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      Meet Rachel Hauck, the Set Designer Behind the Tony-Nominated Ship From ‘Swept Away’

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      “Transforming Spaces” is a series about women driving change in sometimes unexpected places.The first time she saw the shipwreck, Rachel Hauck began to cry.It was during rehearsals at the Berkeley Repertory Theater for the premiere in 2022 of “Swept Away,” a jukebox musical based on the songs of the Avett Brothers about a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of New Bedford, Mass. The cast and crew had assembled to stage a dry run of the show’s spectacular action centerpiece: a full-scale re-creation of the capsizing of the whaler, which overturns onstage to reveal a slender wooden lifeboat, where the remainder of the show takes place.As a feat of conceptual ingenuity and mechanical engineering, the moment was astonishing — a scene of such extraordinary scale and intensity that, when it occurred nightly during the show’s short run on Broadway last year, the audience would break into thunderous applause. It was too much for Hauck, the set designer, who watched that California dress rehearsal with tears streaming down her face.“It was the emotional journey of it all,” Hauck, 64, said recently, once again tearing up. “I don’t know quite how to articulate this, but it’s space and physical objects and emotion, and how those things lift.”Hauck’s grand vision of the sinking ship was so important to the impact of the musical that it’s impossible to imagine “Swept Away” without it. But in fact, nothing of the kind was suggested in the musical’s original book, by John Logan.“In the script, it’s like, ‘The boat sinks.’ That’s it. Literally,” Michael Mayer, the show’s director, said. “Rachel had this ingenious and beautiful idea of how to do the shipwreck. And this is the reason why you go to Rachel Hauck for these kinds of complicated shows where there’s a giant transformation.”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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      How the ‘Purpose’ Writer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Cast Juggled Revisions

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      Ahead of the Tony Awards, the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and the acclaimed ensemble reflected on the challenges of balancing the many script revisions.Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Tony-nominated play “Purpose,” set in the Chicago home of a family of Black upper-class civil rights leaders, seems, at first, to be inspired by the political drama involving the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s clan. But those assumptions are upended by the play’s highly original take on the themes of sacrifice, succession, asexuality and spirituality.The family saga, which won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for drama, showcases even more of the vivid language, spitfire dialogue and sweeping sense of American history that garnered Jacobs-Jenkins a Tony Award last year for “Appropriate.” And like that production, this play’s ensemble has been nominated for multiple acting awards — five in all.Originally staged in 2023 at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, and directed by Phylicia Rashad, “Purpose” was revised, refined and expanded throughout its Broadway preview period. Jacobs-Jenkins readily admits that this process is not unusual for him, much less the writers he has studied intently, like August Wilson or Tennessee Williams. On a recent afternoon, however, a conversation about his collaboration with the cast turned lively with Jacobs-Jenkins calling it “family therapy.”We were sitting on the Helen Hayes Theater stage — at the dining-room table where the play’s most memorable fight plays out — with the show’s six cast members, Harry Lennix, who plays the patriarch and preacher Solomon Jasper; LaTanya Richardson Jackson, as the pragmatic and perspicacious matriarch Claudine Jasper; Jon Michael Hill, as the narrator and the monastic younger son, Nazareth; Glenn Davis, as the beguiling older son, Junior; Alana Arenas, as his windstorm of a wife, Morgan; and Kara Young, who plays Nazareth’s naïve friend Aziza. (Arenas, Davis and Hill are all the Steppenwolf members around whom Jacobs-Jenkins originally conceived of the play.)Purpose Broadway“This is so naked,” Jacobs-Jenkins said, “because I never had this conversation in front of you all before. I’ve said all this to individual journalists.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.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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      ‘Marjorie Prime’ and ‘Becky Shaw’ Are Coming to Broadway This Season

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      Second Stage Theater, a nonprofit, will put on the two plays, both of which were Pulitzer finalists, at its Helen Hayes Theater.Second Stage Theater, one of the four nonprofits with Broadway houses, said it would present the plays “Marjorie Prime” and “Becky Shaw,” both of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in drama, at its Helen Hayes Theater this season.The organization, beginning the first season programmed by its new artistic director, Evan Cabnet, said that it would continue its focus on work by contemporary American writers.“Marjorie Prime,” written by Jordan Harrison, is about an older woman whose companion is a hologram of her dead husband fueled by artificial intelligence. The play was staged by Center Theater Group in Los Angeles in 2014, then by Playwrights Horizons in New York in 2015, and was adapted into a movie in 2017. Ben Brantley, then a theater critic for The New York Times, called the play “elegant, thoughtful and quietly unsettling”; the Pulitzer board described it as “a sly and surprising work about technology and artificial intelligence told through images and ideas that resonate.”The new production will be directed by Anne Kauffman, who also directed the Off Broadway production. It is scheduled to begin previews on Nov. 20 and to open on Dec. 8.“Becky Shaw,” written by Gina Gionfriddo, is a dark comedy about a bad date. The play was staged at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky., in 2008, and then opened at Second Stage’s Off Broadway theater in 2009. Charles Isherwood, then a theater critic for The Times, called the play “as engrossing as it is ferociously funny, like a big box of fireworks fizzing and crackling across the stage from its first moments to its last”; the Pulitzer board described it as “a jarring comedy that examines family and romantic relationships with a lacerating wit while eschewing easy answers and pat resolutions.”The new production will be directed by Trip Cullman, beginning previews on March 18 and opening on April 8.Second Stage did not announce casting for either play. The nonprofit organization said its new season would also include three Off Broadway plays: “Meet the Cartozians,” written by Talene Monahon and directed by David Cromer; “Meat Suit,” written and directed by Aya Ogawa; and a revival of “The Receptionist,” a 2007 play written by Adam Bock. All three will be staged at the Pershing Square Signature Center, where Second Stage has presented its Off Broadway work since giving up its lease on the Tony Kiser Theater. More

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      ‘Beetlejuice’ Is Coming Back to Broadway

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      The national tour production will haunt the Palace Theater for 13 weeks, beginning Oct. 8.“Beetlejuice” isn’t dead quite yet.The national tour production of the fan-favorite musical comedy, which has had two previous Broadway runs in 2019-20 and 2022-23, will head to the New York stage this fall, producers announced Tuesday.The show, which is adapted from Tim Burton’s 1988 film and tells the story of a goth girl and a pushy poltergeist, is set to play the Palace Theater for 13 weeks, beginning Oct. 8 and running through Jan. 3, 2026. Casting will be announced at a later date.In his review of the original Broadway production, which starred Alex Brightman as the titular ghoul in a striped suit, The New York Times’s Ben Brantley praised Brightman’s performance and the “jaw-droppingly well-appointed gothic funhouse set” by the set designer David Korins (“Hamilton”), though he lamented that the show “so overstuffs itself with gags, one-liners and visual diversions that you shut down from sensory overload.”No matter: The musical became a fan favorite, with people dressing in costume, lip-syncing to the cast recording on TikTok and showering the show’s cast with fan art.With a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, music and lyrics by Eddie Perfect, and direction by Alex Timbers (who won a Tony Award for directing “Moulin Rouge!”), the stage production was nominated for eight Tony Awards, but won none.“Beetlejuice” is having a bit of a cultural moment: A popular sequel film, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” also directed by Burton, was released last year, more than three decades after the original, which starred Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice), Alec Baldwin (Adam Maitland), Catherine O’Hara (Delia Deetz) and a young Winona Ryder (Lydia Deetz).The national tour production, which began performances in 2022, has played 88 cities over the last two and a half years. The musical has also had productions in Tokyo; Seoul; and Melbourne, Australia; and is heading soon to Sydney. More

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      This ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ Star Knows She’s Intimidating

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      As she exits the stage door of “Buena Vista Social Club,” the Broadway actress Natalie Venetia Belcon can see it in their eyes. The waiting fans thrust Playbills and pens into the hands of her co-stars, but when Belcon comes down the line, she senses their shyness, their wariness.“They’re afraid,” she said. “It’s so weird. I’m like, ‘You guys, I’m pretending!’”Onstage, Belcon, 56, plays the middle-aged version of Omara Portuondo, the famed Cuban singer known as “the queen of feeling.” (Isa Antonetti portrays the teen version.) Belcon’s Omara is stately, imperious. “You’re not the kind of woman one forgets,” a bandmate in the show tells her. She can dismiss a person with a tilt of the head, a wave of the hand. The role has earned Belcon a Tony nomination, her first, for best performance by a featured actress in a musical.Natalie Venetia Belcon as Omara, with members of the onstage band, in “Buena Vista Social Club” at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBelcon is, she insists, not Omara, but some of this same majesty was evident even over a casual afternoon snack of calamari and plantains at Cuba, a restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood. The waiter seemed honored to shake up a mojito for her. Belcon, dressed like some expensive, resplendent bird in a blue-and-yellow skirt and matching jewelry, looked regal as she sipped it.Then she pointed to the stalk of sugar cane in the glass. “Oh, I love sugar cane!” she said delightedly. “I grew up chewing on it. Then you catch yourself in the mirror, like, ‘That doesn’t look sexy!’”Belcon insists that in her downtime, offstage, away from journalists, she is an everyday sort of woman who prefers oversize T-shirts and yoga pants. She loves to put on her bunny slippers and watch the UFC.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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      Patti LuPone Apologizes for Comments About Audra McDonald and Kecia Lewis

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      LuPone said she was “deeply sorry for the words” she used in her criticism of Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald when asked about a dispute over Broadway noise levels.Patti LuPone, a three-time Tony-winning actress, has for years been known, and generally celebrated, as one of the most outspoken performers on Broadway. Her reprimands of poorly behaved audience members have made her a folk hero of sorts in the theater business, and her grudges and grievances have had a certain real-talk charm.But this week she crossed a line for many in the theater community with her criticism of two fellow Tony-winning performers in an interview with The New Yorker.LuPone responded sharply when asked about responses to her concern that noise from the Alicia Keys jukebox musical, “Hell’s Kitchen,” was bleeding into the theater where LuPone was performing in a two-woman play, “The Roommate.”The criticism — LuPone referred to Kecia Lewis, who plays a piano teacher in “Hell’s Kitchen,” with the word “bitch” and described Audra McDonald, Broadway’s most-honored performer, as “not a friend” — prompted a backlash from many of LuPone’s colleagues, and on Saturday she issued a 163-word statement responding to the furor.“I am deeply sorry for the words I used during The New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful,” she wrote in a statement posted on Instagram and Facebook. “I regret my flippant and emotional responses during this interview, which were inappropriate, and I am devastated that my behavior has offended others and has run counter to what we hold dear in this community. I hope to have the chance to speak to Audra and Kecia personally to offer my sincere apologies.”LuPone’s offending comments came while discussing an incident last year when she had become concerned about distracting noise levels inside the theater, the Booth, where she was performing. (This is a frequent phenomenon on Broadway, where noise from the streets, and sometimes from adjoining theaters, can be audible.)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 ‘Dead Outlaw,’ Andrew Durand Has the Role of a Lifetime. And After.

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      An hour before a Wednesday evening show, the actor Andrew Durand clambered up to a platform on the stage of the Longacre Theater and began doing jumping jacks. “When I walk onstage I never want to feel like I walked in off the street,” he said between jumps. “I want some sort of elevation physically.”Durand, 39, a Broadway regular, is a first-time Tony nominee this year for his role in “Dead Outlaw,” a new musical that tells the improbable true story of Elmer McCurdy, a bandit fatally shot by a sheriff’s posse in 1911. Because his preserved corpse went unclaimed, McCurdy spent the following decades as a sideshow attraction and an occasional movie extra before ending up as a prop in an amusement-park ride.McCurdy’s unusual life and afterlife mean that Durand spends the first 40 minutes of the show leaping on and off tables, climbing up and down ladders, and hanging upside down. He spends the next 40 minutes standing still, barely breathing when the lights are on him. Before each performance, he puts himself through a 30-minute workout to prepare for all that motion, all that stillness.Andrew Durand plays the motionless corpse of Elmer McCurdy for most of the second half of “Dead Outlaw.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I have all this crazy stuff to do in the show,” he said. “I don’t want my body to go into shock.”Durand, who has wavy brown hair, a wide forehead and the jawline of a cartoon superhero, grew up in a churchgoing family in a suburb of Atlanta. He saw his first play at 10, at the local community theater. He returned to act, to paint sets, to sell concession stand popcorn. He loved the openness, the silliness and the reverence he felt there. Eventually he recruited his whole family for the annual production of “A Christmas Carol.” An arts high school followed, then a theater conservatory, and not long after he graduated Durand was on Broadway in 2008, as a replacement cast member in “Spring Awakening.”During that show, Durand didn’t pay much attention to workouts or warm-ups. “I think I had some injuries that I didn’t notice or deal with,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I tore a rotator cuff doing some choreography, but we were kids. We were just partying after the show, hanging out, sleeping in.”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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      ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Remembers When TV Had a Conscience, and a Spine

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      A TV critic looks at George Clooney’s play about CBS News standing up to political pressure, even as its current ownership might succumb to it.In the Broadway play “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow (George Clooney) allows himself a moment of doubt, as his program “See It Now” embarks on a series of reports on the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s.“It occurs to me,” he says, “that we might not get away with this one.”It is a small but important line. We know Murrow’s story — exposing the red-baiting demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy — as history. And history, once set down on the page and stage, can seem inevitable.But Murrow’s success was not preordained. It required hard, exacting work. It required guts. It required journalists to risk personal ruin and some of them to experience it.It’s a point worth remembering. And it hits especially hard at this moment, when CBS News, headquartered just blocks away from the Winter Garden Theater, is again under political and financial pressure to rein in its coverage of the powerful. History is repeating, this time perhaps as tragedy. (CNN is airing the play’s June 7 evening performance live, as if to give the news business a shot in the arm.)In “Good Night, and Good Luck,” adapted from the 2005 screenplay by Clooney and Grant Heslov, all ends well, more or less. (The “less” is implied in the stage production by a “We Didn’t Start the Fire”-like closing montage that ties the division and chaos of the past several decades to the cacophony of media.)Murrow ultimately received support — however nervous and limited — from his network. Its chief, William S. Paley (Paul Gross), fretted about pressure from politicians and from the “See It Now” sponsor, the aluminum company Alcoa. But while Paley complained about the agita Murrow brought him, he did not pull the plug on the McCarthy investigation.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