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      What Will Be the New Carrie Necklace?

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      Jewelry designers working with the “Sex and the City” reboot hope their creations have a chance.Hardly a day goes by now without some new promotional photo or online reference to the “Sex and the City” reboot so, as Carrie Bradshaw herself would say, “I couldn’t help but wonder: What will be the new Carrie necklace?”For those of you who don’t remember — or were too young for the original series that ran from 1998 to 2004 — Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, had a gold necklace displaying her name in flowing script.“It cost, like, nothing,” the character said in one episode when she thought she had lost the piece. But the nameplate necklace became one of the show’s enduring product links, like Manolo Blahnik stilettos — and even symbolized Carrie’s rediscovery of self when, in the series finale, she found it in her vintage Dior purse.It’s early days yet as the reboot — called “And Just Like That …” after another Carrie catchphrase — doesn’t premiere on HBO Max until later this year. But Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, its costume designers, have selected jewelry ranging from a Bulgari Serpenti Tubogas watch (as much as $50,000 in some metals) to an elastic bracelet hand-sewn from an old tablecloth and pinned with vintage rhinestone brooches by the Berlin-based design duo Rianna + Nina (450 euros, or $530).The elastic bracelet with brooches designed by Rianna + NinaMost of the creations, even customized pieces, were lent for filming, but the series production did buy some.Neither Ms. Rogers nor Mr. Santiago are doing interviews yet, as an email from an HBO media relations manager said: “August is just too early since we don’t debut until later this year.” (Although the designers do have a “live from the set” Instagram page, @andjustlikethatcostumes, with more than 54,000 followers.)But some jewelry makers are talking about their creations selected for the series.One front-runner for the next Carrie necklace could be a $595 turquoise and malachite rope “because the necklace is really visible” around Ms. Parker’s neck in the official publicity still for the new series, said Allison Fry, the necklace’s maker, who founded the Fry Powers brand in 2018.(By mid-August the necklace had sold out at MatchesFashion, according to an email from the retailer.)Ms. Parker, center, as Carrie Bradshaw, wearing the Fry Powers turquoise and malachite rope necklace, with Cynthia Nixon, left, as Miranda, and Kristin Davis as Charlotte.via HBO MAXThe Fry Powers turquoise and malachite necklace that may be a front-runner in the Carrie necklace competition.Ms. Fry, 34, said she created the rope’s shimmering pattern by mixing and matching 72 beads, comparing the process to “when you are thinking about putting an outfit together and seeing what works.” She also made two other pieces for Carrie: a violet enamel ring accented with a baroque pearl and a violet enamel cuff.Another contender, seen in paparazzi photos: a gold necklace with a charm in the shape of New York State.Not that the rest of the central characters won’t have striking pieces of their own, like the two white diamond pavé hearts on a round link chain made by Jennifer Fisher and lent to the series for Charlotte York, played by Kristin Davis.Customized on the reverse with the initials of Charlotte’s two on-screen daughters (L for Lily Goldenblatt, played by Cathy Ang, and R for Rose Goldenblatt, played by Alexa Swinton), each of the hearts has 39 diamonds and took two weeks to make, Ms. Fisher said.“I don’t know if they’ll ever flip them over while they are shooting,” she said.The character Charlotte wears hearts by Jennifer Fisher adorned with the initials of her children.In the two “Sex and the City” feature films that debuted in 2008 and 2010, Ms. Fisher’s designs at one time or another were worn by all four lead characters, which included Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall, and Miranda Hobbes, played by Cynthia Nixon. (Ms. Cattrall isn’t participating in the new series.)But, Ms. Fisher said, she believes jewelry can have more impact on television because “people tend to rewatch episodes of a television series.”Designers say that necklaces worn by new cast members also might be contenders for Carrie-level fame.There is the chunky red polyester chain necklace by the Danish brand Monies (pronounced MON-yus) worn by the Park Avenue mother and documentarian Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker of “Empire.”The €630 necklace has garnered more than 1,200 likes on the Instagram fan page @justlikethatcloset and prompted Grazia magazine to declare that Lisa “is going to be the show’s new ambassador for power necklaces.”Ms. Parker with Chris Noth on the set of “And Just Like That …” in Chelsea in early August.James Devaney/GC Images, via Getty ImagesThe Rosa de la Cruz ebony bracelet.It may be a Carrie bracelet that replaces the Carrie necklace as, according to the London jewelry designer Rosa de la Cruz, 51, a piece becomes iconic depending on when it’s seen as well as who wears it.And her chunky ebony and 18-karat gold chain bracelet — listed at 2,595 British pounds, or $3,590 and purchased by the production company — was worn by Carrie in the series’s official publicity photograph as well as in the first scene between Carrie and her husband, Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth.“It’s the equivalent of being on the front cover of a magazine,” said Ms. de la Cruz, adding, “her fashion choices are the ones that get the most attention.”Cases in point: Carrie’s scene with Big posted by @andjustlikethathbo on Instagram on Aug. 3 received 14,440 views within 24 hours. And on TikTok there have been almost 37 million views of #andjustlikethat. Little wonder that user @letty0531 commented: “I feel like we’re gonna know the whole story by the time they finish filming.”Social media has been stalking news about the new series, such as the Instagram fan page @justlikethatcloset that Victoria Bazalinchuk, 23, a teacher in Odessa, Ukraine, created July 10. She now has more than 80,000 followers.“There were a few brands that contacted me, saying certain characters wore/will be wearing their pieces. For instance, Carrie’s new favorite brand Fry Powers, or Lisa’s Ana Srdic rings,” Ms. Bazalinchuk wrote in an email. “And of course sometimes followers find the items and send them to me.” (She said she became a “Sex and the City” fan after watching her mother’s DVD box set of the series, as “I was quite a kid when the original series aired.”)Her site is not the only one fueling fan anticipation. For example, on Instagram, @everyoutfitonsatc has 711,000 followers for its satirical take on the series. And when Ms. Parker posted on Instagram about the first script read-through, @system_bleu commented that she cannot wait for the new show. “Just finished the series — AGAIN … for the 13th time. This is huge,” she wrote. “The show spoke to so many of us and it’s a part of who we are today.”Some designers and fans say that Ms. Cattrall’s decision not to play Samantha again is a loss, but others are looking forward to the change. “Let’s not have all the same people,” said Ms. Srdic, 63, the Johannesburg jeweler whose $1,200 unpolished citrine ring was lent for Lisa’s wardrobe.Ms. de la Cruz agreed, adding, “Maybe this frees up the plot into a different dynamic.”While the series debut date hasn’t been announced, many fans already have plans.Ms. Fisher, for example, said she will be at home in New York City. “Maybe I’ll make myself a Cosmopolitan to celebrate while we watch,” she said, referring to Carrie’s favorite cocktail. “And have some girlfriends over. It’ll be fun.” More

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      in Music

      A Starry Central Park Comeback Concert Is Silenced by Lightning

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      An all-star show to celebrate the city’s emergence after the hardships of the pandemic, even as the spread of the Delta variant has driven up cases again, was stopped halfway through.It was supposed to be a glorious celebration of the re-emergence of New York City after more than a year of pandemic hardship — a concert bringing thousands of vaccinated fans on Saturday evening to the Great Lawn of Central Park to hear an all-star lineup.And for the first couple of hours it was, with messages of New York’s resilience sandwiched between performances by the New York Philharmonic, Jennifer Hudson, Carlos Santana, LL Cool J, and Earth, Wind and Fire, among others.But shortly after 7:30 p.m., as Barry Manilow was performing “Can’t Smile Without You,” lightning brought the concert to a halt. “Please seek shelter for your safety,” an announcer intoned, stopping the music, as people began filing out of the park.The concert had begun with a ray of sunshine, breaking through the clouds just before it got underway at 5 p.m. Gayle King, a co-host of “CBS This Morning,” began the evening by thanking the essential workers who had pulled the city through the darkest days of the pandemic.“We were once the epicenter of this virus, and now we’ve moved to being the epicenter of the recovery,” she said. “We gather for a common purpose: to say, ‘Welcome back, New York City!’”She then introduced the New York Philharmonic, which kicked off the concert with the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” conducted by Marin Alsop, a Bernstein protégée. The orchestra then played a medley of New York-themed music, including bits of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” and “Theme from ‘New York, New York,’” the anthem made famous by Frank Sinatra, among others.The concert, “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert,” which was broadcast live on CNN, was part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to celebrate the city’s comeback after the pain and suffering of the pandemic.When the concert was announced by Mr. de Blasio in June, plunging coronavirus case numbers and rising vaccination figures had filled the city with hope.But circumstances have shifted considerably over the past two months. The spread of the highly contagious Delta variant has led some city businesses to postpone the return to their offices, prompted the city to institute vaccine mandates for indoor dining and entertainment and threatened to destabilize the wider concert business.On June 7, the day the concert was announced, the city was averaging 242 cases a day; the daily average is now more than 2,000 cases a day.With the Philharmonic still onstage, the concert continued with Andrea Bocelli, the star Italian tenor, singing “O Sole Mio,” and Jennifer Hudson, the star of the new Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect,” singing Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” — a beloved aria that became associated with Franklin after she sang it at the Grammy Awards in 1998.As the crowd streamed in, the idea of New York’s return — whether a two-fisted vanquishing of a viral enemy or a premature declaration of victory — was on seemingly everyone’s mind.“This is our reopening — this is our invitation to get back to real life,” said Dean Dunagan, 52, of the Lower East Side, who had come to see Mr. Springsteen and had been waiting outside the park for four and a half hours before the gates were opened.“New York has been punched in the face every other decade, or whatever,” Mr. Dunagan said, “and we get right back up.”Just a few feet from him was Alexandra Gudaitis, a 24-year-old Paul Simon fan from the Upper West Side. “I’m scared this is going to be a mass spreader event, with the Delta,” she said.Still, she was one of the first fans through the door and rushed to the very front of the general-admission section with a few friends. They wore masks, and Ms. Gudaitis said they had chosen their spot because it seemed to have better access to fresh air.Some of the acts had only tenuous connections to New York. But the rap pioneer LL Cool J led a New York-centric ode to old-school hip-hop with Busta Rhymes, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, French Montana, Melle Mel and Rev. Run of Run-DMC.Amid concerns about the spread of the Delta variant, the show required everyone 12 years old and older to show proof that they had had at least one dose of a vaccine. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe homecoming show required everyone 12 years old and up to show proof that they had had at least one dose of a vaccine; children younger than that, who are still ineligible for the vaccines, were required to wear masks.“When it comes to the concerts, they are outdoors — they are for vaccinated folks only,” the mayor had said on Wednesday. “We are definitely encouraging mask use. But I really want to emphasize the whole key here is vaccination.”The Central Park show came after the city had hosted a week of free hip-hop shows, with local heroes including Raekwon and Ghostface Killah in Staten Island, and KRS-One, Kool Moe Dee and Slick Rick in the Bronx. Tickets were required to attend the concert on the Great Lawn — most were free, but V.I.P. packages cost up to $5,000 — and the show was broadcast on television by CNN and on satellite radio by SiriusXM.The concert was programmed by Clive Davis, the 89-year-old music eminence, who, in an interview this week, stressed the role that music could play in shaping society.“It’s vital and important that New York be back,” he said.From the stage on Saturday night, Mr. Davis, a Brooklyn native, made a plea to the audience: “Tonight, I only ask one thing: When you’re having a great time, cheer loud — loud enough so they can hear you all the way in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.”The concert ended before many of the headliners, including Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, got to perform. Mr. Davis said in the interview that after Mr. de Blasio asked him in May to put together the show, his first call had been to Mr. Springsteen.“I picked up the phone and told him we were going to celebrate New York City,” Mr. Davis recalled. “He said he would show up and wanted to do a duet.” That duet was to have been with Patti Smith, on “Because the Night,” a 1978 song they wrote together.The abbreviated concert came at an uncertain moment for the music industry. While some high-profile artists, including Garth Brooks, BTS and Nine Inch Nails, have canceled tour dates recently, the show is largely going on in the live-music business — but it hasn’t been easy. Concert protocols, in New York and elsewhere, have been in flux for months, as the federal authorities, local governments and businesses have adjusted to the changing realities of the virus.Broadway is requiring masks and proof of vaccinations as its theaters reopen, and Los Angeles County recently announced that it would require masks at large outdoor events such as baseball games at Dodger Stadium and concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.Mr. de Blasio has defended going ahead with the concert, noting that it was being held outdoors and for vaccinated people, even as some other events have been canceled. This year’s West Indian American Day parade in Brooklyn, for example, planned for Labor Day Weekend, has been canceled.The eyes of the concert industry have been on Chicago, where the Lollapalooza festival drew 400,000 over four days in late July and early August, amid concerns that it could turn into a “superspreader” event. The festival, which was held outdoors, required that attendees show proof of vaccination or a negative test. Last week, the city said that 203 people attending the show had tested positive afterward and that no hospitalizations or deaths had been reported. More

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      in Theater

      A Puppet Festival Returns to New York, All Grown Up

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      After more than a year of pandemic-related crises, Manuel Antonio Morán wanted to give a gift to New York. He envisioned something lighthearted and uplifting, but also thought-provoking and as varied as the city itself. The answer? Puppets.But there’s nothing here to prompt sneers or eye rolling. The International Puppet Fringe Festival NYC, which arrives this week with over 50 shows and events, more than a dozen short films and five accompanying exhibitions, including “Puppets of New York” at the Museum of the City of New York, is far from a kiddie celebration.“The wrong perception in the United States is that puppetry is just for children or to be used for education,” Morán, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, the programming’s Lower East Side hub. “That’s something I’m fighting every single day.”The works on display in the “Puppets of New York” exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York include Bruce Cannon’s marionette Lady Love Power (inspired by Diana Ross).Karsten Moran for The New York TimesRolando, a puppet by Agrippino Manteo whose family immigrated to New York a century ago. They specialized in making complex metal-armored Sicilian marionettes.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAlan Semok’s Howdy Doody marionette (recostumed by Richard Liljeblad).Karsten Moran for The New York TimesRick Lyon’s hand puppet Trekkie Monster from “Avenue Q” and others in the exhibition, which opens Aug. 13, highlight puppetry traditions.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThis festival, which is offering 60 percent of its performances free (tickets to the rest are $15 each), may help convince the doubters. Although Morán founded Puppet Fringe NYC as a biennial in 2018 — Covid-19 prevented its 2020 edition — this version is almost twice the size of the original and essentially a rebirth. Beginning on Wednesday with the first Puppet Week NYC, which comprises five days of live events, the festival continues through Aug. 31, mostly in virtual form, with shows from countries including India, Israel, Argentina, Spain, South Korea and the Ivory Coast.It “represents the whole immigrant ethos of the Lower East Side, channeled through the lens of these other citizens that are puppets,” said Libertad O. Guerra, the executive director of the Clemente. The center is producing Puppet Fringe NYC with Teatro SEA, the downtown Latino theater Morán started in 1985, and Morán’s own agency, Grupo Morán.This year’s festival will also have workshops in puppet construction, four of them for adults. And for those whose tastes run to the politically barbed or the comically risqué, two grown-ups-only puppet evenings are planned, one of them called the “Bawdy, Naughty Puppet Cabaret/Puppet Slam.”“They’re including elements of burlesque,” Morán said of the slam, to be presented on Saturday by the Puppetry Guild of Greater New York. “There might be a little bit of skin,” he added with a laugh.Herbert and Lulu, the hobo bugs, by Craig Marin and Olga Felgemacher, as they are installed at the Museum of the City of New York.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesInstallation view of Shari Lewis and James Patrick Brymer’s hand puppet Lamb Chop, with costumes by Pat Brymer Creations. On Wednesday, Lewis’s daughter Mallory and Lamb Chop will perform “The Shari Lewis Legacy Show.”Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut perhaps this festival’s most novel element is its partnership with the Museum of the City of New York, which will open its 2,500-square-foot exhibition with a sold-out celebration on Thursday evening. “Puppets of New York,” which runs until early April at the uptown Manhattan museum, features photographs, videos, films and sets, as well as more than 60 puppets. They range from cardboard finger models designed by Penny Jones to José A. López Alemán’s 12-foot-tall Titanya, the fairy queen from “Sueño,” Teatro SEA’s Afro-Caribbean version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”“The main argument of the show uptown is that the history of puppetry in New York City mirrors the demographics of the city,” said Monxo López, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellow who curated “Puppets of New York.” And, he noted, “many different puppeteers that reflect that diversity have not been as visible as others. It was important to tell that story of diversity, of visibility, of inclusiveness, in a way that also showed joy and possibility.”Derek Fordjour and Nick Lehane’s puppet (called a man whose name is never known) from their 2020 production “Fly Away.”Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTo that end, the exhibition includes not only designs by famous masters like Jim Henson and Ralph Lee, but also work by artists like the Manteo family, who brought complex metal-armored Sicilian marionettes when they immigrated to New York a century ago, and Derek Fordjour and Nick Lehane, whose 2020 puppet production, “Fly Away,” featured a nameless young Black man.“My strategy was that each object had to tell as many stories as possible,” said López, who also collaborated with the author and curator Leslee Asch to organize “Puppets of New York: Downtown at the Clemente,” a complementary exhibition on view through Sept. 30. It joins three other art shows that will be there through August: “Teatro SEA’s International Collaborations”; “Murals of Puppetry Around the World,” featuring Alfredo Hernández’s paintings; and “Vince Anthony’s Legacy,” which celebrates the retired founder of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, to whom the festival is dedicated.The exhibitions reveal a synergy with the festival’s live performances, which will mostly be presented outdoors. (All in-person events require registration and face masks.) Chinese Theater Works, which will deliver puppet dragons and the Chinese judge of the dead to the Clemente’s plaza over four nights in “The Triple Zhongkui Pageant,” will be represented by shadow puppets at the Museum of the City of New York. Also at both those locations will be Lamb Chop, perhaps the most memorable — and feistiest — sock puppet of all time, who appeared on children’s television for 40 years with her ventriloquist co-star, Shari Lewis.“She’s the Velveteen Rabbit of puppets,” said Lewis’s daughter, Mallory Lewis, referring to Margery Williams’s children’s classic about a stuffed animal that becomes real. On Wednesday evening, Mallory Lewis and Lamb Chop will perform “The Shari Lewis Legacy Show,” an interactive production featuring a new, pandemic-related ending. “It’s a tribute to the first responders,” she said in a phone interview.The City Parks Foundation’s production of “Little Red’s Hood” will be performed in both English and Spanish.via Museum of the City of New York Other family-friendly performances will take place all weekend. Bruce Cannon, artistic director of the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park, contributes his talents to the City Parks Foundation’s jazzy production of “Little Red’s Hood,” to be performed in both English (Saturday) and Spanish (Sunday).Besides this fairy tale, in which the Wolf stalks Little Red through Manhattan, Cannon will present his own “Harlem River Drive,” a one-man homage, on Sunday.“It explores how Harlem became Harlem,” he said in a phone interview. While touching on serious topics like racism and the Depression, it also offers joyful music and multiple kinds of puppets, all operated by Cannon. They usually include a marionette inspired by Diana Ross — absent from the festival performance because it’s in “Puppets of New York” — and two of Michael Jackson. (When was the last time you saw a moonwalking marionette?)The festival will host three performances of Deborah Hunt’s “La Macanuda.” Here, an image from a 2019 performance at the National Puppetry Festival in Minneapolis.Richard TermineDeborah Hunt, a New Zealander living in Puerto Rico, will also examine a community’s evolution in three performances of “La Macanuda,” whose title, she said in a phone conversation, means “a large, friendly being.” Hunt, whose work appears in the Teatro SEA exhibition, portrays the character in a puppet that encases her entire body. Accompanied by cutouts, scrolls and a smaller puppet, she enacts a wordless tale — essentially a statement supporting immigrants — in which La Macanuda rescues the victims of a city-destroying ogre. “She’s a kindly departure for me,” said Hunt, whose work often tends toward the macabre.The Clemente’s own neighborhood stars in nightly performances of “Los Grises/The Gray Ones,” Morán’s music-filled show about the community’s elders, and Saturday and Sunday in “Once Upon a Time in the Lower East Side,” which the center commissioned from the Junktown Duende collective, a troupe that creates puppets from recycled materials.Its production is “centered around a tenement where waves of immigrants settled,” said Adam Ende, a member of Junktown Duende. And it’s “specifically about the history of immigrant puppetry.”While the show deals with gentrification and police brutality, it also illustrates the transformation of a blighted space into a community garden. And like Puppet Fringe NYC, it’s a testament to strength amid hard times. “The struggle continues,” Ende said. “And we’re celebrating together, endlessly.” More

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      in Television

      In 'Hit & Run,' the 'Fauda' Creators Move the Action to New York

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      Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, who created that Israeli hit, are back with “Hit & Run,” a new geopolitical thriller that swoops from Tel Aviv to the back alleys of New York City.One afternoon in 2015, shortly after their gripping terrorism drama“Fauda” debuted in Israel, Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz met for lunch in Tel Aviv. More

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      in Theater

      New York City Awards $3 Million for Latino and Puerto Rican Theater

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      The Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater will use the funds, along with $7 million from the city over the last eight years, for an expanded South Bronx space.The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs announced on Friday that the city had awarded $3 million to Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, which champions Puerto Rican and Latino artists and produces original bilingual plays and musicals.The new funding, provided by the mayor, the City Council and the Bronx borough president, is in addition to about $7 million from the Department of Cultural Affairs already devoted to the theater company in the last eight years — bringing the total to $10.2 million. The funds will be used to build a new cultural and administrative headquarters in the South Bronx.“Arts and culture will be at the heart of this city’s recovery,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “And this theater will give young Bronxites more opportunities than ever to build a more inclusive cultural future for our city.”An addition to one of the company’s existing theaters, on Walton Avenue between 149th and 150th Streets, will serve as the headquarters for the organization. (The theater also has a space in Midtown and shows will continue to be produced at both locations.) The expanded space will allow for more education and other programming, said Rosalba Rolón, the founding artistic director of Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.“I can’t tell you the excitement our neighbors have,” Rolón said in an interview on Friday. “This is the kind of service Bronx artists need. The community might be able to use the space in other ways as well, for town halls and community meetings.”A large portion of the building, in the Mott Haven neighborhood, will also be used for pre-professional training for performing artists, she said.The project, which is the organization’s first major capital one since its theater in the Bronx opened in 2005, had been in the works for eight years. The $3 million in new city support added as part of the budget for fiscal year 2022 put the project over its finish line. It does not yet have a target opening date.Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater was created in 2014 in a merger of the Pregones Theater in the Bronx and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in Manhattan. The Pregones was founded in 1979 by a group of artists led by Rolón to create new works in the style of Caribbean and Latin American “colectivos” or performing ensembles. The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater was founded in 1967 as one of the first U.S. bilingual theater companies.For a theater that has nurtured the development of Latino artists and long been invested in community engagement in Mott Haven, the new home is an exciting next step.“It is meaningful that we come to full funding at the exact same time when New Yorkers are taking bold steps toward recovery from pandemic, and when enduring inequities in arts funding are an ongoing conversation,” Arnaldo J. López, the organization’s managing director, said in a statement. More

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      in Music

      City Plans Central Park Concert for the Vaccinated: LL Cool J, Santana and More

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      LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Andrea Bocelli, Carlos Santana and the New York Philharmonic will join Bruce Springsteen in performances Aug. 21 on the Great Lawn.LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Andrea Bocelli, Carlos Santana and the New York Philharmonic will join Bruce Springsteen and other artists next month at the starry Central Park concert that the city is planning to herald its comeback from the pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.The mayor said that concertgoers would need to show proof of vaccination.Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced that next month there will be a concert in Central Park to celebrate the city’s recovery from the coronavirus, with performances from LL Cool J, Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen.“We want this to be a concert for the people,” Mr. de Blasio said at a video news conference, announcing more of the headliners — and the name — of the event, “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert,” which will be held on the Great Lawn on Aug. 21. “But I also want to be clear: It has to be a safe concert. It has to be a concert that helps us keep moving forward our recovery.”“So, if you want to go to this concert, you need to show proof of vaccination,” he added.The lineup features artists and musical icons from a number of eras, genres and styles, including the Killers; Earth, Wind & Fire; Wyclef Jean; Barry Manilow, and the previously announced performers, including Paul Simon, Jennifer Hudson and Patti Smith.While 80 percent of the tickets will be free, proof of vaccination will be required to attend. (Reasonable accommodation would be provided for those unable to get vaccinated because of a disability, the city said in a news release.) Masks will be optional, given the vaccination requirement and the fact that it is being held outdoors.Free tickets will be released to the public in batches at nyc.gov/HomecomingWeek beginning Monday at 10 a.m. Others will be available for purchase Monday.Gates will open for the concert, which is being produced in partnership with Live Nation, at 3 p.m. on Aug. 21, and the show will start at 5 p.m. CNN will also air the event live worldwide, including on CNN en Español.The venerable music producer Clive Davis, a Brooklyn native, has been working on the concert since May. He has lived almost his whole life in New York, he said at the news conference, but has never witnessed anything like the events of the past year and a half.“As a born, bred and true New Yorker, I well know how resilient we are, and how New York always comes back,” Mr. Davis said. “And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are coming back. And I cannot think, really, of a more appropriate way to celebrate this than an unforgettable concert in the most special venue in the world: the Great Lawn at Central Park.” More

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      in Movies

      ‘All the Streets Are Silent’ Review: Hip-Hop and Skateboarding Collide

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      This documentary is a portrait of downtown New York in the late 1980s and early ’90s that revels in nostalgia.In the late 1980s and early ’90s, long before hypebeasts spent hours waiting for coveted drops outside the Supreme store in SoHo, skaters assembled at a smaller shop on Lafayette Street. There, they would smoke and watch skate videos, listen to music and crack jokes with friends.“All the Streets Are Silent,” a documentary from the director, Jeremy Elkin, is a portrait of that time, capturing the transformative moment when hip-hop and skateboarding culture converged in New York. It draws on archival footage of influential figures like Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter, among dozens of others, and incorporates new interviews with major players like Fab 5 Freddy and Darryl McDaniels, of Run-DMC. Throughout, Elkin explores how racial associations with both subcultures crumbled as their worlds collided.The film revels in fuzzy, intimate home videos from the period, courtesy of the narrator, Eli Gesner, who spent much of his youth filming the scene on his camcorder. There are shots of skaters dodging traffic at Astor Place or partying at the now defunct hip-hop nexus Club Mars. At one point, a young Jay-Z appears, rapping at lightning speed over a breakbeat. The film immerses us in this world, rendering a loving, tender homage to the city’s street culture before it went global.Ultimately, “All the Streets Are Silent” has little more to give than nostalgia. An ending that considers the mainstream explosion of these subcultures is ambiguous and offers surface-level analysis. The film excels when it harnesses the wistful thrill of a bygone era, reminding us of a rich, creative past that deserves ample recognition.All the Streets Are SilentNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour and 29 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Music

      As New York Reopens, It Looks for Culture to Lead the Way

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      Broadway is planning to start performances of at least three dozen shows before the end of the year, but producers do not know if there will be enough tourists — who typically make up two-thirds of the audience — to support all of them.The Metropolitan Opera is planning a September return, but only if its musicians agree to pay cuts.And New York’s vaunted nightlife scene — the dance clubs and live venues that give the city its reputation for never sleeping — has been stymied by the slow, glitchy rollout of a federal aid program that mistakenly declared some of the city’s best-known nightclub impresarios to be dead.The return of arts and entertainment is crucial to New York’s economy, and not just because it is a major industry that employed some 93,500 people before the pandemic and paid them $7.4 billion in wages, according to the state comptroller’s office. Culture is also part of the lifeblood of New York — a magnet for visitors and residents alike that will play a key role if the city is to remain vital in an era when shops are battling e-commerce, the ease of remote work has businesses rethinking the need to stay in central business districts and the exurbs are booming.“What is a city without social, cultural and creative synergies?” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo asked earlier this year in an address on the importance of the arts to the city’s recovery. “New York City is not New York without Broadway. And with Zoom, many people have learned they can do business from anywhere. Compound this situation with growing crime and homelessness and we have a national urban crisis.”When “Springsteen on Broadway” opened its doors again in June, the fans flocked back. George Etheredge for The New York TimesAnd Mayor Bill de Blasio — who could seem indifferent to the arts earlier in his tenure — has become a cultural cheerleader in the waning days of his administration, starting a $25 million program to put artists back to work, creating a Broadway vaccination site for theater industry workers and planning a “homecoming concert” in Central Park next month featuring Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson and Paul Simon to herald the city’s return.Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future, said, “The way I look at it, there is not going to be a strong recovery for New York City without the performing arts’ leading the way.” He added, “People gravitate here because of the city’s cultural life.”There are signs of hope everywhere, as vaccinated New Yorkers re-emerge this summer. Destinations like the Whitney and the Brooklyn Museum are crowded again, although timed reservations are still required. Bruce Springsteen is playing to sold-out crowds on Broadway and Foo Fighters brought rock back to Madison Square Garden.Shakespeare in the Park and the Classical Theater of Harlem are staging contemporary adaptations of classic plays in city parks, the Park Avenue Armory, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and a number of commercial Off Broadway theaters have been presenting productions indoors, and a new outdoor amphitheater is drawing crowds for shows on Little Island, the new Hudson River venue.Haley Gibbs, 25, an administrative aide who lives in Brooklyn, said she felt the city’s pulse returning as she waited to attend “Drunk Shakespeare,” an Off Off Broadway fixture that has resumed performances in Midtown.“I feel like it’s our soul that’s been given back to us, in a way,” Gibbs said, “which is super dramatic, but it is kind of like that.”But some of the greatest tests for the city’s cultural scene lie ahead.Hunkering down — cutting staff, slashing programming — turned out to be a brutal but effective survival strategy. Arts workers faced record unemployment, and some have yet to return to work, but many businesses and organizations were able to slash expenses and wait until it was safe to reopen. Now that it’s time to start hiring and spending again, many cultural leaders are worried: Can they thrive with fewer tourists and commuters? How much will safety protocols cost? Will the donors who stepped up during the emergency stick around for a less glamorous period of rebuilding?“Next year may prove to be our most financially challenging,” said Bernie Telsey, one of the three artistic directors at MCC Theater, an Off Broadway nonprofit. “In many ways, it’s like a start-up now — it’s not just turning the lights on. Everything is a little uncertain. It’s like starting all over again.”The fall season is shaping up to be the big test. “Springsteen on Broadway” began last month, but the rest of Broadway has yet to resume: The first post-shutdown play, a drama about two existentially trapped Black men called “Pass Over,” is to start performances Aug. 4, while the first musicals are aiming for September, starting with “Hadestown” and “Waitress,” followed by war horses that include “The Lion King,” “Chicago,” “Wicked” and “Hamilton.”Many of Broadway’s biggest hits will reopen in September.George Etheredge for The New York TimesThe looming question is whether there will be enough theatergoers to support all those shows. Although there have been signs that some visitors are returning to the city, tourism is not expected to rebound to its prepandemic levels for four years. So some of the returning Broadway shows will initially start with reduced schedules — performing fewer than the customary eight shows a week — as producers gauge ticket demand.And “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a big-budget, Tony-winning play that was staged in two parts before the pandemic, will be cut down to a single show when it returns to Broadway on Nov. 12; its producers cited “the commercial challenges faced by the theater and tourism industries emerging from the global shutdowns.”“What we need to do, which has never been done before, is open all of Broadway over a single season,” said Tali Pelman, the lead producer of “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Safety protocols have been changing rapidly, as more people get vaccinated, but there is still apprehension about moving too fast. In Australia, reopened shows have periodically been halted by lockdowns, while in England, several shows have been forced to cancel performances to comply with isolation protocols that some view as overly restrictive.“On a fundamental level, our health is at stake,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of “Hamilton,” which is planning to resume performances on Broadway on Sept. 14. “You get this wrong, and we open too soon, and then we re-spike and we close again — that’s almost unthinkable.”Some presenters worry that, with fewer tourists, arts organizations will be battling one another to win the attention of New Yorkers and people from the region.The tourism drawn by Broadway is an essential part of the restaurant and bar economy in Midtown.George Etheredge for The New York TimesWill audiences return in the same numbers as prior to the pandemic is a question that producers are pondering. George Etheredge for The New York Times“There’s going to be a lot of competition for a smaller audience at the beginning, and that’s scary,” said Todd Haimes, artistic director of the Roundabout Theater Company, a nonprofit that operates three theaters on Broadway and two Off Broadway.Another looming challenge: concerns about public safety. Bystanders were struck by stray bullets during shooting incidents in Times Square in May and June, prompting Mayor de Blasio to promise additional officers to protect and reassure the public in that tourist-and-theater-dense neighborhood.The city’s tourism organization, NYC & Company, has developed a $30 million marketing campaign to draw visitors back to the city. The Broadway League, a trade organization representing producers and theater owners, is planning its own campaign. The Tony Awards are planning a fall special on CBS that will focus on performances in an effort to boost ticket sales. And comeback come-ons are finding their way into advertising: “We’ve been waiting for you,” “Wicked” declares in a direct mail piece.The economic stakes for the city are high. Broadway shows give work to actors and singers and dancers and ushers, but also, indirectly, to waiters and bartenders and hotel clerks and taxi drivers, who then go on to spend a portion of their paychecks on goods and services. The Broadway League says that during the 2018-2019 season Broadway generated $14.7 billion in economic activity and supported 96,900 jobs, when factoring in the direct and indirect spending of tourists who cited Broadway as a major reason for visiting the city.“We’ve pushed through a really tough time, and now you have this new variant, which is kind of scary, but I still hope we’re on the right track,” said Shane Hathaway, the co-owner of Hold Fast, a Restaurant Row bar and eatery whose website asks “Do you miss the Performing Arts?? So do we!!” “We’re already seeing a lot more tourists than last year,” Hathaway said, “and my hope is that we continue.”The Metropolitan Museum of Art on a  Saturday in July. It reopened last August on a reduced schedule and officials there say the visitor count has dropped.George Etheredge for The New York TimesAt the tourist-dependent Met Museum, attendance is back, but not all the way: it’s now open five days a week, and has drawn 10,000 people many days, while before the pandemic it was open seven days a week and averaged 14,000 daily visitors. Plus: more of the visitors now are local, and they don’t have to pay admission; the Met continues to project a $150 million revenue loss due to the pandemic.If the Met, the largest museum in the country, is struggling, that means smaller arts institutions are hurting even more, particularly those outside Manhattan, which tend to have less foot traffic and fewer big donors. The Brooklyn Academy of Music, for example, is trying to recover from a pandemic period without when it lost millions in revenue, reduced staff and had to raid its endowment to pay the bills.The city’s music scene has faced its own challenges — from the diviest bars to nightclubs to the plush Metropolitan Opera.According to a study commissioned by the mayor’s office, some 2,400 concert and entertainment venues in New York City supported nearly 20,000 jobs in 2016. But the sector has had a hard time.Many are waiting to see if they will get help from a $16 billion federal grant fund intended to preserve music clubs, theaters and other live-event businesses devastated by the pandemic. But the rollout of the program, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant initiative, has been slow and bumpy. Some owners, including Michael Swier, the founder of the Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge in New York, were initially denied aid because the program mistakenly believed they were dead.Elsewhere, a music and arts space with a 1,600-person capacity in the heart of hipster Brooklyn, cut its staff from 120 people to 5 when the pandemic arrived. After the state lifted restrictions on smaller venues in June, it reopened and began hiring back some workers, but its owners fear it could take a year or two to return to profitability.The bar at Elsewhere on a July Saturday in New York.George Etheredge for The New York TimesMore party people packed in at Elsewhere.George Etheredge for The New York TimesThe club got help in the form of a $4.9 million shuttered venue grant from the federal government, which it said would be used to pay its debts — including for rent, utilities, and loans — and to fix up the space and pay staff. “Every dollar will be used just to dig ourselves out from Covid,” said one of the venue’s partners, Dhruv Chopra.And the Met Opera is still not sure if it can raise its gilded curtain in September, as planned, after the longest shutdown in its history. The company, which lost $150 million in earned revenues during the pandemic, recently struck deals to cut the pay of its choristers, soloists and stagehands. The company is now in tense negotiations with the musicians in its orchestra, who were furloughed without pay for nearly a year. If they fail to reach a deal, the Met, the largest performing arts organization in the nation, risks missing being part of the initial burst of reopening energy.Some cultural leaders are already looking past the fall, at the challenge of sustaining demand for tickets after the initial enthusiasm of reopening fades.“We have a lot of work to do to make sure that people know that we’re open,” said Thomas Schumacher, president of Disney Theatrical Productions, “to make people comfortable coming in, to keep the shows solid, and to get through the holidays and get through the winter.”Laura Zornosa contributed reporting. More