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Chicago Tribune
02-05-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Man sentenced for girl shot while crossing the street with her mother in Little Village
Good afternoon, Chicago. A judge sentenced a man to 20 years in prison today after he pleaded guilty to murder in the 2022 slaying of an 8-year-old girl who was shot while crossing the street with her mother in Little Village. Xavier Guzman pleaded guilty in 2023, but received his punishment after the case against his co-defendant, Emilio Corripio, 20, resolved with a guilty plea in March. On Jan. 22, 2022, Melissa Ortega walked hand-in-hand with mother around West 26th Street and South Pulaski Road when, according to prosecutors, Corripio fired shots after seeing a gang rival flash a hand sign. Corripio then got into a car driven by Guzman to buy sandwiches and drinks without 'a care in the world,' prosecutors said at a 2022 hearing. Then 16 and on juvenile probation, Corripio was a self-admitted member of the Latin Kings who opened fire in broad daylight at rival Two-Six gang members. He hit his target, but he also shot Melissa in the head. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Plainfield man sentenced to 53 years in prison for hate crime that left 6-year-old Palestinian American boy dead A Will County landlord was sentenced 53 years in prison Friday for the murder of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and the attempted murder of the boy's mother in October 2023, an attack a jury found to be a hate crime spurred by the war in Gaza. Read more here. Elgin mayor says he doesn't support closing $1.2M budget hole by swapping state grocery tax for local one As communities around the state debate whether to replace the state's soon-to-end grocery tax with one of their own, Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain said he's not in favor of the swap to fill the $1.2 million budget gap the tax loss will create. Read more here. The 1st Negro National League game was played 105 years ago today — and Chicago played a part It was a long fight for Black baseball players to be treated with respect. We see the results of that battle for athletic equality today, and Chicago was involved in a turning point more than a century ago. Read more here. More top sports stories: What the Tony nominations got right — and wrong Pity poor Jake Gyllenhaal. Rich, original and cliché-free, his riveting, Tony Award-worthy Iago was, in fact, as dynamic and distinctive a Shakespearean performance as Broadway has seen in years. And yet the show that surrounded him, 'Othello' starring Denzel Washington, was so otherwise dismal that Tony nominators could not see beyond the noise and confusion to find the one living, breathing reason to spend the big bucks at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. A cautionary tale: Do great work in a bad production and Tony nominators likely will pass you by. But the reverse can be true, too. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: Lucy Dacus at the Chicago Theatre: Understated and personal to the point of feeling muted Ruth Buzzi, comedy sketch player on groundbreaking series 'Laugh-In,' dies at 88 Prince Harry loses appeal to restore his UK government-funded security detail Drones strike ship carrying aid to Gaza, organizers say Drones attacked a vessel carrying aid to Gaza while it was in international waters off Malta on Friday, the group organizing the shipment said. A fire broke out but was brought under control, according to authorities. Read more here.
Chicago Tribune
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
What the Tony nominations got right — and wrong
Pity poor Jake Gyllenhaal. Rich, original and cliché-free, his riveting, Tony Award-worthy Iago was, in fact, as dynamic and distinctive a Shakespearean performance as Broadway has seen in years. And yet the show that surrounded him, 'Othello' starring Denzel Washington, was so otherwise dismal that Tony nominators could not see beyond the noise and confusion to find the one living, breathing reason to spend the big bucks at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. A cautionary tale: Do great work in a bad production and Tony nominators likely will pass you by. But the reverse can be true, too. The number one reason the Tony-nominated 'Maybe Happy Ending, ' a sweet and deeply thoughtful romance between two retired robots, was such a sleeper hit was the achingly vulnerable performance of Helen J. Shen. Guess who did not get a Tony nomination. Darren Criss was impressive in that show, too, but his was a stylized and somewhat self-protected performance that relied on his well-honed technique. Playing a robot with abandonment issues, Shen laid out her heart at the Belasco Theatre. There's no question Nicole Scherzinger produced the most astonishing musical performance of the Broadway season. But the second best? Shen's work, for sure. Pity David Foster, too. Here you have an enormously accomplished, 75-year-old composer — 16 Grammy Awards, co-writing credits on megahits like Earth Wind and Fire's 'After the Love Has Gone,' Whitney Houston's 'I Have Nothing' and Chicago's 'Hard to Say I'm Sorry,' to name but three — who dreamed up a delightful and fully accessible score for 'Boop! The Musical.' This lush, dreamy and string-heavy affair is so instantly pleasing to the ear that director Jerry Mitchell is able to persuade the audience to enthusiastically sing along with a number, 'Why Look Around the Corner,' they'd heard for the first time just a few minutes earlier. Foster, who also penned one of the season's best new songs in 'Where I Wanna Be,' lost out on the nomination list to the cheerfully rudimentary score for 'Real Women Have Curves.' I doubt many who had been in that show's audience could tell you the name of a single song one day later. But Foster, a Canadian who has worked mostly in Hollywood, has never been a Broadway insider and no nomination came for him. An egregious omission. 'Death Becomes Her' is a very entertaining show, score included, but it's a lively pastiche. The music in 'Boop!' is far superior to that, too. Tony nominations are complicated affairs: Since the competitive field is different in every category, some illogicalities are inevitable. Director David Cromer's work on 'Good Night, and Good Luck' was far more complex, and yet more impressive, than his work on 'Dead Outlaw,' a fine and worthy show but very much in his pre-existing wheelhouse. The Tony nomination went to the wrong one; the same was true for lighting designer Heather Gilbert, whose work on the George Clooney CBS studio extravaganza was simply astonishing. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' 'Purpose' rightly enjoyed many nominations, but the most complicated performance on that stage, the one from Alana Arenas, was missed. And both Michael McKean and Bill Barr were better than Bob Odenkirk in 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' which is no knock on Odenkirk; he just wasn't cast in the best role for him. To their credit, the Tony nominators did indeed nominate the best five new plays of the year, and I have few quibbles with nominators' choices for best leading actor and actress in either play or musical. It was good to see Danya Taymor nominated for her remarkable direction of 'John Proctor is the Villain,' a work of such craft that she made a mostly predictable and overpraised play feel exciting and spontaneous. Precisely how Brooks Ashmanskas could be considered a featured performer in 'Smash,' — despite seeming to be present at every moment in a problematic musical he basically held together by sheer force of personality — is a mystery to me. But he deserves some nod for that feat of endurance, anyway. Nominators flipped far more than me for 'Buena Vista Social Club,' a formulaic musical in every way except for the excitement generated by its music. And while I greatly enjoyed 'Death Becomes Her,' a show that survived a very quiet change in its lead producer, its whopping 10 nominations perhaps go too far. Award slates are always going to start arguments, of course. But the painful truth in a spring where few of the new musicals are grossing enough to cover their weekly running costs is that shows beyond the Best Musical nominees are going to struggle to survive the summer. We'll have to see how much audiences agree with the Tony nominations; sometimes they pick different favorites. Originally Published: May 2, 2025 at 10:47 AM CDT
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Tony Awards just sent a clear message to Hollywood A-listers on Broadway
We don't care how big you are. That's the statement the Tony Awards sent to Hollywood's elite on Thursday when it snubbed movie royalty like Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kieran Culkin, and Robert Downey Jr. in the Broadway awards nominations. Instead, the 54 members of the Tony nomination committee mostly stuck with stage veterans, like Audra McDonald (who set a new record as the most-nominated performer in the awards' history), Jonathan Groff, and Kara Young. The major outlier in this theme was perhaps the biggest star of them all, George Clooney, who did earn a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for his part in Good Night, and Good Luck. The normally silver fox dyed his hair a greasy, artificial brown to play journalist Edward R. Murrow in the stage adaptation of the 2005 film, which he also co-wrote, directed and starred in. The play, running at the Winter Garden Theatre, has been duking it out with Washington and Gyllenhaal's Othello (Ethel Barrymore Theatre) each week for box office dominance. First, Othello broke the record for highest weekly gross (earning $2.8 million), then Good Night smashed it with $3.3 million. The mind-boggling figures start to add up when one considers the average ticket price of $302.07. Just minutes after the Tony Award nominations were announced, Othello announced it had recouped its entire investment after just nine weeks on Broadway — an unheard-of achievement. Capitalized for up to $9 million, the show is now the highest-grossing play revival in history. However, commercial success has not translated into critical acclaim. Both Good Night and Othello earned mixed reviews from critics, and the latter was entirely shut out of the Tonys. Of course, some A-list stars turning in top-notch performances were, rightfully, recognized. Sadie Sink, Mia Farrow, and Sarah Snook will go head-to-head-to-head in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category, but they'll square off against stage vets LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Laura Donnelly for the trophy, which will be handed out June 8 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in a ceremony hosted by Tony, Grammy, and Emmy winner Cynthia Erivo. In an industry that has struggled to regain its footing after the Covid pandemic, celebrities have provided a welcome boost, drawing tourists and their wallets to Broadway. In recent years, big names — like Rachel McAdams, Sean Hayes, and Billy Crystal — have often been recognized at the Tonys. Whereas this year, the vast majority of TV and film celebrities who took their talents to Broadway during the 2024-2025 season were snubbed; among them, Nick Jonas starring in The Last Five Years, Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher in Left on Tenth, Jim Parsons and Katie Holmes in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in the Romeo + Juliet revival. Celebrities in theater is a contentious topic for actors who have spent their lives pounding the pavement, only to have their careers upended by a pandemic and jobs taken away by big names in its aftermath. This year, the Tonys appears to be sending those actors a message: We're with you. Take McDonald, for example, who has won six trophies in her illustrious career and could easily take home a seventh for her gut-wrenching take on Rose in Gypsy. Young also made history with her fourth consecutive nomination in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play category. She was recognized for playing a single mother in Clyde's and a caregiver in Cost of Living before finally taking home the trophy last year for her work as the scheming Lutiebelle in Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch. This year, she is back in the running for her performance as the lively dinner guest Aziza in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' satire of the Black political elite, Purpose. Young's consistent excellence across such a varied selection of plays marks her out as exactly the sort of home-grown star the Tonys love to reward. This year's nominations underline that message: on Broadway, it's about the best, not the biggest.
The Independent
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal leave critics underwhelmed in Broadway Shakespeare adaptation
Broadway 's revival of Shakespeare's Othello has received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom have taken issue with the modernization of the production. Set in the 'near future,' Othello is led by Hollywood heavyweights Denzel Washington as the titular commanding warrior-general and Jake Gyllenhaal as his ambitious lieutenant Iago. 'Spurned for promotion, Iago's relentless quest for vengeance against Othello and his wife, Desdemona (portrayed by Molly Osborne), plunges them into a shocking web of deception and betrayal,' according to an official logline. With only a 15-week run, the show, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon and taking place at Ethel Barrymore Theatre, has already broken box office records to become the highest-grossing Broadway play ever, raking in $2.8 million in previews in a single week. Despite movie stars Washington and Gyllenhaal being lauded for their performances, the revival hasn't totally landed with critics. 'Given the visibly well-heeled nature of the audience at the performance I attended, and the slick, contemporary attire used in Kenny Leon's production, as designed by Dede Ayite, I felt at times like I was watching an immersive, militarized version of Billions, or Succession,' Chris Jones wrote for New York Daily News. Jones found that casting 70-year-old Washington opposite Osborne, 27, as Othello's lover Desdemona, created more of a 'paternalistic' dynamic. 'You don't feel much of a sexual connection between Othello and Desdemona,' he added, which he said 'fights the play.' The New York Times 's Jesse Green, meanwhile, hailed Gyllenhaal's 'eely take' on Iago, arguing that 'this Othello offers an Iago far more legible than his master.' Green additionally took issue with 'Leon's decision to set the action 'in the near future,'' adding: 'In short, as I felt the production's blunt force more and more, I grasped its aura and aims less and less.' Deadline 's Greg Evans also found the modernizing premise unfortunate, writing that it 'seriously impacts the emotional punch of the ending.' As for the acting, he found Washington's performance to be 'fine, a bit unsure of his characterization occasionally and fitful in his mood shifts.' However, Evans applauded Gyllenhaal, saying: 'Gyllenhaal grabs hold and never lets go, reciting his lines with all the modern-day suavity, earnestness and, when necessary, crocodile tears to fill up the Barrymore's massive stage.' For AMNY, Matt Windman had a far more withering take on the overall production. 'It's okay, at best — a pedestrian, cheap-looking, uninspired, forgettable staging,' he added, opining that 'a major problem is Washington's half-baked performance.' 'While he is fine at first as a stately military leader and relaxed new husband, he does not credibly convey the character's transformation into mad jealousy and suspicion, reducing it to something vaguely kooky and unthreatening,' Windman critiqued of Washington's Othello. He found Gyllenhaal to be a 'capable and physical Iago,' though he thought 'his attempts to depict the character as unsure and vulnerable during private soliloquies are unconvincing.' Othello runs now through July 8 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway.
The Independent
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Hollywood powerhouses Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal leave critics underwhelmed in Broadway Shakespeare adaptation
Broadway 's revival of Shakespeare's Othello has received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom have taken issue with the modernization of the production. Set in the 'near future,' Othello is led by Hollywood heavyweights Denzel Washington as the titular commanding warrior-general and Jake Gyllenhaal as his ambitious lieutenant Iago. 'Spurned for promotion, Iago's relentless quest for vengeance against Othello and his wife, Desdemona (portrayed by Molly Osborne), plunges them into a shocking web of deception and betrayal,' according to an official logline. With only a 15-week run, the show, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon and taking place at Ethel Barrymore Theatre, has already broken box office records to become the highest-grossing Broadway play ever, raking in $2.8 million in previews in a single week. Despite movie stars Washington and Gyllenhaal being lauded for their performances, the revival hasn't totally landed with critics. 'Given the visibly well-heeled nature of the audience at the performance I attended, and the slick, contemporary attire used in Kenny Leon's production, as designed by Dede Ayite, I felt at times like I was watching an immersive, militarized version of Billions, or Succession,' Chris Jones wrote for New York Daily News. Jones found that casting 70-year-old Washington opposite Osborne, 27, as Othello's lover Desdemona, created more of a 'paternalistic' dynamic. 'You don't feel much of a sexual connection between Othello and Desdemona,' he added, which he said 'fights the play.' The New York Times 's Jesse Green, meanwhile, hailed Gyllenhaal's 'eely take' on Iago, arguing that 'this Othello offers an Iago far more legible than his master.' Green additionally took issue with 'Leon's decision to set the action 'in the near future,'' adding: 'In short, as I felt the production's blunt force more and more, I grasped its aura and aims less and less.' Deadline 's Greg Evans also found the modernizing premise unfortunate, writing that it 'seriously impacts the emotional punch of the ending.' As for the acting, he found Washington's performance to be 'fine, a bit unsure of his characterization occasionally and fitful in his mood shifts.' However, Evans applauded Gyllenhaal, saying: 'Gyllenhaal grabs hold and never lets go, reciting his lines with all the modern-day suavity, earnestness and, when necessary, crocodile tears to fill up the Barrymore's massive stage.' For AMNY, Matt Windman had a far more withering take on the overall production. 'It's okay, at best — a pedestrian, cheap-looking, uninspired, forgettable staging,' he added, opining that 'a major problem is Washington's half-baked performance.' 'While he is fine at first as a stately military leader and relaxed new husband, he does not credibly convey the character's transformation into mad jealousy and suspicion, reducing it to something vaguely kooky and unthreatening,' Windman critiqued of Washington's Othello. He found Gyllenhaal to be a 'capable and physical Iago,' though he thought 'his attempts to depict the character as unsure and vulnerable during private soliloquies are unconvincing.'
