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      ‘Taxilandia’ Review: The Mouth is Running, but Not the Meter

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      Modesto Jimenez, known as Flako, has turned cab theater into a genre, and his latest show takes place on a ride through Bushwick, Brooklyn.Cruising down Knickerbocker Avenue in the back of a vintage Lincoln Town Car on a sunny Friday afternoon, I was thrilled when the driver, Modesto Jimenez, played the Fabolous track “Brooklyn,” loudly. The song, the Lincoln’s smooth ride, life passing by on the busy streets — the combination hit like theatrical umami.If cab theater were a genre, Jimenez would have medallion-shaped awards. Seven years ago, he performed his play “Take Me Home” in a New York City cab for up to three people at a time. For his Oye Group company’s new “Taxilandia,” he drives around his central Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, regaling his tiny audience with stories and reminiscences, asides and historical tidbits, like the fact that in the 1970s and ’80s Bushwick was devastated by arson fires just as bad as the ones that laid waste to the Bronx.Jimenez, known as Flako, says the ride is not a tour, and discourages audience members from taking photos.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJimenez, who goes by Flako, spent nine years driving a cab, and he handles the traffic with a calm confidence — which is reassuring because he also talks nearly nonstop, weaving between English and Spanish, scripted text and off-the-cuff exchanges with the passengers (a plexiglass barrier separates the front and back seats).As for Bushwick, he knows it inside and out. He was raised by his grandmother there after moving from the Dominican Republic as a child; his autobiographical show “¡Oye! For My Dear Brooklyn,” from 2018, supplied much of that back story.Jimenez prefaces “Taxilandia” by pointing out that it is not a tour (he discourages the fares/audience members from taking photos) but an experience. The car trip itself is just one part of a greater project that also includes the text-guided walk “Textilandia,” a 16-track playlist, storefront galleries, and virtual artists’ salons (now archived online).“Taxilandia” is a follow-up to Jimenez’s “Take Me Home,” a play he performed in cabs seven years ago.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs we slowly rolled down main thoroughfares and side streets, Jimenez sketched an impressionistic portrayal of an ever-changing neighborhood, stressing that Bushwick’s history is an ebb and flow of successive arrivals, of displacement and conflict but also of energy and reinvention. We passed the community institution El Puente, where he thrived as a kid, and the former Ridgewood Masonic Lodge, which is now — you have one guess — an apartment building.The large breweries created by the German beer barons of the 19th century are long gone; the new Bushwick prefers microbreweries anyway. We double parked so he could dissect layers of graffiti, “and right across the street,” Jimenez gestured, “the gentrification bar.” While the car is briefly in neutral, he himself is anything but.His take on change is nuanced, though, and as a Bennington-educated artist Jimenez bridges various constituencies — he has appeared in shows by the experimentalist Richard Maxwell and at the thriving Off Off Broadway theater the Bushwick Starr, which is presenting “Taxilandia” with New York Theater Workshop, in association with the Tank.A stop along the way near the former Ridgewood Masonic Lodge. The show is part of a larger project that includes a text-guided walk, a playlist and art.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Lincoln was on the move again. On the right was a pizzeria that Jimenez claimed is the best in Brooklyn. When we passed another with a nearly identical name a minute later, I asked which slice he preferred and he started waffling. Eventually we made our way to the trendier part of the neighborhood, where young folks dine on rather more expensive pizza, and he dropped me off near a subway stop. For Bushwick, the ride continues.TaxilandiaThrough May 30; taxilandia.com More

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      Theater to Stream: A Musical Throwback and ‘The Normal Heart’

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      Highlights include concerts by Melissa Errico and Sutton Foster, and an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves.”In 2018, New Yorkers in the know were buzzing about a new musical at the tiny York Theater. That show, Mark Sonnenblick’s “Midnight at the Never Get,” was subtly daring and thought-provoking, underneath a conventional, even old-fashioned exterior. Thanks to a streaming production from the Signature Theater in Arlington, Va., it should reach the greater audience it richly deserves.Set in 1960s Manhattan, the intimate musical follows the wistful romance between a cabaret singer, Trevor, and a songwriter, Arthur, as they try to come up with a hit act while staying true to themselves. What, for example, should they do about the pronouns in their love songs? Sonnenblick’s original numbers, which brilliantly emulate a vintage sound, are perfectly executed pastiches that also stand on their own. Sam Bolen, who was in the York production and created the concept with Sonnenblick and Max Friedman, returns as Trevor. April 30-June 21; sigtheatre.org‘We Have to Hurry’Here’s an intriguing pairing: Elliott Gould and Kathleen Chalfant as flirting Florida retirees, in a new play by Dorothy Lyman. (Ever busy, Chalfant will appear in a live production of Karen Malpede’s “Blue Valiant” at a Pennsylvania art farm May 29 and 30.) Gould got his start in Broadway musicals, so with a bit of luck he’ll break into song. A girl can dream. May 1 and 2; broadwayondemand.comTaysha Marie Canales in “No Child…”via Arden Theatre Company‘No Child …’Nilaja Sun wrote and performed in this solo play, from 2006, based in part on her eight years of teaching in the New York City public school system. Now, the Arden Theater Company in Philadelphia is staging it with Taysha Marie Canales, who handles all the characters — students, teachers, janitors and more — orbiting the fictional Malcolm X High School as they try to put on the Timberlake Wertenbaker play “Our Country’s Good.” April 27-May 9; ardentheatre.org‘50in50: Shattering the Glass Ceiling’For the fifth anniversary of its “50in50” monologue series, the Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn wrangled a stunning lineup for this anthology of stories read by Black actresses — Marsha Stephanie Blake, Marla Gibbs, Sanaa Lathan, Audra McDonald, Anika Noni Rose, Gabourey Sidibe, Wanda Sykes, Vanessa Williams and many, many others. May 6-9; thebillieholiday.org‘Il Parle, Elle Chante: Mystery’The performer Melissa Errico and Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker, conclude their collaboration at the French Institute Alliance Française with a livestreamed (then on-demand) concert dedicated to the dark universe of noir fiction, more specifically its back-and-forth between the United States and France. The songs, featuring Tedd Firth on piano, include David Raksin and Johnny Mercer’s “Laura” and the premiere of Gopnik and Peter Foley’s “We Live, We Love, We Lie, We Die.” The first two installments in Errico and Gopnik’s series, “Love” and “Desire,” are still available to stream. May 6; fiaf.org‘The Normal Heart’This one is by appointment only, so mark your calendar for the ONE Archives Foundation’s reading of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” with — deep breath — Sterling K. Brown, Jeremy Pope, Laverne Cox, Jake Borelli and Danielle Savre, among others. The foundation supports the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California libraries — said to be the largest of its kind in the world. Paris Barclay directs. May 8; onearchives.orgRaúl Esparza in “The Waves in Quarantine.”via Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘The Waves in Quarantine’When Lisa Peterson and David Bucknam’s adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel premiered in 1990, The New York Times wrote that the book, score and lyrics were “suffused with a Woolfian intensity and intoxication.” Now Peterson directs a revised, virtual version that she conceived with the actor Raúl Esparza, with additional music by Adam Gwon. In addition to Esparza, the cast includes Carmen Cusack, Nikki Renée Daniels, Darius de Haas, Manu Narayan and Alice Ripley. April 29-May 28; berkeleyrep.orgCabaretIn “Bring Me to Light,” Sutton Foster’s on-demand concert at New York City Center, she covers a decent amount of Broadway ground. A six-time Tony Award nominee and two-time winner, she will swing from golden oldies from “Camelot,” “Oklahoma!” and “South Pacific” to excerpts from lesser-known shows, including “Anyone Can Whistle,” “Violet” and Andrew Lippa’s “The Wild Party.” April 28-May 31; nycitycenter.orgThere’s no rest on the virtual cabaret stages this month. John Lloyd Young is letting fans choose the songs for his “By Request” concert at the Space in Las Vegas. There is a 99 percent chance that they will select something from “Jersey Boys,” for which Young won a Tony in 2006. May 1-9; thespacelv.comJeremy Jordan in “Carry On,” presented by Feinstein’s/54 Below.Jenny AndersonIn New York, Feinstein’s/54 Below is covering different bases and constituencies with Jeremy Jordan’s “Carry On” (May 6-June 17) and Marilyn Maye’s “Broadway, the Maye Way” (May 8-June 19). 54below.comAt the GoodmanThe Goodman Theater in Chicago is out with two productions staged by Robert Falls, its artistic director. First is “Measure for Measure,” from 2013, a tale of bad hypocrisy and even worse policing that might feel resonant these days (through May 9). Next, Falls tackles a livestreamed staging of Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” a two-hander — in this case Mary Beth Fisher and John Drea — that has turned into a pandemic staple thanks to its relatively simple logistical demands and suspenseful pace (May 13-16). goodmantheatre.org‘Eurobeat: The Pride of Europe’The Will Ferrell movie “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” introduced many Americans to the glories of the title’s Pan-European competition. If you want to warm up before this year’s edition, May 18-22, stream an update of a revival, which The Guardian called a “sparkly, spandex-clad, bad-taste extravaganza” when it ran in the West End in 2008. In the Eurovision context, this description amounts to high praise. And yes, viewers can vote for the outcome. April 30-May 10; stream.theatre More

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      Rediscovering France’s Early Female Playwrights

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      A growing movement within French theater is reclaiming the work of forgotten female artists, and reviving a lost concept: le matrimoine.PARIS — How many women had professional careers as playwrights in prerevolutionary France, between the 16th and 18th centuries? Go on, hazard a guess.The answer, according to recent scholarship, is around 150. Yet if you guessed the number was close to zero, you’re not alone. For decades, the default assumption has been that deep-seated inequality prevented women from writing professionally until the 20th century.Now a growing movement within French theater is reclaiming the work of forgotten female artists, and reviving a lost concept along the way: le matrimoine. Matrimoine is the feminine equivalent of patrimoine — translated as patrimony, or what is inherited from male ancestors. In French, however, patrimoine is also the catchall term to describe cultural heritage. By way of matrimoine, artists and academics are pushing for the belated recognition of women’s contribution to art history, and the return of their plays to the stage.Matrimoine is no neologism. “The word was used in the Middle Ages but has been erased,” said the scholar and stage director Aurore Evain. “Patrimoine and matrimoine once coexisted, yet at the end of the day all we were left with was matrimonial agencies.”When Dr. Evain started researching prerevolutionary female authors, around 2000, she quickly realized that French academics were behind their American peers. In the early 1990s, Perry Gethner, a professor of French at Oklahoma State University, had already translated plays by Françoise Pascal, Catherine Bernard and other 17th- and 18th-century women into English, and published them.At home, on the other hand, the idea that female colleagues of Molière had been overlooked collided with entrenched narratives. The classical French repertoire revolves around a trinity of male playwrights — Molière, Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille — whose works are taught in schools and widely seen as models of national literary genius.Yet all three men crossed paths with acclaimed female peers. “Le Favori” (“The Male Favorite”), a verse tragicomedy written in 1665 by Madame de Villedieu, was performed by Molière’s own company before the king at Versailles. When Dr. Evain staged it again in 2015, over three centuries after it was last performed, the French playwright and director Carole Thibaut was struck by the similarities between “Le Favori,” which revolves around a courtier who challenges the hypocrisy of royal favor, and Molière’s “Misanthrope,” written the next year.A portrait of Madame de Villedieu (1640-1683).The British Museum“I love Molière, but there are two scenes that are basically plagiarism,” Thibaut said in a phone interview. “He borrowed heavily from ‘Le Favori.’”Before the French Revolution, most female playwrights were upper-class single women who needed to earn a living. In the 19th century, their numbers kept growing: Scholars have found at least 350 women who were paid for their writing, from the revolutionary activist Olympe de Gouges to Delphine de Girardin, both of whom had plays in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. Many of them hosted literary salons, starting with Germaine de Staël; some, like George Sand, also wrote under a pseudonym to get around gender-based prejudice.Yet not a single one of these women has a meaningful presence on the French stage today. Until the late 2000s, even feminist writers knew nothing of their work. The first volume of a French anthology of prerevolutionary female playwrights (edited by Dr. Evain, Gethner and the New York University professor Henriette Goldwyn) wasn’t released until 2007.When Thibaut, who is now at the helm of a National Dramatic Center in the city of Montluçon, first heard Dr. Evain speak at a conference two years later, the notion of matrimoine came as a revelation. “I fell apart. I started crying,” she said. “She taught me that instead of being at the dawn of a feminist awakening, we were part of a cycle, which sees women emerge and then be erased.”That historical insight coincided with a renewed focus on gender inequality in French theater, in the wake of two government audits. Until 2006, none of the five national French theaters had ever had a female director. There has been some progress since: While only 7 percent of national and regional dramatic centers, the next tier of public institutions, were led by women in 2006, the proportion was 27 percent in 2019. Still, in March, an open letter published in the French newspaper Libération complained about the lack of women being appointed to top theater jobs since the start of the pandemic.From 2009 onward, Thibaut, Dr. Evain and other activists joined forces through an association, known as HF, to push for change, and matrimoine became one of their rallying calls. In 2013, Dr. Evain launched the annual “Days of the Matrimoine,” a festival that runs alongside the “Days of the Patrimoine,” a national celebration of France’s cultural heritage.That visibility is now affecting younger generations of scholars and artists, like Julie Rossello Rochet, a playwright who completed a doctoral dissertation last year on her 19th-century predecessors. In a phone interview, she said that studying their work had helped her process the unease she felt as a young writer: “I kept hearing, ‘Oh, it’s so rare, a woman who writes for the stage.’ Actually, it isn’t.”A performance of  Madame Ulrich’s “La Folle Enchère” (“The Mad Bid”) directed by Aurore Evain. The play had its premiere in 1690 at the Comédie-Française.Carmen MariscalThe scholars interviewed agreed that women’s plays offer a different perspective from that of male playwrights — a female gaze, so to speak, shaped by the authors’ life experiences. “They promoted women’s intelligence,” Dr. Rossello Rochet said.“They created strong female characters, who choose politics over love, as well as male characters who choose love,” said Dr. Evain, who also pointed to the attention they paid to the role of fathers.The two prerevolutionary plays Dr. Evain has directed since 2015 speak to that originality. In addition to “Le Favori,” she brought back Madame Ulrich’s “La Folle Enchère” (“The Mad Bid”), a comedy that had its premiere in 1690 at the Comédie-Française. The plot cleverly toys with gendered expectations: In it, an older woman endeavors to marry a younger man, who is himself a woman in disguise. “It’s an early queer play, in which everything is upside down,” Dr. Evain said. “Order is never restored: The leading lady is in drag until the end.”While a handful of smaller theaters, like the Ferme de Bel Ebat in Guyancourt, have welcomed productions like “La Folle Enchère,” persuading programmers to invest in the matrimoine remains a challenge. The Comédie-Française, where multiple women have presented their work over the centuries, has yet to revive a single one of these plays.In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde in 2017, the troupe’s director, Eric Ruf, said he was “working on it,” but added that it would be hard to sell main-stage tickets for a “little-known” playwright. (A spokeswoman for the Comédie-Française declined to say whether there were plans to bring back plays by women in future seasons.)Yet feminists believe that unless these early women’s plays are performed and taught, history may yet repeat itself. “If we ignore our matrimoine, if we don’t change the way we think about our culture, the women who came after us may not leave a legacy, either,” Thibaut said.In the eyes of Dr. Rossello Rochet, the benefits are obvious for young playwrights. “Having a history has given me deeper roots,” she said. “It has made me feel stronger.” More

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      Renée Fleming Was Back Onstage. Here’s What Happened First.

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      To pull together a 85-minute indoor concert at the Shed with the opera star and three musicians, everything had to go according to plan.The soprano Renée Fleming sauntered onstage in a shimmering long-sleeve gown, perched on a chair and started to sing.For a renowned performer decades into her career, it might have been an uneventful Wednesday evening at the Shed, the expansive performance space in Hudson Yards. But after 13 months in a pandemic, a sea of faces was a novel sight for the opera star and the trio accompanying her.“Wow, applause!” she remarked after finishing the meditative opening number. “Very exciting.”Exciting, indeed — and no mean feat to pull off.After the Shed and other flexible New York performance spaces lobbied to let audiences in, it got the go-ahead to open its doors for a live event on April 2, after 386 days of shutdown. Fleming’s April 21 show there, before a limited audience, was the fourth performance in a series co-sponsored by NY PopsUp, a public-private program aimed at reviving the arts.While the 85-minute show — a mix of classical, jazz and popular music — went off without a hitch, it demonstrated that mounting indoor events in New York at this stage of the pandemic will still be time-consuming, unpredictable and expensive.To get Fleming and the musicians onstage involved dozens of hours of careful planning; hundreds of dollars in safety equipment like plastic face shields and hand sanitizer; and nearly $2,500 in coronavirus tests. All this for drastically reduced ticket revenue.And while she may have been the headliner, pulling the show off took a large cast of behind-the-scenes figures, some of whom hadn’t worked regularly in the building for months.Monday: Two days to showtimeIn normal times, the staff in a preshow morning production meeting might be discussing last-minute program changes or the status of ticket sales.On April 19, it was where and when Renée Fleming would get her rapid Covid tests.She would arrive to rehearse at 1:30 p.m. the next day, the staff was told, and head to the sixth floor to the smaller Kenneth C. Griffin Theater, where her dressing room was located. There, she would meet a medical technician who would administer a nasal swab.There would be no servers bringing the talent tea, coffee or food, per health department edict.“We do the barest minimum,” said Laura Aswad, the Shed’s producer, noting that Fleming, who had acted in a play during the Shed’s opening season, wouldn’t be left completely untended: Bottled water, tea bags and a kettle would be in her dressing room.Alex Poots, the Shed’s chief executive, had one big announcement to share with the staff. The venue had not received state permission to expand the size of the audience. In the days leading up to the concert, the Shed had asked to double capacity from 150 to 300, which would still only be a fraction of the roughly 1,200 people the McCourt, its largest performance space, can seat.But the state had essentially told them: Not so fast.The concert had sold out in two hours. Audience members who did secure tickets had already received the first of four emails explaining the coronavirus protocols they would need to follow.Gone was the chance to rush to a concert after work and plop down into your seat as the curtain rose. Before they entered the Shed, concertgoers would need to check one of three boxes: show proof of full vaccination; demonstrate a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the event; or have taken a rapid antigen test, which is less reliable, within six hours of showtime.This was such a jumble of rules and dates that the front-of-house staff would be provided printed cheat sheets for the day of the show.Shed employees check vaccination certificates from audience members before admitting them to the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTuesday: One day to showtimeThe guitarist Bill Frisell was surrounded by piles of sheet music — some Handel, some Stephen Foster — laid out on the dining room table and the living room floor of his Brooklyn home. He was writing out his parts in pencil, referencing a list of songs that Fleming had sent to him, the bassist Christian McBride, and the pianist Dan Tepfer.Pandemic restrictions meant only one in-person rehearsal before the day of the show, and Frisell was in study mode. He had played alongside Fleming before — they had recorded an album in 2005 — but never alongside Tepfer or McBride.“It adds a level of stress to the event, no question,” Fleming said. “We still have a lot to figure out in terms of how we’re arranging everything.”As Frisell was reviewing the sheet music to Cole Porter’s “Down in the Depths (on the Ninetieth Floor),” Fleming was up on East 57th Street, visiting her longtime hair stylist, Michael Stinchcomb, at Vartali Salon.Stinchcomb has been an avid fan since the 1990s and first met Fleming backstage at Carnegie Hall. He’s been doing her hair for more than two decades, often traveling around the world when she performs.But last winter Fleming moved from New York to Virginia, and the pandemic had prevented her from visiting Stinchcomb until the day before her Shed performance.“She was so happy to come in,” Stinchcomb said. “She’s a woman who likes to look good.”Later that afternoon, Fleming arrived at the Shed for a three-hour rehearsal, where she and the musicians discussed harmonies, tempos and spots for improvised solos.“A full rehearsal the day before a show?” McBride said. “That’s a lot in the jazz world.”José Rivera, left, and Steven Quinones place clusters of seats more than 6 feet apart.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWednesday: 11 hours to showtimeJosé Rivera pointed at the space between two clusters of seats. “From here to here, it’s 6-foot 4,” he announced, bending to scrutinize his yellow tape measure. “From here to here is 6-foot 1.”That made the grade: According to state rules, the distance between audience members had to be over six feet.He and another facilities employee, Steven Quinones, had been arranging the chairs for some two hours, ensuring that the setup matched a detailed paper diagram.“And see, this is the big aisle that people walk through, so it’s 9 feet, 5 inches,” Rivera continued, raising his voice to be heard over the whirring of a third colleague zooming around the room on an industrial floor scrubber.Five floors up, Josh Phagoo, an operations engineer, checked up on one of the Shed’s most important technologies for Covid safety: the HVAC system. Massive air handlers and chillers in the building’s engine room whirred constantly as Phagoo made sure the machines that keep the air at roughly 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity at 50 percent were functional.On the stage itself, the first piano notes of the day were vibrating through the air, up to the McCourt’s 115-foot ceiling.Stephen Eriksson had arrived at 11 a.m. to tune the gleaming Steinway grand piano. While he said his business had disappeared for the first four months of the pandemic, now he is busier than ever.For nearly 30 minutes, he used a tuning wrench to make sure that the piano was concert ready. Afterward, he played a bit of Debussy and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”“That’s a bit of pure indulgence,” he said.Stephen Eriksson tuning the grand piano on the day of the performance.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWednesday: Three hours to showtimeWithin 15 minutes after arriving at the Shed, Fleming — who was scheduled for her second vaccine in New York the morning after the show — got the rapid Covid test in her dressing room. Negative.Afterward, she rehearsed onstage with the musicians, their instruments positioned more than six feet apart from one another, while an audio crew member in a mask and a face shield flitted around them, making sure everything was working properly.The six-person crew working the show was slightly smaller than usual, according to Pope Jackson, the Shed’s production manager. Everywhere they went, they brought along what Jackson referred to as a “Covid cart,” which contained a stock of masks, gloves, sanitation supplies and brown paper bags, which the musicians’ union requires so that players have a clean place to put their masks while they perform.Downstairs, a staff of eight security guards had their nostrils swabbed to make sure that they tested negative.Richard Reid, who works security, getting a rapid Covid test before the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFleming and the musicians had been doing virtual and outdoor concerts throughout the pandemic, but the security staff was filled with people whose careers had been even more upended.Allen Pestana, 21, has been unemployed for more than a year after being let go from working security at Yankee Stadium; Duwanna Alford, 53, saw her hours cut at a church in Morningside Heights; Richard Reid, 33, had worked in April 2020 as a security guard at a field hospital in Manhattan, where he had tried to forget his health fears and focus on the hazard pay he was receiving.This was the moment before a concert where the theater was alive with preparation and nerves — a bustle missing in the city during the first year of the pandemic.“It’s like doing the electric slide, the moonwalk and the bachata all at once,” Jackson said of the minutes before showtime. “But when the lights go up, it all fades away.”The masked audience applauding at the end of the 85-minute concert.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesShowtimeThe front-of-house staff had only 20 minutes to review the audience members’ IDs and Covid-related documents; take their temperatures; and show them to their seats.Icy gusts of wind just outside the doors weren’t making things any easier.But by 8:05 p.m., 150 people had settled into their precisely placed seats, able to snap a photo of the QR code on the arms of the chairs to see the concert program.In between performances of the jazz classic “Donna Lee” and “Touch the Hand of Love,” which Fleming had once recorded with Yo-Yo Ma, the artists chatted onstage about what they’d been doing with their lives for the past 13 months.“Wishing this pandemic would be over,” McBride said.Tepfer said he had been improving a technological tool that made it easier for musicians to play in unison over the internet — a tool that he and Fleming had used to rehearse together virtually.Frisell had not performed for an indoor audience since the beginning of the pandemic. “This is such a blessing,” he said.The show ended with a standing ovation, and then the musicians played an encore: “Hard Times” by Stephen Foster, which Fleming described as a song that tends to resonate in times of crisis.“Hard times,” she sang, “come again no more.” More

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      Sondheim Musical, in Development for Years, Looks Unlikely

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      The 91-year-old composer told the Public Theater last year that he was no longer working on a show based on the films of Luis Buñuel.One big lingering question for theater fans following the news that the prolific producer Scott Rudin will “step back” from his stage projects: What will happen to his shows in development, notably the Stephen Sondheim musical “Buñuel,” which at last report was slated to be produced Off Broadway at the Public Theater?Rudin, who is facing a reckoning over decades-long accusations of bullying, had been a commercial producer attached to the musical.But the Public now says: It isn’t happening.In the wake of reports about Rudin, the Public on April 22 put out a statement saying it had not worked with him in years. Responding to a follow-up question, Laura Rigby, a spokeswoman for the Public, said last week that Sondheim had informed the theater last year that he was no longer developing the musical. (The Public clarified that its cancellation had nothing to do with Rudin.)Sondheim, who turned 91 at the end of March, did not respond to emailed questions about the project’s status.The work, which was based on the films of the Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel, promised to be one of the last chances for theatergoers to see a new stage musical by musical theater’s most venerated composer. Sondheim had been developing it for the last decade or so with the playwright David Ives (“Venus in Fur”), who also did not respond to email requests for comment.Sondheim had previously said that the show would comprise two acts, the first based on the filmmaker’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972), and the second on “The Exterminating Angel” (1962).The musical, he said, was about “trying to find a place to have dinner.”He offered more detail during a 2014 appearance at The New Yorker Festival, explaining that the first act involved a group of people trying to find a place to dine, while the second focused on people who finally did just that — and were trapped afterward in hellish circumstances.The project would have been the composer’s first major musical in more than a decade. His last was “Road Show,” a 2008 collaboration with John Weidman about two brothers constantly looking to strike it rich, which was presented at the Public.“Buñuel” had a mini workshop at the Public in November 2016, with a cast that included Michael Cerveris, Heidi Blickenstaff and Sierra Boggess, with a hoped-for opening date of late 2017. The New York Post reported at the time that Joe Mantello, who directed “Wicked” and the 2004 Broadway revival of Sondheim’s “Assassins,” was set to direct.Cerveris said in an email last week that the first act was essentially complete at the time of the workshop, and the second was “sketched out, but still awaiting much of the music.” He said a later music workshop was planned, but it was canceled so Sondheim could use the time to continue writing.Then, he said, the trail essentially went cold. He said he was sorry to hear of what looks to be the show’s demise.“It was an appropriately surreal, unnerving and often hilarious piece,” he said. “And Steve was, as ever, experimenting with some fascinating, complex musical structures which David’s sensibilities seemed to suit really well, I thought.”Sondheim is the winner of a Pulitzer Prize (in 1985, for “Sunday in the Park With George”) and eight Tony Awards (including one for lifetime achievement), more than any other composer. A film remake of “West Side Story,” for which he wrote the lyrics, is due out at the end of the year. And whenever New York theaters fully reopen, the Classic Stage Company plans to revive “Assassins.”Cerveris said that, despite hearing nothing of “Buñuel” for several years, he had still been hoping for another Sondheim show.“The marriage with Buñuel felt pretty right for the times, and the world has only gotten darker and weirder since then,” he said. “I’d have loved to see it come to be. But then, I will always want more Sondheim in the world.” More

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      ‘Block Association’ Review: Yes, in Your Backyard

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      In this clever show, audience members join a “neighborhood” and lobby for how its discordant residents should to spend a chunk of community money.Mister Rogers was wrong: It isn’t always a beautiful day in the neighborhood.Community is tricky, especially when people’s definitions of it — in their families or circle of friends, in their neighborhood, in their nation and beyond — vary so dramatically. No wonder there’s conflict among the residents of Oak Street in “Block Association Project,” a new interactive show from the Actors Theater of Louisville that works hard to usher us into its fictional suburb, but struggles to articulate its thoughts on political action and democracy.Meet your new neighbors: Elena (Ceci Fernández), a self-interested real estate agent; Aneta (Jane Park), a scholar who struggles with social cues; Emma (Anne-Marie Trabolsi), a pedantic uber-liberal student; Beth (Myra Lucretia Taylor), a wholesome peacemaker; Ryan (John McGinty), whose dog is a cause for discussion; George (Nathan Darrow), a cynical writer who doesn’t want to be bothered; and Rachel (Lauren Lane), the well-meaning self-appointed leader who wants to keep things light and not get political.We’re all gathered on Zoom to discuss how to spend $10,000 in community funds. Easy enough, right? But a conversation about the practicality of a community garden versus a dog park soon spins off into a debate about what the neighborhood stands for, how inclusive it should be and whose values should be represented.Written by Michael Yates Crowley and directed by Michael Rau (the founders of Wolf 359, who most recently collaborated on the immersive workplace drama “Temping,”) for the 2021 Humana Festival of New American Plays, “Block Association Project” actually begins before the Zoom meeting, via a series of association emails that the audience can choose to receive in advance. In them, Aneta sends links to articles about dog attacks, Rachel’s son, Teo (Joe Montoya), interjects to encourage us to donate to the aid organization Border Angels, and George churlishly asks to be unsubscribed.It’s an inventive approach, and for me, quite a surprise to see threads from the residents of Oak Street among press requests and emails from editors in my inbox. It’s not simply the novel nature of the form, however; the emails are a subtle mode of character-building, right down to their signoffs (Elena has a professional signature for her real estate company, while Beth’s is a call to “Think Green”), which made encountering them on Zoom that much more satisfying.I can’t say the same for the full performance, however. Granted, I have never been one for community gatherings, so an experience that strong-arms audiences into interacting isn’t my cup of tea — especially when it’s deployed more for novelty than narrative development.So when discussions fell apart in the meeting, the performers turned to the audience, dividing us into breakout rooms where they moderated short (about six minutes each) debates about the topics on the table, including the association’s leadership and whose votes should be represented. Intermittently we were also asked to participate in Zoom polls, all to foster our investment in this fictional neighborhood.At times these felt like a schoolteacher’s last-ditch attempts to get her class more engaged, when they seemed positioned to act like an urgent call for political involvement — perhaps even an indictment of those who wish to be quiet when urgent action is required.However, the 90-minute show struggled to balance audience participation with its scripted characters and themes. The antisocial writer and the self-serving real estate agent, among the others, feel like no more than petty character types. Almost every character has a breakout moment — a turn in the conversation that leads to a reveal, like Ryan’s story about how he got possession of his father’s dog, and Aneta’s account of her family’s treacherous immigration journey — that is meant to give us something hearty to chew on.The performers labor through those emotional spotlights; Taylor and Lane are amiable but flat, and Trabolsi and Darrow are suitably obnoxious but wholly unsurprising. (Props, though, to the show for being accessible in a way many aren’t, using multiple American Sign Language interpreters, directed by Alexandria Wailes.)In simulating a community meeting, the show includes PowerPoint presentations, including one featuring an illustration of Joe Montoya as the character Teo.Sheyenne Santiago/Actors Theatre of LouisvilleCaught in the muddle of the script are references to the crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico, a debate on the definition of “refugee” and allusions to common hindrances to a working democracy — there’s even a protest of an election result, and a motion to secede. The play uses its small-town community affairs to nod toward the capital-P Politics of our nation right now, but just like Rachel, it’s hesitant to get into specifics and confront the viewpoints and practices that have bolstered our divisive, inequitable body politic.Then again, the show did mint some stars: audience members who turned out to be terrific at improvising on the topics at hand.In my group a couple with a new puppy named Sato were vocal about what they thought community meant and how they thought the Block Association should work. And a woman named Jane, who spoke eloquently about the difference between leading and facilitating, was enthusiastically nominated by my group to be the new head of the Block Association and successfully voted in.Unfortunately, the last several minutes of “Block Association Project” unraveled into what I’ll call a final act phantasmagoria — a move I’ve seen in many shows that aim to break from reality via a poetic unpacking of themes that were never fully tackled.Such purposefully jarring flights of fancy can actually drag a production down, like a cruise ship anchor yanking on a sailboat. In “Block Association Project” it’s a character’s soul-searching monologue (which features both Drake and an Aztec god, by the way) that goes on way too long.Were I to vote on a future for “Block Association Project,” I would urge more precision and a more confident marriage between this community’s banal civics and campaigns with the current troubles of American society. After all, these are the kinds of discussions we’re all now used to having. But, moving on: What’s the next item on the agenda?Block Association ProjectThrough May 1; actorstheatre.org More

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      in Movies

      How Scott Rudin Wielded Power in Show Business

      by

      Scott Rudin has long been one of the most celebrated and powerful producers in Hollywood and, especially, on Broadway — an EGOT who won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and 17 Tony Awards while developing a reputation as one of the vilest bosses in the industry.Respected for his taste and talent — with films like “The Social Network” and “No Country for Old Men” and shows including “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Book of Mormon” — he is also known within the entertainment world for terrorizing underlings, hurling staplers, cellphones, mugs and other improvised projectiles in moments of rage.But the abuse of assistants is just a small part of the way he has wielded his power.He has a reputation for being vengeful: After a dispute with an agent over airfare, he allegedly pressured some of the agent’s clients to leave him. He is litigious: He sued an insurance company seeking an enormous payout after he blamed the closing of a musical on the pregnancy of a star, Audra McDonald. And he can be callous: When Rita Wilson, who was starring in one of his plays, told him that she had breast cancer, she said, he lamented that she would need to take time off during Tony voting season.Mr. Rudin has won 17 Tony Awards for shows he has produced, including “Hello, Dolly!,” which won best musical revival in 2017.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“He’s like a mafia boss,” said the playwright Adam Rapp, whose play “The Sound Inside” was unceremoniously dumped by Mr. Rudin when Mr. Rapp refused to part with the agent with whom Mr. Rudin was feuding. “If he breaks his leg, other people suffer.”Now, though, the 62-year-old producer is facing a reckoning. An article this month in The Hollywood Reporter detailing his long history of bullying assistants prompted an outcry, leading Mr. Rudin to announce that he would step back from “active participation” in his projects on Broadway, in Hollywood, and in London’s West End. And, in written responses to questions for this article, he said he was “profoundly sorry” for his behavior and revealed that he is resigning from the Broadway League, which is the trade association of producers and theater owners.“I know apologizing is not, by any means, enough,’’ he said. “In stepping back, I intend to work on my issues and do so fully aware that many will feel that this is too little and too late.”For decades Mr. Rudin had largely escaped consequences for his behavior. Established and emerging artists flocked to him, in part because of his appetite for artistically ambitious (and often award-winning) work. But he also benefited from his reputation for ruthlessness: Many of those harmed by his wrath have been afraid of retaliation if they speak out.The current backlash against his behavior — on Thursday he was denounced at a march for change on Broadway — has left Mr. Rudin an immobilized impresario just as Broadway is preparing to put tickets back on sale following a lengthy pandemic shutdown. Mr. Rudin, who had been set to play a key role in theater’s post-Covid comeback as one of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s advisers on reopening, finds himself sidelined.Demonstrators seeking change in the theater industry on Thursday chanted “Scott Rudin has got to go.” As they marched through town, they passed the theater where “The Music Man,” Mr. Rudin’s next big show, is scheduled to begin performances in December. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesEven some of his biggest backers say he needs to change.“He’s had a bad temper,” said the billionaire David Geffen, who alongside his fellow mogul Barry Diller has been co-producing Mr. Rudin’s recent Broadway shows, “and he clearly needs to do anger management or something like that.”The New York Times interviewed dozens of actors, writers, agents, producers, investors and office assistants who have worked with Mr. Rudin, examined financial records of his stage shows and reviewed court papers from his many legal disputes. What emerged confirmed much of what was detailed by The Hollywood Reporter and provided a fuller picture of how he used and abused power, not only in his offices, but also as he alternately cultivated and castigated colleagues at all levels of the entertainment industry.“There’s always, with Scott, two sides to the coin, depending on what he wants,” said Robert Fox, a British producer who collaborated with Mr. Rudin for a decade until, as happens with many of Mr. Rudin’s relationships, the two had a contentious falling out. “He can treat people impeccably well, or disgracefully badly, and there’s not much in between.”After Mr. Rudin’s decades of dominance, his comeuppance — if that’s what it is — arrives as the entertainment industry is contemplating a post-pandemic future that many hope will look different from the past.‘It’s crazy that so many in the industry know about it.’The Rudin employee handbook, distributed to new staffers, outlines strict rules of conduct. “Rude, offensive or outrageous behavior” is verboten. Co-workers must treat one another with “patience, respect and consideration.” Be courteous and helpful. Don’t send angry or rude emails.But employees swiftly learned that there was one person to whom those rules did not apply: the boss.Mistakes, real and imagined, sent Mr. Rudin into a rage — an incorrect font (he insists on Garamond), a misspelled name, an unwiped conference table.Mr. Rudin routinely screamed and swore: “Why are you so stupid?” “You’re a hopeless idiot.” “A clown car is running this office.” “You’re a pathetic loser.”“It’s crazy that so many in the industry know about it and nothing has changed,” said Josh Arnon, 25, who worked in Mr. Rudin’s office.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesFormer employees said he threw things at walls, at windows, at the ground, and, occasionally, toward subordinates.In 2018 he sent a glass bowl airborne, shattering it against a conference room wall, according to several people who were there; another time he smashed a computer on an employee’s hand, several ex-employees said. A former assistant, Jonathan Bogush, said he saw Mr. Rudin hurl a plateful of chicken salad into another assistant’s face when he worked there in 2003.Sometimes frightened assistants hid in the kitchen or a closet to escape his wrath.Some assistants kept spare phones to replace those that got destroyed when thrown by Mr. Rudin. There were also extra laptops — to replace those he broke — and his contact list was backed up to a master computer nicknamed the Dragon.His behavior prompted outrage after it was described earlier this month in The Hollywood Reporter. It had also been described, to less effect, in multiple other accounts over the years.Mr. Rudin offered both an apology and a bit of pushback to the stories being told about him as a boss. “While I believe some of the stories that have been made public recently are not accurate, I am aware of how inappropriate certain of my behaviors have been and the effects of those behaviors on other people,” he said. “I am not proud of these actions.”In the fall of 2018, Mr. Rudin’s employees gathered for harassment prevention training. The producer had a simple but revealing question for the trainer.“He said, ‘You can get up in their face, right?’” said Caroline Rugo, then working as the office manager’s assistant, reading from notes she said she took at the meeting. “‘And you can yell, right, just as long as you don’t make physical contact?’” (Mr. Rudin disputed that description, saying, “I asked for a series of specific definitions of harassment for the much younger people on the staff.”)Caroline Rugo, a former assistant to Mr. Rudin, said the producer treated women in his office less well than men.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesAt Mr. Rudin’s prepandemic Times Square offices — which he moved out of last summer — he often holed up in a conference room. Two assistants described a sign on the door: “Turn around. Do not come in. There is nothing here for you.”For some, this was Tinsel Town boot camp, a place to gain irreplaceable insight into the entertainment world. Many former assistants have risen in the Hollywood ranks, and credit Scott Rudin Productions with versing them in the ways of the industry. They laud Mr. Rudin’s perfectionism, his acumen, instincts — “a golden gut,” said one — and his relentless work ethic. Some former assistants defended him, saying that employees were always warned that the job was high stress, and suggesting that he was becoming a fall guy for widespread bad behavior in show business.But more than two dozen ex-employees shared memories of colleagues being excoriated: An intern receptionist was fired for moving too slowly to alert maintenance about a flickering ceiling light. A publicist sat quaking as Mr. Rudin punched the wall. An employee was fired for falling asleep while working late. Another was kicked out of a car on a highway after mispronouncing a name (the vehicle first pulled to the shoulder). An office manager was taken away by ambulance after having a panic attack.Mr. Rudin was especially hard on female assistants, according to nearly a dozen former employees, chastising and firing them with greater frequency. Ms. Rugo said Mr. Rudin was more likely to chat with male interns, and more likely to demand that female interns clean the conference room.Many wondered how artists who consider themselves politically enlightened could be so eager to work with Mr. Rudin, knowing how badly he treated his employees.“People are acting like the industry is changing, but the fact that someone like Scott is still in power makes me doubtful of that,” said Josh Arnon, 25, who worked at Mr. Rudin’s office from October 2018 to August 2019. “It’s crazy that so many in the industry know about it and nothing has changed.”‘He’s a very volatile man. Very, very volatile.’Over a decades-long career, Mr. Rudin built a reputation as a tastemaker admired for his skill at harnessing the talent and the money to present adventurous work too risky for most other commercial producers, often to critical acclaim. Actors, writers, directors and designers have happily worked with him again and again, saying he can be charming, insightful and supportive.In Hollywood, as the industry gravitated toward franchises and reboots, he moved toward indie fare; among his most notable recent films have been “Lady Bird,” “Isle of Dogs” and “Uncut Gems.” On Broadway, he has been the most prolific producer: Over the last 15 years, he has been a lead producer on 36 shows, mostly starry productions of serious plays, but also the megahit “Book of Mormon,” which has grossed a whopping $659 million on Broadway over its decade-long run.“The Book of Mormon” is the longest-running hit produced by Mr. Rudin; it opened in 2011.Richard Perry/The New York TimesHe has had a knack for bridging the worlds of theater and film, luring movie stars to Broadway and finding film jobs for stage actors, directors and writers. His productions have starred a who’s who of entertainment, including Denzel Washington, Larry David, Chris Rock, Michelle Williams and Laurie Metcalf.But he has also racked up a long list of people who have had enough.“He’s super-bright, he’s incredibly motivated, he has really good taste, and he can be incredibly good company,” said Mr. Fox, who co-produced films (“The Hours”) and plays (“Skylight”) with Mr. Rudin. “But he’s also very controlling — and became more so as the years wore on — and I don’t believe anyone could put their hand up and say they weren’t aware that he treated his staff really badly.”“He’s a very volatile man,” Mr. Fox added. “Very, very volatile.”Mr. Rudin expresses that volatility not only verbally, but also in writing — he’s known for sending vitriolic emails, and often copying others. Amanda Lundberg, chief executive of the publicity firm 42West, recalled being copied on an email in which he described another woman using a vulgar synonym for vagina. “He wanted an audience to his cruel berating,” she said.“I feel embarrassment for the many that not only did have the power to stand up to him and walk away, but chose to gleefully and dutifully protect him instead,” she added. “Everyone knows who they are.”A few actors and writers who worked with Mr. Rudin have begun to share stories about his bad behavior.Rita Wilson, who learned that she had breast cancer while appearing in Larry David’s play “Fish in the Dark,” said that when she told Mr. Rudin, the producer, he made her feel “replaceable.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn 2015, Ms. Wilson learned she had breast cancer while starring in a Rudin production of Larry David’s play “Fish in the Dark.” When she told Mr. Rudin the news, she said, he complained that she would need time off during Tony voting season and asked to see her medical records, while Anna Shapiro, the director, grew upset about having to find a replacement.A few days later, as she was about to go onstage, Ms. Wilson received a call from her agent, saying her surgeon needed to call the insurance adjuster immediately, per Mr. Rudin’s demands. The memory still pains her.“I felt like he was trying to find a way to fire me legally,” Ms. Wilson said. “He is the kind of person who makes someone feel worthless, unvaluable and replaceable.”Ms. Shapiro said she had been trying to be helpful and had immediately apologized when it became clear that she had unintentionally upset Ms. Wilson; Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for Mr. Rudin, said that Mr. Rudin’s recollection was that Ms. Wilson had wanted to open the show and then leave, but that he and the director had not wanted her to delay treatment. Ms. Wilson stayed in the play — another actor performed her part during her time off — and today is cancer free.‘She just got whipsawed, and it was wrong.’It was early 2019, and “West Side Story” still didn’t have its Maria or its Anita.The production scheduled an audition in New York — not unusual, except that the show’s Belgian director and choreographer were both in Europe.Mr. Rudin demanded that the agent they both used, Mark Subias, pick up their airfare, and when the agent refused, Mr. Rudin began to threaten — to fire the director, to cancel the production, to damage the agent’s career, according to five people told of the incident. (Mr. Subias declined to comment.)In the end, Mr. Rudin stuck with the show, which opened to sharply divided reviews and packed houses.Mr. Rudin is the lead producer of an avant-garde revival of “West Side Story” that opened on Broadway last year. At the opening night party he spoke with Jordan Roth, right, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters. Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesBut Mr. Rudin said he wouldn’t work with Mr. Subias’s clients, and then dropped planned projects with some of them.Among those affected, according to several people familiar with the incident: the playwright Sarah Ruhl. Mr. Rudin had planned to bring her next play, “Becky Nurse of Salem,” to Broadway, with Sam Gold as the director and Kathy Bates as the star. Mr. Rudin reportedly told Ms. Ruhl to drop her agent; when she refused, he dropped her play.Ms. Bates and Mr. Gold both left the project, and instead of going to Broadway the play wound up at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California; its next stop is supposed to be at one of Lincoln Center Theater’s Off Broadway venues in 2022. Both theaters are prestigious, but they are less visible and pay less well than Broadway. (Ms. Ruhl declined to comment.)“It was so sad that Sarah Ruhl became the victim of this battle,” said Susie Medak, the managing director of Berkeley Rep, who confirmed the change to the show’s team. “There are so few women presented on Broadway, and here was an opportunity to have a Broadway show that was so lovely, and had such a starring role for this actress, and to have that fall apart over this totally unnecessary battle between these two guys was a truly unfortunate episode. She just got whipsawed, and it was wrong.”Mark Subias, a prominent agent who represents many theater artists, was targeted for punishment by Mr. Rudin after the two men had a financial dispute. He is shown here with Joni Evans, a former book publishing executive.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesAlso affected: Mr. Rapp, the playwright. Mr. Rudin had pledged to bring his play, “The Sound Inside,” to Broadway, he said. When Mr. Rapp refused to drop Mr. Subias as his agent, Mr. Rudin dropped the production, he added. The producer Jeffrey Richards stepped in to present it on Broadway last season, and now it is a Tony nominee for best play.Mr. Rudin acknowledged the rift with Mr. Subias, which he attributed to a “very, very costly situation” involving a disagreement over dates, and said: “I felt I had no choice but to stop doing business with him. We have since moved past the issue.”Investors are frustrated. Enter the billionaires.The lavishly nostalgic 2017 Broadway production of “Hello, Dolly!” was a can’t-miss event: a beloved Bette Midler chewing the scenery in a musical with lots of it.Tickets sold fast — especially for the weeks when Ms. Midler was performing — and fetched eye-popping prices, topping out at $998 during a holiday week.Investors in the show were gleeful, as huge advance sales, boffo grosses and top-tier prices suggested a monster hit. But, in the end, they made only a tiny profit, and many are now grumbling.“I’ve invested in a bunch of Rudin shows,” said Gabby Hanna, a Cape Cod real estate agent who said she put $50,000 into “Dolly” and made only a $5,000 profit, “and after ‘Dolly’ I said I would never do it again.”Over the last 15 years, Mr. Rudin has raised about $200 million from a variety of investors to finance his stage shows, according to a review of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for each show. But some investors have grown frustrated with his big-spending, low-return track record: Over the last five years, about three-quarters of his Broadway shows have lost money, according to a review of recoupment and closing announcements and discussions with industry leaders.Mr. Rudin has been a master of the art of star casting. Bette Midler’s performance made a revival of “Hello, Dolly!” a must-see event, but some investors were disappointed with the show’s low rate of return.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Dolly” investors said in interviews that they had no way of really understanding why their returns were low — very little financial data was shared with them — but some said they believed Mr. Rudin had compensated Ms. Midler so generously, spent so heavily on marketing, and kept so much for himself that there was little left to share with them.Mr. Rudin said suggestions that he spent too much on himself were “not true.”“I have repeatedly (on nearly every show) at various points given up hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees owed to myself to keep shows running,” he said, “and I have spent on top of that millions of my own money keeping shows running.”“Dolly” cost $16 million to put together and ran for 76 weeks, selling 811,203 tickets for a total of $128 million, according to financial filings and the Broadway League. The show’s weekly expenses were high — as much as $1.2 million — and opening night, which included a star-studded party at the New York Public Library, cost $842,000, according to documents filed with the New York state attorney general’s office.Several “Dolly” investors said their disappointment was compounded because they had felt pressured to also put money into Mr. Rudin’s plays that spring — a revival of “The Glass Menagerie” and a new play called “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” both of which closed early after performing poorly at the box office.Some of the investors are now closely watching litigation between Mr. Rudin and SpotCo, a marketing firm that claims in a pending lawsuit that he owes the company $6.3 million. (Mr. Rudin’s lawyer said the case had no merit when it was filed last summer.)Recently, Mr. Rudin found a way to avoid dealing with smaller investors: He turned to a pair of billionaires, Mr. Diller and Mr. Geffen, to finance his stage shows. Mr. Diller, the chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, was once Mr. Rudin’s boss at 20th Century Fox, while Mr. Geffen is a longtime record industry and film executive and a patron of the arts.In interviews last week, both men said that Mr. Rudin’s behavior was a problem but held out hope that he would change.“I don’t condone, nor am I an apologist for, actions relating to his work in his personal office,” Mr. Diller said, adding that he thought that “separate and special consideration” should be given “to his work outside of that office.”Mr. Geffen said that Mr. Rudin has “a psychological problem that he needs to deal with if he’s going to work in the future.”And would Mr. Geffen work with him again?“If his behavior didn’t change it would be an easy no,” Mr. Geffen said, but, he added, “I don’t think a death sentence is called for if he gets the help he needs and his behavior changes.”“I don’t condone, nor am I an apologist for, actions relating to his work in his personal office.” — Barry DillerAmy Lombard for The New York Times“He’s had a bad temper and he clearly needs to do anger management or something like that.” — David GeffenPaul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan, via Getty ImagesIn an era of outspokenness, many artists remain silent.Mr. Rudin has made strenuous efforts to prevent people from talking about him, not just through intimidation, but also as a prolific user of nondisclosure agreements.Confidentiality agreements reviewed by The Times bar employees from cooperating with interviews about him, and prohibit disclosing “any aspect of any activity occurring at, in, or about any home, office, or other property owned, occupied, or used by Scott Rudin or any of his family members.” And a provision in the operating agreement for some of his shows bars investors from making “negative remarks.”In essays this week, two artists who have worked with Mr. Rudin, Tavi Gevinson and Michael Chabon, have reflected on not pushing back against what they knew about his behavior.But many of his powerful collaborators have declined to respond to inquiries about him. Among them: actors including Mr. Washington, Ms. Metcalf and Jennifer Lawrence; the directors Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig and Alex Garland; the writers Aaron Sorkin and Lucas Hnath; and the former studio executive Amy Pascal, as well as the studios that Mr. Rudin has recently been working with, A24 and FX Productions.Mr. Rudin won an Academy Award in 2008 when the Coen brothers film “No Country for Old Men,” which he produced, won best picture.Monica Almeida/The New York TimesSome of Mr. Rudin’s battles have become public through the legal system — he has been sued by Stephen Sondheim (over the rights to a musical) and the estates of Harper Lee (over the fidelity of the “Mockingbird” adaptation) and Tennessee Williams (over unpaid royalties).He battled an insurance company over losses from a musical after attributing its closing to the unexpected pregnancy of one of its stars, Ms. McDonald, which led to lengthy wrangling over who knew what about her reproductive health. That case was settled last year. (Ms. McDonald declined to comment.)Mr. Rudin’s 2018 production of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” in a new adaptation by Aaron Sorkin, began with litigation against the estate of Harper Lee and threats to small theaters staging their own productions, but also became a successful show. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHe demanded that theaters around the country cancel productions of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” saying they might compete with the Broadway version. (After a backlash, he offered a face-saving compromise.)And his pique has manifested in other ways as well. In the summer of 2017, a representative of “1984,” a play produced by Mr. Rudin, barred a Tony nominator, Jose Antonio Vargas, from watching the show. Mr. Vargas said he was already inside the theater, holding a valid ticket, when a member of the show’s staff ordered him out. (Mr. Rudin did not dispute the episode, but said he “had a very unfortunate incident with him years before” when Mr. Vargas was working as a journalist.)‘Your actions have made it impossible for us to keep working together.’Now Mr. Rudin’s standing is damaged and his future is in doubt. At stake are a dizzying array of prestige projects, including one of the most highly anticipated productions planned for Broadway’s first post-pandemic season: a gold-plated revival of “The Music Man” starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster that is supposed to start previews in December.Some collaborators are distancing themselves from him. Matt Stone, a “South Park” creator who is one of the writers of “The Book of Mormon,” said in an interview that he and the producer Anne Garefino had given Mr. Rudin an ultimatum before the producer announced his plan to step back. “I said, ‘Your actions have made it impossible for us to keep working together,’” Mr. Stone said.Mr. Jackman and Ms. Foster have each said, in the wake of Mr. Rudin’s announcement, that they were committed to a healthy workplace at “The Music Man” and were pleased that Mr. Rudin had stepped away. (Both declined interview requests.)Mr. Rudin, asked about the role others had played in his decision, said, “I resigned from the shows so that nobody would have to defend me or defend working with me — the decisions were mine and were based on my desire to see the shows go forward.”The writer Matt Stone and the producer Anne Garefino told Mr. Rudin he needed to cease any active role with “The Book of Mormon,” shown here with Andrew Rannells, left, and Josh Gad in the original cast, because of his behavior toward his assistants.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMr. Rudin had many other projects planned before his behavior started to catch up with him. He was developing Broadway revivals of “Our Town” starring Dustin Hoffman, “The Piano Lesson” starring Samuel L. Jackson, and “Death of a Salesman” starring Nathan Lane. He was also planning a dance-focused new show with the acclaimed choreographer Justin Peck; a new Adam Guettel musical; and “The Black Clown,” Michael Schachter and Davóne Tines’s musical adaptation of the Langston Hughes poem.The fate of those projects, and of several films Mr. Rudin had planned to produce, is now unclear, and there are many unanswered questions. What will “stepping back” look like for Mr. Rudin, who is famous for micromanaging?Mr. Rudin did not address those specifics, including about whether he would continue to benefit financially from his shows, but said that he hoped that his shows that were running before the pandemic — “The Book of Mormon,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “West Side Story” — would reopen. “Other producers will replace me on these shows, and they will have decision making responsibilities that were heretofore mine,” he said.Mr. Rudin, shown here in 2005 with Al Hirschfeld caricatures of shows he produced, has been the most prolific producer on Broadway in recent years. His absence from the scene could open opportunities for others.James Estrin/The New York TimesOn Broadway, his absence could create opportunities for other producers, who have often been stymied by his propensity to lock up stories, stars, and even theater space.“You couldn’t get a theater because you were always being played off against what he might have going in,” Mr. Fox said, “and that was really difficult for people who didn’t produce the mass of product he did.”And then there are the rights Mr. Rudin had obtained to stage play revivals, new work and adaptations from books and films. He would sometimes secure rights “literally so other people can’t produce them, because he would only want his touch on them,” said Max Hoffman, 24, who worked for Mr. Rudin for nine months last year.He left, he said, because he feared the job would cause him to have “a mental breakdown.”And Mr. Rudin’s next steps? “I am doing the work to become a better person and address my issues,” he said in the statement to The Times. “Beyond that commitment, anything else would be far too early to contemplate.” More

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      in Television

      Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Cut in Half and Twice as Good

      by

      Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley star as the star-crossed lovers in a compelling stage-film hybrid adaptation.What’s written in haste may be repaired in haste. Or so the fine and fleet new “Romeo and Juliet” from Britain’s National Theater, available here on PBS’s “Great Performances,” convinces me.At 90 minutes, it is even shorter than the “two hours’ traffic of our stage” promised in its first lines but rarely honored in performance. (The entire play normally takes about three hours.) Yet as directed by Simon Godwin, this emotionally satisfying and highly theatrical filmed version scores point after point while whizzing past, or outright cutting, the elements that can make you think it was written not by Shakespeare but by O. Henry on a bender.If the cutting merely left what remains with a much higher proportion of penetrating insight and powerful feeling, that would be enough; “Romeo and Juliet,” at its best, anticipates the great later works in which complexity and ambivalence are made real and gorgeous in language. But the speed serves another function here: telling a story that’s mostly about teenagers with a teenage intensity and recklessness.Not that the stars are anywhere near their adolescence. Though Romeo is 17 or so and Juliet, 13, Josh O’Connor, who played mopey young Prince Charles in “The Crown,” is 30, and Jessie Buckley, the mysterious star of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” 31. Still, there’s a reason they’re called actors: They can perform the acts a play requires of them. Onstage, at any rate, that would be sufficient.Under Simon Godwin’s direction, the masked ball in this “Romeo and Juliet” is closer to a rave.Rob YoungsonOn film, we need an extra push, which Godwin and Emily Burns, who adapted the text, provide by grounding us in a theatrical world before escorting us into a filmic one. The production begins unceremoniously with the cast in street clothes, entering a theater, unmasked and vulnerable, none more so than O’Connor, with the low-slung, “sticky-out” ears he says earned him his role on “The Crown.” Sitting on three sides of a small, square, scuffed playing space, the actors are barely past the greeting phase — O’Connor and Buckley smile shyly at one another, as if across a Veronese piazza — when the play leaps out of the gate.Purists not already offended will soon have plenty to set them off. The masked ball at which the lovers meet is not exactly courtly; it’s more like a rave, and Romeo is given just two lines (instead of 10) to fall for Juliet, who is moaning at the mic like Lana Del Rey.But impurists will be satisfied that the erotic intensity between them is so palpable, even when Godwin dissipates it by cutting away from the theatrical moment to a filmed montage in some other dimension. Similarly, the introduction of a passionate gay pairing among the supporting roles makes up in thematic coherence — the plot turns on forbidden love — what it lacks in textual fidelity.The trade-offs continue throughout. The most fascinating one finds Juliet’s parents inverted, Lady Capulet (Tamsin Greig) getting most of the lines Shakespeare wrote for her Lord (Lloyd Hutchinson). Greig, so funny on the Showtime series “Episodes,” is spectacularly entertaining as she explores what besides the habitual assertion of male power might motivate a parent to threaten a daughter with expulsion. Her interpretation, underlined by “evil” music, nevertheless denatures one key feature of the play, which now suggests that the Capulets are monsters when the really terrifying thing is that they’re not. They are upstanding citizens doing what’s expected.It is that atmosphere of immutable custom and inherited hatred that the lovers are desperate to escape. But Godwin’s staging makes clear by physical proximity and by judicious intercutting that these elements are related: Romeo and Juliet’s passion is as rash and irrational as the other characters’ repression and violence. As the outlines of their love are filled in, so is the hatred around them — and so are the set (by Soutra Gilmour) and props; swords that were simple wooden dowels in Act I by Act III are knives that look menacingly real. In youth, it seems, enmity precedes an enemy just as love precedes a lover.Tamsin Greig as Lady Capulet and Lloyd Hutchinson as Lord Capulet.Rob YoungsonAt every turn we are offered insights like that until, suddenly, we aren’t. Nothing Godwin can do to make the play rough and unfamiliar — whether by having Tybalt (David Judge) urinate on a wall or by excising greatest hits like “parting is such sweet sorrow” — can help it get past the place where the lovers’ ingenuity fails along with Shakespeare’s. The plot thread by which Juliet’s fake death prompts Romeo’s real one is so absurdly flimsy that adaptations have tried for centuries to fix it; Arthur Laurents’s workaround for “West Side Story” is especially strong.For me, though, no production of “Romeo and Juliet” survives the potions of Friar Laurence; they are a lot of magick to swallow in a play about such real and serious things. That Laurence is portrayed here (by Lucian Msamati) with great dignity, not as a nutty professor, helps, raising the profound if wishful idea that faith can correct for society’s failings. Even more movingly, Deborah Findlay, as Juliet’s fond nurse, is able to temper the role’s comic elements with an immutable loyalty to her mistress, and then temper that with something darker and arguably in fact disloyal. It’s a perfect trifold performance.That’s the thing about Shakespeare, at least for me: There comes a moment in many of his plays when only the actors can preserve the emotion the plot keeps leaking. Happily, that happens here: As the tragedy narrows, O’Connor and Buckley flood with feeling.Stars will do that. In the same way an enemy is just a receptacle for enmity that already exists, a starring role is whatever a star can pour ambient emotion into. O’Connor’s essence is a silent yearning — the kind that is not extinguished but fanned by satisfaction. (This is what made his otherwise insufferable Charles almost sympathetic in “The Crown” and the nearly silent young farmer in his breakthrough film, “God’s Own Country,” so expressive.) Buckley, whose face seems transparent at times, is more about wonder; her Juliet clearly wants Romeo but, more than that, is amazed by her good fortune in getting him.Even in a more conventional production — this one was meant to be performed live onstage but was retooled for the pandemic — you need that kind of incandescence to make the play make sense. Remember that Shakespeare was a young star, too, albeit 30 or so himself, when he wrote “Romeo and Juliet.” Indeed, it often seems that his title characters, in haste and passion, wrote it for him.Romeo & JulietThrough May 21; pbs.org/gperf More