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☆ Second City Expands to the First City and Sets Up Shop in Brooklyn
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-12 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

From the very beginning of the improv theater Second City, its name made clear that it wasn’t a New York institution and didn’t aspire to be. But after 65 years, the Chicago-based institution that has strongly influenced modern comedy is opening an outpost on Monday in Brooklyn, in what is the First City. Two weeks before the lights were set to officially go up, Ed Wells, Second City’s chief executive, showed off its new 12,000-square-foot home on North Ninth Street in Williamsburg even as he acknowledged the headwinds facing the expansion. There is a 190-seat main stage theater with a wraparound mezzanine and a 50-seat black box theater for student shows. The Bentwood restaurant, named after the chair that Second City actors use onstage, sometimes as a prop.

Persons: Ed Wells Organizations: Improv, North Ninth Locations: City, New York, Chicago, Brooklyn, It’s, Williamsburg

☆ Violett Beane Doesn’t Mind Some Uncomfortable Silence
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Violett Beane doesn’t know if she believes in ghosts. “Our hair artist at the time said that she felt, like, a hand come across her and wind on her neck,” Beane said. “She ran out of the room and just freaked out.”There’s no freaking-out onscreen when Beane’s character, Imogene Scott, is thrown together with Rufus Cotesworth, once the world’s greatest detective, played by Mandy Patinkin. “He’s a legend,” Beane said of Patinkin. “He brings this sort of magnitude with him, and he never misses.

Persons: Violett Beane doesn’t, Queen Mary —, ” Beane, “, ”, Imogene Scott, Rufus Cotesworth, Mandy Patinkin, Patinkin Organizations: British

☆ Jake Johnson Likes to Play the Hollywood Game, Especially When It Changes
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-27 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If you were bored enough — a stultifying job, living with Mom after a bad breakup — you, too, might climb into a mysterious limo carrying Andy Samberg. You might even consider the offer: outwit assassins for 30 days and win $1 million. It’s a risk that Tommy, played by Jake Johnson, is willing to take in “Self Reliance,” the dark comedy on Hulu that he also wrote and directed. Johnson, 45, was antsy during the pandemic when he decided the time for this project was now. “You should take chances and experiment.

Persons: Andy Samberg, Tommy, Jake Johnson, Johnson, ”, ” Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Samberg Organizations: ” Locations: Pasadena, Calif

☆ Jeffrey Wright: ‘I Just Let the Phone Tell Me What Had Happened’
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jeffrey Wright had taken precautionary measures as he awaited news of the Oscar nominations for best actor on Tuesday morning in Brooklyn. “I didn’t have screens on beyond my phone, which I kept an eye on,” the “American Fiction” star said. “I was afraid that I might do damage to one of the screens if the news were different. Still, “I’m really proud of this film and the work that all of us put into it. We thought while we were making it that we might be onto something good and something interesting and topical, but also buoyant.

Persons: Jeffrey Wright, “, Wright, Thelonious Ellison, ”, “ I’m Organizations: Golden Globe Locations: Brooklyn

☆ What Inspires Peter Capaldi: Vermeer, ‘Demon Copperhead,’ ‘The Wire’
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-13 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Sometimes it pays to stick close to home. The more Peter Capaldi heard as his wife, the producer Elaine Collins, and the writer Paul Rutman hashed out the story line for the new Apple TV+ thriller “Criminal Record,” the more he hinted that he was their man. They cast him as Daniel Hegarty, a veteran detective on the police force, who has a murky past. As Rutman wrote the script, Capaldi’s voice and face were front and center. “That’s the first time that has really happened to me,” said Capaldi, whose adversary, June Lenker — a younger detective contending with misogyny and racism within the force — is played by Cush Jumbo.

Persons: Peter Capaldi, Elaine Collins, Paul Rutman, Daniel Hegarty, Rutman, “, ”, Capaldi, Lenker —, —, Cush Jumbo, ” Capaldi, Who Organizations: Apple

☆ Sebastian Maniscalco’s Toughest Audience Is His Kids
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

If you do it on a consistent basis, you really start to see the muscles that are being used. I also want to open up their palates to different sauces on the pasta other than butter and cheese. 8Surprise Date NightsSometimes you become ships passing in the night, and you need that time together as a couple. 10My Toughest AudienceThere was nothing better for me than making a room full of strangers laugh — until I had kids. They’re my toughest audience, but the most rewarding.

Persons: I’m, Oz ”, Willy Wonka, they’re, you’ve, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, I’ve Organizations: Chocolate

☆ What Fuels the ‘Manic Creativity’ of Joan Baez
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-04 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

2Drawing Upside DownUpside down is far more interesting to me than right side up. Things otherwise not available to my conscious mind become obvious when I turn the drawing right side up and see what it’s telling me. 3A Certain TreeI sleep in my big oak tree most nights in the summer. The tree is named Frank. I like to put Leonard Cohen on Spotify and see which of my friends and colleagues show up in Spotify’s interpretations.

Persons: Doodling, Frank, It’s, Jussi Bjorling, Joan Sutherland, Kathleen Ferrier, Glenn Gould, Maurizio Pollini, Jascha Heifetz, Lauren Duski, Sturgill Simpson, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Andrea Bocelli Organizations: Gipsy Kings, Spotify Locations: Swedish

☆ ‘Annika’ Star Nicola Walker on the Book She’d Save From a Burning Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-28 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

No one broods quite like Nicola Walker, whose eyes have transfixed viewers in television shows like “Unforgotten,” “Last Tango in Halifax” and “The Split.”In “Annika,” the British crime drama now in its second season on PBS, she holds that gaze as a marine homicide detective, her speedboat slicing through the waters near Glasgow. But in a video interview while just outside London, where she lives with her husband, the actor Barnaby Kay, and their teenage son, Harry, Walker was radiant and witty. When she agreed to talk about her cultural essentials — true-crime podcasts, the theater director Ivo van Hove, the harrowing reality series “Alone” — she recalled her agent asking if she was going to be truthful. “I said, ‘Is it bad if I tell them that really one of my cultural highlights this week has been sitting in my underwear, eating a bag of Spanish Lays crisps with a can of Coke, watching the ‘Beckham’ documentary?’”

Persons: Nicola Walker, ”, Annika, Barnaby Kay, Harry, Walker, Ivo van Hove, —, “, Coke, Beckham Organizations: PBS Locations: Halifax ”, British, Glasgow, London

☆ Cody Rigsby Needs Dessert. And Cheetos. And Drag Queens.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

5Pop Star DebatesAs a gay man, I think that a big part of our culture is having our favorite pop star. I love a healthy debate over who’s the best singer, who has the best concert, who has the best dress. They bring us a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, a lot of camp, a lot of comedy. But I feel like drag right now is being used as a political thing to divide and distract people. So it’s [expletive] that people are trying to demonize drag queens as groomers and pedophiles and something that’s wrong.

Organizations: Madison, New York Locations: New York City

☆ Baratunde Thurston Eats His Feelings (With Ice Cream)
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-12 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

1Public LibrariesLibrarians are heroes, and libraries are some of our last truly democratic public spaces, literally open to all. It’s chocolate within chocolate within chocolate. But if you’re feeling like maybe your society is tending toward fascism, Jeni’s ice cream can help you process that feeling. And for Black men, at times it can be even tougher. Kings Corner is a safe space for us to check in with each other, to hold ourselves high and hold ourselves accountable.

Persons: that’s Organizations: Librarians, Patriot, Hydro Locations: ”

☆ Sterling K. Brown Is on His Best Behavior, Just in Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-24 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

4Cocoa ButterBeing African American, something happens when you don’t moisturize your skin. Because the alternative for someone with a deeper shade of soul is you look like you’ve been walking around kicking flour. 5Esther PerelMy wife and I have been married 17 years, and we’ve known each other since we were 18. is continuing to develop, and we don’t know if we’re making ourselves extinct to any potential sentient being, Brown is on his best behavior. 8‘Fat Ham’You’re taking the story of Hamlet, you’re putting it in a backyard barbecue in the South with a young, queer, Black male protagonist.

Persons: Esther Perel, Esther, we’ve, Alexa, ”, Brown, ” Toni Morrison, You’re, you’re, it’s, ” Audra McDonald, Renée Elise Goldsberry, “ Hamilton Organizations: Being, Britannica, Alexa, Broadway Locations: “

☆ When Andrew Koji Isn’t Fighting Onscreen, He’s Memorizing a Poem
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I journal for my own sanity and use a similar practice of the “Morning Pages” from “The Artist’s Way.” I write ideas, thoughts, images, things I want to develop. For every character I play, I create a notebook with back stories, inner monologues, abstract ideas, and add to it over time. 3Poetry From MemoryIf I’m not on a job, I like to keep my brain sharp by memorizing a speech, a poem or a passage that I connect with. 6Nonfiction“Man’s Search for Meaning,” Bruce Lee’s “Striking Thoughts,” “Hardcore Zen,” “The Road Less Traveled.” “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” is what I’m reading now. 7Traveling in JapanKyoto is one of my favorite places — exploring temples, disconnecting from technology, going off the beaten path.

Persons: ”, Rudyard, “, Tom Radcliffe, ” Bruce Lee’s Organizations: ’, Riders, Raging Bulls Locations: Japan Kyoto

☆ Lexi Underwood Can Relate to ‘BoJack Horseman’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Kathryn Shattuck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Fun fact: We’re a day apart, our birthdays, so I used to say that we’re almost birthday twins. Being able to see his story told in that light on Broadway — I was so moved, and I keep going back and bringing people. That album, for me, symbolizes everything that it means to come of age — the heartbreak, the finding yourself. There’s a ramen spot that’s five minutes from my house that I honestly abuse the heck out of because I’m always over there. I feel like my friends are probably tired of me constantly suggesting to go get ramen when they ask what we want for lunch.

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