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    The Swag Must Go On: Hollywood’s Pandemic Oscar Campaign

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nomination PredictionsOscars Dos and Don’tsOscars DiversityDirectors Guild NominationsBAFTA NominationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Swag Must Go On: Hollywood’s Pandemic Oscar Campaign“There is a why-are-we-even-doing-this feeling,” one industry insider said of jockeying for nominations, to be announced on Monday.Billboards like this one in Los Angeles are recommending films for Oscars as usual, but Hollywood is feeling its way through other promotions.Credit…Tag Christof for The New York TimesBrooks Barnes and March 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETLOS ANGELES — As a potential Oscar nominee for film editing, William Goldenberg should be feeling dizzy right about now. So many tastemaker cocktail parties to attend. So many panel discussions to participate in.So much flesh to press.Instead, his tuxedo has been gathering dust. Mr. Goldenberg, who stitched together the Tom Hanks western “News of the World,” has participated in get-out-the-vote screenings on Zoom, and that’s about it. During afternoon walks with his dog, a handful of neighbors have called out from windows and driveways to say they liked the film. Mr. Goldenberg, an Oscar winner in 2013 for “Argo,” described those impromptu encounters as “really fun.”Such is life on Hollywood’s virtual awards scene, where the pandemic has vaporized the froth (Champagne toasts! Standing ovations! Red-carpet reunions!) and created an atmosphere more akin to a dirge. There is a dearth of buzz because people aren’t congregating. Screenings and voter-focused Q. and A. sessions have moved online, adding to existential worries about the future of cinema in the streaming age.And some film insiders are privately asking an uncomfortable question: How do you tastefully campaign for trophies when more than 1,000 Americans a day are still dying from the coronavirus?Oscar nominations will be announced on Monday, but almost none of the movies in the running have even played in theaters, with entire multiplex chains struggling to stay afloat. “In terms of campaigning, there is a why-are-we-even-doing-this feeling,” said Matthew Belloni, a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and co-host of “The Business,” an entertainment industry podcast.Ever since Harvey Weinstein turned Oscar electioneering into a blood sport in the 1990s, the three-month period leading up to the Academy Awards has been a surreal time in the movie capital, with film distributors only ever seeming to push harder — and spend more — in pursuit of golden statuettes. In 2019, for instance, Netflix popped eyeballs by laying out an estimated $30 million to evangelize for “Roma,” a film that cost only $15 million to make.But it’s not as easy to influence voters and create awards momentum during a pandemic. Roughly 9,100 film professionals worldwide are eligible to vote for Oscars. All are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has nine pages of regulations that campaigners must follow. Film companies, for instance, “may not send a member more than one email and one hard-copy mailing” per week. Telephone lobbying is forbidden.The 93rd Academy Awards will take place on April 25, pushed back by two months because of the pandemic.Calling off the campaigns is not an option for Hollywood, where jockeying for awards has become an industry unto itself. Stars and their agents (and publicists) also pay keen attention to campaign parity: Hey, Netflix, if you are going to back up the Brink’s trucks to barnstorm for “Mank,” you’d better do it for us, too.“There are so many egos to serve,” said Sasha Stone, who runs AwardsDaily, an entertainment honors site.Contenders, wary of tone-deaf missteps, have been feeling their way.Sacha Baron Cohen, for one, has been openly mocking the process, even as he has participated in Zoom events to support “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix) and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (Amazon). Asked by phone how the virtual campaign trail was going, he quipped, “I imagine it’s much better than being on an actual one.”At least no one has pushed him to break into song, he said, recounting how, in 2013, he was asked to belt out a number from “Les Miserables” at a campaign stop. (He declined.)At times, however, Mr. Cohen has been willing to play along. In a skit on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” this month, he pretended to be moonlighting as a black-market vaccine procurer for desperate celebrities. “It seems like you should be focused on your Oscar campaign,” Mr. Kimmel said at one point. Mr. Cohen responded dryly, “This is my Oscar campaign.”There is business logic to the seasonal insanity. The spotlight generates interest from the news media, potentially increasing viewership. For streaming services like Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV+ and Netflix, awards bring legitimacy and a greater ability to compete for top filmmakers.“The business benefit is that we will win deals that we wouldn’t have otherwise,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, told analysts on a conference call last year.Because in-person events have been scuttled this time around, less money has been flowing into the Oscar race.“In a good year, the awards season represents 40 percent of our annual business,” said Toni Kilicoglu, the chief executive of Red Carpet Systems. “And it’s gone. Just gone.” Last year, Red Carpet Systems handled more than 125 awards-season events, including Golden Globes parties and the SAG Awards.Caterers, chauffeurs, florists and D.J.s have also suffered major losses. All after a year when more than 36,000 motion picture and sound-recording jobs were lost in Los Angeles County, according to a county report that was released last month.At the same time, studios and streaming services are still spending heavily on “for your consideration” spreads in trade publications. For $80,000 to $90,000, for instance, campaigners can cover Variety’s cover with voter-focused ads. Hulu recently promoted “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” that way. (“For your consideration in all categories including BEST PICTURE.”) Netflix and Amazon have given films like “Da 5 Bloods” and “One Night in Miami” similar treatment.“It has been a huge, really strong season for us,” said Sharon Waxman, the founder and chief executive of The Wrap, a Hollywood news site. The Wrap hosted 40 virtual awards-oriented screenings in January, underwritten by film companies.“We have another whole round on the way,” Ms. Waxman said.The price for events can be steep. A virtual panel discussion, hosted by Vanity Fair or The Hollywood Reporter, costs around $30,000, the same as last year, when receptions accompanied the events. Studios normally pay $15,000 to $25,000 for a table of eight at the Critics Choice Awards, an additional opportunity to solidify a film’s place in the awards conversation. This year, each guest was charged $5,000 for a “virtual seat,” which some saw as an exorbitant price for a square on a computer screen. (Joey Berlin, chief operating officer of the Critics Choice Association, said it was needed to produce a three-hour TV special and come out even.)With fewer people out on the roads, the billboards don’t appear to be hitting the eyes of as many Oscar voters this year.Credit…Tag Christof for The New York TimesAnd don’t forget the for-your-consideration billboards. One eight-block stretch of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles has nine of them, with Netflix pushing “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Warner Bros. extolling “Judas and the Black Messiah.”Those blocks are typically brimming with voters; Paramount Pictures is there, as is Raleigh Studios, where Netflix rents production space. With most people in Los Angeles still holed up at home, however, the thoroughfare was eerily quiet last Monday at 5:30 p.m. Actual crickets were chirping at Paramount’s closed Bronson Gate, which bore a sign reading, “Per government direction, access to the studio is now restricted.”Comical at best, absurd at worst?“The public must be so confused,” Ms. Stone said.None of the studios or streaming services angling for awards would comment for this article. Campaigning, while commonplace, remains a taboo subject. No film company wants to look as if it is trying to manipulate voters.It is easy to understand where they are coming from, though.“Like a political campaign, you have to crest at the right moment,” said Paul Hardart, director of the entertainment, media and technology program at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “You need the maximum exposure at that time. And that’s a hard thing to do. How do you become top of mind at the right time?”So the swag must go on.As part of its promotional effort for “Nomadland,” about an impoverished van dweller, Searchlight Pictures sent a bound copy of the screenplay to awards voters. The Hollywood press corps received “Nomadland” wine glasses, a “Nomadland” license plate, “Nomadland” keychains, a “Nomadland” T-shirt and a 5-by-2-foot “Nomadland” windshield sunshade.To celebrate the film’s Feb. 18 virtual premiere, Searchlight teamed with local small businesses to have a “curated concessions crate” delivered to the homes of invitees. It included artisanal beef jerky, wild berry jam, oranges, pears, dried apricots, dill pickle slices, banana bread, salami (“humanely raised”) and a canister of chocolates.Still, it is hard for publicists to know if such buzz-building efforts are working. They don’t know what academy members are talking about with one another because academy members aren’t talking to one another.“People are relying more on what the critics are saying than what their friends are saying, because people aren’t congregating,” Mr. Goldenberg, the “News of the World” editor, said.On the bright side, the pandemic has made it easier for studios and streaming services to attract voters to awards-oriented screenings, which are followed by Q. and A. sessions focused on various specialties: art design, editing, song composing.In years past, when attendance obstacles included Los Angeles traffic, filling the 468-seat Writers Guild Theater for such an event involved sending out more than 5,000 invitations. Similar events — held virtually — have recently had a higher turnout rate: 1,000 invitations might yield 200 attendees, most of whom even stick around for the post-screening discussion, organizers said.Campaigners have been generating interest with celebrity moderators. Oprah Winfrey interviewed Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) at one. Former President Barack Obama participated in a chat to support the A24/Apple documentary “Boys State.”Netflix paired Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) with Cher. It may not sound like an intuitive coupling, but even if you weren’t terribly interested in “Mank,” wouldn’t you tune in just to get a peek into Cher’s living room?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Grammys 2021: How to Watch, Time and Streaming

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsWhat to ExpectHow to WatchWho is PerformingWho Will WinList of NomineesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGrammys 2021: How to Watch, Time and StreamingA guide to everything you need to know for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night.The 63rd annual Grammy Awards will take place in Los Angeles on Sunday night, with Trevor Noah as the host.Credit…Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse via, Getty ImagesMarch 13, 2021It’s pandemic awards-show season, which, thus far, has meant a lot of technological glitches and acceptance speeches given from the couch. But the executive producer of the Grammys on Sunday promises that this one won’t give you “Zoom fatigue.”We’ll see about that.The 63rd annual Grammy Awards, hosted by Trevor Noah from “The Daily Show,” comes during a challenging time for the music industry — after a year of canceled tours, shuttered music venues and uncertainty around the short-term future of live music. The show was originally planned for January but was postponed for six weeks over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in California.The performances have been engineered to appear like a continuous broadcast, even though some are pretaped. They will occur on five stages, arranged facing each other in the round, near the awards’ usual home of the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.On top of pandemic-related concerns, the industry is rife with behind-the-scenes controversy: For years, there have been complaints of bias against women and Black artists, in addition to grievances over an opaque Grammys voting system that critics say is unfair and out of touch. The Weeknd, who received no nominations this year despite releasing a commercially and critically successful album, said that he would boycott the awards from now on because of the secret committees that oversee nominations in 61 of the show’s 84 categories.But on Sunday, the Recording Academy is planning a program that shows a happier, more unified side of the music industry.What time do the festivities start?The ceremony begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific. You can tune in on CBS or stream the show on Paramount+, a new streaming platform that recently replaced CBS All Access.There is an earlier Grammys ceremony starting at 3 p.m. Eastern time, noon Pacific. Hosted by the singer-songwriter Jhené Aiko (a Grammy nominee herself), the show features performances by several nominees, including the Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy, the blues musician Jimmy “Duck” Holmes and the German pianist Igor Levit. There are also more than 70 Grammys awarded at this ceremony, which is streamed on Grammy.com and on the Grammys YouTube channel. More

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    ‘We’ll Be Back,’ Broadway Says, on Shutdown Anniversary

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeRoast: Thick AsparagusVisit: National ParksRead: Shirley HazzardApologize: To Your KidsAndré De Shields, singing in Times Square at the “We Will Be Back” pop-up performance.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York Times‘We’ll Be Back,’ Broadway Says, on Shutdown AnniversaryA pop-up performance in Times Square on Friday, featuring stars like André De Shields, was full of excitement as reopenings may be on the horizon.André De Shields, singing in Times Square at the “We Will Be Back” pop-up performance.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyMarch 12, 2021, 5:50 p.m. ETOne year ago, the grim news that Broadway was shutting down was sweeping through the theater district. Performers were packing up their things and heading home; theater staff were stationed in lobbies to intercept ticket holders and explain to them that the show was canceled.As a return date was pushed further and further, performers and theater staff resigned themselves to finding work elsewhere.But on Friday, the anniversary of the day their beloved industry shut its doors, Broadway singers, dancers, actors and front-of-house staffers gathered in Times Square, just across from the TKTS discount ticket booth, to perform live for a small audience of industry insiders and passers-by.Chita Rivera spoke about the power of theater to heal society, at the pop-up show.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesDancers at the show, on the anniversary of the theater shutdown in New York.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe pop-up show was part concert, part rally. The Broadway legend Chita Rivera spoke about the power of theater to heal a beleaguered society, and then André De Shields, decked out in a glittering gold suit and a transparent face shield, sang the opening song from “Pippin” along with an array of Broadway stars, backup singers and dancers.“I’m just happy that we’re all trying to remind the world that we’re still here, and we will be back,” said Bre Jackson, a singer who belted out a solo in the “Pippin” number.One year ago, Jackson, 29, was returning to New York from a national tour of “The Book of Mormon,” and preparing herself for five auditions. Within 12 hours, she said, the auditions were all canceled, and suddenly she was thrust into a job market without much need for professional singers and actors. Jackson eventually found work as an office manager for a therapy practice, finding performing gigs every so often.Jackie Cox was in Times Square as Broadway singers, dancers, actors and front-of-house staffers gathered to perform for a small audience of industry insiders and passers-by.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesA dancer at the show. Bre Jackson, a singer who belted out a solo in the “Pippin” number, said, “I’m just happy that we’re all trying to remind the world that we’re still here.”Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesHeath Saunders, singing at the show. The performance was funded by several organizations, including the nonprofits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and NYCNext.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesOne of the main purposes of these pop-up performances — of which there have been dozens across the city — is to provide paying gigs for people in the industry who have lost their entire incomes during the pandemic, said Blake Ross, one of the event’s producers. The performance was funded by a collection of organizations, including the nonprofits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and NYCNext.Although they aren’t likely to perform inside theaters again until after Labor Day, the message of the show was that the end of the industry’s nightmare seemed to be getting closer. Last night, President Biden asked states to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated by May 1, a hopeful sign that shows might be able to start rehearsals over the summer.Lillias White, right, who, with Nikki M. James, Peppermint and Solea Pfeiffer, joined in “Home” from “The Wiz.”Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesJoel Grey, giving a speech in between numbers.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe performance landed on one of the first warm springlike days of the year in New York City, adding a jolt of excitement. It felt like a reunion of sorts: After a long time working from home, some people shrieked when they saw each other, keeping their distance, but air-hugging or elbow-bumping. To make sure that crowds didn’t form in Father Duffy Square, the event planners made no public announcement of the performance, but passers-by gathered on the edges of the makeshift stage and stood on elevated surfaces to get better views.The actor Charl Brown, among the participants in the event, which was part rally.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesCostumes from shows including “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera” lined the stage edges, glittering and gleaming on mannequins.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThere was no formal announcement of the pop-up show, and passers-by moved around to get better views, capturing it on cellphones.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesPeppermint, center, taking a photo with Nikki M. James, left, and Lillias White.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe cast started with a topical classic, George Benson’s “On Broadway,” with a group of high-energy sneaker-clad and masked backup dancers. (There had been barely any time to rehearse beforehand, so just before showtime, the dancers ran through their choreography just offstage on the concrete.) Next, the singers Lillias White, Nikki M. James, Peppermint and Solea Pfeiffer joined in “Home” from “The Wiz.” And a choir sang an original song written about the pandemic hiatus, “We Will Be Back,” by Allen René Louis. Costumes from shows like “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera” lined the stage edges, glittering and gleaming on mannequins.During the pandemic, two musicals, “Mean Girls” and “Frozen,” announced that they would not be returning to Broadway, as well as two plays that were in previews, Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” On Friday, several shows promised that they would indeed be back, including “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which got through three performances before it was forced to close, and “Six,” which had been scheduled to open on March 12, 2020.Nikki M. James, in Times Square. She is among those who sang “Home” from “The Wiz.”Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesMembers of the media and other onlookers, capturing the midday show.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThat day, Judi Wilfore, the house manager for the Imperial Theater, remembers standing in the lobby before the scheduled evening performance of “Ain’t Too Proud” and breaking the news to ticketholders. Even though Broadway shut down on a Thursday, Wilfore came to work that weekend, too, in case any audience members showed up.Over the summer, Wilfore decided that she needed to find work elsewhere, so she took an online course at Health Education Services, to get certified as a Covid compliance officer. At Friday’s event in Times Square, it was her job to make sure people were following safety guidelines and to manage a team of front-of-house theater staffers who were hired to help run the event.Wilfore has been a compliance officer for gigs here and there — including the load-out of the “Beetlejuice” set from the Winter Garden Theater — but like many in the industry, she yearns for the eventual return to indoor theater, where she oversaw the bustling movements of staffers and audience members.“We love what we do,” she said, “and the fact that we haven’t been able to do it in a year is unfathomable.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Rescuing an Off Off Broadway Theater With a Storied Past

    Preservationists hope to save the 13th Street Repertory Company building, with a little help from the Underground Railroad. When Edith O’Hara, the mother hen and indefatigable leader of the eclectic 13th Street Repertory Company for nearly half a century, died last fall at age 103, the future became decidedly shaky for one of Off Off Broadway’s longest-operating stages.In an effort to ensure that it’s not the end of the run as well for the antebellum brick house where both the theater and Ms. O’Hara made their homes, preservationists are urging the city to grant landmark protection to the three-story Greek Revival structure.The city Landmarks Preservation Commission told an advocacy group in January that the quaint 1840s rowhouse with the intricate cast-iron portico at 50 West 13th Street was not distinguished enough to warrant landmark protection on its architectural merits, noting that further study was needed to determine the building’s “cultural significance within the context of Off Off Broadway theater.” Consequently, the group, Village Preservation, has dived into the archives to try to demonstrate that the building is a worthy cultural landmark based not only on its theatrical history but also on an intriguing, newly unearthed piece of African-American history involving a prominent 19th-century Black businessman and abolitionist.The new research “is very helpful and we have added it to our records,” Kate Lemos McHale, the commission’s research director, wrote the group on Feb. 24.A commission spokeswoman added in a statement to The Times that the city “is absolutely committed to recognizing Black history in the urban landscape,” which is why the agency recently launched Preserving Significant Places of Black History, “a world-class story map and educational tool.” She said that the city would “continue to review” 50 West 13th Street.Edith O’Hara, the leader of the 13th Street Repertory Company for nearly half a century, at the theater in 2006. Ms. O’Hara died last fall at age 103.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesA place of opportunity for generations of theatrical neophytes of varying talents, the quirky, no-frills 13th Street Repertory Company was an early stop for such performers as Richard Dreyfuss and Chazz Palminteri. “Line,” a one-act play by Israel Horovitz, ran there for more than 40 years, an Off Off Broadway record. And “Boy Meets Boy,” New York’s first hit gay musical, was first staged there in 1974, the brainchild of Bill Solly, an Englishman whom Ms. O’Hara had taken in and allowed to live upstairs from the theater.Whether the show will go on is unknown. The building is owned by White Knight Ltd., of which Ms. O’Hara’s three children collectively own a little over a third. The balance of the shares are owned in equal proportion by Stephan Loewentheil, a bookseller, and his ex-wife, Beth Farber. The O’Haras and Mr. Loewentheil previously fought a bitter, yearslong real estate battle that ended, in 2010, with an agreement that allowed Ms. O’Hara and her theater to remain in the building until her death. There is no provision for what comes next.The Thirteenth Street Repertory Company has been placed in the hands of its artistic director, Joe John Battista, who has vowed to continue making theater under the group’s name. But whether that will happen on 13th Street or elsewhere — and whether the building will ultimately be sold — depends on the outcome of an offstage drama.Jill O’Hara, one of Edith O’Hara’s two daughters, at the theater in 2017. Ms. O’Hara is a minority shareholder of the company that owns the building.John Taggart for The New York Times“It’s all still in the air at this point,” said Jill O’Hara, one of Edith’s daughters, who sits on White Knight’s board. “It’s a complex situation that’s not made any easier by the history with this guy,” she added, referring to Mr. Loewentheil.The building is managed for White Knight by Nate Loewentheil, the son of Mr. Loewentheil and Ms. Farber.“As someone who cares deeply about cities, I appreciate the history of 50 West 13th Street,” Nate Loewentheil said, “but the building has fallen into very significant disrepair over the past 15 years, so we are trying to figure out our next steps.” (Both his parents declined to comment.)Ms. O’Hara said that her mother believed that the building was once part of the Underground Railroad, the network of activists who helped enslaved African-Americans flee north to freedom before the Civil War. That belief has been perpetuated in local lore because a trap door in the theater’s dressing room leads to a hidden basement chamber unconnected to the rest of the basement.Although no evidence has emerged to support the Underground Railroad rumor, new research, performed by Village Preservation and supplemented by an independent historian and a reporter, suggests that the claim may not be outlandish.From 1858 to 1884, city directories and other records show, the house was owned by Jacob Day, a prominent African-American businessman active in abolitionism and other civil rights efforts. By 1871, Day was one of the wealthiest Black residents of New York City, according to The New York Times, with a net worth of more than $75,000, or around $1.6 million in today’s dollars.The Greek Revival house has an intricate cast-iron portico.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesThe building has fallen into disrepair, and its future is uncertain.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesAn 1880 issue of The People’s Advocate called Day “the fashionable caterer of East Thirteenth Street” and identified him as a leading member of “a colored aristocracy” in the city. “Beginning as a waiter, by economy and thrift after years of struggle he saved money enough to go into business himself,” the paper noted, adding that Day owned “several fine houses.”Newspaper articles appear to document Day’s involvement in civil rights causes over more than 30 years. In 1885, the year after his death, his efforts to further African-American self-determination were recognized in a history of Black Americans. “The Colored population of New York was equal to the great emergency that required them to put forth their personal exertions,” wrote George Washington Williams, spotlighting Day, along with his fellow Greenwich Village resident and abolitionist Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, for doing “much to elevate the Negro in self-respect and self-support.”Born in New York around 1817 to parents who were also born in the city, Day appears to have been publicly active in Black civil-rights efforts as a young man. Along with such prominent abolitionists as the New York publisher and Underground Railroad leader David Ruggles, a man named Jacob Day was among a group in 1840 that called, in the pages of The National Anti-Slavery Standard, for a “National Reform Convention of the Colored Inhabitants of the United States of America,” an effort to combat the colonization movement that aimed to resettle Black Americans in Africa.Day was also a prominent member and the longtime treasurer of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the city’s second oldest Black church, which moved to nearby 166 Waverly Place shortly after Day bought his house and place of business on 13th Street.Tom Calarco, the author of several books on the Underground Railroad, said that an 1852 article in The Standard suggested a strong connection between the church and leading Underground Railroad figures.The newspaper report detailed an anti-colonization meeting at the church that had been called by the Committee of Thirteen, a vigorous Underground Railroad organization. The Rev. John T. Raymond, the church’s pastor, was a member of the committee and served as president at the 1852 meeting.The entrance to the 13th Street Repertory Company, which was shuttered last March because of the coronavirus. Edith O’Hara lived upstairs until her death last fall, and tenants still occupy the building.Katherine Marks for The New York TimesDay was “a major leader of the Black community, and he was connected up with other important people that were in the abolitionist movement,” Mr. Calarco said. “We know for at least 26 years, he was still participating in these important meetings with people who were leaders of the movement, so you have to make that assumption that he, if not directly, was indirectly involved in the Underground Railroad.”Mr. Calarco also shared a document showing that in 1846, Day was one of a roster of African-Americans given land grants in the Adirondack region of upstate New York by Gerrit Smith, a major underwriter of the Underground Railroad.Mr. Calarco speculated that Day may have used his wealth to fund Underground Railroad operations, whose conductors were often pressed for cash. “They needed the money,” he said, “to pay for the food, to pay for the travel, to pay for the clothes, to pay for people who helped transport” fugitives on boats and trains.After the Civil War, with slavery abolished, Day worked to secure the vote for all Black people in New York State. In 1866, The Standard reported, he was one of a group that called for a convention to remove the discriminatory provision in the state constitution that barred Black people from voting unless they owned property valued at the considerable sum of $250. “The war of steel is over … but the war of ideas must go on until in this country true democratic principles shall prevail,” the group wrote, echoing today’s battles over voter suppression.In 1871, a year after the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution finally prohibited the federal government and the states from denying or abridging the right to vote based on race or color, a massive jubilee parade of Black citizens wended its way uptown from Washington Square, with throngs of Black and white New Yorkers lining the route. At a “grand mass meeting” at the Cooper Union, The Times reported, Day was among the officers who issued a resolution declaring that the 15th Amendment could only improve the lot of Black Americans if “the exercise of the ballot shall at once be made safe, and our right to exercise it be maintained by civil authority.”In 1880, when the Black civil rights leader Frederick Douglass spoke at a rally for the Republican presidential candidate James A. Garfield at the Cooper Union, Day was among the prominent citizens, Black and white, assembled onstage around him.During the period Day lived on 13th Street, the city’s largest African-American neighborhood, known as Little Africa, had developed nearby south of Washington Square, around Minetta Lane and Minetta and Bleecker Streets. The Abyssinian Baptist Church, whose finances Day managed, had moved to the Village to serve this population. So did the Freedman’s Savings Bank, an institution founded to help former slaves after the Civil War. Day kept an account at the bank, perhaps to support its mission.Reflecting on Day’s house on 13th Street, Sylviane A. Diouf, a historian of the African Diaspora who curated a digital exhibit called “Black New Yorkers” for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, said: “It’s important to preserve and show that there was an African and then an African-American presence in that area from the Dutch years and that they had institutions and businesses. It’s important to stress that, contrary to what people think, African-Americans didn’t just arrive in Harlem during the Great Migration, but they had a presence for 300 years before that.”By the late 19th century, fierce competition for housing from Italian immigrants was already pushing Black residents uptown from the Village to the Tenderloin district. And some of the lingering physical remnants of Little Africa were demolished in the 1920s by the extension of Sixth Avenue from Carmine Street to Canal Street.“Virtually all of the great institutions and landmarks and homes of leading figures of the 19th-century African-American community of Greenwich Village have been lost or highly compromised,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of Village Preservation. “50 west 13th Street is one of very few remaining homes of a leading African-American figure, not just in business but in the civil rights arena, that is largely intact from the many decades that he lived and worked there in the 19th century.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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    How a British Gardening Show Got People Through the Pandemic

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraCredit…Francesca Jones for The New York TimesHow a British Gardening Show Got People Through the PandemicCredit…Francesca Jones for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyMarch 12, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETThe television show “Gardeners’ World” is an institution in England, where it has aired for coming up on 54 seasons, having premiered way back in 1968. It broadcasts on Friday nights, welcomed by viewers as a gentle usher into the weekend.Monty Don, a British garden writer and author of some 21 books on the subject, has been the host since 2003. If Mr. Don’s sturdy appearance and deep, reassuring voice don’t comfort audiences, there’s the constant presence of his dogs napping at his feet.Last year, over the course of the 33-episode season, which follows the growing season from March through late October, something remarkable happened: “Gardeners’ World” went from being comfort TV to indispensable viewing.With restaurants, bars and theaters shut down and socializing at home (or anywhere else) risky, gardening was one of the few leisure activities the pandemic didn’t take away. Both the U.K. and the United States experienced a gardening boom last year, with sales of seeds way up and nurseries overrun on weekends. Judging by the 30 percent sales increase of Scotts Miracle-Gro, this spring promises another bumper crop.“Gardeners’ World,” which is available in the United States through streaming services like BritBox and on YouTube, rode the enthusiasm. Last year weekly viewership was the highest in five years and the BBC, which airs the show (produced by BBC Studios) deemed it essential public service broadcasting, said the executive producer, Gary Broadhurst. (The new season debuts March 19.)Crocuses on the cricket pitch at Longmeadow.Credit…Francesca Jones for The New York Times“It’s because of what gardening can do for people,” Mr. Broadhurst said. “The channel thought, and rightly so, that people would need the program. Because we were bombarded with news about coronavirus, and this was an opportunity for just an hour to have a release.”Nadifa Mohamed, a Somali-British novelist, wrote last April in the New Statesman that Monty Don and “his placid Labradors” offered viewers “29 minutes of televisual sedation,” adding that “the seasons turn in a neat and predictable way, each offering new shades of beauty and little lessons in how to survive.”To tune in each week and see the daffodils and bluebells coming up, to watch Mr. Don’s raised vegetable beds grow lush and abundant by high summer, was true counterprogramming: Life endures. The birdsong that begins each episode was an antidote to the trauma of the nightly news. In short, “Gardeners’ World” became an oasis of normalcy, a balm for frayed nerves — and not only for British viewers.Alex Yeske, an art director and graphic designer, turned to “Gardeners’ World” early in the pandemic when she felt cooped up in her New York apartment and fried from staring at screens. “So many of us have been reaching our limits,” Ms. Yeske said. “I spend way too much time on my computer, my phone. Getting to see all this greenery was relaxing.”As her anxiety mounted last spring, Alisha Ramos, who writes the newsletter Girls Night In, went looking for something to quell it. She tried meditation apps, but they lacked a storytelling component. Then she found “Gardeners’ World.” Ms. Ramos was living in an apartment in downtown Bethesda, Md., without any green space, and she had never gardened before, but she was instantly drawn in. “Every night before bed I would cue up an episode,” she said. “It’s very gentle in how the episodes are constructed. Even the sounds; the birds chirping, the rain. Those natural elements were really calming.”Mr. Don hosts “Gardeners’ World” from his own home and two-acre garden, Longmeadow, in the West Midlands of England. In last season’s Episode 1, there was no mention of Covid-19. By Episode 3, the United Kingdom was under enforced lockdown and Mr. Don was filming without a crew and getting camera tips from his director via Zoom.While his co-hosts visit London flower shows and the immaculate landscaped gardens of grand country estates, Mr. Don has his boots in the muck at Longmeadow, patching a fence or digging up the horned tulips he has over-planted in his jewel garden. At program’s end, Monty gives viewers jobs for the weekend. In his stretched wool sweaters and old blue work coat, he’s an unlikely style icon — a solid sort.Ms. Ramos mentioned a quote attributed to Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Mr. Don, she said, espouses something of that eternal wisdom on “Gardeners’ World.”“He said something along the lines of, ‘The beauty of gardening and nature is it’s always here,’” Ms. Ramos said. “It’s a reminder that life goes on. It’s so great to be able to retreat into our gardens at a time like this.”Irises, hyacinths and muscari in pots.Credit…Francesca Jones for The New York TimesTeasel seed heads.Credit…Francesca Jones for The New York TimesPreparing for Spring“The snowdrops are coming, the aconites, the crocuses, the irises. You’re starting to see buds and shoots on the trees and shrubs,” Mr. Don said last month. He spoke via video chat, from Longmeadow, where the very wet winter was nearly over and he and the gardeners who assist him have been mulching the borders and digging up some box hedging hit by blight.Mr. Don, who is 65, was eagerly anticipating spring’s arrival — and with it his return to “Gardeners’ World.” “Particularly after this winter,” he said. “It’s been a long, hard winter here. People are pretty depressed and fed up. So they want to breathe again, and get outside, and have this sense of hope.”On his documentary specials, like “Monty Don’s Italian Gardens” and “Monty Don’s American Gardens,” and in interviews, Mr. Don imbues gardening with a drama and passion uniquely his. A water feature built for the garden of the Roman Emperor Hadrian is “extraordinary”; the lengthening spring days bring him “immense” excitement. He bites into adjectives like ripe plums.“Gardeners’ World,” by contrast, is more subdued, and without any of the hyperbole or busyness common to modern media. When Mr. Don is working in his garden, we never hear background music. Weather isn’t edited into — or out of — the show. If it rains, the host gets wet. Features on gardens and gardeners are given room to breathe; lingering close-ups of a flower or trees rustling in the breeze play between the segments.A Utah family, fans of Monty Don, Britain’s national gardener, replace their lawn with a bed of wildflowers.CreditCredit…BBC Studios“The basic rule is it has to take you away from whatever stresses and strains there are in your world,” Mr. Don said. “But at the same time, it has to be honest. Nothing is manufactured. We never layer birdsong on that wasn’t there.”While Covid-19 upended the show’s production last season, Mr. Don and his colleagues decided for the most part not to talk about the pandemic, apart from glancing mentions of “challenging times.” Freaking people out was the job of the news. “Gardeners’ World” reinforced the therapeutic power of gardening.When the show addressed Covid-19 head on, it did so movingly. Unable to travel widely to film, the producers asked viewers to share videos of what they were up to in their gardens during quarantine. A Utah family dug up their yard and planted a wildflower meadow; a young girl in Wales grew her own pumpkins and left them for strangers. The clips connected viewers at a time of social isolation and showcased gardeners’ creativity and resilience.It’s been a long, wet and cold winter at Longmeadow. Spring is eagerly awaited.Credit…Francesca Jones for The New York TimesDaffodils grown as cut flowers.Credit…Francesca Jones for The New York TimesOne of the more poignant segments paid a visit to Kate Garraway, a well-known TV presenter. Ms. Garraway’s husband, Derek, got Covid-19 last March, became critically ill and was in the hospital for months, and remains seriously ill today. Sitting in her London backyard, Ms. Garraway explained how she and her children planted a garden in hopes that he would return to see it bloom.“You don’t plant something unless you believe it’s going to come up,” Ms. Garraway said. “So by planting something and believing Derek will see it when it comes up, that gives us a sense of future.”When the camera cut back to Longmeadow, Mr. Don spoke in the comforting voice of a minister at bedside, saying, “Gardens can’t make our problems go away, they can’t solve them, but they can help us to deal with them.”Reflecting on the Kate Garraway segment now, Mr. Don said, “I’m old enough to know that if you have grief, if you have suffering, if you have loss, the garden is a solace.”From Jeweler to the Stars to Expert GardenerMr. Don’s parents cultivated a five-acre plot at the family’s home in south England, and growing up, he and his siblings were given gardening jobs to do. As a boy, he disliked weeding the strawberries or chopping wood, but, at 17, while sowing some seeds in spring, Mr. Don experienced what he called a “Dionysian moment.”“Suddenly I was awed by a kind of ecstasy of total happiness. Of complete sense of not wanting anything else,” he recalled. “And bearing in mind this was 1971. The most glamorous thing in the world was sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, not gardening.”Monty Don and his wife, Sarah, in their London jewelry studio, in 1983. Credit…Dafydd JonesMr. Don kept his hobby to himself. Luckily, his wife, Sarah, whom he met at Cambridge University, enjoyed gardening too. In 1981, the couple started a jewelry company, Monty Don. Their loud costume pieces became fashionable during the go-go ‘80s, worn by Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and others. Mr. Don led a glamorous life in London, draped in his own jewelry and knocking around with Boy George. He and his wife also gardened behind their townhome; when Elle magazine ran a feature, he was outed as a green thumb.In the early ’90s, the economy tanked, and with it, the couple’s jewelry business. Drowning in debt, with three young children to support, Mr. Don and his wife sold everything they owned to pay off creditors. He fell into a deep depression. Years later, Mr. Don still bears the scars of that financial failure, friends of his told the Prospect last year. Despite becoming Britain’s national gardener, he is a workaholic, never one to rest easy on his success.Mr. Don and his family left London and moved to Herefordshire, the most rural county in England, because his wife’s mother lived there and property was cheap. The historic house and land they bought was scrubby and untamed. Mr. Don threw himself into creating Longmeadow, in a sense his workplace and sanctuary both. It is no formal, restrained garden but crammed with plants, features and ideas, a canvas for his imagination and enthusiasm.Monty Don and one of his ever-present dogs, Nellie.Credit…Francesca Jones for The New York Times“I found the mixture of creativity and just sheer physical work completely satisfying,” Mr. Don said. “I remember making cuff links for David Bowie. It was as though the previous life was, not the wrong turn because it was fun, but it was a side event. And that what I was doing was getting back to my roots. I was doing what I was meant to be doing.”He began to write columns on gardening for newspapers, appear on TV and publish books, many of them centered on life at Longmeadow. As a passionate but amateur gardener, Mr. Don connected with those who shared his interest but were intimidated by what can be a fixation on expertise.On “Gardeners’ World,” Mr. Don emphasizes function, utility and sustainability. You don’t need to buy $200 pruning shears or memorize pH levels, he shows us. It’s about celebrating the harmony, well-being and richness of life to be found in gardens.To Everything There Is a SeasonLast August, Ms. Yeske and her husband left New York and moved to West Los Angeles, where they bought a house with a large yard. She plans to grow a garden of vegetables and flowers for the first time in her life.“This spring I’m starting things from seed and planning to have a couple of raised beds,” she said. “All of which I probably wouldn’t have done if I didn’t watch ‘Gardeners’ World.”Ms. Ramos also left her apartment behind during the pandemic. She and her husband moved to a suburb of Bethesda, and bought a house whose previous owner, a chef, had gardened in the backyard and even built a drip-irrigation system. Having outdoor space to garden was suddenly high on her list of priorities, Ms. Ramos said. Watching the casual, sometimes fumbling way that Mr. Don gardens had given her the confidence to try.“Gardeners’ World” usually begins each season with half-hour episodes, before expanding to one-hour broadcasts later on. But because of last year’s success, the network ordered one-hour broadcasts from the start. Audience anticipation is high. The pandemic is still with us, lockdowns have not yet lifted — and the garden beckons.“You plant a seed and the next spring it will grow. And next summer it will flower. And maybe next autumn it will bear fruit,” Mr. Don said. “That continuation of life is very powerful.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    BAM’s 2021 Season Will Be Outdoors and Online

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBAM’s 2021 Season Will Be Outdoors and OnlineThe Brooklyn Academy of Music’s programming will feature intimate concerts, dancers on ice skates and a play presented in the Botanic Garden.“Influences,” which dancers perform on ice skates, will be part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music season.Credit…Rolline LaportMarch 11, 2021Updated 6:39 p.m. ETThe Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2021 season will feature a mix of outdoor performances and public art — including concerts played to individual audience members — as well as lectures and music delivered virtually, the organization announced on Thursday.While considerably scaled back from the Academy’s usual programming, the season will expand its footprint throughout Brooklyn. And it is one more addition to the growing slate of live arts events that are scheduled to gradually roll out across New York more than a year after the city was shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.In a news release, Academy officials said a large-scale public art installation, “Arrivals + Departures,” would grace the front of Brooklyn Borough Hall beginning Sunday.“Influences,” contemporary dance performed on ice skates, will come to the LeFrak Center at Lakeside in Prospect Park in April, and some of New York’s notable musicians will bring intimate “1:1 CONCERTS,” curated by Silkroad, to the Brooklyn Navy Yard starting in May. There will also be a Pop-Up Magazine event on the sidewalks of Fort Greene in June.Later in the summer, Aleshea Harris’s play “What to Send Up When It Goes Down” will be presented at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in coordination with Playwrights Horizons. Initially presented by the Movement Theater Company, the play — which Harris has described as a ritual, a dance party and “a space in the theater that is unrepentantly for and about Black people” — had an acclaimed Off Broadway run in 2018.Live virtual events will include “Word. Sound. Power.” — a hip-hop and spoken word concert — in April and “DanceAfrica,” an African and African-diasporic dance festival, in May. Virtual literary talks will also take place throughout the spring and summer.“We’ve put together a season that transforms some of Brooklyn’s most beloved and distinctive sites into stunning stages,” David Binder, BAM’s artistic director, said in a statement. The artists programmed, he added, “have met the moment and are presenting work in surprising and thrilling ways.”The BAM announcement comes as live performances are inching their way back onto city stages, including those newly fashioned to offer safety to performers and audience members.Last month, the Javits Center held the first of a series of “NY PopsUp” concerts that are a part of a broader public-private partnership to reinvigorate arts in the state. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a city Open Culture program, which will permit outdoor performances on designated city streets this spring.Lincoln Center has also announced a broad initiative, known as “Restart Stages,” that will feature performances at 10 outdoor performance and rehearsal spaces starting in April. And last week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said plays, concerts and other performances would be allowed to resume in New York as soon as next month, with capacity limits.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Battered but Unbowed: How Beckett Speaks to a New Era

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookBattered but Unbowed: How Beckett Speaks to a New EraAdaptations of “Happy Days” and “First Love,” works by the master of existential wheel-spinning, show us how to live in place.Tessa Albertson is a younger-than-usual Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days,” directed by Nico Krell.Credit…via The Wild ProjectPublished More

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    5 Notes From a Quiet Year: How Music Survived the Pandemic

    By the beginning of lockdown in Dormont, Pa., Amy Kline had already watched the viral videos of Italians isolated in their homes, singing on their balconies to pass the time. Inspired, she posted a meme about it in a local Facebook group: “Messaging all my neighbors on Nextdoor, telling them they all better [expletive] have every single god damned line from Les Miz memorized for when we do the singing out our windows together thing.” It started getting some traction, so she wrote, “If 100 people like this by tomorrow morning, I’m in.” And then, overnight, she — and at least 99 of her neighbors — were.

    Some days later, after a 30-person Zoom rehearsal, the Dormont “CoronaChoir” sang “Do You Hear the People Sing?” a protest anthem from “Les Misérables,” in front of their homes. Kline estimates that 700 neighbors participated. On some blocks, at least one person represented each household; on others, families joined in via Zoom, half a second off from the rest of the group. A few singers wore French revolutionary costumes; the mayor waved his own enormous flag. “It turned out so perfectly — people felt connected to each other,” Kline said. “I knew this sort of thing was happening in other parts of the world, but it still felt really special.”
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    Those first few weeks of shelter-in-place were especially bewildering and lonesome, our fingers and shoulders itching to make contact with another patch of skin, our brains struggling to find anything to discuss beyond Netflix. Neighborhood singing was a balm — connection without the pressure of having to make conversation.

    Music, blessedly, morphed to fit the pandemic with relative ease, be it professional musicians sitting around on Instagram Live playing their hits, like on the webcast Verzuz, or gig musicians streaming tiny concerts, trying to expand their fan base. For some, web shows were a financial lifeline: Even if they brought in only a fraction of what artists would be making from in-person gigs, they were better than nothing.

    When shelter-in-place orders began in New Orleans, Sam Williams, a bandleader and horn player, figured that he and his band would hold off playing for two weeks, and then the world would return to normal. But as the lockdown stretched on, Williams, who goes by Big Sam, told his bandmates they had to do something, even just prop up a phone to livestream sets from his driveway. If they were lucky, maybe they could get some tips.

    Williams is the sole provider for his family; as the pandemic continued, his bank account dwindled. Music had been his career for 25 years. So he kept playing, and sometimes after his shows, viewers would contribute to his Venmo account, or his neighbors would come by with tips or even a dish of food. How else was he supposed to survive an edict that banned horn players from performing indoors?

    He and the band did shows every Sunday: first church music, then funk. They didn’t face the street when they performed and never told their online audience exactly where they were — Williams, worried about social distancing, was reluctant to draw a crowd — but that didn’t keep neighbors from creeping out of their front yards and onto the sidewalk to watch. People would drive to Williams’s block and listen from their parked cars; delivery workers might take a quick break to enjoy a song or two. “It helps the whole neighborhood to feel some type of normalcy when they can have live music,” he said. Indoor entertainment is limited in New Orleans, but Williams is still singing, trying to give something to his people in the hope that they can give back to him.

    Jennifer Parnall, a Canadian transplant locked down in Spain, also wanted to give back: One day last March, she plugged her keyboard into an amp and played “All You Need Is Love.” Soon her neighbors started requesting songs, shouting them from their windows or scrawling them on a chalkboard and hanging it where she could see. Armed with only a guitar and a keyboard, Parnall tried her best at the Cranberries and Radiohead. In all, Parnall played four songs a day for 100 days.

    For the very last song of her very last show, she ran up to her roof with her guitar and performed “Dreams,” by Fleetwood Mac; passers-by and neighbors joined for the chorus, their voices undoing all those months of silence. Not even the GoPro she brought with her could fully capture the exuberance of that moment: Parnall saw one woman across the way, who had been pregnant for months, watching the concert while cradling her newborn baby. It felt like magic, creating something so beautiful for her community in a time of such isolation.

    In Brooklyn, a year later, I watched everyone’s videos: Kline and her neighbors in Dormont, recorded by a local videographer. Williams in New Orleans, doing the two-step in his driveway. Parnall in Barcelona, playing to the building facing her own; in one video, she began a song, only to be interrupted by a blaring car horn.

    The pandemic changed our relationship to noise: With people stuck inside, the atmospheric sounds of the world — car alarms, barking dogs, ambulance sirens — felt amplified. The human sounds, though, lessened. Even the online concerts were sort of eerie without applause. Parnall waited until the car horn stopped, then began her song again. When she finished, more noise trickled in from the outside: clapping and whooping. People had been there, listening. Somehow, it was the best part.

    Jazmine Hughes is a reporter for The Times’s Metro section and a staff writer for the magazine. More