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    Why Did the Indie Film Studio A24 Buy an Off Broadway Theater?

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    The Hollywood upstart has upgraded the Cherry Lane Theater for plays and more. Coming this fall: films chosen by Sofia Coppola, food from Frenchette and the voice of Barbra Streisand.In the two years since A24, the artistically ambitious film and television studio, purchased Manhattan’s Cherry Lane Theater, the historic West Village building has been dark, at least from the outside. But inside, the company behind “Moonlight,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Euphoria” has been quietly overhauling the facility, and in September Cherry Lane will reopen as the first live performance venue run by the indie powerhouse.The company says it plans a wide-ranging slate of programming, prioritizing theater — Cherry Lane describes itself as the birthplace of the Off Broadway movement — but also featuring comedy, music and film.Another attraction: food. A24 has enlisted the Frenchette Group, which runs several lauded eateries in Manhattan (including Frenchette, Le Rock and Le Veau d’Or), to open a small restaurant and bar at Cherry Lane. The restaurant, called Wild Cherry in a nod to the theater’s name, will be Frenchette’s second collaboration with a downtown cultural institution — it also operates a bakery cafe inside the Whitney Museum.Among the initial programming highlights will be a Sunday film series curated by Sofia Coppola (first film: Adrian Lyne’s “Foxes” from 1980) and a five-week run of “Weer,” a one-woman show from the clowning comedian Natalie Palamides (each half of her body plays a different partner in a romantic couple). There will also be a week of opening events, starting Sept. 8, that includes comedy, music, a play reading and a block party. The venue does not plan to announce a season, or to have subscribers — it wants the nimbleness to extend or add events as it goes.In keeping with theatrical tradition, Cherry Lane has a ghost light, which is used for practical and supernatural safety when other lights are off.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“First and foremost, we really want this to be a place where people can be sure they’ll see a great, good quality piece of live performance,” said Dani Rait, who spent a decade at “Saturday Night Live,” helping to book hosts and musical guests, before A24 hired her to head programming at Cherry Lane. “And it’s an opportunity for discovery — for artists to have a stage and connect with audiences in a really intimate way.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      From a Chaotic Childhood to the Control of a Michelin-Starred Kitchen

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      It was hard to tell if Curtis Duffy was about to cry. The Chicago chef who loves both heavy metal and tweezering tiny herbs is not someone you would call effusive.We were on the sidewalk outside the Lincoln Park townhouse that was once home to Charlie Trotter’s, the seminal restaurant where Mr. Duffy learned what fine dining meant. He was trying to explain his father, Robert Duffy, who was 18 when his son was born.The elder Duffy was a longhaired Army vet and a tattoo artist who practiced a style of parenting that involved regular applications of a leather strap. His biker buddies nicknamed him Bear.That’s also the name of the television series in which Ever, Mr. Duffy’s Michelin-starred temple to the tasting menu, appears as the fictionalized greatest restaurant in the world. His intricate dishes, including a magic trick that makes a puff of cotton candy disappear into hibiscus soup, star as the work of the show’s chefs.Mr. Duffy is quick to point out that “The Bear” — which just started its fourth season — is not based on Ever and that he is not Carmy Berzatto, the tortured, talented chef at its center. But the emotional mess at the heart of the show is not far off.Mr. Duffy sometimes stages informal competitions with the cooks on the line to see if they can beat him finishing dishes. Lyndon French for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      When Nobu Masuhisa Changed Sushi in America Forever

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      “I am so glad I didn’t give up on my life and kept going,” says the chef, who’s the subject of a new documentary about his remarkable career.Nobu sits along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, with ocean waves lapping under its outdoor deck. It is an interlude of tranquillity along a road that is a maze of construction crews, police cars, fire trucks and the charred frames of beachfront homes — evidence of the wildfires that raced through here earlier this year.But at 11:45 a.m. on a recent Saturday, the crowd stretched 200-feet deep waiting for Nobu to open for lunch. By 12:30, every table was filled. It was a testament to the endurance and appeal of a restaurant that encapsulates — in food, celebrity and style — a global phenomenon that began 38 years ago, and 20 miles away, when the chef Nobu Matsuhisa opened a modest sushi restaurant in Beverly Hills.At 76, Matsuhisa today sits atop a restaurant and hotel empire that stretches almost entirely around the globe. He is the chef who, as much as anyone, transformed the sushi scene in New York and, to a lesser extent, Los Angeles. He was one of the first chefs, along with Wolfgang Puck, to have soared beyond the boundaries of his first restaurant to become a celebrity in his own right. And he is now the subject of a new documentary, “Nobu,” tracing the arc of his life, from growing up in a small town outside Tokyo to becoming a magnate with homes in Japan and Bel-Air.“I am step by step,” Matsuhisa told me. “When I opened my first restaurant in 1987, I never thought about growing. Always I had the passions — always my base was cooking. And now I have so many, we have so many restaurants around the world.”“There are a handful of people who have changed the way the world eats,” the critic Ruth Reichl says in the documentary. “Nobu is certainly there in that pantheon.”AGC InternationalAs Matt Tyrnauer, the filmmaker who spent two years making the documentary, said over plates of sushi at the Nobu in Malibu: “He’s gone from one modest restaurant on La Cienega to becoming a global luxury brand centered on food and hospitality. There are not a lot of people that have pulled that off.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Chefs Pick Their Favorite Food Films

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      Nancy Silverton, Daniela Soto-Innes and more talk about the movies that have inspired and continue to reignite their love of cooking.The rigor and schedule of professional cooking don’t allow for many movie nights, but that’s not to say chefs don’t find inspiration on the big screen. When we asked a handful of food-world figures about the films that make them want to cook or eat or both, they spoke about narratives that remind them of the joy of a leisurely meal, food’s ability to comfort and what drove them to cook in the first place. Here, 11 chefs discuss the food films, old and new, that still excite them.From left: Philippe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi and Andréa Ferréo in the 1973 film “La Grande Bouffe,” directed by Marco Ferreri.Collection Christophel/Alamy Ruth Rogers, 76, chef and owner of the River Café, London: “La Grande Bouffe” (1973)I saw this film when I was living in Paris, in 1973. We were there because Richard [the architect Richard Rogers, Ruth’s late husband] was building the Pompidou Center. The movie was quite controversial when it came out. It’s about a group of friends who decide they’re going to eat themselves to death. They get together and start to binge. These four men just absolutely love to eat; it’s their great thing in life. My husband and I loved this movie, so we decided to judge people on whether or not the film made them hungry or disgusted. We, of course, were hungry. Years later, I was having lunch with Francis Ford Coppola, and he told me it was his favorite food movie too.Kel Mitchell, left, and Kenan Thompson in the 1997 film “Good Burger,” directed by Brian Robbins.© Paramount/Everett CollectionCharlie Mitchell, 32, chef of Saga, New York City: “Good Burger” (1997)I watched “Good Burger” again this year. I’m from Detroit but I live in New York City, and when I’m homesick I usually get nostalgic for food, music or films. I must’ve been in elementary school the first time I saw it, probably on VHS. I always connected with the character [Ed (played by Kel Mitchell), a cashier at the burger restaurant where the film is set]. He’s in his own world, and he creates this sauce that everyone loves. I felt like I was the only person in my friend group and community who was interested in food at a young age: Everyone was loving Dragon Ball Z and I enjoyed cooking dinner for my mom or cooking with my grandmother on the weekend. So “Good Burger” was about connecting with that character who was in his own world having so much fun cooking.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      The Restaurant Where ‘S.N.L.’ Celebrates Tuesday Night

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      Lattanzi doesn’t exactly scream “celebrity magnet.”Its brick-walled, burgundy-carpeted dining room, lined with black-and-white photos of Rome, feels more antique than affluent. The menu leans on old Italian standbys like veal scaloppine and chicken piccata. There’s no bouncer, no photos of famous regulars, no gatekeeping host. The location isn’t some trendy downtown neighborhood, but Restaurant Row, a stretch of West 46th Street that’s been a theater-district fixture for nearly a century.Yet every Tuesday evening before a new episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Lattanzi is where you’ll find Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator and kingpin, and that week’s celebrity host, along with a rotating cadre of eight or so carefully chosen “S.N.L.” producers, writers and cast members.After decades at the helm — the show will celebrate its 50th anniversary this weekend — Mr. Michaels is well-known for his rituals: the basket of popcorn kept replenished at his desk, the so-called “Lornewalks” he takes to clear his head, and the Monday meetings in his office with the cast and host, said Susan Morrison, an articles editor at The New Yorker who wrote the forthcoming biography “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live.”Lattanzi, which specializes in Roman food, has been around since 1984. Mr. Michaels has been bringing celebrities and staff members there for decades.Nico Schinco for The New York TimesBut the Tuesday dinners are especially sacred, she said — one of the few predictable events in the weekly lead-up to a show that traffics in unpredictability.“In a week where everything is going 100 miles an hour and everything is hurtling toward Saturday night at 11:30, it was a moment of civilized calm,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      New Season of ‘The White Lotus’ Brings a Tourism Boom in Thailand

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      Crowds of visitors descended on Maui and Sicily after the HBO show’s first two seasons. Is the tropical resort island of Koh Samui ready for Season 3?When the third season of the hit HBO series “The White Lotus” debuts on Sunday, viewers will be transported to the tropical island of Koh Samui, Thailand. And if previous seasons are any indication, many of them will soon be booking vacations there, too.The show, which takes place at a different fictional White Lotus luxury resort each season, centers on a group of wealthy tourists, their interpersonal dramas and the inevitable tension with staff and locals, all against a backdrop of paradise skewed.Members of the “White Lotus” cast this season include Lalisa Manobal, right, who performs as Lisa with the K-pop group Blackpink.Fabio Lovino/HBO, via Associated PressThe travel industry has been anticipating the new season almost as much as fans have. Partly thanks to the so-called “White Lotus” effect, Koh Samui and Thailand have already emerged as top destinations. Koh Samui was one of the New York Times 52 Places to Go in 2025, and Thailand was Travel+Leisure’s 2025 destination of the year.With a wave of tourists set to wash ashore, the roughly 68,000 residents of Koh Samui are about to get a lot more familiar with the “White Lotus” effect.On the pristine white sand of Chaweng Beach one recent evening, Tey, 46, a local carpenter who declined to give his last name, said he didn’t really know much about the series. But then came a flash of recognition.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Alice Brock, Restaurant Owner Made Famous by a Song, Dies at 83

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      Arlo Guthrie’s antiwar staple “Alice’s Restaurant” was inspired by a Thanksgiving Day visit to her diner in western Massachusetts.Alice Brock, whose eatery in western Massachusetts was immortalized as the place where “you can get anything you want” in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song “Alice’s Restaurant,” died on Thursday in Wellfleet, Mass. — just a week before Thanksgiving, the holiday during which the rambling story at the center of the song takes place. She was 83.Viki Merrick, her caregiver, said she died in a hospice from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.Ever since Mr. Guthrie released the song, officially called “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” in 1967, it has been a staple of classic-rock stations every late November, not to mention car trip singalongs on the way to visit family for Thanksgiving dinner.Ms. Brock’s restaurant, the Back Room, does not feature much in the song itself. Over the course of a little more than 18 minutes, Mr. Guthrie — doing more talking than singing — recounts a visit that he and a friend, Rick Robbins, paid to Ms. Brock and her husband, Ray Brock, for Thanksgiving dinner.Ms. Brock with Mr. Guthrie in 1977. They met when she was a school librarian and he was a student.Peter Simon Collection, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst LibrariesA shaggy-dog story ensues: Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Robbins take some trash to the city dump, but, finding it closed, leave it in a ravine instead. The next morning the police arrest them for littering, and Ms. Brock has to bail them out.That night she cooks them all a big meal, and the following day they appear in court, where the judge fines them $50. Later, Mr. Guthrie is ordered to an Army induction center, where he is able to avoid the draft because of his criminal record.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More