Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria

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    In Chicago, Biden and Harris Enact a Cast Change Onstage

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    The first night of the convention introduced the party’s new protagonist, and gave the old one a curtain call.Notice anything different?The organizers of the Democratic National Convention hope you did. Less than a month ago, the party upended the election when President Biden withdrew from the campaign, and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee. Suddenly, the previously scheduled rerun of the 2020 election, tuned out by many weary voters, was new programming, with a new cast.The first night of the convention wasted little time unveiling its new star — even as it also had to finish off the last one’s story arc.Early in the evening, Ms. Harris made a surprise appearance onstage in Chicago to her campaign anthem, Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” The crowd of delegates exploded with cheers.This was an energy that the party had been missing for a while, and the prime-time production was designed to flaunt it. Ms. Harris’s kickoff remarks were brief — “We are moving forward!” — but there was a showmanship to the moment that suggested that the candidate plans to take the fight to Donald Trump where he lives, in the TV lights.If Ms. Harris’s unexpected cameo had a measure of Mr. Trump’s theatricality, however, it had a different energy: expansive and effusive rather than brassy and bold. Beaming and waving to the crowd in a camel-colored suit, she reflected the room’s energy back to it rather than basking in it and soaking it up.This was a big change from the convention Democrats anticipated having just weeks ago, under the tentative, 81-year-old Mr. Biden. The slogans onstage — “For the People, For the Future” — emphasized the message of newness.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      ‘N/A’ Review: For Nancy Pelosi and A.O.C., It’s a House Divided

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      Is moral leadership possible without parliamentary power? Two very familiar congresswomen battle it out onstage.The publicity for “N/A,” a two-hander that opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on Thursday, has been careful to point out that, despite all appearances, the N in the title is not Nancy Pelosi, and the A is not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rather, the playwright, Mario Correa, argues in a program note that “N/A” is about a battle of “ideas and ideals,” which are “bigger than any one person (or even two).”I vote nay on that proposition.The play’s ideas and ideals are fine, and modestly if repetitively dramatized, but what makes this swift summer trifle so diverting is the embodiment of the women themselves. N and A are perfect incarnations of their congressional doppelgängers, down to Pelosi’s golden Mace of the United States House of Representatives brooch and A.O.C.’s signature “Beso” red lipstick. The gimmick also gives Holland Taylor (as N) and Ana Villafañe (as A) tasty roles and a meaty conflict to sink their teeth into.Correa frames that conflict as ideological, not personal. In five scenes starting with the 2018 midterms (when the Democrats win control of the House) and ending with the 2022 midterms (when they lose it), he broadly traces their seesawing power.At first the seesaw is profoundly unbalanced. We meet A just after her surprise primary victory against a machine Democrat and N’s handpicked successor. (In real life, that would be Joseph Crowley.) Though still a savvy street fighter, A is awed and a little cowed by the Washington she discovers. “So, yeah, we are not in Kansas anymore,” she tells her Instagram Live followers, invoking a surprising image of fragility.By then, N has been in Congress for 31 years. Having lost the House speakership when “that man” was elected, she intends to reclaim it. Her favorite number — the only one that counts for a parliamentarian — is 218, the number of votes needed to get work done. Anything shy of that is zero.So even though she and A find that they agree on many policy goals, especially ending the inhumane treatment of migrants at the southern border, they are irreconcilably opposed about how to achieve them. N wheedles, calls in chits, holds her nose and plays footsie with lobbyists, and if she doesn’t have the votes to pass a bill, she doesn’t waste her political capital trying. Naturally, A wants to blow that all up.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Headlined the MadSoul Festival in Florida

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      The New York Democrat had top billing at a recent concert event in Florida that took a partisan approach to politics as entertainment.Two acts received top billing at MadSoul, a music and arts festival in Florida, on Saturday. The first was Muna, an indie-pop group that opened for Taylor Swift at some Eras Tour stops. The second: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.She and several elected Democrats shared a stage with musicians like Phoebe Bridgers during the daylong event at Loch Haven Park in Orlando. Other politicians included Representatives Greg Casar of Texas and Maxwell Frost of Florida, the first Gen-Z member of Congress.Mr. Frost, a percussionist, is also the founder of the MadSoul Festival, which he started in 2018 when he was working as an organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union. He said in an interview before this year’s event that he had “personally booked the whole lineup.”Mr. Frost — who played drums for Venture Motel, a local band, during its set at the festival — described the event as a way to reach people who might not be as interested in politics as they were in politics as entertainment, a concept that has spread since the election of the country’s first reality-TV-star president.Representative Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida and the founder of the MadSoul Festival, played drums for a local band during its set.Todd Anderson for The New York TimesAlmost 3,000 people attended the event, with many saying they were primarily drawn by the promise of music and arts.Todd Anderson for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More