newfie” joke was a big thing for many, many years, and we were often portrayed in the media and pop culture as stupid Newfies. That was my concern: Here are some mainlanders — “Come From Aways” — coming down to tell a story about us, and how are they going to paint us? But at the very first rehearsals in La Jolla, Chris Ashley made it very clear he wanted every character in the show to be treated with respect and not to be just cartoons. And as soon as he said that, I was like, “It’s all going to be fine.”When this show was in development, there was a lot of skepticism about whether it could work commercially.Absolutely. I’ve been skeptical the whole time. I was always wondering about the sheer earnestness of it, in a world that is as cynical as our world is. And telling a story about 9/11 in New York to New Yorkers — there was a lot of concern.Why do you think the show worked for as long as it did?Because it is about community, and it’s about kindness. There are no dragons and no helicopters and no wizards. This show raised up ordinary people doing very simple ordinary things — just helping each other out — and particularly in the past five or six years, with what’s been going on here in the States and around the world, kindness and generosity are things that we’re losing sight of.You played a woman who runs the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Are you an animal person?I have three dogs. I have allergies or I would have a million pets. People do tell me their pet stories all the time, and it’s beautiful. It’s a lovely way to connect.Did you ever meet Unga, the bonobo most discussed in the musical?She passed away before I was able to go to the zoo. If the pandemic hadn’t put a roadblock up, I would have been there to meet her. But I did meet Unga’s son Gander, and her other son Jerry, at the Columbus Zoo [in Ohio]. Bonnie and I went together and watched them in the enclosure. It was incredible.What is the level of awareness of the show in Newfoundland?You can’t not be aware of it — it’s everywhere. We just did those concerts back home — three shows in Gander and three shows in St. John’s, at large arenas, which sold out in minutes. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people have made the pilgrimage to come see it here or in Toronto or in places across the country where the tour was happening. It’s made its way into being part of the culture now. And everybody wants it to have a further life in Newfoundland.Bromley, center, at the final curtain call with Bonnie Harris, the woman she portrayed in the show.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWhat was your career like before this show?I thought it was fine! I was a very employed, everyday working actor in Newfoundland, which is not easy to do. I had enough of a reputation and experience to be consistently working, mostly in theater, sometimes in TV and film. And I thought that that was as good as it gets. I still feel that way. I’m going home, back to Newfoundland, hopefully to fall back into working with the people that I love who create new, incredible work all the time.What is your career like now?I’m much more recognizable at home, which is lovely. I picked up a TV series back home, called “Son of a Critch,” and we just finished filming the second season of that. I’m a tertiary character, but it’s a lovely little gig to have and hopefully that can blossom into other things. I don’t have an agent, and I never have, and I have worked in Stratford [in Ontario] and on Broadway. But I’m probably going to get an agent so that I can work across Canada.What surprised you about Broadway?While I do have a lot of reverence for it, if you hold things on a pedestal, when you get there in a lot of ways it’s the same thing: It’s a job that you go to every day. I appreciate, being the age that I am, to have had the experience to know that it was going to have highs and lows, and that there would be ordinariness inside of the extraordinariness. And I’m always aware of the privilege of it, and the reality that none of us would have been on that stage but for the fact that a very tragic event happened and thousands of people died. And grateful that I got to tell a story, connected to them, that kept their memories alive in any way, shape or form for people who needed to hear it.What did you learn about New York City?It’s crazy. It’s great. To live in New York was incredible. But again, the layers get peeled back when you live somewhere, and you see that it isn’t just a helluva town. I found it difficult on many levels. To be in a very privileged position of working at this incredible place, but literally walking past the most desperate individuals I’ve ever seen in my life, people who are in jeopardy, on the street, asking for help, and we all walk past them and no one helps them. To come and tell this story, where giving a helping hand makes sense, and watch it not happen in reality on the street, I’ve found that hard to reconcile.Have you changed?Absolutely. In many, many ways. I like to think that I’m a bit more generous, a bit kinder than I was before this. It’s also made me a better singer. It’s made me a better actor. And certainly the cosmopolitan experience of living in a big city has changed me.Why are you going back?Because it’s home. There’s a joke about Newfoundlanders: “How do you know the Newfoundlanders in heaven? They’re the ones who want to go home.” More

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      Touring Through Omicron: Broadway Shows Hit Bumps on the Road

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      The “Mean Girls” tour made it to Oklahoma before it was knocked out by the coronavirus. At first, the production had been able to keep going by flying in alumni from its Broadway run, but ultimately the number of company members testing positive was just too high, so earlier this month the show decided to cancel its remaining shows in Tulsa, and then postponed the runs that would have followed in two Wisconsin cities, Madison and Appleton.When the show hit the pause button, Jonalyn Saxer, the actress playing Karen Smith, found herself with two weeks off and no home of her own — like many actors, she gave up her New York apartment and put her stuff in storage when she signed on to tour. The show offered to fly her wherever she wanted to go, and she chose her parents’ house in Los Angeles.“I was home over Christmas, and when I left I said, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ ” she said. “Two weeks later, I was like, ‘Hi Mom and Dad!’”The lucrative touring market for Broadway shows is being jolted by the Omicron surge, as coronavirus cases increase in parts of the country even as they have begun to fall in the nation as a whole.This past weekend, productions of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in San Francisco and “The Prom” in Baltimore were canceled because of positive tests in their companies.“Hamilton” has been particularly hard hit: This month it halted all four of its American touring productions, in Buffalo, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and San Antonio, because of positive coronavirus tests.The phenomenon is in some ways similar to what happened on Broadway, where so many theater workers tested positive in December that half of all shows canceled performances on some nights. But there is a key difference: Whereas on Broadway, there has also been a damaging drop in ticket sales, elsewhere in the country, producers say, attendance has generally remained steady.Gabrielle Bappert checked the vaccine cards of ticket holders at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis before a performance of “Come From Away.”Tim Gruber for The New York Times“Touring, when we can perform, is going great — the audiences are showing up, and the audiences are enthusiastic,” said Jeffrey Seller, the lead producer of “Hamilton.” “Touring is not going great when Covid sweeps through our company, which has happened to every one of our tours.”For actors, touring now involves less sightseeing, and more risk management, than it once did.“It’s the highest of highs, because we’ve been waiting for a year and a half to be back doing what we love to do, but it’s not the same,” said Saxer, who tested positive for the virus in November when her tour was in Spokane, Wash., and recovered while quarantining there.“It’s not like we can say ‘Let’s go check out this cool bar,’ because actors all around are losing their jobs because someone tests positive,” she added. “It does raise the stakes.”Christine Toy Johnson, an actor in the “Come From Away” tour, said she had not eaten inside a restaurant since July.“In some cities, we’re in hotels and we’re the only people wearing masks,” she said. “It’s very stressful — I’m not going to lie. But it’s also been an exciting time to be back in the theater, making art again.”There are currently about three dozen shows moving from venue to venue, stopping at a mix of nonprofit performing arts centers and for-profit theaters in nearly 300 North American cities, according to Meredith Blair, the president and chief executive of the Booking Group, an agency that arranges touring shows. The shows bring in a lot of money: those featuring union actors (there are also tours with nonunion casts) grossed $1.6 billion at the box office in 2018-2019, which was the last full season before the pandemic; that’s just slightly less than the $1.8 billion spent by theatergoers attending Broadway shows in New York City during the same period, according to the Broadway League.While there has been a damaging drop in ticket sales on Broadway, producers say that attendance has generally remained steady elsewhere in the country.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesThere appear to be several reasons the touring audience has remained more stable than the Broadway audience. Most of the venues that present touring productions depend on locals, rather than visitors, so they are less vulnerable to the drop in tourism that has walloped Broadway. Many of the touring venues have large numbers of subscribers who, remarkably, retained their subscriptions throughout the pandemic. And some venues are in parts of the country where residents have been less inclined to make changes to their routines because of Covid.“There’s a huge difference between New York and the audience on the road,” said Rich Jaffe, a co-chief executive of Broadway Across America, which presents Broadway tours in 48 North American markets. “On the road, they consider these venues their theaters — it’s a big part of their communities, supporting jobs and creating economic ripple effects for local downtowns that are quite significant. If we have a show, the audience is there.”Many North American tours are bypassing Canada because of government-mandated capacity restrictions there. But in the United States, where there are generally no capacity limits, venue operators seem pleased with how things are going, despite the bumpiness of Omicron.“We’ve already presented five weeks of touring Broadway, and we’ve had great attendance — our audiences are showing up enthusiastically,” said Joan H. Squires, the president of Omaha Performing Arts, which hosted touring productions of “Cats” and “Hamilton” in the fall and then “Dear Evan Hansen” in the days before and after the New Year’s holiday. Squires wound up scanning tickets at the door for “Dear Evan Hansen” because too few volunteer ushers were available, but she attributed that more to winter weather than Covid concerns.Most shows are requiring that audiences wear masks, except where such requirements are barred, and vaccination rules are up to local jurisdictions.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesThe biggest brand names, as always, are selling the strongest. And “Hadestown,” which won the Tony Award for best musical in 2019 and began its tour in October, is starting strong. “‘Hadestown’ arrived just as we were starting to see Omicron spike, and it far exceeded our targets for attendance and sales,” said Maria Van Laanen, the president and chief executive of Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton.Presenters in some cities describe a softening of sales as Omicron hit. “We certainly noticed a slower pattern of buying over the holidays — in any other year, we would have been completely sold out, but that obviously wasn’t the case because there was some hesitancy,” said Jeffrey Finn, the vice president of theater producing and programming at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. “That said, I’m watching a big upturn as we head toward the spring with the hope and expectation that Omicron won’t be as present.”Safety precautions vary across the country. Most shows are requiring that audiences wear masks, except in cities where such requirements are barred; vaccination rules for audiences follow local government protocols (actors and other theater workers are required to be vaccinated).Keeping tours going has required shows to add staff members. “Hamilton” now employs seven “universal swings,” who are versatile performers ready to travel anywhere they are needed to fill in, up from four before the pandemic; “The Lion King” has brought in three additional swings.After canceling three performances, “Come From Away” returned thanks to a blended cast that included veterans of every production, including Broadway, Australia, Canada and Britain. Tim Gruber for The New York Times“Come From Away” offers a particularly vivid case study in the creativity also required to keep shows afloat. The company got hit by Covid earlier this month as it arrived in Minneapolis, where it was scheduled to spend two weeks.“We went 15 weeks without any problems, but then Omicron came and started to wreak havoc,” said Johnson, who has been with the tour since 2018. “At one point half the cast was sidelined.”The producers canceled three performances, which bought them enough time to bring in actors from California, New York and Toronto, and the show then resumed with a blended cast that included alumni not only from Broadway but also from productions in Australia, Canada and Britain.“It’s the never-ending Rubik’s Cube of trying to keep a show up and running,” said Sue Frost, a lead producer of “Come From Away.”Among those who flew in was Happy McPartlin, a standby in the Broadway cast, who had just recovered from her own case of Covid. “I said, ‘Of course,’ because that’s what we do here,” she said. “I knew the state we were in. We had a couple of bad weeks where the numbers were not in our favor, and one of the people from the tour came in and saved us. I said, ‘If you guys need me, I’ll do the same for you.’”Not all of the cancellations have been short-lived. In December, “Ain’t Too Proud” canceled two weeks in Washington; “The Lion King” missed 12 performances in Denver, while “Wicked” canceled six performances in Cleveland. “Hamilton” shut down for a month in Los Angeles, and upon its reopening next month, it is now scheduled to stay just six more weeks, rather than running into the spring as initially anticipated.“I almost forgot about Covid for a little bit because we got so used to it, and it was so much fun to do the show, but then Christmas Eve we had so many positive tests we couldn’t do the show, and we canceled a half-hour after it was supposed to start,” said Nicholas Christopher, who plays Aaron Burr in the Los Angeles production of “Hamilton.” Christopher had moved from New York to Los Angeles for “Hamilton”; he, his wife, and their new baby all tested positive in December, and then he found out the show’s Los Angeles run was ending.“It’s very eye-opening, and very humbling, and makes me appreciate what we do even more, because it’s been taken away so many times,” he said. “It’s almost like PTSD, having the show be shut down again. It still feels like a dream that I’m ready to wake up from.” More

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      Chad Kimball Sues ‘Come From Away’ Over His Termination

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      The actor, who is Christian, said in an interview he was let go because of his religious beliefs. The show’s producers declined to comment.A former lead actor in the musical “Come From Away” has sued the show’s producers, claiming that he was let go from the production because of his Christian beliefs.Chad Kimball, 45, a Tony-nominated performer who had been with the show since before its transfer to Broadway in 2017, filed suit this week in New York State Supreme Court, alleging that the production had violated his rights under New York City’s Human Rights Law.In the lawsuit, which was first reported by The New York Post, Kimball claimed he was terminated “wholly or partly” because of his religious beliefs. According to the lawsuit, one of the show’s producers allegedly told him there were concerns about supposed connections between his faith and Christian conservatives connected with the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.Matt Polk, a spokesman for the show, which reopened on Sept. 21, said the producers declined to comment.Kimball, a Broadway veteran described in the lawsuit as “a devout and practicing Christian,” had stirred controversy in November 2020 when he announced on Twitter that he would “respectfully disobey” Washington State’s coronavirus-related restrictions on religious services, including rules forbidding even masked worshipers from singing. At the time, he was living in Seattle, his hometown.“Respectfully, I will never allow a Governor, or anyone, to stop me from SINGING, let alone sing in worship to my God,” Kimball, who had previously had Covid-19, wrote.That statement drew strong criticism from some in the theater industry, including a co-star, Sharon Wheatley, who responded, “I respectfully totally and completely disagree with you.”Kimball said in an interview Friday that it was hurtful to have the initial reaction to his social media posts subsequently “snowball” into discussion of him as a “conservative Christian” whose beliefs were somehow connected with the Jan. 6 insurrection, which he described as “an event I wasn’t even involved with.”“I don’t talk about politics at all,” he said. “The only thing they really know about me for sure is that I’m a Christian.”Before the social media exchanges, the lawsuit said, Kimball, who had appeared in more than 1,000 performances of the show before the shutdown in March 2020, had never received any reprimand or complaint, and had never been told by anyone connected with the show that he “made them feel unsafe.” But subsequently, he “was forced to explain and defend his Nov. 15, 2020, tweet to Defendants’ agents and employees,” the suit claims.Then, on Jan. 18, the suit said, he was contacted by a producer, Susan Frost, who allegedly informed him that there was conversation around his “conservative Christian” faith and his “freedom to believe.”Frost, the suit claims, also mentioned the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and said that there were concerns that “the events at the Capitol, Josh Hawley and the conservative Christian movement were tied together and implied a connection” between Kimball’s faith and the “ideas and actions” of that day.On Jan. 22, according to the lawsuit, Frost told Kimball he would not be invited back to the production, which he was told “needed to focus on bringing the show back together and ensure people’s safety.”At the suggestion of Frost, the suit said, he spoke with the show’s director, Christopher Ashley, on Feb. 2, and asked him if he had been let go because of disagreements with colleagues or his religious beliefs. “In response,” the lawsuit continues, Ashley “stated that it was ‘everything.’”As a result, according to the lawsuit, Kimball was “made to suffer significant economic and professional harm,” as well as “emotional and physical pain and suffering.” The lawsuit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and lost wages, as well as legal costs.Kimball was nominated for a Tony Award in 2010 for his role in the musical “Memphis.” While he has always been a Christian, the lawsuit said, it was following his recovery from an injury while in the show that he started becoming “more outspoken regarding his beliefs.”In the interview, a joint one with his lawyer, Lawrence Spasojevich of the firm Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, Kimball said he had an inkling that his position with the show might be in jeopardy as early as December 2020 when he contacted the show’s producers to inform them of the tweets and the reaction to them.Kimball, who said he was currently not working, added that negative reactions to his beliefs weren’t new to him. “What was new to me was the idea that a religious belief could be used as fodder for deciding I wasn’t worthy of being a part of the show,” he said. More

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      ‘Come From Away’ Review: Looking for Light in Somber Times

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      The filmed version of this Broadway musical lands on Apple TV+ to deliver hope and kindness.The capture of the Broadway musical “Come From Away” that is now streaming on Apple TV+ is almost impossible to hate. Unless, that is, you have an aversion to traditional Irish music and nice people.The first permeates the score, a tribute to the cultural heritage of Newfoundland where the show is set — and where the second find themselves. The ensemble, many from the original Broadway cast, deftly toggles between portraying passengers aboard planes diverted into the Gander airport on Sept. 11, 2001, and the kindly Canadians who welcomed them to their isolated province on the Atlantic coast.Hatched by the Canadian team of Irene Sankoff and David Hein and inspired by real people, “Come From Away” describes, in a series of vignettes, the surreal few days experienced by the stranded visitors and their hosts. Both were shellshocked by the situation and somewhat befuddled by each other, yet they made the most of the circumstances in a demonstration of tolerance and human decency.You would have to be green and hate Christmas to wish ill on this story. At the same time, the show does not elicit passionate feelings of any kind: It is … nice.Certainly, there is a double emotion involved in this Apple release: It coincides with the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and was filmed in front of an invited audience at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater back in May, when all the other Broadway theaters remained shuttered. Christopher Ashley, whose work on the stage version earned him the 2017 Tony Award for best direction of a musical, acquits himself well in the transition to video. But this amiable production’s temperature never rises above lukewarm: good sentiments are, unfortunately, difficult to dramatize, an issue compounded by a score that can feel like aural wallpaper.The best songs, which rely less on Celtic clichés, surface toward the end, including Jenn Colella’s belted ballad “Me and the Sky” and the rousing number “Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere.” It’s a fine send-off to folks we feel we got to know, at least a little.Come From AwayNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in September

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our favorites for September.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of September’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime VideoBilly Bob Thornton in “Goliath.”Greg Lewis/Amazon Prime Video‘Goliath’ Season 4Starts streaming: Sept. 24Billy Bob Thornton says goodbye to one of the best characters of his career with the fourth and final season of “Goliath,” a California legal drama inspired by film noir. Thornton has spent three seasons playing Billy McBride, a formerly high-powered and high-living lawyer who crashed hard and has since been trying to redeem himself, one seemingly unwinnable case at a time. For this last run of episodes, Billy finds himself in San Francisco, fighting his mental, physical and emotional frailties while helping a big-time law firm earn a potential billion-dollar settlement against some opioid-peddling pharmaceutical companies. Once again, an ace supporting cast (including the series regular Nina Arianda and the newcomers Bruce Dern, Jena Malone, J.K. Simmons and Elias Koteas) works magnificently to deliver a moody and complex mystery with juicy twists.Also arriving:Sept. 3“Cinderella”Sept. 10“LuLaRich”“Pretty Hard Cases”“The Voyeurs”Sept. 17“Do, Re & Mi”“Everyone’s Talking About Jamie”“The Mad Women’s Ball”New to Apple TV+Jared Harris in a scene from “Foundation.”Helen Sloan/Apple TV+‘Come From Away’Starts streaming: Sept. 10Two national tragedies — the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic — play a role in this recording of the Tony-winning musical “Come From Away,” shot in a Broadway theater earlier this year in front of a specially selected live audience of emergency responders, health care workers and 9/11 survivors. The show is a tuneful and impressionistic document of a true story from that day, describing the moments of kindness and connection that happened when the friendly Canadian small town of Gander, in Newfoundland, took care of over 7,000 passengers from planes diverted to its airport. Both an imaginative piece of journalism and an emotional recollection of a difficult time, “Come From Away” is a cathartic entertainment, tempering heartbreak with hope.‘Foundation’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 24One of the most influential science-fiction franchises of all time, Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” is as relevant today as it was when the original trilogy of books was written in the 1940s and ’50s. The long-in-development, flashy-looking TV version embraces the modern parallels. Jared Harris plays the brilliant mathematician Hari Seldon, who has crunched the numbers and has determined that the millennia-old galactic empire is due for an irreversible collapse in a few centuries, leading to 30,000 years of chaos. But that chaos could be reduced to a mere 1,000 years if society took immediate steps to preserve its knowledge and culture. The show’s creators, David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman, tell a story that spans multiple planets and decades but is ultimately about how ordinary human weaknesses and fears sometimes keep us from realizing our grandest ambitions.Also arriving:Sept. 17“The Morning Show” Season 2New to Disney+From left, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Mapuana Makia in a scene from “Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.”Karen Neal/Disney‘Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 8This remake of the ’90s family dramedy “Doogie Howser, M.D.” moves the action from Los Angeles to Hawaii and changes the protagonist from a teenage boy to a teenage girl (played by the Disney Channel favorite Peyton Elizabeth Lee). But the premise remains the same: What if a child genius finished college and medical school early and became a licensed doctor by age 16? Like the original, this new “Doogie” is a coming-of-age story about a precocious kid, who discovers that knowing a lot about how to fix human bodies hasn’t wholly prepared her for the more adult problems of romantic heartbreak and workplace woes.Also arriving:Sept. 1“Dug Days” Season 1Sept. 3“Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles”Sept. 22“Star Wars: Visions” Season 1New to HBO MaxOscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in the HBO remake of the Ingmar Bergman series “Scenes From a Marriage.”Jojo Whilden/HBO‘Scenes From a Marriage’Starts streaming: Sept. 12Based on the acclaimed 1973 TV mini-series from Ingmar Bergman, “Scenes From a Marriage” stars Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac as a seemingly content upper-middle-class couple whose relationship begins to splinter when the circumstances in their lives prompt them to scrutinize what they have. Written by the playwright Amy Herzog and the writer-producer-director Hagai Levi (best-known for the original Israeli version of the show that became HBO’s “In Treatment”), this new “Scenes” follows the arc of Bergman’s original story while taking into account what has changed in the past 50 years of gender dynamics. Chastain and Isaac anchor the series, playing a husband and wife who still love and appreciate each other but who have outgrown their old expectations.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Adventure Time: Distant Lands — Wizard City”Sept. 10“Malignant”Sept. 15“A la Calle”Sept. 17“Cry Macho”Sept. 23“Ahir Shah: Dots”“Doom Patrol” Season 3Sept. 26“Nuclear Family”Sept. 30“The Way Down”New to HuluKayvan Novak as Nandor in a scene from Season 3 of “What We Do in the Shadows.”Russ Martin/FX‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Season 3Starts streaming: Sept. 3This hilarious horror mockumentary had a great run last year, with the cast and writers expanding on the show’s initial concept: a Staten Island version of the 2014 New Zealand movie about bickering vampire roommates. “What We Do in the Shadows” is still an episodic sitcom, with each chapter telling its own story. But the larger arc that started to develop in Season 2 continues in Season 3 as this band of slacker bloodsuckers and their shrewd human assistant Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) find themselves presented with new opportunities. Although the characters have richer back stories now — filled with bizarre, centuries-old grudges — this show’s primary asset is still its performances, as some very funny actors react with deadpan irritation at the paranormal craziness surrounding them.‘Y: The Last Man’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 13For over a decade, the Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra comic book series “Y: The Last Man” has been in development for a screen adaptation — first for the movies and then for TV. There’s a good reason the project’s producers have been so persistent: “Y” has an irresistibly juicy premise, depicting a society where an apocalyptic event has killed every mammal with a Y chromosome on Earth except for one. The comics are also filled with memorable characters and thrilling plot twists. This version retains both the grabby story and the fascinatingly eclectic cast — including the title hero, Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer). But the series’s head writer, Eliza Clark, has also updated the original’s exploration of gender roles.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Trolls: TrollsTopia” Season 4Sept. 3“The D’Amelio Show” Season 1Sept. 8“Wu-Tang: An American Saga” Season 2Sept. 10“The Killing of Two Lovers”Sept. 16“The Premise” Season 1“Riders of Justice”“Stalker”Sept. 29“Minor Premise”New to PeacockFrom left, Sumalee Montano, Ashley Zukerman and Rick Gonzalez in a scene from “Dan Brown’s the Lost Symbol.”Rafy/Peacock‘Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol’Starts streaming: Sept. 16“The Lost Symbol” is the third novel in Dan Brown’s popular series of books about Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor who specializes in symbology and classical art — and who often ends up using his know-how to help the authorities crack the secret codes underlying international conspiracies. Tom Hanks has played Langdon in the movie versions of Brown’s stories. Ashley Zukerman has taken on the role for a TV adaptation that is meant to serve as an entry point for newcomers. As with the books and the films, this version is a complicated tale of good versus evil, featuring a lot of scenes of smart folks solving ancient puzzles in dark and dangerous chambers.Also arriving:Sept. 2“A.P. Bio” Season 4 More

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      Peek at Broadway Comeback: Times Event With “Me and the Sky”

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      When The Times staged a musical number for its live event series, the performance served as a sneak preview of a theater world preparing for takeoff.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.In March, Zoe Gertz, an Australian actress, was asked by The New York Times if she would be interested in singing the soaring anthem “Me and the Sky” for an episode of its Offstage event series, which examines the theater industry during its pandemic hiatus. The number is from the Australian touring production of the 9/11 musical “Come From Away.”After teams worked on in-house music and stage direction, Ms. Gertz belted the ebullient anthem to the rafters of a simple stage at Her Majesty’s Theater in Melbourne, sans audience but backed by six musicians and five castmates of the production’s female ensemble. And it all came together in just over two weeks.“I am suddenly aliiiiiive,” Ms. Gertz sang with an irrepressible smile as she told of her character’s love for flying.The sentiment seems to be spreading. Broadway’s reopening will now occur in August. In Australia, “Frozen,” “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” were running at or near full capacity in Sydney and Melbourne for months (though masks were still required) until a recent lockdown in Melbourne put shows in that city on hold again. The performance for the Times event served as both a reminder of theater’s vitality during the pandemic and a preview of the energy to come.The musical number began to take shape in early March after The Times’s theater reporter, Michael Paulson, suggested recording a special video of the inspirational song for the Offstage series, which streamed live on April 29 and is still viewable by Times subscribers.“We wanted a song that was both good and would make sense out of context for people who hadn’t seen the show,” Mr. Paulson said. “It’s also a song that works without a very elaborate band or orchestra and is essentially a solo number.”The four-and-a-half-minute track chronicles the tale of the real-life American Airlines pilot Beverley Bass, who was among the pilots with planes full of passengers who were diverted to Newfoundland on Sept. 11, 2001.“One of the many emotions captured in this song is Beverley having to come to terms with the job she loves being put on hold, and not knowing when she might fly again,” said Rachel Karpf, the director of programming at The Times who helped plan the event with Beth Weinstein and Rachel Czipo. “We saw some parallels to the experience of theater workers in Australia and around the world this past year, as their industry was brought to a near-total standstill by the pandemic.”Ms. Karpf said the Events team began discussing ideas for the episode in early January with Mr. Paulson; Scott Heller, then The Times’s theater editor; and Damien Cave, the Sydney bureau chief. Mr. Cave and Mr. Paulson were working on a story about the return of Broadway shows in Australia, which has been much more successful at containing the virus than the United States. More

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      Lessons From Oz: How Australian Theater Gives Broadway Hope

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLessons From Oz: How Australian Theater Gives Broadway HopeCheck in with “Frozen,” “Come From Away,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in Offstage, our digital series about theater during the pandemic.“Frozen” fans entering the Capitol Theater in Sydney. Credit…Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesMarch 8, 2021Updated 4:29 p.m. ETTheater is up and running … in Australia.“Frozen” is onstage in Sydney, and “Come From Away” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” are running in Melbourne. And there’s more to come: “Hamilton” opens later this month in Sydney, and “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” is gearing up for an August bow in Melbourne.How are they managing to perform when most of the theater world is dark? And what, if anything, do the Australian productions portend for a resumption of theater in New York, London, and everywhere else?That’s the subject of the next episode of Offstage, a New York Times digital series about theater during the pandemic. It airs at 7 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, April 29 (that’s 9 a.m. on Friday, April 30 in Sydney), and is free to Times subscribers.We’ll be talking with actors about what it’s like to perform at this time, and with producers about challenges faced and lessons learned. Plus, the casts of “Frozen” and “Come From Away” will sing.We’d love for you to join us. You can RSVP here.And if you missed the earlier episodes of Offstage, or just want to see them again, they’re all archived here.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Broadway Is Dark. London Is Quiet. But in Australia, It’s Showtime.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAt the Capital Theater in Sydney, easing pandemic restrictions have allowed for performances of the musical “Frozen.” “It’s great to be out,” one audience member said.Credit…Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesBroadway Is Dark. London Is Quiet. But in Australia, It’s Showtime.Temperature-taking robots, scanning codes for contact tracing, and generous refund policies are helping shows like “Frozen,” “Come From Away” and “Hamilton” get back onstage.At the Capital Theater in Sydney, easing pandemic restrictions have allowed for performances of the musical “Frozen.” “It’s great to be out,” one audience member said.Credit…Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyDamien Cave and Published More