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☆ A Guide to Eurovision 2024
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-09 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A Croatian techno-rocker named Baby Lasagna strutting onto TV screens worldwide? It must be time for the Eurovision Song Contest. Since 1956, Eurovision has been pitting countries against each other in a fierce battle of over-the-top pop music, outlandish costumes and go-for-broke stagings. Fans of minimalism should abstain, because at Eurovision, even a modest ballad can be performed with wind machines, fur-lined capes or musicians playing upside down in a gigantic hamster wheel. The combined broadcasts are wildly popular: Last year, they reached 162 million people around the world.

Persons: Lasagna, ” Organizations: Eurovision Locations: Croatian, United States, Sweden

☆ In ‘Elsbeth,’ a Quirky Side Character Becomes a Quirky Lead
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

While filming the new crime show “Elsbeth” in an Upper West Side apartment in January, Carrie Preston, playing the title character, tentatively patted the guest star Peter Grosz on the arm. The combination of the gesture and Elsbeth’s hesitant expression made the attempt at comfort come across as simultaneously awkward and funny — and unmistakably true to the consistently awkward, funny Elsbeth. Robert King, who created the series with his wife, Michelle, and was directing that particular episode, chuckled in delight as he watched on a monitor. “That was probably not in the script.”Premiering Thursday on CBS, “Elsbeth” is a new project but Elsbeth herself is not. One reason Preston inhabits her fully enough to improvise such small, telling gestures is because she has been playing her for almost 14 years.

Persons: Carrie Preston, Peter Grosz, Robert King, Michelle, Jonathan Tolins, “, ”, Elsbeth, Preston, Elsbeth Tascioni, Columbo, Peter Falk Organizations: CBS Locations: Upper

☆ Chita Rivera Lived to Entertain. Here Are 9 Memorable Performances.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Chita Rivera, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91, was known for her extraordinary artistry. Her Anita in the landmark 1957 Broadway production of “West Side Story”? Rose in the hit “Bye Bye Birdie,” from 1960? Only in 1969 did Rivera make her feature-film debut, in “Sweet Charity,” almost two decades after her Broadway debut. Thankfully, we have variety shows, TV specials and unofficial fan videos to help us patch together a compelling video portrait.

Persons: Chita Rivera, Anita, Rita Moreno, Rose, ”, Janet Leigh, Rivera Organizations: Broadway Locations: “

☆ ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ Review: Sutton Foster as a Perfectly Goofy Princess
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Such is the case with Sutton Foster as the eccentric Princess Winnifred in the Encores! revival of “Once Upon a Mattress,” which opened Wednesday at City Center. The central role in this broadly goofy musical was exuberantly, indelibly originated by Carol Burnett in 1959. And Winnifred, described by another character as “a strangely energetic swamp girl,” is an ideal outlet for that sensibility. “Once Upon a Mattress” is nobody’s idea of a great musical, but it is many people’s idea of a fun one.

Persons: Sutton Foster, Winnifred, Carol Burnett, Foster, — she’s, “ Sweeney Todd ”, Janet Van De Graaff, Reno Sweeney, Mary Rodgers’s Organizations: City Center, New York Times, Broadway, CBS Locations: “

Jesse Green’s Best Theater | Unforgettable ExperiencesJESSE GREENYear of the DramedyIf 2023 was a tragedy in the world, on New York stages it was a dramedy year, highlighted not only by serious plays with great jokes, but also by flat-out comedies with dark underpinnings. Its residents included an unemployed man in his 50s, his barely-holding-on mother, a pregnant woman, two refugees — and us. Seated adjacent to the facility’s dingy common room, we became, in the playwright’s own staging, fellow residents. But if the others eyed us like we might steal a precious sandwich, we could blithely leave when the play was over. The New York Theater Workshop audience, too, learned a great deal, as the questions bedeviling so many relationships — the complexity of consent and the meaning of control — played out before us in this perfectly timed hot-button play.

Persons: Jesse Green’s, Alexander Zeldin, ”, Henrik Ibsen, Jessica Chastain, Nora, Jamie Lloyd’s, Amy Herzog, Chastain, Liliana Padilla, —, gorgeously, Rachel Chavkin, Steph Paul Organizations: Armory, Zeldin, bros, New York Locations: New York, York City, Norway, New York City

☆ Dashing Through These Films
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The most fun entry on the BET+ slate is Terri J. Vaughn’s comedy about friendship. When Wyvetta (Tichina Arnold, from “The Neighborhood”) is dumped at the altar on Christmas Eve, she and her supportive bestie Dione (Tami Roman) publicly swear off romance on their podcast. Um, did these two women really intend to remain chaste for the rest of their lives? Filmed largely in Atlantic City, this breezy movie benefits from Arnold and Roman’s believable camaraderie. And we could have used a lot more of Michael Colyar and Jackée Harry as Wyvetta’s forbearing parents.

Persons: Terri J, Tichina Arnold, Dione, Tami Roman, Clarence, Robert Christopher Riley, —, Arnold, Michael Colyar, Harry, Wyvetta’s Organizations: BET Locations: Atlantic City

Our theater writers Jesse Green and Elisabeth Vincentelli discuss two of the biggest hits of the fall theater season, both of them shows about the perils of making art with people you love. The new Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s “Merrily We Roll Along” revitalizes that famously flawed musical, while off Broadway a play called “Stereophonic” dramatizes the creation of a rock album in the 1970s. On today’s episode

Persons: Jesse Green, Elisabeth Vincentelli, Stephen Sondheim, George Furth’s “ Organizations: Broadway

☆ An Opera’s Riverboat Journey Brings the Rainforest Onboard
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There really was no reason for Mary Zimmerman to get stuck while directing her new production of “Florencia en el Amazonas,” which premieres on Thursday at the Metropolitan Opera. The staging is her sixth for the Met, and at first glance, the work looked to be square in her wheelhouse. Yet when time came to start conceptualizing her production, Zimmerman found herself stalling. “I’m quite a bit overidentified with Florencia,” Zimmerman said after a recent rehearsal. A lot of us performers and artists with broken hearts, partly everything we put on is for that person, whether they’re going to see it or not.”

Persons: Mary Zimmerman, Florencia, Gabriel García Márquez, Zimmerman, ” Zimmerman, “, ” Organizations: Metropolitan Opera, Met Locations: el Amazonas, ”, Manaus

☆ ‘Danny and the Deep Blue Sea’ Review: Aubrey Plaza Steps Into the Ring
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

These two hopeless loners are the only people in the bar in this Off Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley’s “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,” at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Though modest in scale, the show is one of the fall’s hottest thanks to its stars, Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott. Shanley’s writing sometimes devolves into hard-boiled mannerisms, but it also has a sharp pugnaciousness. Similarly, Abbott and Plaza’s performances move beyond histrionics and gain confidence as their characters start letting themselves feel. When Danny and Roberta finally strike up a conversation, it immediately reveals their combustible approaches to life itself.

Persons: Danny, Roberta, Oates’s slinky, You’ve, John Patrick Shanley’s “ Danny, Lucille Lortel, Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, Plaza, Emily, Abbott, Allison Williams’s Locations: Bronx, ”, histrionics

☆ ‘Watch Night’ Review: For Spacious Skies, for Rancorous Waves of Hate
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Some of them are imprinted with the text of the Second Amendment, others a rallying cry: “We fight fascists.” Among the most eye-catching is an ad for N.R.A. memberships, with its promise of “$5,000 Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance.”But what about intentional deaths? “Watch Night,” a new multigenre hybrid show, is interested in those, specifically the ones fueled by homegrown prejudice. He wrote the libretto for “We Shall Not Be Moved” (2017), an opera inspired by the police bombing in 1985 of a Philadelphia house occupied by Black activists, with an artistic team that included Jones and Lauren Whitehead, the “Watch Night” dramaturg. Unfortunately, those experiences have not helped focus this new production.

Persons: Perelman, Bill T, Jones, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Tamar, kali, Joseph, Carlos Simon, “, George Floyd, Lauren Whitehead Organizations: Perelman Performing, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Minnesota Orchestra, Black Locations: Charleston, S.C, Pittsburgh, “ brea, Philadelphia

☆ Barry Manilow Finally Gets His Wish: a Broadway Show
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Jesse Mckinley | More About Jesse Mckinley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One possible turning point in the show’s luck, Carlyle said, was the addition of a narrator character — an older rabbi played by Chip Zien — who walks the audience through the various eras of the show. “For me as director, it unlocks the whole show because previously it was kind of a six-headed dragon. In addition to his younger self the show would also include his older self, a rabbi, serving as a narrator. “And suddenly for me, it was like, now the story has a point of view,” Carlyle said. Writing in The New York Times, Elisabeth Vincentelli praised the songs “crafted in a defiantly classic mold,” which steer the show back to “solid emotional ground.”

Persons: Sussman, Manilow, Warren Carlyle, Tonys, Kate ”, Carlyle, Chip Zien —, “, ” Carlyle, —, Elisabeth Vincentelli Organizations: Museum of Jewish, The New York Times Locations: British

☆ Good Times and Bum Times Made These Theater Veterans Even Stronger
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It’s challenging enough for an actor to portray someone who is alive and well. But can you imagine the extra scrutiny that comes when your model is sitting in the director’s chair? Or at least, Daniele pointed out in a recent conversation, it’s “a version of me. A better version.”When the two stage veterans sat together last week, a day after performances began at Lincoln Center Theater, they laughed continuously, and threw themselves into the conversation with the full-bodied gusto of born performers. They mimed pranks they once pulled on castmates, hummed tunes from long-forgotten shows, and punctuated their stories with enough sound effects to make a Foley artist jealous.

Persons: ” Priscilla Lopez, Graciela Daniele, Daniele, it’s, Foley Organizations: Lincoln Center Theater Locations: Anuncia

☆ In ‘Invasion,’ Simon Kinberg Adds Touchy-Feely to Creepy-Crawly
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

He also teased a connection between that mysterious black shard and a certain Jedi weapon. In Season 1, the aliens crawling over Earth were lethal shape-shifting beasties. Yeah, we called them the worker aliens in Season 1. We see a few of them in Season 2, and they are evolved or enhanced into the hunter-killer aliens. They are organic, they are bioengineered — so they’re both organic and inorganic.

Persons: “ Deadpool, ”, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Organizations: Marvel, Apple, “ Locations: Los Angeles

☆ ‘Bottoms’ Review: Physical Education
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It ultimately fizzes out, but “Bottoms” confirms that Seligman and Sennott are major new forces in American comedy. A lot does click here, including several delicious supporting performances, most notably the former N.F.L. running back Marshawn Lynch as the fight club’s loopy faculty adviser and Ruby Cruz as Hazel, a cool classmate whom, naturally, PJ does not even see. For most of its tight running time, “Bottoms” hovers on the cusp of greatness. BottomsRated R for typical teen language, fight-club violence and football run amok.

Persons: Seligman, Sennott’s, ”, Sennott, Marshawn Lynch, Ruby Cruz, Hazel, Annie, Zamani Wilder, Josie, —

☆ ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Is on the Road Again
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This interview includes spoilers for the second season of “The Lincoln Lawyer.”Ted Humphrey has learned a few things about what it takes to keep a successful series going. A former lawyer, Humphrey worked on 135 episodes of the critically acclaimed CBS show “The Good Wife,” with writing credits on 19 of them and titles that included executive producer. He’s now trying to apply some of the same magic to “The Lincoln Lawyer,” the legal thriller he created with David E. Kelley last year, based on the Michael Connelly book series. The inaugural season, starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in the title role, was a hit for Netflix. “The Lincoln Lawyer” has been among its most-watched shows worldwide since the first new episodes were released on July 6.

Persons: ” Ted Humphrey, Humphrey, He’s, David E, Kelley, Michael Connelly, Manuel Garcia, ”, Dailyn Rodriguez, “ I’m, —, “ Organizations: Lincoln Lawyer, CBS, Netflix, Lincoln

☆ Liz Kingsman Is Doing a One-Woman Show (Without Kit Harington)
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-31 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The pair sat down for some hummus and a doggy biscuit at a West Village restaurant near Kingsman’s rented home away from home. My mom is British, one of the “Ten Pound Poms”: They needed an immigration boost in Australia so they handed out 10-pounds tickets to British people. But there is a brilliant industry in London and once I started working, it was very hard to leave. When my character says “Women’s voices aren’t getting heard in theater,” a U.K. audience knows that’s me doing a joke about a woman who would say that very sincerely onstage. Somebody’s died: ‘Oh no.’ ” I just started laughing at a very serious-themed play.

Persons: England —, “, aren’t, that’s, “ Sweeney Todd, ”, gravitas, Somebody’s Organizations: ” Locations: Village, Kingsman’s, Britain, Australia, England, London, New York, American

☆ Paul Reubens Was More Than Pee-wee. Here are 8 Great Performances.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-31 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Paul Reubens, who died on Sunday at age 70, will always be remembered for his beloved alter ego, the perpetually childlike Pee-wee Herman — a character so popular that it was able to carry a stage show, movies and a TV series. But Reubens also made memorable impressions playing a variety of supporting characters of the big and small screens — like Penguin’s father in “Batman Returns” and the turtleneck-wearing fixer Mr. Vargas in “The Blacklist,” just to name a few out of dozens. Here is a list of Reubens’s greatest hits and how to watch them. (Note that his recurring Emmy-nominated turn on “Murphy Brown” as the network president’s nephew is not included because that series’s original run is not streaming. Start the petition!)

Persons: Paul Reubens, Herman —, Reubens, “, Mr, Vargas, “ Murphy Brown ” Locations: “

☆ Review: A Lack of Passion Keeps This ‘Orpheus Descending’ Earthbound
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That mythical figure is Val (Pico Alexander), and it’s easy to see why he fascinates Lady (Siff). For most of the play, Jabe is heard rather than seen, making his presence felt by imperiously knocking on the floor of the couple’s quarters, which are above the store. Like Val, Lady is different, which also puts her at odds in the community. Williams writes that Lady “verges on hysteria under a strain,” but Siff (best known for the Showtime series “Billions”) evokes neither. Here it is a hindrance, as she can’t quite give in to the forces pressing down on Lady.

Persons: Pico Alexander, Jabe, Michael Cullen, imperiously, Val, Williams, Siff, “, ” Alexander, ”, Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Uncle Pleasant, Schmidt, Mac Beth, Cyrano ”, Peter Dinklage, Carol Cutrere, Julia McDermott Organizations: Eastern Europe —, Ku Klux, Showtime Locations: Eastern Europe, runny eyeliner

☆ Jane Birkin: An Adventurous Artist Made in England, Forged in France
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-16 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In 1969, the year that “Slogan” came out, Birkin had a supporting role in Jacques Deray’s scorching, now cult thriller “La Piscine” alongside Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. Throwing yet another twist into her career is that after Gainsbourg, Birkin was in a relationship with the uncompromising filmmaker Jacques Doillon. It felt like a new Jane Birkin, inhabiting her physicality in a way that was almost dangerously unrestrained — and it earned her the first of three César Award nominations. The next year, she appeared in a Marivaux play directed by the influential Patrice Chéreau at his Nanterre theater. Despite her trepidation, her performance was a success, and Birkin continued to appear onstage, alternating, as was her wont, between boulevard fare and Euripides.

Persons: —, — Birkin, ”, Birkin, Jacques Deray’s, Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Joe Dallesandro, Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey, Gainsbourg, Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, David Niven, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Jacques Doillon, Alma, Birkin’s, Andrew, Jane Birkin, Patrice Chéreau Locations: Nanterre

☆ How Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon Straightened Out ‘Full Circle’
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The first time the director Steven Soderbergh and the screenwriter Ed Solomon worked together was on the murder mystery “Mosaic” (2017), which could be watched as a choose-your-own-adventure-style story using a smartphone app or as a six-episode HBO mini-series. “Mosaic” drew mixed reviews, but the two men learned a lot doing it. The idea was greenlighted in 2021, and Solomon started writing two versions that would tell the same story differently. “When I got the schedule and I saw the number of days and the page count of just the linear, I was like, ‘This is physically impossible,’” Soderbergh said in a recent joint interview with Solomon. He added: “I had visions of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ — that this was going to become a legendary folly.”

Persons: Steven Soderbergh, Ed Solomon, ”, Max —, Solomon, ’ ” Soderbergh, “

☆ ‘Joy Ride’ Review: A Raunch-Com Roller Coaster
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This film, directed by the “Crazy Rich Asians” co-writer Adele Lim, may not reinvent the raunch-com wheel (see: “The Hangover,” “Girls Trip,” “Bridesmaids”), but it does change who’s driving the car. And, most importantly, it is really, really funny. “Joy Ride” processes all of its familiar ingredients into a sustained, sometimes near-berserk, barrage of jokes, interspersed with epic set pieces. That is, up until the two-thirds mark, when the movie paints itself into a corner and presses the “earnest sentimentality” eject button before managing a narrow escape. It’s a small price to pay for the inspired pandemonium that precedes.

Persons: ”, Adele Lim, Audrey, Ashley, Emily, Sherry Cola Organizations: Rich Locations: Paris ”, Pacific Northwest

☆ Sarah Benson Thinks Audiences Want a Challenge
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Did you leave because you wanted to spend more time on directing and less on paperwork? It’s been an incredible gift to be working at that level of artistic risk and to be surrounded by other artists working at that level of risk. Why choose “Blasted” for your first outing as director at Soho Rep? I’m always attentive to what feelings I get because that is the best information that’s going to take me to “What’s the real material? What can I bring to this material?” I’m always trying to seek out that charge.

Persons: It’s, “, Marin Ireland, I’d, I’m Organizations: Soho Rep

☆ Meet Blackbraid, a Black Metal Musician With Native American Roots
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Yet there is also elbow room within those parameters, and on “Blackbraid II” you can hear a delicately strummed acoustic guitar here, a traditional flute there. Catchy riffs, most notably on the single “The Spirit Returns,” coexist with ambitious tracks like the 13-plus-minute “Moss Covered Bones on the Altar of the Moon,” which waxes and wanes like an epic saga. Pretty impressive for a one-man band: Sgah’gahsowáh (mononymic aliases are very black metal) composes the material and plays all the instruments except for the drums, which are programmed by his friend Neil Schneider. Blackbraid expands to a five-piece live.) “A lot of black metal is just about being depressed or sadness, and a lot of it is based in the solitude and somberness of nature,” he said, adding that growing up in the woods “and also being a moody teenager,” that resonated for him.

Persons: Neil Schneider, Schneider, Sgah’gahsowáh, “, ”, Metallica Locations: United States, Florida

☆ ‘Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music’ Review: Wish You Were There
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The writer and performer Taylor Mac spent the first half of the 2010s developing an epic project, “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” that covered 240 years’ worth of American history. Mac would perform large excerpts at concerts, then on Oct. 8-9, 2016, did the whole caboodle as an ultramarathon of 246 songs. The show took over St. Ann’s Warehouse, in Brooklyn, in a 24-hour-long “radical faerie realness ritual sacrifice” that amounted to a transcendent artistic and political gesture. (Full disclosure: I was there.) Key collaborators like the costume designer Machine Dazzle and the makeup artist Anastasia Durasova also explain what went into their many painstakingly intricate creations.

Persons: Taylor Mac, Mac, Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, “ Linda Ronstadt, Anastasia Durasova Organizations: Popular, St, HBO Locations: Ann’s, Brooklyn

☆ ‘Once Upon a One More Time’ Review: Cinderella, Liberated (Again)
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Elisabeth Vincentelli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The Britney Spears jukebox musical “Once Upon a One More Time” is not a bio-show recounting the singer’s life. Rather, it retrofits two dozen of her songs — including “Oops! But this big, splashy show, which is quite entertaining at times, is hampered by a shambolic jumble of sisterhood 101 messaging and defanged fantasy revisionism. Although Cinderella is supposed to be content in the happy-ever-after, her loneliness just might be killing her. But shush, pretty lady, push these thoughts out of your lovely head: As her prince (Justin Guarini) soothingly informs her, “You’re paid to be pretty, and I’m paid to be charming.”

Persons: Spears, ”, Snow White, Aisha Jackson, Pea, Morgan Whitley, Gabrielle Beckford, Ashley Chiu, Lauren Zakrin, Adam Godley, Justin Guarini, soothingly, “ You’re, I’m Organizations: Disney, Broadway

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