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      Filmmakers Sometimes Take a Years-Long Approach to Documentaries

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      Three films showing at the Tribeca Festival tell stories over several years, a challenge for the filmmakers and the subjects.One of the magic tricks of documentaries is the ability to film somebody changing over a period of time. When it’s a span of several years, audiences can get a unique psychological portrait. But these long-haul projects come with particular challenges and obstacles for the filmmakers who see them through.These documentaries might take anywhere from a few years to more than a decade to shoot and complete, and the reasons vary. Sometimes, the goal is to track a crucial segment of a person’s life in full. Or the filmmaker’s approach might instead be open-ended, taking cues from the person’s emotional experiences as to how much ground to cover, and when to say “the end.” No matter the circumstances, every production requires the filmmaker’s careful management of the relationship with the subject.Three recent movies that follow their subjects over the course of more than a year are showing at the Tribeca Festival, which runs Wednesday to June 18 in New York City: “Apolonia, Apolonia,” “Between the Rains” and “Q.”Lea Glob’s “Apolonia, Apolonia” films a young Paris painter, Apolonia Sokol, over the longest span of time — 13 years. Ms. Sokol grew up in the building that housed a theater run by her parents, which became a boisterous haven for actors and other artists. Over the course of the film, she forges a career in the tough, often sexist arenas of the art world and the academy.Ms. Glob first made a short movie about Ms. Sokol while studying at the National Film School of Denmark in 2009, after other potential subjects turned her down. At the time, the director didn’t know she would go on to make a feature about Ms. Sokol, but in the course of making that film, she recognized something special about the young painter.Apolonia Sokol grew up in a bohemian theater community. In “Apolonia, Apolonia,” Lea Glob focused on her as she navigated art school and the gallery world. Danish Documentary“She really wants to give something in front of a camera. And I wasn’t able to let her go after that,” Ms. Glob said in a phone interview from Denmark, where she lives.The decision to film over the course of 13 years was not made from the outset. Ms. Glob and Ms. Sokol agreed on an essentially open-ended arrangement that turned into the decade-plus production, with Ms. Sokol not viewing footage while Ms. Glob was shooting, but offering input during editing. As Ms. Sokol pursued her career, Ms. Glob began to think a possible conclusion would come when Ms. Sokol had reached some milestone of success, but the (amicable) ending had more to do with Ms. Sokol wanting time to herself.Ms. Glob benefited from the free artistic environment of the community around the theater belonging to Ms. Sokol’s parents. The young artist would call Ms. Glob when something interesting was happening — like when it looked like she would be evicted from the theater.The method could be hit-or-miss.“I’d drop everything and go, and I’d find her there just cooking pasta and reading,” Ms. Glob said.Lea Glob filming the documentary “Apolonia, Apolonia” in 2009. Glob began shooting the film that year, and wrapped in 2022.via Lea GlobMs. Glob continuing work on “Apolonia, Apolonia” in 2016. She eventually decided to focus the film on Ms. Sokol’s journey as an artist.via Lea GlobMs. Glob recalibrated to track Ms. Sokol’s development as an artist, instead of chasing events. Watching Ms. Sokol navigate art school, have her first gallery show, and travel to Los Angeles under the auspices of the art dealer Stefan Simchowitz — this was now a movie.“I built a relationship with her camera and then with her,” said Ms. Sokol, who now teaches, in addition to painting.“It’s not family, it’s not friendship. It’s something else. Something stronger, I think,” she added.Ms. Glob said she tried to check in with Ms. Sokol about once a month, but she didn’t live in Paris. There were other logistical challenges, too: Ms. Glob was working on other projects, and there was variable funding for this one. At first, Ms. Glob edited footage along the way, but when that proved counterproductive, she waited till later to undertake an edit.Ms. Glob also had to stop for at least a year when she nearly died after giving birth, a trauma she reflects upon in the film. And Ms. Sokol weathered an intense relationship with the Ukrainian activist Oksana Shachko, who took her own life in 2018. But in 2022 Ms. Glob completed the portrait of her fellow artist, calling the process “liberating”; the film won the top prize at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam after its world premiere.To make “Between the Rains,” the filmmakers Andrew H. Brown and Moses Thuranira followed Kole James over four years. Mr. James said he appreciated the chance to connect with the outside world.Andrew H. BrownFor “Between the Rains,” the filmmakers Andrew H. Brown and Moses Thuranira track Kole James, a young member of the Turkana community in Ngaremara village, Kenya, over four years during a pivotal period in his life.Working as a shepherd, Mr. James prepares for rites of passage and copes with drought-related clashes with neighboring communities.Making the movie involved at least a year of securing permission and trust before shooting.“It’s not a community you can just go and film. There is a lot of protocol you have to follow. You have to get blessings from the elders,” said Mr. Thuranira, who is from a town about a 40-minute drive away, and used his house as a kind of home base for the production. (There’s also a family link in the production team: a producer, Samuel Ekomol, is Mr. James’s cousin and is a teacher in Ngaremara village.)Moses Thuranira, right, co-director and producer of “Between the Rains,” came from a town a 40-minute drive away from the Turkana community in Ngaremara village.Andrew H. BrownThe team maintained a bond with the community that involved pitching in at cookouts and bringing groceries — sometimes goats, sometimes bags of rice. But just as important was the bond of trust they built with Mr. James, who, during the course of the film, pushes back against some of his community’s more arduous traditions, including a harrowing tooth removal rite.Through a translator, Mr. James said in a call that he stuck with the documentary because of the opportunity to connect with the outside world and share the challenges faced by his community. He especially liked one dramatic sequence when he traps and kills a hyena — a moment that gives the filmmakers a suitable climax to the coming-of-age arc.The director of “Q,” Jude Chehab, chose a subject even closer to home: her mother, Hiba Khodr. Ms. Chehab portrays Ms. Khodr’s evolving relationship with a secretive religious sect that was a part of both of their lives. After watching her mother spend decades focusing intensively on the group and its leader (who is known as the Anisa), Ms. Chehab planned to interview her mother and explore her feelings relating to the group and their family. Ms. Khodr agreed, knowing that her daughter would question her freely about things she hadn’t talked much about.Hiba Khodr spent decades focusing intensively on a secret religious sect. Her daughter’s film, “Q,” explored Ms. Khodr’s feelings toward the group, and her own family.Jude ChehabMs. Chehab filmed her first interview with her mother in February 2018, and when the pandemic hit, she found herself cooped up with her parents in Lebanon.“I think that’s how we achieved that level of intimacy, because they couldn’t escape the camera,” Ms. Chehab said with a chuckle, in a video call.Filming continued for about four and a half years, but in a targeted fashion (not a whole day at a time). The movie stretches even further back, to the 1990s, through home movies made by Ms. Chehab’s reserved father (whom she also questions in the film).Throughout, Ms. Chehab showed footage to her mother, against advice she had received that it might make Ms. Khodr self-conscious about the camera. She said that this early exposure to the movie helped ease her mother into the process more smoothly.“She knows me, she knows when I’m sad, and when she’s putting pressure,” Ms. Khodr wrote in an email. “I can tell her more things than a stranger and there’s no transaction, because we are mother-daughter.”Jude Chehab, the director of “Q,” was cooped up in Lebanon with her parents when Covid hit. “I think that’s how we achieved that level of intimacy,” she said, “because they couldn’t escape the camera.”Fahd AhmedCamerawork was another decision from day to day. Knowing her mother’s routines, Ms. Chehab could film her naturally on the fly, but she could also adjust for unexpected moments, like when Ms. Khodr went to a poetry reading or got a dramatic visit.The domestic intimacy required special considerations. When Ms. Khodr was not wearing her hijab, Ms. Chehab framed the shot to avoid showing her hair. She also incorporated feedback from a friend to show her mother outside of the home at her job as a professor.Ms. Khodr said that, at first, she participated in support of her daughter. But then the film changed her, as we see her express in the finished documentary.“It was a way for me to uncover some layers in myself that were hidden,” she said in her email. “It really helped me become real.” More

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      Stan Lee, a Comic Book Presence On and Off Screen

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      Mr. Lee was nearly synonymous with Marvel Comics and appeared in many of their films, but his guest appearances cross over into audio, animation and more.The trials and tribulations of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men and other Marvel Comics superheroes are familiar around the world thanks to comic books and films. Somewhat less known are the successes and struggles of the writer, the publisher and the showman Stan Lee, who was pivotal — along with the artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko — in bringing so many of Marvel’s characters to life.The documentary “Stan Lee” by the director David Gelb that debuts on June 10 at the Tribeca Festival in New York City seeks to change that. The film uses previously unreleased audio recordings and film footage and new and archival interviews to tell Mr. Lee’s story. The film, which will be available on Disney+ June 16, is a new way of seeing Mr. Lee, who was a constant presence in the lives of fans thanks to his writing, his voice work, his television appearances and his Marvel movie cameos. Here are some notable ones.Mr. Lee’s roles and affiliations with Marvel Comics included writer, publisher and spokesman.MarvelCameo AppearancesWhen “Iron Man” was released in 2008, it was the beginning of what is now known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also started a streak of appearances by Mr. Lee in the films. In “Iron Man,” he is at a party and is spotted by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who confuses him for Hugh Hefner.Not all his appearances were tongue-in-cheek. One of the most sincere can be found in the opening of 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” which came after Mr. Lee’s death in 2018. As the “Marvel Studios” logo comes into focus, flashes of comic book images and dialogue give way to clips of Mr. Lee as swelling music plays. When the logo fades, only the words “Thank You Stan” remain. Later in the film he appeared in a more traditional cameo, shot before his death, when Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) meets him on a train reading a “Mallrats” script.Voices CarryMr. Lee’s voice and his catchphrase “Excelsior!” were comforting to fans in many places. In addition to narrating several Spider-Man video games, players could use “EEL NATS” (his name spelled backward) to unlock levels.In 1975, he narrated a “Fantastic Four” radio series. The Human Torch was voiced by Bill Murray, who told Jimmy Kimmel last year that he only remembered saying the character’s battle cry, “Flame On!”In the final episode of “Spider-Man: The Animated Series” (1994-98), Spider-Man, during an adventure through the multiverse, visits our world. He meets Mr. Lee and swings him on spider-webs through the city. When the mysterious Madame Web arrives to take the hero home, Mr. Lee asks, “Who is that exotic lady?” Her voice was a clue: she was played by Joan Lee, his wife, who died in 2017.In 1998, Mr. Lee appeared in cartoon form on “Spider-Man: The Animated Series,” in an episode in which the wall crawler met his creator.Distinguished CompetitionMr. Lee and Marvel are irrevocably linked, but he was no stranger to working with superhero industry rivals DC Comics. From 2001 to 2002, DC released a “Just Imagine” series of stories written by Mr. Lee in which he reinterpreted Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other heroes. The company revisited them last year with all new stories in honor of his 100th birthday.A cartoon version of Mr. Lee also appeared in DC’s 2018 animated film “Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.” In one scene, he dances, strikes action poses and declares, “Hey everybody, look at me, doing my subtle cameo,” while music plays and “Stan Lee” logos appear on the screen. He returns later and says, “I don’t care if it’s a DC movie — I love cameos!” It was a sign of how self-effacing he could be: poking fun of himself in a rival’s movie.Letters From the EditorMr. Lee wrote a multitude of stories, but readers heard from him directly in the form of editorials on the back pages of many Marvel Comics. “Stan’s Soapbox” columns, written between 1967 and 1980, allowed him to ruminate on everything from the creative process to social issues. The author Brad Meltzer wrote in Mr. Lee’s obituary for Entertainment Weekly, “He gave an entire generation creeds to live by. Principles to emulate.” One of Mr. Lee’s editorials, from 1968, started with this: “Let’s lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” A collection of his editorials is available from the Hero Initiative, a charity which helps comic book creators in need.Birthday SuitThe Marvel Fumetti Book, published in 1983, is a comic book anthology using black and white photographs by Eliot R. Brown to tell its stories. Readers were treated to behind-the-scenes looks at Marvel’s editorial staff, who were sometimes shown acting out plot details. In one story, Mr. Lee playfully admonishes the team for recent developments, including “Alcoholic Iron Men!” and the mohawk haircut for the X-Men’s Storm. “I’m not sure I like what I see!” he says. “Knock it off already!”He is also pictured in the comic’s centerfold laying on a couch with a Hulk costume superimposed over him. But the original, unused photo was bolder: It was a nude picture of him with a strategically placed comic book.In one of his final projects, Mr. Lee appeared as an usher in the Webtoon comic Backchannel about a hactivist group. Non Marvel ComicsIn 2020, TidalWave Productions released “Tribute: Stan Lee,” a 30-page biographical comic. It chronicles Mr. Lee’s career before and after Marvel, the publisher’s initial forays into animation and television and some of the creative gestalt that gave birth to the Fantastic Four and other superheroes. The comic also notes the conflict between him and Mr. Kirby, the artist who created many of the characters with Mr. Lee, who felt he was not given enough credit or compensation for his hand in bringing those heroes to life.One of Mr. Lee’s final projects was the serialized Webtoon comic Backchannel, co-written by Tom Akel and drawn by Andie Tong, about a hactivist group. A collected edition will be released Aug. 15. Watch out for a cameo appearance by Mr. Lee in Chapter Nine. He is shown working at a movie theater, which is based on one of his first jobs as an usher. More

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      Christian Petzold and a German Connection With His Films

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      After becoming known for movies distanced from his country’s history, culture and memory, he has drawn from them in some recent works.BERLIN — In the past decade, the German filmmaker Christian Petzold has made a Hitchcockian thriller set in postwar Germany, a time-tripping literary adaptation about exiles in occupied France and a magical realist fable about a water sprite in contemporary Berlin.In his latest film, “Afire,” showing at the Tribeca Festival, which runs June 7-18 in New York City, a young writer struggles to finish a novel at a summer home he is sharing with a beautiful stranger, while forest fires tear through the surrounding landscape.“Afire,” which will be released in theaters in the United States on July 14, won the Silver Bear grand jury prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. It was Mr. Petzold’s sixth time competing at the Berlinale, as the event is known here, where he has been a fixture since 2005 and where he won the best director trophy in 2012 for the tense period drama “Barbara,” about an East German doctor plotting to defect.Mr. Petzold, 62, is a leading figure in what is sometimes called the Berlin School, a loose movement of independent filmmakers who emerged in the 1990s and whose closely observed work, focused on small human dramas, refreshingly eschewed grand historical narratives. (“Unlike many German directors, Mr. Petzold has no interest in excavating the past,” a 2009 profile by The New York Times summed up.)But all of Mr. Petzold’s films from “Barbara” onward have found the director confronting his country’s history, culture and memory in a way that few would have expected from a filmmaker whose early works appeared to consciously rebuff mainstream German cinema’s emphasis on that nation’s tortured history — a trend exemplified recently by the Academy Award-winning 2022 remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front.”“He’s an extremely German filmmaker,” said Florian Borchmeyer, a programmer at the Munich International Film Festival who also works at Berlin’s Schaubühne theater.“He’s like a free radical, in some sense,” he continued, referring to how Mr. Petzold makes films outside the German film establishment. “He gets in touch with the trauma of German society and the German past. But at the same time,” he added, “he gets in connection with something that is almost beyond reality.”Speaking from the Cannes Film Festival in May, Mr. Borchmeyer called Mr. Petzold one of the best German filmmakers working today, along with Maren Ade (“Tony Erdmann”) and Angela Schanelec (whose “Music” won the screenplay award in Berlin this year), Philip Gröning and Andreas Dresen.Mr. Petzold had specific actors in mind when writing the screenplay for “Afire.”Sideshow and Janus Films“Afire” was not the film that Mr. Petzold set out to make. He had secured the film rights to Georges Simenon’s novel “Dirty Snow,” an existential noir set in an unnamed country under foreign occupation, and was writing the screenplay when the coronavirus pandemic broke out. After presenting his 2020 film “Undine” in Paris, Mr. Petzold and Paula Beer, the film’s lead (she also stars in “Afire”) came down with Covid-19.“I was in bed for four weeks with this dystopian project in front of me, and I thought: When I get out of here, I don’t want anything more to do with dystopias,” Mr. Petzold said in an interview.While convalescing in Berlin, he binge-watched films by the French New Wave director Éric Rohmer and read stories by Anton Chekhov. In that first pandemic spring, Mr. Petzold’s thoughts turned to summer and to summer films, a genre that, according to him, has not properly existed in Germany since “People on Sunday” (1930).“It’s a film about a day in summer, about young people, about Wannsee, about a weekend,” he said of the slice-of-life film, a key late work of Weimar cinema. “And then I thought about the aftermath, National Socialism, which destroyed everything: the German summers, the German youth, the German bodies, the poetry.“These are films that capture a feeling of being on a threshold,” he said, referring to works like Mr. Rohmer’s “La Collectionneuse” and “Pauline at the Beach,” which are clear touchstones for “Afire” in both content and tone.“There’s just two months, and after that you’re an adult. And in those two months there are slights, injuries, love, loss, loyalties, disappointments. And afterward, when you’re an adult, you remember that one summer when you perhaps missed out on life or first took advantage of life,” he continued, enumerating several of the themes that made their way into “Afire.”Along with French cinema and Russian literature, Mr. Petzold also drew inspiration from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in particular the play’s setting. William Shakespeare’s depiction of the woods as a place of enlightenment and enchantment resonated with the filmmaker and his own cultural background.“The forest in Germany is a place where you go when you have problems in order to find yourself again,” Mr. Petzold said. “That’s true of right-wing philosophers like [Martin] Heidegger, but it’s also true of German Romanticism.”Mr. Petzold, now 62, came out of the so-called Berlin School, a loose movement of independent filmmakers who emerged in the 1990s.Gordon Welters for The New York TimesIn the summer of 2020, as Mr. Petzold began developing “Afire,” those woods were very much on his mind, for an entirely different reason. “Those forests were burning, the forests that actually contain the German stories, the tales of the Brothers Grimm and so on,” Mr. Petzold said.Mr. Petzold wrote the screenplay for “Afire” with specific actors in mind: Thomas Schubert as the struggling young novelist Leon and Ms. Beer as his housemate Nadja. The film is a third collaboration for the actress and director after “Undine” and “Transit.”“Talking to him you feel how much he loves literature and stories,” Ms. Beer said, adding that “after reading the script together we will watch movies and he will talk about books that refer to our work.”The 28-year-old actress, who answered questions via email while serving on a jury at Cannes, said Mr. Petzold created a “very inspiring working atmosphere” on set.“Christian tells us his ideas about the scene, maybe other things that he was thinking of that fit to the atmosphere and situation,” she said, adding, “Every thought or idea is welcome.”Anton Kaiser, of Schramm Film, the Berlin-based production company behind “Afire” and 12 of Mr. Petzold’s previous films, said Mr. Petzold likes to shoot in the summer and edit in the fall, which means that his films tend to be ready in time for the Berlin festival, which is held in February.“Each film of Petzold’s is recognizable, but each new film is also a step forward,” Carlo Chatrian, the Berlin festival’s artistic director, said in a phone interview.“They are cerebral, but they are not heavy, especially the last two,” he added, referring to “Afire” and “Undine,” both of which he programmed at the festival, as films with a note of humor that is new for the director.“I’m happy, on one hand, to be able to support Christian Petzold as an auteur and as an artist,” Mr. Chatrian said. “At the same time, I’m happy when his films can travel, because I think it’s a pity that he is not enough known outside Germany.” More

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      The North to Shore Festival Comes to New Jersey

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      A new arts festival featuring local and marquee-name talent is coming to the Garden State.Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, along with the first lady, Tammy Murphy, had a vision: A new performance festival in their home state that could rival South by Southwest in Texas or Bonnaroo in Tennessee. And they had a plan to distinguish it.“Austin and Nashville are great towns,” the governor said, referring to two famous arts hubs that are connected to notable festivals. “But if you stop to consider the cultural priorities of the states that govern them, you say, ‘Wait a minute.’ You’re hoodwinked if you get taken by the coolness.”A festival in New Jersey, they argued, would be produced in a state whose values align with issues like gun safety and reproductive rights, a bragging right difficult to come by in the south. But what organizers are really touting with the event, which is being produced for the first time this summer, is the mix of homegrown talent and national acts (Halsey, Santana, Jazmine Sullivan) performing across three different cities, from the state’s largest city to the coast.The North to Shore Festival will roam from Atlantic City to Asbury Park to Newark throughout the month. Its inaugural run will feature more than 220 acts — including music, comedy, dance and film — in 115 venues. “When you combine all the talent we have in New Jersey with the fact that our values are on the right side of history, we thought, there’s no reason we couldn’t give this a shot,” Mr. Murphy said.In May, the festival doubled in size, in part because of a commitment to local talent. Grants of up to $5,000 were handed out to 58 New Jersey-based artists.“What I love about it is that it’s a combination of the biggest names in entertainment and comedy and film,” said John Schreiber, president and chief executive of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, which is producing the festival, “but it’s also a chance to turn up the volume on the local folks I call the local heroes — the artists, the creators, the presenters, the producers — who work in these cities 365 days a year.”One example of this kind of artistic convergence is “You Got VERRRSED: NJ Poets vs. New York Poets,” which will take place in Newark on June 24, the day after Marisa Monte, a Grammy Award winner, performs there.In each host city, venues stretch beyond the familiar. Newark, for example, will host “Jersey Club 101,” a combination dance lesson and party, at Ariya Plaza Hall, a local dance club known for hosting private events and the occasional concert, on June 24.On June 9 in Atlantic City, a brewery, The Seed: A Living Beer Project, will host a multidisciplinary event, “From Earth to Cup,” with live music, pottery making and samples of its craft beers. The following afternoon at Sovereign Avenue Field, a popular skatepark, local hardcore and punk bands will play free shows in the “Back Sov Bullies Concert.”While Asbury Park’s famous rock club, the Stone Pony, will see its share of action — with Eric B. & Rakim, Brian Fallon, Demi Lovato and the B-52’s all scheduled to perform — stages at the lesser-known Watermark, down the street, will also be in heavy rotation and can expect to see more traffic than usual.Alexander Simone and his seven-piece band, the Whodat? Live Crew, will play there on June 14. Mr. Simone, 34, who is from the area and the grandson of Nina Simone, won a grant to take part in North to Shore with the band, which leans toward funk and R&B, after being nominated by local fans. The recognition confirmed something he already knew: “I am definitely one of the most known bands in this community,” he said.Now he hopes that other parts of the country will pay more attention to his music. “Artists are coming this way, to Jersey, and bringing people with them the way South by Southwest brings people to Texas,” he said. “They’re coming to see what we have to offer on this end.”Billboards along the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike are promoting the festival. Mr. Schreiber said he expects more than 350,000 people to attend. The overall windfall for New Jersey’s economy, he added, could be $100 million. “We’re betting the economic impact in all three of these communities will far outweigh any of the investment we have to make,” Mr. Murphy said.Amanda Towers, a founder of the Seed, a Living Beer Project, which will host a multidisciplinary event with music, pottery and beer in Atlantic City.Jennifer Pottheiser for The New York TimesNatalie Merchant, accompanied by New York City’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s, will perform in Newark on June 25. “I think it’s really ambitious and impressive,” she said of the idea behind the festival.But her decision to participate did not have much to do with performing in a liberal-leaning state, Ms. Merchant said. “I tend to not penalize my fans in states with political conditions like abortion restrictions.” Instead, “I talk about them onstage.”The North to Shore Festival will take place June 4-11 in Atlantic City, June 14-18 in Asbury Park and June 21-25 in Newark. More

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      Thomas Stacy, Master of the English Horn, Dies at 84

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      Through his decades with the New York Philharmonic and his busy touring schedule, he helped make an unfamiliar instrument much less so.Thomas Stacy sometimes told the story of how, when he was a boy growing up in Arkansas, an Italian who had been dead for about 80 years changed his life.He’d been studying piano with his mother, but when he heard a piece of music by the composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini, his focus shifted to a different instrument and he determined to make a career of it.“I was fascinated by the sound of the oboe on a record we had of the overture to Rossini’s opera ‘The Silken Ladder,’” Mr. Stacy recalled in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press. “I knew then that I wanted to be a musician.”If the oboe was a somewhat unusual selection for a young musician, Mr. Stacy soon made the even more unconventional choice to specialize in the English horn, a confusingly named instrument that is not in fact a horn but rather a double-reed instrument, an alto member of the oboe family.In the ensuing decades he became one of the finest English horn virtuosos in the United States; he played with the New York Philharmonic for almost 40 years, appeared as a guest soloist all over the country and beyond, and contributed to countless recordings. Numerous composers wrote works specifically for him, and he became something of an ambassador for his uncommon instrument — performing all-English-horn programs, leading an annual summer seminar and encouraging an expansion of the repertory.Mr. Stacy died on April 30 in hospice care in Southampton, N.Y. He was 84. His son Barton Stacy said the cause was heart failure.Mr. Stacy was also an expert on the oboe d’amore, a Baroque-era instrument with a mezzo-soprano range. At some recitals he would switch among English horn, oboe d’amore and traditional oboe. Whatever he was playing, critics praised his tone and his dexterity.“Mellifluous melancholy is the English horn’s main orchestral stock in trade,” John Henken wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 1988, reviewing a recital at Trinity Lutheran Church in Reseda, Calif., where Mr. Stacy played the other two instruments as well, “but Stacy demonstrated a much wider range of expression and sound. He could make the horn sing with almost human suavity, or stutter with martial brilliance, all supported by the booming acoustic of the Trinity sanctuary.”As for why he chose the English horn as his main instrument, Mr. Stacy had a simple answer.“It is most like the human voice,” he said in the 1996 interview, “and has the most expressive potential in a more expressive range than other instruments.”Mr. Stacy in concert with the pianist Hélène Grimaud at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2007. He performed all over the country and beyond, as well as contributing to countless recordings. Richard Termine for The New York TimesThomas Jefferson Stacy was born on Aug. 15, 1938, in Little Rock, Ark. His father, also named Thomas, was a farmer and cotton broker, and his mother, Nora Lee (Conditt) Stacy, was a homemaker and church organist.He grew up in Augusta, Ark., a small city northeast of Little Rock, and started his musical training on the piano, violin and clarinet before settling on the oboe and then zeroing in on the English horn. When he was 14, he sold his motorcycle in order to buy one.“It wasn’t a Harley or anything,” he told The New York Times in 1999, “just a small, lightweight motorcycle.”He largely taught himself to play the oboe and English horn, using a book that showed the fingerings. He was 17 and still a junior in high school when the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., gave him a full scholarship.“I started out on oboe at Eastman,” he said, “but I also played English horn in some of the performing groups. It was already my preference. It fits my musical persona like a glove.”While at Eastman he met a fellow student, Marie Elizabeth Mann. They married in 1960, the same year that both graduated and that Mr. Stacy joined the New Orleans Philharmonic. He later played with the San Antonio Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra before joining the New York Philharmonic in 1972.He appeared as soloist with the Philharmonic more than 70 times before leaving in the fall of 2010. By then a number of works had been written specifically with him in mind, including Ned Rorem’s Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra, which had its world premiere at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan in 1994. Alex Ross, reviewing the performance in The Times, found parts of the work “curiously fragmentary and unfocused.” But, he added, “Mr. Stacy tied these disparate impressions together with a rich tone and dazzling technique.”In addition to his wife and his son Barton, Mr. Stacy, who lived in Hampton Bays, N.Y., is survived by another son, Phillip, and two grandchildren.In the 1996 interview, Mr. Stacy talked about how a musician of his caliber stayed sharp.“The better you are, the harder it is to improve,” he said, “and that’s what I think about most, how to improve. It’s like chipping golf balls to the green with an 8-iron. You must practice the starting and stopping of notes so they sound good.” More

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      As Broadway Rebounds, ‘Some Like It Hot’ Gets 13 Tony Nominations

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      As Broadway’s rebound from the pandemic shutdown picks up pace, Tony nominators showered much-sought attention on a wide variety of shows, from razzle-dazzle spectacles to quirky adventurous fare.“Some Like It Hot,” a musical based on the classic Billy Wilder film about two musicians who witness a gangland slaying and dress as women to escape the mob, scored the most nominations: 13. But it faces stiff competition in the race for best new musical — ticket buyers have not made any of the contenders a slam-dunk hit, and there does not appear to be a consensus among the industry insiders who make up the Tony voting pool.Three other musicals picked up nine nominations apiece: “& Juliet,” which combines pop songs with an alternative narrative arc for Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers; “New York, New York,” a dance-driven show about a pair of young musicians seeking success and love in a postwar city; and “Shucked,” a pun-laden country comedy about a rural community facing a corn crisis. “Kimberly Akimbo,” a critical favorite about a high school student with a life-altering genetic condition and a criminally dysfunctional family, picked up eight nominations.The Tony nominations also feature plenty of boldfaced names. Among the stars from the worlds of pop music, film and television who earned nods are Sara Bareilles, Jessica Chastain, Jodie Comer, Josh Groban, Sean Hayes, Samuel L. Jackson, Wendell Pierce and Ben Platt. Another went to one of Broadway’s most-admired stars: Audra McDonald, who, with nine previous nominations and six wins, has won the most competitive Tony Awards of any performer in history.The musical “Shucked,” the rare Broadway show about corn, got nine nominations. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThis year’s Tony Awards come at the end of the first full-length season since the coronavirus pandemic forced theaters to close for about a year and a half. Given that tourism remains below prepandemic levels, many workers have not returned to Midtown offices, and inflation has made producing far more expensive, the season has been surprisingly robust, with a wide range of offerings.“Entertainment is like food — sometimes you’re in the mood for an organic small plate, and sometimes for a burger and fries, and the best thing about New York is we’ve got the variety,” said Victoria Clark, the Tony-nominated star of “Kimberly Akimbo.”Broadway shows this season had grossed $1.48 billion as of April 30, according to figures released Tuesday by the Broadway League. That’s nearly double the grosses at the same point last season — $751 million — but lower than the $1.72 billion at the same point in 2019, during the last full prepandemic season.Other key metrics are better, too: 11.5 million seats have been filled on Broadway this season, compared with 6 million at the same point last season, but still down from the 13.8 million that had been filled by this point in 2019.The Tony nominations, which were chosen by a panel of 40 theater industry experts who saw all 38 eligible shows and have no financial interest in any of them, are particularly important to shows that are still running, which try to use the vote of confidence to woo potential ticket buyers.“It’s all about what’s going to make a show run longer and create more jobs for more people,” said Casey Nicholaw, the director and choreographer of “Some Like It Hot.” “Hopefully we’ll sell more tickets, and the show will be more of a success.”The Tony nominations can also boost the employment prospects, and the compensation, of artists. And, of course, they are a tribute to excellence. “It means something when your peers and your colleagues see beauty in something you make,” said James Ijames, whose play “Fat Ham” was among the nominated productions.“Between Riverside and Crazy” was among the nominees for best new play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBroadway is a complicated place, dominated by commercial producers but also with six theaters run by nonprofits, and the work this season, as is often the case, featured everything from experimental plays tackling challenging subjects to more mainstream fare that aims primarily to entertain.Among the five nominees for best new play, three have already won the Pulitzer Prize in drama, including “Between Riverside and Crazy,” Stephen Adly Guirgis’s story of a retired police officer trying to hang onto his apartment; “Cost of Living,” Martyna Majok’s exploration of caregiving and disability; and “Fat Ham,” Ijames’s riff on “Hamlet,” set in the North Carolina backyard of a family that runs a barbecue restaurant.The two other Tony-nominated plays are each significant in their own ways: “Leopoldstadt” is Tom Stoppard’s autobiographically inspired drama about a European Jewish family before, during and after World War II, while “Ain’t No Mo’” is Jordan E. Cooper’s outlandish comedy imagining that the United States offers its Black residents one-way tickets to Africa.The nominations for “Ain’t No Mo’” were especially striking given that the show struggled to find an audience and closed early. “I’m just so elated, I can barely find the words,” said Cooper, who was nominated both as writer and actor. “There was a lot of turbulence, but we landed the plane.”Stoppard is already the winningest playwright in Broadway history, having won Tony Awards for four previous plays (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Travesties,” “The Real Thing” and “The Coast of Utopia”). He is now 85 years old, and “Leopoldstadt” is his 19th production on Broadway. Stoppard said he was proud of the nomination, but sorry the play had come to seem so timely at a moment of rising concern about antisemitism.“Nobody wants society to be divided,” he said in an interview, “and I like to think ‘Leopoldstadt’ works against a sense of human beings dividing up and confronting each other.”Jordan E. Cooper in his comedy “Ain’t No Mo’,” which was nominated for best play.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOf the 38 Tony-eligible plays and musicals this season, 27 scored at least one nomination, leaving 11 with no nods. Among the musicals snubbed by the nominators were “Bad Cinderella,” the critically drubbed new musical from one of the most successful musical theater composers of all time, Andrew Lloyd Webber, as well as a progressive rethink of “1776,” about the debate over the Declaration of Independence, which was revived with a cast of women, nonbinary and transgender performers.One of the musicals that did not score any nominations, a revival of “Dancin’,” quickly declared plans to close: A little more than nine hours after the Tony nominations were announced, the revue’s producers said its last performance would be May 14. Among the seven plays shut out was “The Thanksgiving Play,” which is thought to be the first work on Broadway by a female Native American playwright, Larissa FastHorse.The season featured shows examining a wide variety of diverse stories, and the nominations reflect that.At a time when gender identity issues have become increasingly politicized in the nation, nominations were earned by two gender nonconforming actors: J. Harrison Ghee, a star of “Some Like It Hot,” and Alex Newell, a supporting actor in “Shucked.”Helen Park, who is the first Asian American female composer on Broadway, was nominated in the best score category for the musical “KPOP.” “The more authentic we are to our respective cultures and stories,” she said, “the richer the Broadway soundscape and Broadway landscape will be.”Five plays by Black writers were nominated in either the best play or best play revival category, and four of the five nominees for leading actor in a play are Black.“I broke down in tears,” Pierce said about learning that he was among those nominees, for playing Willy Loman in a revival of “Death of a Salesman” in which the traditionally white Loman family is now African American. “I did not know how profoundly moving it would be. It was the culmination of years of hard work and a reflection on how much effort and toil went into the challenge of playing the role.”This was a strong season for musical revivals, and the nominated shows include two with scores by Stephen Sondheim — “Into the Woods” and “Sweeney Todd” — as well as the Golden Age classic “Camelot” and “Parade,” which is a show about the early 20th-century lynching of a Jewish man in Georgia.“Into the Woods” was one of two Stephen Sondheim revivals to earn nominations.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“We’re so happy audiences are taking to it, and we hope that Sondheim would be happy this morning as well,” said Groban, starring as the title character in “Sweeney Todd.”The nominated play revivals are also a compelling bunch: a hypnotically minimalist version of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” adapted by Amy Herzog and starring Chastain as a Norwegian debtor trapped in a sexist marriage; a bracing production of Suzan Lori-Parks’s “Topdog/Underdog,” about two brothers ominously named Lincoln and Booth; a rare staging of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” featuring Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan; and a ghostly performance of “The Piano Lesson,” August Wilson’s classic drama about a family wrestling with the meaning, and monetary value, of an heirloom.The 769 Tony voters now have until early June to catch up on shows they have not yet seen before they cast their electronic ballots. The awards ceremony itself will be held on June 11 at the United Palace in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan in a ceremony hosted by Ariana DeBose.Julia Jacobs More

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      When La Scala Is Sold Out, You Can Still Get In (Online)

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      The opera house’s new streaming service provides live and on-demand performances, as well as extras like backstage glimpses and educational programs.La Scala’s audience can now be anywhere.The opera house in Milan is sharing select performances online through LaScalaTv, a platform that started streaming in February. Its first live offering was a broadcast of Verdi’s opera “I Vespri siciliani,” conducted by Fabio Luisi and featuring such soloists as Marina Rebeka and Luca Micheletti.The program also includes concerts and ballets. On May 11, Alberto Malazzi conducts “Petite Messe Solennelle” by Rossini, to commemorate the anniversary of La Scala’s restoration and reopening after World War II. The ballet “Romeo and Juliet” by Sergei Prokofiev takes the screen to choreography by Kenneth MacMillan on June 28.The on-demand library also includes performances for children, starting with a staged concert based on carnival celebrations called “Lalla & Skali and … the Enchanted Mask.”The platform is part of a wider effort to modernize La Scala’s infrastructure, including an extensive educational outreach program using the technology and plans for subtitles on seat backs.Mirjam Schiavello, left, and Matteo Sala in a performance of “Lalla and Skali and … the Enchanted Mask” at La Scala, part of the house’s on-demand offerings for children.Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla ScalaDominique Meyer, the theater’s current artistic director and chief executive, said that technological advances in recent years had made it easier for an opera house to widen its reach.“It is a real leap,” he said, recalling the difficulties he faced in 2013 when starting a platform for the Vienna State Opera during his tenure there. “Most people have a faster internet connection, which is extremely important when viewers want to watch a stream in 4K.”The equipment available for in-house operations has also advanced rapidly. Small, robotic cameras can capture performances in the dark without necessitating changes of light, leaving on-site viewers undisturbed. And microphones can easily transmit quality sound.Performances on LaScalaTv are available in either ultra high definition or high definition. The most expensive offering, a live program at the highest resolution, costs 11.90 euros (about $13), while a children’s program at the lower resolution costs €2.90. The audio track is uniformly transmitted in AAC, a compression format of a higher grade than MP3.Mr. Meyer has prioritized a wide view of the stage. “It was important to me to respect a certain distance,” he said. “One doesn’t need close-ups that show the sweat on the face of Gilda at the end of ‘Rigoletto.’”He also wants to capture dance performances at a healthy distance. “If you come too close, it looks like the dancer’s head is about to hit the top of the screen,” he said. “A principle of the whole project was that there would not be too many cuts, and that the viewer would have the liberty to focus where he or she pleases.”Cameras at La Scala can capture performances for online audiences without disturbing viewers in the opera house itself. Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla ScallaIntermissions provide glimpses backstage and facts about La Scala’s history. Recent offerings have included a tour of the theater’s museum, home to such treasures as a manuscript page from Verdi’s “Nabucco” and a portrait of the soprano Maria Callas.Mr. Meyer said that the house had just scratched the surface of the possibilities and that “there was a lot to tell,” citing “the rehearsals, what happens behind the scenes, the [costume and set] workshops.”Of central importance is bringing some of these stories to younger viewers. The theater has started by creating a network of 200 schools in Italy to bring students into contact with opera.For example, a live rehearsal of Puccini’s “La Bohème” was recently followed by a livestream of the performance itself. A documentary about Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” was combined with an on-demand viewing of the opera itself. This September will bring the first ballet program, revolving around Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.”The house is also teaming up with RAI, Italy’s state broadcaster, to share footage from the 1970s and ’80s, including performances under the conductors Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. The main sponsor of LaScalaTv is the bank Intesa Sanpaolo, and the Cariplo Foundation is supporting the dissemination of content to schools.A scene from “La Bohème” at La Scala. A recent stream of a rehearsal for that opera was followed by a livestream of the performance itself.Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla Scalla“We brought in about €40.5 million in sponsorship revenue last season,” Mr. Meyer said. “That is huge in Europe. All these projects are being financed.”In the theater, subtitles will be installed this summer on the backs of chairs with translations in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish, using the same software as the streaming platform (eventually there will be eight languages). On May 29, La Scala unveils its new website — which includes a digital magazine — coinciding with its presentation of the 2023-24 season.Italian viewers thus far make up half the streaming service’s audience. Another fourth comes from other European countries. Outside Europe, the highest numbers are currently in the United States and Russia.In-house, Mr. Meyer said, La Scala has regularly sold out this season. “We of course can’t create more seats,” he said. “This technology allows us to expand our audience, also to children.” More

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      Livestreaming ‘Made All the Difference’ for Some Disabled Art Lovers

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      When shuttered venues embraced streaming during the pandemic, the arts became more accessible. With live performance back, and streams dwindling, many feel forgotten.For Mollie Gathro, live theater was a once-a-year indulgence if the stars aligned perfectly.Gathro has degenerative disc disease and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, resulting in joint pain, weakness and loss of mobility. Because of her disabilities, going to a show meant having to secure accessible seating after hourslong phone calls with her “nemesis,” Ticketmaster; finding a friend to drive her or arranging other transportation; and hoping her body would cooperate enough for her to actually go out.But when live performance was brought to a halt three years ago by the coronavirus pandemic, and presenters turned to streaming in an effort to keep reaching audiences, the playing field was suddenly leveled for arts lovers like Gathro.From her home in West Springfield, Mass., Gathro suddenly had access to the same offerings as everyone else, watching streams of Gore Vidal’s drama “The Best Man” and of a Guster concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. For a while, it seemed, everything was online: performances by the Berlin State Opera or the Philadelphia Orchestra; dances by choreographers like Alonzo King and a New York City Ballet Spring Gala directed by Sofia Coppola; blockbuster movies that were released to streaming services at the same time they hit multiplexes; even the latest installment of Richard Nelson’s acclaimed cycle of plays about the Apple family for the Public Theater was streamed live.“I was overjoyed, but there was also this tentative feeling like waiting for the other shoe to drop because they could take the accessibility away just as easily as they gave it,” Gathro, 35, said, “which feels like is exactly what is happening.”It is happening. With live performance now back, and some theaters and concert halls still struggling to bring back audiences, presenters have cut back on their streamed offerings — leaving many people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, who have been calling for better virtual access for decades, excluded again.While many presenters have cut back on streaming, there is still more available than there used to be. In September the San Francisco Opera streamed a performance of John Adams’ “Antony and Cleopatra” starring Amina Edris. Cory Weaver/San Francisco OperaLivestreaming “opened up the door and showed us what is possible,” said Celia Hughes, the executive director of Art Spark Texas, a nonprofit that aims to make the arts more inclusive and accessible. The door, she said, has begun to close again.Aimi Hamraie,​​ an associate professor of medicine, health and society at Vanderbilt University who studies disability access, said that the decisions to cut back on streaming options “were not made with disabled people in mind.”“We’ve all been shown that we already have the tools to create more accessible exhibitions and performances, so people can no longer say it’s not possible,” Hamraie said. “We all know that that’s not true.”One in four adults in the United States has some form of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But more than three decades after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act made it illegal to discriminate based on disability, advocates say that it remains difficult for many disabled people to navigate arts venues: gilded old theaters often have narrow aisles, cramped rows and stairs, while sleek modern spaces can be off-the-beaten-path or feature temporary seating on risers.To be sure, there are far more streaming options available now than there used to be. The San Francisco Opera has been livestreaming all of its productions this season, and last month the Paris Opera announced new streaming options. Second Stage Theater simulcast the last two weeks of its Broadway run of “Between Riverside and Crazy” and “Circle Jerk,” a Zoom play that became a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for drama, returned for a hybrid run last summer for both live and streaming audiences. The Cleveland Orchestra has joined the growing number of classical ensembles streaming select performances. And this year’s Sundance Film Festival was held in person in Park City, Utah — but also online.Second Stage Theater simulcast the last two weeks of its Broadway run of “Between Riverside and Crazy.” From left to right: Stephen McKinley Henderson, Victor Almanzar, Common.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut venues and producers have cut back on streaming for a number of reasons: the costs associated with equipment and the work required to film performances; contracts that call for paying artists and rights holders more money for streams; and fears that streams could provide more incentive for people to stay home rather than attend in person.Arts lovers with disabilities are feeling the loss.“It made all the difference because I felt like during the pandemic, I was allowed to be part of the world again, and then I just lost it,” said Dom Evans, 42, a hard-of-hearing filmmaker with spinal muscular atrophy, among other disabilities, and a co-creator of FilmDis, a group that monitors disability representation in the media.The recent experiments with streaming have raised questions of what counts as “live.” Some events are heavily produced and edited before they are made available online.“It’s better than nothing, but it’s not the same,” Phoebe Boag, 43, a music fan with myalgic encephalomyelitis, who lives in Scotland, said in an email interview. “When you’re watching a live performance at the same time as everyone else, you have the same anticipation leading up to the event, and there’s a sense of community and inclusion, knowing that you’re watching the performance alongside however many other people.”More venues are providing programming specifically for people with disabilities and their families. Moments, at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, for example, is geared toward people with dementia and their caregivers. “Our main goal is that everyone has choice, everyone can get access to what they want in ways that work best for them,” Miranda Hoffner, the associate director of accessibility at Lincoln Center, said.Moments, at Lincoln Center, is geared toward people with dementia and their caregivers. Ayami Goto and Takumi Miyake, of American Ballet Theater’s Studio Company, danced.Lawrence SumulongThese types of programs have been welcomed. But others say that presenters must do more to make all of their programming accessible.“We need arts programs that are fully integrated,” Evans, the filmmaker, said.Even as presenters have cut back on streaming options, many have stopped requiring proof of vaccination and masks — placing new barriers to attendance for some of the estimated seven million American adults who have compromised immune systems that make them more likely to get severely ill from Covid-19.“It’s easy to feel just like you’re farther and farther behind and not only forgotten, but just completely disregarded,” said Han Olliver, a 26-year-old freelance artist and writer with multiple chronic illnesses who would like more access to the arts. “And that’s really lonely.”Still, new opportunities have led to more connections for and among disabled people.Theater Breaking Through Barriers, an Off Broadway company that promotes the inclusion of disabled actors onstage, has presented more than 75 short plays since 2020 that have been designed to be performed virtually. Last fall, it streamed a series of plays, including some that were created on Zoom and others that were performed in front of live audiences. Nicholas Viselli, the company’s artistic director, said the goal is to make streaming more regular.There is an idea that “‘doing virtual stuff is not really theater,’ and I don’t agree with that,” Viselli said.“It’s not the same as being in the room and feeling the energy from the audience and the actors,” he said, “but it is when you have artists creating something in front of your eyes.”Gathro continues to take advantage of streaming options when she can from her home in West Springfield. But she hopes that more presenters will stream their work in the future.“I wish I always had options for livestreaming, for really everything, because I would,” Gathro said. “For me, it’s worth paying as much as I would pay to see it in person. The accessibility is just that much more helpful.” More