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      As Venues Reopen, Will Streamed Theater Still Have a Place?

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      The shutdown allowed increased access and artistic experimentation. But how much sticks is an open, and contested, question.If you were marshaling evidence that streaming theater can pay off, look no further than the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, which sold 35,000 tickets and grossed over $3 million during the pandemic from magic shows and other performances that could be watched at home.As quickly as you could say “Pick a card, any card,” that’s changed, reports Matt Shakman, the company’s artistic director. “The ticket desire started to drop precipitously as the country was opening up,” he said recently of the digital initiative. “It was absolutely born of a moment that I hope we don’t find ourselves back in. So I don’t know how relatable it is as we move forward.”Sean Patrick Flahaven, the chief theatricals executive for Concord, which licenses plays for production, has observed a similar shift.“In the last few months, the requests for either virtual or digital performances from streaming have really dropped off dramatically,” he said. “They’re still happening, but it’s maybe 10 percent of the requests that we get.”But theater is not beating a full retreat to the Before Days. And those who believe that streaming increased geographic and economic access to an art form often seen as exclusive and remote vociferously contend that it shouldn’t. Spirited arguments have erupted over the relationship between theater and screens — down to an ongoing debate about what to call the new hybrid forms, if not theater.In fact, the live theater shutdown underscores that streaming itself is not as monolithic as it once was.A live show conceived for the digital realm is very different from, say, a fully staged performance filmed in an empty theater. Definitions shift: Through Aug. 31, for example, the streaming platform Broadway On Demand is presenting a festival of shorts that “highlight the combination of theater and film — i.e., theatrical content, films based on scripts, or content filmed in a theater.”And then there are the means of distribution, and the fees and stipulations that go with them: The Music Theater International licensing agency distinguishes between livestream, scheduled content and on-demand when granting the right to put on a show.At first, the actor and playwright John Cariani wanted to allow only livestreaming for his plays, which include the popular “Almost, Maine,” because, as he said in an email, “livestreamed events keep the live element of theater intact.”Then he realized that might be tricky in parts of the country with spotty broadband coverage. “I changed my position and asked people who wanted to do my plays to make every effort to livestream,” he said, “but to record and stream at a later date and time if that was the better option.”Reflecting this diversity, many companies are trying different approaches. While the Geffen is putting on an in-person season, it’s not entirely retreating from the online realm and is working with the digital maven Jared Mezzocchi, with whom it created the show “Someone Else’s House,” on a site-specific project involving NASA.Several companies in the United States and in Britain are unrolling hybrid seasons that integrate digital and in-person shows. One reason is sadly pragmatic: “If things start to get worse and the Delta variant starts to become more prevalent and the numbers start going up, I think people are going to have to use streaming,” said John Prignano, the chief operating officer and director of education and development at Music Theater International.But many theaters also want to incorporate online strategies into a new way of working.“Would we want to just be a streaming theater?” asked Martin Miller, executive director of TheaterSquared in Fayetteville, Ark. “No. But it did start to feel additive to us when we started having performances in person again this April, because we were still having people streaming the shows. So it was no longer a question about what was lost but what was gained.”The company certainly earned national recognition when such online productions as “Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy” were reviewed by outlets all over the country, including The New York Times.From left: Belén Moyano, Jennifer Ledesma, Michelle Jasso and Sara Ornelas in the TheaterSquared production of “American Mariachi,” which audiences can see online or at the theater’s Arkansas home.Philip ThomasTheaterSquared’s current offering, José Cruz González’s “American Mariachi,” is available both in person and online, and the company expects to do the same for its premiere of the Linda Bloodworth-Thomason play “Designing Women” in September. Theaterworks Hartford and Baltimore Center Stage are following suit for their coming seasons.Broadway performances are still off the streaming table, but in New York, the prestigious Second Stage Theater is introducing a pilot program in which select performances of this fall’s Off Broadway production of Rajiv Joseph’s “Letters of Suresh” can be streamed by subscribers who can’t attend the show in person.Hybrid plans are in place at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and at the family-friendly New Victory Theater, which is building up its successful online New Victory Arts Breaks, a series of free interactive artistic activities for kids that was picked up by PBS’s Camp TV.“In a given year, we see 100,000 people live; in a year where we’re remote, we’re going to have served a million people,” said Russell Granet, president and chief executive of the theater’s parent organization, New 42. The New Victory is planning to make all of the new season’s shows available on-demand for $25.“Our business model is forever changed in a good way as a result of this past year,” Granet added.Also pursuing a dual model are such major British institutions as the Young Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe and the Chichester Festival Theater, which announced six performances for which audiences around the world could watch its current production of “South Pacific.”The Chichester Festival is making several performances of its production of “South Pacific” available on-demand.Johan PerssonDaniel Evans, Chichester’s artistic director, mentioned another reason for capturing productions, even if they don’t end up livestreamed: “We want to build up our library in case there comes a point where we are able to have our own platform, so we have a bank of work ready to share,” he said, mentioning the National Theater’s hugely popular At Home program.Having a stash of digital shows can be very handy, as Lincoln Center Theater demonstrated when it started streaming newly edited captures of some of its Off Broadway hits like “The Wolves.”This reflects the fact that whereas productions used to have a clear-cut beginning and end — opening, closing and then gone forever — they can now move through various stages. For Marc Kirschner, co-founder of the Marquee TV platform, the relationship between in-person, livestreaming and on-demand will be similar to that of movies’ old trajectory, when they went from theaters to premium cable to broadcast.“The live-ticket purchase is the ultimate purchase,” Kirschner said. “Eventually we’re going to start seeing a ticketed premiere window, and then move those programs whenever possible or whenever worthwhile into our subscription service.”Similarly, the long-held belief that filming a show cannibalizes its potential live audience seems to have been put to rest, with hit productions now becoming available onscreen while they are still running.The musical “Come From Away” was filmed in May at its regular home, the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, and premieres Sept. 10 on Apple TV+. Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over” is on Broadway, even though Spike Lee’s capture of the 2017 Steppenwolf Theater production has been streaming on Amazon for the past couple of years.Digital theater’s greatest asset remains access — the one word which came up in every conversation on the subject of streaming.“Historically there are building-based companies that exclude audiences, and digital theater is a space where many are finding more hospitable and affordable ways of interacting with art,” the playwright Caridad Svich, who has embraced new technologies, wrote in an email.Jennifer Wang and Mariam Albishah in Caridad Svich’s “The Book of Magdalene.” In her review, Laura Collins-Hughes said the “spare and immediate” drama, shot at Main Street Theater in Houston, felt “every inch a play.”via Main Street TheaterExpanded access also applies to theatermakers, for whom online can mean lower overheads. Ultimately, whether online theater endures ultimately depends on the X factor: creativity. There, too, signs are encouraging: We have come such a long way since those Spring 2020 days of glitchy Zoom readings that just a year later, the digital production “Circle Jerk” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama.“As a playwright, I find live cinema, digital-only and hybrid digital performance to be a thrilling space for exploration and innovation,” Svich said. “There is also a new generation of theatermakers on TikTok, YouTube and other platforms perfectly at ease with the fluidity of digitally native performances that are challenging the field with their inventiveness and skill.”Now we just need to figure out what to call all this new stuff. More

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      Lend Us Your Ears, and Don’t Forget Your Farm Boots

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      Seeing a play at Willow Wisp Organic Farm in Damascus, Pa., has a simple but highly recommended dress code: sturdy shoes.At the farm, which recently finished a run of a site-specific play about climate change, the boundless stage includes a courtyard lined with hydrangeas, greenhouses and a field of flowers. Over four nights last week, audience members trekked the outdoors there, walking from scene to scene, as the actors, musicians and stilt walkers performed in vibrant, whimsical costumes.The performance is the second installment of a decade-long series, “Dream on the Farm,” in which the Farm Arts Collective, whose home is on the 30 acres, plans to produce one play a year centered on climate change.“This is an intense and troubled time and as an organic farmer and theater maker, we’ve got to keep making work about this issue,” said Tannis Kowalchuk, the ensemble’s artistic director, who started the farm — which sits just across the river from New York — with her husband, Greg Swartz. (They sell their wares at the Union Square and Grand Army Plaza farmers’ markets.)Tannis Kowalchuk, artistic director of Farm Arts Collective, directed the show. She is also a co-owner of Willow Wisp Organic Farm with her husband, Greg Swartz.Jess Beveridge, left, and Annie Hat at a rehearsal in June. The show was the second of 10 annual plays about climate change that the collective is planning to perform.A rehearsal inside a Farm Arts Collective greenhouse on a rainy day. The collective is a group of artists and farmers. This year’s play transported guests into an “Alice in Wonderland”-esque fantasy in which two scientists, the astronomer Carl Sagan and the biologist Lynn Margulis, are brought back from the dead to help save life on Earth from the climate disaster. Audience members watch as Sagan encounters eccentric characters representing the atmosphere and the hydrosphere, as well as a man trying to find a way to escape the planet through space travel. The rest of the group followed the Margulis character on the other side of the farm. (The audience was split into two to avoid overcrowding.)At the end of the show, the audience of about 80 people received chilled cucumber soup made from ingredients grown on the land.Audience members walked from scene to scene, including through a corridor of painted fabric, essentially going on a walking tour of the farm.Audience members made their way to the next act.An assistant director’s notes and a snack from the harvest table.Waiting in the wings: Daniel Lendzain chilled out before making his entrance on opening night.It was the job of Simon Kowalchuk-Swartz (son of Kowalchuk and Swartz), to transport the musical instruments. The pianist Doug Rogers, left, also helped compose original music, and the guitarist Melissa Bell helped write the play.But the reality of the pandemic burst the fantasy bubble on Sunday after one of the people in the accompanying band tested positive for the coronavirus, despite having been vaccinated, and the arts collective decided to cancel the fifth and final performance.Kowalchuk said she hopes the play will be performed again, though. She has imagined bringing it to New York City, where the ensemble might be able to find a new stage in a park or botanical garden.The “Alice in Wonderland”-esque play posed a question: Is it better to look at climate change through a wide angle lens or a microscope?Marguerite Boissonnault played the character Fungus.Gregg Erickson played the character Hydrosphere.Cast members, including Hudson Williams-Eynon, center, in white, faced off in a tug-of-war.Williams-Eynon, Beveridge and the rest of the cast took a bow after a performance. More

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      Chicago Improv Was Dead. Can New Leaders Revive It?

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      The past year left the city’s two most prominent institutions reeling. Now, outsiders are helping to guide the re-emergence of these celebrated comedy centers.CHICAGO — Fourteen months after iO Theater closed its doors because of the pandemic, a move that seemed temporary at the time, the storied improv center looked as though it had been frozen in time, the calendar stuck on March 2020.In front of one stage, chairs were arranged around small round tables covered with a layer of dust. A grocery list in a back room reminded employees to buy more olives and baked potatoes. In the hall, handwritten signs directed audience members where to line up for shows.“This hallway used to be so crowded that I’m sure it was a fire-code disaster,” Charna Halpern, the theater’s co-founder, said as she surveyed the barren corridor recently.In June 2020, Halpern decided that the hallway would stay empty. The theater’s income had plummeted to zero amid the shutdown, bills were piling up and nearly 40 years after she helped start iO, Halpern announced that she was ready to close it permanently.The theater wasn’t the only one in an existential crisis. That same month, performers of color there and at Second City — the two most prominent improv institutions in the city, where the modern version of the art form was born — spoke publicly about their experiences with racism, inequity and a persistent lack of diversity at the theaters.The space at iO Theater is left as it was in March 2020, when it shut down because of the pandemic.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesThen, less than a week apart, both iO and Second City were put up for sale, heightening anxiety among performers who were already worried about improv’s post-pandemic future. Could improv be saved in the city where aspiring comedians flock to learn and perform, as stars like Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Keegan-Michael Key had?The short answer is yes. Less than a year after the businesses went on the market, buyers who believe in Chicago improv stepped up. Both are industry newcomers: Second City is now owned by a New York-based private equity firm and iO by a pair of local real estate executives.Decades of history and cultural relevance are part of what made these theaters appealing acquisitions, but after calls for transformational change, a new era of leadership is now grappling with how much of the old improv culture they want to preserve and how much they are willing to give up. At iO, criticism of its lack of racial diversity and equity has gone unaddressed during the theater’s year of uncertainty. And although Second City is back with regular shows and a plan to transform itself into an antiracist company, there is some skepticism among performers and students that this effort at reform will be different than previous attempts (a diversity coordinator has been in place since at least 2002, for example, and a revue with a notably diverse cast ran in 2016, though all the performers of color quit before it was over).“We want it to be good; it’s our home,” said Rob Wilson, an improviser who has been in Chicago’s comedy scene for a decade. “You’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt, but you’re also not going to be afraid to leave if it goes south.”Second City’s New BeginningLast fall, when Jon Carr, an improv veteran, was named Second City’s new executive producer — the company’s top creative role — his peers asked him the same question: “Why did you take that job?”The 62-year-old institution had just been the subject of a deluge of complaints from performers of color, who told stories of being demeaned, marginalized, tokenized and cast aside. As a result, the chief executive and executive producer, Andrew Alexander, abruptly resigned that summer.Still, Carr decided to take the offer, making him the second Black executive producer in the company’s history. (The first was Anthony LeBlanc, who had served in the role on an interim basis after Alexander’s resignation.)Carr told the people who had asked about the job that despite the pressure and inevitable stress it would bring, it presented an opportunity to change a company whose leaders had already pledged to “tear it all down and begin again.”“This is the thing that people will be talking about 40, 50 years from now,” he said. “We have the opportunity to shape that history.”Parisa Jalili, Second City’s chief operating officer.Jermaine Jackson Jr. for The New York TimesJon Carr, Second City’s new executive producer, its top creative role.Jermaine Jackson Jr. for The New York TimesSitting in a booth at Second City’s restaurant in Old Town a week after the company reopened in May, Carr and Parisa Jalili, the chief operating officer who had been promoted amid the criticism, ticked off some of the steps the company had taken to meet the calls for change.It documented the complaints and hired a human-resources consulting firm to evaluate them; it re-evaluated the photos in the lobby extolling mainly white performers and labeled offensive sketches and jokes in its expansive archive; it put into writing what the company is looking for in auditions to try to prevent bias in the process.​​“We were able to do it all quickly because we were much smaller and more agile being shut down,” Jalili said.The company also had to ensure that it survived the pandemic. Online improv classes were made permanent, raising revenue by opening up the potential customer base to the entire globe, rather than to only those who could show up to their sites in Chicago, Hollywood and Toronto. Then, in February, Second City was acquired by a private equity group, ZMC.The deal made some performers even more skeptical that Second City could return better than before. What would it mean for the company to be owned by an investment firm with no track record in comedy?Jordan Turkewitz, a managing partner at ZMC, said in an interview that the firm’s role as an investor was not to dictate decisions or get involved in minutiae; it’s to ask questions, offer advice and financially support the company’s growth.iO Theater, ResurrectedSecond City is holding several live shows a week, but for iO, a reopening is much further out.Many employees are desperate to return, said Scott Gendell, a real estate executive who bought iO last month with his longtime friend Larry Weiner. But there is no clear reopening date on the horizon, he said.Right now, the new owners are taking it slow, interviewing operating partners who will help run the theater and control its creative side.“We’re being very delicate and very cautious about reopening because you don’t want to crash and burn,” Gendell said.Gendell is the type of lifelong Chicagoan who can’t stand seeing the city’s trademark businesses shut down (“I’m still ticked off that Marshall Field’s went away,” he said). When he heard that Halpern had put iO up for sale, he and Weiner decided to buy it to preserve what they view as an important cultural institution.But some performers are interested less in an iO preserved in amber from 2020 and more in an iO that embraces radical change when it comes to diversity.The new iO owners are searching for operating partners.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesFor now, the theater is dark.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesOn June 9, 2020, five improvisers who had taken classes or performed there posted a petition calling on the theater to address entrenched problems of institutional racism. They told The Chicago Tribune of “bungled or inadequate past efforts at diversity, an unwelcoming attitude to performers and students of color, and problematic behavior by staffers.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The five improvisers pledged not to perform at iO until its management met a series of demands, including hiring a diversity and inclusion coordinator.The next day, Halpern sent a note to the protesters offering a broad and earnest apology for the institution’s “failings.” But just over a week later, Halpern announced that iO was shutting down, frustrating performers who thought the theater was on the verge of substantial change. Halpern said the reason was the financial implications of the pandemic — not the protests.Gendell said he was not ready to outline a plan for addressing these concerns before they brought on an operating partner but said that they were searching for partners in “diverse communities.”“We’re fair-minded people, and I have confidence in my value system,” he said.Performers Choose Their Own PathsIf iO and Second City want to fix the problems that have plagued them for decades, both institutions will need to convince comedians of varied backgrounds that they are places worth returning to.In June 2020, as the stories of discrimination became public, Julia Morales, a Black Puerto Rican comedian who had performed at Second City and iO for years, thought to herself, “These theaters have really disappointed me. Do I want to go back to this?”Her answer was to create something new. She scrounged up less than $2,000 and started Stepping Stone Theater, a nonprofit that she imagined would focus more on supporting performers of color and less on the bottom line. It is one of a few new improv ventures that have sprung up in the city in the past year.So far, Morales has chosen to maintain some ties with Second City. In May, she was onstage improvising in the company’s first post-pandemic program, and next month, her group and Second City are collaborating on a show. Even though the theater had disappointed her, she said, she didn’t think the way forward was to shut it out.Others, like the comedians Shelby Wolstein and Nick Murhling, have left Chicago to find opportunities in Los Angeles or have given up on big comedy institutions altogether. And some who have chosen to stay are unconvinced that there has been substantial change.“I won’t trust it until I see it for myself,” said Kennedy Baldwin, who started last month in a Second City fellowship that offers tuition-free training to a diverse group of actors and improvisers.Second City is now holding several shows a week.Jermaine Jackson Jr. for The New York TimesAmong performers who are intent on seeing the institution change, it is crucial to diversify the audience as well, which tends to skew older and whiter. These performers aren’t thrilled with the new ticket pricing system, which Second City started testing shortly before the pandemic.The system, called dynamic ticket pricing, calculates prices based on the time of the show and number of tickets left. The cheapest tickets cost $25 each, but with growing interest in the return of live theater and lower-than-usual ticket inventory because of the pandemic, they can run much higher. This Saturday, tickets for the 7 p.m. shows are about $90 each.Some performers worry that raising ticket prices will help maintain the status quo.“How can I make this a show that makes people feel included and have an audience that reflects how we look?” asked Terrence Carey, a Second City performer who is Black.A spokeswoman for Second City, Colleen Fahey, said the ticket pricing model is helpful in allowing the company to recoup revenue after a 14-month shutdown. She added that customers still have access to cheaper tickets.At iO, Olivia Jackson, one of the creators of the petition, said she was eager to meet with the new owners to discuss the issues her group raised. After that, she would determine whether to return to iO. If she decided against it, she could always turn to one of the newer, scrappier operations.“There are so many insanely talented people in Chicago who really love improv,” she said. “Chicago improv will be OK.” More

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      in Television

      Cecily Strong Is Starting a New Conversation

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      The “Saturday Night Live” star shares the story of her pandemic experience and a life touched by grief in “This Will All Be Over Soon.”RHINEBECK, N.Y. — It’s hard to think of Cecily Strong and not be reminded of the effusive television characters she plays. If you’re a “Saturday Night Live” fan, you immediately conjure up her exuberant performance as a soused Jeanine Pirro crooning “My Way” while she dunks herself in a tank of wine. Or if you’ve been watching her on the Apple TV+ musical comedy “Schmigadoon!,” you think of her belting out modern-day show tunes praising the pleasures of corn pudding or smooching with a suitor. More

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      in Music

      Lincoln Center Names Shanta Thake as its New Artistic Leader

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      Shanta Thake, a theater executive, faces challenges that include helping the center embrace new genres and attract virus-wary audiences.Feeling the pressure to attract new audiences and rethink its offerings even before being upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Lincoln Center announced on Tuesday that it had chosen a theater executive with a reputation for working across disciplines as its next artistic leader.Shanta Thake, most recently an associate artistic director at the Public Theater, will assume the role of chief artistic officer at the center, the nation’s largest performing arts complex, as it works to broaden its appeal beyond classical music and ballet into genres such as hip-hop, poetry and songwriting.Thake — who at the Public spent a decade managing Joe’s Pub, a cabaret-style venue, and more recently began overseeing Under the Radar, Public Works and other programs there — said she was eager to bring more popular and world music to Lincoln Center.“The goal is expansive reach,” Thake, 41, said in an interview. “What’s missing? What have we left out? What stories aren’t we telling that feel like they’re demanding to be told in this moment?”Lincoln Center is the landlord of the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and other independent institutions, which are responsible for their own programming. But it is also a presenting organization in its own right, putting on hundreds of events each year and running the Mostly Mozart and White Light festivals, which have been primarily devoted to the classical arts. The center and its constituent organizations have competed, sometimes tensely, for rehearsal and performance space, ticket sales and donations.Thake will oversee the work Lincoln Center presents, and said in the interview that its robust classical offerings would be maintained. “We’re not looking to erase history here,” she said.But center officials say they are still working out the future of Mostly Mozart, which was put on hold amid the pandemic, other than a few small events this week. In 2017, as it grappled with budgetary constraints, the center dissolved the Lincoln Center Festival to focus on reinventing Mostly Mozart, its summertime sibling.Thake, who starts next month, replaces Jane Moss, who played a key role in programming for nearly three decades and stepped down as artistic director last year — and who also came from a theater background. (The chief artistic officer title is a new one.) Thake joins the center at one of the most challenging moments since it opened in 1962. Its woes predate the coronavirus: It struggled for years from leadership churn and money problems.Then the pandemic wiped away tens of millions in revenue and forced the cancellation of hundreds of events. About half of Lincoln Center’s staff of 400 was furloughed or laid off, and its top leaders took pay cuts.While many workers have been rehired and indoor performances are set to resume in the fall, the center will likely be grappling with the financial fallout for years. It remains to be seen whether audiences will return at prepandemic levels, especially given the recent spread of the Delta variant of the virus.Henry Timms, Lincoln Center’s president and chief executive, said the organization had turned to Thake for her experience programming creatively across genres. “We wanted someone who could kind of help us think about some new territory,” he said.Timms said the virus would continue to pose a challenge for the center’s artistic ambitions, but added that he believed audiences were eager to return. “There will be a great deal of demand for what we do and there will be a great deal of re-imagination,” he said.As infections have eased in recent months and vaccines have become widely available, Lincoln Center has started to come back to life, building several outdoor stages and transforming its plaza into a summer gathering place by covering it in a synthetic lawn. When indoor performances resume, the center plans to require vaccines for audience members, production staff and artists. Children under 12 will not be permitted to attend performances since they are currently not eligible for vaccines.Thake said she saw her mission as, in part, to “lift up the city that is still reeling from the ongoing trauma” of the pandemic. She said Lincoln Center could play a role in helping smaller arts organizations, for example by sharing best practices for reopening venues.“Hopefully we can make it to the other side all together,” she said.Thake, whose mother is Indian and whose father is white, said she was committed to presenting artists who represent a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Cultural institutions have in general been slow to respond to demands for a reckoning over racial justice in the United States. But Lincoln Center is one of the few arts organizations to show substantial progress in bringing more diversity to its upper ranks. People of color now make up about half of its leadership team. More

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      in Movies

      Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney Over ‘Black Widow’ Release

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      The star said making the film available on Disney+ at the same time it opened in theaters “dramatically” lowered box office revenue, which could cost her tens of millions of dollars.Never cross a super-assassin: Scarlett Johansson, who has played the Marvel character Black Widow in eight blockbuster films, sued the Walt Disney Company on Thursday over its pandemic-era streaming strategy. The lawsuit marked a sharp escalation in a festering standoff between movie actors and media companies over compensation in the streaming age.The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims that Disney breached her contract when it released “Black Widow” simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ earlier this month. Ms. Johansson’s suit said that Disney had promised that “Black Widow” would receive an exclusive release in theaters for approximately 90 to 120 days and that her compensation — based largely on bonuses tied to ticket sales — was gutted as a result of the hybrid release. Simultaneous availability on Disney+, where subscribers could watch the film instantly (and have permanent access to it) for a $30 surcharge, “dramatically decreased box office revenue,” Ms. Johansson said in the suit.“There is no merit whatsoever to this filing,” Disney said in a statement.Over its first three days in theaters, “Black Widow” collected $158 million at theaters worldwide and took in about $60 million on Disney+ Premier Access. Total ticket sales now stand at $327 million, the lowest total for a Marvel Studios release since 2008, when “The Incredible Hulk” collected $265 million (or $341 million in today’s dollars). Disney has not given a running total for Disney+ sales of “Black Widow.”Making “Black Widow” available on Disney+ could cost Ms. Johansson more than $50 million, according to two people briefed on her contract, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private agreement. That is how much Ms. Johansson would have made if “Black Widow” had approached $1 billion in global ticket sales; “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” both exceeded that threshold in prepandemic release.Films released during the pandemic — including those that have received exclusive theatrical releases — have largely disappointed at the box office, with many consumers demonstrating a reluctance to return to theaters. The entire film ecosystem has been hurt as a result: cinema chains, stars, studios.Disney has cited the coronavirus as a reason for releasing movies like “Black Widow” simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access.Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios, via Disney“First, Disney wanted to lure the picture’s audience away from movie theaters and towards its own streaming service, where it could keep the revenues for itself while simultaneously growing the Disney+ subscriber base, a proven way to boost Disney’s stock price,” the suit, which was first reported on by The Wall Street Journal, claimed. “Second, Disney wanted to substantially devalue Ms. Johansson’s agreement and thereby enrich itself.”Disney’s statement called the lawsuit “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.” The company added, “Disney has fully complied with Ms. Johansson’s contract and furthermore, the release of ‘Black Widow’ on Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation on top of the $20 million she has received to date.”“Black Widow” was initially scheduled for exclusive theatrical release in May of last year. Disney ended up postponing the film’s release three times as the pandemic dragged on.Disney, citing the ongoing coronavirus threat, ultimately decided to release several major movies simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access. It used the strategy in May for “Cruella,” which starred Emma Stone and took in $221 million worldwide. (Disney has kept Disney+ revenue for “Cruella” a secret.) On Friday, Disney will give the same treatment to “The Jungle Cruise,” a comedic adventure that stars Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson. It is not known if Ms. Stone, Ms. Blunt or Mr. Johnson renegotiated their contracts with Disney as a result.In December, WarnerMedia kicked a hornet’s nest by abruptly announcing that more than a dozen Warner Bros. movies — the studio’s entire 2021 slate — would each arrive in theaters and on HBO Max. The decision prompted an outcry from major stars and their agents over the potential loss of box office-related compensation, forcing Warner Bros. to make new deals. It ultimately paid roughly $200 million to thwart the rebellion.The deeper question is this: If old-line studios are no longer trying to maximize the box office for each film but instead shifting to a hybrid model where success is judged partly by ticket sales and partly by the number of streaming subscriptions sold, what does that mean for how stars are paid — and where they make their movies?The traditional model, the one that studios have used for decades to make high-profile film deals, involves paying small fees upfront and then sharing a portion of the revenue from ticket sales. The bigger the hit, the bigger the “back end” paydays for certain actors, directors and producers.The streaming giants have done it differently. They pay more upfront — usually much, much more — in lieu of any back-end payments, which gives them complete control over future revenue. It means that people get paid as if their projects are hits before they are released (or even made).Ms. Johansson’s suit also took direct aim at Bob Chapek, Disney’s chief executive, and Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chairman, by citing the stock grants given to them as rewards for building Disney+, which has more than 100 million subscribers worldwide. “Disney’s financial disclosures make clear that the very Disney executives who orchestrated this strategy will personally benefit from their and Disney’s misconduct,” the complaint said.According to the suit, Ms. Johansson’s representatives approached Disney and Marvel in recent months with a request to renegotiate her contract. “Disney and Marvel largely ignored Ms. Johansson,” the suit said. More

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      in Theater

      Avignon Festival Forges Ahead, Despite Virus Restrictions

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      The French theater festival’s Fringe offering is giving some respite from the pandemic, even as new rules to stop coronavirus transmission are making it harder to get to the shows.AVIGNON, France — It sounds like a virologist’s nightmare: 1,070 theater productions; 116 venues, most of them within Avignon’s cramped medieval center; and everywhere, festivalgoers sitting shoulder to shoulder in indoor spaces.Yet the Fringe offering at this summer’s Avignon Festival — which runs parallel to the main event, and is known as “le Off” — has forged ahead, even as the more contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus became the dominant strain in France.Is it problematic to enjoy excellent performances under the circumstances? With the rituals of Avignon, including unmasked performers handing out publicity fliers in the street, came a sense of normalcy. Still, a sneaky sense of guilt permeated conversations with theatergoers — not least when new restrictions were announced, shortly after the Avignon Festival began.Last week, the French government decreed that a “health pass” — a QR code proving full vaccination or a negative coronavirus test result — would be required from July 21 for all venues with over 50 seats. Restaurants, bars and trains will follow from Aug. 1. (The health pass requirement previously applied only to events with more than 1,000 audience members.)Frustration was palpable in Avignon in the days before the rule came into force. While roughly half of Fringe venues are small enough to skirt it, some companies opted to leave early, and bigger shows reported ticket returns and a drop in bookings. Last weekend, as widespread demonstrations against the policy swept France, protesters filled Avignon’s biggest avenue, shouting “Liberté!” (“Freedom!”)Marc Arnaud in “The Metamorphosis of Storks,” his one-man show at the Théâtre du Train Bleu.Alejandro GuerreroWhile the Avignon Festival’s official lineup (“le In,” in local parlance) went from bleak to bleaker in its themes, Fringe fare at least offered some respite from pandemic worries, since comedy has always been a prominent part of this less highbrow portion of the festival.Two original one-man shows, by Mehdi-Emmanuel Djaadi and Marc Arnaud, combine jokes and impressions with explorations of deep-seated inner conflicts. Djaadi’s “Coming Out,” especially, is an exercise in stereotype busting. The coming out in question is religious: The show recounts the 34-year-old comedian’s conversion from Islam to Catholicism.Support for his choice was scarce, as Djaadi tells it at the aptly named Théâtre des Corps Saints (Theater of the Holy Bodies). His family, of Algerian descent, felt he was turning his back on them; a priest explained that he didn’t want any trouble; in artistic circles, many were ill at ease with what they saw as the Catholic Church’s homophobia and conservatism.Yet instead of expressing the resentment he might have felt, Djaadi looks back on his journey, from teenage rebellion and drug dealing to a Catholic wedding, with amused affection. He points to contradictions on both sides, and France’s churchgoers come in for pointed satire, too.In “The Metamorphosis of Storks,” Arnaud focuses on a much shorter stretch of time. He and his wife went through the process of in vitro fertilization, and we meet Arnaud as he is about to donate a sperm sample — a process that brings up far more feelings than he expected.Morgane Peters as Effie in “Iphigenia in Splott,” directed by Blandine Pélissier at Artéphile.Blandine PélissierAs he stalls impatient hospital staff, his monologue covers his sexual education, his attempts at therapy and anxiety about parenthood. It’s a brisk, honest reckoning with the travails of masculinity, which packed the Théâtre du Train Bleu to the rafters (before the health pass requirement was implemented).Not that Avignon audiences were turned off by darker shows. At Artéphile, one of the few Fringe venues to also function as a year-round cultural space, the director Blandine Pélissier offered a stark and convincing production, “Iphigenia in Splott.”The Welsh playwright Gary Owen is relatively unknown in France, but his 2015 reworking of the Iphigenia myth — translated by Pélissier and Kelly Rivière — should prompt curiosity about his work. Here, the sacrificial victim is Effie, from the Cardiff district of Splott, a blaze of raging energy who becomes unexpectedly pregnant. This 90-minute monologue convincingly attributes the lack of support she encounters to social and medical service cuts, and the actress Morgane Peters takes the role from hard-edge anger to pain with poignant ease.Productions with larger casts were a bigger challenge this year, given that a positive coronavirus test among the company was enough to call a show off, and the director and actress Julie Timmerman downsized her show “A Democrat” as a result. Timmerman retooled this excellent production about Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Freud known as “the father of public relations,” for just two actors (Mathieu Desfemmes and herself). The result is adroitly written and witty, a worthy look at the dangers of Bernays’ techniques when they’re used for propaganda purposes.While the Avignon Festival’s official, curated lineup involves far fewer productions than the Fringe, it was hit with a handful of coronavirus-related cancellations. The artistic teams of two choreographers, Dada Masilo and Dimitris Papaioannou, were unable to travel to Avignon, while Eva Doumbia’s “Autophagies” saw its run interrupted when members of the cast and crew had to go into isolation after coming into contact with an infected person.Mathieu Desfemmes and Julie Timmerman in “A Democrat.”Roland BaduelTwo European productions that went ahead make a lasting impression. Emma Dante, of Italy, choreographs as much as she directs, and in “Misericordia,” theater becomes dance and vice versa. In it, three women raise a child, Arturo, who is described as mentally disabled and whose mother was a victim of domestic violence. Together, they form a bickering, complex family. The dancer Simone Zambelli not only captures Arturo’s twitching, disjointed body, he spins his physical vulnerability and moments of joy into poetry, knotting himself into expressive shapes.Avignon also hosted the stage version of “Pieces of a Woman.” Before it became a film starring Vanessa Kirby last year, the playwright Kata Weber and the director Kornel Mundruczo imagined it for the TR Warszawa playhouse in Warsaw, and the Polish cast delivered a gut punch in Avignon at the Lycée Théodore Aubanel.The play starts with the same lengthy labor scene as the film, but it covers less narrative ground after the central couple’s baby is stillborn. Whereas the screen version details the trial of a midwife who attended to the birth, this is only hinted at as a possibility onstage, and Maja, who lost her child, refuses to go through with it. Instead, the characters’ grief plays out over a long family dinner at the home of Maja’s mother.The result requires more patience on viewers’ part, but rewards it with a fully formed portrait of a family adrift. In that sense, the stage version of “Pieces of a Woman” completes Weber and Mundruczo’s puzzle: Let’s hope Avignon won’t be its only international stop.The cast of “Pieces of a Woman,” by the playwright Kata Weber and the director Kornel Mundruczo.Christophe Raynaud de Lage/Festival d’Avignon More

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      in Television

      Chicago Comedy Institution iO Theater Will Reopen After Sale

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      The storied improv center closed under the financial strain of the pandemic, but a buyer has purchased both the building and the brand.More than a year after it was announced that the Chicago improv mainstay iO Theater was closing permanently because of the financial strain of the pandemic, the theater’s building and brand have been sold to local real estate executives, the institution’s founder said Monday.Charna Halpern, who started iO four decades ago, said the theater would reopen under the ownership of Scott Gendell and Larry Weiner, who both run real estate companies in the Chicago area. The closure of the theater — which played a crucial part in the careers of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert — was a major loss for the city’s community of improvisers, many of whom studied, performed and socialized there.“It’s a huge relief that this thing I’ve been working on for 40 years is going to continue,” Halpern said.In a statement, Gendell and Weiner, who describe themselves as lifelong friends, said that they planned to “continue the cultural gem that is this iconic theater.”In June 2020, three months into the pandemic, Halpern announced that she was closing iO for good, saying that the pressure of mounting bills, without any income during the shutdown, had become untenable. “At this point in my life, I can’t continue the struggle to stay open,” Halpern said then.The announcement came at the same time that performers associated with iO called for major efforts to improve diversity and equity there. In a petition, they said they would refuse to perform at iO unless its leadership met a series of demands: they asked Halpern to “publicly acknowledge and apologize for the institutional racism perpetuated at iO,” as well as hire a diversity and inclusion coordinator.About a week after the petition was published and Halpern had agreed to work toward meeting the demands, she announced that iO would close for good, stunning performers. She said in an interview this May that if iO had been on better financial footing, she would have met with the protesters and addressed their concerns, but that she could not do so when the theater’s prospects were so bleak.In the months since Halpern put the building, at 1501 North Kingsbury Street, on the market, her hopes that someone would step in to save the institution brightened and flickered out again and again. She said recently there had been at least three interested buyers, including a Hollywood talent agency. At one point she contemplated reopening the theater herself, but a leaky roof introduced another financial roadblock, she said.For the time being, the closed theater appears frozen in time, with signs pointing audiences where to line up for shows that were scheduled for March 2020.Now, the task of making the theater’s four stages operational again will be up to the new owners, whose deal was finalized last week, Halpern said. She declined to disclose the price. With this sale, as well as that of another storied comedy theater, Second City, Chicago’s improv scene looks very different than it did a year ago. Second City had faced its own accusations of institutional racism and calls for reform, and new leaders there pledged to “tear it all down and begin again.” In February, it was sold to a private equity group, ZMC, run by Strauss Zelnick, and in May it resumed live performances.Though it is unclear when iO will reopen, the sale will help the city become a comedy “mecca” again, Halpern said, after months of darkened theaters. For Halpern, who has run the theater from the beginning and — along with her partner Del Close — helped transform improvisation from a marginal art form into a bustling business, it is unclear what her role will be going forward, though she says, “I’m happy to return in some capacity if they want me.”“The other day I turned over the keys,” she added, “and when they walked me out and said, ‘Thank you, Charna,’ it was the first time I cried. It really hit me.” More