Drawing From Bob Dylan's Songbook, Learning Lessons in Mortality
Ordinarily, the actor-writer-musician Todd Almond is a pretty unflappable stage presence. But normal rules do not apply when you discover at intermission that Bob Dylan is in the audience of the performance you're giving of a musical that's saturated with his songs — and your harmonica solo is coming up.
'I don't know if you've ever panicked ,' Almond writes in his new book, 'Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan's 'Girl From the North Country' and Broadway's Rebirth.'
An oral history, it chronicles the journey of Conor McPherson's 'Girl From the North Country' from the Public Theater in 2018 to Broadway in 2020, then through the theater's traumatic pandemic shutdown to a restart in 2021 on a much more fragile Broadway. Rigorously footnoted, informed by interviews with fellow company members as well as industry figures, the book is shaped by Almond's own memories as a cast member making his Broadway debut.
Its publication dovetails with Audible's audio release of Almond's surreal, nearly solo musical 'I'm Almost There,' about one man's fear-filled, distraction-strewn path to love. Inspired by 'The Odyssey,' it had a limited run at the Minetta Lane Theater in Manhattan last fall, directed by David Cromer.
Earlier this month, Almond, 48, spoke by phone from his house on an island in Maine. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Image Almond, center, in the musical 'Girl From the North Country' at the Belasco Theater in Manhattan in 2020. Credit... Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
37 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
With federal employees under ‘grievous' threat, CIA office drama ‘The Agency' pushes back
The spy is the most devoted of employees. His or her line of work demands utter commitment, if not active contempt for the very concept of a 'personal life.' Cunningly, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth's 'The Agency' — a remake of the French series 'Le Bureau des Légendes'— pushes its central character to question that arrangement. Michael Fassbender stars as Martian, a CIA spy who's recalled to London after years of living deep undercover in Ethiopia. Once a free agent, he's now constrained by the rigid bureaucratic machinations of desk work and office politics, often pitting him against his boss, Henry Ogletree (Jeffrey Wright), and London Station bureau chief James 'Bosko' Bradley (Richard Gere). As escalating geopolitical tensions bubble up around them all — in Belarus, Sudan and beyond — Martian wonders what he might be willing to risk when his former lover, Samia Fatima Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith), reappears in his life. Stoic and self-aware, Fassbender's Martian is a slippery figure whose sense of self begins to unravel as the show's thrilling first season unfurls. 'He's really addicted to the juice of the job,' Fassbender tells The Times, sitting between Gere and Wright. 'That's where he gets his kicks from. He has this loving relationship that is the only real thing for him that will connect him to his humanity. But he's great at his job and he's kind of addicted to it. That's where I wondered, 'Does Bosko miss being out in the field?'' 'Oh, yeah,' Gere says, nodding. 'He does. He was good at it. It was the trench-warfare mentality of it. The danger. The addiction to the energy and the adrenaline of it. He's an alcoholic for it. They all are. There's no one who walks away from this safely.' The job of the actor is to reveal, that of the spy to withhold. It's why Gere pushed for Bosko to be even more of a cipher than he was on the page. 'I felt like I instinctively knew this guy,' Gere says, recalling his initial conversations with Joe Wright ('Atonement,' 'Darkest Hour'), who directed the first two episodes of the Paramount+ With Showtime series. 'We weren't totally on the same wavelength of who this character was. I think I was positing a more unknowable, nuanced character than he was. I even removed mentions of my own home life, of my backstory. 'It's in here,' he says, gesturing at his temples. 'I know it. And that's enough.' As the agency struggles to contain an increasingly volatile situation involving a missing asset on the front lines of Russia's war in Ukraine, the former field agents in London find that their preferred tactics can create friction in an office environment, where politicking requires a defter touch. 'For Martian, it's about being the sharp end of the stick and being out there,' Fassbender says. 'And being your own boss. Martian has an ego. He has his own set of rules. He does everything his own way.' Henry, in tweed suits and suitably nebbishy glasses, feels more like a company man than his two colleagues. Jeffrey Wright, an Emmy winner for 'Angels in America' in 2004, channeled the Washington, D.C., world he grew up in to create a portrait of a dutiful government employee. 'I have a great deal of respect for federal employees, particularly more so now in a time when they're under such grievous and biased attack,' Wright says. 'I think we conflate, at times, our criticism of the government with criticism that should be leveled at the politicians. But I have a great deal more respect for the people who go to work every day to be a part of the government than I do for many of the politicians who are playing theatrics in the public eye.' The London office where much of 'The Agency' takes place captures the contradictions of this contemporary espionage drama. With wall-to-wall windows that look out over the city — re-created on soundstages with the use of giant LED screens — and a glassed-in conference room at the heart of the floor, the environment itself suggests the possibility of omnipresent surveillance. The space reminds viewers and characters alike how precious and precarious privacy is in this world. Such immersion helped the trio of actors lose themselves in 'The Agency's' high-stakes workplace drama, where government secrets and transactional dynamics rule day-to-day operations. 'There's an argument to be made that the only time that you could unconsciously have an artistic experience with a piece is through architecture,' says Wright, 'walking through spaces where we're taking in this design but where we're not necessarily conscious of it. I was thinking about it in terms of what we do as actors, that we actually have an opportunity to experience art in a very intimate way, in a way that no other profession does. We get to live inside this literary experience and place ourselves inside of it.' It's not hard to see parallels between what agents like Martian go through when going deep undercover and what actors are called to do. Just don't ask Fassbender to be up for the job. 'It is terrifying, pretending to do this,' Fassbender points out. 'Constantly I'm thinking, 'Jesus, the reality of it is just terrifying.' And I would be so bad at it.'
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room Reopens at the Brooklyn Museum
The concept of rebirth is central to Buddhism, which teaches that every individual has more than one life. That also appears to be true of the Rubin Museum of Art, long one of New York City's prime locations for viewing Buddhist works. Although the institution closed its doors permanently in October 2024, one of its most cherished installations is taking on a new existence: The Rubin Museum Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room will reopen on Wednesday for a six-year stay at the Brooklyn Museum. The Shrine Room, which Holland Cotter, the chief art critic of The New York Times, once described as 'magnificent,' is now on the Brooklyn Museum's second floor, in its Arts of Asia Galleries, where it is like a darker jewel wedged among a series of modernist white boxes. Carefully reassembled to incorporate the same wooden posts and overhead beams as at the Rubin, the 400-square-foot enclosed space also includes the original's transparent glass doors, which both welcome in onlookers and gently seal them off from exterior noise. 'We didn't want the Shrine Room to be a thoroughfare,' Joan Cummins, the Brooklyn Museum's senior curator of Asian art, said in an interview at the site. Inside, the space looks as if it had been dropped in intact from a prosperous Tibetan home, featuring colorful thangkas, or scroll paintings, as well as elaborate decorations to welcome gods. Silver offering bowls and statues of deities in various metals sit atop painted furnishings, along with musical instruments — an elegant bell, a conch shell repurposed as a trumpet, Mongolian cymbals attached to flowing silk. One of many statues of deities in the Shrine Room is this 19th-century bejeweled copper and gold image of Ushnishavijaya, a goddess associated with long life. Credit... Guarionex Rodriguez for The New York Times Music infuses Tibetan Buddhist ritual, represented here by a pair of Mongolian cymbals from the 18th-19th centuries, attached to lengths of silk. Credit... Guarionex Rodriguez for The New York Times The faint scent of incense fills the air, along with the recorded chants of Buddhist monks and nuns. The Shrine Room invites visitors not just to gaze on more than 100 artifacts from nine centuries but also to sit on small stools and experience the space as a Tibetan family might: as a place for meditation or prayer, as a refuge from a fractious world. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Cole Escola Sets The Record Straight About Nicole Scherzinger Tonys Joke
Cole Escola is making it clear that a joke they made at this year's Tony Awards was not an intentional dig at Nicole Scherzinger. During Sunday night's ceremony, Cole picked up the award for Best Actor In A Play for their hit show Oh, Mary!. While they were speaking to the press backstage, the winner of Best Actress In A Musical was announced, and when it was revealed that Nicole was the recipient, they quipped: 'The speculating is over… four more years.' Cole Escola reacts to Nicole Scherzinger winning a Tony last night:'Four more years' — Pop Crave (@PopCrave) June 9, 2025 Many interpreted this as shade at Nicole, who last year found herself at the centre of backlash when she interacted with several social media posts that appeared to endorse Donald Trump (she later apologised 'for the hurt caused' by her social media activity, insisting that the 'many presumptions' that were 'being drawn' about her did not 'reflect who I am, what I stand for, or who l voted for'). Posting on their Instagram story on Tuesday night, Cole insisted: 'When I made that joke when I said, 'four more years, four more years', I meant it like, 'well, she won, she's who we've got for the next four years', as if I think winning Best Lead Actress In A Musical is the same as winning a presidential election.' In their signature semi-ironic style, they then remarked: 'But you know, people just want to pit us Broadway gals against each other. And I think it's sad. 'My only sort of beef right now is with Michael Arden [the director of Maybe Happy Ending, the top winner at this year's Tonys]. And I don't want to get into it, actually. But that story's going to break tomorrow.' Cole Escola explains their alleged joke about Nicole Scherzinger winning Best Leading Actress in a Musical at the Tony Awards — Portal Nicole Scherzinger (@PortalNicole) June 10, 2025 In her apology post last year, which came a week after the US presidential election – Nicole said: 'Many of the marginalised communities feeling hurt and concerned by the results of the presidential election are people I care about most. I stand with them, as I always have, throughout my life and career. If you know me, you know that.' The former Pussycat Dolls performer won her first Tony for her work as Norma Desmond in the revival of Sunset Boulevard, having already picked up an Olivier for her performance in the show's West End run last year. Show-Stoppers, Surprises And Sequins: 17 Unmissable Moments From This Year's Tony Awards Nicole Scherzinger Reacts To Backlash After Liking And Commenting On Pro-Trump Posts Nicole Scherzinger's Epic Oliviers Speech Included Tears, A Trip-Up And An Impressive Squat
