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      The Year in Improvised Music: ‘Everything’s Changing. So the Music Should.’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Year in Improvised Music: ‘Everything’s Changing. So the Music Should.’The pandemic compressed live music onto screens, and Black Lives Matter protests brought it back to the streets. What will it all look like, and sound like, in 2021?Norman Edwards and Endea Owens playing outdoors. Ms. Owens helped put together bands to perform at protests.Credit…Anthony ArtisDec. 17, 2020When concerts and in-person gatherings shut down this spring, livestreamed shows quickly started to feel like a glorified last resort. I found myself avoiding them. But a Facebook video caught my eye one day in June, of the trombonist Craig Harris performing at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Accompanied by the keyboardist Pete Drungle, framed by a flowering grove and a trellis, he played “Breathe,” a suite of concise and soothing music that sounds like the sum of Mr. Harris’s experiences on the New York scene since the 1970s.He had written “Breathe” after Eric Garner’s killing by New York police in 2014; it was his reflection on the notion of breath as a great equalizer, and as the source of Mr. Harris’s own powers as a trombonist. But at the start of this video, he turns to those affected by Covid-19. He offers the suite as “a sonic reflection for those who have passed, and those who are born,” Mr. Harris says. “We have to think about the lives of the people who are born in this period now. That’s a whole thing, the beginning and the end.”The performance was taped in May, before George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and its nightmarish resonance with Garner’s death. By the time Mr. Harris’s video was released in June, protesters were constantly in the streets, and the suite’s original message had become painfully relevant again. But even in this new light, the poise and sensitivity that Mr. Harris had intentionally brought to this performance didn’t feel out of place.For any lover of live performances — but especially jazz and improvised music — 2020 will be remembered, joylessly, as the year of the stream. Musicians have done their best with what they’ve had, usually by leaning into intimacy; we saw a lot of artists’ bedrooms this year. But it was actually in the moments when musicians zoomed out — when they made our perspective bigger, and connected this difficult moment with a greater sense of time — that improvised music did its most necessary work.With concerts impossible, the vocalist and interdisciplinary artist Gelsey Bell assembled “Cairns,” a remarkable audio tour of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn; it’s part philosophy talk and part experimental music composition, built of Ms. Bell’s overdubbed vocal improvisations and the sounds of the cemetery as she walks.Green-Wood is a majestic place, and there is something robust and alive about it, even though generations of history lie in its soil. “As I started making it, I was really thinking about our relation to the land and the history it holds, and then where we find ourselves now,” Ms. Bell said of “Cairns” in an interview. “To be connected to the land you live on is to be connected to both its history and the other people that you’re sharing space with.”On the hourlong recording, Ms. Bell tells of various little-known but significant figures, using their histories to illuminate what she calls “the apocalyptic foundations of this place.” And she gives us the histories of the trees, instructing us to listen to the ways they sing to each other, and will continue to after we’re gone.Hiking up a hill, Ms. Bell and her collaborator Joseph White turn the sounds of her breathing and walking into a kind of mulchy, rhythmic music. “Because of breath, we’ll never forget how stuck in time we are, how mortal we are,” she says, making the word “mortal” sound like a good thing.It wasn’t impossible to make music via stream that really pulled people together — just rare — and on this front, couples had an advantage. The week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended all concerts be put on hold, the vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant and the pianist Sullivan Fortner propped up a camera beside the piano in their living room and broadcast a set of music via Facebook to thousands of viewers. The comments section turned into a chattery town square, full of nervous and grateful people unsure of what the coming months would bring.The bassist Dezron Douglas and the harpist Brandee Younger started performing duets from home every week, ultimately collecting them in a disarming album, “Force Majeure,” released this month. The saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and the drummer Tom Rainey got in the habit of recording their wide-ranging living room improvisations and publishing them on Bandcamp, in a series that continues under the name “Stir Crazy.”A listener taking in Gelsey Bell’s “Cairns,” an audio tour of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.Credit…Sasha Arutyunova for The New York TimesMs. Bell said she thought “about our relation to the land and the history it holds, and then where we find ourselves now.”Credit…Sasha Arutyunova for The New York TimesWorking alone, the clarinetist Ben Goldberg also started posting daily solo recordings in March on a Bandcamp page labeled “Plague Diary”; it now has nearly 200 entries. Listen for long enough and the tracks of overdubbed instrumentals and low, repetitive rhythms start to run together, like the hazy interminable feeling of existing at home amid lockdown.The saxophonist Steve Lehman swung in another direction, releasing a less-than-10-minute album, “Xenakis and the Valedictorian,” featuring snippets of exercises and experiments that he had recorded on his iPhone, practicing in his car each night so that his wife and daughter could have peace in the house.Continuing to perform during the pandemic — near impossible as it often was — was both a creative and a financial imperative for improvisers, many of whom saw all of their upcoming performances canceled in March. But newly liberated from obligation, inspired by the movement sweeping the country, many also began to organize.Much good critical attention was paid this year in the music press to the ways that our listening habits have had to adjust to lockdown, and to how performances have changed. But what about the institutions that also fell quiet — especially the schools and major arts nonprofits, which have perpetuated massive racial and economic disparities in access to the music? Will they all look the same when things come back online?The trombonist Craig Harris performed “Breathe” at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in May.Credit…Brooklyn Botanic GardenMusicians across the world came together via Zoom to organize the We Insist! collective to address these questions, eventually coming up with a list of demands to promote racial equity in major educational institutions and philanthropic groups in the jazz world. A group of artists of historically underrepresented gender identities came together in the Mutual Mentorship for Musicians collective, striking a creative blow against patriarchy in jazz. And as protests overtook streets nationwide, jazz musicians were often there.The bassist Endea Owens showed up on the second day of protests in New York back in May, she said in an interview. She almost immediately felt a need to contribute music, and she helped put together bands that played daily at demonstrations over the next three weeks. “We were out there for two to three weeks, walking from Washington Square Park to the Barclays Center, just playing,” she said. “That created a ripple effect of something creative, something positive. You felt like you had to fight for your lives.”In Harlem, where she lives, Ms. Owens started a monthly series of masked, socially distanced cookout concerts. Using donations as well as money from her own pocket, she has handed out 100 free meals at each one, while paying underemployed jazz musicians to perform. As a member of Jon Batiste’s Stay Human, the house band for “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Ms. Owens has been the rare jazz musician this year who could count on a steady paycheck.But without nightly gigs, she has still had an excess of downtime. Now that she has made connections with other organizers and mutual aid groups in the area, she is thinking about how to continue that effort into the future, even if the usual work opportunities for musicians come back.“There’s a big opportunity to make jazz feel more familiar and make it feel more accessible, where anyone can go to these shows,” Ms. Owens said. “I don’t even think it’s possible to go back to the way we did things. Everything’s changing. So the music should. The way we perform, the way we approach it, the places where we have this music.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This Cheer

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storycritic’s notebookMariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This CheerPop stars try to pull off a Christmas spectacular in tough times, with three sparkly but heartfelt specials now on streaming services.Pop divas in holiday sparkle: from left, Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton.Credit…From left: Anne Marie Fox/HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, CBSDec. 18, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETWith the C.D.C. advising against faithful friends who are dear to us gathering anywhere near to us, it’s understandable that we all might need some extra assistance getting into the holiday spirit this year. One of the few bright spots of the season, though, is the abundance of new Christmastime musical specials, helmed by some of our most beloved and benevolent divas. Thank the streaming wars, in part: HBO Max, Apple TV+ and CBS All Access have all jockeyed to get a different A-list angel atop their trees, perhaps in hopes that they’ll persuade you to subscribe to one of their services before your long winter hibernation (or at least forget to cancel before your free trial is over.) Whether gaudy, glorious excess or down-home simplicity, each offers a different take on a perplexing question: How do you stage a Christmas spectacular in decidedly unspectacular times?First up is Carrie Underwood, whose “My Gift: A Christmas Special From Carrie Underwood” is streaming on HBO Max. A companion piece to her recent first holiday album, the stately and reverent “My Gift,” Underwood’s special finds her fronting an orchestra led by the former “Tonight Show” bandleader Rickey Minor. Featuring duets with John Legend and, adorably, her 5-year-old son Isaiah (whose pa-rum-pa-pum-pums are impressively on point), “My Gift” is relatively light on pizazz — save for the eight (!) increasingly dramatic costume changes. As Underwood’s stylists told “People” magazine in an article devoted entirely to all of her different “My Gift” outfits, the fact that the country powerhouse wouldn’t be moving around the stage much gave them an opportunity to “break out these giant confections of tulle and sequins that would never really be appropriate for any other event.” The most memorable is a crimson-tinged Diana Couture dress-and-cape number that suggests a cross between a bridal cake-topper and Jude Law on “The Young Pope.”A scene from “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” which features guests like Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande.Credit…Apple TV PlusThe splendor and stirring purity of Underwood’s voice is powerful enough that even a plunging ball gown adorned with literal angel wings cannot overshadow it. Underwood’s most sublime belting, though, doesn’t come until the penultimate set of songs, when she absolutely blows the roof off “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Holy Night.” It’s enough to make the relative restraint of the rest of the show pale in comparison. “We really wanted this special and my album to be something that people would return to year after year and not feel dated,” she told “People” and, accordingly, there’s nary a nod to 2020 in sight. It’s a safe choice in a production so full of them that, despite its ample cheer, ends up feeling a little hermetic and snoozy.An offering not as worried about time-stamping itself is “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” a star-studded entry from Apple TV+ in the Yuletide streaming wars. It’s certainly the most plot-heavy of the bunch (a neurotic elf played by Billy Eichner must restore Christmas cheer to a world low on tidings by booking an impromptu Mariah concert, or something), and the one with a wardrobe that most frequently luxuriates in the lack of F.C.C. oversight of streaming content. Perhaps when she wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You” she was singing to double-sided tape.Though a tad convoluted, Carey’s special is full of one-liners and knowing winks; when the elf has trouble tracking her down, she informs him, “It’s called elusive, darling.” Woodstock makes a brief, animated cameo (perhaps to remind us that Apple owns the streaming rights to the “Peanuts” specials, too), which provides a segue into Carey’s gorgeous, sultry rendition of “Christmastime Is Here.” A lot happens throughout these overstuffed 43 minutes, and the special could have done without some of the bells and whistles. The whistle notes, however, are another story.The most diva-licious moment of the whole affair comes when Carey is joined by two very special guests, Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande — who she stages behind her, so that they end up looking like the Supremes to her Diana Ross. Classic elusive chanteuse. By the song’s finale, though, she’s invited them both to stand beside her and riff. It provides the opportunity for something the world has been waiting for ever since a young Grande earned the nickname “Baby Mariah”: They look at each other respectfully, inhale deeply, and harmonize their whistle notes. This must be the exact sound heard when the Covid-19 vaccine enters one’s bloodstream.In “A Holly Dolly Christmas,” Dolly Parton offers the crackling warmth of a hearth.Credit…CBSA woman who might know is Dolly Parton, generous Moderna vaccine trial donor and star of the heartwarming CBS special “A Holly Dolly Christmas.” An hourlong show originally made for Sunday-night broadcast on CBS (and now streaming on CBS All Access), hers is the most traditional of the bunch, and hardly the flashiest: “It’s not a big Hollywood production show, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Parton says, gesturing around a set meant to look like a homey church. But she also specifies, “We have managed to do this show safely …. testing, wearing masks and social distancing.”Parton is such a charismatic presence that she doesn’t need guest stars, plot twists, or costume changes to keep this a transfixing show. Whether she’s hamming it up during “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or filling the spiritual “Mary, Did You Know?” with empathic emotion, her special offers the crackling warmth of a hearth. Before singing her classic “Coat of Many Colors,” she tells a moving story about her late mother’s selflessness, her painted eyes brimming full of tears the entire time. Just try not to cry along with her.Earlier in the fall, Stephen Colbert showed just how tall an order that is, when he was reduced to tears after Parton burst into a ballad a cappella during their televised interview. “Like a lot of Americans,” he explained, “I’m under a lot of stress right now, Dolly!” It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though: Plenty believe there’s something deeply cathartic about Parton’s voice and her overall demeanor. As Lydia R. Hamessley writes in her recent book “Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton,” “For many listeners, the restorative effect of Dolly’s music seems to flow to them directly from Dolly herself, so they often experience her as a healer.” Which sounds like something we could all use right about now. As Parton spins yarns about her humble beginnings and sings songs of enduring faith in the face of despair, “A Holly Dolly Christmas” might, actually, be an effective cure for the 2020 holiday blues.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Even When the Music Returns, Pandemic Pay Cuts Will Linger

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEven When the Music Returns, Pandemic Pay Cuts Will LingerThe coronavirus crisis is leading many performing arts unions to agree to concessions, but some fear it could change the balance of power between labor and management.The Metropolitan Opera says that it will need long-term pay cuts if it is to survive after the pandemic, but its workers, many of whom have gone unpaid since April, are resisting.Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York TimesDec. 17, 2020Updated 7:22 p.m. ETWhen the coronavirus outbreak brought performances across the United States to a screeching halt, many of the nation’s leading orchestras, dance companies and opera houses temporarily cut the pay of their workers, and some stopped paying them at all.Now, hopes that vaccines will allow performances to resume next fall are being tempered by fears that it could take years for hibernating box offices to rebound, and many battered institutions are turning to their unions to negotiate longer-term cuts that they say are necessary to survive.The crisis is posing a major challenge to performing arts unions, which in recent decades have been among the strongest in the nation. While musicians at some major ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, have agreed to steep cuts that would have been unthinkable in normal times, others are resisting. Some unions fear that the concessions being sought could outlast the pandemic, and reset the balance of power between management and labor.“Historically, labor agreements in the performing arts have been moving toward more money and better conditions,” said Thomas W. Morris, who led major orchestras in the United States for more than three decades. “And all of a sudden that isn’t an option. It’s a fundamental change in the pattern.”Nowhere is the tension between labor and management more acute than at the Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts organization in the nation. Its artists and other workers, many of whom have been furloughed without pay since April, are resisting an offer by management to begin receiving reduced wages of up to $1,500 a week again in exchange for long-term pay cuts and changes in work rules. After failing to reach an agreement with its stagehands, the company locked them out last week, shortly before more were scheduled to return to work to begin building sets for next season.But musicians in a growing number of orchestras are agreeing to long-term cuts, recognizing that it could take years for audiences and philanthropy to bounce back after this extended period of darkened concert halls and theaters.The New York Philharmonic announced a new contract last week that will cut the base pay of musicians by 25 percent through mid-2023, to $115,128 a year from $153,504. Then some pay will be restored, but the players will still earn less than they did before the pandemic struck when the contract expires in 2024. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, one of the richest ensembles in the nation, agreed to a new three-year contract reducing pay by an average of 37 percent in the first year, gradually increasing in the following years but only recovering fully if the orchestra meets at least one of three financial benchmarks. The San Francisco Opera agreed to a new deal that halves the orchestra’s salary this season, but later makes up some ground.Unions play a major role behind the scenes at many arts organizations. The contracts they negotiate not only set pay, but also help establish a wide range of working conditions, from how many permanent members an orchestra should have to how many stagehands are needed backstage for each performance to whether Sunday performances require extra pay. It is not uncommon to see major orchestras abruptly end rehearsals mid-phrase — even when a famous maestro is conducting — when the digital rehearsal clock shows that they are about to go into overtime.Workers and artists say that many of these rules have improved health and safety and raised the quality of performances; management has often chafed at the expense.Many nonprofit performing arts organizations, including the Met, faced real financial challenges even before the pandemic struck. Now, they say, they are fighting for their survival, furloughing or laying off administrative staff and seeking relief from unions.After stagehands at the Metropolitan Opera rejected calls for a new contract with long-term cuts, management locked them out.Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York Times“Unions are very reluctant to make concessions; it goes against everything trade union strategy has told them for 100-plus years,” said Susan J. Schurman, a professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University. “But clearly they understand that this is an unprecedented situation.”But at some institutions, including at the Met and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, workers are accusing management of trying to take advantage of the crisis to push for changes to their union contracts that they have long sought.Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, wants to cut the pay of workers by 30 percent, and restore only half of those cuts when box office revenues recover. He hopes to achieve most of the cuts by changing work rules. In a letter last month to the union representing the Met’s roughly 300 stagehands, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, he wrote that “the health crisis has compounded the Met’s previous financial fragility, threatening our very existence.” He also wrote that the average full-time stagehand cost the Met $260,000 last year, including benefits.“For the Met to get back on its feet, we’re all going to have to make financial concessions and sacrifices,” Mr. Gelb told employees in a video call last month.There are 15 unions at the Met, and while the leaders of several of the biggest have said that they are willing to agree to some cuts, they are pushing back on changes that would outlast the pandemic and redefine work rules that they have long fought for — especially after so many workers, including the orchestra, chorus and legions of backstage workers, have endured many months without pay. The Met’s orchestra, which is represented by Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, said in a statement that management was “exploiting this temporary situation to permanently gut contracts of the very workers who create the performances on their global stage.”Leonard Egert, the national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents members of the chorus, soloists, dancers, stage managers and others at the Met, said that unions recognized the difficult reality and were willing to compromise. “It’s just that no one wants to sell out the future,” he said.Musicians at the New York Philharmonic, and at other orchestras, have agreed to lasting pay cuts to help their institutions recover after the pandemic. Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesIn Washington, the stagehands at the Kennedy Center are fighting a similar battle. David McIntyre, president of Local 22 of the alliance, said he had been in contentious negotiations with the Kennedy Center for months over its demand for a 25 percent pay cut, something that is hard for the union members to stomach after many of them have gone without pay since March.Management is also asking for concessions such as an elimination of time-and-a-half pay on Sundays, he said, a change that would be permanent rather than limited to the pandemic. The union stagehands are particularly indignant because the Kennedy Center received $25 million from the federal stimulus bill passed in March.“They’re just trying to get concessions out of us by leveraging a pandemic when none of us are working,” Mr. McIntyre said.A spokeswoman for the Kennedy Center, Eileen Andrews, said that several of the unions that it works with already accepted pay cuts, including the musicians with the National Symphony Orchestra, and that the recovery from the pandemic needed to be accomplished through “shared sacrifices.”Organizations have lost tens of millions of dollars in ticket revenue, and the outlook for the philanthropy that they rely on for their survival remains uncertain. As union negotiations proceed within the grids of video calls rather than around the typical stuffy board room tables, both sides recognize the financial fragility.In some respects the pandemic has altered the negotiating landscape. Unions, which normally have tremendous leverage because strikes halt performances, have less at the moment, when there are no performances to halt. Management’s leverage has changed as well. While the Met’s threat that it would lock out its stagehands unless they agreed to cuts carried less menace at a moment when most employees were not working anyway, its offer to begin paying workers who have gone without paychecks since April in exchange for long-term agreements may be hard to resist.At some institutions, memories of the destructiveness of recent labor disputes have helped foster cooperation during this crisis. At the Minnesota Orchestra, where a bitter lockout kept the concert hall dark for 16 months starting in 2012, management and the musicians agreed on a 25 percent pay cut through August. Some orchestras that have recently experienced labor strife, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where the players were locked out in 2019, came together during the pandemic.Credit…Shawn Hubbard for The New York TimesAnd the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which had its own hard-fought labor dispute last year, managed to reach agreement on a five-year contract this summer, cutting the pay of players sharply at first before gradually increasing it again.The last time a national crisis of this magnitude affected every performing arts organization in the country was during the Great Recession, when organizations sought cuts to offset the decline in philanthropy and ticket sales, triggering strikes, lockouts and bitter disputes.Meredith Snow, the chair of International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians, which represents players, said that labor and management mostly appeared to be working together more amicably than they did then — at least for now.“There is more of a recognition that we need to be a unified face to the community,” said Ms. Snow, a violist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, “and that we can’t be squabbling or we’re both going to go down.”“You come together,” she said, “or you sink.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      2020: A Theater of the Absurd for Europe’s Playhouses

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story2020: A Theater of the Absurd for Europe’s PlayhousesThe Times’s theater critics in London, Paris and Berlin reflect on a year of closures, reopenings, restrictions and curfews, in which the show somehow went on.At the National Theater in London in September. The city’s theaters were closed and reopened twice in 2020, then closed a third time.Credit…Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesDec. 17, 2020Updated 12:39 p.m. ETBritainMatt Wolf, London Theater CriticTheater of the absurd has nothing on the bizarre scenario endured by Britain’s playhouses during 2020. March 16 was the first of several doomsdays on which the coronavirus pandemic forced them to close their doors, bringing to a halt a theatrical economy worth billions of pounds.Then came months of nothing, followed by the gradual emergence of outdoor shows, then indoor performances, when financially practical: no big musicals or Shakespeares, just bite-size plays, performed in auditoriums newly configured to meet government guidelines.Several pioneering venues — the Bridge Theater, in London, pre-eminently — opened again at the end of the summer, but not for long. They, too, were shuttered again by a second lockdown, in early November — albeit a shorter one, which lifted on Dec. 2.This was replaced by a tiered system of geographical restrictions, which meant that theaters in parts of the country were open, while others had to stay shut. In London, this critic’s diary was briefly filled with press night appointments that recalled the halcyon days of old. But now, as of Dec. 16, the city has entered the grim “Tier 3,” and that surge in activity has proved to be short-lived — at least for in-person performances, rather than events streamed via the internet.Theaters have responded to these whiplash changes with a nimbleness that wasn’t in evidence this time last year. (Equally improbable back then was the notion of socially distanced seating, with legroom worthy of an airline’s first class.) Shows have learned to be readily adaptable for online distribution: That was the path taken by “Death of England: Delroy,” the production chosen to reopen the National Theater, in November. Its opening night turned out to be the closing one, too, when the second national lockdown was announced, but it went out on YouTube later that month. That brought Roy Williams and Clint Dyer’s fiery solo play to audiences worldwide, and confirmed the prevailing awareness that smaller was better in these corona times.Playgoers at the Donmar Warehouse for “Blindness,” a reimagining of José Saramago’s 1995 novel as a sound installation heard through headphones.Credit…Helen MaybanksThroughout the pandemic, you had to marvel at the ability of theater people to follow the work, wherever it might lead. Juliet Stevenson, for instance, should by rights have spent much of this year leading the West End transfer of Robert Icke’s production of “The Doctor.” Instead, the stage veteran turned up first as a voice — experienced not live, but via headphones — in the astonishing Simon Stephens aural experience “Blindness,” and then as a droll Lillian Hellman in an online version of a gossipy American play called “Little Wars.” Caryl Churchill, a stalwart presence at the mighty Royal Court, was among the talents assembled for “The Lockdown Plays,” a series of podcasts in which the 82-year-old writer’s ongoing interest in the quietly apocalyptic came to the fore once again.While the last year has shown the folly of forecasts, 2021 would seem to portend better theatrical times ahead. Hopefully, Britain’s head start on the rest of the world with a vaccine suggests a return to cheek-by-jowl seating and full houses sometime next year.Without such confidence, Andrew Lloyd Webber wouldn’t be looking at a start of performances in late April for his new musical “Cinderella,” a major commercial venture set to open in the West End, even as Broadway will remain shuttered until May, at least. David Tennant, Megan Mullally and Adrian Lester are among the star names announced for some London openings during the first half of 2021. Their luster, with luck, will entice possibly wary playgoers to purchase tickets for live performance once again.Sure, we’ve learned to embrace Zoom and YouTube to savor virtual productions, which are preferable to none at all. But London feels ready to return to full theatrical form as soon as conditions allow — and if not? Well, this strange new normal should give Britain’s playwrights something to write about, for a long while to come.FranceLaura Cappelle, Paris Theater CriticOn paper, French theater has been relatively lucky in this pandemic year. Buoyed by high levels of public funding for the arts and rounds of government support, most venues resumed performances between the country’s first lockdown, from March to May, and the second, which started in late October. No major company or theater has been forced to close its doors permanently (yet). That’s more than many Western countries can say.Yet 2020 often felt like “Groundhog Day” — a never-ending grind of closures, reopenings, restrictions and curfews which, based on conversations with artists and administrators, has left many bone tired. Perceived slights to the culture sector, so integral to France’s identity, have bred resentment. While the country’s new culture minister, Roselyne Bachelot, appointed last July, scored points with the sector in the summer and early fall, the planned reopening of theaters and cinemas in December has now been postponed until January at the earliest, and the grumbling has returned.When theaters could welcome audiences, their hit rate seemed higher than in past seasons: Perhaps scarcity heightened the thill. In early October, the Comédie-Française troupe teamed up with the film director Christophe Honoré for “The Guermantes Way,” a Proust adaptation that struck the perfect balance between immersion and irreverence. At the Théâtre Gérard Philipe, Margaux Eskenazi and Alice Carré tackled the legacy of the Algerian decolonization war with great finesse in “And the Heart Is Still Steaming.”Comedy, meanwhile, often felt like a public service. From a warm reinvention of an 18th-century original (Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam’s “À l’Abordage!”) to the absurd humor of the excellent Chiens de Navarre collective, comedians played their part in keeping us sane.As happened everywhere else, streams of recorded productions mushroomed during the two lockdowns, but these felt like a consolation prize, rather than an area of genuine innovation. French theater is very attached to its extensive network of brick-and-mortar venues, and the priority was to get back to the stage.The cast of “Cabaret Under the Baclonies” performing for residents of the Ehpad Bois de Menuse nursing home in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, on May 26.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesOne notable exception was Marion Siéfert’s “Jeanne Dark,” billed as the first French play to be offered live and via Instagram simultaneously. Helena de Laurens, the superb lead, played a teenager who confides in her followers, in a long Instagram Live session, about her Catholic parents and joyless school life.At La Commune in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, where it was created in October, the audience witnessed de Laurens filming herself, while Instagram users saw the show in real time on Jeanne’s fictional account. “Jeanne Dark,” which is set to tour in 2021, wryly captures the gap between the two-dimensional feed and reality.This year has been a reminder that our definitions of theater are sometimes too narrow: Performances outside the big urban institutions are part of France’s culture, too. The first show to be staged after the spring lockdown, Léna Bréban’s “Cabaret Under the Balconies,” took place at a nursing home 200 miles from Paris, and I can’t think of a more fulfilling experience this year than sitting with the elderly residents to watch pared-down song and dance numbers after months of isolation.And if events that look a lot like performances are going to take precedence over theaters when coronavirus restrictions are eased, then they should probably be reviewed, too. The whiz-bang productions on offer at the Puy du Fou, a historical theme park, reopened early to much controversy, in June; in late November, the drama of the Catholic Mass returned to France’s churches, though playhouse doors remain shut.A critic’s job doesn’t have to stop when the curtain comes down. All the world’s a stage, after all.Germany and AustriaA.J. Goldmann, Berlin Theater CriticThis was the year when going to the theater became a matter of life and death: Who was willing to risk catching a deadly virus just to enjoy some Shakespeare?In the German-speaking world, as everywhere, theater was among the first causalities of the pandemic. One by one, premieres were canceled, then the festivals, too. It’s still unclear what the fate of all of those productions will be. But luckily, the future of the performing arts themselves doesn’t hang in the balance, as it seems to in other parts of the world.The deep conviction in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that art is valuable to society means that government-sponsored theater, opera and music has had a fighting chance of survival.Over the past nine months, I’ve marveled at the resilience. I’ve been heartened and impressed by the directors, managers and performers who worked creatively with restrictions to keep the show going under challenging circumstances.Quality varied greatly, as it always does, but what mattered most was that companies kept going — even when it meant preforming for a handful of audience members, or just for the cameras. Many playhouses began to cleverly redefine the theatrical experience itself, from developing online formats to performing in unusual locations and configurations. At the same time, streamed theater came of age, although it often sapped the experience of its live wire excitement and vitality.The pandemic forced me to be far less of a roving critic than usual. For the most part, I sheltered in place, in Munich. But summer and early fall, with their relative permissiveness, seem now like some long-ago idyll. Lockdown lifted, and I was free to travel — with P.P.E. and disinfectant, of course.Spectators reflected in mirrors watching Anne-Marie Lux, right, performing a scene in a cloakroom at the Stuttgart State Theaters as part of “We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On.”Credit…Bernhard WeisIn early June, the Stuttgart State Theaters, in the south of Germany, triumphantly drew back their curtains with a theatrical walkabout that was as momentous as it was meticulously executed. It was, without a doubt, the production of the year. Then came the defiant centenary edition of the Salzburg Festival, in Austria. It deserves a 21-gun salute for realizing its reduced but still formidable installment, which boasted two world premieres in its dramatic program, including one from a Nobel laureate. Subsequent stations for me included Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg — and then lockdown hit again.Critics are not in the predication business (except, maybe, when it comes to awards), so I’m not going to speculate about what 2021 might bring. In many places, the pandemic has proved a stress test for the arts and culture. Yet the coronavirus has not exposed fault lines and structural problems for the arts in the German-speaking world the way it has in the United States. When the public health crisis is over, there won’t be much need for the theaters, opera houses and orchestras here to “build back better.” That, in itself, is reason for optimism.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020Listen to our critics’ favorites from a year in which much of the energy in music came from recordings.Credit…The New York TimesAnthony Tommasini, Zachary Woolfe, Joshua Barone, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, David Allen and Dec. 17, 2020Thomas Adès: Berceuse from ‘The Exterminating Angel’“In Seven Days”; Kirill Gerstein, piano (Myrios)The composer Thomas Adès and the pianist Kirill Gerstein’s artistically fruitful friendship has given us two essential albums this year: the premiere recording of Mr. Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, featuring Mr. Gerstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon); and this one, which includes a solo arrangement of the harrowing and slippery Berceuse from Mr. Adès’s opera “The Exterminating Angel.” JOSHUA BARONEBerceuse from “The Exterminating Angel”Myrios◆ ◆ ◆Bach: Cello Suite No. 4, GigueBach: Complete Cello Suites (Transcribed for Violin); Johnny Gandelsman, violin (In a Circle)From the beginning of this movement, ornamented with the insouciance of folk music, it’s difficult to resist tapping along with your foot. That urge doesn’t really leave throughout the rest of the six cello suites, lithely rendered here on solo violin by Johnny Gandelsman. This is Bach in zero gravity: feather-light and freely dancing. JOSHUA BARONESuite No. 4, GigueIn a Circle◆ ◆ ◆Beethoven: Symphony No. 2, Allegro moltoBeethoven: Symphonies and Overtures; Vienna State Opera Orchestra and others; Hermann Scherchen, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The few new Beethoven symphonies released in this, his 250th birthday year, have largely offered more evidence for the drab state of interpretive tastes today. Not so the rereleases — above all this remastered and exceptionally bracing cycle that was eons ahead of its time when it first came out in the 1950s. Scherchen’s Beethoven — like this Second Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — is fast, sleek and astonishing detailed, as exciting as anything set down since. DAVID ALLENSymphony No. 2, Allegro moltoDeutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Nadia Boulanger: ‘Soir d’hiver’“Clairières: Songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger”; Nicholas Phan, tenor; Myra Huang, piano (Avie)After Lili Boulanger, the gifted French composer, died in 1918 at just 24, her devoted older sister Nadia suffered doubts about her own composing and turned to teaching. On this lovely recording, the tenor Nicholas Phan performs elegant songs by both sisters, ending with Nadia’s misty, rapturous “Soir d’hiver,” a 1915 setting of her poem about a young mother abandoned by her lover. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Soir d’hiver”Avie◆ ◆ ◆Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1, RomanceChopin: Piano Concertos; Benjamin Grosvenor, piano; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Elim Chan, conductor (Decca)There’s pianism of historic caliber on this release, and another mark of Mr. Grosvenor’s breathtaking maturity, even though he is still in his 20s. Summoning playing of pure poetry, he lavishes on these concertos all his lauded sensitivity, innate sense of pace and effortless way with phrasing. He’s matched bar for bar by Ms. Chan, an impressive young conductor who makes an occasion of orchestral writing that in other hands sounds routine. DAVID ALLENPiano Concerto No. 1, RomanceDecca◆ ◆ ◆Duke Ellington: ‘Light’“Black, Brown and Beige”; Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (Blue Engine)If Ellington’s 1943 Carnegie Hall performance of his “Black, Brown and Beige” remains matchless, its radio broadcast sound has dated, making the crispness of this faithful recent rendition worth savoring. Sterling interpretation and production values permit a fresh look at “Light,” including the elegant way Ellington weaves together motifs heard earlier in “Black,” just before a rousing finish. SETH COLTER WALLS“Light”Blue Engine◆ ◆ ◆Eriks Esenvalds: ‘Earth Teach Me Quiet’“Rising w/ the Crossing”; the Crossing (New Focus)Earlier this year, when singing together became just about the most dangerous thing you could do, Donald Nally, the magus behind the Crossing, our finest contemporary-music choir, began posting daily recordings from their archives. He called it “Rising w/ the Crossing,” also the title of an album of a dozen highlights. There’s David Lang’s eerily prescient reflection on the 1918 flu pandemic, performed last year, and Alex Berko’s stirring “Lincoln.” But I keep returning to Eriks Esenvalds’s dreamily unfolding appeal to the Earth, its text a prayer of the Ute people of the American Southwest: a work of true radiance, fired by the precision and passion of this spectacular group. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Earth Teach Me Quiet”New Focus◆ ◆ ◆Antoine Forqueray: ‘Jupiter’“Barricades”; Thomas Dunford, lute; Jean Rondeau, harpsichord (Erato)This is Baroque music as hard-rock jam: driving, intense, dizzying, two musicians facing off in a brash battle that raises both their levels. It is the raucous climax of an album that creates a new little repertory for lute and harpsichord duo, with arrangements of favorites and relative obscurities that highlight Thomas Dunford and Jean Rondeau’s sly, exuberant artistic chemistry. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Jupiter”Warner Classics◆ ◆ ◆Ash Fure: ‘Shiver Lung’“Something to Hunt”; International Contemporary Ensemble; Lucy Dhegrae and Alice Teyssier, vocalists (Sound American)I try not to be fussy with audio quality. But if anything calls for an exception, it’s this long-awaited collection of music by Ash Fure — works that experiment with how sounds are made and felt. So before hitting play, gather your focus, along with your best headphones or speakers, for an intensely visceral listening experience. JOSHUA BARONE“Shiver Lung”Sound American◆ ◆ ◆Handel: ‘Pensieri, voi mi tormentate’“Agrippina”; Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano; Il Pomo d’Oro; Maxim Emelyanychev, conductor (Erato)A shot of venom, boring its way into the brain: There are some arias that aim to soothe anxiety, but for pure cathartic transference of all the anger, fear and impotence that 2020 has sparked, this aria — “Thoughts, you torment me” — by the title character of Handel’s “Agrippina” is the ticket. The fiercely dramatic Joyce DiDonato brings her multihued mezzo and over-the-top embellishments to the music, while the period-instrument orchestra pushes things along with raw-edged insistence. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Pensieri, voi mi tormentate”Erato◆ ◆ ◆Handel: Harpsichord Suite No. 4, AllemandeHandel: Suites for Harpsichord; Pierre Hantaï, harpsichord (Mirare)Handel’s eight suites for harpsichord, published in 1720, haven’t always gotten as much attention or respect among performers as the keyboard works of Couperin, Rameau or, especially, Bach. Sometimes they’ve been viewed more or less as training exercises: good for technique but not quite sublime. Pierre Hantaï, known for his vivid Scarlatti, dispels the slightly derogatory preconceptions with suave danciness and lucid touch. ZACHARY WOOLFEHarpsichord Suite No. 4, AllemandeMirare◆ ◆ ◆David Hertzberg: ‘Is that you, my love?’“The Wake World”; Maeve Hoglund, soprano; Samantha Hankey, mezzo-soprano; Elizabeth Braden, conductor (Tzadik)With his playfully convoluted 2017 fairy tale opera “The Wake World,” David Hertzberg demonstrated that voluptuous, sweeping elements of grand opera could be reimagined for today. In the work’s swelling, shimmering climactic duet between a young seeker and her fairy prince, Ravel meets Messiaen, and Wagner meets Scriabin; the music is spiky, original and wondrous strange. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Is that you, my love?”Tzadik◆ ◆ ◆Nathalie Joachim: ‘Dam mwen yo’“Forward Music Project 1.0”; Amanda Gookin, cello (Bright Shiny Things)Even when brief and minimalist, Nathalie Joachim’s compositions cross complex ranges of emotion. Here, in a piece for cello (and vocals recorded by its composer), the somber cast of mood at the opening is complicated by a change in gait. The effect is akin to what you might feel inventing a new dance on the spot, while trudging through otherwise grim surroundings. SETH COLTER WALLS“Dam mwen yo”Bright Shiny Things◆ ◆ ◆George Lewis: ‘As We May Feel’“Breaking News”; Studio Dan (Hat Hut)Boisterous riffs and counter-riffs seem to suggest improvisatory practices; after all, this veteran artist has explored those practices. Yet George Lewis’s 25-minute joy ride is fully notated. And it was written for an Austrian ensemble which appreciates the chug and wail of Duke Ellington’s train-imitation music, as well as the rigors of extended-technique modernism. SETH COLTER WALLS“As We May Feel”Hat Hut◆ ◆ ◆Meredith Monk: ‘Downfall’“Memory Game”; Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble; Bang on a Can All-Stars (Cantaloupe Music)For almost 60 years, the composer and performer Meredith Monk has created works mainly for herself and her close circle, so it’s been an open question what will happen to those intricate, idiosyncratic pieces when she’s gone. This album of sympathetic but not slavish new arrangements — collaborations with the Bang on a Can collective — offers tantalizing experiments. The clarinetist Ken Thomson gives the hawing vocals of “Downfall,” part of Ms. Monk’s post-apocalyptic 1983 evening “The Games,” seductively sinister instrumental surroundings. ZACHARY WOOLFE“Downfall”Cantaloupe Music◆ ◆ ◆Tristan Perich: ‘Drift Multiply,’ Section 6“Drift Multiply” (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)Music emerges out of snowdrifts of white noise on this mesmerizing track. Tristan Perich is one of the most innovative tinkerers in electronic music, creating works of vibrant mystery. In “Drift Multiply,” 50 violins interact with 50 loudspeakers connected to as many custom-built circuit boards that channel the sound into one-bit audio. The result is a constantly evolving landscape where sounds coalesce and prism, where the violins both pull into focus and blur into a soothing ether. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Drift Multiply,” Section 6New Amsterdam◆ ◆ ◆Joseph C. Phillips Jr.: ‘Ferguson: Summer of 2014’“The Grey Land”; Numinous (New Amsterdam)Joseph C. Phillips Jr.’s “The Grey Land” is a stirring, stylistically varied mono-opera that draws on its composer’s reflections on being Black in contemporary America. The longest movement on the premiere recording makes an early textual reference to Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” while dramatizing an expectant couple’s unease in the wake of the death of Michael Brown. SETH COLTER WALLS“Ferguson: Summer of 2014”New Amsterdam◆ ◆ ◆Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2, Andantino“Silver Age”; Daniil Trifonov, piano; Mariinsky Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The thoughtful pianist Daniil Trifonov explores the music of Russia’s so-called “silver age” of the early 20th century on a fascinating album that offers various solo works and concertos by Scriabin, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. The spacious yet fiendishly difficult first movement of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto is especially exciting. ANTHONY TOMMASINIPiano Concerto No. 2, AndantinoDeutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Rameau: ‘The Arts and the Hours’“Debussy Rameau”; Vikingur Olafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon)Few musicians craft their albums with as much care as Vikingur Olafsson, whose “Debussy Rameau” is a brilliantly conceived, nearly 30-track conversation across centuries between two French masters. There is one modern intervention: Mr. Olafsson’s solo arrangement of an interlude from Rameau’s “Les Boréades” — tender and reverential, a wellspring of grace. JOSHUA BARONE“The Arts and the Hours”Deutsche Grammophon◆ ◆ ◆Jean-Féry Rebel: ‘Le Chaos’“Labyrinth”; David Greilsammer, piano (Naïve)In his riveting, aptly titled album “Labyrinth,” the formidable pianist David Greilsammer daringly juxtaposes pieces spanning centuries, from Lully to Ofer Pelz. The theme of the album is captured in Jonathan Keren’s arrangement of Rebel’s “Le Chaos,” which comes across like an early-18th-century venture into mind-spinning modernism. ANTHONY TOMMASINI“Le Chaos”Naïve◆ ◆ ◆Rebecca Saunders: ‘Still’“Musica Viva, Vol. 35”; Carolin Widmann, violin; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Ilan Volkov, conductor (BR-Klassik)A renowned figure on Europe’s experimental music scene, Rebecca Saunders builds teeming systems of shimmying severity from the sparest melodic materials. In this live recording of her violin concerto, Carolin Widmann excels in fulfilling the score’s contrasting requirements of delicacy and power. Helping judge the balance is the conductor Ilan Volkov, an artist American orchestras might consider working with. SETH COLTER WALLS“Still”BR-Klassik◆ ◆ ◆Schubert: ‘Des Fischers Liebesglück’“Where Only Stars Can Hear Us: Schubert Songs”; Karim Sulayman, tenor; Yi-heng Yang, fortepiano (Avie)Intimate, sweet-toned and more easily given to dry humor than its powerful keyboard successors, the fortepiano should be a natural choice for Schubert lieder. Yet recordings such as this exquisitely personal recital — with the clear-voiced tenor Karim Sulayman and the sensitive pianist Yi-heng Yang — are still rare. Listen to them weave a storyteller’s spell in this song about a nighttime tryst in a fishing boat, and marvel at the emotional arc they weave with the simplest of gestures. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Des Fischers Liebesglück”Avie◆ ◆ ◆Ethel Smyth: ‘The Prisoner Awakes’“The Prison”; Experiential Orchestra and Chorus; James Blachly, conductor (Chandos)Ethel Smyth, suffragist and composer, is among several female composers receiving fresh, deserved attention as the classical music industry tackles its diversity problem. If they all receive recordings as perfect as this account of her last major work, we will all benefit. Half symphony, half oratorio, “The Prison” includes this striking chorale prelude, with dark and light in the same bars, at its heart. DAVID ALLEN“The Prisoner Awakes”Chandos◆ ◆ ◆Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ‘Mikros’“Epicycle II”; Gyda Valtysdottir (Sono Luminus)A subterranean hall of mirrors lures in the listener in this deeply affecting three-minute track. Gyda Valtysdottir’s cello takes on the guise of a modern-day Orpheus and the spectral sounds of the underworld as she layers her performance on top of two prerecorded tracks. As this protagonist cello line sighs, heaves and slackens, the taped parts add fragmented scratch tones, whispers and tremors, evoking terrain both alluring and treacherous. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM“Mikros”Sono Luminus◆ ◆ ◆Joseph Wölfl: Piano Sonata in E, Allegro“The Beethoven Connection”; Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano (Chandos)No finer recording has emerged from the Beethoven celebration than this, and it has not a single work by Beethoven on it. Mr. Bavouzet’s inquisitive look at the musicians who were composing at the same time as their colleague and competitor features Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Jan Ladislav Dussek — but it’s the forgotten Joseph Wölfl, who once battled Beethoven in a duel of keyboard skills, who comes out best, in this immaculate, charming sonata. DAVID ALLENPiano Sonata in E, AllegroChandos◆ ◆ ◆[embedded content]AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Finding More Than Humbug in Scrooge and Company

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookFinding More Than Humbug in Scrooge and CompanyThis year a critic (and fan) of “A Christmas Carol” finds it especially resonant as a “timely study of what it truly means to be a decent person in a community.”CreditCredit…Manual CinemaPublished More

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      BBC’s ‘Pandemonium’ and Covid-19: Are We Ready to Laugh About the Virus?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAre We Ready to Laugh About Covid-19? A British Sitcom Hopes SoWith ‘Pandemonium,’ the BBC is betting that an audience will find humor in reliving the ordeals of a very awful year.The cast of the BBC comedy “Pandemonium,” set during the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Andrew Hayes Watkins/BBC StudiosDec. 16, 2020, 12:26 p.m. ETA British family is walking along a frigid beach, treating a fall vacation like it’s a restaurant entree everyone wants to send back to the kitchen. The whole expedition is a lame Plan B. The Jessups were originally going to Disneyland, followed by three days of hiking at Yosemite. Then the coronavirus struck and sunny California was out of the question. Now the clan is making do in Margate, a forlorn British seaside town that peaked decades ago.Paul Jessup, the paterfamilias, is depressed for a long list of reasons, including the loss of his job running an archery club. His wife, Rachel, is trying to remain upbeat and had hoped that the vacation would recharge the couple’s sex life. She packed an erotic outfit and a sex toy for just that purpose. But as the pair stand alone for a moment, Paul confesses that he just isn’t ready for it.“I love that you want to experiment with stuff,” he quietly tells her, “but I think I’ve gone off the idea of using the gear.”“Well, I wish I’d known that before squeezing it into the suitcase,” Rachel replies. “Leather is extremely difficult to fold, you realize.”Jim Howick and Katherine Parkinson, who play a married couple dealing with living through the pandemic, during filming in November.Credit…Andrew Hayes Watkins/BBC StudiosThis awkward exchange is brought to you by the BBC. It’s a scene from the pilot episode of “Pandemonium,” a half-hour comedy, set to air Dec. 30, that poses a bold question: Are we ready to laugh about Covid-19? Or rather, is there anything amusing, or recognizable in a humorous way, about life during a plague, with all of its indignities and setbacks, not to mention its rituals (clapping for health care workers) and rules (face masks, please).Television has already tackled life under quarantine, with shows such as “Connecting” on NBC and “Social Distance” on Netflix. But they focused on online conversations, largely restricting the characters to the cameras in front of their computers. “Pandemonium” is at once more conventional and bolder. The story unfolds in the family’s house, its car and then on vacation — a high-degree-of-difficulty venture in the midst of a pandemic.The challenges are evident on a brisk November afternoon, as the cast and crew mill around a railing by a stretch of beach in Margate. It is the final day of a six-day shoot, and the director, Ella Jones, is orchestrating a few takes of Paul (played by Jim Howick) explaining his sex toy change of heart to Rachel (Katherine Parkinson). Hair and makeup artists hover, a small production team arranges and tweaks cameras, microphones and monitors.As in every television production, the roughly 30 people at work here look like a nomadic tribe with a lot of expensive equipment. But Covid-19 has imposed a host of unusual restrictions and protocols. Everyone wears a colored wrist band. Red means you are part of the testing regime and can get close to the actors. Yellow means you are not part of the regime and must keep your time near the red bands to a minimum.As an added precaution, actors are prohibited from touching car door handles. A full-time production assistant, a sort of Covid cop, is charged with roaming the set and ensuring that virus protection rules are being followed.“I think she’s telling those people to stand farther apart from each other,” said Tom Basden, who wrote “Pandemonium” and plays Robin, Rachel’s depressed and chain-smoking brother. He was pointing to the woman policing coronavirus guidelines, who, it turned out, was squeezing sanitizer into the hands of a scrum of people.Tom Basden, who wrote “Pandemonium,” plays the depressed and chain-smoking character Robin.Credit…Andrew Hayes Watkins/BBC StudiosMr. Basden’s original script was Covid-19 free. The idea was to write a comedy about a family that was filmed entirely by the son — sometimes surreptitiously, usually not — with his video camera, a GoPro camera and a drone he bought himself. The lad was less a snoop than a budding documentarian. The conceit would give the standard family comedy a mockumentary twist.The BBC’s head of comedy, Shane Allen, greenlit the project, and until May, he resisted the idea that the show should even mention Covid-19. One of his goals is to make programs that feel ageless, ensuring a long run on iPlayer, the BBC’s increasingly popular on-demand platform. There were 3.1 billion iPlayer streams in the first six months of the year, up nearly 50 percent from 2019, the BBC reported in August.Shane Allen, the BBC’s head of comedy, initially resisted retooling the show to incorporate Covid-19, worried that it could make the show quickly feel dated.Credit…Alex Atack for The New York TimesInitially, Mr. Allen thought that a show centered around Covid-19 would quickly feel dated. But by May, the virus had killed so many and upended lives around the world in such a way that it had become both unnerving and familiar. On April 20, the Sun, a British tabloid, ran this unforgettable teaser on its front page: “596 dead. See page 4.”“By then, it felt like this huge political and social issue that we had to tackle,” he said in a recent interview. “We just needed to find a way to do it that was both cathartic and inoffensive.”Selling Mr. Basden on a Covid rewrite was easy.“I realized that there was a version of the story, which is about a California holiday not being taken because of coronavirus, that felt interesting to me,” Mr. Basden said. “I felt it had the potential to sum up the year for a lot of families in terms of what their experience has been, with all of the various disappointments along the way.”Whether Britons need a “cov-com,” as Mr. Allen dubbed the show, remains to be seen. Viewers may prefer to watch anything but a reflection of what they have just lived through. If you’re looking for pure escapism, a show in which a doctor on television is heard intoning, “Stay inside, wash your hands, follow the guidelines,” isn’t for you. Alternatively, the show could turn the ordeals imposed by Covid into bittersweet entertainment by demonstrating just how universal their effect has been.The show starts at a moment that now feels like eight years ago — namely, early 2020. The Jessups are booking their flights to California and Paul decides not to spend another $30 or so per ticket for refundable fares.“We’re not going to cancel,” he tells his wife. “That’s just a scam to make idiots pay more money.”The upbeat mood evaporates as the virus arrives. It shuts down Paul’s archery club, rendering him jobless. Robin, Mr. Basden’s character, is jilted by a woman who leaves him for her personal trainer. Now-familiar tensions and debates surface. At first, Paul’s mother, Sue, won’t take the virus seriously, exasperating her son. She also refuses to join in nationwide applause for National Health Service workers on Thursday nights.“Clapping?” she asks Paul, outraged at the thought. “After they cancel my hip replacement? Are you mad? I’m the only one on my street booing.”There are jokes that would fly over the heads of an American audience, like a reference to Dominic Cummings, the since-dismissed adviser to Boris Johnson, who made headlines by flouting lockdown rules. Other bits suggest that the United States still has substantial cultural heft here. When Paul tries to convince his daughter, Amy (Freya Parks), that he is woke, he proves it by noting that he read and loved Michelle Obama’s book.For the BBC, the show isn’t the sort of gamble that it would be for any other British or U.S. network. The Beeb, as it is known, is supported by taxpayers, who are required by law to hand over the equivalent of $210 dollars a year for a license to watch live television. (Yes, watching without a license is a criminal offense, and it can cost offenders about $1,300 in fines plus court costs.) But the show is an ambitious bet. It will air on BBC1, essentially the nation’s default network and home to the programming with the broadest appeal. A comedy that finds an audience on BBC1 can turn into a cultural institution.“There’s a lot of risk and a lot of failure when it comes to comedy,” said Mr. Allen. “But the things that do well stick around for years. Last year, Monty Python turned 50, and the surviving cast members did 10 sold-out shows at the O2 Arena. No other genre has longevity like that. Monty Python episodes are evergreens.”“There’s a lot of risk and a lot of failure when it comes to comedy,” said Mr. Allen. “But the things that do well stick around for years.”Credit…Alex Atack for The New York TimesIf the pilot for “Pandemonium” gets good ratings and credible reviews, a full season will be ordered and it will begin filming sometime next year.Putting together the pilot was, for obvious reasons, complicated. To keep preproduction, in-person meetings to a minimum, several members of the cast auditioned by sending homemade recordings of themselves reading their lines into a mobile phone.“I sat in my bedroom and put my iPhone on a tripod and my girlfriend read the other character,” said Jack Christou, who plays Ben, the Jessups’ son and budding videographer. “Then I sent it off to my agent and waited.”Soon he was getting a Covid test so that he could join other cast members for a few days of reading through the script at a BBC studio in White City, a district of London. Executives watched via Zoom. The Jessups’ home was filmed in Mill Hill, a suburb of London, over the course of three days. The wristband system was introduced, and anyone with a red band was tested daily. Yellow bands could enter the house for a few minutes if the actors were not in it.“I was doing a shoot in Cornwall for another show, and they had to close it down because someone came down with Covid,” Mr. Basden said. “I think that has happened quite a lot, particularly on shoots that are for any length of time. We’re lucky this is just six days.”The last three days were shot in Margate with the actors staying at a hotel where all the indoor common space was closed off. Many of the show’s vacation scenes take place outdoors, which curtailed Covid anxiety. The final scene shot on the last day of production follows the Jessups as they digest the news, read to them by Amy on her mobile phone, that Britain is going into its second lockdown, the one that started in October. Two members of the family decide on the spot that it’s time to end this cursed vacation.“No, we are not going home!” Rachel shouts. “Let’s just press on for as long as we legally can.”The scene was repeated a few times, with the director offering notes between each take. After the last one, the show officially wrapped, and the cast and crew whooped, celebrated and congratulated each other. Many couldn’t help offering Covid-be-damned hugs. Actors and crew posed on the beach for a photographer who wanted to capture the moment before everyone went home.“Put on your masks,” someone in the bunch said. “The BBC is going to see this.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      New York City Cultural Groups Awarded More Than $47 Million in Grants

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York City Cultural Groups Awarded More Than $47 Million in GrantsThe Department of Cultural Affairs announced Tuesday that more than 1,000 of the city’s cultural organizations would receive the funds.The Apollo Theater is among the organizations that will receive a grant of more than $100,000 in this round of funding by the Department of Cultural Affairs.Credit…David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesDec. 15, 2020, 2:16 p.m. ETIn a year filled with layoffs and budget cuts, New York City’s cultural institutions got some good news on Tuesday: The Department of Cultural Affairs announced that it would award $47.1 million in its newest round of grants, which this year will go to more than 1,000 of the city’s nonprofit organizations.The grants include $12.6 million in new investments, nearly $10 million of which is designated for coronavirus pandemic relief and arts education initiatives. Funding will increase over the prior year for grantees, including larger increases for smaller organizations, the department said.The allotment includes a $3 million increase for 621 organizations in low-income neighborhoods and those most affected by the pandemic, and $2 million for five local arts councils that will distribute the funds to individual artists and smaller nonprofits. Twenty-five organizations providing arts education programming will receive a share of $750,000 allotted for that purpose.The Apollo Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Chinese in America will be among the 93 organizations to receive some of the largest grants, in excess of $100,000 each. Both the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, which recently made headlines for negotiations with their unions, will receive grants over $100,000. The funding will go to 1,032 nonprofits in total.The department also made changes to its process that will make it easier for organizations to receive multiyear grants, which had previously only been available to groups with annual budgets of more than $250,000. Nearly all of the groups that received funding for the fiscal year ending in June 2021 will receive support at a comparable level for the year ending in 2022, pending the adoption of the city’s budget, the department said.A Covid-19 impact survey the department commissioned this spring found that smaller organizations were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic and that, at the beginning of May, 11 percent of arts organizations over all did not think they would survive the pandemic. Smaller organizations generally lack the endowments and wealthy donors that offer a safety net, to some degree, for larger institutions.“We can’t address the enormous challenges that lie ahead alone, but we’ve focused on providing long-term stability to the smaller organizations that are most vulnerable to the impacts of Covid-19,” Gonzalo Casals, the Cultural Affairs Commissioner, said in a statement.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More