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      Anne Bogart Is Not Entirely Retiring

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      The theater director Anne Bogart first made a splash with the radical student productions she put on while teaching at New York University in the early 1980s. Her “South Pacific” (1984), for example, was conceived as the show that veterans in a mental institution performed as part of their therapy. Legend has it that the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate snuffed out the production, but Bogart clarified that it simply denied an extension. “It’s more dramatic to say they shut us down,” she said, chuckling.Under Bogart’s leadership, the New York City-based Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI) Company, formed by a group of artists in 1992, spent three decades exploring experimental outposts in both original creations like “Bob,” “The Medium” and “Hotel Cassiopeia” and re-imaginings of classics, often by ancient Greek playwrights.The group’s emphasis was on rigorous actor training and the performers’ physicality. Bogart’s approach involves “decentering emotion and re-centering the body,” said Jay Wegman, the director of N.Y.U. Skirball, which presented SITI’s “Radio Macbeth” last month. “I love how metaphorical her work is. It becomes an event, and there’s almost a mystical feeling because everything comes together so tightly in her stagings.”Now, SITI is ending its producing activities. “It came down to whether we are an institution — in which case you get a younger, more diverse company and a young artistic director — or a group of people,” Bogart, 71, said. “After a great deal of quite emotional discussion, we decided that we’re a group of people. I think that the legacy is more how we offer a model for future young companies: a collaborative ensemble whose focus is not on real estate but on the plays they do.”Bogart, center, with Kelly Maurer as Andy Warhol in a 1990s production of “Culture of Desire.” Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesBogart is not entirely retiring. She will remain a professor in Columbia University’s directing program, whose alumni include Rachel Chavkin, Jay Scheib, Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page, until 2026. She will also continue to direct on a freelance basis.Although SITI is presenting “A Christmas Carol” at Bard College (spearheaded by the co-director Darron L West) from Dec. 16-18, this felt like a good time to look back, especially since the company’s digital archives are going live on its website on Nov. 15, and a book, “SITI Company: This Is Not a Handbook,” is due soon via Yonkers International Press. Bogart spoke in a video chat from London shortly after the latest (and last) SITI gala. The event prefaced a revival of the company’s production of “War of the Worlds” and turned into a heartfelt tribute to the director. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What were some of the fundamental things that you all agreed on when starting SITI?The actors met at a diner and asked each other: “What does it mean to be a SITI Company member?” Every year they renewed that question, and they always had the same answer: We train together. It’s the cement that’s kept us going over time. Not only do they train together and learn together, but they teach that training, which makes sure they have a paycheck year-round. My own proposal to them was that I had all these theatrical essays I wanted to create. We didn’t expect it to last as long as it did, but I did need a group of people who would work together over time and solve problems together.How did you manage your freelance activities with SITI?I do a lot of opera outside. I always felt that was the least stressful for SITI Company: If I’m going to do opera, nobody can complain, because they can’t sing like opera singers. I still have a big appetite for all those things. That hasn’t changed.Where did you find inspiration when you started out?I came to New York in 1974, at the end of the Judson Church era, and I was very influenced by dance. It was also the explosion of theater companies like the Performance Group, which later became the Wooster Group, André Gregory’s Manhattan Project, Joe Chaikin’s Open Theater, and with the crazy work of Richard Foreman and the big wild things of Bob Wilson. I was also completely in love with German theater — particularly Peter Stein, Klaus Michael Grüber, Luc Bondy — and I stole from them a lot.Bogart with her wife, Rena Chelouche Fogel, in October at the Laurie Beechman Theater.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesIs that why you temporarily moved to Europe in the early 1980s?I decided I hated Americans and I was going to be German. But what I discovered is that I’m actually very American: I have an American sense of humor, an American sense of structure. And I’m really interested in American history — a lot of my work since then has been about Americans like Orson Welles, Bob Rauschenberg, Joseph Cornell.What are some of the big theatrical trends you’ve seen coming and going over the past decades?I was part of the generation who just admired directors. I used to follow Bob Wilson and Lee Breuer on the street! Then I noticed that people weren’t naming directors, they were naming companies, like Complicité, for example. That lasted for about a decade. Now the revolution is happening in playwriting, where extraordinary new voices are challenging the old forms. “An Octoroon” — that’s a radical play. So it’s gone from director to company to playwright.How have theater directors themselves changed?I’m surprised by how little they are interested in the regional theater. We have these theater factories around the country that used to be where everybody wanted to go, and it’s not so attractive right now. What is attractive are the art centers, and SITI Company has lived in the realm of the art centers, like the Krannert, the Walker, the Hancher, U.C.L.A. Directors like Rachel Chavkin or Diane Paulus are also looking at commercial models in new ways. When I was younger Broadway was not of interest to me, but the young directors are intrigued.What do you make of theater in the Covid era?We’re in a very interesting moment. The wonderful Scottish philosopher William MacAskill has a theory that every time there’s a cataclysmic event, there’s a period of plasticity in which change happens, and then soon afterwards we clamp down into a new accepted way of being. I think we’re in that moment of plasticity. What comes out on the other side? You or I can’t know.Whose work do you like these days?I got really interested in the work of Stan Lai, a Taiwanese director who’s rethinking the way audiences and plays function. I’m always interested in what Ivo van Hove is thinking about. I have a hate/love relationship with [Romeo] Castellucci: I cannot stand his work most of the time, but I have to deal with it. I guess what I’m looking for is somebody throwing down the gauntlet.“I got really interested in the work of Stan Lai, a Taiwanese director who’s rethinking the way audiences and plays function,” Bogart said.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesDo you think there’s been a renewed interest in the relationship between audiences and theater, especially since Covid?I think that’s what the frontier is right now. My friend [and one of SITI’s artistic directors] Leon Ingulsrud went to the theater the other day. I asked how it was and he said, “Not so good — the actors never said hello to the audience.” I thought that was really interesting. The acknowledgment of that relationship, or how an audience interfaces, is the prize, I think.But how do you do that? Wouldn’t it be distracting?“Bob” [1998] starts with him literally saying hi — there’s a moment of interface, where everybody comes together. In Ivo van Hove’s “More Stately Mansions” [1997] the actors came out onstage, bowed to each other and to the audience, then Joan MacIntosh started speaking at top speed the first monologue of that O’Neill play. I started hearing the thump of people leaving the seats. They just couldn’t stand it. But in a way, that’s also like saying hi. At first I thought, “Damn him, I could never do that — I’m an American, I’m about populist art.”OK, but in all honesty, you’re not really thought of as a populist director.Deep down, yes, it’s in me. It’s how I was brought up. At the beginning of SITI Company we were kind of, “[expletive] the audience.” I don’t feel that at all anymore. I feel that the point of being there is the audience — it’s all about the audience. More

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      in Movies

      Animal Lovers, Rejoice: The NY Cat and Dog Film Festivals Return

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      The programs feature many surprises, including a cat that plays Wordle and a lone man’s odyssey to feed Turkish strays.Tracie Hotchner still doesn’t offer tissues.During her early years as the director and founder of two animal film festivals, audience members would occasionally confront her and say, “‘Why don’t you give Kleenex?’” Hotchner recalled. While her programs have never included “Old Yeller”-style tear-jerkers, she acknowledges that her first festivals were too long and emotional. Even a steady string of uplifting tales could cause sentimental overload.But when Hotchner’s seventh annual NY Dog Film Festival and fifth annual NY Cat Film Festival arrive on Sunday at the Village East by Angelika Theater in Manhattan — before a monthslong tour of the United States and Canada — they will be as sleek and compact as a prizewinning Abyssinian or a champion greyhound. Featuring international short films, each festival now runs under two hours and intersperses serious works with the purely comic. (The 16-film cat festival screens at 11 a.m., the 17-film dog festival at 2 p.m.)This year, moviegoers can witness the challenging lives of feral cats in Malta and abandoned dogs in Mexico. Yet they can also see a feline parody of “America’s Got Talent,” fancifully animated dog and cat crime capers and a documentary about golden retrievers that served as the legitimately elected mayors of Idyllwild, Calif.With each festival, “I’ve tried to make it more balanced and something that is a magic carpet ride,” said Hotchner, an author and radio host in Bennington, Vt., whose Radio Pet Lady Network features online talk shows. During a telephone interview, she added, “There’s lots of short films, but you don’t have several in a row that slam you emotionally.”The programs have transformed in other ways, too. The 2022 editions are the most global, including films from Chile, France, Ireland, China, India, Israel and Sweden. Hotchner is also extending the projects’ reach: A film distributor is booking both festivals in other cities well into 2023. And for the first time, she is hosting a 20-minute question-and-answer session with a few filmmakers after each festival’s Manhattan screening.“I’ve never had a theater that would let me do that before,” Hotchner said. “It costs them money.” She explained that the Village East was donating the time, a gesture that is very much in the spirit of her feel-good, do-good mission: Ten percent of the $20 ticket price for each festival goes to a local animal charity in every city hosting the programs. On Sunday, the beneficiary is NYC Second Chance Rescue, whose co-founder, Lisa Blanco, will help greet audiences.But what may distinguish this year’s festivals most is the element of surprise. “Many of the films were not like anything I’d seen before,” Hotchner said.Consider “Kopecki” (“The Dog God”), Hayrettin Alan’s 11-minute documentary about a lone man feeding homeless dogs near Van, Turkey. Lacking narration or dialogue, the film simply follows this self-appointed savior, as packs of startlingly beautiful dogs greet him with unanticipated affection.Clockwise from top left: Scenes from “Jade & Trubs,” “Kopecki,” “Duet” and “Please Rescue Me.”Clockwise from top left: Mutual Rescue; Hayrettin Alan; Yadid Hirschtritt Licht; Kim BestHotchner also found a live-action fictional work among her entries — these are rare, as they tend to have high budgets. This selection, “Adam,” by Hope Elizabeth Martinez, focuses on a teenage girl whose sole companion is an ailing 14-year-old dog.Among the animated submissions, Hotchner discovered an unusual variety of styles and unexpectedly serious themes. In Yadid Hirschtritt Licht’s lyrical “Duet,” for example, a cat’s loving legacy continues after its original owner dies.But the humorous films offer surprises, too. Ever see a cat play Wordle? Kim Best, a filmmaker in Durham, N.C., created “Cat of Letters” with her own pet, Nube. (Pronounced NOO-bay, the word is Spanish for “cloud.”) Although a cat lover, Best admits that her stars don’t take direction.“They’re very insubordinate and churlish,” she said in a phone interview.Nube was churlish enough to reject the fingerlike extensions Best tried to attach to his claws, so she used a stuffed animal’s paw affixed to a stylus to portray the cat tapping letters on an iPad. (It’s convincing.) But she also gave herself a challenge: Nube, whose thoughts are conveyed via subtitles, chooses only cat- or dog-related words for his opening Wordle efforts, so Best had to use those to solve the puzzles in real time. There was “no cheating,” she said.A director who has contributed to every NY Cat Film Festival so far, Best also has a documentary spotlighting a more typical feline talent: getting stuck in trees. “Please Rescue Me” follows Patrick Brandt, a kindly North Carolina biochemist and arborist who has volunteered his skills and equipment to extract some 250 trapped cats — and one pet coatimundi.As he says in the film, “I’m not so much rescuing the cat as I’m rescuing the person.”Animals, of course, frequently save the people who save them. Mutual Rescue, a global nonprofit initiative that creates documentaries about these relationships to encourage pet adoption, delivered “Kimo & Jazz.” This film concerns a young gay man from a conservative religious background who finally felt able to come out to his parents after adopting a shelter dog. The pet, Jazz, then helped sustain him as his father was dying.Another Mutual Rescue documentary, “Jade & Trubs,” chronicles how Double Trouble — a toothless, sickly and thoroughly unsociable feline shelter resident — uncharacteristically responded to Jade, a little girl with autism visiting the organization. Jade had sensitivities that turned every bedtime into long bouts of tears and screams. But once the family adopted the animal, nicknamed Trubs, both child and cat blossomed in unexpected ways.Perhaps the most surprising interplay of rescuer and rescued, however, takes place in “Underdogs,” an independent project by Alex Astrella. His documentary unfolds at the California Men’s Colony, a prison in San Luis Obispo where the inmates train service dogs for veterans and emergency workers with post-traumatic stress disorder. The prisoners’ dark histories — several on camera are convicted murderers — contrast starkly with their tender devotion to the dogs and their purpose.“I took a life,” one says. “Now I want to save a life.”Astrella said in a phone interview that he intended to illustrate the program’s effects on the men and “the change it’ll hopefully enact on their lives going forward.” The film, he added, is a testament to the “spiritual power that dogs have on humans.”Such connections are the thread that runs through the festivals. As Hotchner said, their mission is “to celebrate that human-animal bond, however and wherever it occurs.”So prepare to celebrate. And maybe pack a few tissues.NY Cat Film Festival and NY Dog Film FestivalOct. 23; the Village East by Angelika Theater, Manhattan; catfilmfestival.com, dogfilmfestival.com. More

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      in Theater

      Times Square May Get One of the Few Spectacles It Lacks: A Casino

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      The battle to win a New York City casino license has heated up in Manhattan, with real estate and gambling giants offering competing proposals for Times Square and Hudson Yards.Times Square, New York City’s famed Crossroads of the World, could hardly be considered lacking. It has dozens of Broadway theaters, swarms of tourists, costumed characters and noisy traffic, all jostling for space with office workers who toil in the area.Now one of the city’s biggest commercial developers is pitching something that Times Square does not have: a glittering Caesars Palace casino at its core.The developer, SL Green Realty Corporation, and the gambling giant Caesars Entertainment are actively trying to enlist local restaurants, retailers and construction workers in joining a pro-casino coalition, as the companies aim to secure one of three new casino licenses in the New York City area approved by state legislators earlier this year.The proposal has enormous implications for Times Square, the symbolical and economic heart of the American theater industry, and a key part of the city’s office-driven economy. Although foot traffic in Times Square was almost back at 2019 levels during recent weekends, theatergoers and office workers have been slower to re-embrace a neighborhood where violent crime has risen.Overall attendance and box office grosses on Broadway are lagging well behind prepandemic levels, and there is considerable anxiety within the industry about how changes in commuting patterns, entertainment consumption and the global economy will affect its long-term health.A casino in Times Square faces substantial obstacles. There is already a competing bid for a casino in nearby Hudson Yards from another pair of real estate and gambling giants, Related Companies and Wynn Resorts.And with casino bids also taking shape in Queens and Brooklyn, there is no assurance that the New York State Gaming Commission will place a casino in Manhattan, let alone Times Square, one of the world’s more complex logistical and economic regions.Few things change in Times Square without notice or protest. When the city installed pedestrian plazas in the area more than a decade ago, the move was widely condemned and even lampooned by late-night talk show hosts, before being eventually embraced as an innovative foray in urban design. When the neighborhood’s army of costumed characters gained a reputation for aggressive solicitation, the city restricted them to designated “activity zones,” raising free speech concerns.Now critics worry that putting a casino at 1515 Broadway, the SL Green skyscraper near West 44th Street, would alter the character of a neighborhood that can ill afford to backslide toward its seedier past, and further overwhelm an already crowded area.In a copy of a letter soliciting support for the casino, which was obtained by The New York Times, the companies promised to use a portion of the casino’s gambling revenues to fund safety and sanitation improvements in Times Square, including by deploying surveillance drones.Yet the idea of a casino has already found an influential opponent: the Broadway League, a trade association representing theater owners and producers. On Tuesday, the league sent an email to its members saying it would not welcome a casino to the neighborhood.“The addition of a casino will overwhelm the already densely congested area and would jeopardize the entire neighborhood whose existence is dependent on the success of Broadway,” the league said in a statement. “Broadway is the key driver of tourism and risking its stability would be detrimental to the city.”The congestion in Times Square is both a closely watched sign of vibrancy and a potential irritant, particularly for commuters and theatergoers who sometimes cite the crowds and the cacophony as reasons to stay away.For New York, Times Square is an important financial engine — the city relies heavily on tourists to spend money at the neighborhood’s hotels, restaurants, stores and entertainment venues.There are ample indicators that Broadway is still struggling: Several productions, including “The Phantom of the Opera,” which is the longest-running Broadway show in history, and “A Strange Loop,” which won this year’s Tony Award for best musical, have announced plans to close.Last week, there were 27 shows running on Broadway, seen by 225,731 people and grossing $29 million; in the comparable week in October 2019, before the pandemic, there were 34 shows running that were seen by 286,802 people and grossed $35 million.Still, the Actors’ Equity Association, the labor union representing actors and stage managers, is among those supporting the casino bid, suggesting a contentious road ahead for a proposal that will face a lengthy approval process.“The proposal from the developer for a Times Square casino would be a game changer that boosts security and safety in the Times Square neighborhood with increased security staff, more sanitation equipment and new cameras,” Actors’ Equity said in a statement. “We applaud the developer’s commitment to make the neighborhood safer for arts workers and audience members alike.”The simmering tensions between local power brokers, months before the formal bidding process has even begun, foreshadow the fight ahead for developers hoping to cash in on what could become the most lucrative gambling market in the country, at a time when traditional office-using tenants have become more scarce.A state committee formed this month to review casino applications said the process would open by Jan. 6, and that no determinations on locations would be made “until sometime later in 2023 at the earliest.”In their letter seeking support for the casino, SL Green and Caesars said that gambling revenues could be used to more than double the number of “public safety officers” in Times Square and to deploy surveillance drones.The letter said a new casino would result in more than 50 new artificial intelligence camera systems “strategically placed throughout Times Square, each capable of monitoring 85,000+ people per day.” The safety plans were developed by former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, according to SL Green.Mr. Bratton did not respond to a request for comment.“As New Yorkers, it’s incumbent on us to keep making sure Times Square is keeping up with the times, and doesn’t go back to what I’ll call the bad old days of the ’70s or the early ’90s,” said Marc Holliday, the chief executive of SL Green. “And we all remember what that was like, when it comes to crime, and, you know, open drug use.”The casino is expected to include a hotel, a wellness center and restaurants, right above the Broadway theater that is home to “The Lion King” musical and a stone’s throw from the site of the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.Earlier this year, the state authorized up to three casino licenses for the New York City region. Legislators have touted the union jobs, tourists and tax revenue that a casino would attract, citing the fact that the bidding for each license will start at $500 million.Two existing “racinos” — horse racetracks with video slot machines but no human dealers — are considered front-runners for two of the three licenses: Genting Group’s Resorts World New York City in Queens and MGM Resorts International’s Empire City Casino in Yonkers, N.Y.The competition for the third license features many of the country’s major casino companies. Steven Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, has been talking with Hard Rock about a casino near the baseball team’s stadium in Queens. Las Vegas Sands has been finalizing plans for its preferred casino location in the area, and Bally’s Corporation has been scouting for a development partner.The Wynn-Related proposed casino would be on the undeveloped western portion of the Hudson Yards, which was supposed to be completed by 2025 and include residential units and parks. Related, the developer of Hudson Yards, said it plans to fulfill all of its prior housing and public space commitments for the area.In a private pitch deck obtained by The Times, Wynn and Related wrote that Hudson Yards, near the Javits Center, was the ideal location to target “diverse upscale” guests for a casino resort complex.“Because it attracts the upper tier of gaming consumers, Wynn is able to dedicate less than 10 percent of its resort space to gaming, yet still generate significant gaming revenue and tax benefits for municipalities,” reads a slide in the deck.The deck also features photos of an outdoor man-made waterfall — and of a couple enjoying cocktails while watching a cigarette-holding animatronic frog, apparently from Wynn’s “Lake of Dreams” show.In their pitch letter, SL Green and Caesars said the casino was a “once in a lifetime opportunity to once again solidify Times Square as the world’s greatest entertainment area.”Community support is an integral ingredient to winning state approval for a casino license.The Broadway League’s “influence and clout and understanding of what theatergoers want is crucial to the future of Times Square, and if they’re opposing this proposal, I don’t see how it proceeds,” said Brad Hoylman, the state senator representing the district that encompasses Times Square.But Andrew Rigie, president of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, which represents the city’s restaurants and bars, said the group would support a casino in Manhattan if it used local restaurant operators or provided vouchers to nearby eateries. A major question surrounding the economic impact of casinos is whether they incentivize guests to stay and eat inside the building, which could hurt surrounding businesses.Alan Rosen, the owner of Junior’s Cheesecake, a restaurant chain with locations in Times Square and at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, said he was unconcerned.“I can’t see it hurting my business,” he said. “Look at Las Vegas. What do people do? They eat. They go to shows. It’s a lot more than gambling these days.” More

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      in Television

      Anthony Rapp Said Anguish Returned When He Saw Kevin Spacey Onscreen

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      In testimony in a civil trial, Mr. Rapp argued that Mr. Spacey had inflicted emotional distress by climbing atop him in a bed when Mr. Rapp was 14. Mr. Spacey says the encounter didn’t happen.Watching Kevin Spacey’s character show sexual interest in a teenager in the film “American Beauty” was “unpleasantly familiar,” the actor Anthony Rapp testified in federal court on Tuesday, describing a repeated reaction he had in the years after Mr. Spacey climbed on top of him and made a sexual advance, which Mr. Rapp said occurred when he was 14.Whenever he would see Mr. Spacey — a rising Hollywood star — appear in movies or in person, such as the day of the Tony Awards, Mr. Rapp said he would instantly recall the encounter, which Mr. Spacey denies ever happened. Even a brief appearance by Mr. Spacey in the 1980s movie “Working Girl,” in which his character propositions a secretary in a limousine, startled and upset Mr. Rapp.“It was as if someone poked me with a cattle prod,” Mr. Rapp testified.Mr. Rapp, a stage and screen actor best known for his role in the musical “Rent,” has sued Mr. Spacey over the incident, which he said occurred in 1986, when Mr. Spacey was 26. Mr. Rapp has accused Mr. Spacey of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the civil trial, which began in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, has centered not just on whether the encounter happened as Mr. Rapp described, but whether he has psychologically suffered from it over the past three decades.“As his name and notoriety increased, it was harder and harder to escape,” testified Mr. Rapp, who is seeking damages from Mr. Spacey.During cross-examination, a lawyer for Mr. Spacey, Jennifer L. Keller, hammered Mr. Rapp on discrepancies between his testimony and earlier versions of his account, questioning whether he was being “deliberately vague” about his recollections.Mr. Rapp, 50, has testified that after a party at Mr. Spacey’s Manhattan apartment, Mr. Spacey picked him up, laid him on a bed and climbed on top of him, with Mr. Spacey’s pelvis pressing into the side of his hip, before Mr. Rapp was able to escape.There were no resulting criminal charges, but Mr. Rapp filed a lawsuit in 2020 with the help of a New York State law called the Child Victims Act, which includes a limited period of time in which people who say they were sexually abused as children could sue.Mr. Spacey, 63, won an Oscar for his roles in “American Beauty” and “The Usual Suspects,” and is also known for his monologues as the sinister politician Frank Underwood in the Netflix series “House of Cards.” He has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen men, but this is the first time the actor has stood trial. In Britain, he awaits trial on sexual assault charges, and has pleaded not guilty in that case.When Mr. Rapp took the stand on Friday, he walked the jury through his account of the night in 1986, when, he said, he attended a party at Mr. Spacey’s high-rise apartment. Mr. Rapp, who was a child actor in the Broadway show “Precious Sons” that year, did not recognize any other guests, so he went inside Mr. Spacey’s bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed watching TV, he testified. After some time, Mr. Spacey showed up in the doorway, Mr. Rapp said, appearing unsteady on his feet and glassy-eyed.Walking over to the bed, Mr. Spacey picked up him up, Mr. Rapp testified, describing the positioning like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. Then Mr. Spacey laid him down onto the bed and climbed on top of him, pressing his “full weight” into him, Mr. Rapp said.“I knew something was really wrong now,” Mr. Rapp said, recalling feeling frozen in place.Managing to wriggle out from under Mr. Spacey, Mr. Rapp testified, he shut himself into a nearby bathroom before making his way to leave the apartment. Mr. Spacey leaned into the front door and said, “Are you sure you want to leave?” — the first words Mr. Spacey said during the encounter, Mr. Rapp said.Last week, Mr. Rapp’s side also presented testimony from two friends of Mr. Rapp’s who say that in the mid-1990s he told them about the encounter with Mr. Spacey.In her cross-examination on Tuesday, Ms. Keller pointed to an inaccuracy from earlier comments by Mr. Rapp, in which he said that he had been inspired to tell BuzzFeed News about his account after reading a guest essay in The New York Times by the actress Lupita Nyong’o in which she wrote about how she felt unsafe when the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein asked to give her a massage.Ms. Keller presented text messages between Mr. Rapp and the BuzzFeed journalist, Adam Vary, that showed that Mr. Rapp had first contacted Mr. Vary about his account several days before Ms. Nyong’o’s account was published.At an awards event in 2018, Mr. Rapp had described how he decided to go public, so Ms. Keller said that “the bottom line is your acceptance speech in 2018 was not truthful.”Mr. Rapp responded, “I’m learning right now it wasn’t true.”In her questioning, Ms. Keller also pointed out that Mr. Rapp’s original lawsuit claimed that Mr. Spacey had “grabbed” Mr. Rapp’s buttocks, but that Mr. Rapp later said Mr. Spacey’s hand had “grazed” his buttocks while he was picking him up. Ms. Keller also disputed Mr. Rapp’s account of the apartment in which he said the encounter took place. Mr. Rapp has testified that he went inside a separate bedroom to watch TV and did not notice the other guests leave, but Mr. Spacey’s defense team has asserted that he was living in a studio apartment at the time without a separate bedroom.“Is it possible you’re completely wrong about that?” Ms. Keller asked Mr. Rapp, to which he responded, “It’s possible, and I remember a bedroom.”The defense has asserted — and Mr. Rapp agrees — that no one has come forward to confirm that he or she attended the party at Mr. Spacey’s apartment. It has also suggested that Mr. Rapp fabricated the allegation out of envy for Mr. Spacey’s career, which he denies.Earlier in the day, Mr. Rapp testified that he had not discussed the accusations with a therapist until October 2017, the month the BuzzFeed article was published. It was the first time he had processed the long-term effect the encounter had had on his life, he said.“I began to, in general, have intruding thoughts about it — sleepless nights sometimes,” he testified.Unlike in a criminal trial, jurors in a civil trial do not need to find that the defendant committed the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, the 12-person jury will be asked to consider whether the greater weight of the evidence is in the plaintiff’s or defendant’s favor. More

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      in Music

      Melissa Etheridge and Jill Sobule Bring Their Whole Lives to the Stage

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      They both first made a splash in the ’90s. They’re now in New York to present new theatrical memoirs that mix storytelling and songs.When musicians as popular and as varied as Brandi Carlile, King Princess, Syd, Hayley Kiyoko and Girl in Red can be so openly, so matter-of-factly gay, it’s easy to forget that the vibe was not quite as welcoming 30 years ago.In the 1990s, singing paeans about making out with other women was a bold move. So when the Kansas-born lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge released the album “Yes I Am” in 1993, featuring the hits “Come to My Window” and “I’m the Only One,” she made a splash. A couple of years later, Jill Sobule, a sly, funny bisexual pop singer-songwriter, released “I Kissed a Girl” — with a video starring the actor and model known as Fabio.Coincidentally, both women are currently settling in New York to present new stage memoirs that mix storytelling and songs. On Thursday, Etheridge starts previews for “My Window — A Journey Through Life,” with a book by her wife, Linda Wallem, at New World Stages. The next day, Sobule follows suit with “F*ck7thGrade” at the Wild Project.Born a few months apart in 1961, the two women have been on parallel trajectories over the years but did not really meet until Sobule joined the musical lineup on the 2019 Melissa Etheridge cruise. “We were getting done in our room, and we were all singing, ‘Come to my porthole,’” said Sobule, whose recent land-bound experiences have included starring in Matt Schatz’s musical “A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill” at the Geffen Playhouse.On Friday morning, Etheridge and Sobule gathered again over a breakfast of oatmeal, fruit and herbal tea. It was the day after the Denver Broncos had lost an excruciating game to the Indianapolis Colts, and Sobule, a Colorado native and football fan, was still reeling. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The two women did not really meet until Sobule joined the musical lineup on the 2019 Melissa Etheridge cruise.Luisa Opalesky for The New York TimesWhy did you both decide to look back on your life and music in a theatrical format?JILL SOBULE I have a theater agent, and he said, “You should come up with a concept and maybe something with your songs.” So many of them directly deal with the worst year of my life: seventh grade.MELISSA ETHERIDGE That’s everyone’s worst year.SOBULE I was this badass little girl. I was the best guitar player, but there were no role models for us. And as a little strange girl with queer feelings in the ’70s, the only role models I had for that was Miss Hathaway from “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Or my gym teacher, who looked like Pete Rose.ETHERIDGE My wife’s gym teacher was named Miss Lesby. It’s like something out of “S.N.L.”! One of my major influences was the Archies [they both start singing “Sugar, Sugar”]. I thought, “Why can’t I grow up and be Reggie? I’m going to have Veronica and live a happy life.”SOBULE We wanted to make sure that the show wasn’t just for people interested in my career because most people could give a [expletive]. I’m not that famous. It’s kind of this universal story of a weirdo growing up.What was it like coming of age at a time when it must have been difficult to put words onto some feelings?SOBULE I have a brother who’s six years older than me. I happened to stumble upon one of his softcore magazines, and there was a series of soft-focus photos of girls in a French boarding school. I thought, “Oh my god, how do I transfer to that school?”ETHERIDGE I think the first media I saw was “The Children’s Hour.” All of a sudden I’m feeling stuff. And then she [Shirley MacLaine’s character] hangs herself, because anything gay you saw, they were criminals or killed themselves. I remember Time magazine had something about gay liberation on the front. My father was a high school psychology teacher, and he had a book that said, “Homosexuality — we don’t think it’s a mental illness anymore.” It was kind of nice: Maybe I’m not crazy.Etheridge and K.D. Lang. “It was the drama geeks getting together and having fun,” Etheridge said about Hollywood in the ’90s.Steve Eichner/WireImage, via Getty ImagesHow did you get into music?ETHERIDGE In high school, I was in professional bands. I made money every weekend; I was very independent. I was a security guard in college. I made $7 an hour, and that was hard work, in a hospital. So I went down to the subway — it was in Boston, I went to the Berklee College of Music — I opened up my case, and I played for an hour. And I made seven bucks. So I went, “Well, I can make as much here as I do doing that job.” I never looked back after that.SOBULE When I was in eighth grade, I was the guitar player in our jazz stage band, and we won State because I brought my brother’s Marshall amp and wah-wah pedal, and I did a solo of “2001.” That’s the only thing I’ve ever won in my whole life. Later I was in Spain, and a friend said, “Let’s go busk on the street.” A guy walked by and went, “Would you guys like to play in my nightclub?” I ended up dropping out of school.ETHERIDGE I dropped out of school, too.Is it difficult to tell your stories in a new medium?SOBULE I think it’s a natural progression because we’re storytellers, and now we get to grow it out, we get to be more cinematic, in a way. I was telling my theater friends, “I’m moving on from music to Off Broadway because it’s so lucrative.” [They both roar with laughter.]ETHERIDGE I always hate to say “at our age,” but in this phase of our life to be able to have a different creative expression is fantastic. I came from rehearsal last night, and I could not get to sleep. My brain was so tickled and delighted by what I can do.Melissa, what was it like playing St. Jimmy in “American Idiot” in 2011?ETHERIDGE It was amazing. This was a full Broadway show, and there were so many things that I didn’t really realize I was getting into. Especially when they said, “Now we’re going to rehearse the death drop.” I said, “Excuse me, the what?” I climb up two flights of these stairs that move around, and I fall backwards into two people’s arms. And I’m not a dancer! To me it represented my own fear of stepping into the theatrical world. So I said, “You got it!”SOBULE Theater was a learning curve. I remember the first time a director said, “OK, move stage left.” And I was, “What the [expletive] is stage left?” We have so much dialogue, and I don’t even memorize my own lyrics. I was like, “Can I have a monitor? Did Springsteen have a monitor?” They were like, “You are not Springsteen.” OK, fair enough.Jill, you’re working with the playwright Liza Birkenmeier on your show’s book. And Melissa, your wife, Linda, is helping out. How do you collaborate with them?SOBULE Basically we have conversations, and we figure out how to best put the jigsaw puzzle together. Every day, I’m like, “Let me add this little one-liner.”ETHERIDGE My Covid experience really focused this show because I did a thing called Etheridge TV. I turned my garage into a streaming studio, and every week I would stream five shows. On Wednesdays my wife and I would do a chat show, and on Fridays I would do what I called the Friday Night Time Machine. I started digitizing my old pictures and old videos, and I would show them and tell my life story. I got used to telling it, and my wife started writing it down. But I’m going to still be speaking extemporaneously in the show — I’ll hit the beats so that everything matches right, but I’m not reciting lines.How much excavating did you do in terms of music?ETHERIDGE I’m playing a couple tracks that I hardly ever play live because they were so theatrical, so dramatic that there was never a place for them in my concerts. There’s one from “Your Little Secret” called “This War Is Over” — I think I did it in concert in ’96 and that was the last time. There’s one from “The Awakening” called “Open Your Mind.” You’re going to hear a song I wrote when I was 11 years old, and four or five songs that were never recorded.SOBULE We took out the first song I ever wrote, which was called “Nixon Is a Bad Man, Spiro Agnew Is Too.” I don’t remember the music, but I’m sure it was hot.ETHERIDGE Unfortunately, I did remember the music of mine.Sobule performing in 2000. “When I had ‘Kissed a Girl’ coming out, it was dicey because it was like, ‘Is she a lesbian singer-songwriter?,’” Sobule said.Hiroyuki Ito/Getty ImagesJill, reassure us: Does your show include “I Kissed a Girl”?SOBULE Yeah. People call me a one-hit wonder, and I say, “Wait a second, I’m a two-hit wonder!” When I had “Kissed a Girl” coming out, it was dicey because it was like, “Is she a lesbian singer-songwriter?”ETHERIDGE It was revolutionary. I remember seeing that, my jaw dropped, and I went, “Wow, here we go.” It was punk, it was edgy, it was that MTV cool. Someone called me once, like management, and said, “Your songs are too sexual.” It was the “Lucky” album. I was having a lot of sex, what can I say?I read that you were involved in some fun parties back in the day.ETHERIDGE It was Hollywood in the early ’90s. I happened to know K.D. Lang; Ellen DeGeneres was this stand-up comic, so was Rosie O’Donnell. I met Brad Pitt after he did a little independent film with Catherine Keener, who’s a real good friend of mine. None of us had kids, and we were all young and crazy. There was a lot of smoking and drinking. It was the drama geeks getting together and having fun.What do you do for fun now?ETHERIDGE Fun is getting in bed before midnight. I watch football. [To Sobule] You’re not a Broncos fan, are you? Last night was brutal. I have to hug you.SOBULE My whole family was at the game and they FaceTimed me. I almost didn’t make today, it was so awful.ETHERIDGE I’m with the Kansas City Chiefs: We’re set. In high school we had powder-puff football. We showed up for the first practice — I was the quarterback, thank you very much — and then they came and said, “We’ve got to shut this down, we don’t have insurance,” or something. Because of Title IX, we were supposed to be able to do it, but we didn’t, and it broke my heart.SOBULE The last couple years I’ve been totally into basketball. I like it because there’s so many games and it doesn’t matter.ETHERIDGE Oh no, I like something to be on the line. Every. Play. More

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      Things To Do in New York: Halloween Events and Activities

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      Haunt the streets at Halloween parades. Dance at a “Zombie Prom.” Or find your way through a corn maze. We’ve got you covered on how to celebrate.During Halloween, it’s OK — even encouraged — to frighten your neighbors and devour mounds of Twizzlers and candy corn without judgment. This tradition was partially halted by the pandemic, as walk-through haunted houses mutated into drive-throughs and theaters shut out viewers, while streaming services welcomed them.As in-person programming bounces back, here’s a guide to pumpkin picking, drag shows, haunted houses and more to enjoy throughout New York City with friends and family. All scare levels are welcome.Frights for the FamilyIn its 49th year, the Village Halloween Parade returns on Halloween Day with hundreds of puppeteers, dancers, artists and musicians marching — or crawling — along Greenwich Village. The parade, which begins at 7 p.m. on Sixth Avenue between Spring Street and 16th Street, encourages thousands of costumed New Yorkers to walk alongside the performers.At the annual Bronx Halloween Parade, beginning Oct. 22 at noon, Halloween enthusiasts can enjoy a similar experience as the New York Police Department marching band, the Philadelphia 76ers drum line and dozens of community organizations haunt the streets for about a half mile, from Southern Boulevard and Westchester Avenue to Dawson Street and Rogers Place, adjacent to Bill Rainey Park. The comedian Radel Ortiz will host the post-parade festivities, and all ages are encouraged to participate in a costume contest for a cash prize.Run as you are, whether in a witch costume or your racing attire, during the NYCRuns Haunted Island 5K and 10K. The race takes place early on Oct. 29, wrapping around Governors Island — twice for 10K runners — and provides age and gender-specific awards. All racers can enjoy a ferry ride, a post-race breakfast and Halloween candy. Governors Island will also host Pumpkin Point, its annual pumpkin patch and fall festival at Nolan Park (Oct. 22-23 and Oct. 29-30), where guests can enjoy pumpkin picking with a suggested donation, arts and crafts, pumpkin painting and trick-or-treating. Pumpkins that don’t find a home will be composted or donated locally to organizations combating hunger.At the Amazing Maize Maze at the Queens County Farm Museum, visitors can join a scavenger hunt through acres of towering cornstalk.Matthew BorowickAt the family-run Decker Farm on Staten Island, visitors can handpick the perfect pumpkin, hop on a tractor-towed hayride exploring the 11 acres of farmland, wander through the children’s hay maze and even chuck a gourd (exactly what it sounds like) on October weekends and Oct. 10. The farm, established in the 19th century and a designated New York City landmark, also welcomes guests for fall-themed family portraits and pumpkin painting.In the Amazing Maize Maze, located at the Queens County Farm Museum, visitors can embark on a scavenger hunt through acres of towering cornstalk on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October and on Oct. 10. For an added challenge, Maze by Moonlight allows visitors to venture through the path at night on four select dates, using only a flashlight to guide them.If you’re in search of a different leafy plant this season, watch “Little Shop of Horrors” Off Broadway at the Westside Theater/Upstairs, Tuesday through Sunday on select afternoons and evenings. The 40-year-old musical, created by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, follows a bloodthirsty plant, Audrey II, that catapults a geeky flower shop assistant, Seymour, to stardom. The musical, inspired by Roger Corman’s 1960 black comedy, has since grown into one of the most produced shows in high schools nationwide. As the plant’s size multiplies, so does Seymour’s prominence. The story reminds viewers “of the special potency of grisly things that come in small, impeccably wrapped packages,” the former New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote in a 2019 review.The streaming service Disney+ has resurrected the cult classic that follows three kooky sisters who cast spells on the unfortunate youth in the city of Salem, Mass. In Anne Fletcher’s “Hocus Pocus 2,” Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy reprise their witchy roles as they zap into the 21st century, summoned by a charmed candle. The sisters run amok using Roombas instead of flying broomsticks and chug anti-aging creams in a local pharmacy. A treat for the whole family, the film embraces existing fans and attracts new ones.“RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag” in Los Angeles last year. On Oct. 30, the drag queen Yvie Oddly will lead the show at Kings Theater in Brooklyn.Emma Mcintyre/Getty ImagesHorror With a Hint of GlamHouse of Yes, a club in Bushwick, Brooklyn, known for theatrical, sky-high performances and pulsating rhythms, has a full slate of Halloween-themed events such as “Vampire Ball” (Oct. 20) and “Zombie Prom” (Oct. 27), where guests are encouraged to dress as “bloody (bat)dies” and “gory ghouls.” A Halloween edition of the venue’s popular variety show “Dirty Circus” will begin Oct. 26 and conclude with “Absolutely: A Halloween Drag Spectacular” on Halloween night.Kings Theater will also host a night of drag queen royalty with “RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag,” led by Yvie Oddly, the absurdist drag queen and Season 11 winner, and featuring eight other performers in an interpretation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”Particularly PetrifyingThe NYC Ghosts tour visits eight to 12 locations throughout the city, including the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which served as Gen. George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War, and a Revivalist Greek brownstone called the House of Death, where Mark Twain lived for about a year. Tours range from an hour to 90 minutes and are held nightly throughout the year.For a true bloodcurdling experience, Blood Manor, a 10,000-square-foot haunted house in TriBeCa with clowns, corpse brides and cannibals, would be a good place to start. The renowned Halloween destination, where Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon shrieked in terror in 2016, has welcomed the fearful and fearless for more than a decade. This year, the house brings attractions like “Maggot Invasion” and “Hannibal’s Hell” as well as killer clowns and a paranormal battlefield. Attend at your own risk on weekends and select weekdays through Nov. 5.For those willing to venture outside the city, Headless Horseman Haunted Attractions, upstate in Ulster Park, guarantees a horrifying immersive experience along its 65-acre property with escape rooms, haunted houses, a corn maze and a new walk-through trail. More sinister than the special effects are the masked serial killers and squealing clowns in each dimly lit, blood-smeared room. It’s open Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, with Children’s Days, which tone down the thrills, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday in October. More

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      A Pioneering Orchestra Boss Had ‘Unfinished Business,’ So She Returned

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      Deborah Borda led the New York Philharmonic in the 1990s, and was frustrated by its subpar hall. After a 17-year run in Los Angeles, she “finally saw a path forward,” she said.When the musicians of the New York Philharmonic gathered inside what was still very much a construction site in mid-August to hear for the first time how they would sound after the $550 million renovation of their home, David Geffen Hall, Deborah Borda, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, handed out roses to the arriving players.“This is a historic moment,” Borda, who had barely slept the night before, told them from the conductor’s podium. “Welcome to your new home.”It was a homecoming that Borda, 73, has been working toward for decades.She first led the Philharmonic in the 1990s, and left partly out of frustration that there was no will to rebuild its perennially troubled home, known then as Avery Fisher Hall, which had long been plagued by complaints about its look and, especially, its sound. She spent 17 years at the helm of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, ushering the orchestra into the acclaimed Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall and signing Gustavo Dudamel as music director. Then, just as she began to consider a new chapter, perhaps teaching, she was lured back to New York five years ago: a $100 million gift from the entertainment mogul David Geffen had revived plans to remake the hall, but momentum seemed to be stalling.“It was unfinished business,” she said. “I had been dreaming about this since the 1990s. And then I finally saw a path forward.”So there was a lot on the line that afternoon in August, when she listened intently as the orchestra tuned up and then, under the baton of its music director, Jaap van Zweden, played excerpts from Bruckner’s elegiac Seventh Symphony. She felt reassured.“It sounds terrific,” she told the small crowd in attendance, including leaders from Lincoln Center, board members, sound experts and construction workers.When Borda returned to New York in 2017, arts leaders had real concerns about the health of the Philharmonic, the oldest orchestra in the United States. It had top-flight musicians and a storied tradition — over the years it has been led by giants like Mahler, Toscanini and Bernstein — but it ran deficits every year, its audience was aging and it faced competition from the many international ensembles that tour New York. When she arrived, its endowment fund had less money than when she been in charge in the 1990s.It was the Geffen gift — secured in 2015 by Katherine G. Farley, the chairwoman of Lincoln Center, which owns the hall and is the Philharmonic’s landlord — that finally put a revamped hall within grasp. But there were still serious obstacles. Lincoln Center was going through a period of management churn as top executives came and went. The renovation plans under consideration were growing too expensive and hard to build, not to mention impractical (glass walls?) for an orchestra. Soon after Borda arrived, she and Lincoln Center officials announced they were going back to the drawing board.Undeterred, Borda kept working toward the ultimate goal. “She is a force of nature,” van Zweden said. “What she wants, she gets.”In 2019 Lincoln Center tapped Henry Timms, who formerly led the 92nd Street Y, as its president and chief executive. He returned stability to the organization, rethought the mission of the arts complex — which produces work on its own while serving as the landlord of independent constituent groups including the Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet — and got the renovation project moving forward.The Reopening of David Geffen HallThe New York Philharmonic’s notoriously jinxed auditorium at Lincoln Center has undergone a $550 million renovation.Reborn, Again: The renovation of the star-crossed hall aims to break its acoustic curse — and add a dash of glamour.‘Unfinished Business’: After a 17-year run in Los Angeles, Deborah Borda returned to the New York Philharmonic, which she led in the 1990s, to help usher it into its new home.San Juan Hill: Etienne Charles’s composition for the reopening of the hall honors the Afro-diasporic musical heritage of the neighborhood razed to build Lincoln Center.Timeline: From a troubled opening in 1962 to a full gutting in 1976 to the latest renovations, here is a brief timeline of the long road to the new hall.He and Borda worked to turn the historically acrimonious relationship between Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic — which reached a low point in 2003, when the Philharmonic tried to leave and return to its old home, Carnegie Hall — into a collaborative one. That message was driven home by stickers and tote bags about the project that proclaimed, perhaps aspirationally, “Working in Concert.”Henry Timms brought stability back to Lincoln Center after a period of management tumult when he became its president and chief executive in 2019. That year he and Borda unveiled plans for the renovation of Geffen Hall, and surveyed the old hall. Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesTimms recalled meeting Borda at her home for coffee shortly before he took office, when they vowed together to finally finish the Geffen project.“It was a priority that I think we both signed up for,” he said. “But what we needed to do was make our relationship a priority.”“She could have stopped before this job and gone down in history, but she chose not to,” he said. “She went the other way and chased this final triumph.”Borda said the hard work and support of Timms and Farley at Lincoln Center, as well as the co-chairmen of the Philharmonic’s board, Peter W. May and Oscar L. Tang, had been critical. “They had the heart and the hunger and the vision to do this,” she said.Borda, whose mother was a lobbyist and whose father immigrated from Colombia and worked as a salesman, grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens. She attended her first New York Philharmonic concert when she was 4, and from the balcony she watched Leonard Bernstein conduct. Her parents divorced when she was 6, and when she was 12, the family moved to Boston, where they lived with Borda’s stepfather, a psychiatrist, and she played in a youth orchestra. She initially envisioned a career as a performer, studying violin and attending the Royal College of Music in London for graduate studies, and working as a freelance musician in New York. But she was drawn to management early on.In 1979, when she was 30, she landed her first major job, as general manager and artistic administrator of the San Francisco Symphony. Her appointment caught attention: She was one of the first women to lead a major orchestra in the United States. But because of her gender and sexual orientation — she is gay — she sometimes faced obstacles in the male-dominated classical field. She recalled the surprise she felt losing out on a job managing the Pittsburgh Symphony in the 1980s after being told that its maestro, Lorin Maazel, would be uncomfortable working with her because she was a woman.“It didn’t even occur to me that my gender and sexual orientation might be an impediment,” she said. “I never even thought of it.”After stints at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, she came to New York in 1991 for her first round as the Philharmonic’s chief. She balanced the orchestra’s budget and led efforts to attract more young people to concerts with innovations like short evening “rush-hour” concerts. But her tenure was also marked by feuds, including acrimonious negotiations with the orchestra’s musicians over a labor contract, and persistent tensions with Kurt Masur, who was then its music director.Borda with the music director Kurt Masur during her last stint running the New York Philharmonic, in 1991. Jack Manning/The New York TimesShe first tried to remedy some of the hall’s stubborn acoustic problems in 1992, when Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic placed curved wooden reflectors around the stage — their shape inspired her to dub them “the bongos” — to help spread the sound. But the problems persisted.She left for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1999, in part, she said, because she did not believe cultural leaders in New York were committed to a full-scale renovation of the hall.“I didn’t think there was the heart or the vision to get it done at that time,” she said. “It was frustrating and that’s why I left.”She flourished in Los Angeles, leading the orchestra to new heights. She more than quintupled its endowment, earned the orchestra a reputation for creative programming, helped make Dudamel a superstar and started an ambitious youth orchestra program for the city’s underserved communities. Then, just when she was thinking about retiring from orchestra management to teach or start a think-tank, New York beckoned her back.She returned in 2017, energized by the opportunity to finally remake Geffen Hall. “It was sort of like a karmic circle,” she said. (She also wanted to be closer to her longtime partner, Coralie Toevs, who oversees development at the Metropolitan Opera; the two maintained a long-distance relationship when Borda was in Los Angeles.)Back in New York she worked to balance the budget, raising $50 million to help the orchestra stay solvent. She built up its endowment, which was valued at $195 million when she arrived, lower than it had been when she led the orchestra in the 1990s, and which is now valued at around $220 million. And she championed innovative programming: she commissioned works from 19 female composers to honor the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which barred the states from denying women the right to vote, and one work, “Stride,” by Tania León, won the Pulitzer Prize.Then the pandemic hit. The orchestra canceled more than 100 concerts — losing more than $27 million in anticipated ticket revenue — and laid off 40 percent of its staff.“I genuinely thought we could go out of business,” she said.But Timms and Borda pressed ahead, seizing on the long pandemic shutdown period to accelerate the project, which was originally scheduled to take place over several seasons.Now Borda, having made good on her promise to usher another Philharmonic into another modern home, has announced plans to step down at the end of June, when she will hand the reins of the Philharmonic to Gary Ginstling, the executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra, in Washington. (She will stay on as a special adviser to assist with fund-raising and other matters.)But she still has work to do: planning enticing seasons to lure concertgoers to a new hall.“A hall can’t just be a monument to itself,” she said.And a critical decision looms: before she departs, Borda hopes to name a successor to van Zweden, the music director, who will leave his post in 2024. A 12-person committee of Philharmonic staff, musicians and board members is sifting through candidates. Among the likely contenders are Dudamel; Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, the former music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Susanna Malkki, the music director of the Helsinki Philharmonic; and Santtu-Matias Rouvali, principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. Borda said she was looking for a leader who “clicks with the orchestra” and “clicks with New York.”On a recent day, as she led a tour of the hall for the Philharmonic’s board, her cellphone often sounded, filling the hall with her ringtone: “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Handel’s “Solomon.”Standing before a new digital wall in the lobby, she smiled, saying she was moved that the Philharmonic would finally have a home to match its artistic caliber.“It energizes me completely,” she said. “It’s like a dream.” More

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      Is Little Amal Getting Lost in New York?

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      Parading down the middle of West 63rd Street last Saturday afternoon, we were following a giant puppet — a whole crowd of us, trekking along behind Little Amal.The 12-foot-tall Syrian refugee child, a creation of the renowned Handspring Puppet Company, was en route to Lincoln Center to greet more of her public, who would throng the wide plaza there to catch a glimpse of her with their own eyes, and capture proof of the encounter on their phones.Fueled by a savvy social media campaign — and surely also by recent headlines about migrants and asylum seekers being bused and flown north by Republican governors — Little Amal is the hottest celebrity in New York right now, drawing masses of admirers to her dozens of scheduled appearances.Since last year she has traveled across Europe, a sympathetic, high-profile emblem of the global migrant crisis. Her current 19-day tour of these five boroughs lasts only until Oct. 2, and as always with in-demand visitors, the time limit adds to her cachet.Making connections: Amal is in town through Oct. 2 and will be visiting all five boroughs over her 19-day stay in the city.For me, a puppetry fan with an interest in political theater, Little Amal — who is operated by one puppeteer strapped into stilts inside her torso and two others controlling her arms — should have been an almost automatic fascination. And yet she left me cold when I first went to scope her out, on Fifth Avenue in front of the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, on Sept. 15, the day after she arrived. Even when she bent down to cuddle Patience, one of the famous marble lions, I was unmoved.Amal is a 10-year-old, but with her gargantuan hands and forceful jaw, she reminded me of one of those paintings of a child before painters figured out that children weren’t merely miniature adults. Worse, the event felt like barely more than a photo op. I wondered if she is truly meant to be experienced in person — if, in fact, she counts as theater — or if the main purpose of this wordless puppet is to be an object, recorded in photos and videos in glamorous locations that people all over the world will recognize.Then, last weekend, my heart abruptly cracked wide open. On that tree-lined stretch of West 63rd Street, the brass band accompanying Amal broke into a festive rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and she began to dance as she walked along. It was a gentle, reveling bounce, and it made her utterly enchanting.In Central Park last weekend, spectators of all ages followed Amal.Later that day, her path cleared by a police escort, Amal led another procession up Central Park West. As her band played, we trooped along in the street — grown-ups, little kids riding on shoulders, the occasional dog. The mood was buoyant, happy, kind.There is something to be said for what is, in effect, a citywide party in honor of a refugee — even if she is merely a puppet, even if she is so well-connected that St. Ann’s Warehouse helped to bring her here. Symbolic behavior matters.Up ahead, Amal’s long brown hair swayed in the breeze, adorned with a bright red ribbon that was a beacon for those farther back. A thought crossed my mind that took me entirely by surprise. Although I was raised Roman Catholic, I’m not religious, and definitely not accustomed to bits of Bible verses floating through my consciousness.Still, there it was, inescapably, a line from Isaiah: “and a little child shall lead them.”Gulp.This, of course, is the point of Little Amal — to use the visceral power of puppetry, and of theater at its most disarming, to make us feel, and cajole us into considering what we owe to the most vulnerable among us. And ultimately, presumably, to act on that moral imperative.She was greeted at Lincoln Center on Sept. 17.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesBut it is so easy for any message to get lost on the grand stage set that is New York, and maybe even more so when collaborations with the city’s cultural institutions can come across as mutually promotional opportunities, bereft of substance. When Amal visited Lincoln Center, she seemed more like a dignitary granting an audience than a child ambassador for a cause. Her context had disappeared; without it she registered as a buzzy spectacle, one you want to be able to say you saw.Still, the visuals were terrific — musicians serenading her from the balcony of the Metropolitan Opera House — and people strained to get near her, to touch those enormous hands. It is astonishing when she gets really close, looming right above you. Looking up, all you see is her huge face, with those big, brown, blinking eyes. (Makes a great photo, actually.)I followed Amal late on Sunday morning to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the vast front doorway posed no obstacle to her height, and where the lyrics of one hymn were particularly apt — not so much for her but for the rest of us: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.”Some people are seeking out Amal around town, while others, instantly smitten, seem to be ditching their plans to tag along.And I followed her early on Monday morning to Coney Island, Brooklyn, where she wandered the wooden boardwalk forlornly, peering through the gates of rides not open just then for customers. The carnival colors popped, the moody clouds cast a flattering light and when she looked over the side of a pier into the water, the sound was of crashing waves and clicking shutters.If it seemed contrived — which, to be fair, it was; this was theater — there was no feigning the interest in her as she strode along with a gathering entourage, while a persistent drone hovered unnervingly overhead. Some people had made the pilgrimage to see Amal; others, like a smitten woman in a one-piece swimsuit and pink bathing cap, seemed to have ditched their beach plans to tag along.Amal’s performance that night, with its narrative of a weary child’s peregrination through Dumbo to the glass-walled carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park, should have been delicate and gorgeous. But from the moment she set off from the walk’s starting point, a triangle in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, something was wrong.In Coney Island, on Sept. 19, Amal found the space she needed to stand out as she strode along with a gathering entourage. But later that night, in Dumbo, the crowd overwhelmed her event.It wasn’t only that the hundreds of us were too many for the narrow cobblestone streets; the spirit of the evening was off, too. In that most Instagrammable of the city’s neighborhoods, the focus of the crowd was palpably on getting the shot — and Amal, in that lighting, did look glorious. (She stopped, lingeringly, in precisely the ultra-photogenic spot that’s illustrated on the cover of the current issue of The New Yorker.)But this wasn’t the joyous welcome of an attentive audience; it felt like a flash mob that had gotten out of hand. And when we reached the carousel — an elevated and brilliantly illuminated space that should have made an ideal stage — it was so surrounded by people that the performance was impossible to see unless you were up front. Even being 12 feet tall couldn’t help Amal there.The creepiest thing about that evening’s walk, though, was the sense that allegiance had been replaced by pursuit. It had the feeling of a hunt, with the puppet refugee as quarry. People jostled for position, cut in front of one another, tried to anticipate where Amal was going and get there first.And so I wonder, a little worriedly, with Saturday’s walk across the Brooklyn Bridge coming right up: Are we ruining Little Amal for ourselves?There may be no solution to the problem of the sheer numbers she draws, especially when the vistas promise to be breathtaking. But one tenet of theater suggests a way to better experience her live.Be present.Shoot a few photos if you like, a snippet of video. But mostly, just put down your camera, put away your phone. Be there, in the moment, walking with her. And feel. More