Latest news with #TheIcemanCometh
The Herald Scotland
13-07-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Is ICE the first ominous harbinger of a Trump ‘secret police'?
The Iceman Cometh, the 1939 drama by American writer Eugene O'Neill, has at various times been described by reviewers as set in a stark, ruthless world and a play that 'blisters with intensity'. In the eyes of some, such observations could just as easily apply to today's America, a country where under the presidency of Donald Trump there is an almost palpable sense of unease and potency. Today's America, too, is a country where that phrase 'The Iceman Cometh' has taken on an all too real and equally menacing connotation. For the ICE men of today's America – agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – have become the calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Alhough ICE now occupies a 'noble' place in Trump's hierarchy of law enforcement, its detractors view it very differently. A modern day 'Gestapo', or 'domestic stormtroopers for the MAGA agenda', say some. 'Trump's de facto private army – his security state within the state and a threat to democracy', say others. What's certainly in no doubt is that Trump has propelled ICE into America's best-funded law enforcement agency. As the Financial Times' US national editor Edward Luce recently highlighted, Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' (BBB), signed into law by the president on July 4, lifted ICE's budget to an estimated $37.5 billion a year, a sum higher than Italy's entire defence budget and just below Canada's. Writing a message of 'THANK YOU' to the ICE workforce over the Independence Day holiday, Trump made clear that the BBB spending commitment would give the agency 'ALL of the Funding and Resources that ICE needs to carry out the Largest Mass Deportation Operation in History'. A demonstrator waves an American-Mexican flag near National Guard members and federal agents blocking protestors during an ICE immigration raid at a nearby licensed cannabis farm on July 10 £37.5 billion annually The money set aside for ICE is eye-watering. The $37.5bn a year for operations aside, the spending bill includes a $170bn package for Trump's border and immigration crackdown, which includes $45bn for new detention facilities including hiring thousands more officers and agents. In the eyes of Trump, ICE officers can do no wrong. 'The toughest people you'll ever meet,' he insists. His gushing reverence for ICE is also reflected in what Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, described as 'well-deserved bonuses'. Trump officials have said they'll provide $10,000 annual bonuses for ICE personnel as well as Border Patrol agents, along with $10,000 for new hires. As Nick Miroff, staff writer at The Atlantic magazine who covers immigration issues recently pointed out, as far as Trump sees it, the '20,000 ICE employees are the unflinching men and women who will restore order. They're the Untouchables in his [Trump's] MAGA crime drama'. So just what is ICE, what exactly does it do and, perhaps more significantly, to what extent are fears over its growing power and perceived threat to democracy justified? Established in 2003, ICE is one of the agencies under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created in 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks. Initially, the DHS's focus was counter-terrorism. But soon the presence of certain foreign groups began to be framed as a national security issue. DHS encompasses two law enforcement directorates: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Read more Tears and trauma: David Pratt in Ukraine DAVID PRATT ON THE WORLD: Whatever happens in Brazil's resentful and rancorous election, the result will have major repercussions for us all David Pratt in Ukraine: It's hard to comprehend this level of destruction David Pratt: Kremlin's protestations have a hollow ring as atrocities mount up ERO is charged with enforcing US immigration laws and has 6,100 deportation officers. HSI has about 6,500 special agents who conduct transnational criminal investigations and do not usually participate in domestic immigration operations. ICE was also created alongside Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP controls the borders, while ICE operates inside the country – and it's this operation across America that has become the focus of controversy According to the agency's own website, ICE, along with its ERO officials, is tasked with identifying, arresting, detaining and removing immigrants without authorisation in the US. Back during his 2024 presidential campaign when outlining his vision for deportations of undocumented migrants, Trump said he would focus on expelling those with criminal records. But since entering office this has rapidly widened to include anyone without legal status, ICE officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, have now been arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops, in workplace sweeps, and even from hospitals. The agency's aggressive tactics are striking terror throughout America's immigrant communities, especially in Democrat-run cities. National Guard members and a federal agent block people protesting an ICE immigration raid at a nearby licensed cannabis farm on July 10, 2025 near Camarillo, California Deportation efforts JUST these past weeks, Trump ordered ICE to step up its arrests and deportation efforts in Democratic strongholds, doubling down on a politicised anti-immigration drive after major protests against ICE in Los Angeles. 'We must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America's largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,' Trump said on his Truth Social platform. 'These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center,' Trump claimed, citing debunked right-wing conspiracy theories that undocumented immigrants are voting in US elections in significant numbers. With every week that passes ICE operations are gathering momentum. For its part, the administration says its moves –which include hundreds of deportation flights, the expansion of third-country removals, and Trump's invocation of the seldom-used 1798 Alien Enemies Act – are necessary to stem unauthorised immigration to the United States. The law is a wartime authority that gives the president sweeping powers to detain or deport non-citizens with little or no due process and ICE has become its enforcers, much to the disquiet of many Democrat politicians, human rights activists, and ordinary citizens. ICE is now arresting four times as many non-criminals as those with criminal convictions each week, according to David Bier of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank who was cited by the Financial Times. The number of immigrants in detention with no criminal charges or convictions jumped 1,300% from January to mid-June, he wrote in an analysis. Numbers matter here, for ICE is under tremendous pressure to make more arrests to meet quotas set by senior White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's immigration crackdown. Miller set an aggressive quota of 3,000 arrests per day in late May, and the efforts to meet that goal have pushed ICE officers into more communities and businesses. But not everyone within the ranks of ICE is happy with this and other aspects of the policy. According to The Atlantic magazine's immigration writer Nic Miroff, who has interviewed many current and former ICE agents who spoke on condition of anonymity, many described 'a workforce on edge, vilified by broad swathes of the public and bullied by Trump officials demanding more and more'. Some ICE employees, according to Miroff, 'believe that the shift in priorities is driven by a political preoccupation with deportation numbers rather than keeping communities safe'. With deportations becoming a top domestic priority for the Trump administration, some Homeland Security Investigation officers, along with those from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, have been put on immigration enforcement duties. It's a shift in duties many do not agree with. One veteran HSI agent complained to Miroff that his division, which usually focuses on cartel drug-trafficking operations, has had agents moved to immigration enforcement arrests as part of ICE operations. 'No drug cases, no human trafficking, no child exploitation. It's infuriating,' the agent told Miroff, adding he is thinking of quitting rather than having to continue 'arresting gardeners'. Targeted by agents But complain as some ICE agents do, many Americans currently reserve their sympathies for those being targeted by the agents. Stories emerging from detention facilities where those arrested by ICE are being held are only adding to that sympathy as well as a sense of outrage. Earlier this month, Trump held a tour of one facility that's been dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz'. Its name is a reference to both the local reptile population and the former maximum-security Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California. Constructed in a little over eight days and meant to accommodate up to 3,000 detainees, since then accounts and reports from the facility point to appalling conditions. They suggest, too, that the design of the site is flawed and will compromise the safety of people being held there. Stories relayed to the Miami Herald by the wives of detainees housed in the makeshift Florida detention centre for migrants in the Everglades made for grim reading about the conditions detainees endure. 'Toilets that didn't flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys,' were among some of the accounts detailed by the Miami Herald. The newspaper also told of lights being left on inside the facility 24 hours a day, with detainees saying there are no clocks and there is scant sunlight coming through the heavy-duty tents, making it difficult for them to know whether it is day or night. Currently, ICE is holding nearly 60,000 people in custody, the highest number ever, even though funding until the latest boost was available for only 41,000 detention beds. This means that processing centres are packed with people sleeping on floors in short-term holding cells. Worrying as such reports are, it's the growth of ICE, its increasingly politicised role, and the fact that it appears beyond accountability that concerns many Americans. Earlier this year, ICE's in-house watchdog was scrapped and, for the time being, America's lower courts are hamstrung in their efforts to reign it in. As the FT's Edward Luce recently observed, given that the Supreme Court last year gave Trump sweeping immunity from 'official' acts he takes as president… 'that makes ICE Trump's de facto private army – his security state within the state'. Although ICE is ostensibly still bound by constitutional limits, the way it has been operating bears the hallmarks of a secret police force in the making, insist some experts on authoritarian regimes. Lee Morgenbesser is an associate professor with the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, Brisbane, and fellow with the Australian Research Council. Having studied historical and contemporary secret police forces, Morgenbesser says they typically meet five criteria. First, they're a police force targeting political opponents and dissidents. Second, they're not controlled by other security agencies and answer directly to the dictator. Third, the identity of their members and their operations are secret. Fourth, they specialise in political intelligence and surveillance operations. And finally, they carry out arbitrary searches, arrests, interrogations, indefinite detentions, disappearances, and torture. 'Meets criteria' In a recent article in the online platform The Conversation and using these criteria to assess how close ICE is to becoming a secret police force, Morgenbesser concludes that 'overall, the evidence shows ICE meets most of the criteria'. While ICE has yet to target political opponents, which Morgenbesser defines narrowly as members of the Democratic Party, and it is not directly controlled by Trump, he maintains that ICE's 'current structure provides him with plausible deniability'. In short, he says that while ICE is 'far from resembling history's most feared secret police forces, there have so far been few constraints on how it operates'. 'When combined with a potential shift towards targeting US citizens for dissent and disobedience, ICE is fast becoming a key piece in the repressive apparatus of American authoritarianism,' Morgenbesser warns. As ICE makes its presence felt in a growing number of American communities, the controversy over its role is likewise certain to escalate. While a majority of Americans support deporting violent criminals, they also back allowing migrants who came to the country as children, or who arrived many years ago, to stay. Americans polled by The Economist and YouGov in mid-June showed that only 42% viewed ICE favourably, an eight percentage-point drop from February and the start of Trump's term. For now, the ICE men continue to cometh and America, a nation of immigrants, faces an altogether different reckoning over its future democratic credentials.
The National
13-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Is ICE the first harbinger of a ‘secret police' in the US?
The Iceman Cometh, the 1939 drama by American writer Eugene O'Neill, has at various times been described by reviewers as set in a stark, ruthless world and a play that 'blisters with intensity'. In the eyes of some, such observations could just as easily apply to today's America, a country where, under the presidency of Donald Trump, there is an almost palpable sense of unease and potency. Today's America too is a country where that phrase 'The Iceman Cometh' has taken on an all too real and equally menacing connotation. For the ICE men of today's America – agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – have become the calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. US president Donald Trump has in effect created a personal army, experts warnThough ICE now occupies a 'noble' place in Trump's hierarchy of law enforcement, its detractors view it very differently. A modern-day 'Gestapo' or 'domestic stormtroopers for the MAGA agenda', say some. 'Trump's de facto private army – his security state within the state and a threat to democracy', say others. What's certainly in no doubt is that Trump has propelled ICE into America's best-funded law enforcement agency. As the Financial Times (FT) US national editor Edward Luce, recently highlighted, Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' (BBB) signed into law by the president on July 4, lifted ICE's budget to an estimated $37.5 billion a year, a sum higher than Italy's entire defence budget and just below Canada's. Writing a message of 'THANK YOU!' to the ICE workforce over the Independence Day holiday, Trump made clear that the BBB spending commitment would give the agency 'ALL of the Funding and Resources that ICE needs to carry out the Largest Mass Deportation Operation in History'. The money set aside for ICE is eyewatering. The $37.5bn a year for operations aside, the spending bill includes a $170bn package for Trump's border-and-immigration crackdown, which includes $45bn for new detention facilities, including hiring thousands more officers and agents. READ MORE: Mhairi Black: Criticising Israel is not religious intolerance. Orange marches are In the eyes of Trump, ICE officers can do no wrong. 'The toughest people you'll ever meet,' he insists. His gushing reverence for ICE is also reflected in what Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, described as 'well-deserved bonuses'. Trump officials have said they'll provide $10,000 annual bonuses for ICE personnel as well as Border Patrol agents, along with $10,000 for new hires. As Nick Miroff, staff writer at The Atlantic magazine who covers immigration issues, recently pointed out, as far as Trump sees it, the '20,000 ICE employees are the unflinching men and women who will restore order. They're the Untouchables in his (Trump's) MAGA crime drama'. So just what is ICE, what exactly does it do, and perhaps more significantly, to what extent are fears over its growing power and perceived threat to democracy justified? Established in 2003, ICE is one of the agencies under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created in 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks. Initially, the DHS's focus was counterterrorism. But soon, the presence of certain foreign groups began to be framed as a national security issue. DHS encompasses two law enforcement directorates: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). ERO is charged with enforcing US immigration laws and has 6100 deportation officers. HSI has about 6500 special agents who conduct transnational criminal investigations and do not usually participate in domestic immigration operations. ICE was also created alongside Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP controls the borders, while ICE operates inside the country and it's this operation across America that has become the focus of controversy. According to the agency's own website, ICE, along with its ERO officials, are tasked with identifying, arresting, detaining, and removing immigrants without authorisation in the US. Back during his 2024 presidential campaign, when outlining his vision for deportations of undocumented migrants, Trump said he would focus on expelling those with criminal records. But since entering office, this has rapidly widened to include anyone without legal status, ICE officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, have now been arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops in workplace sweeps, and even from hospitals. The agency's aggressive tactics are striking terror throughout America's immigrant communities, especially in Democrat-run cities. Just these past weeks, Trump ordered ICE to step up its arrests and deportation efforts in Democratic strongholds, doubling down on a politicised anti-immigration drive after major protests against ICE in Los Angeles. 'We must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America's largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,' Trump said on his Truth Social platform. (Image: Win McNamee, Getty Images) 'These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Centre,' Trump claimed, citing debunked right-wing conspiracy theories that undocumented immigrants are voting in US elections in significant numbers. With every week that passes, ICE operation are gathering momentum. For its part, the administration says its moves – which include hundreds of deportation flights, the expansion of third-country removals, and Trump's invocation of the seldom-used 1798 Alien Enemies Act – are necessary to stem unauthorised immigration to the United States. The law is a wartime authority that gives the president sweeping powers to detain or deport noncitizens with little or no due process, and ICE have become its enforcers, much to the disquiet of many Democrat politicians, human rights activists and ordinary citizens. ICE is now arresting four times as many non-criminals as those with criminal convictions each week, according to David Bier of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that was cited by the FT. The number of immigrants in detention with no criminal charges or convictions jumped 1300% from January to mid-June, he wrote in an analysis. Numbers matter here, for ICE is under tremendous pressure to make more arrests to meet quotas set by senior White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's immigration crackdown. Miller set an aggressive quota of 3000 arrests per day in late May, and the efforts to meet that goal have pushed ICE officers into more communities and businesses. Not everyone within the ranks of ICE are happy with this and other aspects of the policy. According to The Atlantic magazine's immigration writer Nic Miroff, who has interviewed many current and former ICE agents who spoke on condition of anonymity, many described 'a workforce on edge, vilified by broad swaths of the public and bullied by Trump officials demanding more and more'. READ MORE: Patrick Harvie: 'Never again' seems to not apply to Palestinians Some ICE employees according to Miroff 'believe that the shift in priorities is driven by a political preoccupation with deportation numbers rather than keeping communities safe'. With deportations becoming a top domestic priority for the Trump administration, some Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) officers along with those from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been put on immigration enforcement duties. It's a shift in duties many do not agree with. One veteran HSI agent complained to Miroff that his division which usually focuses on cartel drug-trafficking operations have had agents moved to immigration-enforcement arrests as part of ICE operations. 'No drug cases, no human trafficking, no child exploitation,' the agent told Miroff. 'It's infuriating,' adding that he is thinking of quitting rather than having to continue 'arresting gardeners'. But complain as some ICE agents do, many Americans currently reserve their sympathies for those being targeted by the agents. Stories emerging from detention facilities where those arrested by ICE are being held are only adding to that sympathy as well as a sense of outrage. Earlier this month, Trump held a tour of one facility that's been dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz'. Its name is a reference to both the local reptile population and the former maximum-security Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California. An aerial view of the migrant detention centre dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz' (Image: Chandan Khanna/AFP) Constructed in a little over eight days and meant to accommodate up to 3000 detainees, since then accounts and reports from the facility point to appalling conditions. They suggest too that the design of the site is flawed and will compromise the safety of people being held there. Stories relayed to the Miami Herald by the wives of detainees housed in the makeshift Florida detention centre for migrants in the Everglades made for grim reading about the conditions detainees endure. 'Toilets that didn't flush. Temperatures that went from freezing to sweltering. Giant bugs. And little or no access to showers or toothbrushes, much less confidential calls with attorneys,' were among some of the accounts detailed by the Miami Herald. The newspaper also told of lights being left on inside the facility 24 hours a day, with detainees saying there are no clocks and there is scant sunlight coming through the heavy-duty tents, making it difficult for them to know whether it is day or night. Currently, ICE is holding nearly 60,000 people in custody, the highest number ever, even though funding until the latest boost was available for only 41,000 detention beds. This means that processing centres are packed with people sleeping on floors in short-term holding cells. Worrying as such reports are, it's the growth of ICE, its increasingly politicised role and the fact that it appears beyond accountability that concerns many Americans. Earlier this year, ICE's in-house watchdog was scrapped and for the time being, America's lower courts are hamstrung in their efforts to rein it in. As the FT's national editor Edward Luce recently observed, given that the Supreme Court last year gave Trump sweeping immunity from 'official' acts he takes as president … 'that makes ICE Trump's de facto private army – his security state within the state'. Though ICE is ostensibly still bound by constitutional limits, the way it has been operating bears the hallmarks of a secret police force in the making, insist some experts on authoritarian regimes. Lee Morgenbesser is an associate professor with the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, Brisbane, and fellow with the Australian Research Council. Having studied historical and contemporary secret police forces, Morgenbesser says they typically meet five criteria. First, they're a police force targeting political opponents and dissidents. Second, they're not controlled by other security agencies and answer directly to the dictator. Third, the identity of their members and their operations are secret. Fourth, they specialise in political intelligence and surveillance operations. And finally, they carry out arbitrary searches, arrests, interrogations, indefinite detentions, disappearances and torture. In a recent article in the online platform The Conversation, and using these criteria to assess how close ICE is to becoming a secret police force, Morgenbesser concludes that 'overall, the evidence shows ICE meets most of the criteria". While ICE has yet to target political opponents, which Morgenbesser defines narrowly as members of the Democratic Party, and it is not directly controlled by Trump, he maintains that ICE's 'current structure provides him with plausible deniability.' In short, he says that while ICE is 'far from resembling history's most feared secret police forces, there have so far been few constraints on how it operates'. 'When combined with a potential shift towards targeting US citizens for dissent and disobedience, ICE is fast becoming a key piece in the repressive apparatus of American authoritarianism,' Morgenbesser warns. As ICE makes its presence felt in a growing number of American communities, the controversy over its role is likewise certain to escalate. While a majority of Americans support deporting violent criminals, they also back allowing migrants who came to the country as children or who arrived many years ago to stay. Americans polled by The Economist and YouGov in mid-June showed that only 42% viewed ICE favourably – an eight percentage-point drop from February and the start of Trump's term. For now, the ICE men continue to cometh and America, a nation of immigrants, faces an altogether different reckoning over its future democratic credentials.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Denzel Washington Says He ‘Cried a Little Bit' When He Saw 'Black Panther': ‘Felt Like the Baton Had Been Passed'
Over more than four decades, Denzel Washington has played a series of strong, stoic characters with quiet intensity and unshakeable dignity, both on screen and on stage. He doesn't often let us see him cry. But like the rest of us, the man who has stepped into the shoes of such iconic real and fictional characters as Stephen Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin Carter, Macbeth and Othello can be moved to tears by cinematic artistry. In the new two-part Apple TV+ documentary Number One on the Call Sheet, Washington, 70, recalls one memorable moment when he was overcome with emotion in the darkness of a movie theater. And no, he wasn't watching your everyday tear-jerker. "I cried a little bit when I saw Black Panther," Washington says of the 2018 blockbuster film starring Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan and directed by Ryan Coogler. "I was on Broadway [in The Iceman Cometh], in fact, and I went to the premiere, and I wasn't interested in the red carpet and all that." "So I went backstage and I saw Chad and Ryan," he continues. "I spoke to them and then I sat down and watched the movie. And I felt like the baton had been passed. I was like, 'Wow, these young boys are gone,' you know. I felt, I don't know if the word is 'relieved,' but I was proud to see what they had done and seeing where they were headed." Related: Denzel Washington Says He Has a Role in Black Panther 3 — and It Will Mark 1 of His Final Movies Before He Retires Washington, an nine-time Oscar nominee for acting with two wins who has starred in such critically acclaimed fare as Malcolm X and The Hurricane, felt like the future of cinema was in good hands. "You know, I didn't know then they were gonna make a billion dollars, but they did," he adds. "So that, uh, that was a special moment for me." In November, Washington told Australia's Today show that Coogler is writing a part for him in the upcoming third Black Panther film. Number One on the Call Sheet, which premiered on March 28, is divided into two sections. Episode 1, "Black Leading Men in Hollywood," was directed by Reginald Hudlin (House Party, Boomerang) and features interviews with such A-listers as Washington, Eddie Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Will Smith and Jamie Foxx. Episode 2, "Black Leading Women in Hollywood," directed by Shola Lynch, puts the spotlight on Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, Gabrielle Union, Cynthia Erivo and Taraji P. Henson, among many others. In addition to Black Panther's Jordan and Bassett, their costar Daniel Kaluuya also appears in the documentary, which pays tribute to the legacy of Boseman, who died in 2020 at age 43 of complications from colon cancer. Related: Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, Gabrielle Union Discuss Being Black and On Top: 'We Put Asses In Seats' (Exclusive) "Black Panther for me was, like, the movie that Black people had been waiting for for 100 years," What's Love Got to Do with It and The Matrix star Laurence Fishburne, 63, says in the documentary. "Like, for a century, we've been waiting for a movie like this. Because you don't just get one prince in this movie. We got two princes in that movie, with Chad and Michael B." "And we never had that before, in cinema," he adds. "We never had that before. So for me, that was like all of our history, sort of wrapped up and condensed in this wonderful fantasy world of Wakanda. That is born out of our need to have these kinds of heroes and this kind of representation." Number One on the Call Sheet is streaming now on Apple TV+. Read the original article on People
Los Angeles Times
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal's ‘Othello' breaks ‘Harry Potter's' Broadway record
In its second week of preview performances, a revival of Shakespeare's 'Othello' set a new record for weekly grosses on Broadway, bringing in $2,818,297 for eight shows. Starring Denzel Washington in the title role and Jake Gyllenhaal as the manipulative Iago, the production played to 100% capacity for each of its eight shows last week, filling every single seat in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, according to Playbill. 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' was the previous record holder, having grossed $2,718,488 for the holiday week ending Dec. 31, 2023, according to the theater magazine. The average ticket price for the record-breaking week was $338.09, which is considerably higher than every other show on Broadway. The average show costs about $100. The top ticket for 'Othello' commanded $897. The revival, which officially opens March 23, is a strictly limited engagement, running for 15 weeks through June 8. Tony Award winner Kenny Leon directs the show, coming off of the success of another buzzy revival, 'Our Town' starring Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch and Katie Holmes. Washington has starred in multiple Broadway productions, including 'Julius Caesar,' 'Fences,' 'A Raisin in the Sun' and 'The Iceman Cometh.' He won a Tony Award for 'Fences' and was nominated for his performance in 'The Iceman Cometh.' Gyllenhaal also has appeared in several Broadway shows, most notably the title role of painter Georges Seurat in the 2017 revival of 'Sunday in the Park With George.' He was nominated for a Tony award in 2020 for his performance in 'Sea Wall/A Life.'
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Denzel Washington struggling with speech after nearly biting tongue ‘half-off'
Denzel Washington has revealed he's still struggling with his speech several months after nearly biting his tongue off. The two-time Oscar winner, 70, explained how the bizarre injury has 'affected everything,' particularly as he prepares to return to Broadway in the title role of'Othello,' opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. Previews for the 15-week run begin Feb. 24. 'I bit my tongue almost half-off a few months ago. It's affecting my speech. It forces me to slow down. I have to use it,' the Westchester-raised Washington told The New York Times in a sprawling interview published Saturday. Washington then pointed to a particular line in the show: 'Whither will you that I go to answer this is your charge?' 'It's hard (to say) because my tongue is swollen,' said the 'Fences' star and director. Washington didn't clarify how he bit his tongue or if he received any medical treatment, but he's not letting it stop him from giving a great performance — and having fun while doing it. The way he sees it, you've just got to 'jump in the water and enjoy yourself, instead of worrying about drowning.' Washington's starring role in 'Othello' marks his first return to Broadway since appearing in 2018's revival of 'The Iceman Cometh.' In the nearly seven years since, he's starred in two 'Equalizer' films, Joel Coen's film adaptation of 'Macbeth' and the box office hit'Gladiator II.' But despite being one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, it's acting onstage that brings Washington 'the greatest joy,' though he admits money has always been at the forefront of his mind when choosing projects. 'I've taken every job for money,' he told the Times. 'There's no job I've taken where I went: 'You guys just keep the money. I'm just so glad to be an actor.''
