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    Alicia Keys, LaChanze and Billy Porter Celebrate Black Theater

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    The stage stars were among more than 600 people who turned out for an evening of dinner and performances to benefit Black Theater United.LaChanze was in the mood to celebrate.“I am so ready to party,” the actress, wearing a sequined red gown with a bold red lip, said on the red carpet before the second annual Black Theater United gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan on Monday night.LaChanze is the president and a founding member of Black Theater United, a nonprofit that aims to combat racism in the theater community. She was one of more than 600 people — including the singer Alicia Keys, the actor Billy Porter, the actress Kristin Chenoweth and the pop-classical musician Josh Groban — who gathered at the grand event space for a live auction, dinner and performance on a night when most Broadway shows were dark.The gala raised money for the nonprofit founded by an all-star team of Black theater artists, including the Tony Award winners Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Phylicia Rashad and LaChanze in the summer of 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.Mr. Mitchell remembered a call at the time with Ms. McDonald, the director Schele Williams and LaChanze. “They just started saying, ‘We’ve got to do something,’” he said.The organization now offers programs for aspiring young Black theater artists including student internships, a panel and discussion series, a musical theater scholarship and a program that aims to educate artists of color about designing for the theater.From left: Nichelle Lewis, Stephanie Mills and Sydney Terry performing “Home” from “The Wiz.” Ms. Mills was the original Dorothy in the 1975 production of the musical, a retelling of the classic “Wizard of Oz” story.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesWe 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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      A Times Reporter Visits the Latest Broadway Shows

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      What’s it like to attend twelve productions in nine days? Michael Paulson, the Times theater reporter, shared his sprint around Midtown Manhattan.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.I’m the theater reporter at The New York Times, which means I see a lot of plays and musicals — about 100 a year. But I don’t often go to opening nights. Those evenings are celebratory, and audiences are filled with the productions’ friends and supporters. The press is generally invited to attend performances on the nights just before (those are called previews) or after the openings.This year was different. My colleagues and I noticed some months ago that April — always a busy time for Broadway as shows scramble to open by the deadline to be eligible for the Tony Awards — was shaping up to be more congested than usual. Twelve shows were opening in a nine-day stretch.Oprah Winfrey attends the opening night performance of “Hell’s Kitchen.”Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesThis is a tough time for Broadway. Production costs have risen and overall attendance has fallen since the pandemic. I suggested to the Culture desk’s editors that it might be interesting if we sent a reporter and photographer to every opening, chronicling these moments of hope at a time of challenge.As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.That’s how I wound up spending nine days with the photographer Landon Nordeman, lurching from show to show; watching as many performances as I could; hanging out on red (and yellow, and pink, and blue) carpets; listening to curtain call speeches; and even popping in to a few after-parties.I worked with two photo editors, Jolie Ruben and Amanda Webster; a visual storytelling editor, Josephine Sedgwick; the theater editor, Nicole Herrington; and the Arts & Leisure editor, Andrew LaVallee, to hash out a strategy. We asked ourselves: How would we differentiate the openings from one another? And how could we use the sea of events to help our readers, most of whom live far from Broadway, understand more about this industry and this art form?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

      Paul Giamatti, Bradley Cooper, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and More Celebrities at the National Board of Review gala

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      The stars were among the 17 honorees at the annual National Board of Review gala, as awards season ramps up.On a not-at-all red carpet inside Cipriani 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday night, Da’Vine Joy Randolph was glowing.“The fact that these people actually even seen my work is just mind-blowing,” said the actress, a star of “The Holdovers,” who was being honored with the National Board of Review’s best supporting actress prize at its annual film awards gala, just days after she had won her first Golden Globe on Sunday for her role in the film.A few feet away on the gray carpet was Celine Song, who came to accept the prize for best directorial debut for “Past Lives.” She was sporting a tuxedo jacket, a long skirt and a bow tie.“Because the movie is so personal, any time somebody connects to the film, I always feel less lonely; I feel very seen and understood and embraced,” said Ms. Song, who based the romantic film partly on her own experience with a childhood friend.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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      in Movies

      Let Him Entertain You: Billy Crystal Returns to Broadway

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      The comedian is starring in “Mr. Saturday Night,” a musical version of his 1992 movie about an aging performer who won’t accept that his time in the spotlight is up.“The worst nightmare is, do you wake up one day and you’re not funny anymore?” Billy Crystal, 74, said of the anxiety that comes with being an aging comedian. “Do you wake up and you’re not relevant?”Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesA funny thing happened in the rehearsal room of “Mr. Saturday Night” a few weeks ago. Billy Crystal was performing a scene from this new Broadway musical in which his lead character, an aging, out-of-touch comedian named Buddy Young Jr., has learned that he was mistakenly included in an in memoriam segment on the Emmy Awards.Invited to appear on the “Today” Show to correct the error, Buddy sees an opportunity to reclaim the spotlight he once commanded. With that motivation, Crystal turned to his co-star David Paymer, who plays Buddy’s endlessly loyal brother, Stan, and he began to sing a song about his deep yearning for a crowd’s attention:What I was, way back thenI could have that back againI could be — still could beThat guyIt’s an essentially comedic song, delivered in the warm, warbling voice we heard Crystal employ each year when he was a ubiquitous comedy star and a reliably genial Academy Awards host.“Mr. Saturday Night,” which opens April 27 at the Nederlander Theater, is a throwback to the era of Crystal’s hegemony in the 1980s and early ’90s, when he straddled the cultural landscape with his standup specials and hit films like “City Slickers” and “When Harry Met Sally…”Crystal as the out-of-touch comedian Buddy Young Jr. (who is mistakenly included in an awards show’s in memoriam segment) and Randy Graff as Buddy’s wife, Elaine, in the new musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe film version of “Mr. Saturday Night,” which Crystal starred in and directed in 1992, felt like a strange misstep at the time. Far from the eager rib-ticklers he was known for, Crystal — then 44, under layers of old-age makeup — played Buddy as a selfish curmudgeon who has alienated his family and refuses to accept that his career is over.Now 74, Crystal is not that guy — if he doesn’t enjoy the outsize dominance he once had, he doesn’t share Buddy’s desperation to reclaim it, either.Still, as Crystal told me a few days before the rehearsal, there is a certain pleasure he finds in revisiting this singularly disagreeable character: “To play him 30 years later, they actually have to make me younger,” he joked.But seriously, folks: Crystal explained that when he performs as Buddy in the stage musical, he isn’t weighed down by elaborate prosthetics or an aura of likability, and it brings a newfound ease to his performance.“When he’s cantankerous and edgy with people, it’s in front of a live audience,” he said excitedly. “I feel them get upset with him and I hear them go, ‘Ooh.’”Having lived long enough to match the character in age and to experience the kinds of setbacks and regrets that shaped him, Crystal understands that Buddy is not a bad guy. “He’s misunderstood and confused, bitter and regretful, and time is running out,” he said.This is the point where Billy Crystal and Buddy Young Jr. really intersect: at the realization that there is more life behind them than in front of them, and the anxiety that they might never again be as good as they once were.For himself, and for any comedian who cares about the art, Crystal said, “The worst nightmare is, do you wake up one day and you’re not funny anymore? Do you wake up and you’re not relevant? When does that happen?”He added: “There’s a magic about when it’s good, and when it’s bad, it’s really something incredible. There’s a terrible feeling of, I’m losing them.”“It’s not an Ahab thing — it’s not his white whale,” the screenwriter Lowell Ganz said of why Crystal is revisiting “Mr. Saturday Night.” “He has a real affection for the character because he loved those guys.”Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesNot that Crystal lets this fear keep him up at night — “I’m a bad sleeper, anyway,” he said. “I don’t need to worry about more than I’m worrying about” — but the best solution he has found is to focus on projects that put him to the test, like “Mr. Saturday Night.”“You’ve got to keep pushing ahead and not let anybody leave you behind,” he said.In early March, I met with Crystal at his spacious penthouse apartment in downtown Manhattan. Dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he was a subdued but still quippy host as he showed off some of his artifacts: a desk nameplate for Dr. Benjamin Sobel, his “Analyze This” character; an enlarged photograph of celebrity guests at the 1937 Oscars. (“Even then, the show ran too long,” he said.)Crystal’s love of nostalgia and showbiz history helped inspire the character of Buddy Young Jr., a Don Rickles-like insult comic he played in segments on HBO specials and “Saturday Night Live” before giving him a full life in “Mr. Saturday Night.”That film, which he wrote with the “City Slickers” screenwriters, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, was Crystal’s feature-directing debut. Back then, becoming the wizened entertainer required five hours a day to put his old-age makeup on and another two hours to take it off: “They’d cut a hole in my bald cap and you’d hear, whooooosh,” Crystal recalled. “It was like Jiffy Pop.”Paymer, who also played Stan in the film, received an Oscar nomination. But the movie was a commercial dud, grossing just $13 million domestically. (“City Slickers,” by comparison, made $124 million.) “It was the biggest disappointment that it didn’t do well,” Crystal said.His film collaborators said that Crystal was especially stung by the failure because he had intended “Mr. Saturday Night” as a tribute to the tenacious golden-age comedians he grew up admiring.“It’s not an Ahab thing — it’s not his white whale, and I don’t think he deals in that kind of neurosis,” Ganz said. “But he has a real affection for the character because he loved those guys.”In the years after “Mr. Saturday Night” was released, Crystal entered a foreseeable cycle of hits and misses. (“Analyze This,” yes; “City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold,” no thank you.)This is Crystal’s first Broadway musical (he took voice lessons during the pandemic lockdown). His previous Broadway outing, the autobiographical one-man show, “700 Sundays,” won a Tony Award in 2005.Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesHe had seemingly hosted his last Oscars in 2004, until he got called in to pinch-hit in 2012 — an act meant to bring some dignity back to the show after its co-producer Brett Ratner resigned after making offensive public remarks and his chosen M.C., Eddie Murphy, exited after him.Rather than coast to his own emeritus status, Crystal has lately appeared in projects that have paired him with younger stars: the short-lived FX series “The Comedians” with Josh Gad; modest existential comedy-dramas like “Standing Up, Falling Down” with Ben Schwartz; and “Here Today” with Tiffany Haddish.He remained on the lookout for new projects to engage him. In 2017, he toured with the actress Bonnie Hunt, at appearances where she interviewed him about his life and career. Though he was planning to shape this material into a new show, Crystal said he backed off the idea: “One word came to my mind that pulled me away from it — easy. It’s not a challenge.”He had already starred in his autobiographical one-man show, “700 Sundays,” whose original Broadway run won a Tony Award in 2005. At that time, he said Mel Brooks had approached him about being a replacement cast member in his musical “The Producers.” (As Crystal recounted the story, “I said, ‘Do I really want to be the eighth guy to play Max Bialystock?’ He said, ‘You won’t be — you’ll be the 12th.’”)Crystal in the 1992 movie.Entertainment Pictures/AlamyBrooks also raised the suggestion of a “Mr. Saturday Night” musical, which Crystal said he’d do only if Brooks starred in it. (A representative for Brooks’s production company confirmed their conversation.) This casting didn’t come to pass either, but Crystal continued to reflect on the idea for another decade.Around 2015, Crystal said he got serious about the musical. At that point, when he contemplated playing Buddy Young Jr., he said, “It’s easier.”By then, he’d also become more familiar with the whiplash oscillations of show business that were mostly speculative when he made the movie. “I’ve had ups and downs and sideways and middles, and the middles may be harder than the downs,” he said. “The middle, that’s the weird one, because you’re looking up and looking down at the same time.”Crystal, Ganz and Mandel wrote a new book for the musical, one that charts Buddy’s trajectory from Catskills dining-room cutup to TV star to washout, and the show features songs with music by Jason Robert Brown (“Parade,” “The Bridges of Madison County”) and lyrics by Amanda Green (“Hands on a Hard Body”).Its director, John Rando (“Urinetown,” “The Wedding Singer”), said that where the film used younger performers to flash back to Buddy’s earlier days, the actors in the musical will play their characters at every age. In his initial conversations with Crystal, Rando recalled, “I said I want to see Billy Crystal play his 20-year-old self and his 40-year-old self and his 70-year-old self. This is the theater and we should capitalize on that.”In workshopping the musical, Rando said that the overall size of the cast shrank from about 20 people to a more intimate group of eight. “That made us discover the real heart and pulse of the show, which is Buddy’s family, and how each of them relate to him,” he said. (The principal Broadway cast also stars Randy Graff as Buddy’s wife, Elaine, and Shoshana Bean as his estranged daughter, Susan.)But just as “Mr. Saturday Night” was nearly ready to go before audiences, the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 halted work on the show. Crystal hunkered down with his family in Los Angeles, finding that his quarantine at least provided the time to focus on other writing projects. “It gave me a discipline.”For Crystal, who hasn’t performed in a full-length musical since 1981 (when he played the master of ceremonies in a Kenley Players production of “Cabaret” in Ohio), this was also a period he spent working with a vocal coach and practicing his songs.When “Mr. Saturday Night” was at last able to have an out-of-town tryout at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., this past October, anxieties were running high. After hearing the audience clap and cheer for the show’s first performance, Crystal said he found Rando backstage and collapsed into his arms, crying with relief.“I felt like Dr. Frankenstein — it’s alive!” Crystal excitedly recounted. “We had a show.”Crystal on the set of the musical, which is in previews at the Nederlander Theater. Opening night is scheduled for April 27.Philip Montgomery for The New York TimesCrystal remained a persistent presence through the Broadway rehearsals at Pearl Studios in Midtown Manhattan, sometimes wandering its narrow room to joke around with his cast and stoke morale, but always watching fastidiously for opportunities to make refinements.“He’s more serious than I thought he would be,” said Bean, who has previously starred in musicals like “Hairspray” and “Waitress.”“If it’s a scene that he’s not involved in, he does listen in,” she said. “He stands there with his little arms folded and he squints his eyes and he’s paying attention.”Bean added, “I live for the moments when I can get him to crack a smile or laugh. It’s like the sun comes shining through on you for two seconds. And I don’t know if he’s just being polite or if he really thinks that I have charm, but it’s the greatest.”Paymer, who has now performed “Mr. Saturday Night” onscreen and stage, said that Crystal is constantly striving to find ways to reinvent the musical and keep it distinct from the film.“I said to him last week, ‘Well, in the movie, we did this,’” he recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, that was the movie.’ That, to me, was freeing. I found myself giving the same line readings at times. And then I stopped myself from doing that — don’t go back to the movie and say things exactly the way you did then.”However long “Mr. Saturday Night” runs, Crystal said that the physical and psychic demands of the show are exactly what he is looking for at this point in his life — a self-explanatory rebuttal to any potential argument that he’s running out of steam or should be looking to pack it in.“If you just do the math, you could say, all right, there’s less time to do stuff,” he said. “But why look at it that way?” Though there’s no established path for a comedian to follow at this point in his career, Crystal added, “the exciting thing about it to me is that there is no road map.”And making this incarnation of “Mr. Saturday Night” has taught Crystal that there is still so much more he wants to make, if he can just pace himself.As he explained, in a voice that was familiar for both its shticky-ness and its sincerity, “I have too much to do and I’m in no rush. When you rush, you make mistakes. That’s the old excuse: ‘How’d you fall?’ ‘I was rushing when I shouldn’t have rushed. I didn’t read the thing. I tripped and I fell.’ So, I’m just going to take it as it comes.” More

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      in Music

      Nebula, a Big New Club, Wants Manhattan to Dance Again

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      Yang Gao, a newcomer to the nightlife business, took a gamble when he spent $12 million in the middle of a pandemic to carve out a 10,000-square-foot space in the heart of Midtown.Two years ago, Yang Gao and Richie Romero were watching over a very noisy and very expensive construction project: Digging down, down, down, beneath the floor of an old building on West 41st Street, just off Times Square.Mr. Gao, an entrepreneur, and Mr. Romero, a nightlife impresario, were carving out Nebula, a giant dance club. By blasting into the bedrock, the ceilings could be that much higher — 27 feet above the dance floor.Known in the tabloids as a “club king,” Mr. Romero had definite ideas about what Nebula should and should not be. The main thing was, it had to be the kind of place where people would actually dance, rather than lounge the night away in banquettes.That’s how it used to be when he started going into Manhattan from Queens as a teenager, eager to show off his moves at Tunnel, Palladium and Club USA. Everybody went out on the floor back then. You mingled. You sweated. You got into it. By age 18, Mr. Romero was working as a promoter of parties at Limelight. He was armed with a beeper and a list of more than 2,000 names and numbers. If your name was the list, Richie waved you in.Yang Gao, left, and Richie Romero in one of the V.I.P. rooms in the basement of the club.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times“Manhattan was the king of the world back then,” Mr. Romero, 46, said. “The stages were bigger than the DJs. Every DJ wanted to play them.”He was sitting in Nebula’s balcony during off hours. The place was empty and quiet. He recalled an early success he had, taking on the challenge of Monday nights at the China Club and just packing the place.“I was 19 years old,” he said. “I was so excited. I thought I was a big shot.”Manhattan may still be the epicenter of finance and media, but the club scene has moved elsewhere — Miami, Berlin, Las Vegas, even Scottsdale, Ariz. These days, New York is “the little stepsister,” Mr. Romero lamented. And although Marquee is going strong on Tenth Avenue, New York’s nightlife energy has moved on to Brooklyn.With Nebula, Mr. Romero and Mr. Gao are hoping to return Manhattan to its glory nights. Mr. Gao said he plowed some $12 million into the project, a huge gamble to take in the middle of a pandemic, when nightlife was on lockdown.“Dealing with the uncertainty of it all scared the hell out of me,” Mr. Romero said.At 10,000 square feet spread over three levels, Nebula was the largest new nightclub in the city when it opened last September. The main dance floor is 5,000 square feet. A D&B sound system pumps out the beats. Six LED projection screens descend from the ceiling to enclose guests in trance-like visuals.The multimedia aspect has appealed to the tech crowd. “Every NFT company wants to come here and do something,” Mr. Romero said.Nebula has also become a go-to place for newly minted 13-year-olds: “Funny,” he added. “We’re like the king of the bar mitzvahs now.”The private events, which take place on weeknights, are a lucrative sideline to the main attraction: weekend dance parties with top DJs from around the world, including Jamie Jones, Artbat and Eric Prydz, all of whom are scheduled to perform at Nebula this month.A clubber at Nebula.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesAs New York’s clubs have become more lounge-like in recent years, with a focus on bottle service for high rollers who lay out $10,000 to $20,000 for a private table, Nebula is decidedly old school.“I want to capture the people that are artistic, that are able to go into the club and appreciate the music,” said Mr. Gao, Nebula’s owner.Mr. Gao, 42, is new to the nightlife industry. A classically trained oboist who once played in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, he said he has a hand in several businesses, including a wine store in Astoria and East River party boats. About five years ago he started looking for club space in Manhattan, insisting the ceiling height be at least 21 feet. After signing the lease in late 2018, he sought out Mr. Romero.Nebula’s location has a long history in clubland. It was formerly Saci, Show and Arena. Most recently, it housed Circle, a Korean American spot that defined going out for a generation of the Asian and Asian American communities in New York until it closed in 2018. Mr. Romero promoted parties at all of those venues, except Circle. In recent years, he drifted out of nightlife and got into quick-service restaurants, opening a pizza chain, Zazzy’s, only to be lured back by Mr. Gao.“I believe in good bones. And this room always had good bones,” said Mr. Romero, who speaks at 200 beats per minute. “Sat down. Saw the vision. Came in here. We started putting it all together and made Nebula Nebula.”Business boomed in the brief window between opening and Omicron, Mr. Romero said. Since then, supply chain problems have led to shortages of Don Julio 1942, the club’s most popular tequila. The banquettes meant for the edges of the main dance floor didn’t arrive until last week.For those who remain wary of big crowds, Mr. Gao designed private rooms at the basement level, each with its own sound system, lights and bathroom. Despite reports of coming Covid-19 waves, he said he is optimistic.“I know that people want to come out,” Mr. Gao said. “People long for human interactions. That’s when I decided that this sector isn’t going away.”Saturday night at Nebula.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesAt 12:30 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, Nebula’s main dance floor was nearly full. As images flashed on the LED screens, several hundred clubgoers were dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” The event was Tuesday Baby Tuesday, a night set aside for people who work at nightclubs.“It’s an industry night,” Jonas Young-Borra, 37, a musician and former male model who described himself as the “left-hand, right-hand” to Mr. Romero, said over the music. “You get people from other clubs who can’t go out on the weekends, plus the 21 and up crowd.”Mr. Romero, who stood watching the action on the dance floor, said that, in terms of the crowd, this was a bit slow for a Tuesday. He promised a bigger turnout the following week, when 50 Cent would be making an appearance. But after two years of social isolation, it was incredible all the same to see hundreds of bodies so close together, without masks or discernible phobias. Hostesses brought Champagne bottles topped with sparklers to the V.I.P. section.New York has changed since Mr. Romero’s Limelight youth, but he was determined that some things would not.“It’s important,” he said, “that we keep Manhattan thriving.” More

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      in Theater

      ‘The Same’ Review: Do You See What I See?

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      Enda Walsh’s play, which had its U.S. premiere at the Irish Arts Center, stars two sisters who play different versions of the same character.Imagine that on one otherwise normal day, while going about your normal activities, you encounter someone who looks uncannily familiar — it’s you. Does the discovery cause you discomfort or give you relief? Are you met with assurance or fear?It’s the situation a woman named Lisa — well, two women named Lisa — face in “The Same,” by Enda Walsh, that opened on Sunday for its U.S. premiere, at the Irish Arts Center in Manhattan.The Corcadorca Theater Company production stars Catherine Walsh and Eileen Walsh, who are sisters in real life (with no relation to Enda Walsh), as two expressions of Lisa. The younger Lisa recounts her recent arrival to a new city and what is presumably a mental health facility. She occasionally leaves her “small blue room,” as she calls it, for errands or groceries or, on one particular day, to take a job helping prepare for a repast after a funeral. There she meets the woman who shares her face and her memories: her future self.The two Lisas sit, stand and pace, reminiscing about their childhood. They speak in a steady back-and-forth, trading lines and swapping roles in what feels less like a conversation than a team recitation of a story they both know by heart. Their dialogue reflects a constantly changing perspective; sometimes they speak in the first person, sometimes the second, sometimes the third, as though each Lisa is, even individually, too fragmented to maintain a consistent point of view.The production, directed by Pat Kiernan, runs a trim 50 minutes, less than the time it takes to get from some corners of Brooklyn to the Irish Arts Center’s swanky new Midtown location on 11th Avenue.The set design, by Owen Boss, is immersive. It feels like a waiting room; the audience sits in upholstered chairs and love seats arranged in a loose square on a patch of carpet, giving a sense of the contours of a room. There’s a bookcase, a potted plant, and around and alongside the seats are signs of interrupted progress: tables cluttered with half-empty mugs of coffee and half-eaten cookies and an unfinished game of solitaire. The seating faces the center of the space, where the two actors spend most of the play. It’s novel to sit among the action, with one Lisa or another shuffling past your seat, though ultimately the effect doesn’t support its execution.Kiernan’s direction, however, imbues the production with an unsettling feeling: The actresses mirror each other in ways that aren’t always exact replications but rather variations on themes. And so there’s an interplay among their postures, movements and energies — younger Lisa gets worked up and older Lisa is calm, until she, too, gets worked up and younger Lisa becomes subdued. Michael Hurley’s lighting design and Peter Power’s sound design also seem triggered by the volatility of the Lisas’ minds. Kiernan has some of the set’s effects suddenly spring to life — two TV sets suspended in the corners of the room awaken to show clips from a game show or an episode of “Judge Judy,” a bingo machine whirs to life and then chaotically spews its contents on the floor.The success of the play’s Gemini effect is in large part because of the actresses’ talents. Eileen’s performance is jittery, her version of Lisa so full of neuroses that she seems like a shaken can of soda, fizzing just beneath the surface. Catherine gives off a similar, though more muted, anxiety; her Lisa embodies a different type of pressure, one of a dam carefully constructed over the years, pushing back against the waves crashing against its walls.Walsh’s script, however, doesn’t leave as lasting an impression. The play, which was originally commissioned by Corcadorca in celebration of the company’s 25th anniversary, has the usual signatures of the playwright, whose most recent New York production was the arresting “Medicine,” starring Domhnall Gleeson, at St. Ann’s Warehouse. There’s an intentional obliqueness, the traces of a narrative that are blurred and contorted by the characters. It all comes back to the slippery nature of the playwright’s language, which is full of repetition and half-formed ideas; sentences have some unspoken antecedent or trail off, spiraling inward to form an ouroboros of thoughts.But Walsh typically uses those linguistic maneuvers to add more shades to his text; rarely is he interested in a singular theme or mode of storytelling. Here, the short run time prevents him from getting too complicated, but the result is a script that, though still unconventional, is limited.How does a person grow from trauma? What happens when she resolves to leave part of herself behind, only to re-encounter that part unexpectedly? “The Same” circles these questions but never reaches a sharp point. It’s almost as though the play gets trapped simply gazing in the mirror.The SameThrough March 6 at the Irish Arts Center, Manhattan; irishartscenter.org. Running time: 50 minutes. More

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      in Television

      Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst Dies at 30

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      Ms. Kryst, who was also a correspondent for the television show “Extra,” was found dead on Sunday in New York.Cheslie Kryst, a correspondent for the celebrity news program “Extra” who won the Miss USA title in 2019 while working as a lawyer, was found dead on Sunday in New York. She was 30.Ms. Kryst died in a fall from a high-rise building on Manhattan’s West Side, where she had an apartment, the New York Police Department said. Her death was being investigated as a suicide, Lt. Thomas Antonetti, a department spokesman, said on Monday.“Extra,” which also announced her death, provided a statement from her family that said Ms. Kryst “embodied love and served others, whether through her work as an attorney fighting for social justice, as Miss USA and as a host” on the show.Ms. Kryst joined “Extra” as a correspondent in the fall of 2019, and later earned two Daytime Emmy Award nominations for outstanding entertainment news program for her work, according to Variety.Ms. Kryst shooting a segment for the show “Extra” in New York in 2019.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesIn the hours before her death, Ms. Kryst shared a picture of herself on Instagram with the caption, “May this day bring you rest and peace.”Cheslie Kryst was born on April 28, 1991, in Jackson, Mich., and moved to Charlotte, N.C., when she was a toddler, according to a profile from SouthPark Magazine. She later graduated from the University of South Carolina with a business degree and then earned an M.B.A. and a law degree from Wake Forest University.In 2017 she joined Poyner Spruill, a law firm based in North Carolina, where she focused on civil litigation. The firm said in a statement on Sunday that Ms. Kryst “was a passionate advocate both in and out of the courtroom.” After she was crowned Miss USA, she and Poyner Spruill agreed that she would go on sabbatical, and she later left the firm, according to its managing partner, Dan Cahill.Although Ms. Kryst worked as a lawyer for some time, she was no stranger to beauty pageants. Her mother, April Simpkins, was crowned Mrs. North Carolina in 2002. “My mom was the second Black Mrs. North Carolina, so I knew no matter what, I was going to compete,” Ms. Kryst told The New York Times in 2020.Ms. Kryst started her pageant career as a teenager and won the Miss Northwestern pageant while in high school. In 2019, she was crowned Miss North Carolina and went on to win Miss USA, becoming the oldest contestant ever to win at age 28. She later represented the United States at the 2019 Miss Universe Competition, finishing in the top 10.In the midst of a rising career that required long days, Ms. Kryst told The Times in December 2019 that down time was the key to balancing her busy schedule, which included traveling for events as Miss USA and maintaining her blog, White Collar Glam, where she discussed affordable workplace fashion. Mental health was also a priority for Ms. Kryst, who said in a Facebook video in 2019 that she regularly spoke with a counselor. “When I’m not talking to my counselor, I take time at the end of every single day to just decompress,” she said. “I unplug. I shut my phone off. I don’t answer messages. I just sit and watch my favorite movie.”Ms. Kryst also used her rise to fame and presence on the pageant stage to make a statement about diversity. She described herself as a Black woman of mixed race heritage and told The Grio in 2019 that she intentionally wore her hair natural during the Miss USA pageant. “Winning with my natural hair was really important to me because I thought, this is the way that my hair grows out of my head,” she said. “I should be OK to wear my hair like this.”In an essay published by Allure magazine last year, Ms. Kryst reflected on the challenges of growing older and challenging conventional thinking about women’s appearances and opinions.“A grinning, crinkly-eyed glance at my achievements thus far makes me giddy about laying the groundwork for more, but turning 30 feels like a cold reminder that I’m running out of time to matter in society’s eyes — and it’s infuriating,” she wrote. “After a year like 2020, you would think we’d learned that growing old is a treasure and maturity is a gift not everyone gets to enjoy.”Ms. Kryst is survived by her parents and five siblings.If you are having thoughts of suicide, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.Christine Hauser More

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      in Theater

      Sardi’s Is Back After 648 Days, Its Fortunes Tied to Broadway

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      The caricatures are back up. But many shows are canceling performances just as Sardi’s reopens, a hurdle for a restaurant catering to the theater crowd.It felt sort of like old times, the other night at Sardi’s.Joe Petrsoric, back in his familiar red jacket, was lining up martini glasses at the second floor bar where he has worked since arriving from Yugoslavia in 1972. Manning the front door, his traditional dark suit now accessorized with a face mask, was Max Klimavicius, who started working in the kitchen in 1974 after immigrating from Colombia; he now runs the place.It had been 648 days since Sardi’s, a watering hole so closely entwined with Broadway that it was name-checked in the Rodgers and Hart song “The Lady Is a Tramp,” last served its cannelloni au gratin. And now, on the long night of the winter solstice, the oft-imperiled Main Stem mainstay with caricature-covered walls was ready to try again.The timing is nerve-racking. The Omicron variant is rampaging through New York City, wreaking havoc in the theater industry.There were 33 Broadway shows scheduled to perform Dec. 21, which Mr. Klimavicius chose for a soft reopening with limited hours, a limited menu and reduced capacity. But so many actors and crew members are now testing positive for the coronavirus that only 18 shows actually took the stage that night, and one of those made it to curtain only because the playwright grabbed a script and went on to replace an ailing performer.“The place has to live,” said Mr. Klimavicius, who greeted customers like the long-lost friends many of them were, but also helped make sure they had proof of vaccination. “It’s part of the fabric.”The restaurant is a combination of Broadway commissary and tourist magnet. As it reopened, the producer Arthur Whitelaw, who still remembers a childhood visit to Sardi’s more than seven decades ago (his parents were taking him to a new musical called “Oklahoma!”), settled into a cozy corner from which he could survey the room. A few tables away sat four friends from The Villages, the fast-growing retirement community in Florida, who were in town to see “To Kill a Mockingbird” on their annual Broadway trip.The restaurant’s owners did a substantial rehabilitation of the four-story eatery this year, but are hoping no one will notice, because Sardi’s customers are tradition-bound.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe work was made possible in part by help from the Shubert Organization, which owns the building, and in part with a large grant from a federal government program designed to provide emergency assistance to restaurants and bars affected by the pandemic. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBroadway is a small town, but a big business — in 2018-2019, the last full season before the pandemic, 14.8 million people saw a show, spending $1.8 billion on tickets. Many of those patrons also spent money at hotels, shops, and at restaurants like Sardi’s — a symbiotic, and symbolic, economic relationship that is essential to Times Square and the city at large.“Sardi’s is a symbol of Broadway and the Broadway scene, and it’s been closed for far too long,” said Tom Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance, which represents a theater-dependent neighborhood that occupies 0.1 percent of the city’s land mass, but contributes 15 percent of its economic output. With New York’s business districts threatened by remote work, and its brick-and-mortar stores by e-commerce, in-person experiences like live theater and dining are more important than ever.Times Square is still in recovery mode. “Office workers are coming back slower than anyone would have expected or wanted — occupancies are about 30 percent — and about 77 percent of businesses are open,” Mr. Harris said. “We still have a ways to go.”Sardi’s, which has been operating on West 44th Street since 1927, employed nearly 130 people during peak seasons before the pandemic arrived; it’s restarting with 58.The restaurant has weathered its share of challenges — booms, busts, and bankruptcy. It has been popular and it has been passé, but it has always been there, known more for its caricatures than its cuisine, drawing a mix of industry insiders and theater-loving visitors to eat, drink, kibitz and commiserate.It was established by Vincent Sardi Sr., who in 1947, at the very first Tony Awards, won a special prize “for providing a transient home and comfort station for theater folk.” Mr. Klimavicius is now the majority owner.Sardi’s has about 1,200 caricatures of famous people who have eaten in the restaurant, most of whom are connected to the theater industry. About 900 are on display at any given time. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe original caricature of Barbra Streisand was stolen, so now her image is the only one screwed into the wall, keeping watch over the empty dining room throughout the shutdown.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHabitués understand the risks now faced not only by Sardi’s, but by the industry, the neighborhood, and the city.“We haven’t proven that the pandemic is over, and that everything is not going to fail,” said Thomas Schumacher, the president of Disney Theatrical Productions, who likes to transact business at the upstairs bar while shows are running and the room is quiet. “But then, I grew up in California where the ground shook all the time and you never knew if your whole house was going to collapse on you, so I see it differently.”Sardi’s began the pandemic, appropriately, with a moment of high drama: On March 12, 2020, just moments after agreeing to shut down all 41 theaters, a group of Broadway bigwigs gathered at the bar to drown their sorrows. They ate, they drank, they hugged. Then many of them got the coronavirus.Among the industry gatekeepers who fell ill — with, to be sure, no way of knowing how — was Robert E. Wankel, the chairman and chief executive of the Shubert Organization, which has 17 Broadway theaters, and which is the restaurant’s landlord. On Tuesday, Mr. Wankel was there again, happily holding court over a vodka tonic and relentlessly bullish on Sardi’s, where he has been coming for 50 years, and lunches three times a week.“Sardi’s is going to do very well,” he said, “now that the theater is back.”Max Klimavicius, who grew up in Colombia, started working at Sardi’s in 1974 as an expediter in the kitchen. Now he owns the place.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAmong the restaurant’s most longstanding patrons: Arthur Whitelaw, a producer whose parents first brought him to Sardi’s in the 1940s. On the first night back, Whitelaw had a pre-theater dinner with his producing partner, Ruby Persson.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSardi’s has been a part of Broadway longer than some theaters, and has become part of the industry’s lore. As a line in “The Lady is a Tramp” has it: “The food at Sardi’s is perfect, no doubt / I wouldn’t know what the Ritz is about.” Alice Childress mentions it in her play, “Trouble in Mind,” now being staged on Broadway, while in the musical “The Producers,” Mel Brooks has a would-be showman dream of “lunch at Sardi’s every day.”Over the years, the restaurant has hosted luminaries from Eleanor Roosevelt to Ethel Merman, scads of Tony winners, Oscar winners and even, once a year, the dog that wins the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. “I went there with Elizabeth Taylor, for God’s sake,” said Charlotte Moore, the artistic director of Irish Repertory Theater.Among its current boldfaced regulars: the designer Michael Kors, who created a Sardi’s-themed cashmere sweater for Bergdorf Goodman (selling for $990).“When I walk into Sardi’s I feel like I’m living in ‘All About Eve’,” he said. “I know Times Square needs to come back, and I know Sardi’s needs to come back.”Joe Petrsoric has been working the bar at Sardi’s since 1972. “What am I going to do at home?”, he asked.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAlthough the dining room and bar will look quite familiar to Sardi’s regulars — polished but unchanged — the kitchen was completely overhauled in order to modernize it, and some equipment has yet to arrive because of supply chain woes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSardi’s is among the last Broadway institutions to resume operations.Since June, 39 Broadway shows have begun performances, the TKTS booth is once again selling discounted tickets, and other industry watering holes, like Joe Allen and Bar Centrale, have long since reopened.But for months Sardi’s remained shuttered, with an eerie menu in the window still listing the specials for March 13, 2020: a tasting of five cheeses, meatballs over bucatini, sautéed sea scallops.Early in the pandemic, Mr. Klimavicius, like many, had his doubts — theater was dark, Midtown was dead, everything seemed uncertain. But this June, buoyed by $4.5 million from the federal government’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund, he began overhauling the space — redoing the kitchen, the gas lines, the ventilation, and the wiring, among other things — hoping to modernize it in a way that no one would notice. People who love Sardi’s are, to put it mildly, change-averse.“I was concerned when I heard ‘renovation’,” said Andrea Ezagui, a Sardi’s regular from Long Island, who showed up at 4 p.m. — the moment it reopened — and immediately repaired to the bar upstairs, where she celebrated with champagne and friends. “They kept it the way it should be,” she said, “a little piece of heaven on Broadway.”The restaurant’s famous caricatures came off their picture ledges for the restoration — all but one, that is. Barbra Streisand has the only caricature screwed to the wall, because fans stole the original; so now she remains, irremovable, with her admonition “Don’t steal this one” inscribed above her signature.On a recent afternoon, Mr. Klimavicius and his crew set about putting the hundreds of caricatures back up, starting with one of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “a good friend of the house.”As he settled into his domain on the second floor, Mr. Petrsoric, the bartender, was clearly relieved to be back on the job, after spending too many months in Mamaroneck, N.Y., riding a stationary bike and, by his own account, going crazy. “What am I going to do at home?” he said. “I love people. And think about 50 years behind the bar. You know how many people I know?”He started by mixing a Belvedere martini, a cosmopolitan and a lemon drop. “This is unbelievable,” he marveled. “But you know, it takes me one hour, and you’re back to normal.” More

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      in Music

      La Grenouille NYC: Classic Cuisine and the Owner’s Lusty Crooning

      by

      Around 9:15 on a recent Wednesday evening, the mood in the full but otherwise serene dining room of La Grenouille suddenly shifted.The lights brightened. A small band began to play loudly. Out of the kitchen emerged a man in sunglasses, sporting a Cheshire cat grin and hips that swayed like a palm tree in a storm. He burst into a rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon,” in a voice that combined the boom of a sportscaster with the swagger of an Elvis impersonator. For almost half an hour, he strutted around this French restaurant known for its towering floral displays and airy soufflés, perching on diners’ tables and even growling like a cat.Who was this brassy balladeer? None other than the restaurant’s majority owner, Philippe Masson.Some guests cheered. Others took photos. As Mr. Masson, 60, told how he once romanced Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a woman could be heard saying, “This is the last dying gasp of the patriarchy.”Mr. Masson and his house band perform the Gershwin tune “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesLa Grenouille, just off Fifth Avenue on East 52nd Street, is among the last old-school French restaurants left in New York City, a contemporary of lost gustatory temples like Lutèce, La Caravelle and La Côte Basque. Much of its reputation has rested on how little it changed during nearly 60 years in business.So the restaurant’s transformation into a raucous late-night jazz lounge has been jarring to some diners, thrilling to many others and surprising to almost everybody. (The performances, which take place on all four nights the restaurant is open each week, aren’t mentioned when you make a reservation online, though they are noted on the La Grenouille website.)“It was definitely like a caricature of Frank Sinatra,” said Caroline Askew, 37, a creative director of a Manhattan design studio, who ate at La Grenouille in July. “But it was fun. I don’t know, I think we needed that sense of humor.”It was one of the first times she’d dined indoors since the pandemic began. “It felt like, OK, this is why I live here,” she said. “I love the old New York-y characters.”To Mr. Masson, who has no formal musical training and who broke into song four times during a half-hour interview for this article, the musical gig feels like a fulfillment of a lifelong destiny. “I seem to move people — I can’t explain it,” he said.Some have been moved in less desirable ways.“It ruined the entire ambience and tenor of the evening,” said Carrie Cort, 77, who lives in Washington, D.C., and has been going to La Grenouille for 28 years. She and her husband recently celebrated his 80th birthday there, and felt the performance was more a disturbance than a delight. “If he wants to open up a nightclub, good, but that’s not what La Grenouille is.”Many guests are excited about the live music, the first in the restaurant’s nearly 60-year history. Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesLa Grenouille has been a Midtown oasis of tradition and tranquillity since Gisèle Masson and her husband, Charles Masson Sr., opened it in 1962. But the restaurant has also kicked up some public drama. In 2014, their son Charles Masson Jr. stepped down from his longtime role as general manager amid a bitter, longstanding dispute with Philippe, his younger brother, who then took over. (Asked for comment about the new musical act, Charles Masson Jr. said, “As much as I may have an opinion, I’d rather keep it to myself.”)Philippe Masson started performing casually for outdoor diners at La Grenouille in July 2020, as a tribute to the restaurant’s captain Bertrand Marteville, who had died of Covid-19. When indoor dining resumed two months later, Mr. Masson removed some tables and replaced them with a stage. He hired four jazz musicians and named them the Buster Frog Quartet, a nod to the restaurant’s name, which means “the frog.”Mr. Masson learned songs like “La Vie En Rose” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” The goal, he said, was to “bring back life to the city.”He soon realized that he had unlocked a passion. “People are saying, ‘Never mind the food or flowers — we are coming here to hear you sing, Philippe.’”Between sets of about 30 minutes, Mr. Masson still runs the kitchen, oversees the dining room and creates the restaurant’s signature flower arrangements. “Music is energizing,” he said. “It picks me up.”Mr. Masson started performing to honor an employee who died from Covid-19, and found a new passion in the process.Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesHe knows that not everyone appreciates his act. “One out of 100 say, ‘Oh, Philippe, this is not La Grenouille,’” he said. “I say, it is fitting for me and it is fitting for most.”It’s good for business, too, he said. “In the past we didn’t have a third seating. I could give food away and it wouldn’t happen. Now we have something to create more income for that elusive late-night seating.” (A French singer, Naïma Pöhler, also performs three nights a week, and the singers Lucy Wijnands and Ashley Pezzotti take the stage on Saturdays.)The music has attracted a younger clientele. Liana Khatri, 30, worried that the restaurant would be too stuffy when she visited in August — until Mr. Masson came onstage. “You didn’t care if the guy’s voice was good,” she said. “That was not the point. It was more the experience.”“There are so many trendy restaurants in New York City,” she added. “There is something to be said for a place that is not trying to be cool.”Eventually, Mr. Masson wants to turn the private dining room upstairs into a jazz lounge, where he will keep performing.And what of the employees who hear his crooning night after night? One busboy simply shrugged and said, “You get used to it.”Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More