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      A Jingle Put Cellino & Barnes on the Map. Their Split Inspired a Play.

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      Many New Yorkers can rattle off the phone number by heart. “Cellino v. Barnes” chronicles the rise and fall of these prominent injury lawyers.We must begin with the jingle.It represents everything you probably know about Ross M. Cellino Jr. and Stephen E. Barnes: They were two New York personal injury lawyers reachable for years at 800-888-8888.You may also recall hearing about trouble in paradise. The pair went to court in 2017 and, after an extended legal battle, officially split three years later. Then, just a few months following the divorce, Barnes and his niece died when a small plane he was piloting crashed.Unlikely legal pioneers, Cellino and Barnes proved the power of advertising. From the 1990s through their breakup, they became billboard royalty whose influence expanded beyond western New York — where their original office was — to New York City and California, not only elevating the art of personal injury law but also enriching themselves in the process. Their firm made profits of more than $165 million from settling cases for its clients for $1.5 billion, according to court documents filed as part of the 2017 dispute.Their story, including the demise of their empire, is now unfolding in the Off Broadway play “Cellino v. Barnes,” which is running through October at Asylum NYC. The show dates back to 2018, when it first played at Union Hall in Brooklyn.The playwrights, Mike B. Breen, 35, and David Rafailedes, 34, said the broad outlines of the 75-minute play are basically true. But they condensed the timeline of events and took dramatic liberties as they saw fit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Can the Higgs Boson Become a Broadway Star?

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      A musical about particle physics is under development, with David Henry Hwang, the playwright behind “M. Butterfly.”On a recent Friday afternoon in a basement room in Midtown Manhattan, a dozen musicians and actors stood behind a line of microphones and broke into song about particle physics. Urged along by a piano in the corner, their voices blended at times in a heavenly lament about cosmic ignorance and the search for the Higgs boson, a fleck of energy thought to be key to understanding the evolution of the universe.If you think particle physics is an unpromising subject for a Broadway musical, you’re not alone. David Henry Hwang, the playwright of “M. Butterfly” fame, was unmoved when the idea was first pitched to him several years ago. “It was such an unlikely idea,” he said.But that was then.The basement performance, for a small crowd of Broadway insiders, investors and friends, was the first private reading of a new musical with a story by Mr. Hwang, and music and lyrics by Bear McCreary and Zoe Sarnak. The show recounts one of the biggest events in physics this century: the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson and the people behind it.The production, still nascent, is based on “Particle Fever,” an award-winning documentary film in 2013 produced by David Kaplan, a film student turned physicist at Johns Hopkins University, and directed by Mark Levinson, a physicist turned filmmaker.The minireveal in June was an important first step for Megan Kingery and Annie Roney, the producers, who have spent the past decade trying to forge the unlikely material into what they hope will eventually become a Broadway musical.“It’s been a long time coming, and it has a long way to go,” Ms. Kingery said recently during a Zoom interview with Ms. Roney.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Edinburgh Fringe: Out and About at the Festival

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      It’s summer in Edinburgh and visitors from around the world have arrived for the 77th edition of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the chaotic, scrappy, sprawling arts event that opened Friday and runs through Aug. 26. This year, there are more than 3,600 shows on the program, by artists from 58 countries: theater, stand-up, circus and cabaret performances, as usual — but also film screenings, whiskey tastings and a life drawing class with dogs.Robert Ormerod, a photographer for The New York Times, was on the ground in Edinburgh to capture the atmosphere on the festival’s first weekend.Festival-goers crowd the pubs and restaurants in the Old Town district of the city.Poster and flyers — as well as performers hustling in the streets — help the public choose from the more than 3,600 shows.Fringe performers line up for a media event over the weekend.Spectators for a street performance on the Royal Mile, Old Town’s main thoroughfare.Tartan Heather, a Scottish artist who weaves fabric in the traditional pattern for spectators, on the Royal Mile.Handbills for Fringe shows cover a phone booth in the city center.Checking times and venues at the Underbelly box office in George Square, central Edinburgh.Nina Conti, a British ventriloquist who has been appearing at the Fringe for over 20 years, presents her show “Whose Face Is It Anyway?” at the Pleasance Grand.A performer from “I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical,” performs an impromptu song on Friday after a power cut canceled the show.Julia VanderVeen in “My Grandmother’s Eyepatch.”The Fringe sold nearly 2.5 million tickets in 2023.The performers on the official Fringe program were joined by nearly 500 street performers in 2023, according to Fringe.Relaxing in Princes Street Gardens, a stone’s throw from the hubbub of the festival. More

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      Why ‘The Great Gatsby’ and Other Broadway Shows Are Turning to Influencers

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      To reach younger and more diverse audiences, Broadway shows are increasingly looking to Instagram and TikTok creators.On a 91-degree day in June, a group of 20- and 30-somethings in sundresses and Bermuda shorts was navigating a dimly lit cocktail lounge whose air-conditioning was on the fritz.It didn’t matter: Cocktails with names like the Ghost Writer were flowing, and patrons were posing in front of a velvet emerald curtain, holding “Team Daisy” and “Team Gatsby” hand fans emblazoned with the faces of Eva Noblezada and Jeremy Jordan, the stars of the Broadway musical “The Great Gatsby.”Flickering candles adorned tables at the side of the room, where people colored in silhouettes of the character Myrtle Wilson, a social climber in the musical, and filled out trivia sheets with questions like “Is Gatsby in East or West Egg?” Silver gift bags filled with miniature bottles of Champagne and “Old Sport” stickers sat on a table by the door.“We are in the Gatsby era,” said Francis Dominic, 31, a lifestyle and travel influencer, alluding to the Broadway musical and “Gatsby,” another high-profile stage adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel that last week ended its run at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., and is also aiming for Broadway.Dominic was among about 40 TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube creators who had gathered at the Rickey lounge inside the Dream Midtown hotel to celebrate the release of the “Great Gatsby” cast album, which would begin streaming the next day.Molly Kavanaugh recorded content for a live stream.Ye Fan for The New York TimesLexy Vagasy, left, and Kavanaugh at the invite-only event for about 60 people.Ye Fan for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The People Reimagining ‘Spirited Away’ With Puppets

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      Hayao Miyazaki’s classic film is now onstage, brought to life with elements including a nearly 20-foot-long dragon.“Everyone Who Made This Happen” takes a look at the outsize teams of artists and creative types it often takes to produce a single work.Number of people involved: Around 70, including 30 performers.Time from conception to opening night: Four years and three months.There was never any doubt as to whether the director John Caird’s stage adaptation of “Spirited Away” would incorporate puppets. They were part of his original pitch to Hayao Miyazaki, the writer and director of the beloved 2001 animated film, in which the heroine, Chihiro, and her parents are transported to another world populated by a colorful cast of Japanese spirits and gods. The questions were, which characters should be puppets, and how would they look and work? Toby Olié, 39, the show’s puppetry designer and director, sketched some initial ideas. Then, in 2021, he and Caird; Caird’s co-adapter and wife, Maoko Imai; the set designer Jon Bausor; and six performer-puppeteers held a two-week workshop in a church hall in East London, during which they explored staging with foam and cardboard prototypes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Two New Musicals Poke at the Seamy Underbelly of the American Dream

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      Kristin Chenoweth stars in “The Queen of Versailles” in Boston, while a new “Gatsby” musical in Cambridge takes Myrtle seriously.“It may surprise you,” Jackie Siegel says, “but we are not old money.”Surprise us? Probably not, but there were some context clues. Such as that she utters these words while dressed to the pink and sparkly nines, holding a tiny, fluffy dog and perched in the lap of her decades-older husband, David, whose capacious, ornately gilded chair suggests delusions of royalty.So does their home construction project: a 90,000-square-foot house modeled on the Palace of Versailles (because, you know how it is, their current 26,000 square feet are feeling cramped) and built, Jackie tells us, “in the most beautiful place in the entire world — Orlando, Florida.”The audience at the Emerson Colonial Theater in Boston got a good guffaw out of that on Thursday’s opening night of “The Queen of Versailles,” the surprising and frequently excellent new musical starring an utterly disarming Kristin Chenoweth and co-written by her “Wicked” composer-lyricist, Stephen Schwartz.Then again, it may be a sort of genius to stage the world premiere of this show, which has already announced a Broadway run next season, in a city that is fundamentally identified with the origins of this nation and constitutionally disposed to adore old money but turn its nose up at vulgar flash.Because “The Queen of Versailles,” based largely on Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary of the same name, is as much an exploration of the seamy underbelly of the American Dream as is the very different new musical “Gatsby,” wrapping up its own world premiere across the river in Cambridge. (More on that momentarily.) Like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, Jackie Siegel came from not much at all, left her humble roots behind and — with a husband (F. Murray Abraham, in terrific form) whose beginnings were similar — reinvented herself on a scale so over the top that strangers can’t help gawking.Chenoweth’s playfulness and charm endears her character to the audience, and F. Murray Abraham is in terrific form, our critic writes.Matthew MurphyWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Former Monk Who Won Powerball Is Giving Millions to Theaters

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      Roy Cockrum has donated more than $25 million to 39 theaters, helping the Old Globe in San Diego stage the one Shakespeare play it had yet to produce.When Roy Cockrum, a one-time struggling actor and a former monk, won a $259 million Powerball jackpot in 2014, he decided to splurge on something a bit out of the ordinary: supporting nonprofit theater.He set up a foundation that has given away $25 million to 39 American theaters so far, which is why he found himself the other night at the Old Globe in San Diego. He was there to watch the premiere of a production he supported to help the theater reach a milestone: a large-scale staging of the only Shakespeare play it had yet to produce, an adaptation of the somewhat rarely performed three “Henry VI” plays.“The question I put to artistic directors is, ‘Is there a project you’ve always dreamed of doing that you couldn’t afford?’” Cockrum, an apple-cheeked, snowy-haired 68-year-old, said in an interview. “To help artistic directors dream bigger than they would otherwise.”At a time when nonprofit theaters across the country are struggling with rising costs, fewer subscribers, smaller audiences and dwindling corporate philanthropy, Cockrum’s generosity stands out.“He’s an inspiration to other philanthropists at a time when our field is really struggling and where we need innovative ideas about philanthropy to try to move the field forward,” said Barry Edelstein, the Old Globe’s artistic director. “We’re not going to solve the structural financial problems facing the sector through Bernie Sanders-style $27 contributions. It’s going to take really significant infusions at the scale that Roy is doing them.”Cockrum’s support allowed the Old Globe in San Diego to stage “Henry 6,” a large-scale, two-part adaptation of Shakespeare’s three “Henry VI” plays. Ariana Drehsler for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to See at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

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      Previous editions of the performing arts event launched shows like “Baby Reindeer” and “Fleabag.” Maybe there’s another breakout hit among this year’s more than 3,300 shows.Each summer, artists and audience members from across the globe decamp to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts event. This year, from Aug. 2 through 26, the city will be repurposed into a labyrinth of makeshift theaters, in dingy rooms above pubs, hotel conference rooms and university lecture theaters.Throughout the Fringe’s 77-year history, its eclectic approach to performance has been integral to its appeal. Unlike the more highbrow Edinburgh International Festival, which runs concurrently. the Fringe is open to all comers — and a buzzy Fringe show can give an artist a very big break.“Fleabag” and “Six,” the musical, were originally Fringe success stories. So too was Richard Gadd’s 2019 one-man show “Baby Reindeer,” which this year became a Netflix series and an unexpected global hit.Very few artists make money at the Fringe, but at this year’s festival, many will be trying to emulate Gadd’s trajectory. And festival goers will equally be looking for the next big thing.With more than 3,300 shows on offer, finding the next “Fleabag” requires some careful studying of the weighty Fringe program. Here is a guide to some of the key themes and the buzziest shows from this year’s lineup.Award-winning comics returnAt the end of each year’s Fringe, a panel of judges hands out the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for best show and best newcomer, two prestigious prizes that have launched many international careers. This year’s Fringe lineup includes two of the most successful recent winners.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