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    Colman Domingo’s Nat King Cole Play Explores the “Psychology of an Artist’

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    In November 1956, Nat King Cole was given his own variety show on NBC. It drew major guest stars and got good ratings, but was abandoned just over a year later because it couldn’t secure a single national sponsor; brands were too nervous about boycotts from racist viewers.“Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark,” Cole observed at the time.He couldn’t have been too shocked. Cole may have been one of the biggest pop stars of his time, charting 86 singles and 17 albums in the Top 40, but he was, after all, the first Black man to host a nationally broadcast program. (He referred to himself as “the Jackie Robinson of television.”) In 1948, when he moved into Los Angeles’s all-white Hancock Park neighborhood, a cross was burned on his lawn. A few months before the TV show debuted, Ku Klux Klansmen attacked him onstage at his concert in Birmingham, Ala., shoving him off his piano bench.Daniel J. Watts, left, as Sammy Davis Jr., and Dulé Hill as Nat King Cole in the show “Lights Out: Nat ‘King’ Cole” at New York Theater Workshop.Marc J. FranklinThose experiences and the story of the final episode of “The Nat ‘King’ Cole Show” in December 1957 is now the focus of “Lights Out: Nat ‘King’ Cole,” which is running through June 29 at New York Theater Workshop. Written by Colman Domingo, an Academy Award nominee for “Rustin” and “Sing Sing,” and Patricia McGregor, the theater’s artistic director and the show’s director, the play had a long gestation period, premiering in Philadelphia in 2017. It also had a Los Angeles run in 2019.Domingo described “Lights Out,” which stars Dulé Hill as Cole, as a “dark night of the soul” that explores “the psychology of an artist.”Though today he’s best known for his recording of the holiday perennial “The Christmas Song” and for his daughter Natalie’s technology-assisted duet with him, “Unforgettable” (from her Grammy-winning album of songs associated with her father), Cole was an astonishing talent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole’ Review: Dimming a Great Talent

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      Dulé Hill stars as the silky crooner in a play about the last broadcast of his variety show, in 1957.When Nat King Cole performed “The Party’s Over” on his NBC variety show, he did it with a smile, as he seemed to do everything. But the song bitterly resonated on that particular broadcast, Cole’s final outing as a host, having quit after just over a year’s worth of struggles finding national advertisers. “It’s time to wind up / The masquerade,” he sang. “Just make your mind up / The piper must be paid.”Written by Colman Domingo and Patricia McGregor, the formally ambitious, if muddled, “Lights Out: Nat ‘King’ Cole” takes place on that fateful Dec. 17, 1957, when the pianist and singer said goodbye to his audience. (Note that Domingo, who is famous as an actor these days, does not appear in the show.)The framing device is not unlike that of “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which is also set in a TV studio, and both shows look at a momentous taping as a mode of resistance against America’s powers-that-be. But “Lights Out” takes a very different tack from the George Clooney and Grant Heslov play’s straightforward embrace of docu-like similitude .“Some of you thought you were going to get a nice and easy holiday show,” Sammy Davis Jr. (Daniel J. Watts) informs the audiences of both the television studio and New York Theater Workshop, where the production is running. “No! Welcome to the fever dream.” The musical unfurls in the minutes before Cole (Dulé Hill) is supposed to go on the air.Time dilates and contracts; guests and family members pop up; conversations are interspersed with musical standards. Davis, who had actually guest-starred on Cole’s show a few months earlier, is ever-present here as a flamboyantly extroverted jester who might represent the id of the more restrained (at least publicly) Cole. The pinnacle of McGregor’s production is a fiery tap number, choreographed by Jared Grimes, between the two men that lands halfway between duet and battle, and is set to “Me and My Shadow.”Juxtaposing an irrepressible scratcher of itches and a debonair charmer as two forces of Black creativity, which the white establishment tried to contain in safe, acceptable boxes, is the show’s best idea. Hill gives it life with a complex, layered performance as Cole, who is revealed to be channeling his anger and frustrations into a smooth, urbane exterior — a review of his show’s premiere in The New York Times described him as having “an amiable personality that comes across engagingly on the television screen.” (Both Hill and Watts were in the “Lights Out” premiere in 2017, with the People’s Light company in Malvern, Penn.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      13 Off Broadway Shows to See in May

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      Hugh Jackman in “Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes” and Maya Hawke in the title role of “Eurydice” — here’s what’s on New York stages this month.‘Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes’ / ‘Creditors’Together, a new company founded by Hugh Jackman and the producer Sonia Friedman, kicks off with two plays presented in repertory at the Minetta Lane Theater, in collaboration with Audible. Jackman himself stars in Hannah Moscovitch’s “Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes” alongside Ella Beatty — and when was the last time we saw him in such an intimate space? Starting May 10, the show will alternate with a new adaptation of August Strindberg’s “Creditors” by Jen Silverman (“The Roommate”), starring Liev Schreiber, Maggie Siff and Justice Smith. Both productions are directed by Ian Rickson. (Through June 18, Minetta Lane Theater)‘Goddess’Michael Thurber and Saheem Ali’s new musical, with additional book material by James Ijames, is set in a nightclub in Mombasa, Kenya. Ali directs at the Public Theater, where he staged Ijames’s hit play “Fat Ham” before it transferred to Broadway. Amber Iman (“Lempicka”) plays Nadira, a singer who actually is the title deity, Marimba, the ruler of music. (Through June 8, Public Theater)‘Bowl EP’Skating? Been there, done that onstage, from “Starlight Express” to “Kimberly Akimbo.” Skateboarding is a much rarer beast. Now the Vineyard Theater is getting an in-the-round makeover to accommodate Nazareth Hassan’s new play about hip-hop and the culture that gave us ollies and airwalks. A co-production with National Black Theater in association with the New Group. (Through June 8, Vineyard Theater)‘Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole’Daniel J. Watts, left, and Dulé Hill in “Lights Out: Nat ‘King’ Cole.”Marc J. FranklinYou can’t blame Colman Domingo (“Rustin,” “Sing Sing”) for focusing on acting these past few years — he’s getting the recognition and roles he’s long deserved. Still, it’s nice to see him return to playwriting, in collaboration with Patricia McGregor (who also directed). The story — enhanced with musical numbers — takes place in 1957, on the last night of the TV show hosted by the silky voiced Nat “King” Cole (Dulé Hill). He has just quit after enduring constant bigotry and pressure from the network and national advertisers, and has a lot on his mind. Daniel J. Watts also stars as Sammy Davis Jr. (Through June 29, New York Theater Workshop)‘The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse’The title of this new musical by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley (“Circle Jerk”) is a reference to a New York Post headline from 2006 about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. The show imagines that the unholy trinity actually was a quartet — but whatever happened to the last member? An internet sleuth is played by Milly Shapiro, herself one of the four little girls who won Tony Honors for Excellence in Theater in 2013 when they alternated in the lead role of “Matilda the Musical.” (Through June 8; The New Group)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Four Seasons’ Review: Tepid Trouble in Middle-Aged Paradise

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      In this Netflix series created by Tina Fey, among others, old friends contend with the fallout from a surprising breakup.“The Four Seasons” follows three couples on four vacations, two episodes per trip. Everyone is thinking about his or her middle-aged ennui and the routines — ruts? — of marriage, what companionship and friendship and sex look like in this chapter and the next.The show is based on a 1981 movie with the same premise, written and directed by Alan Alda, who also starred. (He has a brief cameo here.) This Netflix version was created by Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, with Fey and Will Forte as Kate and Jack, the roles played originally by Carol Burnett and Alda. Their friend group is filled out by Steve Carell, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani, and the series’s plot is similar but not identical to that of the movie. The biggest change is that the prickly, talky humor and depth have been sanded down into mild, featherweight Netflix chow.“The Four Seasons,” which arrived on Thursday, is pleasant enough, but it never shakes the fact that most people would rather listen to the cast than the characters. Such talent; such humor; such icons! Anyway, here’s a show where all of those lights are under a bushel basket.In the first outing, everyone is at a lake house for the 25th wedding anniversary of Anne and Nick (Kenney-Silver and Carell). After a night of toasting one another and congratulating themselves on finding their soul mates, Nick shocks the guys by telling them that he plans to leave Anne. He isn’t happy, and she’s too stagnant.Every marriage goes through phases when the spouses feel more like roommates than romantic partners, Jack says.“I wish we were roommates,” Nick says. “Roommates hang out together. There’s porn about roommates. We’re like co-workers at a nuclear facility: We sit in the same room all night monitoring different screens.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      The Stylish Celebrities Who Ruled the Red Carpet This Awards Season: Cynthia Erivo, Timothée Chalamet and More

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      If fashion is a game, they were playing to win.The ultimate honor during awards season is to take home a statue. But the glut of ceremonies and related events between January and March has long offered celebrities another way to distinguish themselves: by their clothing choices.For A-listers, red carpets are as much a venue for self expression as they are an arena for landing brand deals, invitations to fashion weeks and the covers of not-yet-extinct print magazines. For viewers, they can offer a peek at the trends of tomorrow. And for many people, whether they are walking or watching, red carpets are also just a lot of fun.The eight stars on this list seemed to have a firm grasp of all of those points, based on the ways they navigated the many red carpets that they graced. Some used the carpets to play muse to particular designers, while others used them to challenge beauty stigmas. All, needless to say, turned countless heads while doing it.Zoe SaldañaMore looks →In Saint Laurent at the Academy Awards in March.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesIn Saint Laurent at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in March.Danny Moloshok/ReutersIn Saint Laurent at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Saint Laurent at the EE British Academy Film Awards in February.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockIn Saint Laurent at the Golden Globes in January.Caroline Brehman/EPA, via ShutterstockThe “Emilia Pérez” actress received a staggering amount of trophies, winning best supporting actress awards at the the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the British Academy Film Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Academy Awards. She had an equally strong style showing: Ms. Saldaña, who has worked with the stylist Petra Flannery, wore a number of layered, ruffled and sculptural creations by Saint Laurent, whose top designer, Anthony Vaccarello, was among the “Emilia Pérez” producers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For Stars at the Oscars, a Night of Celebration and Selfies

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      The Academy Awards can be a fraught affair. When many of the world’s biggest stars gather to be validated for their artistry, the tension of parsing the winners from non-winners (not losers!) threatens to stultify the whole thing. But at Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony — where “Anora” (and Sean Baker) won big, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande belted big-hearted songs, and Adrien Brody kissed and was kissed — our photographer caught the stars in unguarded moments of joyful support and celebration throughout the night.Cynthia Erivo, whose rousing duet with Ariana Grande, “Defying Gravity,” opened the ceremony, waved to a familiar face in the Dolby Theater.Rumer Willis and Demi Moore, in the foreground, and Penélope Cruz and Lupita Nyong’o, middle, chatting as Isabella Rossellini looks on.Colman Domingo, with his husband, Raul Domingo, taking a selfie. Ariana Grande, left, enjoyed a moment with her “Wicked” co-star Bowen Yang, center, and Matt Rogers, who co-hosts “Las Culturistas,” a podcast, with Yang.Jeremy Strong, nominated for best supporting actor for his role in “The Apprentice,” was saluted in a speech by his “Succession” co-star Kieran Culkin, who won the award.Mikey Madison celebrated winning the award for best actress for her role in “Anora.” “This is a dream come true,” she said. “I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow.”The nominees for best actor — from left: Timothée Chalamet, Colman Domingo, Adrien Brody, Ralph Fiennes and Sebastian Stan — huddled for an impromptu photo shoot.Emma Stone, last year’s best actress winner for “Poor Things,” poked her tongue at a neighbor.Margaret Qualley embraced her husband, the music producer Jack Antonoff, during a break in the show.Adrien Brody kissed Daniel Blumberg for winning best original score for “The Brutalist.” On the red carpet before the show, Brody had been surprised by a kiss from Halle Berry, who recreated their smooch at the 2003 Oscars.Sean Baker made history Sunday night, tying Walt Disney for most individual Oscars collected in one night, with four. His film “Anora” won five, including best picture.Fernanda Torres, a best actress nominee for “I’m Still Here,” connected with Colman Domingo. She was the second Brazilian to ever receive a best acting nod. Her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, nominated in 1999, was the first.Jeff Goldblum, left, compared cellphones with his wife Emilie Livingston.Cynthia Erivo with Ralph Fiennes, who starred in “Conclave,” a film about the intrigue behind the selection of a new pope that received eight nominations.After his best actor win for “The Brutalist” was announced, Adrien Brody soaked in the moment. He then tossed his gum from the stage to his girlfriend Georgina Chapman.Ariana Grande with Ethan Slater, her co-star in “Wicked,” which was up for 10 Oscars.Demi Moore, left, reached across Margaret Qualley, her co-star in “The Substance,” to greet Qualley’s husband, Jack Antonoff. Moore, a nominee in the best actress category, lost to Mikey Madison. More

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      How to Watch the Oscars 2025: Date, Time and Streaming

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      Conan O’Brien will host the annual awards, which will be available to watch live on a streaming service for the first time.It seems like a lifetime ago that Sean Baker’s screwball comedy “Anora” first emerged as the favorite in the best picture race (no one was yet even thinking about holding space for “Wicked”).But we’re now right back where we started in the fall with both math and our Projectionist columnist, Kyle Buchanan, predicting that “Anora” will emerge triumphant. It’s by no means a sure thing — last weekend’s big Screen Actors Guild Awards winner, the papal thriller “Conclave,” could play spoiler.In the acting races, Demi Moore appears to be the one to beat after notching another win at the SAGs (though Buchanan says not to count out Fernanda Torres, who delivers a tour de force performance in the quiet Brazilian drama “I’m Still Here”).But could Adrien Brody, who plays a Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust in “The Brutalist,” be in for an upset from the 29-year-old Timothée Chalamet, who has embarked on a decidedly unconventional — and very online — Oscar campaign for his lead role in the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown”?Here’s everything you need to know.What time does the show start and where can I watch?This year’s show is again one for the early birds: The ceremony is set to begin at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific, at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.On TV, ABC is the official broadcaster. Online, you can watch the show live on the ABC app, which is free to download, or at abc.com, though you’ll need to sign in using the credentials from your cable provider. There are also a number of live TV streaming services that offer access to ABC, including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV, which all require subscriptions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      How to Watch the SAG Awards

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      In a wide-open best picture race, the awards, which are streaming on Netflix, could offer some clarity.This year’s Oscars best picture race is, for the first time in years, wide open.Will the newly ascendant front-runner “Anora,” Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner about a stripper who impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, take the statuette? Will Brady Corbet’s epic “The Brutalist” find its way to the top? And what about the wild card, the papal thriller “Conclave,” which recently took top honors at the EE British Academy Film Awards, or BAFTAs — Britain’s version of the Oscars?With the days ticking down until the March 2 Academy Awards ceremony, the Screen Actors Guild Awards could offer some clarity. In four of the past five years, the SAGs have given their top honor — best ensemble — to the eventual Oscar winner.The 15 awards, which are voted on by actors and other performers who belong to the SAG-AFTRA union, honor the best film and television performances from the past year. The movie musical “Wicked” and the FX series “Shogun” are the leading nominees.Here’s how to watch, and what to watch for.What time does the show start, and where can I watch?The two-hour ceremony begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time (5 p.m. Pacific time) at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a historic venue that has also hosted the Oscars. For the second year, the awards show will stream live and exclusively on Netflix; there is no way to watch without a subscription.Is there a red carpet?The red carpet preshow will stream live on Netflix beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern time (4 p.m. Pacific time). The YouTube star Lilly Singh and the actress and former “Saturday Night Live” comedian Sasheer Zamata will host the event, which will include interviews with nominees and the announcement of the winners in the best stunt ensemble categories.Who is hosting?Kristen Bell, who recently starred in the Netflix rom-com “Nobody Wants This,” will steer the ship. This will be her second time hosting; the first was in 2018.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Gotham Awards Go to ‘A Different Man’ and ‘Sing Sing’

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      The kickoff to awards season has a mixed record but can help lift small films like the two surprise winners.“A Different Man,” a dark indie comedy starring Sebastian Stan, was the surprise best-feature winner at the 34th annual Gotham Awards, which took place Monday night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York.Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the film stars Stan as an actor with neurofibromatosis who undergoes an experimental surgery to remove tumors from his face, giving him a more conventional appearance. That makeover puts him in danger of losing a leading role to a local bon vivant (Adam Pearson) who also has neurofibromatosis but owns his appearance without shame.Though “A Different Man” is distributed by the hot studio A24, it was considered the lowest-profile contender in its category. Most pundits expected the Palme d’Or winner “Anora” to cruise to victory here and even Schimberg was caught off-guard by the win. “I think I’m not the only person in the room who’s totally stunned by this,” the director said onstage, admitting he had not prepared a speech in advance, fearing it would be “hubris” to do so.In a very fluid Oscar season, the Gotham win could raise the chances of Stan, who also stars in the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” and Pearson, a dark-horse supporting-actor candidate. Though the Gothams’ effectiveness as an Oscar bellwether can fluctuate, three of the four most recent films to triumph there — “Past Lives,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Nomadland” — also went on to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars.The Gothams are most valuable when it comes to helping smaller films like “A Different Man” that rely on an awards-season run to stay in the conversation. Though the ceremony recently lifted its $35 million budget cap for eligible contenders, its nominating juries, which are mostly made up of a handful of film journalists, still tend to favor movies that were made on a shoestring.That includes “Sing Sing,” a prison drama that won the night’s lead and supporting-performance honors for Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin. (The Gothams are gender-neutral.) “Let’s keep doing work that really matters, that makes a difference,” Domingo, who starred in “The Color Purple” and “Rustin” last year, told the audience. “That’s what we can do right now. That can be a light in the darkness.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More