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    Kenneth Colley, 87, ‘Star Wars’ Actor With a Commanding Presence, Dies

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    A fixture onscreen and onstage, he became a fan favorite as Darth Vader’s ally, Admiral Piett, in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.”Kenneth Colley, the British character actor whose stone-cold portrayal of Adm. Firmus Piett, Darth Vader’s trusted officer, in the Star Wars film “The Empire Strikes Back” turned him into a fan favorite and earned him a call back for “Return of the Jedi,” died on June 30 in Ashford, England. He was 87.His agent, Julian Owen, said in a statement that he died in a hospital from complications of pneumonia after contracting Covid-19.Mr. Colley became a memorable screen presence for international audiences who could recognize his dour, stony face even if they didn’t know his name. A versatile supporting actor, he was often tapped to play stern detectives, military men and, on multiple occasions, Adolf Hitler, and had been active for nearly two decades onstage and onscreen before his appearance in “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980).In a 2014 interview, he recalled that when he walked into an office to meet Irvin Kershner, the director of “The Empire Strikes Back,” Mr. Kershner told him he was looking for “someone that would frighten Adolf Hitler.” Mr. Colley, with his gaunt face and steely eyes, fit the bill. Admiral Piett is appointed top commander of the Imperial fleet after his superior is killed by Darth Vader (whose physical presence is played by David Prowse) for his poor judgment. Mr. Colley often said that he saw Admiral Piett as a shrewd operator who followed orders for the sake of survival in Darth Vader’s world. In his interpretation of the character, he reinforced the severity and tension felt in the camp as the Rebel alliance evades capture.The film grossed more than $200 million in its original release, according to the site Box Office Mojo, with Admiral Piett emerging as an unexpected crowd pleaser.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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      Taye Diggs Can’t Resist a Good Rom-Com

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      “There is the element of love, which can be so serious and so complicated, but when you add the dynamic of humor, it makes it so much more real and exciting and fun to watch.”Taye Diggs got his big break when he played the landlord Benny in the original Broadway cast of “Rent,” back in 1996, and he credits the stage for creating, as he put it, “who I am and why I am who I am.” Problem is, live performance had been taking a back seat in his life.“Once one is lucky enough to cross over to film and TV, it’s easy to get kind of stuck and become an audience member when it comes to theater, and then fear starts to set in,” Diggs said. “I found myself in the audience wondering how these actors onstage memorized all their lines. That’s when I started to get scared.”Not scared enough to turn down the opportunity to step into “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” though — Diggs is currently in rehearsals for the show, in which he’ll play the scheming, wealthy Duke of Monroth starting Tuesday and through Sept. 28.Diggs’s presence on New York stages has been sporadic in the decades since “Rent.” One reason is that he has been living in Los Angeles; the other is why he’s in California.His screen career took off a couple of years after “Rent,” when he helped Angela Bassett track down her mojo in his film debut, “How Stella Got Her Groove Back.” This led to lead roles in the beloved rom-coms “Brown Sugar” and “The Best Man.” Diggs has also been a steady presence on television, with lengthy runs on “Private Practice” and “All American.”But now he’s putting his summer to good use by returning to Broadway, his first appearance there since a stint in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” in 2015. It helped that he’s a fan of “Moulin Rouge,” having seen the show, he said, about 10 times. And the Duke is a juicy character.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 Theater

      Martin Izquierdo Dead: Costume Designer Who Made Wings for ‘Angels in America’ Was 83

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      His work was seen in “Angels in America” and Victoria’s Secret runway shows. He also made outlandish ensembles for Heidi Klum and Marc Jacobs.Martin Izquierdo, a theatrical costume designer whose career took off after he designed the feathery wings that gave phantasmic flight to the spiritual messenger in “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1991 play, both onstage and in the 2003 HBO version directed by Mike Nichols, died on June 25 at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.The cause was cardiovascular disease, his partner, the costume designer John Glaser, said.At the conclusion of “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches,” the first part of the two-part play, the angel of the title makes an impressive entrance, crashing through the ceiling of an AIDS-stricken gay man’s New York apartment and proclaiming, “The great work begins.”Ellen McLaughlin and Stephen Spinella in a scene from “Perestroika” (1993), the second part of Tony Kushner’s two-part play “Angels in America.” Mr. Izquierdo designed the wings.Joan MarcusIt was Mr. Izquierdo’s ingenuity, and his flamboyant imagination — assisted by a certain amount of technical wizardry — that allowed Ellen McLaughlin, who played the angel on Broadway, and Emma Thompson, the angel in the HBO version, to hover convincingly some 30 feet overhead, framed by prodigious wings that were illuminated from behind. Those wings became a symbol of the production itself, an indelible part of its “astonishing theatrical landscape,” as Frank Rich of The New York Times described the show in a 1993 review.Their creator arrived in the United States in the 1940s, a young undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had been recruited to do agricultural work in California.Mr. Izquierdo (pronounced IZZ-key-AIR-doe), who never became a citizen, eventually gravitated to a career as an artist, painting scenery for the theater before becoming a costume designer. In 1978, he left California for New York, where he opened his own studio and spent nearly four decades making costumes and props for film, theater, and the music and fashion industries.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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      ‘The Weir’ Review: A Few Pints to Help the Ghost Stories Go Down Easy

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      Conor McPherson’s eerie 1997 drama, set in a rural Ireland of near-empty pubs and howling winds, returns to Irish Rep in top form.There’s hardly a better escape from the city’s heat right now than the Irish Repertory Theater’s excellent staging of “The Weir,” its fourth since 2013. The company’s intimate Chelsea space is blissfully air-conditioned, and Conor McPherson’s eerie 1997 drama, set in a rural Ireland of near-empty pubs and howling winds, is appropriately chilly.The production’s entire creative team, along with some of the cast, are return players, but there’s not a whiff of trotting out the same old. Instead, they render the play’s talkative yarns as heartily as a few rounds with old friends. That sense of familiarity (and the awareness that they are such close-knit revivers) even helps the play, which is essentially a hangout piece with a hazy supernatural charge.Its tight 90 minutes track an evening at a pub owned by the 30-something Brendan (Johnny Hopkins), and frequented by the older Jack (Dan Butler) and Jim (John Keating). How regular are their visits? Jack’s first move onstage, one he often repeats, is to breeze behind the bar to pour himself a pint.Unlike his also-unmarried patrons, and as played by Hopkins with homey charm, Brendan seems content with his mundane lot but is not yet resigned to it. There’s a kinship, then, with the recently arrived Valerie (Sarah Street), who’s being shown around town by Finbar (Sean Gormley), an older gent with a self-conscious Ian Fleming style.The men’s hospitality, as they fill Valerie in on the area’s lore, gradually turns into a series of ghost tales. Through offhand conversational cues (“What was the story with…?” or “Where was that?”), McPherson is skilled at making reminiscences’ jump into communal folklore feel both inevitable and necessary.It’s typical campfire fodder — frightened widows and apparitions — and each story can be waved away, chalked up to nerves or having had one too many. But neither McPherson, nor the director Ciarán O’Reilly, leans on obvious spooks, though the production’s lighting (by Michael Gottlieb) and sound design (by Drew Levy) supply the requisite dimming lights and stormy hums.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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      John Conklin, Designer of Fantastical Opera Sets, Dies at 88

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      Realizing a childhood dream, he created scenery that was highly conceptual yet playful for the Glimmerglass Festival, New York City Opera and other companies.John Conklin, a celebrated designer of scenery for opera and theater, who tapped a boundless knowledge of music and art history, as well as an instinct for disruption, to create memorable sets for New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera and, most notably, the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York, died on June 24 in Cooperstown, N.Y. He was 88.His death was confirmed in a statement by Glimmerglass, the nonprofit summer opera company in Cooperstown.Mr. Conklin was the scenic designer for all four shows of this year’s summer season at the Glimmerglass Festival, including “Tosca,” above.Kayleen Bertrand/the Glimmerglass FestivalMr. Conklin designed the scenery — and, in some cases, the costumes — for more than 40 Glimmerglass productions, starting in 1991. He remained active with the company even after his retirement in 2008, and he served as the scenic designer for all four shows of this summer’s season: “Tosca,” “Sunday in the Park With George,” “The House on Mango Street” and “The Rake’s Progress.”Mr. Conklin also designed the 2025 Glimmerglass production of “Sunday in the Park With George.”Brent DeLanoy/the Glimmerglass FestivalThe term “prodigy” rarely applies to set designers, but Mr. Conklin’s instincts were on full display in his youth. Growing up in Hartford, Conn., he attended symphonies and operas with his family, and by 10, he was building his own models, based on photographs he found perusing the magazine Opera News.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

    • 125 Shares145 Views

      in Theater

      All Aboard a Steam Train to See ‘The Railway Children’

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      The steam train departed the station with a gentle chug, belching clouds of steam that streamed past the carriage windows. Gathering speed, the locomotive transported its passengers through a damp green valley, past gray stone buildings, rain-dripping oak trees, banks of ferns and hillsides dotted with sheep.For many visitors to the Keighley and Worth Valley heritage railway, the picturesque five-mile route through northern England from the town Keighley to Oxenhope village is the main attraction. But for the passengers on Tuesday, it was just the beginning.A theater adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s classic children’s book, “The Railway Children,” awaited them when they stepped down from the train in Oxenhope. To take their seats, passengers headed into a large engine room shed next to the platform, where they sat on either side of a railway track. The scenes played out on a movable set that shunted up and down the tracks. And at certain key moments in the play, a second real steam train rolled in as part of the action.It was a fitting setting for a play set entirely around a small village station in the steam age. “The Railway Children” follows three children — Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis — who must leave their comfortable London home for a simple cottage in the countryside after their father is imprisoned on suspicion of being spy. The children are cheerfully resilient in the face of sudden poverty and are soon welcomed into the rural community.The audience for “The Railway Children” boards a steam train in Keighley, a town in northern England.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesKeighley is a stop on a railway line that opened in 1867 and closed in 1962. Locals and locomotive enthusiasts later revived the route as a heritage line.Ellie Smith 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 Theater

      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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      Williamstown Theater Festival Was in Crisis. Here’s How It’s Changing.

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      Williamstown Theater Festival, long one of the nation’s most highly regarded summer theaters, has been fighting for its life recently, struggling to regain its footing after complaints about its workplace practices, leadership turnover and the economic challenges that have vexed other performing arts organizations.This summer, the Western Massachusetts nonprofit’s latest leadership team has opted for a radically new and risky reboot: Instead of a summer-long season with two shows at a time, the company is leaning into the “festival” part of its name, offering eight shows simultaneously, but only for three long weekends, starting July 17 and ending Aug. 3.The shows — which include dance, opera and music as well as theater — are being curated by Jeremy O. Harris, the audacious playwright best known for “Slave Play,” and several of the productions are based on stories written by, or inspired by, Tennessee Williams. Most unexpected: an ice dance show inspired by a Williams novel.Why does Williamstown matter?This summer’s festival includes two plays by Tennessee Williams, “Not About Nightingales” and “Camino Real.”Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe Williamstown Theater Festival had been a destination not only for culture-loving visitors who flock to the Berkshires every summer, but also for theater performers, writers and directors seeking to hone their craft and develop new work. It was also an important training ground for many aspiring theater industry workers. Numerous shows moved from Williamstown to New York, including, during the last full prepandemic season, three that transferred to Broadway: the plays “Grand Horizons” and “The Sound Inside” as well as a revival of another Tennessee Williams play, “The Rose Tattoo.”Why has the festival been struggling?At the start of the pandemic, following the death of George Floyd, the calls for a social justice reckoning that rocked many corners of society also shook theater. Staff and alumni of the festival objected to the nonprofit’s history of relying on young workers who were often unpaid or underpaid; there were also complaints about how the company responded to safety concerns. The turmoil, chronicled by The Los Angeles Times, led to the departure of the festival’s artistic director, Mandy Greenfield, and a review of the festival’s practices. Ultimately, the festival decided all staff would be paid; that decision was followed by a sharp reduction in programming.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 Theater

      An Indispensable Theater Incubator Faces a Troubled Future

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      On a sun-kissed summer day at the Connecticut shore, some 200 people huddled in a darkened room. They had come to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn., to hear “Dead Girl Quinceañera,” a new play by Phanésia Pharel. The story of a Miami teenager who goes missing during her own birthday party, the play was performed by four young actresses, their scripts propped atop metal music stands.When Pharel, a playwright newly sprung from graduate school, arrived at the O’Neill a week before, the play was much shorter. It lacked an ending. But she had since found one. After the reading, she floated back into the afternoon on an artist’s high. “It’s a dream,” she said of her time at the center. “It’s a little bit of a utopia.”Pharel and three colleagues are the newest members of the National Playwrights Conference, which the O’Neill has hosted annually (barring a brief pandemic hiccup), since 1966. It is perhaps the country’s premiere spot for play development, its alumni functioning as a who’s who of American theater in the last half century.John Guare was among the first cohort, with “The House of Blue Leaves.” Those who followed him include August Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, David Henry Hwang, Beth Henley, Samuel D. Hunter, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Dominique Morisseau, Jeremy O. Harris. (Musical theater alumni include Jeanine Tesori, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Robert Lopez.) Celine Song, another alum, sets a scene from her recent film, “The Materialists,” at the center.Actors rehearse a season from “Dead Girl Quinceañera,” a new play by Phanésia Pharel (seated in a yellow dress).Jillian Freyer for The New York TimesThe actors performing work by participants of the National Playwrights Conference, which the O’Neill has hosted annually (barring a brief pandemic hiccup), since 1966.Jillian Freyer for The New York TimesLula Britos, center, an actor.Jillian Freyer 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