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      Space Station May Host Wave of TV Shows and Films

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      A Discovery reality TV competition, a Russian medical thriller and more productions could be heading to the orbital outpost in the next year.Who wants to be an astronaut?If the answer is you, there’s a reality TV show, appropriately titled “Who Wants to Be an Astronaut?,” that you ought to apply for.The Discovery Channel is seeking to cast about 10 would-be astronauts to compete during the series’s eight-episode run next year for a seat on a real-life trip to the International Space Station, followed by live coverage of the launch of the winner on a SpaceX rocket.“We’d like a diverse group of people that each have their own story, why they want to go to space, why they’re worthy of going to space, what their back story is,” said Jay Peterson, president of Boat Rocker Studios, Unscripted, one of the companies producing the show for Discovery.That person will not be the only amateur astronaut destined for the space station next year. So many tourism and entertainment efforts are preparing trips there that it could begin to look more like a soundstage for television shows and a hotel for the wealthy than an orbiting research laboratory.Many who work in the business of space believe that is a good thing, even if trips to orbit will remain out of reach of all but the wealthiest passengers in the near term.“This is a real inflection point, I think, with human spaceflight,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial spaceflight development, said during a news conference this month announcing that the agency had signed an agreement with Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, to fly the first mission of private astronauts to the space station.“I’m very bullish on the tourism market and the tourism activity,” Mr. McAlister said. “I think more people that are going to fly, they’re going to want to do more things in space.”Although the International Space Station may stay up in orbit at least until 2028, in the future it will not be the only space station. Russian space authorities last month declared their intention to leave the I.S.S. in the coming years and build a station of their own. A Chinese orbital outpost is expected to come online in the next year or two.Even NASA is looking for what comes next, promising support for commercial alternatives. Axiom, for one, is building a commercial segment, which will first be added to the International Space Station and later serve as a core piece of an Axiom station.“By the end of the decade I believe we will have at least five, possibly 10 private stations,” said Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of NanoRacks, a company that arranges commercial use of I.S.S. and is also planning its own orbital outposts. “Some for entertainment, some for research, some for in-space manufacturing, some for preparing the way for our journey to Mars. At long last, our more pragmatic aspirations are becoming reality.”TV and film projects in orbit are attracting the greatest attention so far. In the year ahead, the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, and a Russian broadcaster, Channel One, are behind a project in the year ahead to send Yulia Peresild, an actress, and Klim Shipenko, a filmmaker, to the space station to make the movie “Challenge.” Ms. Peresild will play a surgeon sent to orbit to save the life of a Russian astronaut.The Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa expects to spend 12 days in space starting in December, and hopes eventually to circle the moon.David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA Soyuz rocket taking off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the city of Uglegorsk, Russia, last month.Roscosmos/EPA, via ShutterstockThey will be flying on a Russian Soyuz rocket. So will a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano, a production assistant. Their 12-day trip, scheduled to launch in December, is a prelude for a more ambitious around-the-moon trip Mr. Maezawa hopes to embark on in a few years in the giant SpaceX Starship rocket currently in development. His trip to the space station is being arranged by Space Adventures, a company that arranged eight similar visits for private citizens between 2001 and 2009.There is still the possibility of Tom Cruise going to space, too.A year ago, Deadline reported that NASA was in discussions with the megamovie star on shooting an action-adventure film on the station. Since then, nothing more of Mr. Cruise’s out-of-this-world movie project has been revealed publicly.There will also be other trips to space going places other than the space station. Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, has bought an orbital trip from SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk.A bit closer to Earth, two companies, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, and Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, are getting closer to flying tourists on short, suborbital flights that will offer a few minutes of weightlessness.On Saturday, Virgin Galactic conducted a successful test flight of its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane. And Blue Origin has announced that its New Shepard spacecraft will have people aboard its next flight, scheduled for July 20, and it is auctioning one seat. As of Wednesday, the high bid was $2.8 million.Axiom Space, the Houston company, is central to some coming trips to the space station. Its first flight to the International Space Station, which is to launch aboard a SpaceX rocket as early as January, will carry three passengers, who are spending $55 million each for their eight days or so in orbit. Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who is now a vice president at Axiom, will accompany them, serving as commander of the mission.Film director Klim Shipenko, left, and actor Yulia Pereslid, third from left, at the cosmonaut training center in Star City, Russia. They will attempt to make a film aboard the International Space Station in the coming year.ITAR-TASS News Agency/AlamyVirgin Galactic’s VSS Unity being released from its mothership, VMS Eve, on the way to its first spaceflight after launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico this month.Virgin Galactic, via ReutersThis month’s announcement was the first time NASA acknowledged that the Axiom mission was officially on the space station schedule.“We’re finally able to open our doors to private citizens and allow others to experience the magic of living and working in space,” said Dana Weigel, deputy manager for the space station at NASA. “The dream is really to allow everyone access to space, and this is a pretty exciting starting point here.”Producers of Discovery’s “Who Wants to Be an Astronaut” expect the winner to be on board for the second Axiom mission to the space station, which might take off six or seven months after the first one. For now, an agreement between the Discovery team and Axiom has not been finalized, and NASA has yet to choose Axiom to conduct the second private space tourism flight.The NASA-led part of the station could accommodate two private astronaut missions a year, space agency officials have said, and other companies are also interested in participating.“We are seeing a lot of interest in private astronaut missions, even outside of Axiom,” Ms. Weigel said. “At this point, the demand exceeds what we actually believe the opportunities on station will be.”Still, on Tuesday, Axiom announced two people who would be in the seats for that second mission: Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom, will be the commander, and John Shoffner, a paying passenger who made his fortune as head of a company that manufactures conduits for fiber optic cables, will serve as pilot for the mission.Dr. Whitson, who holds the record for the most cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut — 665 days — joined Axiom as a consultant a year ago, in hopes of getting to space again and adding to her record. “Yes, most definitely,” she said. “That was the carrot.”Mr. Peterson said plans for the Discovery show grew out of discussions with Axiom early in 2020 and that it would be “a premium documentary” and less like “Survivor” or other ruthless reality television competitions.“There’s real stakes here, unlike those kinds of comparisons,” Mr. Peterson said. “We want to create an interest in somebody, so that everyone can feel like they maybe someday have the ability to do this.”The astronaut Peggy Whitson in the cupola of the International Space Station in 2016. She will chaperone a tourist to the I.S.S., as will astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who is now president of Axiom.NASA, via Associated PressMr. López-Alegría in the Quest Airlock of the I.S.S. in 2002.NASAPaul Ricci, a founder of BoomTown Content Company and also involved in the show, said the competition will be based on what astronauts and others who have worked in human spaceflight have said was needed to succeed.“If these are the qualities that astronauts need to have,” Mr. Ricci said, “then we can model challenges that test those qualities. Things like problem solving, teamwork, precision and focus, grace under pressure, handling the unexpected.”The idea of staging competitions to get to space is not new. In 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese television journalist, went to the Russian space station Mir. The Tokyo Broadcasting Service bought the seat on the Soyuz and Mr. Akiyama was selected from 163 candidates. A year later, Helen Sharman, an English chemist, also flew to Mir, selected from among 13,000 British applicants in a privately financed campaign.A space-based reality television show is not a new idea either. In 2000, NBC signed a deal for a show developed by Mark Burnett, who had also produced “The Apprentice” and “Survivor.” The winner of that competition would have also traveled to Mir, but NASA pressed Russia to abandon Mir and shift its focus to the International Space Station, which was in the early stages of construction.Russia relented, Mir was nudged to a watery crash in the Pacific in 2001, and the reality television show never came to fruition.As for Mr. Cruise, it is a guessing game when he and the movie director he is working with, Doug Liman, might head to the space station, and Axiom has never commented on whether it is involved in Mr. Cruise’s movie.Asked on Monday if there were any developments that could be shared, Amanda Lundberg, Mr. Cruise’s publicist, replied, “Thanks but this is not possible.” More

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      in Television

      How Do You Write an Anthony Bourdain Book Without Anthony Bourdain?

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      After the author and TV personality’s death, his longtime assistant was left to finish his last book, a world travel guide.In March 2017, Anthony Bourdain had an idea for a book, but no time to write it. Since he started traveling and eating on camera with the Food Network’s “A Cook’s Tour” in 2000, the chef, frequent dropper of f-bombs and insatiable eater of delicious things had spent the majority of his time in the field, most recently for his CNN show “Parts Unknown.” Mr. Bourdain and his team decided he would carve out some time to write in the summer of 2018, when he would have a few rare continuous weeks at home during a break in filming. That, of course, never happened, as Mr. Bourdain died by suicide in June 2018.Nevertheless, next week, almost three years after his death, and after a pandemic that almost completely shut down international travel, Ecco will publish “World Travel: An Irreverent Guide” by Mr. Bourdain and his longtime assistant (or “lieutenant” as he often referred to her), Laurie Woolever.“To me, there was no question that the book would go on,” Ms. Woolever said in a recent video call from her home in Queens. “As long as I had the blessing of his estate, which I did, I wanted to finish it as a way to serve his legacy.”“World Travel” is built out of a somewhat amorphous vision, an “atlas of the world as seen through his eyes,” as Ms. Woolever writes in the book’s introduction. It is the second book, after 2016’s “Appetites,” that includes Ms. Woolever’s name on the cover just under Mr. Bourdain’s, albeit smaller. It speaks to the power of Mr. Bourdain’s legacy and the singularity of his point of view that his name still sits so boldly on the book’s cover despite the fact that he contributed not a single new written word to its 469 pages.Laurie Woolever outside Gray’s Papaya on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which makes an appearance in “World Travel.”Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe book is built to read like a travel guide, even if it would be a stretch to use it as one. It covers 43 countries, with Mr. Bourdain’s recommendations for restaurants, hotels and other attractions in each one drawn mostly from his various TV shows. In between, Ms. Woolever, who was archivist, fact checker and editor on the book, as well as its co-author, has inserted context and, for each destination, a section on airports, public transportation and taxi costs. Occasionally she adds in her own recommendations based on her travels and knowledge of Mr. Bourdain’s favorite off-camera spots: one particularly charming section includes a delivery request that Mr. Bourdain emailed to Ms. Woolever, for Pastrami Queen, a kosher deli on New York’s Upper East Side.The book comes at a pivotal moment in travel, just after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that Americans who are vaccinated can travel internationally, and as closed borders between countries are slowly and fitfully reopening. The timing is fortuitous, though not intentional: The book was originally scheduled to publish in the fall of 2020 and Ms. Woolever said the publication was delayed because of production issues, not the coronavirus.Edward Ash-Milby, the lifestyle book buyer at Barnes & Noble, said in an email that the bookstore chain has put in an order similar in size to that for past best sellers by Mr. Bourdain: “We’ve ordered it for all 600-plus stores and we are all very excited about it.”After the travel book market took a major hit over the past year, Mr. Ash-Milby said in his email that he has started to see it coming back in the United States, especially when it comes to domestic travel. “World Travel,” he said, was perfectly positioned to take advantage of American readers’ pent-up wanderlust for places further afield. “I love the publication date of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘World Travel,’” he wrote. “It feels perfectly timed to meet the imagination of today’s travelers who are primed to explore.”Mr. Bourdain never professed to being a fan of travel guides and, before this book, he had never really expressed much interest in writing one. In an interview during South by Southwest in 2016, he admitted that he rarely read them: “I like atmospherics,” he said. “I don’t want a list of the best hotels or restaurants; I want to read fiction set in the place where you get a real sense of what that place is like.”Despite this, Ms. Woolever said there was also an understanding between the two of them that a guide could be exactly what his fans wanted. “I would like to think that even if someone has seen every episode, even if they’ve read every book, there is the possibility of fresh discovery with this book,” she said.The choice of what to include — which Singaporean hawker stalls, Spanish tapas restaurants or American dive bars made the list — mostly came out of one hourlong, recorded conversation in the spring of 2018 between Ms. Woolever and Mr. Bourdain held at Mr. Bourdain’s Manhattan high-rise apartment, which he had, according to Ms. Woolever, decorated to mimic one of his favorite hotels, Los Angeles’s Chateau Marmont.“I prepared ahead of time for this meeting with Tony by making a list of every place he had been,” Ms. Woolever said. Then, as Mr. Bourdain chain-smoked and free-associated, she took notes. “He would just, off the top of his head, say ‘We’ve got to include this market stall, and this place with the chicken,’” she recalled. “He had a pretty astonishing level of recall for somebody who had done so much.”“World Travel” contains essays by Mr. Bourdain’s friends, colleagues and family, but no new contributions from him.EccoIn that quiet summer of 2018, Mr. Bourdain was planning to go through the curated list of countries and cities and write new, original essays about them. From his work on television it isn’t hard to imagine what they could have been: an effusive, profanity-laced ode to the decadent and delicate noodle soups of Vietnam perhaps, or an examination of why he loved old colonial hotels in the tropics so much despite their often problematic histories.The conversation, meant to be the first of many brainstorming sessions, became Ms. Woolever’s only blueprint. Facing all of the unwritten essays, she reached out to Mr. Bourdain’s friends, family members and former colleagues to fill that space: His younger brother, Christopher Bourdain, writes about traveling to the Jersey Shore and Uruguay for episodes of “Parts Unknown” and “No Reservations”; the record producer Steve Albini provides a lengthy list of his favorite where-would-Bourdain-eat spots in Chicago; the Toronto restaurateur Jen Agg recounts how the stunt that made her restaurant famous (a “bone luge” shot, in which bourbon is poured down a hollowed out veal bone) was concocted for an episode of “The Layover,” the relatively short-lived Travel Channel show that was, before this book, the closest Mr. Bourdain ever came to making a “how to” guide.“It’s a hard and lonely thing to co-author a book about the wonders of world travel when your writing partner, that very traveler, is no longer traveling that world,” Ms. Woolever admits in the book’s introduction.Ms. Woolever first worked with Mr. Bourdain in 2002, when her former employer, the chef Mario Batali, recommended her as a recipe tester and editor for “Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook.” She became his assistant in 2009 after working as, among other things, an editor and a private chef. As Ms. Woolever recounts it, Mr. Bourdain happened to be looking for an assistant at the precise time that she had a child and was looking to do something new. “It was such a lucky coincidence of timing for both of us,” she said.Ms. Woolever knew Mr. Bourdain well after so many years, and it was that closeness that helped her get through some of the hard decisions in putting together the book, she said.Much of that decision-making process involved talking to others: members of his close circle of confidantes, his production team and past fixers who offered updated information on old spots Mr. Bourdain might have visited. “I never want to speak for Tony, but if I had to speculate — and I think we all agreed — I think he would want these things that had been set in motion to go on,” she said. She ran decade-old “No Reservations” picks by past collaborators to make sure they were still good. She pored over transcripts of past shows and spent days contacting chefs in the French countryside or along the Mozambique coast to make sure they were still operating.Anthony Bourdain filming “Parts Unknown” in Butte, Mont., in 2015. CNNThat fact-checking process took on a new level of intensity, of course, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as restaurants globally were hit hard. “I did check to see that all the listed venues were still open just before the window closed to any new edits,” she told me. She knows of just one establishment — Cold Tea bar in Toronto — that has closed since, but doesn’t regret its inclusion in the book. “I am happy to have its listing remain in the text, because Tony loved it, and I hope that the business owners may be able to resurrect it in the future,” she said.Over the course of the book, Ms. Woolever never makes the claim that the guide is comprehensive — and the end result does feel incomplete and unbalanced. The countries of Ghana, Ireland and Lebanon get three pages apiece; the United States gets nearly 100. There is a chapter on Macau, but nothing on Indonesia or Thailand. These are somewhat predictable shortcomings, dependent as the book is on voice-over transcripts spanning decades and the impossible task of stringing them together across time.Some of the inclusions feel at odds with Mr. Bourdain’s avoid-the-tourists approach to travel, as well. In the Tokyo section, recommendations include the Park Hyatt hotel (made famous by “Lost in Translation,”); Sukiyabashi Jiro, the restaurant at the center of the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”; the bizarre kitsch-fest that is the Robot Restaurant; and a bar in the tourist-clogged Golden Gai neighborhood. These may be all appealing attractions to a first-timer in Tokyo, but there is nothing in that selection that you wouldn’t find at the top of an algorithm-generated TripAdvisor list.When I asked Ms. Woolever about these recommendations, she agreed they were perhaps obvious choices, but said Mr. Bourdain wanted to include them because of how much they meant to him, after so many visits to the city. “He wasn’t always (or, arguably, ever) about cool for cool’s sake, or obscurity as its own reward,” she said in an email.If it’s a guide they are after though, travelers may be left wanting. In Cambodia, you get recommendations for three hotels, two markets for dining and a suggestion to check out the temples of Angkor Wat, the country’s most famous attraction by a long shot. It isn’t exactly the list of hole-in-the-wall spots with no addresses that fans of Mr. Bourdain may be hoping for. What those fans will find though is Mr. Bourdain’s word-for-word rant against American military involvement in Cambodia (“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.”) Having those passages — the no-holds-barred monologues that were a hallmark of his television shows — in one place might be the book’s greatest strength.Over the decades that Mr. Bourdain spent traveling the world, there was a lot of talk of the “Bourdain Effect”: how a culinary gem, previously only frequented by those in the know, could be “ruined” by being included in his show. When I asked Ms. Woolever whether she thought this book could amplify that effect, she emphasized that most business owners knew what they were in for when approached by producers. “People call it the ‘Bourdain Effect,’ but Tony didn’t invent it,” she said. “It’s something that business owners have to weigh out for themselves.”As I read the book, I was thinking of a different Bourdain Effect, one that feels more vital than ever right now, as travel begins to take its first baby steps back after a year of lockdowns. Seeing so much of Anthony Bourdain’s work in one place and being able to compare his impressions country-by-country in a tightly packed medium, makes it easier to see what he stood for. A traveling philosophy emerges: his utter disdain for stereotypes, his undying commitment to challenging his own preconceptions, his humility in the face of generosity.Because of tragic circumstances following its inception, “World Travel” may feel more like an anthology of greatest hits than a new, original guidebook. But read cover to cover, country by country, it is an enduring embodiment of Anthony Bourdain’s love for the whole world and a reminder of how to stack our priorities the next time we’re able to follow in his footsteps.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places list for 2021. More

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      in Music

      How to Pretend You’re in New Orleans Tonight

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      While your travel plans may be on hold, you can pretend you’re somewhere new for the night. Around the World at Home invites you to channel the spirit of a new place each week with recommendations on how to explore the culture, all from the comfort of your home.Over the course of the decade since I first visited, I have often imagined myself at home in New Orleans. I think of the syncopated shuffle of a snare drum, the simple pleasure of an afternoon walk with a to-go beer in hand and the candy-colored shotgun houses that sink into the ground at odd angles. And so it wasn’t a huge surprise when, at the beginning of 2021, I found myself packing up my life and moving to the Crescent City for a few months. Why not be somewhere I love at this difficult time, I thought? Why not live in my daydreams for a little while?From left: Bike paraders on Frenchmen Street the week before Mardi Gras; a shotgun house; the Pete Fountain jazz funeral second line paraded during Jazz Fest in 2016.From left: Emily Kask for The New York Times; Sebastian Modak; Bryan Tarnowski for The New York TimesNew Orleans is above all else resilient. Mardi Gras parades were canceled this year, though it didn’t stop New Orleanians from finding ways to celebrate (nothing ever will). In recent months, brass bands have taken to street corners in front of masked, socially distant spectators instead of packed night clubs. Strangers still chat you up about the Saints from their front porches. My visions of this city may still be filtered through the fuzzy lens of a visitor, but I know I’ll be pretending I’m still there long after I’m gone. Here are a few ways you can, too.A brass band plays on Frenchman Street the week before Mardi Gras.Emily Kask for The New York TimesTurn up that radioNew Orleans music is a collage of sounds: it’s the birthplace of jazz, of the frenetic dance music known as bounce, popularized by superstars like Big Freedia, the call-and-response songs of Mardi Gras Indians, and so much more. For an overview of the sounds of this loud, percussive city there is no better place to start than the wonderfully eclectic WWOZ, a community-supported radio station that has been on the air since 1980. Luckily, you can listen to it from anywhere online. It’s only a matter of time before you start getting to know the various D.J.s and tuning in for your favorites.From left: musicians Big Freedia, Rebirth Brass Band and Kermit RuffinsFrom left: Bennett Raglin/Getty Images; Bryan Tarnowski for The New York Times; L. Kasimu Harris for The New York TimesPut on a curated playlist“New Orleans is not a periphery music scene,” Soul Sister, who has hosted a show on WWOZ for more than 25 years, told me. “New Orleans is the reason for it all.” Soul Sister was one of a handful of local experts I consulted in putting together a playlist that will send you straight to New Orleans. Among her recommendations are a bounce classic by DJ Jubilee and the music of Rebirth Brass Band, which brings her back to afternoons spent celebrating on the street: “It reminds me of the energy and freedom of being at the second line parades on Sundays, dancing through all the neighborhoods nonstop for three or four hours,” she said.On this playlist, you will also find some classics — the rollicking piano of Professor Longhair, for example, starts it off — recommended by Keith Spera who writes about music for the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate. By the end of the playlist, you will undoubtedly agree with Mr. Spera’s assessment of New Orleans music: “There is no singular style of ‘New Orleans music’ — is it jazz? Rhythm & blues? Funk? Bounce? — but you know it when you hear it.”The Mosquito Supper Club is a Cajun restaurant in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans. Denny CulbertExpand your cookbook collectionJust like its music, New Orleans food contains multitudes: Creole, Cajun, African, Vietnamese and other flavors collide like nowhere else. A fine place to start is with the Dooky Chase Cookbook, the collected recipes of Leah Chase, who died in 2019, of Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, an institution that has hosted civil rights leaders, presidents and countless regulars at its location in Treme, the neighborhood where jazz was born. Next, tap into the Cajun influence on the city with “Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou,” by Melissa M. Martin who oversees a restaurant of the same name in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans. Ms. Martin recommends making her grandmother’s oyster soup. “I can picture her stirring a pot on Bayou Petit Caillou and seasoning a broth with salty Louisiana oysters, Creole tomatoes and salted pork,” Ms. Martin said. “The marriage of three ingredients transports me to the tiny fishing village I call home, where salt was and still is always in the air.”From left: Velma Marie’s oyster soup; President George W. Bush with Leah Chase at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in 2007; Linda Green’s ya-ka-mein.From left: Denny Culbert; Evan Vucci/Associated Press; via Linda GreenCook up some noodle soup, Nola style“It is New Orleans’ best kept secret,” the chef Linda Green, better known as Ms. Linda, told me when I asked about her specialty. Festival and second line crowds come to her for ya-ka-mein, a salty beef noodle soup often eaten as a late-night snack or a next-morning cure (hence its “Old Sober” moniker). The dish’s origins are mysterious: a product of cultural exchange involving, depending on who you ask, Black soldiers returning from the Korean War or Chinese railroad workers arriving in the 1800s. Ms. Linda’s family recipe is also a mystery (she credits the globe-trotting chef Anthony Bourdain for encouraging her to keep it secret). But she has shared versions of her recipe, so you can try your hand at it at home. “That will get you pretty close to the real thing,” she said with a wink I could almost hear over the phone.First Street, in the Garden District, is lined with ornate mansions that are still lived in today. The pink Italianate mansion, above, is the Carroll-Crawford House.Sebastian ModakWalk it offNew Orleans is a city full of history and it can be hard to know what you are looking at without some guidance. You can feel like you are on your own personal walking tour thanks to Free Tours by Foot, which has transferred their expertise to YouTube. You can now stroll the grandiose Garden District, pull away the sensationalism around New Orleans’ Voodoo traditions and take a deep dive into jazz history in Treme. “New Orleans is full of painful history, and it’s also known as one of the most fun cities in the world,” Andrew Farrier, one of the tour guides, said. “I think it’s useful for all of us to know how those two things can live so close to each other.”From left: the Bywater, the Sazerac and the Brandy Crusta — all New Orleans inventions.From left: Drew Stubbs; Craig Lee for The New York Times; Melina Hammer for The New York TimesFix a drinkContrary to so many pop culture depictions of the city, New Orleans’ drinking scene extends far beyond the vortex of debauchery that is Bourbon Street. There are the classic New Orleans inventions, of course, like the Sazerac, but for something a little different, turn to one of the city’s most revered mixologists. Chris Hannah, of Jewel of the South, invented the Bywater as a New Orleanian spin on the Brooklyn. “Among the ingredient substitutions I swapped rum for rye as a cheeky nod to our age-old saying, ‘New Orleans is the northernmost tip of the Caribbean’,” Mr. Hannah said.Chris Hannah, making a cocktail behind the bar, is a revered mixologist and the co-owner of Jewel of the South. L. Kasimu Harris for The New York TimesHave a little partyWhile it’s impossible to fully channel the spirit of a New Orleans dive bar at home, combine the playlist above with your quarantine pod and a “set-up” and you might just get close. What is a set-up, you ask? It’s a staple dive bar order that will get you a half-pint of your liquor of choice, a mixer and a stack of plastic cups. It’s also an often-overlooked part of New Orleans drinking culture, according to Deniseea Taylor, a cocktail enthusiast who goes by the Cocktail Goddess. “When you find a bar with a set-up, you are truly in Nola,” Ms. Taylor said. “First time I experienced a set-up, it was paired with a $5 fish plate, a match made in heaven.”From left: a still from Lily Keber’s documentary “Buckjumping”; the cover of Sarah M. Broom’s book “The Yellow House”; Jurnee Smollett and Samuel L. Jackson in the 1997 film, “Eve’s Bayou.”Mairzy Doats Productions (far left); Trimark Pictures (far right)Wind down with a story or twoIt should come as no surprise that New Orleans, with its triumphant and tragic history, its syncretic culture and its pervasive love of fun, is a place of stories. There is a wide canon of literature to choose from. For something recent, pick up “The Yellow House,” a memoir by Sarah M. Broom, which the Times book critic Dwight Garner called “forceful, rolling and many-chambered.” Going further back in time, try “Coming Through Slaughter,” a fictionalized rendition of the life of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden by Michael Ondaatje.If you are in the mood for a documentary, Clint Bowie, artistic director of the New Orleans Film Festival, recommends Lily Keber’s “Buckjumping,” which spotlights the city’s dancers. For something fictional, Mr. Bowie points to “Eve’s Bayou” directed by Kasi Lemmons. It’s hard to forget New Orleans is a city built on a swamp when you feel the crushing humidity or lose your footing on ruptured streets, and this movie will take you farther into that ethereal environment. “Set in the Louisiana bayou country in the ’60s, we could think of no better film to spark Southern Gothic daydreams about a visit to the Spanish moss-draped Louisiana swamps,” Mr. Bowie said.Glimpses of south Louisiana’s swampy flora can be found in New Orleans’ Audubon Park.Sebastian ModakHow are you going to channel the spirit of New Orleans in your home? Share your ideas in the comments.To keep up with upcoming articles in this series, sign up for our At Home newsletter. More

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      in Movies

      For My Next Trick … Opening a New Musical in Tokyo in a Pandemic

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeMake: BirriaExplore: ‘Bridgerton’ StyleParent: With ImprovRead: Joyce Carol OatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFor My Next Trick … Opening a New Musical in Tokyo in a PandemicOur writer’s adaptation of “The Illusionist” was slated for a tryout run. Lockdown, a tragic death, cancer and quarantine got in the way, but didn’t stop the show.Peter Duchan, who wrote the book for “The Illusionist,” watches its Tokyo debut from 7,000 miles away.Credit…via Peter DuchanFeb. 17, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETAs I settled into my seat before takeoff, I felt, improbably, a sense of accomplishment. That I’d made it onto this (nearly empty) plane felt like a big deal. That I was permitted to travel abroad, a miracle. The road to J.F.K., to this flight, to my seat had already been long and steep.It began in 2016, when, over Skype, the London-based composer-lyricist Michael Bruce and I wrote the first draft of our musical adaptation of the 2006 film “The Illusionist,” itself based on a short story by Steven Millhauser. It wound past second, third and fourth drafts, past two developmental workshops.We were working toward a world premiere in Tokyo in late 2020. Our director, Thom Southerland, had a fruitful history with Umeda Arts Theater, one of Japan’s larger producing entities. They were itching to develop a new musical, and “The Illusionist” would provide that opportunity. For the creative team, it was a chance to not only further refine the writing but also to incorporate a crucial, as yet unrehearsed element: the illusions. (The protagonist is a magician, after all.)Enter the coronavirus. Theaters in America and the United Kingdom shut down. I anxiously tracked the situation in Japan, distraught when they stopped admitting foreign visitors, buoyed to see them make it through the first wave with the virus largely under control. Theaters, crucially, were open, so our production could go ahead as planned, even if the creative team was barred from entering the country.No matter what, I wanted the production to happen. I’d already had two 2020 regional productions canceled: one, a musical I’d written; the other, a show on which I was consulting. Like so many others in my sidelined industry, I was desperate for any crumb of professional validation.Umeda had announced that the December debut would star Haruma Miura as Eisenheim, an illusionist in fin de siècle Vienna who reunites with his first love, now engaged to a Hapsburg prince, and, in trying to win her back, upends the fragile, carefully constructed social order. (Edward Norton played the role in the movie.)Miura, who headlined Tokyo’s “Kinky Boots,” had participated in a workshop of Yojiro Ichikawa’s Japanese translation of our show in 2019. We knew his Eisenheim, intense and charismatic, would be a strong anchor for the piece. The production — and his involvement — seemed to be generating some buzz.On July 18, I woke to an email relaying the news: Miura, at 30 years old, was dead. Japanese media reported he had hanged himself. The entire team was stunned and saddened, unsure how or if we would proceed.In the past, I’d been suspicious of “the show must go on” — it seemed designed to coerce workers into tolerating unacceptable labor practices — but now I heard an earnest yearning in the phrase. Theater is, by nature, communal. Surely it would be more healing for all involved to gather and perform the show. What would be gained by giving up?Then from our producers came a barrage of questions. Would I be willing to quarantine in Tokyo? How quickly could I get myself to the Japanese consulate? (Deus ex machina: Japan began allowing business travelers to apply for visas!) Could we cut the intermission? (Socially distanced restroom use would take too long.) Were we OK with a shift in the schedule? Shortening the run?Yes, yes to all of it, yes to anything. We just had to do the show.Duchan flew to Tokyo for rehearsals, only to be kept in quarantine until it made best sense to head back to the United States, where he quarantined again.Credit…via Peter DuchanRecasting the main character was a thorny business so we’d decided to keep it in the family, inviting Naoto Kaiho, originally set to play the prince, to step into the role of Eisenheim.And then, another shoe. Thom was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He had confidence in a full recovery, but he would have to remain in London for treatment. He wasn’t going to be able to make the trip to Japan. Michael and I were worried about him. “Prioritize your health,” we implored.But Thom was adamant his illness need not derail the show. Our producers once again scrambled and came up with a plan. Thom would direct remotely, via live feed. A solution that might have seemed unreliable, even unthinkable, before the pandemic was now the only way we could carry on.With the necessary travel permissions, I’d made it to J.F.K., to this flight, to my seat. I snapped a selfie. Everything that could go wrong seemed already to have gone wrong. I felt palpable relief.At every juncture from here, there would be safeguards and precautions. I tested before flying (nasal swab at an overpriced boutique medical practice) and upon landing at Haneda Airport (spit test in a booth outfitted with photos of pickled plums to encourage salivation). I would join rehearsals after two weeks in quarantine, but even then, I wouldn’t be engaging much with Tokyo: We’d all agreed to avoid indoor dining, bars, museums — any and all crowds.The safety measures in the rehearsal studio were extensive. Upon arriving each day, participants zipped their personal belongings into assigned garment bags, including the face masks worn during their commutes. The production provided a new mask each day, to be worn throughout rehearsal. No eating was permitted in the room. No sharing phone chargers. The schedule included regular “airing breaks.”During my first week of quarantine in a Tokyo hotel, I attended rehearsals via Zoom. The choreographer, Ste Clough, was already in the studio, but the rest of the foreign creative team remained sequestered, back-channeling over WhatsApp. Over the course of the week, we cut 15 minutes from the show, replaced a song and juggled notes coming from multiple directions. We staged the first half of our intermission-less musical.Then, the morning of my eighth day in quarantine, I got a call from a producer. One of the actors was experiencing symptoms and had tested positive for Covid-19. Rehearsals were on hold. Those exposed — 19 cast members; various producers, stage managers and production assistants who were in the room every day; as well as those who had merely stopped by, including our orchestrator and a vocal coach — were being tested that afternoon.The more optimistic among us shared the hope that the results would validate the precautions taken, allowing work to start again in two weeks, after everyone in close contact with the afflicted actor had waited out their quarantine period.The next afternoon, at a Zoom production meeting, our lead producer relayed the results. Seven positives. Five onstage, two off. Our efforts may have limited, but certainly didn’t prevent, the virus’s spread. It was becoming increasingly difficult to adapt to the constantly changing circumstances. “Sometimes,” she said, “the bravest thing to do is walk away.”If we were to resume, I recognized, it would have to be with the fewest possible people in the studio. And, I had to admit, I wasn’t sure I was going to feel safe being one of them. As the apparatus for rehearsing remotely was already in place, I decided to return to New York.Watching a rehearsal for “The Illusionist” from a Tokyo hotel room.Credit…via Peter DuchanI went straight from J.F.K. into yet another quarantine. I woke at 5 a.m. for daily production meetings that stretched on for hours as our hardworking interpreters made sure every comment was understood in two languages. The Umeda team outlined the path forward. They didn’t feel comfortable asking folks to rehearse in a cramped studio, but our venue, the vast Nissay Theater, with its 1,300 seats and substantial cubic space, would provide a less risky environment.We would have to shorten the rehearsal period. We would have to simplify the staging to limit physical contact between actors. We wouldn’t have time to implement the tricks, forcing us to refocus those scenes on the reaction to magic rather than on the magic itself.We would have to inform the audience they’d be seeing a concert staging and offer refunds to the disgruntled and disappointed.Yes, yes to all of it. We just had to do the show.We made it through a few days of virtual rehearsal before Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced a state of emergency for Tokyo. We were canceled. Our choreographer returned to London. But the state of emergency didn’t actually order theaters to close. If other shows remained open, why not ours? Uncanceled.Thankfully, none of the positive cases in our company seemed to be severe, but, as our restart date approached, some weren’t yet healthy enough to work. Would we be willing to delay the opening, further shortening the run? Could we simplify the already streamlined staging?Again, yes. But why? Why were we fighting so hard? Was it because our story, exploring the fragility of truth, felt so relevant to the moment we were living? Or was it because, having overcome so many challenges already, it felt illogical to cower in the face of any new obstacle?Or were we driven by the need, however selfish, to have something, anything, to show for our efforts? The briefest of runs at 50 percent capacity — how helpful could it be really? No matter what happened in Tokyo, my British collaborators and I — and the show itself — would return to a numbing holding pattern, waiting for theaters in our respective countries to reopen. All we would gain by doing the show would be having done the show. Was that reason enough?After a tragic death, Naoto Kaiho stepped up into the lead role of Eisenheim in “The Illusionist.”Credit…Chisato OkaOne month to the day after I left Tokyo, “The Illusionist” resumed in-person rehearsals. Of the creative team, only Michael was at the Nissay Theater. Thom and Ste, both in London, rose at 4 a.m. for work. In the United States, I rehearsed most nights until about 3 a.m. The show came together quickly. It had to.The process felt distant, but the thrills were the sort well known to anyone who works in musical theater: hearing the score animated by a full orchestra after years of it played on one piano; seeing Ayako Maeda’s sumptuous, intricate costumes soak up the stage light and sharpen the actors’ characterizations; watching the talented and brooding Kaiho sink his teeth into the role of Eisenheim.I watched the Jan. 27 opening performance on our trusty live feed. During curtain call, the cast wept with joy and relief. Afterward a producer walked her phone to each dressing room so those of us celebrating remotely could shower the cast with congratulations.Filtered through screens, I could still feel the merry, frenetic backstage energy. Nearly 7,000 miles away, I was able experience the elation of opening night. I was making theater again. We were doing the show.Two days later, after playing its five scheduled performances, “The Illusionist” closed. Now we wait.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How to Pretend You’re in Tokyo

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusClassic Holiday MoviesHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesCredit…Noriko Hayashi for The New York TimesHow to Pretend You’re in TokyoThat Tokyo trip will have to wait for the millions of people who canceled flights and hotel bookings. But there are ways to bring you closer to this sometimes impenetrable, always fascinating, city.Credit…Noriko Hayashi for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyBy More