Theater

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Theater

      Jordan Roth, a Broadway Big Shot, Is Now Reinventing Himself

      by

      Jordan Roth, the scion of a New York real estate fortune, a convention-challenging fashionista and a social media habitué, spent 15 years as a Broadway macher, running one of the big three theater landlords. He programmed hits like “The Book of Mormon” and “Hadestown,” nurtured plays and musicals in development, and joined the theater industry’s inner circle at its cloistered confabs, all the while showing up at openings in increasingly fabulous couture.But it’s fairly obvious to anyone watching Roth’s evolving public persona that he’s been looking for a new adventure.He has sold most of his stake in Jujamcyn, the company through which he owned five Broadway theaters, and he has dialed back his theater producing.Jordan Roth rehearsing what he’s calling a “narrative fashion performance” in a black box studio in Brooklyn.Now he is moving on to a different stage, combining his love of fashion, his hunger to perform, and his taste for storytelling. He is pursuing “narrative fashion performance,” and he plans a debut on July 10 at the Louvre in Paris.“I worked for a long time facilitating other people’s creativity, and that was very meaningful and very fulfilling, but I started to miss my own,” Roth, 49, told me during a rehearsal break at a black box studio in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.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

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Theater

      What to See in London Theaters This Summer

      by

      A handpicked guide for visitors (and residents), including classic drama, musicals, new plays and shows for children.The London stage is, as ever, bustling with an array of shows to satisfy all tastes. Starry plays and revivals jostle with high-profile musicals, both new and revivals, new drama and children’s theater.Here’s a guide to some of the enticements of the coming months, presented with an awareness that just as London contains multitudes, so, too, does its theater.Shows With Star PowerRosamund Pike, center, in rehearsals for “Inter Alia,” which begins previews July 10.Manuel HarlanInter AliaRosamund Pike has made her name onscreen in films like “Gone Girl” and “Saltburn” and returns to the stage to head the new play from the team behind the London and Broadway hit “Prima Facie.” Like that play, Suzie Miller’s “Inter Alia” is set in the legal profession, with Pike as a prominent London judge, though unlike its solo-performer predecessor, “Inter Alia” features a supporting cast, led by Jamie Glover. The show is just one of several National Theater titles vying for playgoers’ attentions this summer: Others include the return of Michael Sheen in “Nye” and the West End transfer of Beth Steel’s “Till the Stars Come Down.”Runs July 10 through Sept. 13 at the National Theater.GiantThe accolades have been pouring in for the onetime director Mark Rosenblatt’s Olivier Award-winning debut play, which recalls an episode in the career of the author Roald Dahl. John Lithgow is in career-best form as Dahl, who has written a book review that is widely seen as antisemitic and refuses to reign in his language. Aya Cash and Elliot Levey do standout work playing his publishers; Nicholas Hytner is the characteristically adroit director. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      Diana Oh, Passionate Voice for Queer Liberation in Theater, Dies at 38

      by

      Mx. Oh’s politically provocative and often playful works, including the Off Broadway production “{my lingerie play},” asserted the right to be oneself while having fun.Diana Oh, a glitter-dusted experimental artist-activist whose theater works intertwined political provocation with profound compassion in rituals of communion with audiences, died on June 17 at their home in Brooklyn. Mx. Oh, who used the pronouns they and them, was 38.The death was confirmed by Mx. Oh’s brother Han Bin Oh, who said the cause was suicide.A playwright, actor, singer-songwriter and musician, Mx. Oh created art that didn’t fit neatly into categories. Mx. Oh was best known for the outraged yet disarmingly gentle Off Broadway show “{my lingerie play},” a music-filled protest against male sexual violence; it was performed in a series of 10 installations around New York City.A concert-like play — with Mx. Oh singing at its center — “{my lingerie play}” percolated with an angry awareness of the ways restrictive gender norms and society’s policing of sexual desire can leave whole groups vulnerable. It was an emphatic and loving assertion of the right to be oneself without worrying about abuse.“I was born a woman, to immigrant parents,” Mx. Oh said in the show. “That’s when my body became political. That’s when I became an artist.”Mx. Oh’s Infinite Love Party, which the Bushwick Starr theater in Brooklyn produced in 2019, was not a show but rather a structured celebration with a sleepover option. It was a handmade experience, including music and aerial silks, designed to welcome queer people, people of color and their allies.Mx. Oh in The Infinite Love Party, which was not a show but rather a structured celebration with music.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMx. Oh in 2019 during The Infinite Love Party, which had a sleepover option.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Theater

      Rachel Zegler’s Balcony Scene in ‘Evita’ Has London Talking

      by

      Crowds are converging outside the London Palladium to watch Rachel Zegler sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from a balcony — while paying theatergoers inside see it on a screen.One recent afternoon, I arrived at the London Palladium to a disappointing scene: The West End’s most talked-about seats were already taken.Outside on the street, not far from the theater’s grand entrance, two men had perched themselves on the seats — actually piles of cardboard awaiting recycling — to get a perfect view of a scene that has London’s theater scene buzzing.In a few moments, Rachel Zegler, the actor playing Eva Perón in a revival of “Evita” at the Palladium, would appear on a balcony and belt out “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” the show’s signature song, to the hundreds of musical lovers, celebrity spotters and confused tourists gathered below.Members of the public watching Rachel Zegler’s balcony performance on the street outside the London Palladium.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesThe audience inside, some of whom had paid 240 pounds, about $327, for seats that weren’t made out of trash, would be watching her on a big screen.Adam McCollom, 41, an academic who had scored a spot on one of the cardboard perches, said that Zegler’s street scene was apt for a musical about Perón, the wife of Argentina’s socialist president’s who was adored by the working classes. “Here I am, the pleb on the bins, about to clap the woman who’s paid billions,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Theater

      ‘Lowcountry’ Review: A Flat-Footed First Date

      by

      Abby Rosebrock’s latest offering for Atlantic Theater Company mines fertile ground, but simmers about with nary a sign of tension, sexual or otherwise.There’s exposition, and then there’s a high-debit download like in the opening scene of “Lowcountry,” at Atlantic Theater Company.David (Babak Tafti) is making dinner, changing into clean clothes, neatening things up around his down-at-the-heels studio apartment. All the while he is on the phone with Paul (Keith Kupferer). David is on speaker, so we hear both sides, which allows the playwright Abby Rosebrock to deliver — more or less smoothly — heaps of background information. It also lets the audience seize on the production’s gist: unafraid of melodramatic turns, heavy-handed, often logic-defying.David, we learn, once had to wear an ankle monitor, is involved in a custody battle, is a sex pest and works as a line cook at a Waffle House — a Bojangles takeout bag is another hint that we’re in the South. (The scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado and the costume designer Sarah Laux do what they can to evoke a guy with more problems than dollars.)On the other end of the line, Paul is David’s sponsor in a recovery program, and his purported concern and care barely hide a whiff of bossy paternalism. With only a disembodied voice, Kupferer, who was superb last year in the acclaimed film “Ghostlight,” injects a vaguely unsettling dimension to his character’s good ol’ boy — or rather good ol’ grandpa — persona. You can almost picture Paul, pacing by his pool on a phone, dispensing support that smells strongly of controlling judgment.Then again, he knows David better than we do. And the younger man, who’s preparing for a first date with a woman he met on Tinder, is, indeed, lying to Paul: He’s not actually going on a picnic — she’s coming to his place for dinner.That Tally (Jodi Balfour, from the series “Ted Lasso” and “For All Mankind”) is willing to meet a stranger at his home rather than in a neutral spot is one of several mysteries bobbing about in her wake. She looks comfortable in her own skin but also leans heavily on self-deprecating jokes that suggest fault lines. She appears forthright, but many of her answers to David’s getting-to-know-you questions are vague, which of course makes them more tantalizing. Tally shares that she was into self-help to deal with the aftermath of “Garden-variety sex stuff and workplace stuff, workplace abuse wage-theft poverty blah blah blah …” Then she coolly informs David that Bill Clinton killed her mother.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

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Theater

      ‘Trophy Boys’ Review: The Nerds’ Case Against Feminism

      by

      In an Off Broadway play, young men on a high school debate team prepare to argue an uncomfortable case.Has feminism failed women?That’s the uh-oh question facing the Imperium School’s senior debate team when asked to argue the affirmative in the finals of their league competition. But asserting that proposition against the girls from St. Gratia feels deeply uncomfortable to the four teenage boys who make up the team. Worse, it feels like a sure way to lose.And losers are not what Imperium’s debaters, no matter how nerdy, are expected to be. How will they get into Yale or Harvard — or “maybe … like … N.Y.U.?” — if they’re caught defending the patriarchy? How will Owen, their best speaker, run for president one day, as he intends to, with video of him vivisecting feminism in the ether forever?That’s the setup for Emmanuelle Mattana’s “Trophy Boys,” whose title suggests that what’s at stake is more than a contest. Regardless of their protestations of love for their mothers and sisters, the team members are mostly concerned with preserving their privilege as preppies and men. Their feminism is the kind that crumbles the moment it asks something of them beyond lip service.“Trophy Boys,” which opened Wednesday at MCC Theater, addresses their bad faith in many ways but not, alas, in the most important one: a convincing narrative. Mattana begins with satire so broad it’s indistinguishable from burlesque, as the Imperium team arrives at St. Gratia for their power hour of prep time. How stoked they are by the posters of feminist thought leaders — Oprah, Malala, Yoko — plastering the walls! (The classroom set is by Matt Saunders.) “I am at my most inspired when surrounded by inspiring women,” Owen says.Owen is portrayed by the playwright, who has made the casting of female, queer, trans and nonbinary actors “nonnegotiable.” Not that Danya Taymor’s production asks us to read their gray flannel, blue blazer, repp tie drag as real. (The costumes are by Márion Talán de la Rosa.) Especially when they roughhouse, leaping on desks and licking their notebooks, the cast overplays the characters’ youthfulness, making them seem less like a delivery system for gender commentary than a cartoon version of “Newsies.”But if those choices take some of the sting out of the boys’ masculine cluelessness and bro-y vulgarity, they also amp up the ambient camp. Jared (Louisa Jacobson) is a sendup of WASP obliviousness, disowning his advantages while pulling a gold watch and Tesla keys from his backpack. Scott (Esco Jouléy) is clearly in love with him, even as he overcompensates with casually sexist remarks. And David (Terry Hu) is an arrogant incel whose most salient contribution to feminism is calling his father a cuck.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      Broadway Musical ‘Boop’ Set to Close Amid Weak Ticket Sales

      by

      ‘Boop! The Musical’ imagines the cartoon character leaving 1920s filmdom for 2020s New York City. Ticket sales were weak.“Boop! The Musical,” based on the iconic flapper from early animated shorts, announced on Wednesday that it would close July 13 after failing to find sufficient audience to defray its running costs on Broadway.The show is the fourth new musical to post a closing notice in the 17 days since the Tony Awards, following “Smash,” “Real Women Have Curves” and “Dead Outlaw.”“Boop!” had a disappointing Tonys season — it was not nominated for best musical, and its request to perform on the awards show was rebuffed. It was nominated for best lead actress (Jasmine Amy Rogers), best choreography (Jerry Mitchell) and best costume design (Gregg Barnes) but won no awards.The show’s weekly grosses, consistently too low, ticked upward last week, but remain well below its running costs. During the week that ended June 22, “Boop!” grossed $602,017, and 19 percent of the seats went unsold.The musical began previews March 11 and opened on April 5 at the Broadhurst Theater. At the time of its closing, it will have played 25 previews and 112 regular performances.Set primarily in New York City, the musical imagines that Betty Boop, an actress in films of the 1920s, time travels to present-day Manhattan seeking a greater sense of her self; in the city she finds friendship, love and clarity.The musical, led by the veteran producer Bill Haber, had been in development for more than a quarter century, with shifting creative teams, and had a pre-Broadway production in Chicago in 2023. The version that finally made it to Broadway has a book by Bob Martin, music by David Foster, and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead; it is directed as well as choreographed by Mitchell.Reviews were mostly positive. But in The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green was unenthusiastic, praising Rogers’s performance and other elements of the show, but questioning its rationale, saying that “a well-crafted, charmingly performed, highly professional production that nobody asked for” is “disappointing,” and that “one feels at all times the heavy hooves of a marketing imperative.”“Boop!” was capitalized for up to $26 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money — the amount it cost to finance the show’s development — has not been recouped. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Global Arts Festival Taking Shape Inside Gowanus Power Station

      by

      The first Powerhouse: International will feature works from South Africa’s William Kentridge, Brazil’s Carolina Bianchi — and 10,000, $30 tickets.A new arts festival, featuring performance art from Brazil, an interactive installation from New Zealand, and a party presented by a Beyoncé dance captain, will be staged this fall inside a onetime power station along Brooklyn’s industrial Gowanus Canal.The three-month series, called Powerhouse: International and scheduled to run Sept. 25 to Dec. 13, is being curated by David Binder, a longtime performing arts producer and former artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It will take place at Powerhouse Arts, a hulking structure that since 2023 has housed fabrication studios for artists from a variety of disciplines.The festival will be the building’s first series of performing arts events, and will feature acclaimed artists like William Kentridge, from South Africa, who is presenting his multidisciplinary opera-theater work “Sibyl”; Christos Papadopoulos, from Greece, whose prizewinning dance piece “Larsen C” is about a melting ice shelf; and Carolina Bianchi, from Brazil, who will perform her “Cadela Força Trilogy,” a stage work about sexual violence, with her collective Cara de Cavalo.“We’re in this moment when there are so many barriers — cultural, physical, ideological — and this festival aims to break down those barriers,” Binder said in an interview. “What really interests me is the convergence of artists from different countries and different disciplines.”To keep the events accessible, the festival is making at least 10,000 tickets — just over half of the expected total — available for $30 each. At most configurations, the venue will have about 800 seats.Binder said he was motivated in part by a change in the types of work being presented in New York City in recent years. “There’s obviously a lot less international work in the city, a lot less art, a lot less new plays, a lot less music and dance,” he said. “I’m hoping we’re adding to 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