Latest news with #MetropolitanBalletTheatre
Sydney Morning Herald
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
From Gilmore Girls to Mrs Maisel: How one woman perfected comfort TV
No one makes TV like Amy Sherman-Palladino. Since the start of the century, she's created warmly welcoming, female-focused series about wonderfully eccentric communities. They have a distinctive look and sound. Whip-smart dialogue is delivered at screwball-comedy speed. Conversations between characters, typically loaded with pop-culture references, bounce back and forth like verbal ping-pong. Episodes are rich with lush colour and distinguished by a shooting style that frequently favours extended, elaborately choreographed camerawork. In her sunny fictional worlds, there are no mutilated bodies, missing children or rampaging creatures. She produces comfort TV of the best kind: not mushy, bland or glib, but happily surprising, like big bowls of festive bonbons. And fun. Chicken-soup-for-the-soul stuff. Loading A writer, producer, director and showrunner who works with her writer-producer-director husband, Daniel Palladino, ASP has given us Gilmore Girls (2000-07); its 2016 sequel Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life; Bunheads (2012); and her masterwork The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (2017-23). In 2018, with Mrs Maisel, she became the first woman to win Emmys in the comedy writing and directing categories. Now there's Etoile, a culture-clash comedy about a couple of elite ballet companies struggling with rising costs and declining audiences whose managers hatch a scheme to generate publicity and reignite interest in their endangered art form. For one year, the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre in New York, run by Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby, Mrs Maisel's Lenny Bruce) and Le Ballet National in Paris, managed by interim director Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), will swap stars. Famously fiery Parisian etoile (star) Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge) will endeavour to put aside her contempt for American food, coffee and culture to headline productions in New York, while young ballerina Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo) will reluctantly return home to France, miserably clutching a plush toy of a bagel. ASP's series are invariably celebrations of their communities, whether it's the cozy east-coast town of Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls, the Californian coastal hamlet of Paradise on Bunheads or the Manhattan of Mrs Maisel, with its clubs, theatres, diners and delis. Consistent through them is her fondness for smart, feisty and sometimes spiky female protagonists, as well as an affection for tetchy, formidable older women such as Gilmore Girls' Emily and Bunheads' Fanny (both played by Kelly Bishop). Now comes Bruna (Marie Berto), Cheyenne's mother, a woman of few gruff words who wears a workman's uniform and tinkers with goodness-knows-what in her trash-and-treasure-filled apartment. Ballet also features regularly in ASP's productions: while Etoile focuses on a pair of prestige companies, Bunheads is largely set in a small home-based ballet school, and one of the cornerstones of Stars Hollow is Miss Patty's School of Ballet. Showbiz is in Sherman-Palladino's blood. Her father was a comedian, her mother a dancer and, as a child, she trained as a dancer, recently telling Vanity Fair: 'I stopped dancing the minute I realised somebody was going to actually pay me to do something, and I could have a sandwich'. Etoile demonstrates that she reveres the qualities required to succeed in this sphere: grit, grace, discipline, dedication and endurance. At times, Etoile simply focuses on the extraordinary athleticism and sheer beauty of the bodies in rehearsal and performance. As well, ASP has explained, 'They're an odd, amazing bunch of people'. So, ideal for one of her shows. Her commitment to them extends to the authenticity sought in portraying their world and the attention to detail in evoking it. More than 1000 real-life dancers auditioned to fill roles in the two companies. Constance Devernay, the body double for de Laage, was a principal dancer with the Scottish Ballet for seven years; Vinolo dances with the National Ballet of Canada. Episodes are filled with shots of dancers going about their daily routines: stretching, chatting, napping, scrolling on phones, lacing shoes, bandaging feet. And when it comes to shooting the performances, the camera sits back respectfully, watching in wide shot, the directors understanding that there's no need to try to pump-up the action with fast edits or cuts to close-ups. Loading That laudable effort aside, Etoile – which has been green-lit for a second season – is no Mrs Maisel. It certainly has its charms, predictably to do with snappy dialogue and vibrant characters, as well as the visual pleasures of two photogenic cities. But it can be a bit clunky, lacking the sleek flair of its predecessor, and it's prone to overstatement, particularly in terms of haughty French folk and their disdain for crass Americans. Where Mrs Maisel neatly avoids stereotypes and often surprises with its character developments, Etoile sometimes succumbs to clichés. Although it should be noted that Gainsbourg nails the tough manoeuvre of appearing both frazzled and chic. To its credit, it's not all colour, movement and frisky banter as the series also tackles questions about the uncomfortable union of art and commerce. The talent-swap initiative can only be achieved with funding from flamboyant billionaire Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow). Described by Jack as 'a right-wing, boot-licking toadie for dictators', he's made much of his fortune from an array of dirty deals. Clearly having a fine time with the role, Callow is allowed to go over-the-top for comic effect. However, his confrontation with Cheyenne is chilling, as is his clear-eyed perception of the ugly realities of the world. Ballet might bring beauty, lift the spirits and allow its practitioners and those watching them to 'play in the clouds', as Cheyenne puts it. But without financial support – sometimes from people such as Shamblee – it might not survive. At its heart, Etoile aims to celebrate ballet and the unifying, uplifting joy it can bring. Sherman-Palladino has said: 'My whole life I've known [that], without ballet, the world is a lesser place'. Similarly, the TV world be poorer without ASP.
The Age
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Etoile review: How Amy Sherman-Palladino became the master of comfort TV
, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. No one makes TV like Amy Sherman-Palladino. Since the start of the century, she's created warmly welcoming, female-focused series about wonderfully eccentric communities. They have a distinctive look and sound. Whip-smart dialogue is delivered at screwball-comedy speed. Conversations between characters, typically loaded with pop-culture references, bounce back and forth like verbal ping-pong. Episodes are rich with lush colour and distinguished by a shooting style that frequently favours extended, elaborately choreographed camerawork. Rachel Brosnahan stars as Midge Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In her sunny fictional worlds, there are no mutilated bodies, missing children or rampaging creatures. She produces comfort TV of the best kind: not mushy, bland or glib, but happily surprising, like big bowls of festive bonbons. And fun. Chicken-soup-for-the-soul stuff. Loading A writer, producer, director and showrunner who works with her writer-producer-director husband, Daniel Palladino, ASP has given us Gilmore Girls (2000-07); its 2016 sequel Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life; Bunheads (2012); and her masterwork The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (2017-23). In 2018, with Mrs Maisel, she became the first woman to win Emmys in the comedy writing and directing categories. Now there's Etoile, a culture-clash comedy about a couple of elite ballet companies struggling with rising costs and declining audiences whose managers hatch a scheme to generate publicity and reignite interest in their endangered art form. For one year, the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre in New York, run by Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby, Mrs Maisel's Lenny Bruce) and Le Ballet National in Paris, managed by interim director Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), will swap stars. Famously fiery Parisian etoile (star) Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge) will endeavour to put aside her contempt for American food, coffee and culture to headline productions in New York, while young ballerina Mishi Duplessis (Taïs Vinolo) will reluctantly return home to France, miserably clutching a plush toy of a bagel. Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) in the fondly remembered Gilmore Girls. Credit: ASP's series are invariably celebrations of their communities, whether it's the cozy east-coast town of Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls, the Californian coastal hamlet of Paradise on Bunheads or the Manhattan of Mrs Maisel, with its clubs, theatres, diners and delis. Consistent through them is her fondness for smart, feisty and sometimes spiky female protagonists, as well as an affection for tetchy, formidable older women such as Gilmore Girls' Emily and Bunheads' Fanny (both played by Kelly Bishop). Now comes Bruna (Marie Berto), Cheyenne's mother, a woman of few gruff words who wears a workman's uniform and tinkers with goodness-knows-what in her trash-and-treasure-filled apartment. Ballet also features regularly in ASP's productions: while Etoile focuses on a pair of prestige companies, Bunheads is largely set in a small home-based ballet school, and one of the cornerstones of Stars Hollow is Miss Patty's School of Ballet. Showbiz is in Sherman-Palladino's blood. Her father was a comedian, her mother a dancer and, as a child, she trained as a dancer, recently telling Vanity Fair: 'I stopped dancing the minute I realised somebody was going to actually pay me to do something, and I could have a sandwich'. One of the dance scenes – performed by professional ballet dancers – in Etoile. Credit: Philippe Antonello/Prime Video Etoile demonstrates that she reveres the qualities required to succeed in this sphere: grit, grace, discipline, dedication and endurance. At times, Etoile simply focuses on the extraordinary athleticism and sheer beauty of the bodies in rehearsal and performance. As well, ASP has explained, 'They're an odd, amazing bunch of people'. So, ideal for one of her shows. Her commitment to them extends to the authenticity sought in portraying their world and the attention to detail in evoking it. More than 1000 real-life dancers auditioned to fill roles in the two companies. Constance Devernay, the body double for de Laage, was a principal dancer with the Scottish Ballet for seven years; Vinolo dances with the National Ballet of Canada. Episodes are filled with shots of dancers going about their daily routines: stretching, chatting, napping, scrolling on phones, lacing shoes, bandaging feet. And when it comes to shooting the performances, the camera sits back respectfully, watching in wide shot, the directors understanding that there's no need to try to pump-up the action with fast edits or cuts to close-ups. Loading That laudable effort aside, Etoile – which has been green-lit for a second season – is no Mrs Maisel. It certainly has its charms, predictably to do with snappy dialogue and vibrant characters, as well as the visual pleasures of two photogenic cities. But it can be a bit clunky, lacking the sleek flair of its predecessor, and it's prone to overstatement, particularly in terms of haughty French folk and their disdain for crass Americans. Where Mrs Maisel neatly avoids stereotypes and often surprises with its character developments, Etoile sometimes succumbs to clichés. Although it should be noted that Gainsbourg nails the tough manoeuvre of appearing both frazzled and chic. Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Maisel and Luke Kirby, who also stars in Etoile, as Lenny Bruce in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. To its credit, it's not all colour, movement and frisky banter as the series also tackles questions about the uncomfortable union of art and commerce. The talent-swap initiative can only be achieved with funding from flamboyant billionaire Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow). Described by Jack as 'a right-wing, boot-licking toadie for dictators', he's made much of his fortune from an array of dirty deals.
ABC News
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Please Like Me's Tom Ward on writing Étoile with Gilmore Girls creators
Australian TV comedy writer and producer Tom Ward was living in rural Aotearoa/New Zealand with his young family when he got the call. Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, executive producers of Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, had read one of his scripts. Not only that: they were interested in hiring him to write on their upcoming ballet dramedy series, Étoile. A few days after the Please Like Me Star talked with the couple in late 2022, he got another call — this time from his agent. Photo shows A man in a blue room looking into a mirror. Josh Thomas on how he stumbled into being an audience surrogate for millennials around Australia. "He was like, 'Hey, remember how you promised that if you went for this job, that you'd move to New York with your family?'" Ward tells ABC Entertainment. "I was like, 'Yeah, I remember saying that thing that I was obviously going to say just to get this meeting.' " He was like, 'Well, now you do have to move to New York … because you're going to be working on this show.' " While Ward says he "wouldn't recommend" trying to secure US visas for an entire family over the Christmas period, they pulled it off. Within two months, they'd swapped summer in rural Aotearoa/New Zealand for Brooklyn in the depths of winter. Why Tom Ward wanted to explore the weird world of dance Ward, who has "absolutely watched some Gilmore Girls", says he "felt a definite kind of spiritual connection" to Sherman-Palladino and Palladino before he even met the Emmy-Award-winning couple. He says they share a "similar gaze" to that of Josh Thomas, creator and star of Please Like Me. "When they look at the world, [they see] the theatrics of life that can exist around everyday drama," Ward muses. Much of Ward's career has revolved around this idea, from his writing on He immediately saw Étoile's potential as an extension of that work. Loading YouTube content The show sees two flailing rival ballet companies in New York and Paris trade their top talent for a year, and launch tandem seasons and a transatlantic marketing campaign to publicise the move. The desperate plot to boost dwindling ticket sales and improve reviews just so happens to be funded by a weapons manufacturer's blood money. At first, NY ballet company exec Jack McMillan (played by Luke Kirby, pictured) is in denial about the fact the future of the dance is in question. ( Supplied: Prime Video ) The series primarily follows Jack McMillan (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel star Luke Kirby), the nepo baby/executive director of the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre in New York, and Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the cutthroat head of Le Ballet National in Paris; the competing execs once enjoyed a romantic entanglement and still have the tension to show for it. Then there's Cheyenne Antonius (Lou de Laâge), the equally despised, feared and revered titular "danseuse étoile", (lead dancer) who is so good at what she does that her volatility has been permitted in Paris. But will she get away with that behaviour in New York? Tobias Bell (played by Gideon Glick, pictured) is one of the dancers and choreographers caught up in the swap who really wish they hadn't been. ( Supplied: Prime Video ) Among others, Cheyenne swaps places with Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick, another Mrs Maisel alum), the brilliant but exceedingly particular choreographer who struggles with all the change that comes with a move to France. There is drama, and a lot of it, but the mesmerising ballet performances interspersed throughout offer a reprieve, as well as a reminder of what every character in Étoile is fighting for: a world in which such artistry survives, and might one day thrive again. We're not in Stars Hollow anymore — Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino's latest show is the definition of grand. ( Supplied: Prime Video ) From Please Like Me to table reads in Paris Ward is still reeling from the experience of bringing Étoile's first season to the screen from the writers' room. Everything about it felt novel, from heading into work at a real film lot in Brooklyn ("it looks like the set of 30 Rock"), to Sherman-Palladino's office. Loading Instagram content "It's a sight to behold in itself — that's all I'll say. It's gorgeous," Ward teases. When pushed a little more, he adds: "OK, all I'll say is: multiple chandeliers." The scale of the production was so much larger than anything Ward had worked on in Australia, and so was his role. "For my episode, I had the responsibility of making sure the script made it to screen, and that was another real showbiz moment," he says. "The reading of my script happened in Paris because that's where we were shooting [at the time]. "It was quite surreal to be sitting in what was the set for this unbelievable Paris ballet studio, watching all these incredible actors read my episode." And working with veteran TV creators Sherman-Palladino and Palladino, he says, was "an amazing and huge learning experience". "I'd never worked with people with that much experience under their belt, [or who] understand the value of personality in a writers' room. " Their instincts for what works and what doesn't makes the whole process feel like a well-oiled machine. " Indeed, Étoile is the result of years of exploration by Sherman-Palladino and Palladino into not only dramedy, but the weirdness of the dance world. ( Photo shows Emily, left, wears a white wedding dress and veil as she cuts a pink and red cake with Tom, right, both smiling. This is the story of how Emily Barclay and Tom Ward's relationship started between takes. First, there was the iconic dance teacher Miss Patty, who ran a chaotic studio in their enduring cult hit Gilmore Girls; then there was their far less successful 2012 dramedy, Étoile feels like a natural evolution from those two series; it's as fast-paced and zingy as you'd expect of any Sherman-Palladino, Palladino offering, with the compelling side characters their shows produce so well. Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel fans will delight in many familiar faces. It also tends towards The Marvelous Mrs Maisel in its massive scale, level of darkness, maturity and Jewish representation. Étoile was When asked what we can expect from him in the future, he coyly says: "You can say, 'Totally exciting things.'" Étoile is streaming now on Prime Video.
Boston Globe
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Étoile' takes time to warm up, then leaps
In the early episodes, at least, Geneviève and Jack aren't quite as compelling as the show needs them to be. Sherman-Palladino/Palladino shows are known for their distinctive dialogue — everyone speaks in reference-heavy, high-speed, discursive yet zesty turns of phrase. You are either sold on this style, or you've tuned in to their new show by mistake. But these two characters are heavy hitters: Jack is the executive director of the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre, and Geneviève the interim general director of l'Opera Français and le Ballet National. When they offer up the trademark Sherman/Palladino patter, their bumbling verbal miscues don't quite ring true. Take it from an arts editor: the directors of nationally renowned artistic companies cannot give rambling, incoherent monologues on live television about the physical attractiveness of the dancers they manage without getting swiftly fired. Advertisement As the episodes dragged on, I began to feel I was about to give a bad review to the new Sherman-Palladino show. Jack and Geneviève were frustratingly thin as characters. Was I supposed to think they were bad at their jobs? Jack: a cad? Geneviève: entirely discombobulated by the people management her role requires? It's a very dense show, too. There is an awful lot of setup here about the swapped creative types and what their whole deal is. New York gets Cheyenne (Lou de Laâge), the world's greatest dancer. Paris gets Tobias (Gideon Glick), a hotshot choreographer, and the return of the prodigal Mishi (Taïs Vinolo), a culture minister's daughter who was cut from the ballet school in Paris as a youth but succeeded in New York. Mishi is innocent and sheltered; Tobias and Cheyenne are freaks in the trademark Sherman-Palladino vein (this is a compliment; they are both descendants of Paris Geller). Gideon Glick as Tobias in "Étoile." Philippe Antonello/Philippe Antonello/Prime Video In episode four, we finally get some dance payoff. Though the show is foremost and explicitly about the magic of producing ballet, we don't get to see these geniuses produce much ballet until that fourth episode, at which point the show finally figures out what it's doing: focusing on Cheyenne. Yes, yes, and Mishi and Tobias too, but Cheyenne is the one who ultimately ends up as a third, and far more interesting, protagonist. Geneviève is outraged when Jack claims Cheyenne in their big swap. She's the most famous dancer in the world, and a massive marketing draw for whichever company employs her. Jack promptly puts her face on every poster for the MBT. She's introduced, heavy-handedly, abusing a crew of environmental protesters on a boat (the less said about this show's efforts to engage in current events, the better — every time it happens, you can practically see the sweat). We're told she's impossible to work with, frequently arrested, cruel. Advertisement But in practice, once in New York, she's immediately engaged in the business of the company, recruiting a talented but flaky dancer to return to the fold, and boosting the fortunes of a girl who has been practicing in the studio at night while her mother cleans the building. Sure, she's kind of a blunt jerk, but the show's sympathies are very much with her — usually, she's right, and her uncompromising pursuit of what ballet should be proves far more engrossing than Jack and Geneviève stammering through business meetings. Tobias and Mishi take longer to pay off, narratively, and the threads around Tobias and his growing bond with a talented but reckless Parisian dancer, Gabin (Ivan du Pontavice), meander through some pained comic setpieces. The cast is too large, and the plotting is diffuse, sometimes distractingly, and sometimes effectively — there are reminders here of the courage 'Bunheads' had to let plotlines end without a satisfying resolution, as happens in real life all too often. There's a villain, so to speak, in Crispin Shamblee, the wealthy but amoral ballet aficionado who offers a Faustian bargain to fund the big swap endeavor in return for access to both companies. He's played with mustache-twirling glee by Simon Callow (you might remember him as the charming older lover of John Hannah's character in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'). Callow is doing his best, but Shamblee's various contretemps with Jack and Geneviève can be a bit one note. He's sinister and uses money and power to get his way, and they're stuck with him. Advertisement It's become a bit of a cliche to say 'it gets good, but you have to make it through a few episodes first.' So I apologize for this, but: it does in fact get good. I had a moment of surprise in the latter stretch of the season when I realized how strongly I had pivoted from dutiful viewing to caring very much what was going to happen to all of these people. Well, maybe not Crispin. But within the realm of shows you might consider applying some grace and patience to, 'Étoile' is a worthy candidate. As the show itself might argue, sometimes it takes a little workshopping to make good art. ÉTOILE Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Luke Kirby, Lou de Laâge, Gideon Glick, Taïs Vinolo, Simon Callow. On Prime Video Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at
