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    Shane Gillis to Host ‘S.N.L.’ After Being Dropped in 2019. Here’s What He’s Done Since.

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    The comedian was abruptly fired in 2019, just after being named to the cast, when offensive comments he’d made surfaced. Now a rising stand-up star, he is set to appear on the show this weekend.When the comedian Shane Gillis was dropped from “Saturday Night Live” in 2019 just days after the announcement that he’d been added to the Season 45 cast, he lost one of the most sought-after jobs in comedy. Immediately after his addition to the cast, multiple instances surfaced of him using language that the show called “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable” in a statement addressing his ouster.Among the inflammatory language he’d used, on his podcast and on others, was a slur to refer to Chinese people, along with a caricature accent, and a homophobic slur, which he used to describe the filmmaker Judd Apatow and the comedian Chris Gethard as well as the Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Senator Bernie Sanders (the latter two prefaced with the word “Jew”). “Fat, ugly idiots promoting hate, that’s what this is,” he said, ribbing himself and those with whom he was talking.Gillis could have become a pariah. Instead, on Saturday, he’ll make his debut on NBC’s storied Studio 8H stage, as a host.Since his firing, Gillis’s star has quickly ascended: His debut special, released on YouTube in 2021, has amassed about 24 million views; and his podcast with Matt McCusker, “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” on which some of the problematic statements were made, has the most subscribers of any podcast on Patreon with more than 80,000 paying listeners, tens of thousands more than the next highest. He has also been touring rigorously, performing on comedy stages across the United States and the world.He reached new heights in September with the release of Netflix’s “Beautiful Dogs,” which had a lengthy run on the streamer’s Top 10 most popular shows list. In that special, he walked the line between satirizing conservatives and playing to them, according to The New York Times’s comedy critic, Jason Zinoman, who described its opening bit as “dumb and smart, cocky and self-mocking, homophobic but relentlessly self-aware.”“Don’t be surprised if he becomes an arena act,” Zinoman added.A few weeks ago, Bud Light announced that it was partnering with Gillis. “Welcome to the team,” the brand posted on Instagram along with a photo of the comedian. Bud Light has been scrambling to contain the fallout, which included plummeting sales, from last year’s right-wing backlash to Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, promoting the beer on Instagram.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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      ‘Mean Girls’ Review: ‘Get in, Loser,’ Regina George Is Back

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      Still puffily padded but no longer particularly tart, this shape-shifting classic about the girls you love to hate retains its ingratiating charms.Can a movie musical based on a Broadway musical based on a film comedy that in turn was based on a parenting book be any good? Sure — if only because the writer-producer Tina Fey and the producer Lorne Michaels have made sure that little has changed in their money-printing property since the first movie hit theaters in 2004. Few stories, it turns out, are as comically and horrifyingly reliable as those set in high school; few villains are as dependably hissable as a desirable young woman with an ostensibly cold heart.In keeping with this material’s cheerfully derivative history it seems right to start with the New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, who called the original film — directed by Mark Waters and starring a preternaturally self-assured Lindsay Lohan — “tart and often charming.” Fast forward to 2018 when the paper’s former theater critic Ben Brantley described the Broadway musical as “likable but seriously over-padded.” For its part, the new “Mean Girls” lands somewhere between these two takes. It’s not especially tart and is undeniably over-padded, but its charms and ingratiating likability remain intact.Once again, the story — by Fey, who also wrote the first movie and the Broadway show — drops Cady (a sweet Angourie Rice), a bright home-schooled teen fresh from Kenya, into a high-school hellscape. There, she meets nerds and jocks, alphas and betas, and attracts the notice of the queen bee, the aptly named Regina (Reneé Rapp, who played the role on Broadway). Flanked by her vassals, Karen (Avantika) and Gretchen (Bebe Wood), Regina reigns supreme at school where, as the student body’s most attentively studied subject, she is feared, desired and loathed, at times simultaneously.As in the original film, the latest Cady is a quick study and soon learns her new habitat’s rules on her way to self-actualization and group acceptance. She befriends a pair of too-cool-for-school art kids, Janis and Damian — the tag-teaming scene-stealers Auli’i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey — who encourage her to insinuate herself into Regina’s clique, a.k.a. the Plastics, to learn its secrets. Cady does and the usual complications ensue, including a chaste romance with Regina’s ex, Aaron (Christopher Briney), a heartthrob with floppy hair. Betrayal, comeuppance, repentance and triumph follow.In making the transition from stage to screen, the filmmakers have cut many of the show’s songs by Jeff Richmond (music) and Nell Benjamin (lyrics). The remaining tunes blur together with the exception of “Meet the Plastics” and “World Burn,” Regina’s character-defining lung-busters. Nothing if not a show-boater, she enters in black fetish-wear for “Plastics,” belting it out with such old-school diva command that she smacks the movie awake. She doesn’t have the nuance of Rachel McAdams, who played the role in the 2004 film. But Rapp gives the character oomph and swagger (the dominatrix-lite get-up helps), and when Regina howls “I don’t care who you are,” you readily believe her.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?  More

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      Tom Stoppard’s ‘Leopoldstadt’ Will Open on Broadway This Fall

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      The play, about a Jewish family in Vienna in the first half of the 20th Century, will begin previews Sept. 14 and open Oct. 2 at the Longacre Theater.“Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s much-heralded and uncharacteristically personal play about an early-20th-century Jewish family in Vienna, is coming to Broadway in September, bringing an unusually large cast and a pointed reminder of the perils of antisemitism to the New York stage.Stoppard, 84, is one of the great dramatists of recent decades; his four best play Tony Awards, for “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Travesties,” “The Real Thing” and “The Coast of Utopia,” are the most of any playwright in Tonys history. “Leopoldstadt” will be the 19th production of a Stoppard play on Broadway since 1967.“Leopoldstadt,” which begins in 1899 and continues through, and past, the two World Wars, chronicles 50 years in the life of one family. It is inspired by, but does not depict, Stoppard’s own family history; he was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, but fled to Asia with his family when he was a toddler, has spent much of his life in Britain, and only learned some details of his heritage in the 1990s.“It’s two extraordinary hours where you go through this time and this exploration of a family: what they have to face, and how they come out the other side and deal with their past, cope with their present and think about their future,” said Sonia Friedman, a lead producer. “Being Stoppard it’s complex, but also incredibly emotional.”The Broadway production, with a cast of 38, is scheduled to begin previews Sept. 14 and to open Oct. 2 at the Longacre Theater. Friedman, who produced the Tony-winning best plays of the last three seasons before the pandemic, is producing “Leopoldstadt” with Roy Furman, another Broadway veteran, and Lorne Michaels, the “Saturday Night Live” creator.“Leopoldstadt” began its life with a production in London’s West End in 2020 directed by Patrick Marber, which won praise from the New York Times critic Ben Brantley; that run, which was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, won the Olivier Award for best new play. The play then returned to the West End last year for a brief but profitable run.In New York it is again being directed by Marber, who also directed the last Broadway production of a Stoppard work, a 2018 revival of “Travesties.” In a phone interview, Marber said that he was looking forward to a third go at the material, following the London runs.“It’s a surprisingly enjoyable play to direct — even though it’s very painful and sad, it’s also full of lightness and laughter,” he said. “It’s fundamentally about memory, and time and love. But it’s also about fascism and immigrants and refugees. It’s about everything — it’s Stoppard.”Marber said that Stoppard has continued revising the play for New York, where he said he expects the play to resonate differently because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. “With any play, what’s happening in the real world affects the way you watch it,” he said. “Different things will pop out.” More

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      A Kennedy Center Honors With the Presidential Box Used as Intended

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      Former President Donald J. Trump did not attend the tribute, but President Biden was on hand as Bette Midler, Joni Mitchell, Berry Gordy, Justino Díaz and Lorne Michaels were honored.WASHINGTON — The orchestra cycled through an early homage to the latest class of honorees: an excerpt from the opera “Carmen,” a tribute to the sounds of Motown, the chorus of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”But the 44th Kennedy Center Honors did not begin in earnest on Sunday night until President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, arrived to their seats in the presidential box in the opera house, and were introduced to a standing ovation from a crowd of thousands wearing masks and black tie.Mr. Biden’s presence — the first time a president has attended the event since 2016 — heralded the restoration of tradition for the Honors, a star-studded event that recognizes lifetime achievements in the arts, including music, dance, theater, film and comedy, and helps raise money for the arts complex. The event had been rattled in recent years by former President Donald Trump’s decision to skip the festivities altogether after some recipients had announced in 2017 that they would not attend a gala event at the White House. Then in 2020 it was derailed, or at least delayed, by the coronavirus pandemic.“It is quite nice — very nice — to see the presidential box once again being occupied,” David Letterman, the comedian, declared in opening remarks, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd as Mr. Biden and Dr. Jill Biden waved. They were joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff, the Second Gentleman.Just six months after an abbreviated celebration of the 2020 nominees, there were glimmers of both political and artistic normalcy. The show returned to its annual December slot, providing nearly four hours of tribute performances and speeches to more than 2,000 guests, who packed the opera house in shimmering gowns and tuxedos.President Biden spoke at a reception for the honorees at the White House. This year’s honorees were Justino Díaz, Lorne Michaels, Bette Midler, Berry Gordy and Joni Mitchell.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAnd in addition to attending the event, Mr. Biden revived the practice of hosting a White House reception for the five honorees: Bette Midler, the screen and stage actress; Joni Mitchell, the singer-songwriter; Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown; the opera singer Justino Díaz; and Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live.”“For this pandemic of profound loss and pain, as we move forward toward repair and renewal, the artist vision is important as it ever has been — I would argue more important,” Mr. Biden told the honorees in the East Room. “We’ve seen the power of art in every form to heal, to comfort, and recover.”He lavished praise on the honorees, calling Ms. Midler “a performer without peer,” and praising Mr. Díaz for bestowing “the sound of soul” on audiences. He thanked Mr. Gordy for helping to create “music that lifted us higher” and told Ms. Mitchell, “You sing poetry, it seems to me.”And he called Mr. Michaels “Mr. Wise Guy,” joking about the number of actors tapped to play the president on “S.N.L.” over the years, and noting, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, we’re in real trouble —- and you make me laugh at myself a lot.”Echoes of the pandemic still reverberated. Attendees had to repeatedly show proof of vaccination, an existing policy for all performances at the Kennedy Center. Masks — an array of medical, satin and sequined — were required, but removed for photos, performances and food.The medallion ceremony on Saturday evening, a traditionally more intimate dinner where the honorees receive the rainbow-ribboned awards, was held at the Library of Congress in order to host just over 200 people and accommodate coronavirus protocols.Seated at library desks with the lamps on, the honorees were feted under the gaze of statues of Shakespeare and Plato, after guests perused exhibits dedicated to their work. As he received his medallion, Mr. Díaz, allured by the acoustics, burst into an excerpt from “Otello,” his deep voice reverberating throughout the room.Ms. Mitchell, who spoke briefly with reporters after receiving her medallion, said that “there was a lot of heart to the whole thing.”The Honors event is a key fund-raiser for the Kennedy Center, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its opening in 1971. The event raised nearly $6.5 million, a spokeswoman said, with the cost of tickets to the Sunday gala ranging between $600 and $10,000.But for the honorees and the menagerie of lawmakers, donors, artists, colleagues and family members arriving to pay tribute, it was a celebration of not just their legacy, but of the return of their communities and live performances after the pandemic devastated arts industries around the world.“It’s very special and it’s a different perspective — I get to enjoy, not suffer with nerves,” said Mr. Díaz, who performed during the Kennedy Center’s inaugural year in Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci” (and who sang in the first performance at the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in 1966).“It’s like coming home again, except a different part of the house.”Members of the cast of “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” the Broadway musical, sang a cappella on the red carpet in between interviews, before performing in character onstage as part of a tribute to Mr. Gordy. For Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation secretary, and his husband, Chasten, the evening was their first date night since their twins were born. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and a host of bipartisan lawmakers could be seen applauding and dancing in their seats before the end of the night.“I think I’m in a dream,” Mr. Gordy proclaimed. “And it’s a wonderful dream.”To honor Ms. Mitchell, the ceremony included Brandi Carlile, a friend and collaborator, performing “River,” Ellie Goulding singing “Big Yellow Taxi,” and Norah Jones performing both “The Circle Game” and “A Case of You.”Mr. Díaz grew emotional as his daughters, Natascia Díaz and Katya Díaz, sang “En Mi Viejo San Juan,” before excerpts from “Carmen” and “Faust” were performed. Ms. Midler cheered as a trio of her “Hello, Dolly!” castmates performed “Friends,” before Billy Porter, the actor and singer, emerged from a clam shell to lead a medley of her songs.A parade of comedic veterans from S.N.L. alternated between gently ribbing Mr. Michaels, their former — or current —  boss, and thanking him for his influence on their careers. It was punctuated by a trio of mock “Weekend Update” segments hosted by Kevin Nealon, Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, and Colin Jost and Michael Che. Paul Simon concluded the tribute to Mr. Michaels with a performance of “America.”During the tribute to Mr. Gordy, the show paused to restart after an apparent technical mishap. But when the set parted to reveal Stevie Wonder at the piano, breaking into a medley that included “My Cherie Amour,” “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” and “Superstition,” the crowd erupted into raucous applause.By the finale, “Higher Ground,” the audience was on its feet.“To be part of this sort of lineage and this long line of people who have contributed so much to the culture, it’s just staggering to me,” Ms. Midler said. “I am so thrilled.”The Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 22. More

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      in Music

      Kennedy Center Taps Joni Mitchell and Berry Gordy for Awards

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      Bette Midler, Lorne Michaels and Justino Díaz will also receive tributes at a ceremony that is expected to look much more like it did before the pandemic.The last Kennedy Center Honors aired on television less than two months ago, but on Wednesday, the institution announced a new batch of honorees, taking a step toward getting the program back on schedule after the upheaval of the pandemic.The recipients include the folk singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell; the stage and screen performer Bette Midler; Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown; Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live”; and the opera singer Justino Díaz.Because of the pandemic, the 2020 honors were delayed until this year and the celebration did not at all resemble the event from prior years, when artists, politicians and other prominent figures packed into the opera house. Instead, the ceremony was split over several days, and television producers stitched together a combination of recorded at-home tributes and in-person performances that aired in June.This time, the ceremony, scheduled for Dec. 5, promises to look more like the Kennedy Center Honors of old, with the house at capacity and, if all goes well, President Biden in attendance. (President Trump was a no-show at the three ceremonies held during his time in office.)Throughout her career, Bette Midler released more than a dozen studio albums. Her starring role in the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly!” earned her a Tony Award for best lead actress in a musical in 2017.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“It’s going to be the party to end all parties because we haven’t had one in so long,” said Deborah Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.The ceremony will air on CBS, but the date has not been set.The honorees, selected on the recommendation of an advisory committee that includes Kennedy Center officials and past award recipients, include two singer-songwriters, Mitchell and Midler, whose careers started to soar in the early 1970s, when they were in their 20s.Fifty years ago, Mitchell, 77, released “Blue,” her fourth album, which went on to have an enduring influence on singer-songwriters for decades to come. Mitchell, who helped shape an era of protest music with songs like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock,” said of the honor, “I wish my mother and father were alive to see this.”Midler’s debut album, “The Divine Miss M,” came out a year after “Blue,” and helped propel her into a career that spread to Broadway, television and film. Midler, 75, put out more than a dozen studio albums, and her run as Dolly Levi in the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly!” earned her a Tony Award for best lead actress in a musical in 2017.Berry Gordy, right, onstage in 1981 with Smokey Robinson, one of the many singers discovered by Gordy.Joan Adlen/Getty ImagesIn Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, the Kennedy Center is honoring the figure behind an entire generation of musical talent. Gordy, now 91, once borrowed $800 from his family to start the record company and then went on to discover and help ignite the careers of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye and more.After announcing his retirement two years ago, Gordy said in an interview, he spends much of his time playing golf, tennis and chess.“Here we are 60 years later and Diana Ross and the Temptations are both coming out with new albums,” he said. “Motown’s legacy continues without me having to do anything.”This year is the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Center’s opening in 1971, more than a decade after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation creating a National Cultural Center. Shortly after the grand opening of the center, Díaz, then a 31-year-old opera singer, performed there as the male lead in Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci.” He played a villainous count and recalled handling two huge Mastiffs onstage during his first entrance.Now, at 81, Díaz, a bass-baritone who has performed for opera companies across the globe, will return to the opera house to see artists pay tribute to his career.Fifty years ago, Justino Díaz sang at one of the opening performances at the Kennedy Center. Now, he will return for a celebration of his career.Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Image“Little old me?” he said in an interview. He noted that despite his fame in the opera world, he is not a household name.“I say I’m an opera singer,” he said, “and immediately I have to follow with, ‘No, I’m not Plácido Domingo and I’m not Luciano Pavarotti.’”Rutter said that although the last ceremony was limited by social distancing requirements, there are aspects of it that she wishes to maintain. In particular, she said, there was a sense of intimacy in that celebration that had not been there before. At one point, she noted, as the artists mingled outside on a terrace, Rhiannon Giddens picked up her banjo, began playing, and Joan Baez started to dance.“It was spontaneous,” Rutter said. “The artists broke open their instruments and people started singing and dancing together.”(It is unclear whether the attendees this year will be required to wear masks, as they will be required to do for the Kennedy Center’s fall programming.)Michaels, 76, who created “S.N.L.” in 1975, was also forced by the pandemic to drastically rethink his show. In the spring of 2020, “S.N.L.” filmed sketches at its actors’ homes, allowing the audience to connect with the cast members in a new way. Now that they have returned to a live audience, they are thinking of ways to apply what they learned in quarantine.“Those shows had a strong homemade quality, which was part of their charm,” he said. “Once we went back to the audience, we kept pushing the limit of what we could do.” More

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      in Movies

      ‘Mean Girls’ Won’t Return to Broadway

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Mean Girls’ Won’t Return to BroadwayAdapted by Tina Fey from her 2004 film, the musical played 834 performances. A national tour is expected to resume when theaters reopen.Taylor Louderman, center, and Erika Henningsen, standing right, in the original Broadway cast of “Mean Girls.”Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJan. 7, 2021, 7:34 p.m. ETThe coronavirus pandemic has felled another Broadway show: “Mean Girls.”The musical’s producers, led by Lorne Michaels of “Saturday Night Live,” announced on Thursday that they would not seek to reopen in New York once the pandemic eases. However, the producers do plan to restart the show’s national tour.The show is the fourth Broadway closing prompted by the pandemic: Disney announced last spring that it would not reopen “Frozen,” and the producers of two plays that had been in previews, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” decided not to wait out the shutdown at all.The “Mean Girls” closing was prompted by the costs of keeping the production intact while theaters are dark. Broadway has been closed since last March, and it seems likely that most shows will not return until the fall or later.The musical, adapted from a 2004 film, features a book by Tina Fey; music by Jeff Richmond, who is married to Fey; lyrics by Nell Benjamin; and direction by Casey Nicholaw.It opened in 2018 and was a hit, recouping its $17 million capitalization costs and grossing $124 million over 834 performances, according to the production. But it won none of the 12 Tony Awards for which it was nominated, and its weekly box office had softened over time.The “Mean Girls” national tour began in Buffalo in 2019, and a London production, which was in the works before the pandemic, is still planned, according to Michaels. Paramount Pictures announced last January that it would make a film version of the stage musical, produced by Michaels and Fey.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More