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    Merle Louise Simon, a Sondheim Mainstay, Is Dead at 90

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    She originated roles in four of his Broadway musicals between 1959 and 1987, and won a Drama Desk Award for her performance in “Sweeney Todd.”Merle Louise Simon, an award-winning stage actor and the only person to play roles in the original Broadway productions of four Stephen Sondheim musicals, died on Jan. 11 in Lake Katrine, N.Y., in Ulster County. She was 90.Her daughter Laura Simon confirmed the death, in a nursing home.Ms. Simon — who worked for most of her career under the name Merle Louise — began her run in Sondheim shows with “Gypsy,” in 1959, and continued with “Company” (1970), “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (1979) and “Into the Woods” (1987), Mr. Sondheim and James Lapine’s interpretation of fairy tales. (Mr. Sondheim wrote the lyrics for “Gypsy” and the music and lyrics for the other shows.)Ms. Simon in 1987, in the Broadway production of the Sondheim musical “Into the Woods.”Martha Swope, via Billy Rose Theatre Division/New York Public Library“Steve had a real history with Merle,” Mr. Lapine, who directed Ms. Simon in three roles, including the Giant in “Into the Woods,” said in an email. Mr. Sondheim, he added, “loved the energy she brought to the rehearsal room and the stage. Merle was usually the smallest person in the room but always the most ebullient and with the most glorious voice.”When “Gypsy” opened, Ms. Simon had a minor role. But she was promoted in early 1960 to be the understudy to the actress playing June, one of two daughters pushed into show business by their ambitious mother, Rose, played by the powerhouse Ethel Merman.Soon after becoming the understudy, Ms. Simon went on for the actress in the role, who was ailing, and ended up becoming the full-time June.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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      ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ Wins Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album

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      “Hell’s Kitchen,” a coming-of-age show inspired by the adolescent experiences of Alicia Keys and fueled by her music, won a Grammy Award on Sunday for best musical theater album.The album, produced by Keys along with Adam Blackstone and Tom Kitt, was released in June and features the original stars of the Broadway production, Maleah Joi Moon and Kecia Lewis, both of whom won Tony Awards for their performances, as well as Shoshana Bean and Brandon Victor Dixon.Keys was already a 16-time Grammy winner, and on Sunday she was also being honored with the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award presented by the Black Music Collective. She is both the composer and lyricist for the songs on the “Hell’s Kitchen” album.The show, which opened on Broadway last spring following an Off Broadway run at the Public Theater, is still running at the Shubert Theater and has been selling well, although its grosses softened last month. A North American tour is scheduled to begin at Playhouse Square in Cleveland in October.“Hell’s Kitchen” tells the story of a 17-year-old girl, Ali, being raised by a single mother in an apartment tower where most of the units are subsidized for performing artists; Ali, whose life has close parallels to that of Keys, is starting to find her way romantically and musically.This year’s six Grammy-nominated cast albums were all for musicals that opened on Broadway during the 2023-24 season.The other nominees were “Merrily We Roll Along,” a Tony-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1981 flop about the implosion of a three-way friendship; “The Notebook,” based on the much-loved 1996 Nicholas Sparks romance novel; “The Outsiders,” the Tony-winning musical based on the classic 1967 S.E. Hinton novel about two warring groups of adolescents in Tulsa, Okla.; “Suffs,” Shaina Taub’s exploration of the American women’s suffrage movement; and “The Wiz,” a revival of the 1975 show based on “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”“The Outsiders” won the Tony for best new musical, and “Merrily We Roll Along” won for best musical revival. Only “The Outsiders” and “Hell’s Kitchen” are still running on Broadway. More

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      In ‘Eureka Day,’ a Scene About Vaccines Devolves, Hilariously

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      In “Eureka Day,” changes were made to a scene because “the laughter was so robust backstage, they couldn’t hear the cues.”The third scene of the new Broadway production of “Eureka Day” could be titled The Way We Discourse Now. As written by the playwright Jonathan Spector, the scene reliably has audiences laughing so loudly that the actors are drowned out.The situation is this: It is 2018. The principal of the progressive private school Eureka Day in Berkeley, Calif., and the four members of its executive committee must inform the other parents that a student has mumps, and therefore by law any students who have not been vaccinated must stay home to avoid exposure. (Vaccine skepticism was not uncommon in this milieu, particularly pre-pandemic.)The school leaders, an optimistic bunch dedicated to diversity and inclusion, hold a town hall-style meeting “to see,” says the principal, Don, “how we can come together as a community and exchange ideas around a difficult issue.”At the meeting, which is being held remotely, Don speaks while sitting in front of a laptop in the school library, addressing parents on a Zoom-like video app. The executive committee members are behind him. The rest of the school’s parents weigh in on a chat-like function. Their messages — 144 of them — are projected above the actors for the audience to read.The online conversation quickly descends into vicious attacks. “Typical behavior from the Executive Committee of FASCISM.” “Sorry, chiropractors are not doctors.” “That’s child abuse!!!”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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      Idina Menzel Played Elphaba and Elsa. Now She’s Back on Broadway.

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      Menzel, a fan favorite since “Rent,” is back on Broadway in “Redwood,” and this time she’s climbing conifers.Idina Menzel was sitting on a bench in a California redwood grove, yearning for silence. It was late one autumn afternoon, and I had been trying for months to get her to meet me in a forest where we could discuss this musical she’d been working on for 15 years about a woman in a tree, and now here we were. But also, there was a wedding party walking by, and an unleashed dog that knocked over her hibiscus tea, and an aircraft buzzing overhead.Listen to this article with reporter commentaryNo matter. On the drive to the forest from a dance studio where Menzel had been practicing singing upside down, because yes, this musical requires her to dance and sing while scaling a giant tree, she had been thinking about what she wanted to tell me about why she was making a show that is outwardly about redwoods — it’s called “Redwood” — but also about a grieving woman’s search for sanctuary.“I’m a little reticent to say, but I think I have a lot of noise in my own head as a person,” she told me as we settled in at Oakland’s Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park. “The idea of escaping and freeing yourself from your own pain or loneliness or confusion is very healing to me.”In an entertainment industry where actors are lucky to have one career-defining role, Menzel already has three: Maureen, the rabble-rousing performance artist in “Rent”; Elphaba, the green-skinned who-are-you-calling-wicked witch in “Wicked”; and Elsa, the ice-conjuring queen in Disney’s animated “Frozen” films. Those characters have many strengths, but serenity is not one of them.Menzel had her breakout role in “Rent,” top left, and then won a Tony in “Wicked,” top right. Her other stage roles have included the Off Broadway play “Skintight,” bottom right, and the Broadway musical “If/Then,” bottom left.Photographs by Sara Krulwich/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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      How Kara Young, a Tony-Winning Actress, Spends Her Sundays

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      Kara Young spends a rare day off brunching with her family in Harlem and popping into beauty supply stores along 125th Street.Many actors have to leave their support systems behind when they set out to follow their Broadway dreams.But Kara Young, a Tony Award-winning actress who grew up on the west side of Harlem — and lives just three blocks from where she was born — has been able to share her success with the community that raised her.Ms. Young, whose parents immigrated from Belize, attended elementary school and high school in Spanish Harlem, the neighborhood on the east side of Manhattan known for its Puerto Rican culture. “It’s a super beautiful community,” she said.“But at the same time,” she added, “I recognize that I’ve been privileged to be able to stay in the community I grew up in. Gentrification is real.”It was at the 92nd Street Y, she said, that she first became hooked on theater. Her older brother, Klay, was taking a mime class as part of an after-school program — and a 5-year-old Ms. Young knew she wanted in.Soon she was performing with the other students around Manhattan, and “that set off my imagination,” 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

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      Jimmy Fallon Makes His Broadway Debut in “All In”

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      The “Tonight Show” host is performing in the new comedy “All In,” which features a starry cast. “It’s a dream,” he said.Four days a week, Jimmy Fallon performs for a TV audience of millions of people as the host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” But stepping onto the stage of the Hudson Theater in front of about 1,000 theatergoers made him nervous in a whole new way.“When you have too much time to think about it, you overthink it,” Fallon said after making his Broadway debut in “All In: Comedy About Love” on Tuesday night. “It’s exhilarating, it’s exciting and it’s exhausting,” he added, in a post-performance interview in his dressing room. “Even though I don’t really even do much.”Fallon, backstage with one of his co-stars, Lin-Manuel Miranda.Graham Dickie/The New York Times“All In,” short comedic segments based on stories written by Simon Rich and directed by Alex Timbers, features a rotating cast of brand-name actors who tend to hold scripts since they don’t have much time to rehearse.Fallon, 50, who on Tuesday night shared the stage with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Aidy Bryant and Nick Kroll (plus a band led by the married couple the Bengsons), will only appear for eight performances. But it still amounts to his Broadway debut. Which is a big deal for a kid from Saugerties, N.Y., who grew up captivated by the Tony Awards on television — and the Milford Plaza Hotel’s “Lulla-BUY of Broadway” commercials.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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      ‘Cult of Love’ Review: We Wish You a Wretched Christmas

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      A hilarious, harrowing holiday gift from Leslye Headland, who brings another unhappy family to Broadway. Zachary Quinto and Shailene Woodley star.Though figgy pudding is on the menu, Evie Dahl has a different Yuletide horror in mind. “Christmas is exactly the time to talk about the things we never talk about,” she tells her reluctant siblings.No, Evie, no!Alas, despite the happy presence of stars including Zachary Quinto, Shailene Woodley and Mare Winningham, the annual ritual dinner of the Dahls is doomed from the start of Leslye Headland’s “Cult of Love,” a rip-roaring home-for-the-holidays dramedy that opened on Thursday at the Helen Hayes Theater. What begins as a cheery reunion in a New England farmhouse decked out like Santa’s workshop ends as a collective meltdown with carols.Because Evie, even if she’s bossy, is right. The four Dahl children, now in their late 20s through early 40s, have plenty of grudges that urgently need airing. But how? Ginny, their passive-aggressive control freak of a mother, will not admit into her home any problems, doubts or identities that violate her sense of upbeat Christian propriety. So what if her husband, Bill, is hovering on the edge of the abyss of Alzheimer’s? Ignore it, excuse it; it will go away.The same applies to the couple’s firstborn, Mark, a divinity student turned lawyer who has lost his faith in both callings. (When he says he’s no longer a Christian, Ginny responds, “That’s not true.”) Evie, their second, a chef, is a lesbian. (“Or not,” Ginny adds.) Johnny, their third, of no known profession, is a recovering drug addict. (“If you all say so,” Ginny allows.) And Diana, the youngest? She’s either a Christmas miracle, complete with baby on board, or just psychotic, espying the devil and speaking in tongues.If that setup doesn’t exactly sound funny, there’s a reason. Though “Cult of Love,” like many unhappy family reunion plays, draws big buckets of humor from the toxic brew of religion and repression, those buckets also draw blood.Headland knows just how to get there, suggesting deep familiarity with the territory. But she also has a gift for complication and construction, as was already evident in “Bachelorette,” her Bridezillas Gone Wild breakthrough play of 2010. (That play, like this one, was a Second Stage Theater production, and later became a movie.) Loading pattern on pattern — a holiday-season design don’t for most — is for her an opportunity to dizzy us down to hell.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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      Adam Lambert Is Finding the Fun, and the Fear, in ‘Cabaret’

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      Making his Broadway debut as the show’s Emcee, the singer is reveling in what he calls “a thinking piece of musical theater.”Over at the Kit Kat Club, the change in “Cabaret” is apparent in the show’s first moments. The Emcee, as played by the singer-songwriter Adam Lambert, is nothing like the Emcee as played by the film star Eddie Redmayne, who opened the current Broadway revival last spring after it transferred from London.Lambert, in his Broadway debut, turns out to have theatrical chops: He’s lending his Emcee not only vocal shapeliness but also puckish warmth. The alienation so central to Redmayne’s interpretation has been replaced by humanity.To Rebecca Frecknall, the show’s director, Lambert’s rock-star charisma was part of his appeal.“What I didn’t anticipate was how naughty and funny he was going to be and how much he was going to enjoy that relationship with the audience,” she said by phone. “There’s also just something brilliant about what he brings of his personal identity to the role — having a queer, Jewish artist step into that space with that material.”Lambert and ensemble members in the show’s latest revival at the August Wilson Theater in Manhattan.Julieta CervantesSet in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis, “Cabaret” starts out light and decadent and grows steadily, stealthily darker, with gut-punch songs like “If You Could See Her,” a satire of antisemitism. There’s also the ballad “I Don’t Care Much” — recently released as a single — which Lambert describes as “a real emotional moment” of “struggle with indifference” for the Emcee.“They were so kind to raise the key to make it more of a torch song for me,” Lambert said.With music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Joe Masteroff, “Cabaret” became a hit with its original Broadway production in 1966. Lambert, 42, has known the musical ever since he was a theater kid growing up in San Diego, when his voice teacher showed him the movie adaptation.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