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      You’re New Here, Aren’t You? Digital Theater’s Unexpected Upside

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeWatch: ‘WandaVision’Travel: More SustainablyFreeze: Homemade TreatsCheck Out: Podcasters’ Favorite PodcastsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYou’re New Here, Aren’t You? Digital Theater’s Unexpected UpsideCompanies and venues that put work online are finding big, new and younger audiences — but little revenue.Pittsburgh Public Theater has found an audience for streamed shows like “The Gift of the Mad Guys,” an adaptation of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.”Credit…via Pittsburgh Public TheaterFeb. 24, 2021Five days after the coronavirus quieted performing arts venues, the Irish Repertory Theater found its voice.It was St. Patrick’s Day, after all — not an occasion to go unacknowledged, even during a pandemic. So the humble nonprofit started posting homespun videos of company members performing Irish-themed songs, poems and monologues on social media.The response was encouraging, and in the 11 months since, the theater has added nine full-length digital productions. A house manager with no video editing experience stitched together the first such effort, a three-person play about a blind woman called “Molly Sweeney,” using video actors shot of themselves on their phones.By the time the theater was ready to attempt a holiday musical, “Meet Me in St. Louis,” it was considerably more ambitious, shipping green screens, tripods, lighting and sound equipment to actors’ homes.Was there an audience for these virtual ventures? Decidedly, yes.Over the course of this pandemic year, 25,000 households have reserved tickets — they are free, but there is a suggested donation — for at least one of Irish Rep’s digital productions (and many of them watch more than one show). That’s double the 12,500 people who buy tickets to at least one of the company’s productions in an ordinary year, when it’s comparatively safe to see live performances while sitting next to strangers.Even more striking: 80 percent of those who have watched an Irish Rep production over the last year are newbies who have never been to the company’s 148-seat theater, nestled in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.“We’re batting down barriers we’ve been wrestling with for decades,” said Frances Howorth, the theater’s director of marketing and digital strategy. “We’ve reached audiences we couldn’t have imagined reaching.”From left, Paul O’Brien, Geraldine Hughes and Ciaran O’Reilly in the Irish Repertory Theater’s virtual production of “Molly Sweeney.”Credit…via Irish RepThe pandemic has, of course, been devastating for theaters, costing lives, jobs and dollars. And many longtime theatergoers find streaming unsatisfying — no substitute for the you-are-there sensory experience.But across the country, and beyond its borders, many theaters say new audiences for their streaming offerings has been an unexpected silver lining — one that could have ramifications for the industry even after it is safe to perform live again and presenters try to return patrons to their seats.“We’ve been excited and somewhat surprised at the eagerness and size of the audience that we’ve uncovered,” said Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, a large New York nonprofit best known for its free Shakespeare in the Park program. The theater, which has streamed both video and audio shows during the pandemic at no charge, has drawn an audience of 700,000 for its digital productions. And while measuring the size of online audiences can be imprecise, the theater has attracted people from every state and 68 countries.“I got a fan letter from Kazakhstan, which is a first for me,” Eustis said.The pattern, although not universal, is widespread. In California, La Jolla Playhouse has seen its audience grow sixfold, from about 100,000 during a typical in-person season, to 640,000 thus far for its digital programming, which included a three-part radio horror show.Christopher Ashley, the theater’s artistic director, said he imagined digital programming would be a less dominant part of his programming post-pandemic, but that because so many people had been interested in watching it, “we’re not going to just shut off that stream.”There are reasons to be cautious about the metrics. The basic tools used by theaters to measure audience can’t determine how many people are watching within a household, and generally don’t reflect how many people watch or listen for just a moment and move on.But many theater executives assert that online theater has brought them a significantly larger audience than they saw in-person, a growth they attribute to price (much of the digital content is free or low-cost); geography (you can check in from anywhere with internet access); and, in many cases, ease (watch at your convenience, with no advance planning).Some of the content is full-length, but much is also bite-size, reflecting online viewing habits. And it comes in many flavors: archival and new, recorded and live, in some cases seeking to capture the feeling of being in Row J, and in others embracing digital theater as a new art form. Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a nonprofit in New York, has streamed not only plays, concerts and conversations, but also a court transcript reading, a “communal ritual” and, now underway, a 17-part audio series set on the No. 2 train.David Kwong (framed in yellow) with members of the digital audience gathered for his Geffen Playhouse production “Inside the Box.”Credit…via Geffen PlayhouseThere is even money to be made. The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles has earned $2.5 million selling tickets to a series of live and interactive shows featuring magic, puzzles, cooking and a murder mystery. That theater has been quite aggressive — it has held more than 600 live performances since last May, including several scheduled for the convenience of international audiences — and reports that 88 percent of its audience during the pandemic had never been to a show at the playhouse.But digital content, in most instances, generates far less revenue: At the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, which decided to make most digital programs free to donors and subscribers, streaming has brought in $154,000 during the pandemic, whereas by this time in a normal season, that theater would expect about $23.5 million in box office revenue. Most nonprofit theaters are staying afloat thanks to a combination of philanthropy and layoffs; they say the digital work is not for revenue, but to maintain audience and provide work for artists. Often, theaters must navigate thorny health and labor issues as part of the process.“We started this for our members as a way to keep them close when we had to shut down our stages, and, quite frankly, so they wouldn’t ask us for ticket refunds,” said Kara Henry, the marketing director for the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago.Many of the theater’s longtime patrons greeted the initiative with a shrug, but newcomers were more enthusiastic. Now Steppenwolf has 2,500 digital-only members, who pay $75 for a subscription. “Our virtual-only members are a full decade younger than our traditional members, so obviously that thrilled us,” Henry said.Marya Sea Kaminski, the artistic director of Pittsburgh Public Theater, has been pleased to reach senior citizens by streaming shows to their residential communities.Credit…Ross Mantle for The New York TimesPittsburgh Public Theater not only has seen audience growth, but also has found ways to reach the hard-to-reach: It arranged to stream its productions on the television sets at residential senior communities in western Pennsylvania. “This has been a truly fascinating time to really think about who we are, what is our mission, and to have a lot of important conversations about access and accessibility,” said Marya Sea Kaminski, the theater’s artistic director.Streaming helped TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, Ark., avoid layoffs and persuade three-quarters of its subscribers to renew during the pandemic. The theater has created 10 streaming productions, five of them filmed onstage using safety protocols, including Jocelyn Bioh’s acclaimed “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play,” which has been extended through March 14. (Another play, about Marie Curie, is watchable through that date as well.)“Obviously, it’s better to sit down in the theater,” said Martin Miller, the organization’s executive director. “But tell that to a kid in a rural school 100 miles away who might not otherwise have a theater to go to, or to the patron who came for years but can’t leave home anymore home due to mobility issues.”The virtual pivot is not for everyone. In interviews, several theater-lovers around the country expressed screen fatigue, quality concerns and technology woes. “I tried,” said Jonathan Adler, a 42-year-old psychology professor in Massachusetts. “Much of it is quite entertaining, some of it is quite moving, and a bit of it is dreck, but, quite frankly, none of it is theater.”But to others, streaming is a gift — even preferable to live performance. Before the pandemic, Rena Tobey, a 62-year-old freelance educator in New York, subscribed to multiple local theaters; now, citing comfort, sightlines and sound quality, “I will be thrilled to give them all up to watch from home.”Even when theaters resume live productions for live audiences, many are planning to put money behind streaming as part of their offerings. Ma-Yi Theater Company and Dixon Place, both in New York, have invested in studio-quality equipment, hoping for rental income as well as to innovate in their own work.From left, Carly Sakolove, Amy Hillner Larson and Michael West in “NEWSical the Musical,” the first show produced and streamed by the Lied Center for Performing Arts.Credit…via Lied Center for Performing ArtsThat future has already arrived at the Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln, Neb., where socially distanced performances returned in July. The center bought a five-camera system to broadcast work from its theater and has been using it since September. Its spring 2021 season — yes, it has a spring season — will feature Kelli O’Hara, the Silkroad Ensemble and mandolinist Chris Thile, all viewable either in person or online.And the Oregon Shakespeare Festival recently announced a 2021 season that promises both live and virtual productions, including a “Cymbeline” released in episodes over two years. Nataki Garrett, the festival’s artistic director, said the pandemic had expedited her efforts to reach new audiences.“We are providing a door,” she said, “for anybody to enter.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Billie Eilish Is in the Mood for Love (and a Weighted Blanket)

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeWatch: ‘WandaVision’Travel: More SustainablyFreeze: Homemade TreatsCheck Out: Podcasters’ Favorite PodcastsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMy TenBillie Eilish Is in the Mood for Love (and a Weighted Blanket)The singer-songwriter gets candid about her new documentary, her dream first date and her perfume obsession.Credit…Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesFeb. 23, 2021Billie Eilish can’t stop making lists.“I’m just finding ways of enjoying life,” the 19-year-old singer-songwriter said late last month. “I really like cleaning my room and rearranging things.”She’s also been working on the follow-up to her debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” from 2019, which helped her win all four top Grammys — best new artist, record of the year, song of the year and album of the year — and made her the youngest person ever, and the first woman, to pull off the sweep.It was the latest milestone in a meteoric rise chronicled in a new documentary, “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry,” out on Apple TV+ Friday. But that doesn’t mean Eilish’s rapid ascent is easy for her to watch. “I’m watching it like, ‘Shut the [expletive] up,” she said. “It’s brutal. I’m like, ‘Don’t talk about that!’” (“It’s really nice to get to watch myself go through all these amazing things from another point of view,” she added of the “painfully honest” movie.)The film, directed by R.J. Cutler, traces a fairy tale career that has seen Eilish’s homemade songs streamed more than a billion times on digital platforms while she’s collected over 75 million followers on Instagram. It chronicles the creation of that award-winning LP, and was filmed from 2018 through early 2020.Eilish has spent the past year enjoying recent milestones like voting, driving and accidentally ordering 70 boxes of Froot Loops online. She also wrote a song with Rosalía, “Lo Vas a Olvidar” (“You Will Forget It”), which premiered during a special episode of the HBO series “Euphoria.”In an interview from Los Angeles in late January — punctuated by occasional barks from her rambunctious pit bull, Pepper — Eilish shared her cultural essentials, including her lockdown listens and her dream first date. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. The Strokes’ “The New Abnormal”When I first found the album, I was going on a lot of bike rides. I would play the whole album on my speaker backpack and ride around random neighborhoods, and it was always sunny and breezy and pretty and green. Julian Casablancas is just a genius — every time I hear his lyrics I think, “I would never think to say that.” That’s what I love about them — they’re so unexpected, but also relatable. Every single song is good.2. Anything ScentedWhen I was growing up, everybody said I had a “Super Sniffer,” which is a phrase from the show “Psych” and basically means you can smell really well. I don’t know how, though, because my nose is very small! Mine is kind of extreme because I also have synesthesia, which is when your brain pairs two things automatically — every smell has a certain color, number and day of the week. I have probably 100 perfumes, and I label the bottles with little pieces of paper so I can remember what they smell like to me. Some are very specific, like, “This one smells like a ballet class I used to be in,” or “This one smells like that one day we went to this person’s house and this person said this,” and some are more vague, like, “This Hawaiian Punch perfume I got at CVS for $1 smells like 2015,” the whole year. Some are so strong that I can’t smell them at all anymore because I get overwhelmed with the memory.3. Crossroads KitchenI’ve never been on a date — no one has ever taken me on a [expletive] date before! — but if I were to go on one, Crossroads would be the dream. It’s a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, and it’s bomb. It’s the most delicious food ever. The meatball sub and chicken waffles are my go-tos. They’re both entrees, so every time I go they’re like, “What do you want?” and I’m like “The meatball sub,” and then they want to move on to the next person, but I’m like, “Also, the chicken waffles.” And I eat them both right up. I don’t have any leftovers afterward.4. “I’m in the Mood for Love”The first time I heard this song was on “The Little Rascals,” which was my favorite show when I was kid. All I wanted was to be a Little Rascal; I wanted to kiss Alfalfa so bad! There’s a scene where Darla sings “I’m in the Mood for Love,” and I remember thinking it was such a pretty song. Then years and years went by, until one day, I was like, “What was that song that I thought was so pretty when I was little?” And I found a really beautiful, but low-quality, Frank Sinatra version on SoundCloud, which I listened to when I was traveling through Europe on tour. And then recently, I found this Julie London version, and she just murders it. She has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. It’s just such a perfect love song. Every time I hear it, no matter what I’m feeling, it makes me want love.5. CardsOn tour we have a lot of waiting time — yes, tour, a thing from the past! — and I can’t really go outside because the fans are lined up around the block. But we come up with things to do. Our go-to game is Speed, which is a card game my assistant tour manager, Lauren Millar, taught me how to play on this really long bus ride in Russia — we played it for like two hours straight that day. And from then on we just played it nonstop. It started as kind of a time-taker-upper and ended as a thing we’d do when we were supposed to be doing other things.6. “We Need to Talk About Kevin”This movie has the most beautiful cinematography I’ve ever seen — everything about it is perfectly done, from the framing to the colors. It’s been one of my biggest inspirations for my own music videos. Every time I watch it I see something new that’s genius about the way it was shot.7. DrivingOnce I learned how to drive, it was all I wanted to do. It’s a place where I feel very free and anonymous and in control. I drive a black Dodge Challenger, which was my dream car growing up. I saved my money for years and years, and I used to be like, “I don’t want anyone to buy it for me because I want to buy it myself with my own money.” But then Justin [Lubliner], my label guy, a couple months before my birthday was like, “What do you want for your birthday, Billie?” and I, just jokingly, was like, “A Dodge Challenger, in matte black.” And I was like, “Just kidding, don’t get me that, obviously.” Then the night before my birthday, we did a photo shoot for the cover of my album, and at the end of the day Justin drove up in my dream car — I cried for probably three hours straight.8. Weighted BlanketMy mom got one when I was 9 or 10 because she can’t fall asleep without a lot of weight on her — one time when she was younger, she woke up between her mattress and her bed frame! I had just been using hers, and then eventually I got my own. I get so much better sleep under it, and it’s a good physical affection tool when you don’t have any.9. “New Girl”I’ve seen this show like six times, and I just started rewatching it again. It’s just very entertaining and stupid and I love it. I watched it like 10 minutes ago right before I got on this call. I don’t ever get tired of it because the actors are so hilarious. Max Greenfield is just one of my favorite people — he’s so funny and so specifically himself. But Nick Miller is really just top-notch and is the best character. He’s trending on Twitter right now for some reason; I don’t know why. But I don’t blame Twitter. Nick Miller’s the GOAT.10. Frank Ocean“Blonde” is my go-to album to play any time at all, but especially when I need to relax. When I had a plaster mold made of my head for a photo shoot for the cover of Garage magazine a few years ago, I played Frank Ocean the entire hour so I wouldn’t have a panic attack. I haven’t gotten to meet him, but I don’t expect him to ever even come near me. He can stay being God up in the clouds.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      New York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination Site

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination SiteThe musician Jon Batiste led a band through the Javits Center to begin half a year of unannounced performances throughout the state.Jon Batiste (center) and his band Stay Human march through the Javits Center during the first NY PopsUp event on Saturday.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021It seemed at first like a small, no-frills concert in a carefully controlled environment: The jazz musician Jon Batiste sitting at a piano in an auditorium at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side, performing for an audience of about 50 health care workers seated in evenly spaced rows — some wearing scrubs, others Army fatigues.The dancer Ayodele Casel began tapping, with no musical accompaniment except a recording of her own voice, her amplified cramp rolls filling the room. And the opera singer Anthony Roth Costanzo performed “Ave Maria” in a countertenor’s angelic tones.Ayodele Casel tapping.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAnd an appreciative audience of health care workers.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBatiste on melodica as the indoor parade passes by.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBut about half an hour in, the performers stepped off the stage and exited the room, turning what had begun as a formal concert into a rollicking procession of music and dancing that grooved through the sterile building — the convention center was turned into a field hospital early in the pandemic and is now a mass vaccination site — where hundreds of hopeful people had come on Saturday afternoon to get their shots.Batiste switched to the melodica, a toylike, hand-held reed instrument with a keyboard, and the troupe of musicians — which had expanded to include a horn section and percussionists — paraded up the escalator and through the convention center, eventually reaching a high-ceilinged room where dozens of people sat waiting quietly for the requisite 15 minutes after getting their vaccinations.This concert-turned-roaming-party was the first in a series of “pop-up” shows in New York intended to give the arts a jolt by providing artists with paid work and audiences with opportunities to see live performance after nearly a year of darkened theaters and concert halls. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced plans for the series, called “NY PopsUp,” last month, declaring that “we must bring arts and culture back to life,” and adding that their revival would be crucial to the economic revival of New York City. The shows are getting underway as he finds himself under fire for the state’s handling of Covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents.Health care workers and vaccine recipients provided and audience for the surprise concert on Saturday at the Javits Center, the first of a series called NY PopsUp.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBatiste, getting serious.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe band, appropriately masked, propels itself through the center on Saturday.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBecause the program is wary of drawing crowds, most of the performances will be unannounced, emerging suddenly at parks, museums, parking lots and street corners. The idea is to inject a dose of inspiration into the lives of New Yorkers — a moment in which they can pause their scheduled lives and witness art during a pandemic year that has limited human contact and imposed tight restrictions on people’s activities.“We need more spontaneity; that’s what the beauty of this is,” Batiste said in an interview. “You don’t know what’s around the corner.”As the troupe of musicians moved through the Javits Center, the audience of health care workers followed them, clapping to the beat and recording the spectacle on their phones. Batiste, who is the bandleader on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” propelled his musicians through the space (most of them have played with the show’s house band, including Endea Owens on bass, Tivon Pennicott on saxophone, and Joe Saylor and Nêgah Santos on percussion).Bre Williams, a 35-year-old nurse in blue scrubs who had come from Savannah, Ga., to help out in New York, looked on wide-eyed.“Y’all do this stuff all the time up here?” she said, laughing.Shortly before the music ended, some of the health care workers rushed off to continue their work day (this concert was happening during their break time, after all).The series is put on by a public-private partnership led by the producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal, along with the New York State Council on the Arts and Empire State Development. Zack Winokur, the director and interdisciplinary artist in charge of the programming, said the group is aiming to put on more than 300 pop-up performances through Labor Day, in every borough and around the state. The performers are chosen by a council of artists — among them Batiste, Casel and Costanzo — who are each asked to tap into their own networks to find participants.“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a live performance,” Winokur said in an interview. “It’s a profoundly needed experience right now.”A pop-up parade with free drinks from a coffee truck.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesOnlookers, some appreciative, peeked out of doorways and windows. At one point, however, objects were hurled at the musicians from an upper-story window.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe NY PopsUp parade takes over a lane in Brooklyn.Credit…Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAfter the first performance at the Javits Center, the musicians headed to Brooklyn, where they began another flash-mob-style street jam, starting from Cadman Plaza Park and winding their way through Dumbo to end up at a skatepark, where teenagers stared at them curiously before hopping back on their skateboards. The free, mobile concerts are called “love riots” by Batiste, who has previously planned them on social media. This one traveled along sidewalks and slushy snow, sometimes slowing traffic.Prevented from tap dancing on the street, Casel banged out rhythms by clapping the metal plates on her tap shoes together with her hands; Costanzo danced along with the band and at one point grabbed the megaphone to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”While the music was intended to provide a spontaneous display for passers-by, the march itself was as tightly regulated as any pandemic-era event. Security personnel directed members of the musical entourage around uneven terrain and dog waste. Another employee asked onlookers to spread out when they started to break social distancing guidelines.Despite the logistics that went into it, the plan succeeded in being a spontaneous curiosity for the dozens of people who unexpectedly encountered the music. Moving down narrow alleyways and commercial streets, the band caused people to stop, stare and sometimes groove a little bit. Children peered through windows along Washington Street; a doorman darted out of an apartment building to see what all the noise was about; pharmacy employees leaned out of the doorway to film the procession down the sidewalk.Not everyone seemed to appreciate the music, though. At one point, someone inside an apartment building began throwing objects at the marchers from several floors up (one of the security staffers said he thought he saw an orange juice container and a trophy hit the snow).Accustomed to improvising, the band simply dodged the flying objects and marched a bit more quickly, the music never stopping.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How to Stream This Year’s Oscar Hopefuls

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonNetflix’s First Winner?Our Best Movie PicksNew Diversity RulesOscar-Winning DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow to Stream This Year’s Oscar HopefulsCredit…Searchlight PicturesFeb. 20, 2021In a typical Academy Awards season, many top contenders are playing only in a few theaters when the nominations are announced. But like much of our lives these today, the way we watch movies has been upended. This year, most of the Oscar hopefuls are available for anyone to watch right now, across the country — not just in theaters, but on subscription streaming services and on video on demand.Here are eight of those films, each of which is either streaming or will be by the end of the month, and each of which is likely to be named in one or more categories when the nominations are announced on March 15. There’s still plenty of time to catch up — and view the Oscars like an insider.‘Nomadland’A front-runner for both best picture and best actress, “Nomadland” stars Frances McDormand as a widow adjusting to a new economic reality after losing her job. She travels around the West, living in her van and seeking seasonal employment while camping alongside other quasi-homeless people. Based on Jessica Bruder’s book — and adapted to the screen by Chloé Zhao — this moving and visually striking slice-of-life drama is a non-sensationalistic look at the hardships of living paycheck to paycheck, mitigated only slightly by a sense of community and the freedom to roam. Stream it on Hulu.[Read The New York Times review.]Credit…David Bornfriend/A24, via Associated Press‘Minari’The writer-director Lee Isaac Chung tells a version of his own story in the disarmingly heartfelt “Minari,” a low-key drama about a Korean immigrant (Steven Yeun) and his wife (Yeri Han), who move to rural Arkansas and get jobs at a local chicken plant while trying to establish their own produce farm. Yeun and Han, who play parents trying to preserve their cultural traditions while pursuing the American dream, are strong candidates in the acting categories. Chung surrounds his leads with vivid detail, sharing the humor, the anxiety and the hope of this family. Available Feb. 26 to rent or buy on VOD.[Read The New York Times review.]‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’Aaron Sorkin (who has an Oscar for his “The Social Network” screenplay) is likely to hear his name called again this year, for writing and directing the punchy and relevant political drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” Based on the contentious legal aftermath of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the film has an awards-worthy cast (led by Sacha Baron Cohen, playing the counterculture provocateur Abbie Hoffman) facing off as the antiwar activists and the conservative reactionaries who squabbled over the difference between “the right to protest” and “inciting a riot.” Stream it on Netflix.[Read The New York Times review.]Credit…David Lee/Netflix‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’Based on August Wilson’s Tony-nominated 1982 play, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” covers one lively 1927 day in a Chicago recording studio, where a blues singer (Viola Davis) argues with her white business partners while her band swaps stories and practices her song. The movie features the final screen performance of Chadwick Boseman, who’ll almost certainly get a posthumous nomination for his take on the ambitious, cocky trumpeter Levee Green. This is a riveting and revelatory film all around, skillfully directed by the Broadway veteran George C. Wolfe. Stream it on Netflix.[Read The New York Times review.]‘Sound of Metal’Riz Ahmed gives one of 2020’s best performances in “Sound of Metal,” a quietly expressionistic drama directed by Darius Marder (who also co-wrote the film with his brother Abraham and Derek Cianfrance). Ahmed plays Ruben, a drummer and a recovering addict whose livelihood and sobriety are threatened when he starts losing his hearing. Ahmed and Marder take the viewer inside Ruben’s experience, using sonic effects and subtle gestures to convey the mounting panic of someone who fears that everything he values is slipping away. Stream it on Amazon Prime.[Read The New York Times review.]Credit…HBO‘Welcome to Chechnya’“Welcome to Chechnya,” an enlightening documentary on the treatment of L.G.B.T.Q. citizens in Russia’s Chechnya could be nominated in both the documentary and visual effects categories. To try to safely capture the struggles of activists, the journalist and filmmaker David France keeps their identities anonymous, using cutting-edge digital technology to replace their faces. This identity-masking technique reinforces the film’s themes, which examine the lengths some people are forced to go to hide who they are. Stream it on HBO Max.[Read The New York Times review.]‘Another Round’The fine Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has made one of the best films of his career with “Another Round,” which he co-wrote with his frequent collaborator Tobias Lindholm. Mads Mikkelsen plays a depressed teacher who joins his fellow middle-aged drinking buddies in an experiment, to see if they’ll be happier, more honest and more creative if they drink alcohol steadily throughout the daylight hours, every day. This may sound like the premise for either a raunchy comedy or a bleak drama, but Vinterberg, Lindholm and Mikkelsen approach the idea with a free-flowing mix of seriousness and whimsy, frankly exploring life’s pains and pleasures. Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.[Read The New York Times review.]Credit…Disney+‘Soul’The best Pixar Animation Studios picture since “Coco” is a similarly playful fantasy, about an affable fellow who crosses over into the spirit world. Jamie Foxx is the voice of Joe, a music teacher who longs to be a performing pianist in a jazz combo, but who suffers a near-fatal accident. Tina Fey is a shapeless unborn being who becomes Joe’s guide to the netherworld between life and death, just as he becomes her mentor in the art of being human. With its beautiful music, its optimistic tone and its imaginative imagery, “Soul” isn’t just a clever cartoon, it’s a little jolt of joy. Stream it on Disney+.[Read The New York Times review.]AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Cornelia Vertenstein Gave Many Lessons Beyond the Piano

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderA Musical Life With Echoes That Will LastThe lessons that the piano teacher Cornelia Vertenstein taught her students also resounded with many others, including me.Cornelia Vertenstein talking remotely with the reporter John Branch last year for a feature that made the front page. During the pandemic, she continued giving piano lessons to children, using FaceTime. Credit…John BranchFeb. 20, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Cornelia Vertenstein, a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor, gave her last piano lesson at 6:30 a.m. on Feb. 1. She was not feeling well, so she arranged a ride to the hospital.Pneumonia settled in, and family gathered, sensing the end of a quietly extraordinary life.She began giving lessons at age 14 in war-torn Romania. She did not stop for nearly 80 years. Toward the end, adapting to the pandemic, Ms. Vertenstein gave lessons on FaceTime from her home in Denver.As her condition worsened this month, she reflected on her life’s work.“If I die, don’t be sad,” she told her daughter, Mariana. “I led a productive life helping children.”Near her hospital bed hung a copy of a New York Times story about Ms. Vertenstein, staying connected to her students through technology, that was published last May. It was on the front page, with a large photograph of her sitting at her piano, sharply dressed, hands folded, looking at the camera.Ms. Vertenstein died Feb. 12. Count me among the mourners, because I wrote that story.I never met Ms. Vertenstein in person; our interviews took place on FaceTime and over the phone. But she left a lasting impression on me and countless others whom she never met, judging by how widely and quickly her story spread. It spawned an invitation to the “Today” show (she declined) and inspired a German telephone commercial, among other things.Her family teased her for being a celebrity, but she was uncomfortable with the attention.“She’d say, ‘I just want to teach,’” her daughter said.As with most stories that I have written, I remember the experience of reporting more than the words that were published. My mind sees Ms. Vertenstein’s smile. I still have it in my phone, a screengrab from one of our conversations.I remember having technical difficulties the first time I interviewed her, all on my end. I was late to connect on FaceTime. Fumbling with my phone and laptop, I simply called her. She forgave my blundering tardiness.I remember telling her during our last conversation that I would like to visit her the next time I was in Denver, my hometown. I still have family in Colorado, so I try to get there a few times a year. This was last spring. Surely the pandemic would ease, we thought. But I have not been to Denver since.I also remember the unusual circumstances for how that story came to me. At the end of March, the pandemic smothering lives, I was searching for fresh story angles. Maybe the exponential powers of social media could be put to good use.“I’m entertaining thoughts, a community brainstorm,” I wrote on Facebook. “Know something that the world should know about that hasn’t already been read and seen?”The first response came from Jacqui Jorgeson, whom I met in 2015 when her boyfriend (now husband), Kevin Jorgeson, climbed the Dawn Wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan with his climbing partner, Tommy Caldwell.“Mind if I share?” she wrote. “I’ve got some awesomely weird friends.”Others shared, too. Ideas poured in. Most were the type that became familiar last spring, about quiet acts of heroism — sewing masks, volunteering for food banks, connecting with needy neighbors.In the end, I turned only one into a story.The suggestion stood out, about a Holocaust survivor in her 90s who lived alone and taught piano seven days a week. Unable to welcome her students into her home, as she had for decades, she took to conducting lessons using FaceTime. And now the spring recital was approaching.The note’s writer was Yvette Frampton, a Facebook acquaintance of Ms. Jorgeson. Her three children were among the dozens of Ms. Vertenstein’s students.Soon, I was like one of those students, virtually connected for scheduled meetings.Ms. Vertenstein coordinated our conversations around her teaching schedule and her iPad’s battery life — always a consideration, because there was no outlet near the piano. If she had an opening between 2 and 4, for example, she would ask if we could speak at 3, so that her device could charge on the counter for an hour first.Students considered Ms. Vertenstein a bit intimidating, at least at first, with her exacting standards and strong accent. (English was one of six languages she spoke.) She was the type of teacher that parents appreciate and that students may not, until they are older.With me, though, she was talkative and friendly. She spoke plainly of her life and its heartaches. She was patient with my probing questions. Her mind was sharp, her memory clear.All lives deserve more than a few paragraphs, but especially this one. I whittled it as sharply as I could to fit a newspaper word count.“The children do not know much of Ms. Vertenstein’s past — the yellow star she had to wear as a teenager during the war, the rocks thrown at her, the fist of fascism replaced by the slogging brutality of communism,” I wrote last year.It was mere context for her piano lessons.“It’s very painful to talk about,” Ms. Vertenstein told me. “Besides this, why should I tell those kids such sad stories?”There is no way to know how many children entered her house over the decades, learning scales or rehearsing Bach minuets and Haydn sonatas before exiting with a hug and a sticker and, perhaps, a life lesson not fully appreciated until later.She was sure not going to let social-distancing protocols get in the way of one-on-one piano lessons. Ms. Frampton and others helped teach Ms. Vertenstein to use FaceTime. The recitals, performed on Zoom from dozens of living rooms before a matrix of family members, were trickier. But they worked.Last May, Ms. Vertenstein hoped that she could soon welcome her students back into her home. That never happened.Her last student, it turns out, was Maggie Frampton, 14, one of those featured in the online recital last May. It was early in the morning two Mondays ago, on FaceTime before school. Maggie told her mother afterward that Ms. Vertenstein was not feeling well. (Ms. Vertenstein’s family said she did not have Covid-19 and had recently received the first dose of vaccine.)Now the Frampton children are among the 30 current students of Ms. Vertenstein in search of a new teacher.“Some naïve part of me thought she would live forever,” Yvette Frampton said.Also unclear is what will become of Ms. Vertenstein’s three pianos, including the Chickering & Sons that she and her husband bought for $600 in 1965, two years after landing in the United States, and the two grand pianos reserved mostly for older students or those rehearsing concerts or recitals.On Tuesday, on a cold and blustery Colorado afternoon, family and a few friends attended a graveside funeral as others watched online. The rabbi quoted Plato’s line about music giving “soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination” — the same line that Ms. Vertenstein chose for the program for last spring’s recital.Minutes before her small, plain coffin was lowered into the earth, notes from former students were read. One recalled how Ms. Vertenstein never liked the word “practice.”You do not practice, she would say. You make music.She sprinkled lessons everywhere.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Movies

      Tom Ford on Wearing the Same Ripped Jeans and Allowing Himself to ‘Be Unproductive’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTom Ford on Wearing the Same Ripped Jeans and Allowing Himself to ‘Be Unproductive’As New York Fashion Week ends, the designer and film director explains why his show was postponed and how he has been affected by the pandemic.Tom Ford on the runway at his show in Los Angeles last year.Credit…Calla Kessler/The New York TimesFeb. 20, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETUntil last week, Tom Ford — designer, film director and chairman of the Council of Fashion Designers of America — had never done an Instagram Live interview. In fact, he said, he exists on Instagram under a secret name, known only to close friends, to protect his privacy and see what people are doing. (His corporate account is run by an employee.) But he agreed to talk to The New York Times for a special fashion week series, speaking from his empty atelier in Los Angeles. This interview has been edited and condensed.Vanessa Friedman New York Fashion Week just ended, even if many people may not have realized it began! You were supposed to close out the collections, but the digital reveal was postponed a week. What happened?Tom Ford We had a Covid outbreak in our L.A. atelier. Two people. They’re OK, but we all had to quarantine. The collection’s not finished, even though we were supposed to post all of our lookbook images today. Hopefully we’ll do it next week. I won’t complain. Everyone’s in the same situation, but it’s been hard.VF Wait, the collection is not finished? Do you always design so close to the wire?TF Often, five or six days before a show, I just cut everything up and move it all around. You work until the last minute because if you think of a good idea, and it’s two days before a show, you can’t not use it. You can’t say, “Oh, I’ll save that until next season” because you won’t want it next season.VF So you think we going to get dressed up again?TF Of course. I’ve been wearing these same dirty jeans with holes in them and this same dirty jean shirt for, it seems like, months. As soon as we can go out again, we’ll want to dress up. It’s only natural.VF What about shows? Is that whole circus coming back?TF There is something about seeing a show live: the electricity in the room, something that can’t be captured on film. It used to be about presenting your clothes to press and to buyers. Now it’s about an Instagrammable moment. You need a lot of people Instagramming, Instagramming, Instagramming because it’s a way to get images of your clothes out into the world. For that, live shows that happen on a schedule where everyone comes into town are effective. It’s like the Oscars in L.A.Looks from Mr. Ford’s spring 2021 collection.Credit…via Tom FordVF Speaking of the Oscars, how does your career as a film director relate to your work as a designer?TF Being a fashion designer is dictatorial. It’s: “This is what all men should look like, this is what all women should look like. This is how you should do your hair. This is what you should wear.” But film, as a director, is the closest thing to being God.VF You’re God?TF You’re not God of the world, but you are God of that film. You decide what people say, what they do, where they go, whether they die, whether they live. You create something, and it’s very permanent. Fashion is not, sadly, as permanent.You know, you can look at a beautiful dress from a different period, and you can admire it and say “Wow,” and you can look at the pictures, but you will never have the feeling that person at the dinner party felt when this woman walked into the room, or that man walked into the room, and what you saw for the first time was new and fresh and beautiful, and it just took your breath away.Whereas in film, forever and ever and ever, if it’s well-made and it ages well, you’ll start crying when you’re supposed to cry. You’ll laugh when you’re supposed to laugh. It’s a very permanent thing, and I find that incredibly appealing.VF You say fashion is not permanent, and over the summer people talked a lot about seizing the moment for change. But now there’s talk among big brands about going right back to the old system once things open up.TF We probably will because the system is driven by the consumer. Last season I did not do pre-collections, and the CFDA in combination with the British Fashion Council, issued a letter that we really wanted to return to two collections a year. But you lose business if you don’t have pre-collections. We have trained the consumer to think there’s something new every few months.On the other hand, we have found that we don’t need to travel as much as we thought.VF Less travel would also help with fashion’s environmental footprint, which is pretty dire.TF Personally, I don’t do fur anymore. I became vegan a few years ago. I remember watching a talk show with Adrian Grenier, who was talking about straws and plastic, and I thought, “Plastic straws, how’s that going to change the world?” I did a little research — it actually does change the world. I switched to metal straws. What I design is not meant to be thrown away.VF Aside from sustainability, the other pressing issue facing fashion is the question of social justice. Do you believe the industry will change?TF One of the very first things I did at the CFDA was to change the board to make sure it was more balanced racially, and balanced in terms of men and women. The CFDA is starting an in-house — I can’t legally call it a talent agency — but that is what it is. Fashion has taken so much from Black culture throughout history, so we owe a lot to the Black community.I like to think of myself as colorblind, but I recognize, of course, that I’m not. I live in this world. I know I will never understand what it feels like to be a Black man or woman in our culture today, but we have to keep having the conversation.VF What about another film?TF I have two things I’m working on: an adaptation and an original screenplay. To be honest, I thought that during Covid I would have time to work on these. I’m so lucky, I have everything in the world, but I think everyone has felt a certain depression. It’s been a very turbulent year. And I have a child at home who hasn’t been to school in a year. So, unfortunately, I have not felt as creative as I thought I was going to feel.VF What do you do in that situation?TF I go to bed. Maybe I drink some coffee and lie in the bathtub and probably watch way too much CNN and MSNBC and just make myself even more agitated. I try to get some sleep, which I never get. I just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Theater

      Two Tales of Disconnection, With One Cicada Cameo

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookTwo Tales of Disconnection, With One Cicada CameoRecorded on a Houston stage, “The Book of Magdalene” is theatrically intimate, while “Hotel Good Luck” gets caught up in digital trickery.From left: Jennifer Wang as Len and Mariam Albishah as Ru in “The Book of Magdalene.”Credit…via Main Street TheaterPublished More

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      in Music

      Don Letts, Mad Professor Team With Times on Carnival Story

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderBreaking Down the Sounds of Carnival, on Your PhoneThe pandemic has dampened the celebrations worldwide. But a Times special project, which includes an interactive music mixing feature, lets readers get into a party mood.The Notting Hill Carnival in 2019. Although parties over the past year have been canceled, a Times project seeks to keep the Carnival spirit alive this winter. Credit…Peter Summers/Getty ImagesFeb. 19, 2021Updated 10:48 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The world could definitely use a party. Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus pandemic, cities around the globe have canceled or curtailed what is annually their biggest bash, Carnival.These celebrations, many of them pre-Lenten, trace back hundreds of years to the Caribbean islands, and the tradition has continued with the Caribbean diaspora in cities like New York (the West Indian American Day Parade), Toronto (Caribana) and London (Notting Hill Carnival).In the chill of February, readers of The New York Times can get a flavor of the sensory richness of these blowouts with Carnival in Winter, a special online package of multimedia experiences about the festivals produced by the Narrative Projects department.Carnival is all about history, community, costumes, food — and music. To immerse readers into the sonic experience, Narrative Projects teamed with the Graphics department and the R.& D. department to create a special effect on Instagram that puts you inside a classic Carnival song. The effect, through the Instagram Spark feature that can be downloaded on phones, uses augmented reality, which lays a computer-generated image or animation over a user’s view of the real world. (Click here from your phone.)In this case, you can hear a Carnival anthem broken down into four musical tracks — and you can “see” the tracks through Carnival-inspired 3-D animations and manipulate the music by moving in your physical space. The effect turns your phone — and living room —  into a virtual mixing board.Picking just one song to represent the music of Carnival — which incorporates soca, calypso, reggae, dub, house and more — is a near impossible task. So, as one of the editors on the project, I reached out to an expert.Don Letts at the Roxy in London in 1977. Recently, he suggested the song that was used in The Times’s interactive feature on Carnival music. Credit…Erica Echenberg/Redferns, via Getty ImagseDon Letts, a 65-year-old filmmaker, broadcaster and musical matchmaker, is an icon of the British music scene. In the 1970s as the D.J. at the Roxy in London, he introduced the club’s punk clientele to reggae, the rising sound from Jamaica, his parents’ homeland. Between his friendship with Bob Marley and his close ties to the fledgling punk scene (he later formed the band Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones of the Clash), Letts earned the nickname “The Rebel Dread” for bucking convention and orchestrating cultural collisions that changed the course of popular music.He also has been a regular at the Notting Hill Carnival for over 40 years. In 2009, he directed a documentary, “Carnival!,” on the history and politics of the festival.Asked to name a “typical” Carnival anthem, Mr. Letts at first dismissed the task as impossible. Upon reflection, though, he directed us toward an old friend, the producer Mad Professor, and his 2005 track “Elaine the Osaka Dancer” — “A strange title, I know,” said Mr. Letts — which was written for a performer, Panafricanist, on the Mad Professor’s label. Mad Professor, whose name is Neil Fraser, is himself a well-known name in British music history. He pioneered the emergence of the British dub sound and collaborated with performers like Sade and Massive Attack.Mr. Letts chose “Elaine” because, as he put it: “At Carnival you can stand on a street corner and hear a float going past with steel pans, along with the sound of a Jamaican sound system right around the corner. This song perfectly captures that sound: the collision of calypso and soca with the bass-heavy rhythms of reggae.”If you’re reading this article on a desktop computer or tablet, you can view the AR experience on Instagram by opening your camera on your device and point to this QR code. For those reading on their phones, the link in the story above will call up the effect. Credit… Mad Professor agreed to license the song, so we asked him to break it down into individual instrumental tracks or “stems,” each of which would then be manipulated by the user of the Instagram effect.This process proved to be slightly more analog — and painstaking — than anticipated. At one point, when asked for a progress report, Mad Professor relayed that he was “baking the tapes” — which might sound (or did to me, anyway) like a bit of music producer slang. In fact, it’s a literal description of the process in which analog master tapes are restored by exposing them to a high temperature for hours, reducing humidity that can affect the quality of the tapes.Once the tapes were baked and the stems were procured, our graphics and R. & D. team built the Instagram effect. With the effect, the user can play with the drums, bass, horns and steel pan tracks while seeing commentary from Letts on why each element is crucial to a Carnival song.It’s not the same thing as dancing to steel pans on a simmering street in London’s Notting Hill in the heat of summer. But in a year when Carnival has been canceled nearly everywhere, we hope it gets you as close to that feeling as possible.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More