Latest news with #JohnProctorIstheVillain
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
2025 Tony Awards: Who will win, who should win in a year with few sure things
Will Nicole Scherzinger, sizzling in 'Sunset Blvd.,' beat out Audra McDonald, who made Rose a metaphor for the tragic human condition? Could Jonathan Groff, a knockout Bobby Darin, win back-to-back kudos? Might Sadie Sink of 'John Proctor Is the Villain' be sunk by the wild-eyed Laura Donnelly of 'The Hills of California' or the ever-savvy Mia Farrow of 'The Roommate,' even though all three women played equally terrifying characters? These and many other questions will be answered on Sunday at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, where host Cynthia Erivo will present the 78th annual Tony Awards (beginning at 7 p.m. June 8 and broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+). The ceremony will be the climax of the 2024-25 Broadway season and the reason that several struggling musicals ('Real Women Have Curves,' 'Boop! The Musical') are hanging in there, hoping for a life-saving boost. Tony Award voters are casting their ballots. Let's look at who should be ascending to the dais in the traditional ebullient panic, holding back tears and staring into the camera to tell all the envious theater kids at home how you, too, can have all this if you only fight off the naysayers and follow your dreams! Right. Down to it. This one will be, and rightly should be, a runaway victory for 'Maybe Happy Ending,' a delightfully unnerving musical that most everyone on Broadway underestimated because it was an original love story between two retired South Korean 'helperbots.' To my mind, Will Aronson and Hue Park's quirky, charming little tuner succeeds mostly because of one small but pivotal idea: the notion that a robot's battery life can be a proxy for human mortality. Oliver and Claire fall in love as their percentages drop. Thus, the show manages to simultaneously tap into the fear we all have of an imminent robotic takeover (oh, it's coming) while avoiding the problem of making a dystopian musical. By making the robots as vulnerable as us, they forged a charming romantic comedy performed by Helen J. Shen (robbed of an acting nomination) and Darren Criss (who dove deep into robotland). The competition? Nothing credible. 'Buena Vista Social Club' is a very good time, musically speaking, but has a predictably formulaic book. The inventive 'Death Becomes Her' works just fine as a campy frolic but it relies much on its source movie. And 'Operation Mincemeat' is the most jolly of pastiches, rib-tickling fun all the way. Only 'Dead Outlaw' represents truly credible competition and deserves to siphon off some votes. But at the end of the day, it's a musical about a corpse. There were two excellent, Tony-worthy new plays in this Broadway season: Jez Butterworth's 'The Hills of California,' set in the British working-class resort of Blackpool, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' 'Purpose,' both a high-style dissection of the dysfunctional family of the civil rights icon Jesse Jackson and a moving exploration of what it's like to be an introverted kid in a high-pressure family. 'Purpose,' which is still running and more relevant to most Tony voters, is likely to win. But Butterworth's play forged a complex dramaturgical structure and explored deeply empathetic characters. Its central point? To explore how and why childhood trauma impacts our adulthoods. Butterworth has been writing plays a lot longer than Jacobs-Jenkins and his experience shows; I wanted the perfectly crafted 'Hills' to never end. Writer Kimberly Belflower's very lively 'John Proctor Is the Villain' might sneak in there, but I think that audiences at this drama about high schoolers studying 'The Crucible' are responding more to a brilliant production than to the play itself, which is at the end of the day a melodrama that relies on someone else's intellectual property. No shame there, but not the equal of the competition and, with much respect, nor is the very smart and potent 'English,' a show about ESL students that also leads to an inexorable conclusion matching the playwright's point of view. This category will hinge on how many voters embrace Jamie Lloyd's cleverly branded deconstruction of 'Sunset Blvd.' over George C. Wolfe's more nuanced approach to 'Gypsy.' In many ways, the two leading candidates represent a kind of yin and yang of musical revival. 'Sunset Blvd.' is showy and radical and replaced the gilded excess of the original production with an excess of concept, deceptively minimalist but only on the surface. Wolfe's 'Gypsy' aimed to excise the show of Patti LuPone-like drama. McDonald, who brought her classically trained voice to Rose, saw her antiheroine more as an everywoman and the production responded accordingly, as if Wolfe were trying to say that 'Gypsy' was the American tragic musical that few previously understood. I see the arguments against 'Sunset Blvd.' but in the end, Lloyd's staging was just so audaciously thrilling that it overcame them for me. As a director, he's obsessed with film, but then this is a musical about a movie star, so if ever there was a show that could stand such a metaphoric obsession, then here it was. And although this may seem counterintuitive, I thought 'Gypsy' missed the chance to stage this title with far more Black actors, allowing it to serve as a metaphor for the condition of Black entertainers in early 20th century America. It almost went there, but not quite. 2025 Tony Award nominations: Steppenwolf's 'Purpose' and 'Death Becomes Her' both score bigThis was not a stellar season for play revivals. 'Romeo + Juliet,' a pretentious and wildly uneven misfire, did not even remotely deserve its Tony nomination and, bracing moments notwithstanding, 'Our Town' was uneven and derivative of David Cromer's prior revival. 'Eureka Day,' a piece about pretentious pre-school parents and teachers, was an effective satire but hardly surprising. That leaves David Henry Hwang's 'Yellow Face,' an autobiographical piece about Hwang himself and a 'Miss Saigon' casting scandal. 'Yellow Face' has knocked around the American regions for years. But this was a truly excellent piece of new direction from Leigh Silverman and for the first time, the play transcended its inside-baseball orientation and had much to say about America and race. Team Nicole Scherzinger or Team Audra McDonald? Both deconstructed iconic characters (Norma Desmond and Madam Rose) using every ounce of their mutually formidable craft. With all due respect to McDonald, I'm Team Nicole because her work was the more radical of the two performances in rescuing Norma from bathetic senility and giving her back her sexuality, and because McDonald's tragic approach to Rose inevitably de-emphasized her chutzpah and self-aware vivacity which is much of why 'Gypsy' is 'Gypsy.' Still, no shame in being on the other team. It would feel strange for either Megan Hilty or Jennifer Simard to win for 'Death Becomes Her' at the expense of the other and I suspect Tony voters will feel the same way. But let's add some props for Jasmine Amy Rogers, truly a perfect Betty Boop who managed to turn a vampish cartoon figure into a complex and vulnerable heroine. If you judge a performance by pizzazz, charm and growing star power, Jonathan Groff is your winner for his dazzling take on Bobby Darin in 'Just in Time.' If immersion inside a character is your choice, you are choosing between Darren Criss for 'Maybe Happy Ending' and Andrew Durand in 'Dead Outlaw.' I thought Durand was just astonishing as the titular outlaw, whose corpse takes on an all-American trajectory of its own. Aside from the technical demands of playing a dead dude, Durand also nailed a guy with zero access to his own feelings. In other words, what he didn't do was probably as important as what he did. I preferred that to Jeremy Jordan in 'Floyd Collins', but I may be in a minority. And Tom Francis, who sings his way through Midtown eight times a week in 'Sunset Blvd.,' will have deserved support. Mia Farrow has acted only rarely in the past decade but her empathetic performance as a vegan, pot-growing Iowan in 'The Roommate' was a reminder of her astonishing ability to fuse what actors think of as externals and internals — her work felt deeply authentic but savvy observers also noted the sophistication of her comic technique and dramatic timing. Alas for Farrow, this is an extraordinary category and by far the most competitive at this year's Tony Awards. Take Sarah Snook, whose work in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' had not a single syllable out of place on the night I saw the show, notwithstanding the huge technical demands of a video-filled production that co-starred numerous versions of her recorded self. She's one of the world's great performers. Then there was the less-famous Laura Donnelly, who played a mother and (later) her adult daughter in 'The Hills of California,' all in service of the writer's point that we all eventually have to live the way we were raised. So distinct were these two characters that some punters in my row clearly did not know they were watching the same actress they'd seen in a different role just a few minutes before. Donnelly was at once empathetic and Medea-like in her intensity. We were supposed to be scared of both of Donnelly's characters and I swear I could not tell you which terrified me the most. Sadie Sink also has a lot of fans and that was indeed a savvy turn in 'John Proctor.' But this competition is between Snook and Donnelly and it was a hard choice for me. Donnelly haunts me the most. George Clooney is on the list of nominees and I hardly need to recount his formidable talents, but he was fundamentally filmic in 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' rather than truly translating his subtle version of Edward R. Murrow to a stage the size of the Winter Garden Theatre. So, with an additional nod of admiration to the delightfully quirky Louis McCartney, who managed to survive all of the crashes and bangs of 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow,' I preferred Jon Michael Hill, playing a young man born into a famous and famously dysfunctional Black political family even though he just wanted to take photographs and stay as far away as possible from his father and his actions. Hill was the most rooted actor in a stellar Steppenwolf Theatre production of 'Purpose.' But I suspect Cole Escola, the star of 'Oh, Mary!,' a silly but strikingly effective satire of Mary Todd Lincoln and her bearded spouse, who will take the prize. No complaints here. Escola hardly was subtle with a guileless, all-in performance that has been packing the house. It's a one of a kind show and that's its greatest selling point. But Escola also offers a clever commentary on present-day America, fueled by fun, freedom and frustration. What the Tony nominations got right — and wrongDavid Cromer's work on 'Dead Outlaw' was typically detailed and worthy and Christopher Gattelli wrangled 'Death Becomes Her' with witty aplomb, but 'Maybe Happy Ending' was an eye popping career-high for Michael Arden, who created the most romantic of dreamscapes and yet also insisted that the audience look precisely and only where the director wanted its eyes to be. Speaking of career highs, Danya Taymor convinced her youthful cast in 'John Proctor Is the Villain' that the stakes in this high school English class were a matter of life and death. Taymor has to compete with Kip Williams, who employed multiple screens and videographers in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' for what was more conceptual authorship than direction, and with Sam Mendes, whose mastery of the exquisite ensemble cast of 'The Hills of California' was formidable. Mendes has won many kudos; most Tony voters will want to reward Taymor, a rising talent. Fair enough. Last, here are my picks for the remaining acting categories.
Miami Herald
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Popular Tony-Nominated Broadway Play Receives Summer Extension
Earlier this year, playwright Kimberly Belflower took the theatrical world by storm with her brand-new Broadway play, John Proctor Is the Villain. Starring Stranger Things' Sadie Sink and an equally impressive array of younger theatrical performers, John Proctor Is the Villain has earned all-around fantastic reviews from critics, eventually securing a total of six Tony Award nominations (including Best Play, Best Direction, and Best Actress in a Play for Sink). Originally making its Broadway debut in March of this year, John Proctor Is the Villain has now extended its run by two-weeks, rounding out its tenure at the Booth Theatre on July 13 and giving dedicated theater fans some extra time to reserve their tickets for the praised production. Loosely centered around Arthur Miller's classic stage play The Crucible, John Proctor Is the Villain follows a group of contemporary high school students as they attempt to perform the play. As their production of the show gets underway, however, the students begin to grapple with the thematic subject matter of Miller's text, as well as the play's historical basis in the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. Originally staged in Washington, D.C. in summer 2022, John Proctor Is the Villain soon managed to make the jump to Boston and, eventually, Broadway in the ensuing years, acquiring increasingly glowing reviews from theater fans across the nation. Alongside the 23-year-old Sink -- who's best known for her roles in Stranger Things, The Whale and Fear Street -- John Proctor Is the Villain also stars notable Broadway talents Gabriel Ebert (Matilda the Musical), Molly Griggs (Hello, Dolly!), and Fina Strazza (Matilda the Musical). More recently, the play earned a total of six nominations at the upcoming 78th Tony Awards, including Best Play, Best Actress in a Play, Best Featured Actress (Strazza), Best Featured Actor (Ebert), Best Direction, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design in a Play. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘John Proctor Is the Villain' stars Sadie Sink and Fina Strazza, playwright Kimberly Belflower on reading ‘The Crucible' for the first time
'I hadn't read it since college,' says playwright Kimberly Belflower of Arthur Miller's iconic play The Crucible. She drew inspiration for John Proctor Is the Villain from that 1953 drama and found herself compelled to reread the work — an allegory of the McCarthy era in American politics told through the lens of the Salem Witch Trials — in 2017 at the height of the #MeToo movement. A comment by Woody Allen comparing the movement to a 'witch hunt' sparked the idea to revisit Miller's play because she says her 'brain just thinks in fiction.' Belflower recently sat down with Gold Derby and other journalists at the 2025 Tony Awards Meet the Nominees press event. Set in 2018 in a small town in Georgia, John Proctor Is the Villain centers on a group of high school juniors reading The Crucible in English class when accusations of sexual misconduct begin rippling through their community and hit extraordinary close to home. 'I don't know if I would have come to the same conclusions if I wasn't re-reading it in that exact moment in time,' Belflower observes of her reaction to The Crucible, adding, 'I love to revisit things over time because they have different resonances in our larger culture, but also in your own personal time.' She believes the play has been striking a chord with young theatergoers, especially young women, because 'it's a play that takes young girls seriously and recognizes them as the smart, multidimensional people that they are, and gives them the space to be vulnerable and messy and ugly and weird.' More from GoldDerby What happens in the 'Andor' finale, and how it leads into 'Rogue One' 'Every actor likes to play a villain': Ron Howard on playing himself in 'The Studio' Krysten Ritter is returning as Jessica Jones in 'Daredevil: Born Again' Season 2 Belflower leaves the door open to reworking more Arthur Miller plays, too. 'There have been so many women playwrights who have been re-examining Miller. There's Eleanor Burgess' Wife of a Salesman. Most recently I saw the Bushwick Starr production of Julia May Jonas' A Woman Among Women, which is re-examining All My Sons," says Belflower. "Both of those, it legit makes me want to go back and reread a lot of Arthur Miller.' Unlike Belflower, John Proctor featured actress Fina Strazza had never read Miller's play as a student. While she first dove into the text to prepare to star in Belflower's work, the new play didn't influence her take on the original material. The actress, who made her Broadway debut in Matilda at eight years old, told Gold Derby, 'Even though our show has a very assertive, direct title proclaiming that John Proctor is the villain, it's really just encouraging people to re-examine historical texts and allow different perspectives, and maybe open yourself up to the possibility that the people you think are heroes might have some flaws as well.' Strazza, who plays the unflinchingly thorough, star pupil Beth in the production, adds, 'I've re-read it a few times and found different heroes and different villains. I like to think that Elizabeth Proctor is the hero of that story.' SEE Sadie Sink on her character's 'emotional rage' in 'John Proctor Is the Villain' and her reaction to 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' When Gold Derby interviewed Sadie Sink last month, the Stranger Things and The Whale actress recalled reading The Crucible in high school but admits, 'I was just trying to make it through the year honestly. It was mostly about getting it done.' The stage veteran of Annie and The Audience knew she wanted to return to the stage after her recent film and television work and said, "When John Proctor came along, it just felt like it was something that spoke to me but also could really matter and felt like really important work that needed to be shared on the biggest scale possible, and I didn't know that meant Broadway at the time.' John Proctor Is the Villain is the most Tony-nominated Broadway play of the season with seven citations. In Gold Derby's latest odds, the drama ranks second in Best Play and could be a challenger to the frontrunner Oh, Mary! The play also ranks second in the all-important Best Director category for Danya Taymor, who pulled off an unexpected victory last year in the musical director category for her work on The Outsiders. Elsewhere, the play ranks third in Featured Actress for Strazza, Featured Actor for Gabriel Ebert, and Sound Design, and fourth for lead actress Sink and in Lighting Design. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Sadie Sink on her character's 'emotional rage' in 'John Proctor Is the Villain' and her reaction to 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' 'It should be illegal how much fun I'm having': Lea Salonga on playing Mrs. Lovett and more in 'Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends' 'Death Becomes Her' star Jennifer Simard is ready to be a leading lady: 'I don't feel pressure, I feel joy' Click here to read the full article.
Los Angeles Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The playwright who cracked open ‘The Crucible' with ‘John Proctor Is the Villain'
New York — 'John Proctor Is the Villain,' the title of Kimberly Belflower's Tony-nominated play, has a strong polemical ring. Before seeing the work, I assumed that the author was picking a fight with Arthur Miller, whose play 'The Crucible' immortalized the historical figure of John Proctor as a conscience-stricken hero. Belflower began the play as the #MeToo movement was gaining momentum, but she has too much humor and sympathy to write a programmatic screed. Her drama is not only much more subtle; it is also a good deal more surprising. The production at the Booth Theatre, directed by Danya Taymor and starring Sadie Sink from Netflix's 'Stranger Things,' casts a mysterious spell that I'm still processing a month later. Set in a cheery high school classroom in small town Georgia, the play tracks students as they tackle Miller's 'The Crucible' with their charismatic teacher, Mr. Smith (played to perfection by Gabriel Ebert), during the spring semester of their junior year. As the five young women in the class reflect on Miller's play about the 1692 witch trials in Salem, Mass., an allegory for the anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era, they begin to depart from the standard interpretation that minimizes the experiences of the female characters. Don't be fooled by the school setting: There's nothing academic about 'John Proctor Is the Villain.' The students, who include two teenage boys, are too spirited to fall in line with the received wisdom of their teacher, whose own character comes under critical scrutiny along with that of Miller's Proctor as the students begin sharing private experiences that shed light on the hypocrisies of the adult world. (A school counselor, still finding her feet, has her hands full.) Sink plays Shelby, the radical in the class with a reputation for trouble. She's been mysteriously absent, but when she returns in a blaze of red hair and rebellious fury, she challenges the other girls to rethink not only what they know about literature but also about what they understand about themselves. The play reaches a climax that, echoing feverish events in 'The Crucible,' explodes in a burst of interpretive dancing to Lorde's 'Green Light.' Trust me, no matter how many times you've heard this hit single, you've never experienced it quite like this. The effect, which spoke to a different part of my brain than is usually accessed in the theater, communicated something profound about gender politics — and not in intellectual abstractions but in the liberated movement of defiant bodies and souls. The idea for the play came to Belflower shortly after she received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017. That summer she read Stacy Schiff's book 'The Witches: Salem, 1692,' which expanded the historical context that Miller's play selectively draws on. 'I'm always interested in things that broaden the lens that we're already given,' Belflower said during an interview in Midtown Manhattan, not far from the theater. 'A lot of Shelby's arguments about the girls in Miller's play having PTSD from the assaults that were so rampant in the town were things that I learned from that book. I was just blown away by the way [Schiff] reframed a moment that I thought I understood.' But something even more momentous was about to shift the playwright's frame of reference. 'That fall, the tidal wave of #MeToo broke,' Belflower said, pointing to the allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein that were published in the New York Times and the New Yorker in October 2017. 'Like a lot of people I know, especially women, I was really consumed by every new allegation. I started looking back at my own adolescence and young adulthood with a new vocabulary. And I was like, 'Oh, that wasn't just like a weird moment. That was this. That guy wasn't just creepy.' ' A BBC interview with Woody Allen, in which he called the #MeToo movement a witch hunt, was a eureka moment for Belflower. 'Since I was a kid, I've always tried to make sense of the world around me through the books I read and the culture I consume,' she said. 'And so I reread 'The Crucible,' which is like the most famous work of art about witch hunts.' Returning to Miller's classic at this cultural turning point left her with a starkly different impression of John Proctor. The imperfect protagonist of 'The Crucible' takes a heroic stand against the mass hysteria that is turning his Salem neighbors viciously against one another. But his own adulterous misdeeds and patriarchal presumptions make him vulnerable to critiques that extend beyond the scope of Miller's drama. 'We talked a lot in our rehearsal process that multiple things can be true,' Belflower said. 'I think John Proctor is a good man and does all of these incredible moral things. But this other thing is also true. He was awful to every woman in the play.' Belflower, a Georgia native who teaches at Emory University, has a quick mind and a gracious Southern manner. There was no trace of the ideologue as she harked back to the origins of 'John Proctor Is the Villain.' 'Because I had been looking back on my own formative years through the lens of #MeToo and because I first read 'The Crucible' in high school, I was like, 'Wow, I am 30 and I don't recognize my life and the world around me through this movement. What would it be like to be coming of age at this moment? What would it be like to be a 16-year-old?' So that's kind of how it all swirled around.' 'John Proctor,' which has received numerous college productions, is the rare case of a campus hit becoming a New York sensation. As Belflower was commenting on her play's unusual path to Broadway, Taymor arrived to join the conversation. It was just after 9 a.m., and the in-demand director was on a tight schedule. A day of auditions for the tour of 'The Outsiders,' the Tony-winning musical that earned her a Tony Award for her direction, awaited her. Although she was catapulted into the spotlight for a musical, Taymor, who happens to be the niece of Tony-winning director Julie Taymor, has an impressive track record of collaborating with boldly innovative playwrights, among them Will Arbery, Jeremy O. Harris, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu and Martyna Majok. 'The majority of my career has been working on new plays by new writers,' she said. The only dead playwright I've ever directed is Beckett, but I tried to treat 'Endgame' like a new play too. I even treated 'The Outsiders' like a new play. Part of the reason the musical made sense for me is that I'm a rhythm-focused director. I think about the cadence of a particular writer's style, and the way a play should feel in the mouths and in the bodies of the performers.' This heightened acoustical sense drew Taymor to Belflower's play. 'Kimberly's rhythm on the page is so clear,' she said. 'The line breaks, the beats, the pauses — to me, that is like music. I do tell the cast of 'John Proctor' that they're a nine-piece orchestra and that there are all these different variations on how they play together.' Commissioned by Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project and developed with Centre College, Rollins College and Furman University, 'John Proctor' was part of the 2019 Ojai Playwrights Conference's New Works Festival. Times culture critic Mary McNamara wrote a column about how this play about John Proctor and #MeToo cured her of her aversion to theatrical works-in-progress. Before the pandemic, Belflower and Taymor had discussed working together on the play's first production. Schedules didn't align, and then the COVID-19 shutdown happened. 'John Proctor' had its world premiere at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 2022. Taymor assumed that she had missed her chance. But then Sink, who was looking to do something on stage, read the play and opportunity knocked again. 'Sadie, her people and the producers were like, 'We think Danya Taymor would be great for this,' ' Belflower recalled. 'And I'm like, 'Wow, yeah, me too!' So it was like witchcraft.' It would be hard to imagine a more well-tuned cast than the one Taymor assembled. Sink, Ebert and Fina Strazza, who plays Beth, the eager-beaver of the class, all received Tony nominations. Sink is up for lead actress in a play, in a performance of fiery vulnerability. But it's a true ensemble production. 'Sadie read this play and activated this moment of its life,' Taymor said. 'She wanted to lend her power to something new on Broadway. Sadie is incredible as an actor and a company leader and someone who is just so humble and grounded in the group.' Although posing a revisionist challenge to 'The Crucible,' 'John Proctor' received the blessing of the Arthur Miller estate. It's a testament to the playwright's long history of defending free speech and artistic freedom. 'The agent who represents the estate read the play and really got what I was going for,' Belflower said. 'My play is not going to knock 'The Crucible' off its pedestal. It's a great play. I love 'The Crucible.' I love Arthur Miller, and my play is not going to do anything to his legacy. If you're in the canon and the work is strong and belongs there, then it should be able to withstand questioning and prodding and widening. So I think that the estate has really smart people.' 'The Crucible' is particularly resonant at a time when self-censorship is on the rise in America and dissent can be grounds for deportation. I'll admit that I felt slightly protective of the play until I saw 'John Proctor.' Belflower isn't out to cancel 'The Crucible.' She trying to deepen the conversation with an undisputed American classic. 'I've been asked if this is my Arthur Miller hit piece,' Belflower said. 'Why would I want to spend years of my life trying to make something in conversation with something that I hate? That sounds miserable.' The anti-woke brigade naturally assumes that this is just another play about toxic white masculinity. But to that reductive objection, Belflower has a polite retort: 'OK, but look at the history.' 'Some of the characters who do the worst things in the play are the characters with these redeeming qualities that you fall in love with,' Taymor said. 'What do we do when it's not a 'monster'? Some people want to reject the question. Some are willing to wrestle with it.' 'John Proctor' may sound like a relentlessly disputatious drama, but it's a deeply emotional work. I found myself overcome with tears at the end, not knowing how the play had such a devastating effect on me. The ideas that are debated represent only one level of the theatrical experience. On another plane is the lived reality of the young women who are learning painful truths about sexual politics as they come of age in a world that is still prone to discount them. Their maturing bodies are keeping the score. And here is where New Zealand pop star Lorde comes in. 'Green Light' fuels the play's climax. Sink's Shelby and another student (played by Amalia Yoo) present their class project deconstructing the oppressive social forces driving Abigail and the other women of 'The Crucible' to perform forbidden rituals in the woods. The dance sequence that caps off the report, giving expression to centuries of female trauma and rebellion, takes us into a realm beyond words that likely would have terrorized the anxious men of 1692 Salem. How did they obtain Lorde's permission? 'Oh my God, it was cosmic,' Taymor said. 'Kimberly really wrote the most amazing letter to her.' 'My publisher was approaching her publisher, and I was sure my letter won't even make it to her but I wrote it just in case,' Belflower said. 'It was never like they dance to a song. It was always that song. And so I was like, 'This is what your song means to me. This is what your song means to these characters. This is the moment in the play that it happens. This is what they're doing. This is what I feel you're doing. This is why it has to be. And this is what this play is. And I'm legit, I promise.' ' In a case of game recognizing game, Lorde said yes. And the result is one of the most surprising and moving Broadway dramas in recent memory.
Observer
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
'Maybe Happy Ending' and 'Death Becomes Her' lead 2025 Tony nominations
Broadway musicals "Maybe Happy Ending," "Buena Vista Social Club" and "Death Becomes Her" led the tally of Tony Award nominations, each with 10, when they were announced on Thursday ahead of the June 8 awards ceremony. The 78th annual Tony Award nominations, celebrating the best in Broadway theater, reflect a season shaped by unique storytelling and genre experimentation with new works that push boundaries in form, subject and perspective. Previous Tony Award winners Sarah Paulson and Wendell Pierce announced the awards. "Maybe Happy Ending' is a story about obsolete robots in a futuristic Seoul; "Buena Vista Social Club' brings the iconic Cuban musical collective's story to the stage, and "Death Becomes Her' is based on a dark comedy film. In the Best Play category, nominees include "John Proctor Is the Villain,' which draws on "The Crucible' to examine teenage self-discovery in the #MeToo era; "Oh, Mary!,' the much-talked-about satirical reimagining of Mary Todd Lincoln's personal life, by Cole Escola, who is also nominated as its star; and "The Hills of California' by Jez Butterworth, a family drama set in a declining British seaside town. Notable revivals nominated are "Gypsy,' "Sunset Blvd.,' and "Our Town.' Some of this season's Hollywood heavyweights were also nominated, including George Clooney in his Broadway debut in "Good Night, and Good Luck'; Sarah Snook, who plays more than two dozen characters in the one-woman reimagination of "The Picture of Dorian Gray' and Sadie Sink in "John Proctor Is the Villain.' But high-priced "Othello,' starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, was completely left out of the nominations. Leading acting nominations in musicals include Jonathan Groff for his performance as Bobby Darin in "Just in Time'; six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald in the legendary role of Mama Rose in the revival of "Gypsy'; and Nicole Scherzinger in a much-lauded performance as fading movie star Norma Desmond in "Sunset Blvd.' Directing nominations for musicals include Michael Arden for "Maybe Happy Ending' and Jamie Lloyd for "Sunset Blvd.' and Sam Mendes for "The Hills of California' and Danya Taymor for "John Proctor Is the Villain.' Special awards have been announced ahead of the ceremony. Harvey Fierstein will receive the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, and Celia Keenan-Bolger will be honored with the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for her advocacy work through the arts. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on Sunday, June 8, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. This year's awards will be hosted by Oscar-winner "Wicked' star Cynthia Erivo. —Reuters
