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      California Bill Could Restrict the Use of Rap Lyrics in Court

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      The bill, which applies more broadly to other forms of creative expression, has unanimously passed the Senate and Assembly and could become law by the end of September.A California bill that would restrict the use of rap lyrics and other creative works as evidence in criminal proceedings has unanimously passed both the State Senate and Assembly, and could soon be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.The bill, introduced in February by Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat who represents South Los Angeles, comes amid national attention on the practice following the indictment of the Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna on gang-related charges. Prosecutors have drawn on the men’s lyrics in making their case.The California measure, however, would apply more broadly to any creative works, including other types of music, poetry, film, dance, performance art, visual art and novels.“What you write could ultimately be used against you, and that could inhibit creative expression,” Mr. Jones-Sawyer said Wednesday in an interview. He noted that the bill ultimately boiled down to a question of First Amendment rights.“This is America,” he said. “You should be able to have that creativity.”Mr. Newsom has until Sep. 30 to sign the bill into law. If he neither signs nor vetoes the bill by that date, the measure would automatically become law. The law would then go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, Mr. Jones-Sawyer said.When asked whether Mr. Newsom planned to sign the bill, his office said that it could not comment on pending legislation. “As will all measures that reach the governor’s desk, it will be evaluated on its merits,” it said.Though the bill’s genesis is in preventing rap stars’ lyrics from being weaponized against them, the measure loosely defines “creative expression” to include “forms, sounds, words, movements, or symbols.”It would require a court to evaluate whether such works can be included as evidence by weighing their “probative value” in the case against the “substantial danger of undue prejudice” that might result from including them. The court should consider the possibility that such works could be treated as “evidence of the defendant’s propensity for violence or criminal disposition, as well as the possibility that the evidence will inject racial bias into the proceedings,” the bill says.“People were going to jail merely because of their appearance,” Mr. Jones-Sawyer said. “We weren’t trying to get people off the hook. We’re just making sure that biases, especially racial biases toward African Americans, weren’t used against them in a court of law.”The bill would require that decisions about the evidence be made pretrial, out of the presence of a jury. For decades, prosecutors have used rappers’ lyrics against them even as their music has become mainstream, with critics and fans arguing that the artists should be given the same freedom to explore violence in their work as were musicians like Johnny Cash (did he really shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?) or authors like Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote “American Psycho.”In other cases, though lyrics were not used as evidence, they were discussed in front of the jury, which “poisoned the well” by allowing bias to enter the court, according to Mr. Jones-Sawyer’s office. It also noted that while country music has a subgenre known as the “murder ballad,” it is only the lyrics of rap artists that have been singled out.Charis E. Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California, Irvine, who has extensively researched the use of rap lyrics in criminal proceedings, said that the way prosecutors have used defendant-authored lyrics in court was unique to rap.The practice, she said, essentially treated the lyrics as “nothing more than autobiographical accounts — denying rap the status of art.” The California bill is significant, Dr. Kubrin said, because it would require judges to consider whether the lyrics would inject racial bias into proceedings. “This is bigger than rap,” she said.Among the first notable times the tactic was used was against the rapper Snoop Dogg at his 1996 murder trial, when prosecutors cited lyrics from “Murder Was the Case.” The rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was acquitted.Snoop Dogg entering a Los Angeles court in 1996, where a prosecutor cited his lyrics during a murder trial. He was acquitted.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressMost recently, the charges against Young Thug and Gunna have called national attention to the tactic. Both men, who have said they are innocent, were identified as members of a criminal street gang, some of whom were charged with violent crimes including murder and attempted armed robbery.Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, co-wrote the Grammy-winning “This is America” with Childish Gambino and is one of the most influential artists to emerge from Atlanta’s hip-hop scene.In November, two New York lawmakers introduced a similar bill that would prevent lyrics from being used as evidence in criminal cases unless there was a “factual nexus between the creative expression and the facts of the case.” It passed the Senate in May.In July, U.S. Representatives Hank Johnson of Georgia and Jamaal Bowman of New York, both Democrats, introduced federal legislation, the Restoring Artistic Protection Act, which they said would protect artists from “the wrongful use of their lyrics against them.”The California bill is supported by several other music organizations and activist groups, including the Black Music Action Coalition California, the Public Defenders Association and Smart Justice California, which advocates criminal justice reform.In a statement of support from June, the Black Music Action Coalition, an advocacy organization that battles systemic racism in the music business, said that prosecutors almost exclusively weaponized rappers’ lyrics against men of color.“Creative expression should not be used as evidence of bad character,” the organization said, maintaining that the claim that themes expressed in art were an indication of the likelihood that a person was violent or dishonest was “simply false.”Harvey Mason Jr., the chief executive of the Recording Academy, which runs the Grammy Awards, said that the bill was intended to protect not only rappers, but also artists across all genres of music, and other forms of creativity.“It’s bigger than any one individual case,” Mr. Mason said. “In no way, at no time, do I feel that someone’s art should be used against them.” More

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      An Oscars Apology for Sacheen Littlefeather, 50 Years After Brando Protest

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      The Apache activist and actress was booed onstage in 1973 after she refused the best actor award on Marlon Brando’s behalf and criticized Hollywood for its depictions of Native Americans.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache and Yaqui actress and activist who was booed onstage at the Oscars in 1973 after she refused the best actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando.The Academy said in a statement on Monday that it had apologized to Ms. Littlefeather, 75, in June, nearly 50 years after Ms. Littlefeather pierced through the Academy Awards facade of shiny statues and bright lights in 1973 and injected the ceremony with criticism about Native American stereotypes in media.Her appearance at the ceremony, the first time a Native American woman stood onstage at the Academy Awards, is perhaps one of the best-known disruptive moments in the history of the award ceremony.When Ms. Littlefeather, then 26, spoke, some of the audience cheered her and others jeered. One actor, John Wayne, was so unsettled that a show producer, Marty Pasetta, said security guards had to restrain him so that he would not storm the stage.Ms. Littlefeather said she was “stunned” by the apology in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I never thought I’d live to see the day I would be hearing this, experiencing this,” she said.“When I was at the podium in 1973, I stood there alone,” she added.Ms. Littlefeather also brought attention to the federal government’s standoff at Wounded Knee with Native Americans in the 1973 speech, which she came up with shortly before being called onstage on behalf of Mr. Brando, who was to receive the best actor award for his performance as Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.”Ms. Littlefeather said in an interview with the Academy, which was published on Monday, that she had been planning to watch the 45th Academy Awards on television like everyone else when she received a call the night before the ceremony from Mr. Brando. The two had become friends through her neighbor, the director Francis Ford Coppola. Mr. Brando asked her to refuse the award on his behalf if he won.Ms. Littlefeather arrived at the ceremony with only about 15 minutes left of the official program, wearing a glimmering buckskin dress, moccasins and hair ties. Ms. Littlefeather said she had little information about how the night would work, but Mr. Brando had given her a speech to read if he won.That plan evaporated when a producer for the Oscars saw the pages in her hand and told he she would be arrested if her comments lasted more than 60 seconds, she said.She introduced herself, then explained that Mr. Brando would not be accepting the award because of his concerns about the image of Native American people in film and television and by the government. She paused when a mix of boos and cheers erupted from the audience.“And I focused in on the mouths and the jaws that were dropping open in the audience, and there were quite a few,” she told the Academy. “But it was like looking into a sea of Clorox, you know, there were very few people of color in the audience.”The crowd quieted, and Ms. Littlefeather mentioned the Wounded Knee standoff and then left the stage without touching the golden Oscars statue. She said some audience members did the so-called “tomahawk chop” at her and that when she went to Mr. Brando’s house later, people shot at the doorway where she was standing.“When I went back to Marlon’s house, there was an incident with people shooting at me,” she said. “And there were two bullet holes that came through the doorway of where I was standing, and I was on the other side of it.”Ms. Littlefeather, who was not available for an interview on Tuesday, told the Academy that speaking about these events in 2022 “felt like a big cleanse.”“It feels like the sacred circle is completing itself before I go in this life,” said Ms. Littlefeather, who told The Guardian in June 2021 that she had terminal breast cancer.The former president of the Academy, David Rubin, wrote in the apology to Ms. Littlefeather that the abuse she faced because of the speech was “unwarranted and unjustified.”“For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged,” Mr. Rubin wrote. “For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.”Mr. Rubin’s letter will be read next month at a program at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, “An Evening with Sacheen Littlefeather.”The Academy described it as an event of “conversation, reflection, healing and celebration.” Ms. Littlefeather said in a statement that she was looking forward to the Native American performers and speakers at the event, including Calina Lawrence, a Suquamish singer, and Bird Runningwater, the co-chair of the Academy’s Indigenous Alliance, who is Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache.“It is profoundly heartening to see how much has changed since I did not accept the Academy Award 50 years ago,” she said. “I am so proud of each and every person who will appear onstage.” More

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      in Theater

      Chicago’s Victory Gardens Is Again Mired in Turmoil

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      The esteemed Chicago theater’s artistic director is out, and artists and his supporters are upset with the company’s board of directors.CHICAGO — Victory Gardens Theater, a vibrant fixture here since 1974, had long prided itself on being a champion of diversity while also bringing new works to its audiences. In 2001, it received the Tony Award for outstanding regional theater for its role in “contributing to the growth of theater nationally.” The theater was jolted in the wake of the social-justice movement of 2020, when its board triggered protests and the mass resignation of its affiliated playwrights by appointing its white executive director to become the artistic director as well — a decision that was not communicated with the theater’s artists. After an upheaval, the executive director resigned, along with the board president, and by the spring of 2021, Black leaders had been appointed to three key positions: Ken-Matt Martin was named artistic director, Roxanna Conner acting managing director and Charles E. Harris II president of the board.But now, a little more than two years after that rebellion, Victory Gardens Theater is in turmoil again. Last month the Victory Gardens board told the staff that Martin had been placed “on leave” — he said in a recent interview that he had been dismissed — and Conner said she would depart at the end of July.That has led to a new uproar. The playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza denounced what she described as the board’s “white supremacist capitalist patriarchal values” in a statement announcing that she had rescinded the rights to her play “Cullud Wattah,” about the Flint, Mich., water crisis, with nine days left in its run. Actors’ Equity intervened to ensure that the performers were paid for the canceled shows, saying in a statement: “It is deeply disheartening to see an organization that has very publicly wrestled with institutional racism in recent memory again be perceived as unable to support workers of color without whom Victory Gardens Theater could neither exist nor thrive.”Three resident theater companies that present work at Victory Gardens have pledged not to work there until the artists’ complaints are addressed. And the company’s resident directors and playwrights — a new ensemble brought in by Martin — have signed a petition announcing their departures from the organization and calling for “the immediate resignation of the Victory Gardens’ board of directors.”The theater’s remaining staff members took control of the theater’s Facebook and Twitter accounts in early July to post a statement: “We, the nine remaining full-time staffers of Victory Gardens, in solidarity with the resident artists, demand the immediate resignation of the board of directors and the reinstatement of Ken-Matt Martin as artistic director.”Harris, the board president, has declined to comment on any of these matters, referring to Martin’s situation as a personnel issue and releasing a statement on the board’s behalf.Ireon Roach, left, and Renée Lockett in the Victory Gardens Theater production of “Cullud Wattah,” which the playwright pulled from the theater.Liz Lauren“The Victory Gardens Theater board is grappling with the theater’s future, as are many other nonprofit theaters,” said the statement, which expressed regret over the resignation of the playwrights and the withdrawal of “Cullud Wattah,” and pledged that the perspectives of staff members had been heard. “We are committed to acting in the theater’s best interests in all matters.”During a recent video interview, Martin said he did not know why he was dismissed. “The board informed me that I was being released from my artistic director contract at Victory Gardens with cause,” he said, reading from a statement he later posted on his personal website. “I asked twice in the meeting what was the cause and was not given any.”He said he was asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement and give up all claims on future lawsuits. “I am declining the offer,” he said. “It is vitally important that I be able to speak truthfully about the needs of the artists and staff.”His removal was seen by his supporters as a betrayal, following what some saw as a lack of support for Martin and Conner. Victory Gardens has been without an executive director, the top job at the theater, since 2020, and though a search committee eventually interviewed candidates, the post remains vacant.“As somebody who has worked in the nonprofit sector for a long time and had a pretty close-up view of the relationships between boards and leadership and staffing structures, it seemed like operationally there were a lot of holes, and Ken-Matt and Roxanna were being relied on to plug all of them,” said Marisa Carr, whom Martin invited to join the playwrights’ ensemble in June 2021 and who resigned a year later. She cited creating the operating budget (a task an executive director would likely be involved in) and even cleaning the theater as duties that fell on their shoulders.Martin took the reins at Victory Gardens during the pandemic, and at a time when newly formed groups like “We See You, White American Theater,” a national coalition of theater artists, were demanding that antiracism and significant hiring of people of color become the industry standard. Martin supported such efforts, pushing for a pay equity plan at Victory Gardens.Just over a year later he has now joined a group of Black artistic leaders recently separated from the institutions they had been hired to lead. Elsewhere in Chicago, the House Theater closed its doors this summer after its new artistic director, Lanise Antoine Shelley, had presented just two shows; Jon Carr, the Second City executive producer, left his position in February after 14 months; and Regina Victor, artistic director of Sideshow Theater, resigned on July 20.Circumstances differ from case to case, and it remains unclear why Martin was let go, but some see a pattern, including Lili-Anne Brown, who directed the Victory Gardens production of “Cullud Wattah.” “Put a woman or person of color in charge but don’t support them at all and thereby push them off the glass cliff,” she said.Finances appear to be a flash point in this conflict, especially a proposed real estate deal. Victory Gardens occupies the historic Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park and also owns office space in an adjacent building. The board has been considering selling its office space so it can buy a former restaurant space located within the Biograph building with the aim of consolidating the theater’s real estate and possibly saving money over the long term. But Martin and others objected, saying that the purchase wasn’t supported by a broader plan or capital campaign, and that the money would be better used to repair the theater’s long-faulty heating and air conditioning system, among other needs.These disputes have alarmed theater professionals beyond the immediate Victory Gardens family. David Cromer, a theater director and Chicago native who is now based in New York, said he sent a concerned email to the board expressing his confusion and urging its members to resign “if you no longer wish to facilitate the creation of theater.”“Does a board owe legally an explanation for any of this?” Cromer said in a phone interview. “Probably not. But they have the stewardship of one of the foundational documents of Chicago theater, so what the hell? What answers have they presented?”The playwright Isaac Gomez, who posted the “We Resign” letter from the Victory Gardens playwrights’ ensemble and resident directors on his Medium page, said he has recruited 11 potential new board members while sending emails urging those currently serving to step down. One current member responded that the board intends to “stay the course,” Gomez said. Board members approached for this article referred all questions to Harris and the board’s statement.The board has maintained it is making decisions for the good of the theater, explaining in the statement that its members have “more than 100 years of experience with Victory Gardens, and we know well the delicate balance of managing the artistic well-being of the theater with our fiduciary responsibility.” It added: “We believe wholeheartedly in the powerful work of Victory Gardens Theater and are committed to finding a way to enable it to continue.”Could Victory Gardens survive if the board stays and Martin does not? “No,” Brown said. “I believe almost 2,000 people have signed that petition saying they won’t work there unless the board steps down and Ken-Matt is reinstated. So continue with what? Where are they even going to get the plays?”Dennis Zacek, who served as Victory Gardens’ first artistic director for 34 years, said he also is unsure about the theater’s future. “As far as I can tell, either the theater is going to be dissolved, or they’re going to have someone come to the negotiation table and find a way for these people to communicate with each other,” he said, endorsing the idea of Harris stepping down as board chairman. “It may not be enough, but come on, there must be some good people on that board. He may be a good person, too, but it’s on his watch.”David Kolen, an Actors’ Equity senior business representative who oversees contracts with Chicago theaters, said the union would support its members working in a reopened Victory Gardens Theater as long as it is “a safe and functional workplace.”As for Martin, he said that although he appreciates the unsolicited calls for him to be reinstated, he has decided “that I need to take a break from nonprofit theater administration and would not immediately return if asked.”The issue, he stressed, isn’t about him but the treatment of those who do creative work. “I am not a martyr,” Martin said. “I am not a victim. I am an artist and deserve to treated with respect.” More

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      Angel Blue Withdraws From Opera, Citing ‘Blackface’ in Netrebko’s ‘Aida’

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      The American soprano Angel Blue said she would not appear at the Arena di Verona after the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and other performers wore dark makeup in its production of “Aida.”A leading American soprano, Angel Blue, announced this week that she was withdrawing from her planned debut at the Arena di Verona in Italy to protest its use of “blackface makeup” in a production of Verdi’s “Aida” that starred the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.“The use of blackface under any circumstances, artistic or otherwise, is a deeply misguided practice based on archaic theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society,” Blue, a Black soprano with a growing international career, said in a statement on social media, adding that she would withdraw from her upcoming performances in “La Traviata,” another Verdi opera. “It is offensive, humiliating and outright racist. Full stop.”Many leading opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, have only recently stopped the practice of having white singers darken their skin with stage makeup to perform the title roles in “Aida” and “Otello,” long after minstrel shows, blackface roles and other types of performances that rely on makeup that echoes racist caricatures disappeared from many stages. But the practice is still common in parts of Europe and Russia, and Netrebko has been a vocal proponent of wearing dark makeup.In an interview on Friday, Blue said she was disturbed when she saw photos of the production, including some that showed dancers and singers in dark makeup, circulating on social media on Monday evening while she was in Paris for another performance.“I was shocked; I just felt really weird in my spirit,” she said. “I just felt like I couldn’t go and sing and associate myself with this tradition.”Netrebko, who is trying to rebuild her career after losing a number of engagements following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of her history of support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, posted photos on her Instagram this week showing her in extremely dark makeup and braids as she sang the role of Aida, an Ethiopian princess, in Verona.One of the photos the soprano Anna Netrebko shared on Instagram of the makeup she wore in a production of “Aida” at the Arena di Verona in Italy.Soon, Netrebko’s Instagram page was flooded with more than 1,000 comments, with many people denouncing her for using makeup that they said was racist and recalled blackface. She was not the only one in “Aida” who had darkened her skin: Some of her co-stars performed in the dark makeup, as did a different cast that appeared in the opera when it opened last month.A spokesman for Netrebko did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Netrebko has been a vocal defender of the practice, arguing that it helps maintain the authenticity of centuries-old works. When the Met tried to stop her from using makeup to darken her skin during a production of “Aida” in 2018, she went to a tanning salon instead. In 2019, appearing with dark makeup in a production of “Aida” at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, she wrote on Instagram, “Black Face and Black Body for Ethiopian princess, for Verdi greatest opera! YES!”The Arena di Verona noted in a statement that it had been performing this production of “Aida” for two decades, and that it was well known when Blue agreed to appear this summer.“Every country has different roots, and their cultural and social structures developed along different historical and cultural paths,” it said in a statement. “Sensibilities and approaches on the same subject might widely vary in different parts of the world.”It added: “We have no reason nor intent whatsoever to offend and disturb anyone’s sensibility.”While Netrebko has not addressed the recent controversy, her husband, the tenor Yusif Eyvazov, who also appeared in the production of “Aida” in Verona, lashed out at Blue. In a social media post, he called Blue’s decision “disgusting,” and questioned why she had not withdrawn last month when “Aida” opened, with a different cast that also used dark makeup. (That cast included the Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska as “Aida.”)Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, where Eyvazov is a regular performer, sent a letter to Eyvazov on Friday calling his remarks “hateful,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The New York Times.“There is no room at the Met for artists who are so meanspirited in their thinking,” Gelb wrote in the letter.Gelb, who cut ties with Netrebko this year because of her previous support for Putin, said in an interview that he had not yet decided whether he would penalize Eyvazov. “We’re considering what steps we might take,” he said.Blue said her decision was not personal, and that she was not targeting Netrebko or her husband.“My decision doesn’t have anything to do with them,” she said in the interview. “My decision has to do with my convictions,” she added, saying that she had felt moved to take a stand against “something that is hurtful to people who look like me.”Blue said she hoped that more opera houses would eliminate blackface as they work to bring diversity to the stage.“In order to keep opera relevant in today’s society, there’s no place for blackface,” she said. “I felt hurt by what I saw because I feel like that’s a tradition that they’re trying to hold onto that hurts people.”Eyvazov’s manager said he was unavailable for comment on Friday.The decision by Blue, who has become a favorite at the Met Opera in recent seasons and who appeared this summer at the Paris Opera in Gounod’s “Faust,” was praised by many fellow singers and American opera executives.The revival of “Aida” in Verona is among Netrebko’s first staged opera engagements since her return to performing in late April as she tried to repair her career after being shunned in the United States and parts of Europe for her ties to Putin. 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      Lizzo Changes “Grrrls” Lyric After Outcry

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      The song “Grrrls” was released Friday and updated Monday to remove a derogatory term for people with disabilities, which she said she did not use with an intent to offend.Lizzo, a Grammy-winning singer and rapper seen by many fans as a champion of inclusivity, changed a lyric on a new song within days of its release after it was criticized for containing a word considered derogatory toward people with disabilities.In the original version of the song “Grrrls” released on Friday, Lizzo used the word “spaz” to indicate that she was going to lose control. The word is based on spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy, a condition that causes motor impairments in the legs or arms.Fans and disability advocates called on Lizzo to change what they called an ableist slur, a word seen as particularly harmful in some countries where it has a history of being used as a schoolhouse taunt.By Monday, the major music streaming services had substituted the original version of the song with one that replaces the line with “Hold me back.” In a statement posted to Instagram on Monday, Lizzo said she understood the effects of harmful language, whether intentional or unintentional, because “As a fat black woman in America, I’ve had many hurtful words used against me.”“Let me make one thing clear: I never want to promote derogatory language,” she said, later adding: “This is the result of me listening and taking action.”For Lizzo, who enjoys a warm public persona and produces upbeat, feel-good music that promotes self-acceptance, the lyric struck fans as particularly off-brand. The criticism began almost immediately after the song, the latest single from her upcoming album, “Special,” was released on Friday.Inside Lizzo’s WorldThe Grammy-winning singer is known for her fierce lyrics, fashion and personality.‘Big Grrrls’: The singer wanted a new kind of backup dancer. In her pursuit of proper representation, she created a TV show.‘Feel-Good Music’: Lizzo says her music is as much about building yourself up as it is about accepting where you are.Why ‘Truth Hurts’ Matters: In 2020, The New York Times Magazine put her No. 1 hit on its list of songs that define the moment.Diary of a Song: Watch how Lizzo made “Juice,” a party song that packs all of her joy and charm into three danceable minutes.But the swift removal satisfied many of the fans and activists who had criticized her, believing it to be an example of someone listening, learning and acting on new information.Hannah Diviney, a disability advocate in Australia and self-proclaimed Lizzo fan, said in an interview that hearing the word in the original version “made me feel really uncomfortable.” For her, spasticity refers to an “unending, constant, painful tightness in my legs and other parts of my body,” making her life “very difficult and is not something I can control.”But she was “blown away” by Lizzo’s rapid reversal, she said. Instead of being defensive, the rapper took action once she heard the criticism, making her “a real genuine ally because she’s willing to learn.”“I’m really glad that Lizzo changing it has led to lots of people learning that it’s a slur,” Ms. Diviney said. “And while I obviously would have preferred she didn’t use it in the first place, I’m glad it became something of a teachable moment. That’s probably the best outcome.”After one of her tweets was reshared more than a thousand times, Ms. Diviney learned that it may not be as clear to some Americans as to people in other countries why the word is considered ableist, she said.Warren Kirwan, a spokesman for Scope, a group in Britain that campaigns for equality for people with disabilities, said the term has been “quite a common term of abuse for disabled people for the better part of 30 years in the U.K.” In 1994, the organization changed its name from The Spastic Society to Scope to avoid association with the slur.The differing cultural contexts may help explain why Lizzo, an American, used the term, even if it doesn’t excuse it, he said. But Lizzo handled the situation well once she learned more about the word, he said.“It was in her power to own that mistake and change it, and well done for doing that,” Mr. Kirwan said.Other musicians have made the same mistake. Kanye West was criticized for using the word in a 2015 song “FourFiveSeconds,” a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Rihanna. And in 2014, Weird Al Yankovic said he was “deeply sorry” for including a related word in his song “Word Crimes,” saying he didn’t know it was considered offensive. More

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      in Theater

      New 42 Worker Files Bias Lawsuit Over Diversity Training

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      A white teaching artist at the theater organization says it discriminated against white people. The nonprofit declined to comment.A contract worker at a nonprofit New York theater organization has filed a lawsuit saying that the institution’s diversity trainings were themselves discriminatory.Kevin Ray, a part-time teaching artist at New 42, an organization that runs rehearsal studios, youth programs and a children’s theater in Times Square, filed the lawsuit late Wednesday in Federal District Court, accusing the organization of discriminating against white employees. He is asking the court to determine that New 42 violated the federal civil rights act as well as local human rights laws, and to award him an unspecified amount of damages.In the lawsuit, Ray, who is white, alleged that the diversity programs implemented by New 42 included “racially-discriminatory propaganda and lectures promoting discriminatory ideology on the basis of race.” Ray said he was asked to join a conversation about a “white affinity group” at New 42, and said the organization had designated a “white-identifying breakout room” at an online town hall.“In reality, ‘diversity training sessions’ were race-based indoctrination sessions that promoted the division of employees on the basis of race,” the lawsuit says.Ray’s job involves visiting schools for educational programs, usually related to a show the students are about to see. He claims that he has been assigned less work and has been subjected to retaliation after raising concerns about the organization’s diversity training programs.The lawsuit comes at a time when the use of antiracism training programs and the creation or expansion of diversity initiatives has grown significantly in the theater industry, as in many other sectors of society, following the unrest over racism in the United States in the summer of 2020.The lawsuit is being backed by an organization called the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, which says it is concerned about a “cynical and intolerant orthodoxy” that “pits us against one another, and diminishes what it means to be human.” The organization, founded by Bion Bartning, has filed other lawsuits challenging what it says are forms of discriminatory overreach by organizations trying to implement diversity programs; the Ray suit is the organization’s first in the arts arena, but it has begun an arts program as it considers other action.A lawyer for New 42, David Lichtenberg, said via a spokeswoman that the nonprofit had “no comment at this time.” More

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      Hitting the Right Notes When Setting History to Song

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      In the wake of “Hamilton”-mania, critics, creators and historians debate how stage musicals since balance the complexities of the past and the politics of the present. A lot of history is happening in American musical theater right now. (Sorry, last “Hamilton” joke, we promise.) On Broadway, “Paradise Square,” which was just nominated for 10 Tony Awards, tells the story of a mixed Irish and Black community in Lower Manhattan in the 1860s that’s torn apart by the Civil War draft riots. Downtown, at the Public Theater, the sold-out “Suffs” depicts the women’s suffrage movement in the years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment.And coming to Broadway in September (now in previews in Cambridge, Mass.), Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page’s revival of “1776” revisits the debate over the Declaration of Independence, with a cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors as the founding “fathers.”This is American history with a capital H — shows that aim to illuminate who we are, who we were, who we want to be. Those questions have only gotten more complicated in the years since 2015, when “Hamilton” took the culture by storm. We’ve been through two elections (and an insurrection), a pandemic, and a broad reckoning on race and racism, including in American theater. All this has changed how we see — and stage — the past.We asked The New York Times critics Jesse Green and Maya Phillips to discuss the phenomenon alongside Paulus, a 2013 Tony winner; Claire Bond Potter, a professor of history at the New School and co-editor of the essay collection “Historians on Hamilton”; and Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a professor of history at Rutgers University and a co-executive producer of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” Jennifer Schuessler, who covers intellectual life for the Times (and wrote about the creation of “Suffs”), led the conversation. Edited excerpts follow.During its development, “Suffs” came to explore how Black women were marginalized in the movement for women’s suffrage.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJENNIFER SCHUESSLER What strikes you all about the ways American history is being depicted and invoked onstage right now? Is something new happening?JESSE GREEN Theater, particularly musical theater, has often abetted the distortion and flat-out erasure of inconvenient histories. Now it’s trying to do a better job. That’s a good thing. But you can’t fix the past with broken shows. History may be dramatic but it isn’t necessarily theatrical — and that’s the pitfall. How do you make facts sing?MAYA PHILLIPS There is built-in tension: does one prioritize the narrative of the past or the politics of the present? I’m not saying these necessarily have to be in opposition, but it’s a delicate balance. You don’t want a show with a story that feels squeezed into the frame of our present in a way that’s too obvious or didactic, which was a problem with both “Suffs” and “Paradise Square.”DIANE PAULUS Artists, especially right now, are interested in shifting the gaze — looking to tell stories that need to be told, stories that have not had their due. I also think producers, and we can’t forget that it is the producers who determine what gets on stage, are looking to play their role in how to expand the stories that audiences are exposed to.SCHUESSLER OK, historians: Do you see this as an exciting moment? A frustrating one?CLARE BOND POTTER I think Americans are hungrier for historical explanations, in part because so many historically unprecedented things have occurred in the past 15 years. The first Black president, and the failure to elect the first woman president — twice! Then the Trump presidency, which exploded the idea of what politics is. Americans are digging into the past to find answers for questions about why politics seems to be both producing radically new dynamics — and reproducing old ones.ERICA ARMSTRONG DUNBAR It’s more than political — it’s creative and it responds to the feelings and needs of the public. It reminds me of the moment that [the television mini-series] “Roots” first aired, in 1977. The history wasn’t perfect, and it was overdramatized, but it was new and important and people, Black people in particular, were immediately invested in this new kind of storytelling. The same thing is happening with musical theater.GREEN The opportunities are huge and the stakes are high; popular history has a way of replacing the real kind. (Check out “The King and I,” a gorgeously crafted and hugely influential show that’s almost completely untrue.) Which is why representation is so important. Erica, you work on “The Gilded Age,” which I feel sure is providing, for white people anyway, the first we’ve really heard about the Black middle class of that era, a story somehow omitted from our education and consciousness. But I think you’re saying that it’s not just about “fixing” history but also about artists finding stories that compel them.DUNBAR Exactly! I don’t think any of us go to the theater for a history lesson. We want to be entertained, we want to fall in love, be angry, and learn a bit if we can.SCHUESSLER Wow, a historian saying we don’t go to the theater for a history lesson — you’re really playing against type, Erica!Diane, what you would say from the perspective of an artist? What appealed to you about reviving “1776” — a very familiar history with a very familiar set of (white, male) characters. And how do you see the show as speaking to the present?Crystal Lucas-Perry, center, as John Adams with castmates in a new revival of the musical “1776” that features women, trans and nonbinary actors.Evan Zimmerman for Murphy MadePAULUS I really agree that audiences are interested in looking back to our history to understand the present moment. The theater is uniquely positioned to do this in a way that taps into our imaginations, into empathy, and what I love about the theater is that it can only happen in the presence of an audience. In “1776,” I have been excited to build this production with my co-director and choreographer, Jeffrey L. Page, in a way that actively poses questions to the audience: How can we hold history as a predicament, versus an affirming myth?SCHUESSLER Can you say a little bit about your and Jeffrey’s broader intentions in doing this show with a diverse cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors? Why is that gender-flip interesting to you?PAULUS When taking on a revival, I am always interested in how to make the production speak to a contemporary audience, while respecting the authors’ original intentions. “1776” was written in the late ’60s, during the civil rights movement and at the height of the Vietnam War. There is a critique of our country built into the bones of this musical. Our casting bridges the realities of the past and the present, from who was excluded from Independence Hall to an aspirational vision of an inclusive society.The “1776” revival is co-directed by Diane Paulus, right, and Jeffrey L. Page, who is also the show’s choreographer.Matthew MurphySCHUESSLER This brings up the question of how to balance the historical record with the needs of the present. It’s different with a show like “1776,” where everyone already knows the basic story, versus shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square,” where many people will not know the history at all. How should shows confront the ugliest, messiest realities of the past, versus giving us a more uplifting version?POTTER It’s important to emphasize that theater — go back to Shakespeare — has never been historically accurate. It always speaks to questions of the moment. But when we say stories are not well known, I would say the story of the Draft Riots is well known to Black Americans. And the depiction in “Paradise Square” — which ends with a multiracial community coming back together — is emphatically not what occurred. True, “Paradise Square” also presents this moment as a “future yet to be realized” — a turning point where people have choices, and that is an important story to tell about racial division in this country. But Kaitlyn Greenidge’s recent novel “Libertie” frames this event differently, as a 19th century 9/11, where Black New Yorkers flee to Brooklyn, traumatized and covered with ash, and are taken in by the Black residents of Weeksville. Greenidge’s account is also fiction, but better history, in that it conveys what a catastrophe this was for African Americans in New York City.SCHUESSLER Erica, your scholarship has been about free Black women in the urban North before the Civil War. What do you think about the history in “Paradise Square”?Joaquina Kalukango, center, plays a bar owner with a key role in “Paradise Square,” a storytelling choice one historian praises as “powerful.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDUNBAR I think “Paradise Square” attempted to tell the story of trauma and resistance, and strength within the context of 19th century history. Was it completely accurate? Probably not, and I’m not sure that any show always gets the history right. But once again, it’s about more than facts and figures. It’s about moving people into the center of narratives who have never been there for the public to see. To center a story about the draft riots around a Black woman is fresh, and powerful.PAULUS I completely agree, Erica. In “1776,” some of the most moving parts of the musical are the scenes with the courier — not a founding father. Franklin, Jefferson and Adams are the famous historical characters. The courier, who delivers the dispatches from the battlefield to the Continental Congress, is literally nameless. But this character, who has the least power in the room, gets one of the most powerful songs — “Momma, Look Sharp.”SCHUESSLER Jesse, you were less than enthusiastic about “Paradise Square.” And Maya, I gather you felt similarly. How well do you think that recentering worked?GREEN As an approach, I’m all for what we’re calling recentering. The problem with “Paradise Square” isn’t the perspective from which it is told, but that in attempting to pile the whole history of a community (even the made-up parts) onto a few fictional figures who represent elements of the conflict, the authors created stick people who couldn’t bear the burden. This leaves you with the false impression, as musicals by nature tend to, that there’s one hero and one villain. Only because Joaquina Kalukango was so phenomenal in the leading role was anything richer conveyed. There’s history, and then there’s craft.PHILLIPS Well-put, Jesse. The question of scope is always a tricky one to navigate in these history shows — how large is our lens? In my review of “Suffs,” I argued that a show can’t be everything to everyone; an attempt to do that will end up sacrificing story and character.SCHUESSLER “Suffs” drew a lot of comparisons with “Hamilton,” but there was something fundamentally different about it, starting with its title. It was about a movement, not an individual — which may be truer to history, but also a lot harder to dramatize. Claire, what did you think of how “Suffs” handled the history?POTTER Much like “Hamilton,” “Suffs” tended to reduce both the successes and the flaws of the campaign for the 19th amendment to the personality of one person, Alice Paul. And while I appreciated the elevation of Paul, Ida B. Wells, and others to the status of male “founders,” the risk is simply refocusing on personalities rather than some of the movement’s broader themes: for example, its racist dynamics, tactical differences and generational divides.I also want to speak to Jesse’s point about the reductionism of “Paradise Square.” He’s right, but then the musical also, in a way, addresses the question of contemporary populism: are poor white people entirely to blame when they lash out at women, people of color and the state? How are anti-democratic dynamics promoted and provoked by others — in the case of “Paradise Square,” a Copperhead politician [as those northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and supported a negotiated peace with the South were called]?SCHUESSLER Suggesting the draft riots (or the Civil War itself!) were driven mainly by the machinations of elite capital is … a strange interpretation. But I think it also connects with the show’s efforts to resonate with today’s politics (and the way people view America’s recent wars). More broadly, do these shows fall into a trap of trying to provide a comfortable, “relatable” place for the audience (especially the white audience)? That was one of the criticisms of “Hamilton” from historians, including some who were huge fans: that by exaggerating (some might say inventing) his credentials as an abolitionist, the show gave us a founding father it was “safe” to like.GREEN The audience can handle the dissonance! It’s white authors’ comfort that seems to be at stake. They come off as terrified of failing to check off every box on the sensitivity list. That’s no way to make a musical.SCHUESSLER When I interviewed the creators of “Suffs,” they talked about how the events of 2020 — the George Floyd protests, and the roiling conversation around the We See You White American Theater letter — prompted a big conversation among the company. They ended up expanding the role of Ida B. Wells, along with other changes. Diane, was there a similar conversation among the “1776” team?PAULUS The process of making theater feels very different to me now. We are centering antiracism as a core value, we make community agreements as a collective across the entire company for how we want to exist together. All of this is a process we are learning from every day.SCHUESSLER Erica, you started working on “The Gilded Age” back in 2019. How has the summer of 2020 affected things?Louisa Jacobson and Denee Benton, right, in the HBO series “The Gilded Age,” which includes a storyline about the Black middle class.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBODUNBAR I’d like to circle back quickly to Jesse’s comment. Jesse mentioned “terrified white authors” or something like that — and how fear has pushed creatives to think more about sensitivity. Well, fear can be a great motivator! And sometimes, it’s for the best. When I began consulting with “The Gilded Age” I was working with an entirely white creative team. A great team, but entirely white and male. There must be diversity in the creative process to produce authentic and powerful entertainment. While there were conversations before the summer of 2020, I believe that moment moved the needle. While I am infuriated that it takes the murder of Black people to move the needle, well, that’s what happened. Because of the changes and additions, we produced a better show.POTTER I’d like to return to the topic of flattering the audience: It is something theater producers must do, to some extent, and it’s something good historians can’t do — and look at the outcomes when we don’t! The massive attack on the 1619 Project is in part a massive refusal of a past that challenges both progressive and patriotic narratives held dear by many white Americans.What even flawed shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square” can do, much like historical fiction, is get people interested enough to do their own research and reading. History is a series of choices. People are self-interested, stubborn, brilliant, irritating — they don’t always make the right ones. And that is an important historical dynamic to understand.GREEN True sensitivity comes from deep knowledge and empathy. It welcomes the audience to accept complexity so that characters aren’t just saints or signposts. I’m thinking especially of Arthur Scott, the hard-to-like father of the Black heroine in “The Gilded Age.” What I find unhelpful is signaling one’s sensitivity so vividly that it’s the only thing the audience can see. In a way it defeats the purpose of recentering the narrative.DUNBAR Ultimately, this is about authentic storytelling (which if it’s a period piece must rely on accurate history). When done correctly, it doesn’t feel two-dimensional and we are able to see the complexity of characters.SCHUESSLER I wonder if this isn’t easier in long-form television, or even in straight plays, than in musicals. Maya, you mentioned the other day that you thought “Wedding Band,” the new (old!) play by Alice Childress that recently ended a run in New York, may be a better depiction of history than some of these capital-H History shows. Can you say more?PHILLIPS Writing in the early 1960s, Childress uses a few fictional relationships to tell the story of race in America at the time. It’s an interracial love story that takes place in 1918 South Carolina, and we find Black people — especially Black women — of different means and situations. It’s not just about the rift between whites and Blacks but also the class divides among Blacks. The play isn’t trying to be a history lesson; history is simply happening in and around the story and the characters. And the play doesn’t need to prove to us that it’s relevant. We can read our present racial politics into it.SCHUESSLER “History is happening around the story”: I love that. We talk about “living through history” when something big happens, but we’re always living through history.Maya’s recommendation of “Wedding Band” leads me to ask all of you to speak to a moment of dramatized history — either a show/movie/whatever — that you really loved?POTTER I am practically the only person I know who is digging Showtime’s “The First Lady.”SCHUESSLER OMG! You are canceled.DUNBAR Ha!POTTER I know! But I think it demonstrates the limits and possibilities of gender at different moments in time, but also the ways that First Ladies stretched the limits of what it meant to be a woman in politics at each moment.DUNBAR I’m going to be very liberal with the term dramatized history — meaning history is something that happened yesterday. Sooo …. I think one of the most incredible shows on television right now is “Atlanta.” While it is a show that takes place today (or for this answer, yesterday) it is fresh, brave, and really creative in the ways that it engages everyday life for Black people.PAULUS I recently rewatched [the 2018 film] “The Favourite,” which I think did a brilliant job of taking Queen Anne’s reign and making that history feel raw and immediate. For more recent “history,” I thought [the Hulu mini-series] “Dopesick” was devastating in its examination of the opioid crisis.GREEN The musical that best reframed history for modern audiences this season was “Six” — the “Tudors Got Talent” competition about the women who were married to Henry VIII. The facts were right enough, the characters were hilariously contemporized and, perhaps most important, the tunes were catchy. A song always cuts deeper than a sermon. More

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      Susan Nussbaum, 68, Who Pressed for Disability Rights in Her Plays, Dies

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      In a wheelchair after being hit by a car in her 20s, she became an advocate for people with disabilities in her writing for the stage and as a novelist.Susan Nussbaum, a playwright and novelist whose work reflected her concern for the rights of people with disabilities, died on April 28 at her home in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. She was 68.Her sister, Karen Nussbaum, said the cause was complications of pneumonia.Ms. Nussbaum began using a wheelchair after being hit by a car at age 24 and soon became an integral part of Chicago’s burgeoning disability-rights scene.Incensed by a lack of accessibility in the city for theater people with disabilities, she wrote her own plays, starring herself and other disabled actors.“If the dominant culture was saturated with backward concepts of who we were, I would answer back with my own collection of disabled characters,” she wrote in a 2012 essay published in The Huffington Post.Ms. Nussbaum began her playwriting career with “Staring Back,” which was performed on the Second City’s E.T.C. stage in 1983. She then collaborated with Mike Ervin, a disability activist who writes a column for Progressive.org, on a series of satirical sketches about disability. Titled “The Plucky and Spunky Show,” it was presented at the Remains Theater.The first reading of her acerbic comic play “Mishuganismo” was in 1992 in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune, in an article about that reading, called it “a mad-sad-glad whirl of politics, activism, love, need, sex and other items.”Directed by her father, Mike Nussbaum, an actor, and based on her own letters, the play took its title from a term that one of Ms. Nussbaum’s friends coined, meaning “a syndrome when a Jewish woman goes crazy for a Latin guy.” The play was later published in the 1997 anthology “Staring Back: The Disability Experience From the Inside Out.”Her last major play, “No One as Nasty,” which documented the relationship between a disabled woman and her paid caretaker, was performed in 2000 at the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.As a member of the Chicago-based disability rights organization Access Living, Ms. Nussbaum campaigned to make theaters more accessible to wheelchair users and participated in other protests, including efforts to make public transit in the city accessible.After decades of work in theater, she turned to fiction. Her novel “Good Kings Bad Kings,” which follows workers and residents in a Chicago care institution for people with disabilities, earned acclaim for its candor and sensitivity and won the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.The book’s title came from reporting in The New York Times about Jonathan Carey, an autistic boy who was killed by an employee of the Oswald D. Heck Developmental Center, near Albany, where Jonathan was living. “I could be a good king or a bad king,” the man told the boy as he asphyxiated him, according to court documents.That line stuck with Ms. Nussbaum, she said in a 2013 interview with the website Bitch Media. “It became the title because it reminded me how, when it comes to kids, the adults have all the power. And when the adult in question has no emotional connection to the child, and the child’s welfare is turned over to that adult — as is the case in institutions — terrible things can happen.”She continued: “The disabled characters we’re presented with usually fit one or more of the following stereotypes: victim, villain, saint, monster. The fate of the disabled character is usually miraculous cure, death or institutionalization.”In writing the novel, as in her other work, Ms. Nussbaum said, “It was really important to me to give disabled characters — more than one — their own voices, and the agency to represent themselves and their own perspective on what happens.”Susan Ruth Nussbaum was born on Dec. 2, 1953, in Chicago to Mike and Annette (Brenner) Nussbaum. Her mother worked in public relations. She grew up in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, and attended Highland Park High School, graduating in 1972.Interested in theater from a young age after running lines with her father, she began writing plays in high school. After graduating, she took drama classes at the Goodman School of Drama (now The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago.She was on her way to an acting class when she was struck by a car. She spent seven months in the hospital.She then navigated through life as a wheelchair user, becoming angry at the lack of accessibility. At one job, as she recounted in a 2013 Psychology Today article, the workplace did not have accessible bathrooms. Finding no ramps on public transportation, she and other wheelchair users began taking an ambulance to and from work. These experiences galvanized her to join Access Living and begin writing plays.Her activism extended outside Chicago as well. A longtime leftist, Ms. Nussbaum visited Nicaragua and Cuba as a member of coalitions on disability rights. Later in life she founded Empowered Fe Fes, a Chicago organization for disabled young women seeking to explore their sexuality.In addition to her sister, she is survived by her father; a brother, Jacob Nussbaum; and a daughter, Taina Rodriguez. More