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Here are our thoughts on this season’s inadvertent (and possibly advertent) snubs, delightful (or mystifying) surprises and other notable anomalies. A melancholy morning for ‘Vanya.’Television stars are considered good box office but not always good Tony bait. This year’s crop, including Sarah Paulson, Jeremy Strong, Steve Carell and William Jackson Harper, complicates that wisdom. Spreading all that love helped take the show to Number One with a Bullet — the most nominated play in Broadway history. On the other hand, the superb ensemble casts of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” and “Illinoise” were skunked.

Persons: “, ‘ Vanya, ’, Tony, Sarah Paulson, Jeremy Strong, Steve Carell, William Jackson Harper, Paulson, Carell, Harper, Uncle Vanya, ”, Chekhov, David Adjmi’s, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon, Juliana Canfield, Will Brill, Eli Gelb, Illinoise Organizations: Broadway, Lincoln Center Theater

☆ Climate Doom Is Out. ‘Apocalyptic Optimism’ Is In.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-21 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The philanthropist Kathryn Murdoch has prioritized donations to environmental causes for more than a decade. She has, she said, a deep understanding of how inhospitable the planet will become if climate change is not addressed. An episode might include a visit to a floating village or a conversation about artificial intelligence with the musician Grimes. “There’s room for screaming,” Wallach said. Climate optimism as opposed to climate fatalism.

Persons: Kathryn Murdoch, ”, Murdoch, Ari Wallach, —, Wallach, Grimes, ” Wallach, Hannah Ritchie’s “ Organizations: PBS, Amazon Prime

☆ Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough Investigate a Chilling Murder
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-20 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“We’ve been teenage girls,” Lily Gladstone said. Which means that Gladstone and her co-star, Riley Keough, know what teenage girls can do. Six teenage girls and one teenage boy, many of them Virk’s classmates, were eventually convicted. Keough, who also produced the series, plays a version of Godfrey. Gladstone plays Cam, an invented character, a Native law enforcement officer who was adopted as a child by a white family.

Persons: “ We’ve, ” Lily Gladstone, Gladstone, Riley Keough, Keough, Reena, Rebecca Godfrey’s, Virk’s, Manjit, Godfrey, Quinn Shephard Organizations: Hulu Locations: Cam

☆ Madonna and Barbra Are Fans. Broadway, Meet Lempicka.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The playwright Carson Kreitzer specializes in difficult women, disparaged women, women who should be better known. But 14 years ago, when a friend suggested the painter Tamara de Lempicka as a potential subject, Kreitzer wasn’t initially enthusiastic. Flipping through the monograph, image after glossy image, Kreitzer realized that she already knew Lempicka’s brash, gleaming work. “Tamara made me a musical writer,” Kreitzer, who had never written a musical before, said in a recent phone interview. “She demanded it.”After years of development, “Lempicka,” a biomusical by Kreitzer (book and lyrics) and Matt Gould (book and music), opens on April 14 at Broadway’s Longacre Theater.

Persons: Carson Kreitzer, Tamara de Lempicka, Kreitzer wasn’t, Kreitzer, Van Cleef, “ Tamara, ” Kreitzer, “, ”, Matt Gould Organizations: Broadway’s Longacre Locations: Van

☆ Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead Go From ‘Fargo’ to ‘Moscow’
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-31 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The first time that Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead shot a scene together, they were in a bathtub, mostly naked. McGregor, in a maximally unflattering wig, was sticking his gut out as far as it would go. This was on a recent afternoon in the chilly basement of a midtown hotel where McGregor and Winstead perched on a love seat, his jacket over his shoulders, his hand on her knee. Two years later, in 2019, they filmed “Birds of Prey” but did not share scenes. Now, they have reunited onscreen for “A Gentleman in Moscow,” which premiered Friday on Paramount+ and debuts Sunday on Showtime.

Persons: Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, McGregor, “, ” Winstead, Winstead, ”, Ray Stussy, Nikki Swango, Emmit Stussy, — McGregor, Wan, Amor, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, Anna Urbanova Organizations: “, Wars, Paramount, Showtime Locations: “ Fargo, Moscow, ”, Russian

☆ Review: In ‘Pericles,’ Taking the Cruise of a Lifetime
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Spanning decades and traversing the ancient Mediterranean like some deeply misbegotten Carnival Cruise, this Shakespeare play mingles comedy, tragedy and Christian allegory. There are two assassination plots, two shipwrecks, a brothel, a riddle, a tournament and some very convenient pirates. A devised theater ensemble founded by half a dozen Brown MFA graduates, Fiasco has a soft spot for Shakespeare’s less loved works. Rather than relying on the published text of “Pericles,” Fiasco has set much of the poetry to music — sometimes supplying original words — and interpolated passages from a prose version by George Wilkins, a pamphleteer and publican. Ben Steinfeld, a company member and the director, stages this revised text at Classic Stage Company using Fiasco’s poor-theater playbook — a mostly bare stage furnished with charisma, invention, spirit and song.

Persons: Pericles ”, Ben Jonson, Fiasco, ”, Verona, “ Pericles, ” Fiasco, George Wilkins, Wilkins, disbelieve, Shakespeare, Ben Steinfeld Organizations: Gentlemen Locations: ”

☆ ‘Water for Elephants’ Brings the Circus to Broadway
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-25 | by ( Alexis Soloski | Peter Fisher | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At the sound of a gunshot, a performer, wreathed in white silks, tumbles from the ceiling. His body somersaults, over and over, faster and faster, until it hangs suspended, just above the stage floor. This scene, in the first act of “Water for Elephants,” a new musical that begins previews Feb. 24 at the Imperial Theater, portrays the death of an injured horse. And it captures the singular methods of the show — a synthesis of theater and circus, bedazzled for a Broadway audience. “In musicals, you talk until you have to sing and you sing until you have to dance,” Jessica Stone, the director of “Water for Elephants,” explained.

Persons: Jessica Stone, ”, Rick Elice, Sara Gruen’s, Jacob Jankowski, Grant Gustin, Gregg Edelman Organizations: Imperial, PigPen Theater

☆ For Tobias Menzies, Acting Is All About Less Is More
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a morning in early February, the actor Tobias Menzies walked the Brooklyn Heights Promenade in the relative anonymity he prefers. Menzies wasn’t hiding. But the past few years, including multi-season stints on “The Crown” and “Outlander,” have brought him a new visibility, which still makes him uneasy. Back in 2019, Menzies had originated the stage role of Lucas, a preschool teacher falsely accused of exposing himself to a child, in a London production. A member of a local hunting club, Lucas now finds himself targeted by the community that once embraced him.

Persons: Tobias Menzies, Menzies wasn’t, “, ”, “ I’m, I’m, ” Menzies, Thomas Vinterberg, Menzies, Lucas Organizations: St Locations: Brooklyn, Ann’s, London

☆ Joan Lader Keeps Broadway in Tune
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For 41 years, Joan Lader has rented a slender studio apartment just west of Union Square in Manhattan. But for two generations of Broadway stars, as well as dozens of opera singers and pop and rock luminaries, she remains an indispensable vocal therapist and vocal coach. She continues to work seven hours each day, seven days a week. For Lader, 77, the work is her calling, a synthesis of artistry, science and according to her clients and fans, something akin to magic. “I’ve called her a witch in front of people, many times,” the music director Rob Fisher said.

Persons: Joan Lader, Lader, ” Patti LuPone, I’ve, Rob Fisher, “ I’ve, ” Locations: Union, Manhattan

☆ Jesse L. Martin Is Watching You
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-04 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Jesse L. Martin can tell when you’re lying. “There’s also intense eye contact,” he said, demonstrating this across a low table in the bar of a downtown hotel last week. Martin, 55, plays Alec Mercer, a professor of behavioral science at a fictional university. He solves each week’s case by applying one or more behavioral science concepts — the halo effect, the Barnum effect, paradoxical persuasion. Almost pathologically observant, Alec is based on Dan Ariely, a superstar in the field of behavioral science, and Martin has absorbed a morsel of those powers.

Persons: Jesse L, Martin, “ There’s, ”, Alec Mercer, Alec, Barnum, Dan Ariely, Martin — Organizations: NBC, Broadway, NBC’s “ Locations: New York, Vancouver, British Columbia

☆ Maya Erskine, of ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ Thinks She Would Make a Good Spy
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“What would happen if James Bond had a blister?” Maya Erskine wondered recently. Erskine, 36, an actor and writer, has been thinking of hypotheticals like these ever since Donald Glover (“Atlanta,” “Swarm”) approached her about starring in “Mr. This eight-episode series, created by Glover and the writer Francesca Sloane, arrives on Amazon Prime Video on Feb. 2. The new John and Jane Smith, played by Glover and Erskine, are spies hired by a shadowy organization to pose as a married couple. While completing high-risk missions and racking up casualties, John and Jane are also achieving various relationship milestones — first date, first kiss, first vacation.

Persons: James Bond, Erskine, Donald Glover, “, Smith, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Glover, Francesca Sloane, John, Jane Smith, Phoebe Waller, Jane, —, ” Organizations: Amazon Prime, Glover’s Locations: Atlanta

The world first met Cady Heron, Regina George and the Plastics when “Mean Girls” hit movie theaters in 2004. Written by Tina Fey and based on a nonfiction book about social dynamics among high school girls, “Mean Girls” tells the story of a formerly home-schooled 16-year-old who becomes entangled with a group of popular students at her new high school. Its stars became famous, its quotable lines were ubiquitous and young people started wearing pink on Wednesdays. This month, a new version of “Mean Girls” has hit cinemas. Alissa Wilkinson, a film critic, and Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter, discuss their relationships with “Mean Girls,” how the world has changed since the original movie and what the new “Mean Girls” has to say to audiences today.

Persons: Cady Heron, Regina George, Tina Fey, Alissa Wilkinson, Alexis Soloski Organizations: Plastics

☆ Christina Applegate Presents the First Emmy
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-15 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Christina Applegate made a rare public appearance to present the first Emmy, for supporting actress in a comedy series. Glamorous in a plunging gown and visibly overcome by the long standing ovation she received, she still made self-deprecating jokes about Ozempic and disability. “You’re totally shaming me with disability by standing up,” she told the crowd. Applegate hasn’t announced any new projects since receiving a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2021. (“It’s not like I came on the other side of it, like, ‘Woohoo, I’m totally fine,’” she told The Times in 2022, speaking of that diagnosis.

Persons: Christina Applegate, “ You’re, ”, ” Applegate, Quinta Brunson, “ Abbott, prettiness, Jen, Linda Cardellini’s Judy, Applegate hasn’t, I’m, Applegate, Kelly Bundy, Samantha Who ” Organizations: Netflix, Times

☆ When Trailers Hit Mute on the Musical
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-12 | by ( Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Despite what its marketing might suggest, “Mean Girls” (in theaters), the latest in a set of pink-accented nesting dolls, is irrefutably a movie musical. Adapted from the 2018 Broadway musical, which was itself based on the 2004 film, which was in turn inspired by the 2002 nonfiction book “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” this new version has singing. It has one delectable moment in which the members of the school marching band raise their saxophones and tubas high. Barring a split-second shot of the band, you wouldn’t know that from the film’s trailers. It was made to look instead like a vaguely edgier remix of the 2004 film.

Persons: Regina George, —, Olivia Rodrigo’s “ Organizations: Bees

☆ Casey Likes of ‘Back to the Future,’ Is on a Roll
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

John Rando, who directed the “Back to the Future” musical, hired Likes for his youth, his amiability, his soulful rock tenor. Once previews began, he was also impressed with the confidence that Likes brought to the role and his effortless engagement with viewers. Likes knows that he has to get the audience on his side, smile by smile, note by note. This week the “Back to the Future” team, the Pinheads, would play the “Kimberly Akimbo” team, Pinberly Akimbowl. Asked if his co-star Roger Bart (who plays Doc Brown) was on the team, Likes shook his head and laughed.

Persons: John Rando, ” Rando, Patrick Fugit, Michael J, ”, “, Kimberly Akimbo ”, Pinberly Akimbowl, Spareolines, Roger Bart, Doc Brown, Likes, Bart, “ He’s, don’t Organizations: Fox, Broadway Locations: “ Moulin Rouge

☆ Emma Corrin Has a Mystery to Solve
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I have no idea what I like,” Emma Corrin said. This was on a recent Friday afternoon at the Mysterious Bookshop, a Manhattan emporium dedicated to thrillers, detective stories, spy stories and noir classics. Corrin appealed to the store’s manager, Tom Wickersham. They play Darby Hart, an amateur detective who becomes a true-crime author after solving a case involving unidentified women in the Midwest. Between setups, Corrin would read aloud from selected books, including a collection of erotica.

Persons: Emma Corrin, Paolo Pasolini, Corrin, Tom Wickersham, “, ” Corrin, Darby Hart, ” Locations: Manhattan, London

☆ Jesse Armstrong Still Has ‘a Lot of Sympathy’ for the Roys
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There’s some torque applied to the characters and the situations, which reminds me of comedy, but it isn’t always a comedy. I guess that’s maybe the mortality. Maybe I could try to elicit the audience’s sympathy for someone, but I wouldn’t want to with this show. It wasn’t like, Oh, let’s try and push people away or draw them in. But if it could happen or would happen, we’d always say, let’s do it.

Persons: isn’t, I’d, Nick Britell, Robert Maxwell, Rupert, Murdoch, Sumner Redstone, let’s, we’d Locations: British

☆ ‘Manahatta,’ Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Play About the Lenape, Comes Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mary Kathryn Nagle moved to Manhattan in 2010. These dueling histories, recent and long ago, inspired Nagle’s play “Manahatta.” Now in previews at the Public Theater, it will run through Dec. 23. Named for the Lenape word for Manhattan, which translates to “island of many hills,” the drama volleys between the 17th century and the early 21st, and between Manahatta and Manhattan and Anadarko. The seven actors in the cast each play a character in each period. This is the play’s third production, but the first on the island on which it is largely set.

Persons: Mary Kathryn Nagle, ”, Nagle, Quinn Emanuel Organizations: Cherokee, Delaware Indians, National Museum of, Public Locations: Manhattan, Oklahoma, Delaware, Anadarko, Bartlesville, New York, Manahatta

☆ Big Apple Circus Review: A Show That Bends Over Backward for You
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

If confetti supplies have plummeted, if a spangle shortage now afflicts Manhattan, blame a tent at the southwestern corner of Lincoln Center. Yes, the Big Apple Circus has returned and for a little over a month New York will glimmer more brightly. In 2016, after operating as a nonprofit for nearly 40 years, the original outfit shut down and filed for bankruptcy. An affiliate of a corporate restructuring firm bought it in 2017, then switched out its management and character several times. In 2021, it was sold again, to a corporation that counts the famed aerialist Nik Wallenda as a minority owner, and became a bit more death-defying.

Persons: Nik Wallenda Organizations: Lincoln Center, Big Apple Locations: Manhattan, New York

☆ ‘For All Mankind’ Launches a Mission to Mars, With New Wrinkles
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Ed Baldwin lands on the moon in October 1971, he is in early middle age. By 2003, on Mars, his hair has grayed and receded, and the wrinkles have multiplied and deepened. Kinnaman is now 43, but in the fourth season, which premieres on Nov. 10, Ed is in his 70s. Which meant that Kinnaman’s shooting days typically began before dawn, with four hours in the hair and makeup chair. This is one of the myriad hurdles and minor miracles of “For All Mankind,” a series that posits a world in which the space race never ended.

Persons: Ed Baldwin, Joel Kinnaman, Ed Organizations: Apple Locations: Ed, Swedish, Kinnaman

☆ ‘I’m Still Alive’: Sean Young Takes the Stage in ‘Ode to the Wasp Woman’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Then I hear, “Oh, but you’re so nice.” Believe me, that was a pain in my ass. This is what I’ve taught my sons: Mommy was right, but it didn’t do me any good. I’m getting out and he grabs my ears, trying to pull me into a kiss. I’m just busy right now.”Was there a culture of abuse in 1980s Hollywood? There was also a cocaine habit that pervaded, and that could lead to some very dramatic circumstances.

Persons: James Woods, I’ve, Mommy, Warren Beatty, Dick Tracy ”, I’m, “, ” Organizations: Sheraton Locations: Sedona, Hollywood

☆ The One Without Matthew Perry
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-29 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A professional actor since his teens, Perry had appeared in more than a dozen sitcoms before landing “Friends” in 1994. Mostly it advertised Perry and his anxious, reckless charm. Even among the irrepressible talents of his co-stars, Perry stood out, for a rubbery, heedless way with physical comedy and a split-second timing that most stopwatches would envy. He had both an absolute commitment to what a line required and a way of gently ironizing that line. Perry was in on those same jokes.

Persons: Matthew Perry, Perry, Chandler Bing, ” Perry Organizations: NBC, “

☆ To Make ‘Fellow Travelers,’ Ron Nyswaner Had to Fall in Love
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated screenwriter, can still recall a chance meeting on a beach more than 50 years ago. Then a teenager and a self-described “Jesus freak,” he’d come to Ocean City, N.J., to attend a Youth for Christ conference. That young man asked him to speak in tongues — it was an invitation to religious ecstasy and nothing more. Moving back and forth from the early 1950s to the late ’80s, “Fellow Travelers,” based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon, is a précis of 20th-century queer history viewed through a turbulent relationship between two men. Jonathan Bailey (“Bridgerton”) plays Tim Laughlin, a milk-drinking, God-loving naïf who dreams of working for Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Persons: Ron Nyswaner, he’d, Nyswaner, ”, Thomas Mallon, Matt Bomer, Mike ”, Hawkins Fuller, Hawk, Jonathan Bailey, Tim Laughlin, Joseph McCarthy Organizations: Christ, “, Paramount, Showtime, State Department Locations: Ocean City, N.J, Manhattan’s Soho

☆ The Doyenne of Classical Publicists Takes on a Final Client: Herself
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mary Lou Falcone has lived most of her life away from the spotlight. Fifty years ago, after brief careers as a performer and a teacher, Falcone changed course and became a leading publicist in the world of classical music. Now, for the first time since she was 28, Falcone has put herself center stage to promote a new, personal cause. In early 2019, her husband, the artist Nicholas Zann, was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative disease. In many ways, she is doing what she has always done: crafting a narrative, then sharing it.

Persons: Mary Lou Falcone, “, ”, Falcone, Renée Fleming, Van Cliburn, Jean, Pierre Rampal, Gustavo Dudamel, Georg Solti, Jaap van Zweden, Nicholas Zann, Lewy Organizations: Café, Lincoln Center, New York Philharmonic Locations: Café Luxembourg, Manhattan

☆ A Podcast That Sounds the Alarm on the American Dream
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Alexis Soloski | More About Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“We came up with the name and made it about the large, legal, institutional scams and frauds happening right under our noses,” Marie said. “I’ve always been like that.”Ira Glass, who gave Marie her first professional job in radio, on “This American Life,” described that voice as energetic, appealing and opinionated. At heart, “The Dream” is less about the scams themselves than why people fall for them. Instead the podcast asks, with genuine interest, why someone might fall for a fraud and which regulatory bodies failed to protect them. The story this season, which overlaps in places with both wellness and MLMs, is told a little differently.

Persons: ” Marie, ”, “, “ I’ve, Ira Glass, Marie, Jane, aren’t, Leital Molad, who’s Organizations: Pushkin Industries Locations: “

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