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      After the First Virtual Sundance, Four Writers Compare Notes

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter the First Virtual Sundance, Four Writers Compare NotesWhat worked online? What didn’t? And which films stood out? When you’re watching from home, feel-good movies don’t always have the same effect.Oscar the Grouch and his pal Caroll Spinney in the Sundance documentary, “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street.”Credit…Luke GeissbühlerFeb. 5, 2021At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, there were the usual premieres and Q. and A. sessions, breakouts and crowd-pleasers — but no actual crowd. Because of the pandemic, the Park City, Utah, event was pared back and conducted largely online. None of the attendees could, say, meet by chance and talk movies, and it was hard to get a sense of the festival overall. To rectify that, we asked the co-chief film critic A.O. Scott, the critic Devika Girish, and the reporters Kyle Buchanan and Nicole Sperling to compare notes. Here are excerpts from their conversation:NICOLE SPERLING I’m usually whiny and cranky about Sundance. Why are we in the snow? Why January? I could see all you people in Los Angeles. But this year, I was so nostalgic for every bit of the experience. I wanted nothing more than to be packed into a crowded shuttle bus, talking to strangers about tiny movies. I was so craving everything Sundance stands for that I even tuned in to festival director Tabitha Jackson’s morning broadcasts, something I would never do if I was actually in Utah, just to get an inkling of that geeky film love I was missing.DEVIKA GIRISH It was fun to be able to browse the program so conveniently (and to “walk out” of a lost cause without stepping on people’s toes), but it made my festival FOMO much worse! In Park City, there are geographical and material limits on what you can see and when. And if you’re famished, you choose dinner over a movie. But at home, on my couch, armed with takeout, I had at least 25 films to choose from at any given moment during the weekend. I spent a lot of time dipping in and out, and worrying that I was making all the wrong choices.SPERLING The feel-good movies really felt good this year, like “Coda,” the opening-night narrative film centered on a hearing teenage girl raised by her deaf parents. People glommed onto what was really a traditional story of struggle and triumph told about a demographic we don’t know enough about, a reminder that a movie well made yet sentimental can really work at this moment. I think it’s also why the documentaries on Rita Moreno and “Sesame Street” played so well in my house. Both were filled with joy and hope, things that make a big difference during this endless lockdown.Emilia Jones in Sian Heder’s competition winner, “Coda.”Credit…Sundance InstituteA.O. SCOTT On its own terms, “Coda” feels like a Sundance movie with all the rough edges sanded off. It has a specific, American location, a coming-of-age narrative, a class angle and an important representational agenda, and it handles all of these elements with the utmost caution. Every beat of the plot was signaled far in advance, and arrived with the assurance that nothing too terrible would happen. The performances of the deaf and hearing actors together were wonderful, but the conventional story sold out the reality of the characters’ lives. This will make for perfectly unobjectionable family television viewing, but that’s not necessarily what I look for at Sundance.KYLE BUCHANAN I agree with Tony. “Coda” is effective the same way a sitcom is effective, but the swerves and texture of real life are sadly lacking. It plays well because the actors are committed, but I was embarrassed at some of the hacky, seen-it-a-million-times scenarios they were called upon to animate.SPERLING: “Coda” won one of the grand-jury prizes and sold for $25 million. It will be interesting to see if the feel-good sentiment will remain when Apple decides to release the film.SCOTT I understand the appeal of “Coda,” but I’m still a bit startled at the scale of its triumph and the $25 million that Apple+ paid, partly because we will never know if it was a good investment. In previous years, the big-money Sundance sales were tested at the box office, where ordinary ticket-buyers validated or (more often) undermined the judgment of eager distributors.BUCHANAN To me, there was a letdown I felt watching many of these movies: The settings were gratifyingly specific, but the structure was straight out of Syd Field. I’m thinking of “Jockey,” a well-made horse-racing drama that nevertheless feels like the studio-notes version of Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider,” or even “Pleasure,” a clever and explicit treatise on pornography from the director Ninja Thyberg.“Pleasure” is at its best when it follows its lead character — an aspiring adult-film actress named Bella Cherry — through a series of naturalistic encounters that explore consent and coercion on triple-X sets. So why, in a film this daring, is Bella’s character arc so devoid of surprises? “Pleasure” continually telegraphs who Bella will betray and how in order to get ahead, and I kept waiting for a swerve that never came. (A movie this nervy should not be stealing its plot beats from “Showgirls.”)GIRISH One of my few surprise discoveries in the fiction slate was “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” a disquieting little film about a lonely, internet-obsessed teenager that hit me hard in my own solitude. But my highlights were the Opening Night documentaries. Questlove’s “Summer of Soul” brought the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 into my living room, with rousing performances by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson and more. I was most captivated by the shots of the concert’s massive audience: A wistful spectacle of collective joy, grief and resistance.Nanfu Wang’s “In the Same Breath,” an incredibly thoughtful, personal and well-reported look at the propaganda-fueled narratives surrounding Covid-19 in China and the United States, offered a sobering full-circle moment. Starting the festival with these documentaries was a solemn reminder of why we were attending Sundance 2021 from home, and what (despite some of the perks of a virtual festival) we lose when we can no longer gather together in space and time.BUCHANAN Only the documentaries managed to truly keep me on my toes. There’s a moment in “Flee,” about an Afghan refugee smuggled to Europe, when the protagonist admits to family members for the first time that he is gay. I immediately braced myself for how this would go in any other Sundance movie, but what actually happened next — a reveal I will not spoil — caught me off guard and moved me to tears. Minor miracles can happen when independent films shake off the yoke of plot and let themselves be guided by the breath of real life.SPERLING “In the Same Breath” really stuck with me. So did Peter Nicks’s “Homeroom,” which tracked a group of activist high school seniors in Oakland last spring, as they watched their final year from their bedrooms and grappled with the killing of George Floyd. Sundance’s curation this year felt spot-on to me: fitting the festival squarely into the moment we are living through, not shying away from the momentous problems we are facing, while also offering some hope.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Television

      Getting to Know You, Again

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGetting to Know You, AgainThe pandemic has sent many people back to their parents’ homes, giving both generations new insight and a chance at a different kind of relationship.Before the pandemic, the comedian Nikki Glaser, left, pitched a show about moving back in with her parents, E.J. and Julie Glaser, as an adult. The pandemic made what seemed like an unlikely scenario into a reality.   Credit…Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesFeb. 5, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETPatricia Mitchell was newly widowed, still grieving and adjusting to living alone after 50 years of marriage, when her daughter, Emily Mitchell-Marell, called last March. It was the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. Ms. Mitchell-Marell had recently given birth to a baby girl. She also had a 4-year-old son, and the schools in Brooklyn, where she lives, had been closed.Ms. Mitchell, a 74-year-old retired family therapist, heard the stress and panic in her daughter’s voice. “Having a baby, a job, a son and a pandemic was completely overwhelming to her,” she said. “Emily asked to come here.”And so, in the kind of surprising life upheaval the pandemic has made almost commonplace, Ms. Mitchell’s youngest daughter, her son-in-law and two grandchildren moved into her rambling old house outside Woodstock, N.Y. Eleven months later, the family is still there, eating dinner together every night and amazed to be doing so.“I have not spent this kind of time with Emily in 20 years,” Ms. Mitchell said. Her tone was that of someone who had received a complicated gift.For Patricia Mitchell, living with her granddaughter, Vera, has been “a real treat.”Credit…Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesLast July, a remarkable survey by the Pew Research Center found that more than half of people between the ages of 18 and 29 were living with their parents. Not since the Great Depression had so many adult children dwelled at home. It wasn’t only young adults, either. Job losses, school closings or other pandemic-induced reasons have driven many older children like Ms. Mitchell-Marell, who is 40, back to the nest.Because the young dominate the public’s attention, and because they own the bully pulpit of social media, the demographic phenomenon has been told largely from their viewpoint. The consensus attitude was perhaps best expressed by the young woman who made a TikTok set to the tune of “New York” by Alicia Keys, describing her quarantine with her mom and dad in the ’burbs. Sample lyric: “My parents won’t let me use their car/My friends all live too far/Twenty-five minutes from Dallas, Dallas, DALL-ASSSSSS!!!!!!!!”But as a middle-aged woman named Randi Cohen, whose 30-year-old daughter moved home to Columbus, Ohio, last spring, said, in what sounded like mild aggrievement, “There is another side to all of this.” Ah, yes, the side that doesn’t express themselves on TikTok.Imagine you have dutifully raised your children and released them into the world, growing accustomed to infrequent visits around the holidays, and then suddenly they’re back, a decade or more later, sleeping in their old bedrooms and sacking the fridge. It’s the sort of whiplash plot Hollywood movies are built on. Yet for millions of parents during the pandemic, it became a reality.Whether it played as a domestic comedy or psychological thriller depends on individual family dynamics. But every parent-child relationship is, to varying degrees, an emotional minefield. Navigating it successfully only grows harder when the child living in your house is all grown up: How do you make a 30-year-old pick up his dirty laundry?Getting ReacquaintedPatricia Mitchell, far right, who was recently widowed, finds herself living with her daughter, Emily, her son-in-law, Ben, and her grandchildren, Maximus and Vera.Credit…Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesReflecting on her experience over the past year, Ms. Mitchell expressed both gratitude and fatigue. She’s had the chance to observe, up close, her daughter’s happy marriage and mature approach toward work and motherhood, which has been gratifying as a parent. Helping raise her granddaughter from birth has been “really a treat,” and a welcome distraction from her grief and loneliness. Her son-in-law became the man of the house, doing chores and repairs.But living in a crowded, active, child-centered household again at her age can be exhausting. “There’s more food shopping and dishes and cleaning and laundry,” Ms. Mitchell said. “The noise level. The house wakes up very early. The level of activity is a bit shocking to my system, if you want to know the truth.”Parents have had to make adjustments of all kinds, as they welcome back children whose lives may have diverged widely from their own, and of which they may have only a vague idea. Empty nesters, they’ve been plunged back into hands-on parenting and asked to fulfill seemingly exotic requests.“He has a trainer that he works with and this trainer also has a specific diet” for him, said Janet Schaffler, 65, about her 34-year-old son, Kyle, who lives in Manhattan and came home to Indianapolis for two months at the start of the pandemic, and then again for weekslong stretches. Ms. Schaffler, who handles the cooking and shopping, found herself running what amounted to an Equinox juice bar out of her kitchen.“Everything had to be weighed. It was high protein, no bad carbs,” she said. “I needed to go to Trader Joe’s to buy this, another supermarket for that,” on top of shopping and cooking for herself and her husband. “Making sure everyone had what they needed, I never had any rest.”Ms. Cohen discovered that her daughter, Hannah Berkeley Cohen, while living in Cuba as a freelance journalist and tour guide, had evidently became a gourmet, because back home in Ohio, she now objected to her parents’ more simple meals.“She comes in and she’s a foodie and she’s appalled by what we eat. We don’t spend an hour preparing food and adding sauces because that’s what she and her boyfriend do,” Ms. Cohen said. “We had some talks about, ‘This is how we live. If you want to make dinner for us, that’s lovely.’”Bill Vien, 58, welcomed his daughter and son, both in their 20s, back home to Vermont for several months last year. His daughter, Corinne, co-hosts, “Two Girls One Ghost,” apodcast about ghosts and the paranormal. Mr. Vien and his wife were asked to maintain complete silence — no talking, no TV, not even shoes on the hardwood floors — while she recorded for three hours twice a week.“My wife never lets laundry get ahead of her,” Mr. Vien said. “Of course, we have one of those washers and dryers that make a chime.”Diane Camara welcomed her son, Jared Alexander, back home after his theater tour was canceled.Credit…Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesFor Diane Camara, whose 25-year-old son, Jared Alexander, an actor and writer, moved back into her home in Stratford, Conn., after the show he was scheduled to perform in was canceled, the adjustment was more internal, one of perception.“When he came back, I went into mom mode. I was thinking to myself, ‘I’m taking care of you. What do you have to worry about, you’re just a kid,’” Ms. Camara, 50, said. “It took me a minute to realize, ‘No, he’s an adult. And he’s going through it just like I’m going through it. And in some ways worse than me. He’s the one displaced, he lost his tour.”A Gift of TimeIndeed, these were not like the carefree stays of a summer home from college. Nor were they brief visits with the pressure release valve of a known end date. The children returned during a year of health risks, economic ruin and social and political upheaval, and with their own careers and adult responsibilities to manage through a global pandemic that has stretched on without end.But once the shock of events wore off and everyone found a routine, many parents said they were brought closer to their grown children. For the first time in years, and with a different feeling, there were family dinners, game nights, watching TV together, exchanging ideas as mature adults.“We drink a glass of wine and talk. We sit and watch movies,” Ms. Cohen, whose daughter remains at home, said. “We’ve never done that before. She can be a girlie girl, so she does my nails. It is lovely spending time with her.”Ms. Camara and Mr. Alexander in the garden they planted together last summer.Credit…Jared AlexanderLast summer, Ms. Camara and her son planted a flower garden in her backyard, the first garden for both of them. “We just got out there. We worked together as a team really well,” Ms. Camara said.A reluctant gardener initially, Mr. Alexander said watering the flowers and watching them slowly grow became a way to not only bond with his mother but come to terms with his interrupted life. He wrote an essay about the experience for a website.“It helped me adjust,” he said. “This isn’t going to be two weeks, two months. It’s going to be awhile. It wound up turning into something special.”There was, for parents, the added marvel of really seeing who their children had become as adults. Back under the same roof, they had a window into their children’s work and social lives and relationships.Leroy Rutherford has watched his daughter, Chrissy, start a business while back home. “That was nice seeing her start up something of her own,” he said.Credit…Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesLeroy Rutherford, 72, watched his daughter, Chrissy Rutherford, start a brand consultancy out of her childhood bedroom in Bedford, N.Y., where she’s been staying since giving up her apartment in Manhattan last April. He may complain about the dirty dishes Ms. Rutherford leaves in the sink, but he admires her work ethic. “She gets up from 8 in the morning and starts working. And 7 or 8 at night, she’s still on her phone or her computer,” Mr. Rutherford said. “That was nice seeing her start up something of her own.”Ms. Schaffler, the mother in Indianapolis, concurred. “You always think they’re never going to be able to grow up and cope by themselves,” she said. “Well, he can and he has. Just listening to him on his work calls. Not eavesdropping but just listening. He’s sounding just like his dad now. I could appreciate and be quite proud of that.”More than anything, there was time. Precious, unexpected time. In the summer months, Mr. Vien, his wife and two children would stop working each day and have lunch together on the deck. He got to watch his son and daughter, four years apart and usually living on opposite coasts, develop a tighter relationship over their stay. His daughter had gone off to college in California at 17 and stayed there during breaks to do internships, and Mr. Vien and his wife had felt time with her had been “stolen.” The pandemic gave it back.Shannon Holtzman, whose grown daughters, Carolyn and Larkin, both returned home to New Orleans for several months (Carolyn remains there), echoed the sentiment. “I regret the pandemic and wish it had never happened,” Ms. Holtzman said. “But for us, this has been a gift. We’ll likely never have this time again.”She marveled aloud, “This was the first birthday of mine where I had both daughters home since 2004.”The Stuff of Comedy“I thought this would destroy us,” said Nikki Glaser of moving back in with her parents, E.J. and Julie Glaser. The opposite has been true.Credit…Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesIf there could be a poster family for quarantining together during the pandemic, it would be the Glasers — that is, Nikki Glaser, a 36-year-old stand-up comedian and actress, and her parents, E.J. and Julie Glaser. When the pandemic struck, Ms. Glaser was in Los Angeles on a work trip. She had invited her parents along, and so she decided not to return to her New York apartment but to go back with them to her childhood home, in St. Louis. As the pandemic grew worse and her comedy gigs and other projects were canceled, she stayed. “I thought this would destroy us, me living there for 10 months,” she said. “But I didn’t want to leave.”Ms. Glaser has turned being back in her Midwestern childhood home as a single woman and famous person into an extended bit. In TV interviews, like one with Conan O’Brien last May, she appeared on Zoom from her father’s home office. When she guest-hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live!, in July, she booked her parents as the house band, cutting to them in their living room (Mr. Glaser plays acoustic guitar and Mrs. Glaser sings). A show Ms. Glaser had been writing before the pandemic, in which she gets canceled by the internet and has to move back home to St. Louis — “Which used to be some, like, kind of sci-fi thing,” she told Mr. O’Brien — became her lived experience. Meanwhile, her parents have become minor celebrities through their appearances on TV and on her social media channels.“I have 16,000 followers on Instagram,” Mr. Glaser said.His wife chimed in, “He had two before this.”More important, the couple have reconnected with their daughter, who for years saw her family infrequently as she built her comedy career on the coasts. “I’ve tried to get her to sing with me ever since she was a small child,” Mr. Glaser said. “She started learning guitar and we played and sang together a lot during the last few months.”After 10 months living with her parents, Ms. Glaser recently moved out and rented her own apartment again — in St. Louis. Nikki Glaser in a stand-up performance.Credit…Ben Vogelsang“I always argued that it was for the best,” Ms. Glaser said about choosing to live away from home. “This year has made me reflect upon what actually makes me happy. I love my family and I love being around them.”Shifting RelationshipsAs the pandemic stretches on, some parents, including Ms. Mitchell, continue to house their grown children. Her newborn granddaughter is nearly one, and she and Ms. Mitchell-Marell are closer than ever. In fact, Ms. Mitchell-Marell and her husband are considering relocating to the Hudson Valley. “I do want to be near her now in a way that wasn’t as important to me,” Ms. Mitchell-Marell said. “And I don’t want to separate her and my baby.”Said Ms. Mitchell, “They wouldn’t have come back without the pandemic. I do think they’re going to find a place in the valley. And be nearby. And that will be very great.” Other parents are empty nesters again.Marilyn LaMonica, 76 and a psychoanalyst, welcomed her 48-year-old son, daughter-in-law and 5-year-old grandson into the Brooklyn house she shares with her husband for three months last spring.At first, to be together seemed like a fantasy fulfilled, a return to the large Italian family of her childhood. But between cooking for five people three times a day, worrying about her loved ones getting the virus and balancing the competing needs of everyone in the house, the experience was something more complicated. Ms. LaMonica called those months “a blur” and “a bundle of mixed feelings,” summing up how other parents said they felt.And yet, when it was over, and her son and his family returned to their Manhattan apartment, Ms. LaMonica admitted to a sense of sadness, as if she were letting her child go all over again.“It’s not rational,” she said. “But I felt a very deep sense of loss.”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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      in Music

      Paris Hilton Has a Podcast, With a Twist

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyParis Hilton Has a Podcast, With a TwistThe aughts fixture and proto-influencer’s new show with iHeartMedia aims to stake out a middle ground between podcasting and social media.Paris Hilton, photographed at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif., is getting into the podcast business with a new company, her own show and an unusual spin on a format that seeks to create an audio equivalent to social media.Credit…Rosie Marks for The New York TimesFeb. 4, 2021Updated 3:17 p.m. ETPodcasting holds a strong allure for would-be media disrupters and visionaries. In the still-developing medium, they see wet clay, capable of being molded into an ideal vessel for long-form narrative journalism or fiction or game shows or musicals or memoir.Add Paris Hilton to their ranks. Hilton, master of an earlier mass-communications era in the tabloid-fueled early aughts, is getting into the podcast business with a new company, her own show and an unusual spin on a form that will seek to create an audio equivalent to social media.“This Is Paris” will debut on Feb. 22 in partnership with iHeartMedia, the radio giant that has become one of the largest distributors of podcasts, with more than 750 shows collecting more than 250 million downloads per month. Aimed at Hilton’s over 40 million followers across social media platforms, the new show will offer a mix of personal content and conversations with her family, friends and other celebrities. It will be the flagship of a planned slate of seven shows to be produced by Hilton’s company, London Audio, and the iHeartPodcast Network. The other programs, featuring different hosts, will be released over the next three years.“I’ve always been an innovator and first mover when it comes to reality TV, social, D.J.ing, and now I really believe that voice and audio is the next frontier,” she said in an interview.A key feature of her podcast will be its use of a format that Hilton is calling “Podposts”: short (between one and three minutes), stripped-down dispatches meant to mimic the cadence and tone of posts on social media. The “This Is Paris” podcast feed will host longer (around 45 minutes), more traditionally produced episodes weekly, with intermittent Podposts filling in the gap several times per week.Since the end of the Fox show “The Simple Life” (with Nicole Richie) in 2007, Hilton has branched into other industries like fashion through her company, Paris Hilton Entertainment.Credit…Michael Yarish/Fox“I really believe that it is like another form of social media,” Hilton explained. “I do so many things — being a D.J., a businesswoman, a designer and an author — so there will be a lot for me to talk about.”Preplanned categories of Podposts will be inspired by Hilton’s famous catchphrases, including “That’s Hot” for product recommendations, “Loves It” for culture recommendations and “This Is my Hotline,” in which Hilton will respond to voice mail messages sent in by listeners. Conal Byrne, president of the iHeartPodcast Network, said the company is currently looking to partner with brands for sponsorship at different levels.“Her power to recommend products to her fans that she believes in is just about unrivaled,” Byrne said.Since the end of “The Simple Life,” her reality television series with Nicole Richie, in 2007, Hilton, who will turn 40 this month, has branched into a wide range of industries through her company, Paris Hilton Entertainment. Its assets include 45 retail stores and 19 product lines across categories like fragrance, fashion and accessories. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Hilton was a sought-after D.J. around the world, for which she has been paid a reported $1 million per gig.In this new deal, iHeartMedia will fully fund the slate of shows produced in partnership with London Audio at a budget of multiple millions of dollars. The two companies will be joint partners in each show and split all revenue streams. After “This Is Paris,” the rest of the slate is expected to be geared toward subjects including beauty, wellness, dating, philanthropy and technology, with Hilton and Bruce Gersh, the president of London Audio, serving as executive producers.“This is a medium that has so many dimensions and really allows you to connect to an audience in a unique way,” Gersh said. “Paris wanted to jump in wholeheartedly.”In addition to the flagship podcast “This Is Paris,” Hilton’s deal with iHeartMedia calls for the creation of six other shows over the next three years.Credit…Rosie Marks for The New York TimesHilton, who named “Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions” and Kate and Oliver Hudson’s “Sibling Revelry” as among her favorite shows, immersed herself in the medium while grounded at home in Los Angeles during the pandemic.“Usually, I’m traveling 250 days a year and working constantly,” she said. “During this whole year in quarantine, I’ve had more free time than I’ve ever had in my career. So I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and getting really interested. When I’m cooking or working or doing my art, I always have them on in the background.”Podcasts have become a favored outlet for celebrities seeking to engage with fans in more depth than is possible in a typical post on Instagram or Twitter, while avoiding the scrutiny and vulnerability that comes with speaking to the press. Name recognition is a powerful advantage on the platform — shows by celebrity podcasters like Dax Shepard, Jason Bateman, Anna Faris and Bill Burr appear regularly in the top 50 of the Apple Podcasts charts. (In addition to the Hilton deal, iHeartMedia has struck joint partnerships with Will Ferrell and Shonda Rhimes for slates of shows.) And podcast audiences tend to be a relatively friendly bunch: There are no comments sections to elevate unpleasant behavior, and podcasts by their nature require a level of active engagement that discourages drive-by detractors.“I think once people understand that this is a platform where they can directly interact with their fans without any kind of middleperson, it becomes a very attractive proposition,” said Tom Webster, senior vice president of Edison Research, a media research firm.Webster added that Hilton’s Podposts concept reminded him of the proto-podcast field of audio blogging, in which writers for websites like The Quiet American and The Greasy Skillet posted short audio diaries. “It allows them to stretch out into their personal interests in a way they don’t get to in their day job,” he said.In last year’s YouTube documentary “This Is Paris,” Hilton said she was abused by administrators at a private boarding school she attended as a teenager, an experience by which she remains traumatized.Credit…YouTube“This Is Paris” shares a name with Hilton’s YouTube documentary, released last fall. In that film, which has nearly 20 million views, she distances herself from the blithe, ditsy persona with which she has been identified since emerging in the glare of paparazzi bulbs two decades ago. Hilton also says that she was abused by administrators at a private boarding school she attended as a teenager, an experience by which she remains traumatized.The podcast is meant to follow in the same candid vein. Hilton is recording it at a home studio (built for her music projects) and using her much-discussed natural voice (which, to my ear, is deeper than her most girlish trill but not a dramatic departure).“She talks in a way that’s very relaxed and accessible, as opposed to someone who is putting on a performance,” Byrne said. “Right away she was a natural at making it feel like a one-on-one phone call and not a one-to-many media asset.”For Hilton, recording the pilot for the show did feel uncomfortable at first — unlike on social media, there were no glamorous photos or videos to hide behind. “It’s only about the knowledge you’re bringing and what you’re saying with your voice,” she said.But soon she fell into a groove. After a lifetime of being the subject of interviews, she’s been enjoying “turning the tables” as the one asking questions. Compared with her old jobs, the commute isn’t bad either.“I love being a homebody,” she said, reflecting on her new chapter. “I’ve worked so incredibly hard to build my empire — now I get to finally enjoy it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Theater

      With French Theaters Closed, Puppetry Takes Center Stage

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWith French Theaters Closed, Puppetry Takes Center StageThe art form, usually on the fringes of French theatrical culture, finds itself at a sudden advantage: Puppet shows’ young audiences are still allowed to watch live performances.“Hematoma(s),” directed by Cécile Givernet and Vincent Munsch, uses cutout shapes and shadow lighting to tell a story of childhood trauma. Credit…Cie Espace BlancFeb. 4, 2021, 3:11 a.m. ETPARIS — In December, while French theaters remained shut because of the pandemic, Hubert Mahela was able to perform his latest show a dozen times. The reason? He makes puppet shows for young audiences, who happened to be in school — and in need of entertainment.Puppetry, an art form often looked down on as lowbrow, lo-fi theater, has found itself at an unlikely advantage this winter in France. Primary and secondary schoolchildren are currently the only audience members officially allowed to attend performances here, as long as the local authorities grant permission.“We can’t just work through video, with no audience,” Mahela said in a recent interview. “It was such a joy to know that it’s possible to be careful and keep going.” He took his one-man show “Lisapo Ongé!,” in which he re-enacts a tale from his native Congo with expressive hand-held puppets, to schools in Fontenay-sous-Bois, a suburb of Paris, and in the northern city of Amiens.The situation for French puppeteers is bittersweet. While it constitutes a return to their roots, as children remain their most faithful fans, many of them have worked hard to position the form as more than family-friendly fare. In France, high levels of public funding for the arts helped puppetry make the transition, in the second half of the 20th century, from a craft passed down in family circles to a well-established sector of the performing arts.Puppetry even has a capital of sorts in France: Charleville-Mézières, a former metallurgy stronghold near the Belgian border. It hosted the first World Puppetry Festival in 1961 and became home to the International Institute of Puppetry two decades later.In 1987, a puppetry school, the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette, or ESNAM, opened. While it admits only 15 students every three years, some of puppetry’s biggest names honed their craft there, including the American artist and director Basil Twist. Other training institutions have opened internationally, but in a recent interview at the Opéra Comique in Paris, Twist said he still considered his alma mater “the top school in the world” for the art form.Hubert Mahela performing his one-man show “Lisapo Ongé!” In it, he re-enacts a tale from his native Congo.Credit…Corentin Praud“France has an enormous network of cultural institutions, one of the largest in the world, so puppetry was able to carve a niche within it,” the school’s director of pedagogy, Brice Coupey, said in a phone interview.The puppeteer Grégoire Callies had a front seat for that development. From 1997 to 2012, he directed the first National Dramatic Center devoted to the form, in Strasbourg. He is currently at the helm of the Théâtre Halle Roublot in Fontenay-sous-Bois, where he set up Covid-averse performances by several artists in schools, including Mahela’s “Lisapo Ongé!”“What’s good about the world of puppetry is that most productions are nimble, they can go everywhere,” Callies said at his theater recently. “While theater productions have a hard time coming up with big tours, there is always a possibility to work.”That much was clear from “Les Plateaux Marionnettes,” a closed showcase for programmers and journalists hosted at the Théâtre Halle Roublot in late January. Over one day, five artists and companies presented short productions, most of them new. Alongside Mahela’s “Lisapo Ongé!,” multiple branches of puppetry were represented. In “Hematoma(s),” directed by Cécile Givernet and Vincent Munsch, cutout shapes and shadow lighting were elegantly woven to tell a story of childhood trauma. With “The Forest Doesn’t Exist,” Kristina Dementeva and Pierre Dupont, who graduated from ESNAM in 2017, brought an absorbing sense of Beckettian absurdity to the musings of two sock animals.Dementeva, who started working with inanimate objects in her native Belarus, moved to Charleville-Mézières from the Belarusian capital, Minsk, to attend ESNAM. “The school is very famous among puppeteers abroad, and it’s free,” she said. “Belarus has a great underground puppet scene, but there are many more companies in France, and more public support.”Yet in a country where sophistication is a point of pride, puppet theater remains on the fringes of the biggest venues and festivals. It has earned backing from major figures over the years, including the director Antoine Vitez, who had plans to fold puppetry into the missions of France’s premier stage troupe, the Comédie-Française, when he died in 1990. Still, Callies believes puppetry hasn’t managed to achieve the same level of recognition as hip-hop dance or circus, two art forms that channeled contemporary dramaturgy to bridge the gap with highbrow genres.Kristina Dementeva and Pierre Dupont in “The Forest Doesn’t Exist,” which features two sock animals. Credit…Louis Cadroas“One of the tragedies of puppetry is that the artists who want to make it erase the word ‘puppet.’ They leave it behind,” Callies said, pointing to its reputation as a childish form of expression. “It’s a French neurosis, because if you go to Germany or Italy, adults also attend puppet theater shows.”On the flip side, some puppeteers who have moved toward contemporary theater suggest that French puppetry remains fairly conservative. The renowned stage director Gisèle Vienne, who graduated from ESNAM in 1999, said in a phone interview that her work — which is geared toward adults, with complex subject matter — was mostly embraced by dance and theater artists at the time. In 2007’s “Jerk,” she even explored the darker side of puppetry’s reputation (from schizophrenic toymakers to murderous puppets) in popular culture.“The world of puppetry told me that what I was doing wasn’t puppetry,” Vienne said. “It’s a really extraordinary medium, but I have found that the most powerful puppet-based experiments happen in the field of contemporary art.”Yet there are signs that younger puppeteers are hungry to break down the remaining barriers between their craft and mainstream theater. The profession itself is changing. “It used to be very masculine. There are a lot more women now, who do very interesting work,” Callies said.The productions presented as part of “Les Plateaux Marionnettes” tackled ambitious themes, from family violence to forgotten female figures from world history (in a spirited workshop presentation by Zoé Grossot, another ESNAM graduate). The climate emergency is also a recurring concern among ESNAM’s students, according to Coupey: “Some refuse to work with polluting materials.”At the Théâtre Halle Roublot, the sheer pleasure of watching live theater came with a sense of safety. With no more than three performers onstage at any point, and precautions including masks and social distancing, the risk of spreading Covid-19 seemed as limited as it may ever be inside an auditorium.“We can even afford to work on a play with 20 characters, because we don’t need 20 actors,” Givernet, the co-director of “Hematoma(s),” said with a laugh after the show. Lowbrow or not, puppets are well suited to this moment.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Theater to Stream: Shakespeare Villains and Hot-Tub Dreams

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTheater to Stream: Shakespeare Villains and Hot-Tub DreamsPatrick Page looks at bad guys, Steven Carl McCasland gives us literary women, and Jill Sobule mines her own history, including the dreaded seventh grade.A still from “The Infinite Wrench Goes Viral,” from The Neo-Futurists, a Chicago performing-arts group. Credit…via The Neo-FuturistsFeb. 3, 2021Updated 2:17 p.m. ETDark and wintry days, cold nights: February is the perfect time to cuddle up with some so-called chiller theater.Toxic squares: Travis Schweiger and Chelsea J. Smith, top, and Neal Davidson in Stephen Belber’s “Tape.”Credit…via The Shared ScreenLet’s start with Stephen Belber’s “Tape,” which begins with a character shoveling coke up his nose and goes on from there. In this 2000 play (adapted into a Richard Linklater movie), the friends Vince and Jon have a relationship so toxic, it could qualify as a government cleanup project. Their reunion starts with the needle in the red, then really skids off the rails. The Shared Screen company has devised its production as a live video call. Feb. 5-20; thesharedscreen.com.Stay on the line for the Keen’s company benefit reading of Lucille Fletcher’s radio thriller “Sorry, Wrong Number,” from 1943, about a bedridden woman who is being targeted by killers — her phone is her only connection to the outside world. Marsha Mason leads the cast and Nick Abeel handles the live Foley effects. (Feb. 15 at 7 p.m.; keencompany.org.)Patrick Page in “All the Devils Are Here.”Credit…via Shakespeare Theater CompanyFinally, Patrick Page, Broadway’s favorite basso profundo, wrote and performs a solo look at theatrical bad guys in Shakespeare Theater Company’s “All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain.” Page knows a thing or three about the subject: He has played Iago in “Othello,” Hades in “Hadestown,” the Comte de Guiche in “Cyrano de Bergerac,” the Grinch in “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” and the Green Goblin in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” Feb. 4-July 28; shakespearetheatre.org‘The Infinite Wrench Goes Viral’The Neo-Futurists, based in Chicago, have turned their showcase of very short plays — or thought experiments, or whatever you want to call these bite-size works — into a successful weekly virtual show. Some are animated; others are performed by live actors. One was 14 seconds long; most are around two or three minutes. The only rule seems to be that you never know what’s next. A Patreon subscription buys a 30-play show delivered on Sunday nights, with an average of 10 new plays a week. neofuturists.orgJill Sobule’s hot-tub time machine“F*ck7thGrade,” from the singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, may be a concert shot in an improvised drive-in, but this autobiographical show has impressive theatrical bones: Liza Birkenmeier (“Dr. Ride’s American Beach House”) wrote the book, Rachel Hauck (“Hadestown”) designed the set and Lisa Peterson (“An Iliad”) directed for City Theater, in Pittsburgh. Now the question is: Will Sobule and Robin Eaton’s musical adaptation of the movie “Times Square” ever get a full production? Through June 30; citytheatrecompany.orgIn “Little Wars,” clockwise from left: Catherine Russell, Linda Bassett, Juliet Stevenson, Debbie Chazen, Sophie Thompson, Natasha Karp and Sarah Solemani. Credit…John BrannochDinner with Gertrude and LillianCaryl Churchill’s “Top Girls” engineered a meeting between female historical figures. “Little Wars,” Steven Carl McCasland’s new play, also sticks with literary heroines. When a dinner party includes Lillian Hellman (Juliet Stevenson) and Gertrude Stein (Linda Bassett, wondrous in “Escaped Alone” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), the conversation could get interesting. Through Feb. 14; broadwayondemand.comFor your ears onlyL.A. Theater Works specializes in audio theater with startlingly good casts, and its impressive catalog keeps growing. The latest offering is Hannie Rayson’s eco-minded “Extinction,” with a cast that includes Sarah Drew and Joanne Whalley. Hankering for the days of before? Check out the last two productions Theater Works recorded in front of a live audience, early last year: a commissioned adaptation of “Frankenstein” by Kate McAll, starring Stacy Keach as the creature; and Qui Nguyen’s semi-autobiographical “Vietgone,” inspired by his Vietnamese refugee parents, and directed by Tim Dang. latw.orgSigned, sealed and, eventually, deliveredTheater — or something companies are calling theater — by mail is alive and well. Ars Nova’s “P.S.” project has been going on since November; the second season of the Artistic Stamp company’s epistolary project is underway, with a third beginning soon; and next month, Arena Stage is starting “Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise: Love Letter Experience.”The most ambitious initiative yet may well be Post Theatrical, which encompasses 13 “mail-based theatrical experiences” from companies in the United States, Lebanon and Hong Kong. Through June 30; posttheatrical.org‘Yorick, la Historia de Hamlet’/‘Yorick, the Story of Hamlet’Remember Yorick, the jester whose skull plays a big part in “Hamlet”? He takes center stage in Francisco Reyes’s solo with puppets “Yorick, la Historia de Hamlet”/“Yorick, the Story of Hamlet,” presented by the Los Angeles contempory-arts center Redcat. American audiences may know Reyes from his role as Orlando in the Chilean movie “A Fantastic Woman.” In English with Spanish subtitles. Feb. 12-14; redcat.orgWith songs in their heartIf you’re wondering about the back story to the French song in that Allstate commercial, it’s “Non, je ne regrette rien,” made famous by Edith Piaf. And if you missed the biopic “La Vie en Rose,” head over to Raquel Britton’s docu-concert “Piaf … Her Story … Her Songs,” brought to us by Broadway’s Best Shows and the Actors Fund. Feb. 15-18; actorsfund.orgFor tunes in English, turn to Theater Forward, an organization that supports regional theater, which will offer performances by Jason Robert Brown, Kate Baldwin, George Salazar, Anika Noni Rose, Shaina Taub, Branden Noel Thomas, Taylor Iman Jones and the Bengsons for its annual benefit. Feb. 8; theatreforward.orgDavid Glover in “Kyk Hoe Skin die Son.” Credit…Dion Lamar MillsClubbed Thumb’s Winterworks festivalThis enterprising New York company is best known for Summerworks, a festival of new plays that has provided a launchpad for favorites like “What the Constitution Means to Me” and “Tumacho.” Now, Clubbed Thumb is opening up its developmental showcase, Winterworks, to a wider audience on platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Twitch. The shows open at regular intervals throughout February, with several livestreaming before going on-demand for a limited time. The programming is director-driven, so there should be some interesting innovations. In “Kyk hoe Skyn die Son [Look at How the Sun Shines],” for example, Keenan Tyler Oliphant writes a letter live and on-screen, while artists reimagine his memories. Other participants include Leonie Bell and Michaela Escarcega. clubbedthumb.orgTechnology and its discontentsThe Studios of Key West has wrangled quite the cast for Drew Larimore’s new play, “Smithtown,” which deals with the impact of technology on our lives and is made up of four interconnected monologues, read by Michael Urie, Ann Harada, Colby Lewis and Constance Shulman. Feb. 13-27; tskw.orgA scene from “Today Is My Birthday,” with, from left, Emily Kuroda, Eric Sharp and Katie Bradley.Credit…via Theater MuTech is integrated into the very fabric of Theater Mu’s multicamera capture of “Today Is My Birthday,” by Susan Soon He Stanton, a staff writer on the HBO hit “Succession.” This Twin Cities company focuses on the Asian-American experience. And Stanton’s narratively inventive play, about a young journalist (Katie Bradley) who has fled New York to return home to Hawaii, is told through phone calls, voice mail messages and even intercom. Feb. 6-21; theatermu.orgAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Scenes From a Marriage, Patinkin-Style

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      Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were mystified when some of the videos they made with their son while waiting out the pandemic in upstate New York were viewed more than a million times.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesThe Great ReadScenes From a Marriage, Patinkin-StyleMandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody’s charming, irreverent pandemic-era posts led to unlikely social media stardom. Will the vaccine end their run?Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were mystified when some of the videos they made with their son while waiting out the pandemic in upstate New York were viewed more than a million times.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 3, 2021Updated 1:27 p.m. ETMandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody have been together since their first date nearly 43 years ago, a giddy daylong romp through Greenwich Village that began with brunch and ended with them making out on a street corner. “I’m going to marry you,” he declared. “You’re going to get hurt, because I’m not going to marry anyone,” she replied.Their wedding was two years later, in 1980. But like many long-term couples, their partnership has thrived in part because they are away from each other so much. Grody, 74, is an Obie Award-winning actress and writer; Patinkin, 68, finished the final season of “Homeland” last year and spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 on a 30-city concert tour.In March, they left Manhattan for their cabin in upstate New York and embarked, like so many of us, on something radically different: months of uninterrupted time together. The result is a matter of public record, because scenes from their marriage — in all its talky, squabbly, emotional, affectionate glory — are all over social media, courtesy of their son Gideon, 34, who started recording them for fun and then realized that there was a vast demand for Patinkin-related content.Patinkin said that “being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.” Grody urged their son Gideon, who made their videos, not to portray them simply as an “adorable older couple” but to “get some of our annoyance in there.”Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesFor months, people have scrolled through Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to watch Grody and Patinkin debate, declaim, snuggle, bicker, horse around, play with their dog, Becky, obsess about politics and display their (lack of) knowledge about such topics as text-speak and the New York pizza rat. More recently, the world has followed along as they got their first doses of the vaccine (“one of the few benefits of being old,” Patinkin wrote).Now, as they near the first anniversary of all that togetherness, they say that except for desperately missing their older son, Isaac, who lives in Colorado and recently got married, they feel lucky to be together. “There’s no question,” Patinkin said. “Being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.”As this phase of the pandemic nears its end, do they plan to turn their unlikely social-media fame into a family sitcom or reality TV show? No, says Gideon, although they have gotten endless inquiries. For one thing, his parents can barely operate the video functions on their phones, and eventually he will again have to leave them to their own devices. “Once the world is vaccinated and living life is back in vogue, I might have to teach them how to do selfie videos,” he said. “That should be something.”After the first few videos last spring, Grody exhorted Gideon not to portray them simply as an “adorable older couple,” she said. “You have to get some of our annoyance in there,” she told him.What annoyance? In dueling interviews, the couple outlined the many ways they irritate each other. Patinkin hates the way his wife amasses old newspapers, like a hoarder. Grody hates how, when she fails to answer her husband’s calls, he redials incessantly — three, four, five times — until she picks up. She likes podcasts; he likes rewiring the house. She is a “social maniac,” Patinkin said; he “likes humanity in general, but very few specific people,” Grody said.In one video, they tell Gideon how they celebrated their anniversary the day before.“It began lovely, and turned into an absolute fight,” Patinkin says. “Both of us lost.”“I apologized and that made dad cry,” Grody says. “We’ve always connected through weeping.”The response was so positive, with people posting that the couple reminded them of themselves or their parents or just brought joy at a dark time, that Gideon now advises other young adults confined at home to embark on similar projects. “I became astonished at how much I could get out of them,” he said.Their efforts expanded this summer and through the election. Patinkin has long volunteered for the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit humanitarian organization, and Gideon encouraged his parents to use their growing social media base — now 250,000-plus on Twitter, 155,000-plus on Instagram, 940,000-plus on TikTok — to work for Democratic candidates in the presidential and Senate elections.The couple took part in virtual fund-raisers; did endless phone banking; danced, sang, cooked and goofed around. Enlisting the services of the writer and director Ewen Wright, they recorded TikTok campaign spots, like one in which Patinkin tells young people to get their parents and grandparents to vote, and then twerks to a remix of the song “Stand By Me.” Mystifyingly to them, some of their videos have been viewed more than a million times.Will the show go on? After their cameraman — one of their sons, Gideon — is vaccinated and returns to his daily life, Patinkin and Grody will be left to their own devices, literally.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York Times“I don’t understand this stuff,” said Grody, who on one video can be seen trying to explain what she thinks TikTok is: “a communication tool” that encourages “young people to meet various kinds of other young people.”All the while, Gideon kept filming, adding new nuances to what has turned into a portrait of a complex marriage.It has not been without its adversities. (“They are an exquisite mess, but theirs is a deeply rich joy,” is how Gideon put it.) For one thing, there is Patinkin’s self-proclaimed moodiness. Once, he related, he was so unpleasant in the car en route to visit a relative that Gideon, then a teenager, said, ‘Dad, if you can’t get it together, don’t come in.” (He didn’t come in.) Another time, he felt so trapped and sulky before Thanksgiving — a difficult time of the year for him — that he decided to fly to New Orleans to spare his family, only to change his mind and demand, successfully, to exit the plane before it took off.“Everyone in the family knows I’m a (synonym for jerk),” Patinkin said. “But they know me and they love me and they forgive me, and that’s why I feel safe. The word ‘safe’ is such an operative word at this moment.”By that he meant the pandemic, and how lucky it is to be with someone who makes you feel secure in a time of insecurity.“There have been times during this whole period — sometimes I don’t even know what triggered them — there are times when I wake up and I find myself weeping, and she holds me and no words are spoken,” Patinkin said of his wife.“I married a woman who knew a guy was nuts, and she has loved me and stood by me and educated me and politicized me,” he continued. Or, as Grody said: “I used to say that I was supposed to marry a rock so I could be the lunatic, but instead I married a lunatic and I’ve had to be the rock.”They have separated twice in the course of their marriage, once for six months, the other for eight months.“We spoke to each other every day; we saw each other every day,” Patinkin said. “We couldn’t be apart.”“It was ridiculous, to tell you the truth,” Grody said. “I would say, ‘Don’t you know we’re supposed to be separated?’ As difficult as our problems were, it was far more difficult to be without each other.”They love describing how they met. They told the story in separate interviews, each observing that the other would focus on totally different details.Her version includes noticing her future husband in a 7Up commercial, circa 1970, a full eight years before they met. She then noticed him again in 1975, in his debut theater performance — the premiere of “Trelawny of the Wells,” which also starred Meryl Streep, Mary Beth Hurt and John Lithgow. She found the young Patinkin so appealing from afar that she turned to her then-boyfriend and said, “He’s my type — what am I doing with you?”Patinkin’s version includes how he went to her house for dinner soon after their fateful initial brunch and found that, living in a tiny walk-up in Little Italy, she stored her sweaters in the oven. Mis-following a recipe, she served him chicken covered in raw bacon.“I felt that I had lost my mind,” he said. “I was knocked out by her.”“When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” Grody said.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesPatinkin brought up “The Princess Bride,” in which he played Inigo Montoya, a swordsman trying to avenge his father’s death — and which at heart is about the search for true love.“I have found true love,” he said, “and first and foremost, I have it with my wife.”Grody feels the same way.“When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” she said. “I’m still in love with his face.”In November, the couple appeared together in a video for the Jewish Democratic Council of America. They toasted the election results, exhorted everyone to stay safe. And then he sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in Yiddish, as his wife wept quietly beside him.“To have known somebody all these years, and to have lived this life together, and to have weathered the brutalities of intimacy — it’s a daring thing,” she said. “It’s an astonishing thing.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Bringing Stages to Storefronts in a Theater-Hungry City

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyExit InterviewBringing Stages to Storefronts in a Theater-Hungry CityMiami New Drama gave audiences a window on the “Seven Deadly Sins” when it took over part of a pedestrian mall for a production. Michel Hausmann, the artistic director of Miami New Drama, waves to passers-by from inside one of the storefronts where his company presented “Seven Deadly Sins.”Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2021MIAMI — As the final performance of Miami New Drama’s “Seven Deadly Sins” ended Sunday night, the actors streamed onto Lincoln Road, thanking the company’s artistic director, Michel Hausmann. They had spent months performing separately, inside adjacent vacant storefronts on this South Beach pedestrian mall, to an audience that watched and listened from a distance.Whooping and hugging each other, they gathered around the gregarious Hausmann at the outdoor bar lit by a neon “Purgatory” sign. They continued celebrating, even as the glowing red signs, reading “Lust” “Greed” “Wrath” and more, flickered off and the block turned dark.The pandemic closed the city on March 13, the eve of the opening of Miami New Drama’s first musical. To keep the 5-year-old company going, Hausmann, who is from Venezuela, commissioned seven notable playwrights — five Latino or Latina, two Black — to write short works that would fit under the “Seven Deadly Sins” rubric.They included Aurin Squire, who imagined sloth as a white woman claiming Black identity. Carmen Pelaez envisioned pride as the arrogant statue of John Calhoun, an outspoken defender of slavery, challenging the crowd that is pulling him down. Moisés Kaufman, who co-founded New Drama with Hausmann, portrayed greed by way of a brother and sister clashing over their father’s will.Six of the plays, all with either one or two actors, were staged in glassed-in storefronts, the seventh in the loading dock of the Colony Theater, the company’s regular home on Lincoln Road.Guides led audience groups of 12 from store to store, where they listened to the actors over iPods Velcroed to their bright red, socially distanced chairs.Audience members watch as the actress Jessica Farr performs in the “Lust” section of “Seven Deadly Sins,” written by the playwright Nilo Cruz.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesActors performed inside the storefronts while audience members listened on headphones.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“Seven Deadly Sins” was extended twice, selling out for most of its two-month run. According to Actors Equity, “Seven Deadly Sins,” produced at a cost of $580,000, was the biggest live professional theater production in the country at the time, employing 100 theater workers, from stage crew to designers and actors. And thanks to meticulous precautions — including individual dressing room/rehearsal spaces — no one got sick.On the phone the morning after the show wrapped up, Hausmann reflected on the inspiration for the production and why it mattered. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did you feel seeing this show end?I cried when we couldn’t extend again. Then I made my peace with it. I feel like we pulled off a miracle. Not only artistically, but that the health protocols worked.How did you come up with the idea?I was extremely pessimistic when the pandemic hit. I’m normally an optimist. But I understood what we were facing was an unprecedented disruption. I’d been thinking for years about the empty storefronts on Lincoln Road. I was packing my office knowing I wouldn’t return for a very long time, and it hit me walking to my car and looking at those storefronts and boom! I saw the actors inside, the audience outside.“Although this is literally 40 paces from our door,” Hausmann said of the storefront experiment, “it was like producing on the moon.”Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThen I had the good and bad fortune of breaking my knee and wrist riding my bike. I spent weeks in bed. It was a quarantine inside the quarantine. My escape was imagining what I could do with the storefronts. I borrowed Thornton Wilder’s idea of doing 10-minute plays around the seven deadly sins, and a production in Venezuela in 1974 that commissioned different authors.Then what?My first call was to Dan Gelber, the Mayor of Miami Beach. I told him we have this crazy idea that is impossible to pull off without the support of the city. He said, “We’re all in.”What were you worried about?Everything. We’ve become pretty good at producing shows inside the Colony Theater. Although this is literally 40 paces from our door it was like producing on the moon. We had to create seven different theaters — lighting, sound, sets. It was uncharted territory.Any surprises?We had an incident before we opened where a man who I assume was a white nationalist was so offended by the Calhoun set that he threatened to bomb not only that storefront, but the Colony. He made that threat in a credible way. Twenty minutes later the whole block was taken over by police. That’s frightening, but that’s what theater should do. Theater needs to be political.Digital programs for the show were scannable.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesOne of the staff members who guided attendees to their seats, and from show to show.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesHow did Covid-19 protocols shape the process?We had to have three negative tests before we were even allowed to be outdoors together. After that we had to have two negative tests every week. I got very good at it — now I can share important tips. Breathe in while the swab is going in.You’ve always produced theater with a political dimension. How did that enter here?I gave the playwrights a broad mandate: Pick your favorite sin and write a 10-minute play with one or two actors. What they brought back was a look at American society through the seven deadly sins. We helped process what it means to live in America in the year of the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, and political reckoning.Given everything else going on, why was it important to stage live theater this year?I felt a great sense of responsibility to the theatrical ancestors who figured out how to do theater in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, during apartheid in South Africa, in the living rooms of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. To keep the flame alive.I felt an even bigger responsibility to our local artists. We never furloughed anyone. We employed a hundred people for the setup of the play and 60 professional actors and techs for the almost three months we were rehearsing and performing. Even if the play had had no artistic merit, that for me is dayenu. [Hebrew for “It would have been enough.”]What else did you learn?It’s liberating to understand we are in the business of live storytelling. The possibilities are really endless.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Times's Five Minutes Series on Classical Music a Hit

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHooking Readers on Classical Music, Five Minutes at a TimeDrawing on the passion of experts, a Culture desk series has doubled its audience for the genre.CreditCredit…Angie WangFeb. 3, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETMark Hamill was spellbound by a Mozart composition, but he couldn’t remember its name. The haunting choral masterpiece played near the end of the Broadway production of “Amadeus” more than 40 years ago, in which he performed the title role.So when Mr. Hamill, the actor who portrayed Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars,” was approached in June 2020 by Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times’s classical music editor, to suggest an irresistible Mozart piece, he responded with one request: Can you track it down?With some help from the team at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Mr. Woolfe identified the mystery earworm: a section of Mozart’s Requiem. Mr. Hamill played the composer hundreds of times on Broadway and in the first national tour of “Amadeus” in the early 1980s. But, he told Mr. Woolfe, “I never got tired of the sound.”Mr. Woolfe chatted with Mr. Hamill for the Mozart installment of The Times’s classical music appreciation series, “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love _____.” Once a month online, about 15 musicians, pop-culture figures and Times writers and editors each select the piece they would play for a friend tied to a theme, be it an instrument, composer, genre or voice type. This month’s theme, published today, is string quartets.The series aims to make classical music as accessible to readers as a Top 40 track, Mr. Woolfe said. You don’t need to know the difference between a cadenza and a concerto. “It’s about pure pleasure and exploration,” he said.Now two and a half years and a dozen segments into the project, Mr. Woolfe said he had been surprised at readers’ appetite for the series, regardless of the theme. “It’s like, ‘OK, ‘5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Mozart’ is super appealing,’” he said. “But ‘5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Baroque Music’? Or ‘5 Minutes That Will Make You Love 21st-Century Composers’? But those both did terrifically as well.”The name for the series came to him in the shower in 2018 as he was pondering ways he could make The Times’s classical music coverage accessible to a broader audience. “I was thinking about being at a concert or listening to a recording, and being like, ‘OMG, that note she hit!’” Mr. Woolfe said. “Then I had the idea of asking different people to pick their favorite little five-minute nuggets and presenting them like a playlist.”The first installment, in which he asked artists like Julia Bullock, the young, velvety-voiced soprano, and Nicholas Britell, the composer of the Oscar-nominated score for “Moonlight,” to choose the five minutes they would play to make their friends fall in love with classical music, became a runaway hit with readers, racking up more than 400,000 page views in its first week alone.That reception inspired him to expand the series — first to individual instruments like the piano, then to genres like opera and composers like Mozart and Beethoven. And the pandemic motivated him to ramp up the pace: Since last April, new segments have published on the first Wednesday of every month.“It has doubled our audience for classical music,” Mr. Woolfe said. “It’s gratifying that whatever we do, people are willing to explore and be into it.” But he added that he had been happy to hear that classical aficionados have enjoyed the series, too.David Allen, a freelance critic for The Times and a frequent contributor to “5 Minutes,” said he targeted both novices and experts with his selections. “I sometimes have thought deeply about finding pieces that are off the beaten track,” he said, like a little-heard piece from Bach’s organ music or a movement from a Mozart serenade.Mr. Woolfe also credited the appeal to the series’s vibrant, eye-catching animations, like pulsating cello strings or a silhouette of Mozart caught in a colorful confetti storm. “They enhance the playfulness and accessibility of the series,” he said.Angie Wang, the freelance illustrator who creates them, said she watched videos of the musicians and noted their characteristic movements, paying particularly close attention to wrist and elbow articulation. “I wanted to render them with delicacy,” she said. “The animations are a kind of visualization for the music.”One of Mr. Woolfe’s favorite aspects of working on the series has been getting to know artists outside the performance context in which he typically encounters them (“Renée Fleming is a really good writer,” he said), as well as talking to notable names outside the classical music world about a subject they are rarely, if ever, asked to discuss.“I get to see how people think in addition to how they perform,” he said. “It’s another facet of the personalities of artists.”Although the series was not conceived as an antidote to the polarization that has gripped politics and public health in the past year, Mr. Woolfe is glad it has worked out that way. “I’m so happy it’s been counterprogramming for people during the pandemic,” he said. “And I hope they’ll keep listening.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More