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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

☆ How Stephen King Got Under Their Skin
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-27 | by ( Scott Heller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

MartinAuthor, “A Song of Ice and Fire” seriesI am pretty sure I have read every one of Stephen King’s novels … and most of his short stories and novellas as well. “Pretty sure,” I said, rather than “completely sure.” King has written a lot of novels, and he writes them so fast that I might have missed one or two along the way. If so, it was only because of a lapse of attention, not a lack of interest. There are a handful of writers whose novels, once begun, cannot be put aside. They grab hold of you, and there’s nothing to be done but read, and read, and read, all night and all day, until the tale is done.

Persons: George R.R, Martin, Stephen King’s, ”, King, Kelly, Todd

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

☆ My First Trip to ‘Rubyfruit Jungle’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Trish Bendix | Scott Heller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The precocious and fearless protagonist of Rita Mae Brown’s 1973 novel “Rubyfruit Jungle” has served as a model of possibility for generations of young women, lesbians and outsiders of all kinds. Both of its time and ahead of it, “Rubyfruit Jungle” has inspired countless lives, works of art and Sapphic-themed spaces. Maybe just the first one toward whom I was evenly split between wanting and wanting to be — a category that only grew over time, and included heartthrobs of all genders. I read “Rubyfruit” over and over, starting around 11 or 12, still a couple of years out from my first kiss with a girl. I, too, wanted to hitch to New York where the other artists were, where the other queers lived.

Persons: Molly Bolt, Holden Caulfield, Rita Mae Brown’s, ”, Melissa Febos, Molly, Huck, Holden, Pip Organizations: Bantam Locations: New York

☆ 75 Years After ‘The Lottery’ Was Published, the Chills Linger
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Scott Heller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

David SedarisAuthor, “Happy-Go-Lucky”If I’m not mistaken, my seventh-grade teacher showed us the movie of “The Lottery” before having us read it, which is unfortunate. I remember sitting in the dark when it flickered to an end, completely destroyed. I reread “The Lottery” every few years and have listened to many audio versions, none of which get the last line right in my opinion (the closest is Maureen Stapleton for The Caedmon Short Story Collection). When I first read the story it seemed fresh — was fresh, I suppose, only 23 years old. I was a kid when I first read “The Lottery,” and a weird kid at that.

Persons: David Sedaris, I’m, Maureen Stapleton, Bobby, Dickie, Old Man Warner, “, ”, Rob Savage, Carmen Maria Machado, Shirley Jackson’s, …, ” — Organizations: Old Man, Lottery

☆ Surprises, snubs and a watershed moment that wasn’t.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Scott Heller | Alexis Soloski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Not everyone can wake up to good news on Tony nominations morning. Then again, with a panel of voters often un-wowed by celebrity, the roster typically turns up left-field choices and anoints young talent. But the Tony committee gave the show’s team something to laugh about, lavishing six nominations, including two for Cooper himself: best play and best featured actor in a play. Cooper, who portrayed a saucy airline hostess named Peaches, gave it his all, onstage and off: When the show’s sudden closing was first announced, he took to Instagram to rally audiences. Yet Tony voters passed on nominating Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan for their sexy, impassioned portrayals of a fraying couple in 1960s Greenwich Village.

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