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    What’s the Next ‘Baby Reindeer’? Maybe Francesca Moody Has the Script.

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    Francesca Moody has put on some of the Edinburgh Fringe’s biggest breakout hits. This year, she has three shows that she’s hoping will go global.One day in fall 2018, the British theater producer Francesca Moody was rummaging around in her bag for something to read during a train ride when she found a script she’d been meaning to look at for weeks.Glancing at its first page, she read a scene in which a man logs onto his voice mail. “You have 50 new messages,” the cellphone’s robotic voice says. The messages are all from a woman named Martha.For the rest of the train journey, Moody couldn’t take her eyes off the script of “Baby Reindeer,” a one-man play about a comedian’s struggles with a female stalker who he occasionally, with self-destructive results, encourages.“It was just a thriller,” Moody recalled in a recent interview. “And what was amazing was it wasn’t a normal victim-perpetrator narrative. It was about all the gray areas in between.”When the train reached its destination about an hour later, Moody didn’t get up. She stayed in the empty carriage to devour the script’s final pages. By then, Moody recalled, she’d already decided two things: That she had to produce this play, and it had to be at Edinburgh Festival Fringe — the best place in Britain to generate buzz for new plays and musicals by lesser-known writers.Success there, she knew, could propel the show to success in London. Maybe in New York, too. Although at that moment, she couldn’t predict that “Baby Reindeer” would also secure a Netflix deal and 11 Emmy nominations.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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      What to See at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

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      Previous editions of the performing arts event launched shows like “Baby Reindeer” and “Fleabag.” Maybe there’s another breakout hit among this year’s more than 3,300 shows.Each summer, artists and audience members from across the globe decamp to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts event. This year, from Aug. 2 through 26, the city will be repurposed into a labyrinth of makeshift theaters, in dingy rooms above pubs, hotel conference rooms and university lecture theaters.Throughout the Fringe’s 77-year history, its eclectic approach to performance has been integral to its appeal. Unlike the more highbrow Edinburgh International Festival, which runs concurrently. the Fringe is open to all comers — and a buzzy Fringe show can give an artist a very big break.“Fleabag” and “Six,” the musical, were originally Fringe success stories. So too was Richard Gadd’s 2019 one-man show “Baby Reindeer,” which this year became a Netflix series and an unexpected global hit.Very few artists make money at the Fringe, but at this year’s festival, many will be trying to emulate Gadd’s trajectory. And festival goers will equally be looking for the next big thing.With more than 3,300 shows on offer, finding the next “Fleabag” requires some careful studying of the weighty Fringe program. Here is a guide to some of the key themes and the buzziest shows from this year’s lineup.Award-winning comics returnAt the end of each year’s Fringe, a panel of judges hands out the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for best show and best newcomer, two prestigious prizes that have launched many international careers. This year’s Fringe lineup includes two of the most successful recent winners.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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      ‘Six’ Creators Announce Their Second Act

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      Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow spent years working out how to follow their hit musical about Henry VIII’s wives. “Why Am I So Single?” is their answer.In January 2019, Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, the creators of the musical “Six,” were on a writer’s retreat in Connecticut, wondering how to follow up their celebrated first show.That month, “Six” — in which Henry VIII’s wives tell their stories via pop songs — was starting a major West End run, and a Broadway transfer was on the horizon. The show had already been a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and a growing number of American fans were streaming the show’s soundtrack. More and more, people wanted to know what the pair would do next.During the Connecticut retreat, they struggled to come up with new ideas, Marlow recalled in a recent interview, and instead gossiped about their love lives. Then, they had a breakthrough: “Maybe this is what we should write about,” Marlow said.On Wednesday, Marlow, 29, and Moss, 30, announced that their second musical, “Why Am I So Single?,” will open at the Garrick Theater in London on Aug. 27.The show, which has a 12-person cast, follows two friends struggling to write a musical and asking each other why they’re chronically single. That idea may sound similar to the creators’ time in Connecticut, but Moss, laughing nervously, said it was “definitely not a complete autobiography.”Marlow said that the musical, which includes songs inspired by Dua Lipa hits and numbers from “Singin’ in the Rain,” was “about friendship and love and loneliness and everything that goes with it.”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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      Feminist Stories Are Being Set to a Pop Beat. But Are They Empowering?

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      Our critics debate how well shows like “Six,” “& Juliet” and “Once Upon a One More Time” engage with the inner worlds of women onstage.During the first act of “Once Upon a One More Time,” the Broadway jukebox musical that grooves to the Britney Spears oeuvre, a fairy godmother arrives with a present for Cinderella. A gown? No. Glass slippers? No. Cin has enough already. Instead, her godmother gifts her a copy of Betty Friedan’s 1963 best seller, “The Feminine Mystique.”It’s a clumsy gesture in the show, which plans to close next month. (Feminist thought has advanced in 60 years!) And arguably emblematic of a recent spate of Broadway musicals that set feminism to a pop beat, including “Six,” a zippy modern retelling of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives; “& Juliet,” whose protagonist, miraculously alive, embarks on a girls’ trip of self-discovery; and “Bad Cinderella” (now closed), a chaotic rejiggering of the classic fairy tale. Aimed at girls and women (historically the majority of Broadway ticket buyers), these shows may be sincere attempts to engage with women’s issues — or they’re hollow efforts to capitalize on calls for change. Empty political gestures on Broadway? To quote a song used in two of these shows: “Oops! … I did it again.”On a recent morning, Laura Collins-Hughes, contributing theater critic and reporter; Salamishah Tillet, critic at large; and Lindsay Zoladz, pop music critic, gathered to debate facts and fairy tales. They discussed how narrowly these shows define empowerment, if they define it at all, and why Prince Charming gets the best song. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The recent musicals “Six,” “& Juliet,” “Bad Cinderella” and “Once Upon a One More Time” take female empowerment as their central theme. Are these shows actually empowering or legibly feminist?LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES I wouldn’t say any of them are feminist.SALAMISHAH TILLET Some are empowering, others are not. “Six” is partly feminist, because it shows the impact of King Henry VIII’s misogyny. With the exception of Anne Boleyn, most of his wives have been relegated to the margins. My 11-year-old daughter really loved that these women finally reclaimed their stories and did it with style! But I felt like I was at a fun pop concert rather than at a big Broadway musical.COLLINS-HUGHES “Six” drives me completely up the wall. It wants to have a good time in the neighborhood of spousal murder and abandonment, singing “I don’t need your love.” As if Henry’s love had anything to do with it. As if abuse is what a man’s love for a woman looks like.Lauren Zakrin, second from left, as Little Mermaid gets her voice back upon reading “The Feminine Mystique” in “Once Upon a One More Time.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLINDSAY ZOLADZ I like “Six,” but probably for the reason Salamishah doesn’t — it’s basically a pop concert. I do think the overarching problem with these musicals is the way they fail to define terms, presenting “empowerment” and “feminism” as given, unexamined virtues. Instead of the marriage proposal that supposedly leads to the happily ever after, it’s … empowerment ever after? “Once Upon a One More Time” provided the clearest distillation of the trend. Cinderella’s “feminist awakening” is spurred by her fairy godmother giving her “The Feminine Mystique.” Seriously. The book is treated like a magical talisman throughout the rest of the show, but its actual content is never engaged with. That seems beyond the show’s grasp. Though the book is on sale for $20 in the lobby gift shop.TILLET I gasped when she discovered the book.ZOLADZ Not in a good way, I’m guessing.Doesn’t Cinderella know that women’s studies syllabuses have moved on?TILLET Or that Friedan was heavily criticized for her bourgeois feminism back in the day? Is it weird that we are still locating the beginnings of feminism exclusively in the sexual liberation of straight, white, middle-class, stay-at-home 1950s wives? But that’s an ongoing problem, not just on Broadway.Why do you think we’re seeing these shows now? Is it a cynical attempt to appeal to female ticket buyers or something more organic?TILLET These shows, despite their best intentions, seem limited by their source material. There was a lot of Cinderella this year! The publicity appeal of anything Cinderella is obvious, so for Broadway theaters struggling to get audiences back into the theater, of course it is a ploy.From left: Justin David Sullivan, Melanie La Barrie, Lorna Courtney and Betsy Wolfe in “& Juliet.” With its thoughtful casting of a Black Juliet and the nonbinary character May, the show enables us to see Shakespeare differently, one critic said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCOLLINS-HUGHES “Bad Cinderella” could have been so much more than it was. It is a messy show, it’s always been a messy show, but in London it was actually fun. It had a bit of substance to it. And magic. The feminism, which was so clear and so dramatically propulsive in the London version, was wiped away for Broadway.I took my daughter to “Bad Cinderella” and afterward we had a conversation about the show’s messaging, which was confused at best. Is it asking too much of a musical to also have great messages?COLLINS-HUGHES This question makes me think we all live in fear of that riposte that often greets girls and women who won’t laugh along at a joke that’s not funny: “Where’s your sense of humor?” It’s perfectly legitimate to recoil from a show whose message bugs you, and all the more if it’s at odds with its girl-power, you-be-you marketing.And yet if a show is successful enough in other ways, the messaging may not matter. That was my delighted experience of “& Juliet.”TILLET This was definitely my favorite pop feminist musical of the year. I was genuinely intrigued by the conceit of what happens if Juliet doesn’t die. What life does she make for herself beyond the formula prescribed for her? The musical opens up possibilities for her as a protagonist. And with its thoughtful casting of Lorna Courtney as a Black Juliet and Justin David Sullivan as the nonbinary character, May, it enables us to see Shakespeare differently, too.COLLINS-HUGHES When it has a top-notch cast, “& Juliet” is a blast. But I am baffled that people perceive it as feminist. It really is not.ZOLADZ Say more!COLLINS-HUGHES I don’t mean that it’s anti-feminist, but I don’t think it’s particularly female-centered — not on Juliet, nor on Anne Hathaway [Shakespeare’s wife], who gets one of the subplots.“Bad Cinderella,” starring Linedy Genao, had a brief run this spring. “The feminism, which was so clear and so dramatically propulsive in the London version, was wiped away for Broadway,” one critic said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWith the exception of “Six,” these shows are largely created by men. Does that explain anything?COLLINS-HUGHES Of course. It’s not that men can’t and don’t write women well or can’t imagine women’s lives. And it’s certainly not that artists should stick to writing only about people just like them. But they are writing from the outside. That can come with a lot of blind spots and a lot of misapprehensions.All of these musicals use a pop vernacular, “Bad Cinderella” somewhat less so. Is pop, particularly pop written and produced by men, a useful form for feminist discourse?ZOLADZ Something I’ve been thinking about regarding “Once Upon a One More Time” and especially “& Juliet,” which uses the songs of the massive millennial hitmaker Max Martin, is the lyrical limitation of a lot of modern pop music. Martin and the generation of pop architects who followed him treat lyrics almost as an afterthought. Martin has referred to his method of songwriting as “melodic math.” “& Juliet” was fun and more cleverly written than “Once Upon a One More Time,” but a lot of that had to do with the ironic distance between the lyrics themselves and the winking, metatextual way the characters employed them — like when “I Want It That Way,” by the Backstreet Boys, becomes not so much a love song as a narration of an argument between Shakespeare and his wife, who have conflicting opinions about how his latest play should end.TILLET I hated a lot of those pop songs and found them anti-feminist when they originally came out, but when I sang along with the “& Juliet” audience and my tween daughter, I found that they aged better than I had expected. Or maybe, because I’m now middle-age, I’m mistaking nostalgia for progress.COLLINS-HUGHES Inattention to lyrics is a limitation of jukebox musicals, but it doesn’t hold for original pop songs, which can be whatever the writer makes them. It would help, though, if more of the songwriters getting musicals produced were women.ZOLADZ I generally pay more attention to pop music than Broadway musicals, so I found the sound of these shows to be quite striking. Modern pop’s influence is everywhere, especially in a show like “Six,” which is full of electronic beats, hip-hop cadences and direct nods to artists like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande. Is that a trend you have observed over time? And given that this is such a golden age for female pop stars, do you think that crossover appeal has something to do with the rise of these empowerment musicals?COLLINS-HUGHES Musically, “Hamilton” changed Broadway, but it is very much a guy story. Having proved the hunger for modern pop musicals, it left a lot of room for female artists to fill.Do these shows do that filling?COLLINS-HUGHES Musically? Sometimes. But in terms of storytelling, generally no. There are such blinders on imagination, and there’s such an aversion to nuance. It’s a question of whom you’re trying to please. The perception of risk is about displeasing men, not the women and girls who might want to see smart, muscular new musicals.Megan Hilty, left, and Shoshana Bean in “Wicked,” which is partly about a girl learning to harness the power of her outrage to fight against injustice in the world.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDoes the success of the Barbie movie, directed and co-written by a woman, with its several song and dance numbers, point a way forward?COLLINS-HUGHES Absolutely, if the idea is to give the best numbers to the guys.ZOLADZ And the charisma! That’s what ultimately sank “Once Upon a One More Time” for me: Cinderella was often the least compelling character onstage. Juliet didn’t fare much better. I don’t know if blandly “empowered” female characters are the answer. Too often it just feels like a shortcut. Writing flawed, idiosyncratic and more interesting female characters seems like a worthier goal, but most of these shows don’t want to take the risk.TILLET If song choice in a musical is any indication of narrative priorities, “Once Upon a One More Time” had difficulty sustaining its attention on Cinderella and her awakening. Prince Charming got “Oops! … I Did It Again” and her stepmother had “Toxic.” When I watched “Barbie,” I realized how seductive patriarchy is onscreen or onstage, even when we say we are trying to smash it. Why do the Kens get that massive and amazing dance scene?COLLINS-HUGHES A story about or aimed at women is so seldom deemed interesting enough on its own. But Hollywood, like commercial theater, is often in the business of blandification. And who’s blander than Ken? I’d like to think audiences want more than that.These recent shows define empowerment narrowly, restricting it to questions of romantic and sexual relationships with men rather than any broader political awakenings. Why can’t these stories dream bigger or attempt something more intersectional?TILLET I do think a lot of these producers feel that they are being intersectional, simply through casting. But while I appreciate so much more diversity onstage, it is still not enough. The musicals would really have to try to dismantle various forms of oppression at once. That takes nuance, patience and a really radical imagination. An older musical, “The Color Purple,” was successful at this, which brings us back to the strength of the source material, Alice Walker’s novel, and then a sizable female team behind its Broadway staging. It is an understatement to say that the evolution of Celie, who endured such abuse and trauma, is far more compelling than Cinderella’s!ZOLADZ What I find missing from a lot of contemporary art about female empowerment is the way it focuses on the attainment of power and then stops there. What about stories about how easily power can corrupt those who have it? Yes, even women!COLLINS-HUGHES This is a thing that “Wicked” imagines. And two decades on, it’s still packing houses and making loads of money. That show is partly about a girl learning to harness the power of her outrage to fight against injustice in the world.TILLET I’ve seen “Wicked” twice recently. The depth of the storytelling — when the villain and heroine aren’t what they seem — it is just so good. Is it feminist? Maybe. Does it reveal the power and heartbreak of female friendship as the ultimate love story? Very much so. For that alone, it provides a wonderful model for how to really revel in the inner worlds of women onstage. More

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      Broadway Bounces Back With ‘Best Week Since the Before Times’

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      Broadway shows grossed $51.9 million during the holiday week, the most since 2019, and “The Lion King” set a record for the most earned by any show in a single week.Broadway, still struggling to rebound from the lengthy pandemic shutdown, is starting the new year with a sign of hope: Last week was, by far, the best for the industry since the arrival of the coronavirus.The 33 shows running grossed $51.9 million, which is the most since the final week of 2019. And “The Lion King,” which last fall celebrated its 25th anniversary on Broadway, notched a remarkable milestone: It grossed $4.3 million, which is the most ever taken in by a show in a single week on Broadway.The boffo numbers — 21 shows grossed more than $1 million last week — come with caveats. Both Christmas and New Year’s days fell on Sundays, concentrating holiday travelers into a single week. Twenty shows added extra performances for the holiday week, giving nine instead of the usual eight. And ticket prices were high: The average Broadway seat went for $166, up from $128 just four weeks earlier.But the strong week sent a signal that under the right circumstances, Broadway can deliver. During the holiday week — the week that ended Jan. 1 — the 22 musicals and 11 plays running were, on average, 92 percent full. Overall attendance was 312,878, which is not a record (in fact, it was the 27th-best-attended week in history, according to the Broadway League), but is good (by comparison, attendance over Thanksgiving week was 259,298).The two final weeks of the year saw combined grosses of $86.7 million, which is up 115 percent over the previous year, but down 12 percent compared to those key holiday weeks in 2019.“What you see is that we’re continuing to build and maintain our audience,” said Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League, a trade association representing producers and theater owners. “We’re not back to where we were, but we’re doing very well at a time of uncertainty.”According to the League, last week was the third-highest-grossing in history. The highest was the week ending Dec. 30, 2018, when grosses were $57.8 million and attendance was 378,910; the second-highest was the week ending Dec. 29, 2019, when grosses were $55.8 million and attendance was 350,714.“The Lion King,” with a nine-performance week, toppled the previous record for the top-grossing week by a single show, which had been held by “Hamilton,” which grossed $4 million for eight performances during the week that ended Dec. 30, 2018. (The figures are not adjusted for inflation.)“The Lion King” earned $4.3 million last week, the most a single show has ever earned in one week. It resumed performances in September 2021.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesThe holidays are traditionally strong for Broadway, but in 2021 the final weeks of the year were a bloodbath because the Omicron variant led to cancellations of multiple shows. Now, despite the “tripledemic” of circulating respiratory illnesses, Broadway has largely figured out how to keep going: During the last three weeks, 12 scheduled performances were canceled, compared to 221 cancellations during the final three weeks of 2021.Throughout the industry, shows were trumpeting breaking records last week.“Chicago” had the highest-grossing week in its 26-year history, as well as its highest single-performance gross. The once-struggling “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which revived its fortunes after the shutdown by consolidating from two parts into one, was already the highest-grossing play in Broadway history, and last week set a record (nearly $2.7 million) for weekly gross by a play. And a starry revival of “The Piano Lesson” was on track to being the highest grossing play by August Wilson — the much-celebrated and oft-performed bard of 20th-century African American life — in Broadway history.Several shows set house records at the theaters where they are being performed, including the revival of “Funny Girl,” which had been floundering financially until its producers brought in Lea Michele to star. Also setting records were shows including “Beetlejuice,” which closes Jan. 8 after a bumpy ride; “Six,” the pop-concert-style reconsideration of the wives of Henry VIII; “& Juliet,” a new musical imagining an alternative history for Shakespeare’s famously star-crossed lover, and “MJ,” the Michael Jackson biomusical.“We had our best week since the before times,” said Victoria Bailey, the executive director of TDF, a nonprofit organization that runs the TKTS discount ticket booths, who said her staff is noticing increasing geographic diversity among ticket buyers.“We were seeing people from lots and lots of states and lots and lots of countries — it wasn’t the same folks making the numbers bigger, but it was folks from further away,” Bailey said. “I don’t have any reason to say we’re out of the woods, but I don’t think this was just a one-off. And if we get to a point where you periodically have good weeks, that will be helpful.”Bailey and St. Martin both noted that tourists from China have not yet returned in significant numbers as that nation battles surging coronavirus cases. But both said they were particularly heartened by returning domestic tourism.Broadway now enters a period of greater challenge: January and February have historically been weak months for the industry. There are 12 shows scheduled to close this month, which is at the high end of the normal range for January closings. But there are a raft of openings planned in March and April — it looks like the overall number of new shows this season will be within the typical range — and St. Martin said she is feeling good about the industry’s trajectory.“I am overwhelmingly optimistic about the spring,” she said. More

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      Tony Nominees for Choreography Put the Past in Motion

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      Musicals like “MJ” and “Paradise Square” take on dance of the past — with some missed opportunities. But the dance in “For Colored Girls” helps us to “remember what cannot be said.”A Black dancer and an Irish one face off in a dance contest in 19th-century New York. They take turns, each trying to top the other with steps and rhythms that are unique and unbeatable. It’s adversarial but also collegial, since the premise both assumes and encourages commonality, the kind of back-and-forth that breeds hybrids. This is a primal scene of American dance, and a version of it is on Broadway now.Whether in revivals, jukebox musicals or reimaginings of more distant history, a lot of the dance on Broadway these days is dance of the past. It’s theater, so the aim is less historical fidelity than persuasiveness. The choreography has to represent how people used to move in a way that makes sense to people today. But that constraint contains a possibility: In watching performers of the present embody the dance of the former times, we might feel, in our own bodies, how the present and the past are connected.That possibility was live for all five shows nominated for Tony Awards in choreography this year. The subject of each is, in some sense, historical. But the one that addresses dance history most directly is “Paradise Square.” It’s a musical about the Black and Irish denizens of the Five Points district in the 1860s. In the decades before, this neighborhood was a crucial site of interracial exchange and invention, a nursery not just for tap dance but for American theatrical dance in general — the kind that would long characterize Broadway musicals.“Paradise Square,” with choreography by Bill T. Jones and others, makes dance central and consequential.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMainly set in the kind of tavern where much cultural exchange occurred, the story seems to make dance central and consequential. No one knows exactly what the dancing in the Five Points looked or sounded like, so Bill T. Jones, leading a team of choreographers, is free to juxtapose some ideas of the Black and African side (Juba dance, shout) with some ideas of the Irish (the fast stepping familiar from “Riverdance”). But this choreography is subtle and inventive only compared to the absence of those qualities in the score and book. It doesn’t persuade.The Irish dance, credited to Jason Oremus and Garrett Coleman, is served somewhat better, partly because the Irish clichés in the music support it. Two of what the program calls “Irish Dancers” (Coleman and Colin Barkell), with little role in the plot, get to be briefly impressive in bursts of footwork. But even as the story builds to that Black vs. Irish dance-off, the dancing doesn’t make us feel how and why Black and Irish dance mixed, the similarities and differences that attracted the cultures to each other.It’s a missed opportunity. “Paradise Square” might have staged a shocking, thrilling return to sources, especially the Black ones. Instead, in a deeply flawed show, it offers the sort of choreography that inspires comments like “But wasn’t the dancing good?” Not good enough.Hugh Jackman in “The Music Man,” with choreography by Warren Carlyle.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesA revival of “The Music Man,” a tried-and-true classic, is a much simpler choreographic assignment. Warren Carlyle does the job just fine. He has an adequate, nostalgic grasp of the period flavor, the “new steps” of the 1910s. The origins of these moves — in places like the Five Points before spreading to places like Iowa, the musical’s setting, and to the white stages of Broadway — isn’t part of the story. So Carlyle can focus on arranging a large cast of skilled dancers. If it’s all a little cautious and underwhelming, so is the rest of the production.Carlyle offers a professional, if uninspired, take on Broadway choreography as it used to be. “Six” is much more current, despite being about the wives of Henry VIII. The conceit of the show is to give them voice by casting them as contemporary pop divas, inspired by Beyoncé, Rihanna and the like. It’s a singing contest, and we expect to see certain kinds of dancing. These are dancing singers, and as each queen takes her turn, the others serve as the backup that every pop diva commands in concert.This is dance of the present, and Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, the choreographer, is up to speed in the genre and its variations — the ratios of sass and sex and empowerment moves, even the requisite absence of dance in Adele-style heartache. She keeps the action both tight and fluid, letting the performers save enough breath for all their belting. Like the clever, catchy pastiche songs, the choreography identifies its sources without quoting directly. It gives the pleasure of finding what we already know in a context where we might not expect it.Present tense: The cast of “Six” doing Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s moves.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesA show about Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, and one of the great dancing singers, might seem to call for a similar approach. But “MJ,” as in so many other ways, is a different beast. It’s a jukebox musical, so the whole point is to hear the songs you know and love. But many of these songs already have choreography inextricably attached: that of Jackson’s hugely influential music videos of the 1980s. This isn’t just a period style that can be reproduced in general. Plenty of people who know the words and melodies also know all the steps.What is Christopher Wheeldon, the choreographer of “MJ,” to do? For the parts of the show covering Jackson’s early life, the Motown and Soul Train years, Wheeldon can work idiomatically, borrowing the styles to tell the story. When the timeline reaches the advent of MTV, though, he balks, having dancers tease some of the zombie boogie from “Thriller” at the back of the stage, facing away.It’s true that the second act begins with a close-to-verbatim reproduction of Jackson’s epochal “Motown 25” performance of “Billie Jean.” And Myles Frost, who plays the adult Jackson, is an astonishing mimic. (He dances that “Billie Jean” a little better than Jackson did.) But elsewhere, Wheeldon keeps replacing the original choreography with his own, and I kept feeling my heart sink, both as a lifelong Jackson fan and a dance critic.An effective replacement would have to be an improvement. And while Wheeldon is expert at crowd control and transitions (and an extremely accomplished choreographer of ballet), he has little feel for what Jackson in the show calls “smelly jelly” — funk, swing or whatever the dancers of the real Five Points called it. Despite help from Rich and Tone Talauega, who worked with Jackson, Wheeldon keeps swerving from that core, straightening away the rhythmic complexity of Jackson’s dancing along with its strangeness.Myles Frost as Michael Jackson in “MJ,” which was directed by Christopher Wheeldon, who was also the lead choreographer.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe most telling moment is the scene of the dancers who inspired Jackson. The representations of the Nicholas Brothers and Fred Astaire show no understanding of what Jackson saw in them (rhythm and attack that extend back to the Five Points), and thus the production can’t fully communicate how this great imitator forged a style that has been endlessly imitated. The only predecessor that “MJ” comprehends is Bob Fosse, whose own easy-to-imitate style defines the boundaries of Broadway dance inside which “MJ” keeps retreating.A good director might have pointed this out. But the director of “MJ” is Wheeldon (who, granted, had many other Jackson-related problems to deal with). There’s a strong Broadway precedent for combining those roles, one established by Jerome Robbins. But among this year’s Tony nominees, the best example of how that can benefit a show isn’t Wheeldon.It’s Camille A. Brown. “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” is what its dancing-poet author, Ntozake Shange, called a “choreopoem.” Although the show was a Broadway hit in 1976, the form didn’t become common, even as the text became canonical. Directing and choreographing this revival, Brown becomes one of exceedingly few Black women ever to take both roles for a Broadway show. (The last that comes to my mind is Katherine Dunham, in 1955.) That fact matters, but so does how she uses the combined power: She restores the work as an expression of a culture in which dance is central.The seven women of the cast recite poems, and they’re always dancing, in sadness and joy. They dance in girls’ games that become adult play, part of Shange’s original conception. But Brown adds American Sign Language, making the weaving of language and motion even more visible. Like the cast of “Six,” these women back each other up in dance. But in Brown’s vision, you can also sense their connections in the way that an exposing monologue by one, about abortion or abuse or self-discovery, reverberates in the silent bodies of the others.This isn’t what we know and expect of Broadway choreography. But unlike “Paradise Square,” it is a powerful return to a source. Dance, Shange once wrote, “is how we remember what cannot be said.” Brown reminds us. More

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      Lucy Moss Unwinds With Songwriting and TikTok Cleaning Tutorials

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      The Tony Award-nominated co-director of “Six” shares the corners of the internet she haunts to help her stay productive.At 26, Lucy Moss became the youngest woman ever to direct a Broadway musical: the global hit, “Six,” which she had co-written at 23 with Toby Marlow, and co-directed with Jamie Armitage. The show, structured as a pop concert battle in which the wives of Henry VIII compete to see who suffered the most, began at the Edinburgh fringe festival in 2017 and now has six productions running worldwide.At 28, Moss is now up for best direction and best original score at the Tony Awards, and just directed a reimagined revival of “Legally Blonde” at London’s Regent’s Park Open Air Theater, running through July and starring a largely queer, mostly Black and brown cast.“At first I was quite a snob about movie adaptations, thinking they’re usually not good, even though that’s not true,” she said on a recent Zoom call from her apartment in London. “It also wasn’t very queer, so I didn’t know if it was my vibe. Then I saw the original’s MTV recording and thought it was the best thing I’d seen in my life.”The London native discussed the diverse bits of culture — pop, online, and IRL — that propel her. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. A Weeping Willow in Regent’s Park When you walk in from the Baker Street Underground station, there’s a bridge and then this lone tree on the bank of the little lake. I’m usually on the tube stressing about something, trying to send 20 emails or whatever, so to then go into the park is just so beautiful, particularly when I was going in for auditions and meetings in the winter. I love weeping willows, I feel a very kindred spirit in them. They’re just falling over, like, “Ugh, everything is so difficult.” I can just look at it and go, “Yeah, same.”2. “Circle Jerk” by Fake Friends — Onstage I paid for, like, three tickets for the digital version of it in 2020 and kept watching it afterward — maybe 40 times? I immediately became their biggest fan from across the internet, and then we did “Ratatouille the Musical” together and became friends. I love how dense it is, textually. It’s such a rich rewatch, and just so funny and nuanced and stupid.I know it quite well at this point — the performances and choices and all that — and I imagine there’ll be new TikTok references [in the new production]. I just can’t believe I get to see it in the flesh. I’ve never been more excited to see a live show.3. Basketball Shorts They’re a great length; you can wear them high-waisted and still not have them be super short. I feel like myself in them. I went to a vintage shop and bought a bunch, so now I have a pair for every day of the week. Now I’m dabbling in wearing them lower, but high-waisting my underwear line, with a crop top. Although, last night, I had to give my phone to a friend because it kept pulling them down.4. Her Cousin Max My mom’s sister’s son is my best friend, and the baby of the family. I love that he has a phone now so I can send him sort of memes of geese and stuff. He texts like a grandma, with correct capitalization and punctuation. I texted him to remind him of the time he fell into the pond at my mom’s house and he replied, “Oh gosh! That brings back memories.” It’s like a novel.5. Cleaning TikTok (“CleanTok”) I watch these when I’m going to bed, when I should be reading a book or something. It’s so soothing and relaxing to see videos of people cleaning their bathrooms — especially the ones from Japan, because they have gadgets that click in and out of place. I watch and fall asleep, though, I’ve absolutely not learned anything from them. Actually, I realized how clean you can actually get things to be.6. The “Contrapoints” YouTube Channel She is just the queen of nuance. Her videos are such a weird, amazing combo of academia made really accessible, and comedy and dress-up. They’re only about an hour but still so thorough, and she’s so empathetic. Sure, she’ll mock people but she’s ultimately discussing the roots of what’s going on in society. She doesn’t place herself higher than anybody else.7. @ZeeWhatIDid I guess she’s kind of like an influencer? She’s a British teenage TikToker who is so charismatic and sweet. She does cosplay and makeup tutorials and Marvel stuff, which I’m not even into, but I’m just happy that TikTok exists for her. She’ll be doing highlighter on her face and talking about blinding your enemies; she’s so gorgeous and funny. I love that she’s living her best life online.8. Writing Songs It’s a good way to unwind without feeling like I’m wasting my life. I don’t have plans to do anything with them, and I often put in little personal in-jokes. I just like the actual process of writing something just for myself, particularly as someone who is usually writing with other people, and always to a specific end. If I was writing with Toby, they’d be like, “Oh no, that rhyme should be at the end of the line,” or something to actually improve it, but I don’t have to do that alone.9. The Bush Theater in London Lynette Linton was made its artistic director a few years ago, and I admire her so much. She runs this building in such an incredible way; the way that everybody in the building interacts with her and each other, it’s such good vibes. And the actual space is amazing: The library is gorgeous, there’s a nice little cafe, and the shows they put on are always championing and nurturing young, different voices that other theaters wouldn’t necessarily do. And it’s in west London, which is where I grew up. So it’s kind of the only cool thing in west London, basically.10. A 2014 Video of Russell Brand Giving Away a CroissantI used to watch his show, “The Trews,” where he would discuss the news, and it got a bit more serious. And then, in the middle of that, there’s this video of him trying to give away a luxury croissant on the motorway. I watch it so often and quote it all the time, which obviously nobody even knows. It makes me so happy, I just love the way he says “croissant” and sings about this segment being his “trafficky bit.” I’ve been obsessed with this video since then and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. More

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      ‘A Strange Loop’ Nominated for 11 Tonys as Broadway Lauds Comeback

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      “The Lehman Trilogy,” as well as revivals of “Company” and “For Colored Girls,” led in their respective categories as the industry tries to recover from the long pandemic shutdown.A musical about making art and a play about making money dominated the Tony Awards nominations Monday, as Broadway sought to celebrate its best work and revive its fortunes after the lengthy and damaging coronavirus shutdown.The race for best musical — traditionally the most financially beneficial prize — turned into an unexpectedly broad six-way contest because the nominators were so closely divided they had to expand the number of nominees.Out of the gate, the front-runner is “A Strange Loop,” a meta-musical in which a composer who is Black and gay battles demons and doubts while trying to write a show. Even before arriving on Broadway, the show, written by Michael R. Jackson, had won the Pulitzer Prize in drama after an Off Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons; it opened on Broadway late last month to some of the strongest reviews for any new musical this season, and on Monday it picked up 11 Tony nominations, the most for any show.“I feel really grateful, and I feel validated for putting in all the years and all the hours,” Jackson said after learning the news. “It feels amazing to know better things are possible.”“MJ,” a jukebox musical about Michael Jackson, was nominated for 10 Tonys. Myles Frost, center, was nominated for best actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesScoring the most nominations is not always predictive of winning the prize, and “A Strange Loop,” which is adventurous in form and content, will face tough competition from “MJ,” a biographical jukebox musical about Michael Jackson; “Six,” a fan favorite about the wives of Henry VIII; “Girl From the North Country,” which combines the songs of Bob Dylan with a fictional story about a boardinghouse in the Minnesota city where Dylan was born; “Mr. Saturday Night,” about a washed-up comedian hungering for a comeback; and “Paradise Square,” about a turning point in race relations in 19th-century New York.Both “Paradise Square,” which picked up 10 nominations, and “Girl From the North Country,” with seven, have struggled at the box office, and will now hope that their multiple Tony nominations will help reverse their financial fortunes. For “MJ,” its 10 nods are a form of vindication after several influential reviewers criticized the show for sidestepping sexual abuse allegations against the pop star.“The Lehman Trilogy,” which arrived on Broadway with an enormous — albeit pandemic-delayed — head of steam following rapturously reviewed productions in London and Off Broadway, picked up eight nominations to dominate the best play category. The play, which follows the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers, was written by Stefano Massini and Ben Power, and featured a dazzling production centered on a rotating glass box designed by Es Devlin. All three of its leads — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor.“The Lehman Trilogy” was nominated for 8 Tonys, including best play. All three of its leads — from left, Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor in a play.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Lehman Trilogy” vies with four other dramas for best play. Among them are two dark comedies — “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer winner who was also nominated for writing the book for “MJ,” and “Hangmen,” by Martin McDonagh, an acclaimed British-Irish playwright who has now been nominated five times but has yet to win. The other contenders are “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about factory workers at an automotive plant facing shutdown, and “The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’s look at the unsettling secrets of a small-town governing body.The Tony Awards, which honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are an annual celebration for American theater, but they are particularly important now as a potential marketing tool for an industry that is still grossing less, and selling fewer tickets, than it was before the pandemic forced theaters to close for a year and a half. The awards are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.“This Tony Awards will mean so much more than honoring the performances and the artistic work that’s been done this season — it’s also celebrating the resilience of the community, and that this much work is being done and being seen,” said Rob McClure, an actor who scored a Tony nomination (his second) for his comedic and chameleonic performance in the title role of “Mrs. Doubtfire.”Billy Crystal was nominated for best actor in a musical for his performance in “Mr. Saturday Night,” based on his 1992 film. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWell known performers scoring nominations included Uzo Aduba, Billy Crystal, Rachel Dratch, Hugh Jackman, Ruth Negga, Mary-Louise Parker, Patti LuPone, Phylicia Rashad and Sam Rockwell. But several other big stars now working on Broadway were overlooked by nominators, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Laurence Fishburne and Daniel Craig, as well as Beanie Feldstein, starring in “Funny Girl” but unable to escape the long shadow of Barbra Streisand.This season saw an unusually large number of works by Black writers, and that created more opportunity for Black performers, directors, and designers, some of whom were nominated for Tonys. Among them are two performers new to Broadway, Jaquel Spivey, the star of “A Strange Loop,” and Myles Frost, the star of “MJ,” now facing off against Crystal, Jackman and McClure in the leading actor in a musical category.“Black playwrights have had an amazing presence this season, and I hope that continues,” said Camille A. Brown, who scored two nominations Monday, for directing and choreographing the revival of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf.” Reflecting on her own show, she said, “Having seven Black women on a Broadway stage has a lot of meaning, and speaks to the importance of sisterhood and love and Black women holding space for one another.”“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf” was nominated for seven Tonys, including for best revival of a play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe seven Tony nominations for “For Colored Girls” are a bittersweet triumph for a production that has been languishing at the box office and had already announced an early closing date. The revival picked up more nominations than any other show in the race for best play revival, a strong category in which many eligible shows won positive reviews.It will now face off against four others: “American Buffalo,” David Mamet’s drama about a trio of scheming junk-shop denizens and “Take Me Out,” Richard Greenberg’s look at homophobia in baseball, as well as two plays that had never previously made it to Broadway despite being considered important parts of the playwriting canon, “Trouble in Mind,” Alice Childress’s look at racism in theater; and “How I Learned to Drive,” Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer-winning drama about child sexual abuse.The competition for best musical revival is small, but strong. There were four eligible shows, and only three scored nods: “Company,” “Caroline, or Change,” and “The Music Man.” Excluded was the revival of “Funny Girl” which fared poorly with critics, but has been doing fine at the box office.“Company,” the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical, was nominated for 9 Tony awards, including best revival of a musical. Patti LuPone, a nominee at left, performed with Katrina Lenk. Matthew Murphy/O & M Co./DKC, via Associated PressThe nine nods for “Company” pack an especially emotional punch because its composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, died soon after attending the first post-shutdown preview. “The longer he’s not with us, the more I miss him,” said LuPone, who picked up her eighth Tony nomination — she’s won twice — for her work in the production.The nominations were chosen by a group of 29 people, most of whom work in the theater industry but are not financially connected to any of the eligible productions, who saw all eligible shows and voted last Friday. There were 34 eligible shows, 29 of which scored nominations; the five left out were all new plays.Up next: a group of 650 voters, including producers and performers and many others with an interest in the nominated productions, have until June 10 to vote for their favorites, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on June 12. The ceremony, at Radio City Music Hall, is to be hosted by Ariana DeBose; the first hour will be streamed on Paramount+, followed by three hours broadcast by CBS.Broadway’s grosses are down in part because tourism remains down in New York City, and in part because of ongoing concerns about the coronavirus. Many of the nominees interviewed Monday said they hoped the spotlight of the Tony Awards would lure more patrons back to Broadway.“Anyone that’s doing theater right now has been hit really hard by the pandemic,” said Marianne Elliott, a two-time Tony-winning director who scored another nomination for “Company.” “It’s gratifying to see that Broadway is coming back. To have the Tony nominations for all of these shows is just a celebration of what we do, and it’s lovely to be here.” More