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      Theater to Stream: ‘Broadway Backwards’ and Starry Readings

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      Among the offerings are a well-matched double bill, Ute Lemper’s tribute to Marlene Dietrich and a virtual revival of Michel Legrand’s musical “Amour.”Theater audiences have become more like movie fans and television bingers: They can settle in for a double bill. Before the pandemic, they might have scheduled a matinee and evening performance back to back, but there were those pesky hours to kill in between. Now it’s possible to simply queue up a couple of streaming shows and hit play.A natural pairing this month combines two engaging autobiographical shows written by gifted actors looking back on their childhoods. Round House Theater of Bethesda, Md., is presenting Colman Domingo’s “A Boy and His Soul,” which played Off Broadway in 2009. Domingo, who portrayed the bandleader Cutler in the film adaptation of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” looks back at his connection to music and family while growing up gay in the 1970s and ’80s in Philadelphia. This new production is the first major one in which he himself does not appear, with Ro Boddie taking on the role. Through Apr. 18; roundhousetheatre.orgAcross the Potomac River, in Arlington, Va., Signature Theater is presenting “Daniel J. Watts’ The Jam: Only Child.” Under Lileana Blain-Cruz’s direction, Watts (who played Ike Turner in “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” on Broadway) recalls growing up with his single mother in the 1980s and ’90s. The title refers to fruit spread, but sound and music energize the show, with DJ Duggz spinning onstage and acting as Watts’s occasional sidekick. Through May 7; sigtheatre.org‘Broadway Backwards’Along the lines of MCC Theater’s beloved “Miscast,” in which stars perform songs they would never get to sing in real shows, this Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS annual fund-raising series features gender-reversed performances. This year’s concert mixes new numbers — hold on to your hats during the opener with Stephanie J. Block, Deborah Cox and Lea Salonga — with ones from previous editions, featuring the usual array of starry participants. Through April 3; broadwaycares.org‘Inside the GPO’The GPO of this docudrama title refers to the General Post Office in Dublin, which was central to the 1916 Easter Rising of Irish Republicans against British rule. Created as a centennial commemoration, Fishamble’s production takes place at the actual GPO, which in 1916 had been occupied by the rebels for several days. The company is now streaming a remastered digital version in partnership with various Irish organizations around the world, including the New York Irish Center. April 1-5; newyorkirishcenter.org‘What the ___ Just Happened?’The monologuist Mike Daisey returns to the stage in a new piece livestreamed from the Kraine Theater in New York — in front of an in-person, fully vaccinated audience. The title (you can guess which word was omitted) neatly encapsulates many people’s stunned take on the past year. April 2; frigid.nycClockwise, from top left: Debbie Allen, Heather Alicia Simms, Alicia Stith and Phylicia Rashad in “Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous.”via Spotlight on Plays‘Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous’The Spotlight on Plays series has pulled off a fun feat with its latest reading, the first time the sisters Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad have acted together since the PBS movie “The Old Settler” 20 years ago. Rashad plays a grande dame of the stage, and Allen is her friend and director, in this 2019 comedy by Pearl Cleage (“Blues for an Alabama Sky”). April 8-12; broadwaysbestshows.comOne Year of Play-PerViewWhen many theatrical institutions curled up into the equivalent of a fetal position in March 2020, some people got to work. Among them was the enterprising reading series Play-PerView, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a mix of new and old works. In the first category is “Babette in Retreat” by Justin Sayre, who in the past year has been cultivating a high-camp sensibility in a steady stream of comedies like “Drowsenberg,” “When Sunny Went Blue” and “The Ducks.” There should be some choice bon mots and slapstick for Becca Blackwell, Nathan Lee Graham (as the title character), Randy Harrison (“Queer as Folk”), Bradford Louryk and Mary Testa. April 10-14; play-perview.comRandy Harrison, left, and Scott Parkinson in “Cockfight Play.”via Studio Theater‘Cockfight Play’Randy Harrison also takes on the lead role of John in Studio Theater’s fully staged digital production of Mike Bartlett’s “Cockfight Play.” (The actual title is just one word, so use your deductive skills). John is in a relationship with M (Scott Parkinson) when he falls in love with W (Kathryn Tkel). “Love?” a startled M says. “She?” Bartlett’s deceivingly simple premise explores the vagaries of romantic attraction, and the director David Muse makes good use of a split screen to overcome the actors’ need to maintain their distance. Through Apr. 18; studiotheatre.orgThe cast of an online revival of Michel Legrand’s musical “Amour,” presented by Art Lab and ShowTown Productions.via Art Lab‘Amour’Michel Legrand’s only Broadway musical was a flop, running for only 48 performances in 2002 — which is a shame because the poetic, surrealistic “Amour,” in which a civil servant realizes he can walk through walls, has plenty of the gorgeous melodies you’d expect from the French composer. Now, Art Lab and ShowTown Productions are presenting a revival starring Derrick Baskin (a Tony Award nominee for “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations”), Drew Gehling (“Waitress”), Kara Lindsay, Adam Pascal, Christiani Pitts and Rachel York. It is high time “Amour” gets some love. April 2-4; stellartickets.com‘Period Piece’Don’t expect costumes of yesteryear. This project, conceived by Susan Cinoman, has enrolled an impressive roster of playwrights — among them, Ngozi Anyanwu, Bekah Brunstetter, Lisa D’Amour, Kirsten Greenidge, Lauren Gunderson, Theresa Rebeck, Sarah Ruhl and Caridad Svich — to create monologues about periods. The works, directed by Karen Carpenter (“Love, Loss, and What I Wore”), are spread over three evenings, and each has a unique cast; participants include Geneva Carr, Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Jessica Hecht, Mia Katigbak, Beth Leavel, Lauren Patten and Julie White. April 12, 19 and 26; periodpieceplay.com‘Hype Man: a break beat play’This play with music by Idris Goodwin revolves around the relationship between a white M.C. (Michael Knowlton) and his Black hype man (Kadahj Bennett). Their friendship goes from complicated to adversarial as they react differently to a case of police brutality, while their beatmaker (Rachel Cognata) is stuck in the middle. The show ran in New York in 2018, but Company One’s version, presented by the American Repertory Theater, is freshly urgent, considering the past year’s debates around policing and the appropriation of historically Black art forms. April 8-May 8; americanrepertorytheater.orgUte Lemper in “Rendezvous With Marlene.”Russ Rowland‘Ute Lemper: Rendezvous With Marlene’One night in 1988, Marlene, as in Marlene Dietrich, phoned her fellow German chanteuse Ute Lemper, then starring in a production of “Cabaret” in Paris. The two women chatted for hours. Three decades later, Lemper wrote and starred in a cabaret tribute that dives into Dietrich’s life and songs. The York Theater, which hosted the show in 2019, is presenting a virtual version that was filmed at the beloved East Village boîte Club Cumming. April 8-10; yorktheatre.org More

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      in Television

      ViacomCBS stock tanks, losing more than half its value in less than a week.

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      Shares of ViacomCBS, the media goliath led by Shari Redstone, took a nosedive this week, with the company losing more than half of its market value in just four days.The stock was as high as $100 on Monday. By the close of trading on Friday it had fallen to just over $48, a drop of more than 51 percent in less than a week.There’s no better way to say it: The company’s stock tanked.What happened? Several things all at once. First, it is worth noting that ViacomCBS had actually been on a bit of a tear up until this week’s meltdown, rising nearly tenfold in the past 12 months. About a year ago, it was trading at around $12 per share.That rally came as the company, like the rest of the media industry, had made a move toward streaming. It recently launched Paramount+ to compete against the likes of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and others. The service tapped ViacomCBS’s vast archive of content from the CBS broadcast network, Paramount Film Studios and several cable channels, including Nickelodeon and MTV.That shift matters because ViacomCBS has been hit hard by an overall decline in cable viewership. The company’s pretax profits have fallen nearly 17 percent from two years ago, and its debt has topped more than $21 billion.But the stock rose so much that Robert M. Bakish, ViacomCBS’s chief executive, decided to take advantage of the boon by offering new shares to raise as much as $3 billion. The underwriters who managed the sale priced the offering at around $85 per share earlier this week, a discount to where it had been trading on Monday.You could say it backfired. When a company issues new stock, it normally dilutes the value of current shareholders, so some drop in price is expected. But a few days after the offering, one of Wall Street’s most influential research firms, MoffettNathanson, published a report that questioned the company’s value and downgraded the stock to a “sell.” The stock should really only be worth $55, MoffettNathanson said. That started the nosedive.“We never, ever thought we would see Viacom trading close to $100 per share,” read the report, which was written by Michael Nathanson, a co-founder of the firm. “Obviously, neither did ViacomCBS’s management,” it continued, citing the new stock offering.Streaming is still a money-losing enterprise, and that means the old line media companies must still endure more losses over more years before they can return to profitability.In the case of ViacomCBS, it seemed to hasten the cord-cutting when it signed a new licensing agreement with the NFL that will cost the company more than $2 billion a year through 2033. As part of the agreement, ViacomCBS also plans to stream the games on Paramount+, which is much cheaper than a cable bundle.As the games, considered premium programming, shift to streaming, “the industry runs the risk of both higher cord-cutting and greater viewer erosion,” Mr. Nathanson wrote.On Friday, an analyst with Wells Fargo also downgraded the stock, slashing the bank’s price target to $59.But the market decided it wasn’t even worth that much. It closed on Friday barely a quarter above 48 bucks. More

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      in Music

      Olivia Rodrigo's Hit 'Drivers License' Has the Best Part of a Song

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      Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherThis episode contains strong language.Wesley has made his pick for song of the year: “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo. This record-breaking track makes him nostalgic for his favorite part of a song — the bridge.Bridges used to be a core feature of popular music, but they’ve become an endangered species, right next to the sitcom laugh track.With today’s pop songs increasingly devoid of bridges, how do we form emotional, heart-swelling connections to pop songs? For Jenna, the answer lies in the earthquake that hit the world in 2018: TikTok.Today, we listen back to iconic bridges and look ahead to the new ways TikTok allows us to experience the best part of the song.On today’s episodeA bridge at its bestWesley thinks that “Drivers License,” the debut single from an 18-year-old Disney actress, will be song of the year for one key reason: It’s got a bridge!“What I love about some bridges is you are dropped into the middle of a totally different song,” Wesley said. “And the bridge on ‘Drivers License’ basically does that.”The bridge begins around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, when Olivia Rodrigo starts belting, “Red lights / stop signs / I still see your face in the white cars.”Writing songs for TikTok-ificationIn an episode of “Diary of a Song,” Olivia Rodrigo told the culture reporter Joe Coscarelli that she wrote “Drivers License” with TikTok in mind. Her vision has held up, as swarms of TikTokers have captured the song’s transition into the bridge. “They’re really just playing into the cathartic release that the bridge offers,” Jenna said. “Like, here are the contents of my heart emptied out.”

      @spoiledmel can this be a trend? 😳 ##oliviarodrigo ##driverslicense ##fyp @livbedumb stream drivers license!!!! ♬ drivers license – Olivia Rodrigo Jenna discussed a few other song-based TikTok challenges that have gone viral, including “Buss It” by Erica Banks, “Mood” by 24kgoldn and “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion.“I think what a lot of artists have done, and have really enjoyed doing, is seeing not just where these songs live in people’s bodies,” Jenna said, “but what their bodies do with them and what their minds do with them.” She added, “It is such a vehicle for creative expression, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”Jenna and Wesley’s favorite bridgesIn the episode, the co-hosts treat us to some of their most treasured bridges — like the breakdown in Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” and the well-earned apex of “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston.Here’s a playlist of all the songs mentioned in this episode.Hosted by: Jenna Wortham and Wesley MorrisProduced by: Elyssa Dudley and Hans BuetowEdited by: Sara SarasohnEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Editor, Newsroom Audio: Wendy DorrAssistant Managing Editor: Sam DolnickSpecial thanks: Nora Keller, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani and Desiree Ibekwe.Wesley Morris is a critic at large. He was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his criticism while at the Boston Globe. He has also worked at Grantland, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. @wesley_morrisJenna Wortham is a staff writer for The Times Magazine and co-editor of the book “Black Futures” with Kimberly Drew. @jennydeluxe More

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      in Television

      With Fewer Ads on Streaming, Brands Make More Movies

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      As streaming video has gained in importance during the pandemic, advertisers have put more focus on Hollywood-level branded content as a way to reach viewers.When the N.B.A. shut down its season last year because of the pandemic, one of the first phone calls Chris Paul made was to the Hollywood producer Brian Grazer. Mr. Paul, then a point guard with the Oklahoma Thunder, knew he wanted to chronicle what was going on, and he wanted Mr. Grazer’s help.“The idea was, basically, film everything that had taken place in that game that night and what was going to come of it,” Mr. Paul said. “We had no clue what would happen next.”The result was “The Day Sports Stood Still,” a documentary about the shutdown, the N.B.A.’s pandemic bubble and the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the league. (Mr. Paul appears in the film and is an executive producer.) It is a portrait of the ways the pandemic convulsed the sports world, but also an example of how Covid-19 has upended the entertainment industry.The film, which debuts Wednesday on HBO and HBO Max, comes from Mr. Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment and a newer entrant to Hollywood: Waffle Iron Entertainment, Nike’s production entity.With more people home and glued to their streaming services, many of which don’t allow advertising, companies are finding they need to be creative about the ways they get in front of audiences no longer seeing 30-second commercials. More are turning to traditional Hollywood production companies like Imagine to partner on feature films like “The Day Sports Stood Still,” which is infused with Nike’s ethos but carries none of the traditional branding audiences are used to seeing.“The best partnership you can have is a marriage where the themes between the company and the story are aligned,” Mr. Grazer said in an interview. “If you’ve got Chris Paul and Nike is part of the marketing, that is an added ingredient why someone will see it. They will feel Nike endorsed it and Nike does good things.”Chris Paul in “The Day Sports Stood Still,” which he helped produce.HBOData from the research firm WARC showed that the amount advertisers spent in broadcast television in 2020 declined 10 percent from the previous year while online video spending rose 12 percent. Much of that money has gone to streaming services like Hulu, YouTube and Peacock that accept advertising. But those that don’t allow commercials, like Netflix, still remain unavailable to traditional marketing.“Streaming is giving less and less opportunity for advertisers to connect with consumers in a meaningful way,” said Justin Wilkes, chief creative officer of Imagine Entertainment. “One of the last ways to do that is through long-form content. It’s all circular. This goes back to the earliest days of advertising and underwriting the great entertainment program.”Brands have linked themselves to movies and television for almost as long as the mediums have existed. Long before he became president, for instance, Ronald Reagan hosted the popular “General Electric Theater” television show from 1954 through 1962. In the past decade, branded filmmaking has only proliferated.Patagonia funded a feature-length documentary about dams, called “DamNation,” in 2014. Pepsi backed the 2018 movie “Uncle Drew,” which showcased the basketball star Kyrie Irving recreating his septuagenarian character from a popular series of Pepsi Max commercials. The film made $42 million and marked one of the first branded entertainment campaigns to be adapted into a major motion picture. “Gay Chorus Deep South,” a documentary produced by Airbnb, debuted on the festival circuit in 2019. And Apple’s acclaimed “Ted Lasso” began its life as an NBC Sports promotion for its acquisition of the broadcast rights to the English Premier League.Kyrie Irving in character as Uncle Drew, the spokesman for Pepsi Max who became the basis for a feature film.Davie Brown EntertainmentImagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Mr. Grazer and Ron Howard in 1985, formed Imagine Brands in 2018 to pair companies with filmmakers, hiring Mr. Wilkes and Marc Gilbar, the creator of the “Uncle Drew” Pepsi campaign and an executive producer on the film, to run the group. The division has produced both feature-length documentaries and narrative films with their partners, which have included Unilever, Walmart and Ford.Imagine is also working with the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. The company, which effectively created soap operas when it began to sponsor serial radio dramas in the 1930s to help promote its soap products, is cofinancing a feature-length film with Imagine called “Mars 2080.” It will be directed by Eliza McNitt and begin production later this year. The film, which is scheduled to be released theatrically by IMAX in 2022 before moving to a streaming service, focuses on a family resettling on Mars.It grew out of a breakfast in New York in 2019, where Mr. Wilkes, Mr. Howard and Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer, discussed technology in the pipeline. The Imagine team later toured Procter & Gamble’s research labs in Cincinnati, seeing examples of its “home of the future” products and meeting its scientists.Kimberly Doebereiner, the vice president of Procter & Gamble’s future of advertising division, said the company hoped to do more long-form storytelling, like “The Cost of Winning,” the four-part sports documentary its shaving brand Gillette produced. It debuted on HBO in November.“We want to be more interesting so consumers are leaning into our experiences and we’re creating content that they want to see as opposed to messages that are annoying to them,” she said. “Finding a way to have content that is in places where ads don’t exist is definitely one of the reasons why we’re leaning into this.”Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, the founders of Imagine Entertainment.Peyton Fulford for The New York TimesIt’s all part of a deliberate shift by brands to try to integrate themselves more fully into consumers’ lives, the way companies like Apple and Amazon have, said Dipanjan Chatterjee, an analyst with Forrester. And they want to do so without commercials, which, he said, have “zero credibility” with consumers.“If the right story has the right ingredients and it becomes worthwhile for sharing, it doesn’t come across as an intrusive bit of advertising,” Mr. Chatterjee said. “It feels much more like a natural part of our lives.”Alessandro Uzielli, the head of Ford Motor Company’s global brand and entertainment division, first met with Imagine Brands in early 2018. He was looking for a way to augment Ford’s advertising campaign for its relaunched Bronco with a piece of entertainment that would reach a younger audience. The result was “John Bronco,” a 37-minute long mockumentary directed by Jake Szymanski (“Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates”) and starring Walton Goggins (“Justified”) as the greatest fictional pitchman of all time.The short film earned a slot in the Tribeca Film Festival and is now streaming on Hulu. In addition to featuring guest spots from Tim Meadows, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bo Derek, it helped reintroduce the Bronco, a sport utility vehicle that the automaker pulled in the mid-1990s.“This helped us speak to an audience that we probably weren’t going to speak to on our own,” Mr. Uzielli said.“It was Imagine’s project, and we didn’t want to cloud their process, to try to make it feel like too much of a sales job,” he added.A still from “John Bronco,” a 37-minute mockumentary from Imagine that stars Walton Goggins and is augmenting a Ford marketing campaign.Imagine DocumentariesMr. Szymanski, who has directed both feature films and commercials, including ads for the Dodge Durango starring Will Ferrell’s “Anchorman” character Ron Burgundy, said Ford allowed him a great deal of creative freedom. “I think they could have tried to impose a much larger shadow on it than they did,” he said. Now, Imagine, Mr. Szymanski and Mr. Goggins are trying to turn John Bronco into the next Ted Lasso — an effort in the early stages of development.“It’s kind of a win-win,” Mr. Szymanski said of a possible television series based on Mr. Goggins’ character. “I don’t think Ford would have any creative control over it but to have a character named John Bronco in the world, that would be a good thing for them.” More

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      in Theater

      Review: A Selfie’s in the Picture for This ‘Dorian Gray’

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      Oscar Wilde meets Instagram in a slick, shrewd and screen-filled update, the filmed collaboration by five British theaters.Of the Olympus-style pantheon of dead writers toasting with whiskey and Benzedrine in the heavens, Oscar Wilde, I’m willing to bet, would have the most Insta followers. C’mon, the guy had style.That’s why a dark new social media-themed adaptation of Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” feels like a raffish sibling to the 1890 novel. That is, when it doesn’t get too absorbed in its slick production techniques and moralism, a sticking point for those familiar with Wilde’s satirical eye, which was more about poking fun than proselytizing.In the original, the beautiful, innocent young title character is the subject of a painting by his friend Basil. Wishing that his youth could be preserved as it is in the portrait, Dorian is corrupted by a charismatic hedonist named Lord Henry Wotton. As he grows more cruel, his portrait changes to reflect the ugliness of his thoughts and actions. Dorian remains beautiful but tortured by guilt and self-disgust.Joanna Lumley as Lady Narborough, one of Dorian’s many admirers.via Barn TheaterThe modern-day adaptation, a five-theater coproduction written by Henry Filloux-Bennett and directed by Tamara Harvey, makes Dorian (a winsome — and, yes, effortlessly handsome — Fionn Whitehead) a meek university English major who quickly erupts into a social media star.The piece is framed as a documentary, set in a world online and isolated by the pandemic, about the character’s rise and fall. Stephen Fry, underused as the film’s interviewer, asks Dorian’s friend and admirer, Lady Narborough (Joanna Lumley), for her account of what happened.But they aren’t in the same room. She speaks to Fry via a laptop screen, one of the myriad technologies — FaceTime, security cameras, YouTube videos and text messages — through which we view the action. It gives the story an unsettling sense of voyeurism.Her account begins with Dorian’s 21st birthday, when his friend Basil (Russell Tovey, present only as a face and a voice) gifts him not a painting but software that captures his image — via pictures and videos — at his youngest and most beautiful. Our Narcissus becomes enamored with the software, and also falls for a young actress, Sibyl Vane (Emma McDonald), whom he eventually rejects when she can’t match the ideal of perfection he holds in his head.All the while Basil and his libertine friend Harry Wotton (a dandified Alfred Enoch, positively sluiced with seductive charm) helicopter around Dorian — enamored, protective and possessive of him all at once.Alfred Enoch as Harry Wotton, who is unusually possessive of Dorian’s attentions.via Barn TheaterWilde’s figures translate seamlessly to the world of bitmojis and social media chatter. But the language shimmers most when it pivots between “lol” textspeak and the grandiloquent pronouncements that recall the Romantics. This Dorian quickly goes from firing off a quick expletive to relaxing into the ornate poetry of a desperate request: “Sear me with all the lines of suffering and thought you want. Sallow my skin. Dull my eyes. … let me keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of youth that this magic gives me.”This is all accentuated by the polished quality of the production itself, which mesmerizes like a Twitter scroll, thanks to Ben Evans’ digital imaging and Holly Pigott’s set and costume designs, a combination of modern and Victorian clever enough to intrigue the most fashion-forward Insta user.Most of the film happens on screens, as characters like Dorian share messages and videos.via Barn TheaterBut also like a Twitter timeline, the glut of information can be overwhelming: the nested viewing experience of watching videos within videos and screens within screens effectively enacts our digitally driven pandemic lives, but before too long the production feels overwrought.It also presents the question: Does this show, though co-produced by the Barn, Lawrence Batley Theater, the New Wolsey Theater, the Oxford Playhouse and Theatr Clwyd, still count as theater? (It’s a question my colleague Alexis Soloski also asked of the last team-up of many of these theaters, “What a Carve Up!”) The reliance on these slick production techniques with prerecorded, thoroughly edited performances would suggest no, not so much.I won’t quibble over the medium, especially when the pandemic has smudged the line between theater and film, but I will dispute this adaptation’s moral shift. In Wilde’s novel characters die as direct or indirect victims of pride, or ego; here social media, and cyberbullying in particular, is the culprit.That’s fair, but “Dorian Gray” — with its awkward coronavirus references and warnings of the prevalence of fake news, Dorian’s spiral into conspiracy theories and Basil’s YouTube video on mental health — too often tiptoes into didacticism.It’s the central relationships — everyone attracted to Dorian, his toying with their affections — that build up the most alluring drama, of how beauty and innocence can be perverted by the world and even wielded as weapons. I would have liked, for example, to see more of Harry’s complicated bond with Dorian and Dorian’s messy codependency with Basil, who, in this version, is older, predatory and closeted. The fascinating nuances of that sexual, emotional and power dynamic get short shrift.“Beauty is a form of genius,” Wilde memorably wrote in the novel. He wasn’t talking about theater, but he could have been. The beauty we encounter in nature is exquisite in part because it is incidental, oblivious to the looker, oblivious to any language we may try to use to describe it. The beauty of performance is the beauty of contrivance: tailored specifically to the looker, meant to elicit their words and feeling.There’s plenty of beauty, and even a little genius, in “Dorian Gray,” but most of all when it doesn’t get trapped by its own gaze.The Picture of Dorian GrayThrough March 31; barntheatre.org.uk More

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      in Movies

      The Swag Must Go On: Hollywood’s Pandemic Oscar Campaign

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonOscar Nomination PredictionsOscars Dos and Don’tsOscars DiversityDirectors Guild NominationsBAFTA NominationsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Swag Must Go On: Hollywood’s Pandemic Oscar Campaign“There is a why-are-we-even-doing-this feeling,” one industry insider said of jockeying for nominations, to be announced on Monday.Billboards like this one in Los Angeles are recommending films for Oscars as usual, but Hollywood is feeling its way through other promotions.Credit…Tag Christof for The New York TimesBrooks Barnes and March 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETLOS ANGELES — As a potential Oscar nominee for film editing, William Goldenberg should be feeling dizzy right about now. So many tastemaker cocktail parties to attend. So many panel discussions to participate in.So much flesh to press.Instead, his tuxedo has been gathering dust. Mr. Goldenberg, who stitched together the Tom Hanks western “News of the World,” has participated in get-out-the-vote screenings on Zoom, and that’s about it. During afternoon walks with his dog, a handful of neighbors have called out from windows and driveways to say they liked the film. Mr. Goldenberg, an Oscar winner in 2013 for “Argo,” described those impromptu encounters as “really fun.”Such is life on Hollywood’s virtual awards scene, where the pandemic has vaporized the froth (Champagne toasts! Standing ovations! Red-carpet reunions!) and created an atmosphere more akin to a dirge. There is a dearth of buzz because people aren’t congregating. Screenings and voter-focused Q. and A. sessions have moved online, adding to existential worries about the future of cinema in the streaming age.And some film insiders are privately asking an uncomfortable question: How do you tastefully campaign for trophies when more than 1,000 Americans a day are still dying from the coronavirus?Oscar nominations will be announced on Monday, but almost none of the movies in the running have even played in theaters, with entire multiplex chains struggling to stay afloat. “In terms of campaigning, there is a why-are-we-even-doing-this feeling,” said Matthew Belloni, a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and co-host of “The Business,” an entertainment industry podcast.Ever since Harvey Weinstein turned Oscar electioneering into a blood sport in the 1990s, the three-month period leading up to the Academy Awards has been a surreal time in the movie capital, with film distributors only ever seeming to push harder — and spend more — in pursuit of golden statuettes. In 2019, for instance, Netflix popped eyeballs by laying out an estimated $30 million to evangelize for “Roma,” a film that cost only $15 million to make.But it’s not as easy to influence voters and create awards momentum during a pandemic. Roughly 9,100 film professionals worldwide are eligible to vote for Oscars. All are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has nine pages of regulations that campaigners must follow. Film companies, for instance, “may not send a member more than one email and one hard-copy mailing” per week. Telephone lobbying is forbidden.The 93rd Academy Awards will take place on April 25, pushed back by two months because of the pandemic.Calling off the campaigns is not an option for Hollywood, where jockeying for awards has become an industry unto itself. Stars and their agents (and publicists) also pay keen attention to campaign parity: Hey, Netflix, if you are going to back up the Brink’s trucks to barnstorm for “Mank,” you’d better do it for us, too.“There are so many egos to serve,” said Sasha Stone, who runs AwardsDaily, an entertainment honors site.Contenders, wary of tone-deaf missteps, have been feeling their way.Sacha Baron Cohen, for one, has been openly mocking the process, even as he has participated in Zoom events to support “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Netflix) and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” (Amazon). Asked by phone how the virtual campaign trail was going, he quipped, “I imagine it’s much better than being on an actual one.”At least no one has pushed him to break into song, he said, recounting how, in 2013, he was asked to belt out a number from “Les Miserables” at a campaign stop. (He declined.)At times, however, Mr. Cohen has been willing to play along. In a skit on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” this month, he pretended to be moonlighting as a black-market vaccine procurer for desperate celebrities. “It seems like you should be focused on your Oscar campaign,” Mr. Kimmel said at one point. Mr. Cohen responded dryly, “This is my Oscar campaign.”There is business logic to the seasonal insanity. The spotlight generates interest from the news media, potentially increasing viewership. For streaming services like Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV+ and Netflix, awards bring legitimacy and a greater ability to compete for top filmmakers.“The business benefit is that we will win deals that we wouldn’t have otherwise,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, told analysts on a conference call last year.Because in-person events have been scuttled this time around, less money has been flowing into the Oscar race.“In a good year, the awards season represents 40 percent of our annual business,” said Toni Kilicoglu, the chief executive of Red Carpet Systems. “And it’s gone. Just gone.” Last year, Red Carpet Systems handled more than 125 awards-season events, including Golden Globes parties and the SAG Awards.Caterers, chauffeurs, florists and D.J.s have also suffered major losses. All after a year when more than 36,000 motion picture and sound-recording jobs were lost in Los Angeles County, according to a county report that was released last month.At the same time, studios and streaming services are still spending heavily on “for your consideration” spreads in trade publications. For $80,000 to $90,000, for instance, campaigners can cover Variety’s cover with voter-focused ads. Hulu recently promoted “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” that way. (“For your consideration in all categories including BEST PICTURE.”) Netflix and Amazon have given films like “Da 5 Bloods” and “One Night in Miami” similar treatment.“It has been a huge, really strong season for us,” said Sharon Waxman, the founder and chief executive of The Wrap, a Hollywood news site. The Wrap hosted 40 virtual awards-oriented screenings in January, underwritten by film companies.“We have another whole round on the way,” Ms. Waxman said.The price for events can be steep. A virtual panel discussion, hosted by Vanity Fair or The Hollywood Reporter, costs around $30,000, the same as last year, when receptions accompanied the events. Studios normally pay $15,000 to $25,000 for a table of eight at the Critics Choice Awards, an additional opportunity to solidify a film’s place in the awards conversation. This year, each guest was charged $5,000 for a “virtual seat,” which some saw as an exorbitant price for a square on a computer screen. (Joey Berlin, chief operating officer of the Critics Choice Association, said it was needed to produce a three-hour TV special and come out even.)With fewer people out on the roads, the billboards don’t appear to be hitting the eyes of as many Oscar voters this year.Credit…Tag Christof for The New York TimesAnd don’t forget the for-your-consideration billboards. One eight-block stretch of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles has nine of them, with Netflix pushing “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Warner Bros. extolling “Judas and the Black Messiah.”Those blocks are typically brimming with voters; Paramount Pictures is there, as is Raleigh Studios, where Netflix rents production space. With most people in Los Angeles still holed up at home, however, the thoroughfare was eerily quiet last Monday at 5:30 p.m. Actual crickets were chirping at Paramount’s closed Bronson Gate, which bore a sign reading, “Per government direction, access to the studio is now restricted.”Comical at best, absurd at worst?“The public must be so confused,” Ms. Stone said.None of the studios or streaming services angling for awards would comment for this article. Campaigning, while commonplace, remains a taboo subject. No film company wants to look as if it is trying to manipulate voters.It is easy to understand where they are coming from, though.“Like a political campaign, you have to crest at the right moment,” said Paul Hardart, director of the entertainment, media and technology program at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “You need the maximum exposure at that time. And that’s a hard thing to do. How do you become top of mind at the right time?”So the swag must go on.As part of its promotional effort for “Nomadland,” about an impoverished van dweller, Searchlight Pictures sent a bound copy of the screenplay to awards voters. The Hollywood press corps received “Nomadland” wine glasses, a “Nomadland” license plate, “Nomadland” keychains, a “Nomadland” T-shirt and a 5-by-2-foot “Nomadland” windshield sunshade.To celebrate the film’s Feb. 18 virtual premiere, Searchlight teamed with local small businesses to have a “curated concessions crate” delivered to the homes of invitees. It included artisanal beef jerky, wild berry jam, oranges, pears, dried apricots, dill pickle slices, banana bread, salami (“humanely raised”) and a canister of chocolates.Still, it is hard for publicists to know if such buzz-building efforts are working. They don’t know what academy members are talking about with one another because academy members aren’t talking to one another.“People are relying more on what the critics are saying than what their friends are saying, because people aren’t congregating,” Mr. Goldenberg, the “News of the World” editor, said.On the bright side, the pandemic has made it easier for studios and streaming services to attract voters to awards-oriented screenings, which are followed by Q. and A. sessions focused on various specialties: art design, editing, song composing.In years past, when attendance obstacles included Los Angeles traffic, filling the 468-seat Writers Guild Theater for such an event involved sending out more than 5,000 invitations. Similar events — held virtually — have recently had a higher turnout rate: 1,000 invitations might yield 200 attendees, most of whom even stick around for the post-screening discussion, organizers said.Campaigners have been generating interest with celebrity moderators. Oprah Winfrey interviewed Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) at one. Former President Barack Obama participated in a chat to support the A24/Apple documentary “Boys State.”Netflix paired Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) with Cher. It may not sound like an intuitive coupling, but even if you weren’t terribly interested in “Mank,” wouldn’t you tune in just to get a peek into Cher’s living room?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Drone Video of Bowling Alley Wins Praise From Hollywood

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutGuidelines After VaccinationAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Drone Went Bowling. Hollywood Noticed.A drone video shot in a Minneapolis bowling alley was hailed as an instant classic. One Hollywood veteran said it “adds to the language and vocabulary of cinema.”A drone video, shot in a Minneapolis bowling alley, won praise from Hollywood directors for its technical prowess.CreditCredit…Jay Christensen and Anthony Jaska/Rally StudiosMarch 11, 2021, 6:26 a.m. ETA drone flies into a bar, swoops through an adjacent bowling alley and crashes into the pins.The drone’s operator, who shot the 87-second video in a Minneapolis bowling alley last week to rally support for the business, didn’t expect it to be viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media, or to win high praise from Hollywood directors.But it was and it did.Bowling, like baseball, is one thing that lots of Americans can get behind, even at a time of intense political polarization. In that sense, the country could perhaps use a video like this at a moment like this.Fans of the video, titled “Right Up Our Alley,” marveled at what they said was a remarkable cinematic achievement: a continuous take, shot at high velocity, in tight spaces and without digital effects. (Remember those famous long takes from “Goodfellas” and “Touch of Evil”? It was a bit like that, but faster, and with bowling.)“This is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen,” wrote the director Lee Unkrich, whose 2017 film “Coco” won an Academy Award for best animated feature. “Jaw on the floor.”It’s funny, too: Bystanders in the drone’s path can be heard quoting from “The Big Lebowski,” which is arguably — sorry, “Kingpin” — the greatest bowling movie of all time.“My foot wasn’t over the line,” a woman near the lanes says to her bowling partner. “Mark it eight, dude.”“This is bowling, there are rules,” her partner replies, an alleyside quip from “Lebowski,” the 1998 film. “I’m not counting it.”The bowling alley where the video was shot, Bryant Lake Bowl & Theater, also has a restaurant, a cabaret theater and a bar that makes “rail cocktails.” It opened in 1936 in a former garage that had serviced Model T Fords.“Right Up Our Alley,” shot by the drone operator Jay Christensen, was made as part of a project to document well-known businesses around Minnesota that are threatened by the pandemic, said Brian Heimann, a producer at Rally Studios, the Minneapolis production company that produced it.“The place is near and dear to our hearts,” he added. “So when we floated the idea to the owner, she was all for it. It was a no-brainer.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Why Oprah’s Meghan and Harry Special Won’t Have a Streaming Home

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The British Royal FamilyInterview and FalloutWhat Meghan and Harry DisclosedWhat We LearnedMemories of DianaAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Oprah’s Meghan and Harry Special Won’t Have a Streaming HomeThe three participants’ ties to Netflix and Apple, along with Ms. Winfrey’s desire to reach a big live-viewing audience, paved the way to an old-school deal with CBS.Oprah Winfrey’s interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry was a rarity in the age of streaming: a cultural event powered by network TV.Credit…Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesEdmund Lee and March 9, 2021, 6:28 p.m. ETOprah Winfrey pulled off what has become a rare television event: the tell-all interview that turns into a cultural moment. On Sunday, an audience of more than 17 million watched bombshell revelations tumble out of the mouths of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry as they described their lives under the palace gaze in a two-hour CBS special that rivaled any of the royal dramas on the Netflix series “The Crown.”Social-media discussion of the show has continued since the credits rolled, leaving many people who missed it wondering where they could stream it. For the next 30 days, the special will be available on CBS.com and the CBS app. But after that, it will not have a home on any streaming platform.That’s because, from the start of negotiations, Ms. Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions, the owner of the program, envisioned the special as something suited to a big broadcast network, three people with knowledge of the deal said. Harpo did not even attempt to sell the streaming rights to Netflix or Paramount+, the streaming platform owned by CBS’s parent company, ViacomCBS, the people said.Harpo’s old-school strategy of avoiding subscription-video-on-demand services came about partly because of the complications presented by Ms. Winfrey’s deal to make programs for Apple’s streaming platform, AppleTV+, the people said. Ms. Winfrey’s AppleTV+ deal includes an interview series, “The Oprah Conversation,” which has featured Barack Obama, Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey. Another wrinkle was the roughly $100 million production deal that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry struck last year with Netflix, the people said.Ms. Winfrey’s company also did not approach cable networks when seeking the right venue for the special, the people said. Hoping for the greatest possible reach, she sought a deal with one of the major broadcast networks, which do not require a subscription and consistently draw the largest audiences for live viewing. Harpo also liked the idea of appearing in the Sunday night slot after “60 Minutes,” the highly rated CBS News show where Ms. Winfrey was a special correspondent in 2017 and 2018, the people said.As part of the $7 million deal, ViacomCBS won something valuable: the rights to broker international distribution on behalf of Harpo. The program aired Monday on ITV in Britain and will be available in more than 80 countries.Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, cut a deal with Ms. Winfrey in 2019 to produce a series on mental health. Credit…Joe Pugliese/Harpo ProductionsMs. Winfrey revealed during the interview that she had spent about three years trying to land the exclusive. Along the way, she went into business with Meghan and her husband. Adding to the jumble of media alliances, the couple in 2019 cut a deal with Ms. Winfrey to produce a documentary series about mental health that is scheduled to stream on AppleTV+.Some industry observers were surprised by the CBS deal because of another corporate entanglement: Ms. Winfrey’s long relationship with Discovery Communications, the cable giant that invested in her cable network, OWN, over a decade ago. David Zaslav, Discovery’s intensely competitive chief executive, decided to continue the investment even after OWN experienced growing pains early on. The company now controls the network, which has become a ratings success. Discovery also recently launched its own streamer, Discovery+, where Ms. Winfrey hosts an interview series, “Super Soul.” (The company bought advertising time on the CBS special and provided a commercial featuring Ms. Winfrey.)It turns out that digital television, originally meant as a convenient alternative to clunky cable, can be just as knotty and cumbrous as the business it’s trying to replace.The morning after her interview with the Sussexes, Ms. Winfrey appeared on “CBS This Morning,” a program anchored by her close friend, Gayle King, where she presented extra material that didn’t make the special. CBS announced on Tuesday that it will show the special again Friday night at 8.John Koblin More