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      in Theater

      Broadway Shows to See This Fall: ‘Our Town,’ ‘Gypsy’ and More

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      Broadway Shows to See This Fall: ‘Our Town,’ ‘Gypsy’ and MoreA guide to every show on Broadway, including new musicals, Tony winning-dramas, quirky hits and veterans like “Hamilton” and “Chicago.”Jim Parsons, at left, as the Stage Manager in “Our Town,” which runs through Jan. 19 at the Barrymore Theater in Manhattan.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMusicals to Leave You HummingCabaret“Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome” — but for real this time. With a sinuous, sensuous Adam Lambert now starring as the Emcee, Rebecca Frecknall’s darkly seductive take on the Kander and Ebb classic has acquired a much more human feel. Inside Tom Scutt’s Tony-winning immersive design of the Weimar-era Kit Kat Club, the show is newly rebalanced for the better with Auliʻi Cravalho as Sally Bowles and Calvin Leon Smith as Clifford Bradshaw, while Bebe Neuwirth as Fräulein Schneider and Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz will still charm your heart, then break it. (At the August Wilson Theater.) Read the review.The Great GatsbyEva Noblezada (“Hadestown”) stars as Daisy opposite Jeremy Jordan (“Newsies”), who plays his final performance as Gatsby on Jan. 19. This musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel has a book by Kait Kerrigan (“The Mad Ones”), with music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Nathan Tysen (both of “Paradise Square”). Marc Bruni (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”) directs. Linda Cho’s luxurious 1920s costumes won the show a Tony. (At the Broadway Theater.) Read the review.GypsyGrabbing the baton first handed off by Ethel Merman, Audra McDonald plays the formidable Momma Rose in the fifth Broadway revival of Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s exalted 1959 musical about a vaudeville stage mother and her daughters: June, the favorite child, and Louise, who becomes the burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Directed by George C. Wolfe, with choreography by Camille A. Brown, the cast includes Danny Burstein, Joy Woods, Jordan Tyson and Lesli Margherita. (Starts previews Nov. 21 at the Majestic Theater; opens Dec. 19.) Read more about the production.Hell’s KitchenAlicia Keys’s own coming-of-age is the inspiration for this jukebox musical stocked with her songs. With numbers including “Girl on Fire,” “Fallin’” and “Empire State of Mind,” it’s the story of a 17-year-old (Maleah Joi Moon, a newly minted Tony winner making her Broadway debut) in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, growing into an artist. Shoshana Bean (through Dec. 1) and Brandon Victor Dixon play her parents, and Kecia Lewis plays her piano teacher in a Tony-winning performance. Directed by Michael Greif, the show has a book by Kristoffer Diaz and choreography by Camille A. Brown. (At the Shubert Theater.) Read the review.Maybe Happy EndingRobot neighbors in Seoul, nearing obsolescence, tumble into odd-couple friendship in this wistfully romantic charmer of a musical comedy by Will Aronson and Hue Park, starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen. Michael Arden (“Parade”) directs. At the Belasco Theater. Read the review.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Cher Can, and Does, Turn Back Time

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      In the first volume of her memoir (which she hasn’t read), she explores her difficult childhood, her fraught marriage to Sonny Bono and how she found her voice.Twice during a 90-minute interview about her memoir, Cher asked, “Do you think people are going to like it?”Even in the annals of single-name celebrities — Sting, Madonna, Beyoncé, Zendaya — Cher is in the stratosphere of the one percent. She’s been a household name for six decades. She was 19 when she had her first No. 1 single with Sonny Bono. She won an Oscar for “Moonstruck,” an Emmy for “Cher: The Farewell Tour” and a Grammy for “Believe.” Her face has appeared on screens of all sizes, and her music has been a soundtrack for multiple generations, whether via vinyl, eight track, cassette tape, compact disc or Spotify.But wrangling a definitive account of her life struck a nerve for Cher. There were dark corners to explore and 78 years of material to sift through. And — this might have been the hardest part — she had to make peace with the fact that her most personal stories will soon be in the hands of scores of readers.“This book has exhausted me,” she said of the first volume of her two-part eponymous memoir, out on Nov. 19. “It took a lot out of me.”“Cher” is a gutsy account of tenacity and perseverance: Cher’s childhood was unstable. Her marriage to Sonny Bono had devastating aftershocks. The book is also a cultural history packed with strong opinions, boldface names and head-spinning throwbacks: Cher’s first concert was Elvis. Her first movie was “Dumbo.” (She was so rapt, she wet her pants.) One of the first cars she drove was a ’57 Chevy stolen from her boyfriend.On the page, Cher’s voice reverberates with the grit and depth that made her famous.“I learned early that most adults were unpredictable, so I couldn’t count on them and had to be constantly vigilant,” Cher writes of her parents, pictured here in New Mexico in the 1950s.via CherWe 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

      Shel Talmy, Who Produced the Who and the Kinks, Dies at 87

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      Though he was American, he helped define the sound of the British Invasion after settling in London in the early 1960s.Shel Talmy, a Chicago-born record producer who helped unleash the id of the British Invasion with a raw, grinding sound on proto-punk salvos like “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks and “My Generation” by the Who, died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.His death was announced on his Facebook page, where he had been sharing reminiscences about many of his past recordings with a long list of acts, which also included Manfred Mann, Chad & Jeremy, the Easybeats and a teenage David Bowie, who at the time was using his given surname, Jones.Mr. Talmy’s climb to the top of the British music scene actually began in Los Angeles, where he had lived since his teens. In 1962, he was working as a recording engineer at a studio in Hollywood when he headed for London for what he expected would be a five-week vacation, hoping he might scrape together enough work there to pay for the trip.Before he left, his friend Nick Venet, who produced the Beach Boys for Capitol Records, offered him the acetates of some of his hit records to help Mr. Talmy drum up work. In a 2012 interview with Finding Zoso, a fan site devoted to the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, whom Mr. Talmy used on many sessions, he recalled that Mr. Venet had told him: “Help yourself to my discs, whatever you want to use you can use. You can tell them it was yours.”Once in London, Mr. Talmy passed off hit records like “Surfin’ Safari” as his own in a meeting with Dick Rowe of Decca Records. “I thought, what the hell,” he said in an interview with the music writer Richie Unterberger, “I’m not going to be here long. I might as well be as brash as possible.” By the end of the meeting, he said, Mr. Rowe had told him, “You start next week.”Mr. Talmy had already notched his first hit, “Charmaine,” a country-inflected number by the Irish vocal trio the Bachelors, when his ruse became obvious. But by that point he was on his way.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

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Shaboozey Seeks ‘Good News’ in Another Bar, and 7 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Yola, Julia Holter, Angel Olsen and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Shaboozey, ‘Good News’On his new single, “Good News,” Shaboozey doesn’t stray far from the basics of his No. 1, Grammy-nominated hit, “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” Once again he leans into his troubles with a guitar-strumming verse, a chorus with hearty male singalongs and a familiar setting; the singer is “the man at the bar confessing his sins.” But this time, there’s no consolation, not even temporary, in whiskey and dancing. The chorus is rowdy but there’s no happy ending; the good news he needs never arrives. JON PARELESYola, ‘Symphony’The English vocal powerhouse Yola spells out her pleasure principle on “Symphony,” a funky, upbeat celebration of sensuality that will appear on her forthcoming EP, “My Way.” “Play my heartstrings with both your hands,” she commands, “and I’ll sing like a symphony for you.” Then, on a passionately belted bridge, she makes good on her word. ZOLADZSalute and Jessie Ware, ‘Heaven in Your Arms’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

      Kim Deal Is Ready to Go Solo. It Just Took 4 Decades.

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      In her pink-tiled bathroom with a sky-blue tub, Kim Deal gripped a wad of cables in one hand and squatted to peer down a laundry chute.She bought this modest Dayton, Ohio, house in 1990 when she was in two of the defining bands of the alternative era — Pixies and the Breeders — and turned its basement into a laboratory of rock. She eventually added recording gear to the main bedroom, and was demonstrating how she’d threaded its wiring up to the second floor.“There’s a snake down there that has many inputs,” she explained, then dashed up a flight of white wooden stairs with the deftness of someone who’s done it a hundred thousand times. She grinned and pointed at the cords’ destination. Wasn’t it great?It was a crisp October night in the unassuming Midwestern city that’s still home to the Breeders, and leaves rustled beneath Deal’s yellow-soled Hokas. The two-bedroom, like Deal herself, is low-key and designed for music-making. A collection of hard drives lay on the floor in front of a bookshelf holding paperbacks and 45s, though ironically, she’s never been good at keeping a record collection. “Supposedly I have some rare ones,” she said, thumbing through a handful. “This is El Inquilino Comunista, a Spanish band, they were good.”Trends and names come and go, but despite living very much out of the spotlight, Deal has had a grip on the popular imagination for nearly four decades with her confounding lyrics, starry nonchalance and a distinctive singing voice that’s like cotton candy cut with paint thinner. “Cannonball,” a crunchy earworm with a slippery bass line from the Breeders’ second album, “Last Splash,” is sonic shorthand for “the ’90s.” Kurt Cobain loved her songs and took the band on tour with Nirvana in 1993; the 21-year-old pop star Olivia Rodrigo did the same in 2024.This month, at 63, Deal is finally releasing a full album under her own name, titled “Nobody Loves You More,” that is more than a new twist on a familiar aesthetic. It’s a statement of evolution from a fiercely independent artist in maturity — a project that evolved over the tumultuous years as Deal sorted out her sobriety, pried open old band wounds and devoted herself to her aging parents. Her mother and father both passed before she turned these long-gestating songs into an album. After it was finished, the man who helped make it, her beloved co-conspirator Steve Albini, died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 61.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

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands’ Review: The Wrong Stuff

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      The boy band stories in Tamra Davis’s documentary rarely intersect in a way that builds a meaningful or compelling perspective.From a documentary filmmaking perspective, there’s very little to go wild about in “Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands.” This frenetic mix of nostalgic fan service and rehashed pop culture history begins at a breakneck pace as if it’s a film made for TikTok. Naturally, it overflows with a cacophony of screaming and fainting fans.Directed by Tamra Davis (“Crossroads,” “Billy Madison”), the movie often feels more like a greatest hits compilation than a cohesive narrative. Its goal is ambitious: to trace the evolution of boy bands — from the Beatles to the K-pop group Seventeen — and explore how the groups have shaped global culture over the past 50 years. Disappointingly, the documentary prioritizes historical play-by-plays over deeper analysis, spending much of its running time tracing the influence of one boy band on the next. These stories rarely intersect in a way that builds a meaningful or compelling perspective, which might leave viewers asking, what’s the point?For some (OK, fine, me), it might be cute to reminisce about how Nick Jonas launched his career as a solo Christian artist, complete with a purity ring. For most, you’ll be left wondering why, in just 30 minutes, we’ve jumped from record-label battles faced by both ’N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, to Donny Osmond’s childhood connection to Michael Jackson, to how Harry Styles successfully started a career outside of One Direction, to Lance Bass coming out, to A.J. McLean’s sobriety. At first, I wondered why so many boy band members addressed were absent from this film. I think I have my answer.Larger Than Life: Reign of the BoybandsNot rated. 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      in Music

      A New Set of Gits Releases Gives Mia Zapata Her Voice Back

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      The Seattle frontwoman was killed in 1993, as her punk band was on the cusp of a breakthrough. Remastered recordings provide a chance to rewrite her story.Here’s how I wish the story of the Gits could be told: Four hardworking musicians finally escaped the grind of underpaid gigs and indie recordings and followed such compadres as Nirvana to global fame, led by the poetic howls of Mia Zapata, heiress apparent to Janis Joplin and Patti Smith.Here’s the story you may already know, as told by shows including “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Forensic Files,” and the documentary “The Gits”: Talented singer found raped and murdered on a Seattle street just as her band was on the cusp of success.In an attempt to bring what might have been to life, the seminal Seattle label Sub Pop is releasing remastered recordings by the Gits on Nov. 13. While the band was together, Zapata, the bassist Matt Dresdner, the guitarist Andy Kessler (a.k.a. Joe Spleen) and the drummer Steve Moriarty released only one album of their complex thrash rock (Kessler calls it “five-chord punk”): “Frenching the Bully” (1992). Sub Pop’s digital releases will also include three LPs of unfinished recordings, early work and live tracks. In December a concert album, “Live at the X-Ray,” will arrive for the first time.“It’s been a long, long road to get to where we are,” Dresdner, 57, said in a video interview from Seattle with Kessler. “There were decades through which I didn’t have the bandwidth or emotional strength to attack a project like this.” As the group worked to finally make its music available, a “secondary motivation” arose, he said. “Mia’s talent as a singer — the music we were able to make together — we hope will be the first sentence, moving forward.”By 1993 the Gits had paid their dues and honed their sound. But their ascent was cut short by Zapata’s killing.David HawkesThe Gits formed after Dresdner saw Zapata perform at an open mic at Antioch College, a small liberal arts school in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1986. “When we started the band, it was because I fell in love with Mia’s voice,” he said. “It was so beautiful and so powerful, and so intimate.”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

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Music

      Remembering Quincy Jones, a Bridge Between Genres and Generations

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicEarly this month, Quincy Jones, one of the most influential and creative forces in American pop music history, died at 91. The scope of his success almost defies comprehension — his work began in the 1950s and continued all the way up through recent years. He produced the most important Michael Jackson albums, and also Frank Sinatra, and also “We Are the World.” He won 28 Grammys. Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Usher, the Weeknd, Lionel Hampton, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,”: He crossed paths with all of them, and more.His broad reach was a byproduct of his musical facilities, as well as his social adeptness and ability to bridge worlds, scenes and audiences with a combination of the two. It’s a scale of influence unlikely to be matched by anyone else.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Jones’s long and unique career, how he bridged musical styles and generations, his willingness to share stories and the role of long-form journalism in the social media age.Guest:David Marchese, a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and co-host of The Interview podcastConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More