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    At Tony Awards, ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ Wins Best Musical and ‘Leopoldstadt’ Best Play

    “Kimberly Akimbo,” a small-scale, big-hearted show about a teenage girl coping with a life-shortening genetic condition and a comically dysfunctional family, won the coveted Tony Award for best musical Sunday night.The award came at the close of an unusual Tony Awards ceremony that almost didn’t happen because of the ongoing screenwriters’ strike. Only an intervention by a group of playwrights who also work in film and television saved the show: they persuaded the Writers Guild of America that it would be a mistake to make the struggling theater industry collateral damage in a Hollywood-centered dispute, and in the end the telecast aired without pickets, without scripted banter and without a hitch.“I’m live and unscripted,” the ceremony’s returning host, Ariana DeBose said at the start of the show, after an opening number that began with her backstage, paging through a binder labeled “Script” filled with blank pages, and then dancing wordlessly through the theater and onto the stage. She then pointed out the absence of teleprompters, offered her support for the strikers’ cause, and declared, “To anyone who thought last year was a bit unhinged, to them I say, ‘Darlings, buckle up!’”Ariana DeBose, center, hosted the awards show without a script, relying largely on movement.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAt one point, she looked at words scrawled on her forearm, and said, “I don’t know what these notes stand for, so please welcome whoever walks out onstage next.”The basic elements of the awards show — acceptance speeches by prize winners and songs performed by the casts of Broadway musicals — remained more or less intact. But the introductions to the shows and performances were mostly sleekly shot videos, rather than descriptions by celebrities; presenters kept their comments extremely spare, which left more time for unusually well-filmed production numbers.The ceremony featured a pair of milestone wins: J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell became the first out nonbinary performers to win Tony Awards in acting categories, Ghee as a musician on the lam in “Some Like It Hot,” and Newell as a whiskey distiller in the musical comedy “Shucked.” “For every trans, nonbinary, gender nonconforming human, whoever was told you couldn’t be, you couldn’t be seen, this is for you,” said Ghee. Newell expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “Thank you for seeing me, Broadway.”“Theater is the great cure,” said Suzan-Lori Parks, whose “Topdog/Underdog” won the Tony for best play revival.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLast fall’s production of “Topdog/Underdog,” Suzan-Lori Parks’s 2001 tour de force about two Black brothers weighted down by history and circumstance, won the Tony Award for best play revival. The play had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 but no Tony Awards; Parks, in accepting this year’s Tony, praised actors Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins for “living large in a world that often does not want the likes of us living at all” and added, “Theater is the great cure.”There was star power, too. Jodie Comer, best known for playing an assassin on television’s “Killing Eve,” won the best actress in a play award for her first stage role, a grueling, tour-de-force performance as a defense attorney who becomes a victim of sexual assault in “Prima Facie.” And Sean Hayes, best known for “Will and Grace,” won for playing the depressive raconteur-pianist Oscar Levant in “Good Night, Oscar.”The night served as a reminder of the growing concern about antisemitism in America and around the world, as “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s wrenching drama following a family of Viennese Jews through the first half of the 20th century, won the prize for best play, and a new production of “Parade,” a 1998 show based on the early 20th-century lynching of a Jewish businessman in Georgia, won the prize for best musical revival.Sonia Friedman and Tom Stoppard accepted the Tony for best play for “Leopoldstadt,” which also won several other awards on Sunday.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Leopoldstadt,” which bested three Pulitzer-winning dramas to win the Tony, also won several other prizes Sunday night, including for its director, Patrick Marber, and for Brandon Uranowitz, who won as best featured actor in a play, and who noted the personal nature of the production for its predominantly Jewish cast in his speech, saying “my ancestors, many of whom did not make it out of Poland, also thank you.”The win by “Parade” cemented a remarkable rebirth for that show, which was not successful when it first opened on Broadway in 1998, but which is shaping up to be a hit this time, thanks to strong word-of-mouth and the popularity of its leading man, Ben Platt. The success of “Parade” is also a significant milestone for the musical’s composer, Jason Robert Brown, who is widely admired within the theater community but whose Broadway productions have struggled commercially. Brown wrote the music and lyrics for “Parade,” and the book is by Alfred Uhry; both men won Tonys for their work on the show in 1999.Michael Arden, who won a Tony for directing the “Parade” revival, said in his acceptance speech, “we must come together,” adding, “or else we are doomed to repeat the horrors of our history.” Arden went on to recall how he had been called a homophobic slur — “the F-word,” many times as a child, and he drew raucous cheers as he reclaimed the slur. “Keep raising your voices,” he said.Michael Arden, who directed the Tony-winning revival of “Parade,” drew cheers when he reclaimed a homophobic slur in his acceptance speech.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut the night belonged to “Kimberly Akimbo,” the smallest, and lowest-grossing, of the five nominees in the best musical category, but also by far the best reviewed, with virtually unanimous acclaim from critics. (Nodding to the show’s anagram-loving subplot, the New York Times critic Jesse Green presciently suggested one of his own last fall: “sublime cast = best musical.”)The show, set in 1999 in Bergen County, New Jersey, stars the 63-year-old Victoria Clark as Kimberly, a 15-going-on-16-year-old girl who has a rare condition that makes her age prematurely. Kimberly’s home life is a mess — dad’s a drunk, mom’s a hypochondriac, and aunt is a gleeful grifter — and her school life is complicated by her medical condition, but she learns to find joy where she can. Clark won a Tony for her performance as Kimberly, and Bonnie Milligan won a Tony for her performance as the aunt.“Kimberly Akimbo,” which was directed by Jessica Stone, began its life with an Off Broadway production at the nonprofit Atlantic Theater Company in the fall of 2021 and opened at the Booth Theater in November. It was written by the playwright David Lindsay-Abaire and the composer Jeanine Tesori, based on a play Lindsay-Abaire had written in 2003. Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori both won Tony Awards for their work Sunday night.The musical, with just nine characters, was capitalized for up to $7 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that’s a low budget for a musical on Broadway these days, when a growing number of shows are costing more than $20 million to stage. The lead producer is David Stone, who, as a lead producer of “Wicked,” is one of Broadway’s most successful figures; this is the first time he has won a Tony Award for best musical, and he was also the lead producer of the Tony-winning “Topdog” revival.The award for best musical is considered the most economically beneficial Tony, generally leading to a boost in ticket sales. In winning the prize, “Kimberly Akimbo” beat out four other nominated shows: “& Juliet,” “New York, New York,” “Shucked” and “Some Like It Hot.” None of the five nominated musicals is a runaway hit, and four, including “Kimberly Akimbo,” have been losing money most weeks.The ceremony featured performances from all nine nominated new musicals and musical revivals, as well as a performance of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” by Lea Michele from “Funny Girl.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe 2022-23 season, which ended last month, was a tough one for new musicals: Broadway audiences were still down about 17 percent below prepandemic levels, and those who did buy tickets gravitated toward established titles (like “The Phantom of the Opera,” which sold strongly in the final months of its 35-year-run) and big stars (especially Hugh Jackman in “The Music Man,” Sara Bareilles in “Into the Woods,” Lea Michele in “Funny Girl” and Josh Groban in “Sweeney Todd”). So this year’s Tonys ceremony took on even more importance than usual, with the industry’s leaders hoping that a nationally televised spotlight on theater would boost box office sales.The ceremony featured not only musical performances by all nine nominated new musicals and musical revivals, but also a barn-burning performance of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” by Michele, a “Sweet Caroline” singalong led by the cast of the Neil Diamond musical “A Beautiful Noise,” and, as part of the In Memoriam segment, a song from “The Phantom of the Opera” sung by Joaquina Kalukango to acknowledge the show’s closing in April .The Tonys, presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing and named for Antoinette Perry, gave lifetime achievement awards to two beloved nonagenarians: the actor Joel Grey, 91, who remains best known for playing the master of ceremonies in both the Broadway and film versions of “Cabaret,” and the composer John Kander, 96, who wrote music for “Cabaret” as well as “Chicago” and “New York, New York.” “I’m grateful for music,” Kander said after being introduced by Lin-Manuel Miranda as “the kindest man in show business.” Grey was introduced by his daughter, the actress Jennifer Grey; he sang a few words from the opening number of “Cabaret.”“Oh my God, I love the applause,” he said, to a round of applause.Sarah Bahr More

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    New York’s Movie Theaters, From Art-House to Dine-In

    New York is the nation’s moviegoing capital, especially for cinephiles who treasure archival prints, experimental cinema and concession stands that go far beyond the standard offerings. Below is a guide to the city’s art houses.Alamo DrafthouseFinancial District, 28 Liberty Street, Suite SC301, Manhattan. Downtown Brooklyn, 445 Albee Square West, Brooklyn. drafthouse.com.This dine-in chain, based in Austin, Texas, has a hip aesthetic and is noted for its brews, queso and screenings of cult classics, in addition to regular showings of new releases. A revived version of Kim’s Video has set up shop within the Manhattan location. A Staten Island theater is scheduled to open this summer.Angelika Film CenterAngelika Film Center, 18 West Houston Street, Manhattan. Cinema 123 by Angelika, 1001 Third Avenue, Manhattan. Village East by Angelika, 181-189 Second Avenue, Manhattan. angelikafilmcenter.com.The original Angelika Film Center is the downtown six-screen theater where you can catch art-house releases, like “Petite Maman” or “Anaïs in Love,” while the subway rattles underneath. The brand name has also been appended to the Village East, whose main auditorium is a gorgeous old Yiddish stage theater. In addition to showing new releases, it hosts “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and periodic revival screenings, and like its uptown sibling, the Cinema 123, it is equipped to show 70-millimeter film.Anthology Film Archives32 Second Avenue, Manhattan; anthologyfilmarchives.org.New York’s polestar of avant-garde film (and the preservation of it) for more than 50 years, Anthology was started by some of experimental cinema’s most important promoters (Jonas Mekas, P. Adams Sitney) and practitioners (Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka). In addition to retrospectives, the theater hosts a rotating series, Essential Cinema, that is free with membership; programming includes seminal narrative works by Alexander Dovzhenko and F.W. Murnau and medium-expanding nonnarrative films from Ken Jacobs and Michael Snow.Brooklyn Academy of Music30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn; bam.org.At any given time in the main BAM building in Fort Greene, three out of four screens show new releases, while one holds retrospectives, such as ones on films shot in New York City in the 1990s or others that place David Lynch’s work alongside movies he influenced. Occasional screenings take place at the BAM Harvey Theater a few blocks away.Film at Lincoln CenterElinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street, and Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Manhattan; filmlinc.org.Lincoln Center’s film arm, the hosting organization of the New York Film Festival, runs a year-round theater with one of the largest screens in town: the Walter Reade. There you can catch adventurous revivals, such as programs on the Hungarian director Marta Meszaros or the Japanese actress-director Kinuyo Tanaka, and contemporary series, like the annual Rendez-Vous With French Cinema. Across the street is the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, which houses two screens and a food-and-wine bar, Indie.Film Forum: Come for the popcorn; stay for the cinematic edification.Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty ImagesFilm Forum209 West Houston Street, Manhattan; filmforum.org.A New York institution for more than 50 years — it has been at its present location since 1990 and added a fourth screen in 2018 — Film Forum hosts some of the most extensive retrospectives in town, often showing dozens of films from a director or from stars like Toshiro Mifune and Sidney Poitier. Regular attendance constitutes a cinematic education in itself, and the popcorn, to which moviegoers apply sea salt themselves, is a delicacy.French Institute/Alliance FrançaiseFlorence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, Manhattan; fiaf.org.This classy venue with excellent sightlines hosts screenings on Tuesdays. The programming consists of new and vintage films from France, with English subtitles, bien sûr. Series typically have a theme — it might be Wes Anderson selecting favorites by Ophüls and Truffaut or a program of recent French comedies.IFC Center323 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan; ifccenter.com.This Greenwich Village five-screen theater boasts four first-rate auditoriums (and one cubbyhole) and typically shows many more than five movies in a given week, usually with a short beforehand. Shows can start as early as 10 or 11 a.m. and, on the weekends, as late as midnight. The concession stand sells T-shirts that substitute directors’ names for those of heavy metal bands.Japan Society333 East 47th Street, Manhattan; japansociety.org.This theater’s annual Japan Cuts series is probably the largest single showcase of recent Japanese cinema on the New York cinephile’s calendar. For the rest of the year, new movies share screen space with classics, often shown on 35 millimeter.Light Industry361 Stagg Street, Brooklyn; lightindustry.org.This microcinema, which specializes in experimental film and typically holds screenings on Tuesday nights, hosted its final program at its longtime Greenpoint location in April. It will reopen by June on Stagg Street. Past screenings have varied widely; they’ve included early work by William Castle, a four-hour Mexican serial from 1919, Hollis Frampton and Owen Land films on 16-millimeter and a marathon of “Police Squad!” episodes.Maysles Cinema343 Lenox Avenue, Manhattan; maysles.org.This small (about 60 seats) Harlem venue specializes in documentaries — it was founded by the director Albert Maysles, of “Grey Gardens” fame. The programming often places an emphasis on social issues and local artistry.Metrograph7 Ludlow Street, Manhattan; metrograph.com.An ever-changing (and expensive!) selection of international candies, a nook of a bookstore and a high-class restaurant, the Commissary, are among the features of this Lower East Side two-screen venue, which opened in 2016. (Many don’t notice, but it sits across the street from the neglected Loew’s Canal Theater.) The retrospectives, such as a recurring series of the programmers’ favorites, organized alphabetically, have a correspondingly artisanal feel.Museum of Modern Art11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan; moma.org.MoMA has been showing movies since the 1930s, when Iris Barry, the museum’s first film curator, helped advance the idea that films should be collected as art. Today the institution’s two main theaters screen films from its own collection and archives around the world (the annual series To Save and Project highlights recent preservation work). Admission to most screenings is free with membership.Museum of the Moving Image36-01 35th Avenue, Queens; movingimage.us.The high ceilings and blue wall padding give a faintly futuristic feel to the 267-seat Redstone Theater, the main auditorium in this museum in Astoria. That works well when a favorite like “2001: A Space Odyssey” is playing on 70 millimeter. More specialized fare sometimes is shown in the Bartos Screening Room down the hall.Nitehawk CinemaProspect Park, 188 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn. Williamsburg, 136 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn. nitehawkcinema.com.These stylish dine-in theaters have several screens that show new releases and perennial favorites (“Carrie,” “Face/Off”) from brunch time to midnight-snack time. Both venues have bars.The Paris Theater, once a destination for French film, is now leased by Netflix.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesParis Theater4 West 58th Street, Manhattan; paristheaternyc.com.Once a go-to destination for French cinema and films with a literary pedigree, the Paris briefly closed in 2019, but then was leased by Netflix, which uses it for theatrical runs of its streaming titles (like Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”) and older movies intended to complement them. It’s one of the few remaining New York theaters with a balcony.Quad Cinema34 West 13th Street, Manhattan; quadcinema.com.When this Greenwich Village theater opened in 1972, having four screens was unusual. (“A new way to go to the movies,” boasted a New York Times ad on the first day.) It reopened in 2017 after a renovation that gave it bigger, comfier seats for viewing new art-house releases, like “A Hero” or “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” Plus, there’s an adjoining bar.Roxy Cinema New York2 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan; roxycinematribeca.com.Located in the basement of the Roxy Hotel, this plush red screening room offers a mix of revivals (often on 35-millimeter film) and second-run programming — recent releases that have been in theaters awhile.Spectacle124 South Third Street, Brooklyn; spectacletheater.com.A grungy Williamsburg microcinema started in 2010, Spectacle has a calendar as eclectic as it is inscrutable. There’s horror and martial-arts fare that tends toward the obscure, along with a lot of international titles that never turn up in other New York venues.United Palace4140 Broadway, Manhattan; unitedpalace.org.One of the original Loew’s Wonder Theaters — movie palaces built in the late 1920s, with one in each borough except Staten Island (Jersey City got it instead) — this architectural marvel in Washington Heights is an attraction in itself. It’s now run by an organization that promotes interfaith artistic events, but the theater also hosts concerts and, generally once a month, movie screenings. Lin-Manuel Miranda, a neighborhood resident, chipped in for a new screen and projector. More

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    ‘In the Heights’ Premiere Celebrates the Neighborhood That Started It All

    As throngs of residents watched, the stars of the movie, set in Washington Heights, walked a sunny yellow carpet outside the United Palace.At the Plaza de las Americas in Washington Heights, fruit and vegetable vendors usually sell produce until dusk. But on Wednesday, it was transformed into a replica of any other block in the neighborhood. There was a mock bodega, decorated with three Dominican flags that hung from an awning, a faux fire hydrant and a plastic fruit stand. Underneath the entire set ran a yellow carpet.The reproduction served as a backdrop for the luminaries attending for the premiere of “In the Heights,” the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning Broadway show. The sunny carpet welcomed the cast and crew back to the Upper Manhattan neighborhood where it was filmed. The premiere, which also served as opening night of the 20th Tribeca Festival, was held at the United Palace, a majestic 91-year-old theater with a projection system that, years earlier, before his success on Broadway, Miranda had helped raise money to buy and then helped install.While the actors, producers and executives streamed down the yellow carpet, pausing for pictures with photographers and interviews with the news media, the real Washington Heights whirred behind them. Waitresses at Malecon, a Dominican restaurant across the street from the plaza, peered outside the windows in between serving heaps of rice, stew chicken and beans, trying to figure out why crowds had formed in front of their restaurant on a sticky 90-degree day.Maritza Luna, left, and Eglis Suarez were among the fans waiting outside the theater for a glimpse of the stars.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDiners at El Conde Nuevo, another Dominican restaurant across the street, stood on the corner also trying to decipher the rumpus outside. And then, Miranda — wearing a pale blue, long-sleeve chacabana, jeans and the same Nike Air Force 1s, often called Uptowns in the City, that he wore to the Broadway opening of “In the Heights” — arrived with his family, and everyone erupted in cheers.Jorge Peguero, 71, was on his way home when he stopped and became a proud member of the crowd.“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this is fantastic,” said Peguero, a resident of Washington Heights since 1969. “It’s a big deal that Tribeca chose to represent the Dominican community, and it’s the first time ever that we see anything like it.”Miranda, who still lives in Washington Heights, had hoped to premiere the movie where it is set.“All I ever wanted was this neighborhood to be proud of themselves and the way they are portrayed,” said Miranda, who was within walking distance of his home and his parent’s home. “I still walk around here with my headphones on, and everyone is just like well, Lin-Manuel is writing.”“I feel safe here,” he added.Lin-Manuel Miranda, left, who wrote the music and lyrics for “In the Heights,” and Anthony Ramos, who stars in the movie.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMany Washington Heights residents have not yet had their encounter with Miranda in the neighborhood. Eglis Suarez, 48, was hoping to change that.“I want to see Lin,” she said. “We are so proud, this is progress for this community and for the city.”Exuberant and critically adored, “In the Heights,” directed by Jon M. Chu, is a look at the shifts that happen between first- and second-generation immigrants. The elders hope to make it out of the neighborhood they left home for, while their younger counterparts plan to stay in the neighborhood they call home. It is a story that has occurred a million times over in the area and one that Hudes, who also lives there, encountered daily while filming.“This isn’t about a hero or a protagonist, it’s about what happens when a community holds hands together and life kind of pushes those hands apart,” said Hudes, who wore large hoops and a flower-print jumpsuit. “It’s about these blocks and these living rooms where you go after school and do your homework or play bingo during a blackout, it’s all here.”Washington Heights has been home to middle- and working-class Dominicans since the 1960s. In the 1980s, the neighborhood, like many others in the city, was flooded with cocaine and crack, making it unsafe for the community. Those days are past now and some residents say it’s time to move on from a narrative in countless movies and rap songs that no longer fits the neighborhood.“I’m so proud of this movie,” said Sandra Marin Martinez, 67, a lifelong Washington Heights resident. “Who wouldn’t be? At least there’s no shooting.”“Everything is dancing, these are my people, I grew up dancing here,” she added as she waited for a glimpse of the cast walking into the theater.“In the Heights” Premiere13 PhotosView Slide Show ›Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesYudelka Rodriguez, 51, was standing with her daughter waiting for the cast to arrive. She was excited to see her hood in the movie and herself represented.“I am so emotional,” Rodriguez said as she leaned on a metal gate. “This is the most beautiful thing, to see that your barrio is involved in this; it’s the best feeling.”That feeling is something Paula Weinstein, an organizer of the Tribeca Festival (which dropped “film” from its name this year), hoped to replicate all over the city with this movie.“This is what we’ve been dreaming of — New York is back,” Weinstein said. “This is a tribute to the Dominican community, this is what is the best of New York. Every generation of immigrants start one place and move into the community, That’s what’s great about New York, that’s what we want to celebrate.”In the theater, Robert De Niro, a founder of the festival, introduced Miranda, who then introduced the rest of the cast. The energy was electric from the stage to the seats. When a title card that read “Washington Heights” appeared on the screen, the crowd whooped and applauded.When the movie’s star, Anthony Ramos, arrived, the makeshift set was surrounded by a small crowd. As he stepped out in black-and-white cheetah-print pants, with a matching shirt and jacket, gingerly placed on his shoulders, the crowd at the corner of 175th and Broadway thundered with applause and cheers.“I didn’t grow up even going to Broadway, and most New York people don’t grow up going to Broadway,” said Ramos, who is a Brooklyn native. “To tell a New York story about a community that’s so familiar and so special to people from New York is particularly special for me.” More