Latest news with #TonyAward
NBC News
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- NBC News
Patti LuPone receives scathing open letter for 'degrading' comments about Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald
More than 600 members of the Broadway community condemned Patti LuPone in an open letter Friday after the three-time Tony winner made controversial comments about fellow stars Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald. The letter, addressed to The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, comes in response to a profile published in The New Yorker this week in which LuPone called Lewis a 'b----' and McDonald 'not a friend.' 'This language is not only degrading and misogynistic — it is a blatant act of racialized disrespect. It constitutes bullying. It constitutes harassment,' the letter says. Theater publication Playbill reported signatories to the letter include Tony winners James Monroe Iglehart, Maleah Joi Moon and Wendell Pierce. Lewis currently stars in 'Hell's Kitchen' on Broadway, for which she won a 2024 Tony Award. McDonald won the 2014 Tony Award for best actress in a play (her sixth) and is the first performer to win the award in all performance categories. She is nominated for the 11th time this year for her lead performance in the musical 'Gypsy.' As of Saturday, the letter had garnered 682 signatures, according to a document that allows people to request the addition of their names. 'Individuals, including Patti Lupone, who use their platform to publicly demean, harass, or disparage fellow artists — particularly with racial, gendered, or otherwise violent language — should not be welcomed at industry events, including the Tony Awards, fundraisers, and public programs,' the letter said. The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League — which present the Tony Awards, set to be held on June 8 — did not immediately respond to NBC News' requests for comment. LuPone also did not immediately respond. In the New Yorker interview, LuPone was asked about a controversy that circulated during her time co-starring in 'The Roommate' with Mia Farrow last fall. The play, which has since closed, shared a wall with the Tony-winning musical 'Hell's Kitchen,' featuring Lewis. LuPone reportedly asked for the sound design of 'Hell's Kitchen' to be adjusted because the music would bleed through the shared walls, and sent the sound and stage management team flowers and a thank-you note once it was fixed. Lewis posted a video on Instagram in November in response, calling LuPone's actions 'racially microaggressive' and 'rooted in privilege.' Producers of 'The Roommate' posted a statement the following day thanking the 'Hell's Kitchen' staff for the fix, saying, 'These kinds of sound accommodations from one show to another are not unusual and are always deeply appreciated.' LuPone said of the back-and-forth in The New Yorker interview: 'Let's find out how many Broadway shows Kecia Lewis has done, because she doesn't know what the f--- she's talking about. ... She's done seven. I've done thirty-one. Don't call yourself a vet, b----.' The New Yorker noted that Lewis has actually done 10 shows and LuPone 28. Michael Schulman, the interviewer, mentioned to LuPone that McDonald — who holds the record as the Broadway performer with the most Tony Awards and nominations — gave the video 'supportive emojis.' The 76-year-old actor responded: 'And I thought, 'You should know better.' That's typical of Audra. She's not a friend.' McDonald was asked about LuPone's comments in a 'CBS Mornings' interview with Gayle King to discuss her latest Tony-nominated role as Mama Rose in 'Gypsy.' 'If there's a rift between us, I don't know what it is,' McDonald said in a clip CBS shared on social media ahead of the full interview, which airs next week. 'That's something that you'd have to ask Patti about.' The open letter said LuPone's attempt to 'discredit' McDonald's legacy was not only a personal offense, but 'a public affront to the values of collaboration, equity, and mutual respect that our theater community claims to uphold.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris and Bobby Cannavale to Star on Broadway This Fall
James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris and Bobby Cannavale will return to Broadway this summer in the revival of the play Art. The production marks the first revival of the play, written by Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton, which follows three longtime friends who launch into a debate about art after one of them purchases a large, expensive and completely white painting. The play, directed by Scott Ellis, is slated to run at Broadway's Music Box starting Aug. 28, with an opening night Sept. 16. More from The Hollywood Reporter Tom Hanks Will Star in Off-Broadway Play This Fall Broadway Box Office: 'Redwood' Ends Run With Momentum, Clooney Stays on Top Four-Time Tony Nominee Jonathan Groff on Eight-Year Journey to Become Bobby Darin and Spitting While Singing Quirk: "Nothing I Can Do About It" The production is slated to play a 17-week limited engagement through Dec. 21, 2025. The play first ran on Broadway in 1998 starring Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina, who won a Tony Award for best actor. This marks the first return to Broadway for Corden since he starred in One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012 and won a Tony Award for best leading actor in a play. The former late night host has also appeared onstage in The History Boys and most recently was in the West End play The Constituent in 2024. He also appeared in several musical films, Into the Woods, Cats, The Prom and Cinderella. Harris, known for his role in How I Met Your Mother, won a Tony Award for his starring role in the 2014 revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, in addition to numerous other stage roles, including most recently in the play Shit Meet Fan and in Assassins on Broadway in 2004. Cannavale has starred on Broadway in The Lifespan of a Fact, The Motherf**ker with the Hat and Mauritius among other roles, in addition to appearing in films such as The Irishman, Ezra and I, Tonya. The production is produced by Michael Shulman of Sand & Snow Entertainment, ATG Productions and Gavin Kalin Productions. 'On behalf of my partners Adam Speers, Gavin Kalin, and myself, we are thrilled to be producing the first-ever Broadway revival of this iconic Tony-Award winning play with three iconic, award-winning actors, Bobby Cannavale, James Corden and Neil Patrick Harris, under the helm of the legendary Scott Ellis,' Shulman said. 'Ever since I first saw the original production, it has been etched into my mind as a hysterical and moving portrayal of friendship, compromise, and the power of art to change perspectives.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter From 'Lady in the Lake' to 'It Ends With Us': 29 New and Upcoming Book Adaptations in 2024 Meet the Superstars Who Glam Up Hollywood's A-List Rosie O'Donnell on Ellen, Madonna, Trump and 40 Years in the Queer Spotlight
Time Out
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Jessica Hecht on acting, listening and working with Arthur Miller
Jessica Hecht has never won a Tony Award, which is a fact so surprising that it barely even makes sense as a sentence. Tonys are not, of course, the only of marker of artistic achievement in theater, or even a consistently reliable one at all. But Hecht is not just an extraordinary actor with a unique individual style that might be described as intensely grounded flightiness. She is also a pillar in the New York theater world, and especially its nonprofit division: In a career that spans more than 30 years, she has starred in six Broadway shows that were produced by either Manhattan Theatre Club or the Roundabout, plus Off Broadway offerings by the likes of the Public, Lincoln Center Theater and Playwrights Horizons. (She has starred in commercial productions, too, like 2010's A View from the Bridge, opposite Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson, and 2015's Fiddler on the Roof, opposite fellow stage treasure Danny Burstein; TV fans may know her from her recurring roles as Susan Bunch on Friends or Gretchen Schwartz on Breaking Bad.) In her spare time, she serves as the executive director of a nonprofit operation of her own: the Campfire Project, which provides arts-based therapy for displaced people in refugee camps around the world. Her third Tony nomination is in the category of Best Featured Actress in a Play, for her unforgettable performance in Eureka Day as a staunch antivaxxer at a progressive day school. We spoke with her in depth about her approach to acting, her favorite roles and what it was like to work with Arthur Miller. In advance of the Tony Awards on June 8, Time Out has conducted in-depth interviews with select nominees. We'll be rolling out those interviews every day this week; the full collection to date is here. I feel like you have an idiosyncratic, personal approach to naturalism. I don't want to bore you with praise, but one of the things that I love about your work is that you seem to have a set of performance priorities that you bring to it. That's such a wonderful way of putting it—'performance priorities' is such a thrilling thing to say. I do feel really strongly that people need to hear the language and hear the story. Sometimes you're doing straight-up naturalism—a great Coen Brothers film or something, or the way Annie Baker writes, which is awesome—but not every play is going to be that. I think the older I've gotten, the more I'm interested in creating something that allows you to carve out space for people to really hear what's going on. That touches on two qualities I associate with your acting. One is that your articulation is often careful; in Summer, 1976, for example, I started hearing the particular way that you hit certain words. And I also feel like you're unusually attentive on stage—I can feel you listening. Are those things that you think about when you're putting together a performance? I do. There's a quality of being on stage that is, of course, heightening what your responsibility would be in life in a conversation. But I was trained by the greatest writers of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, who wrote with an attention to the way people engage in real conversation: how they'll take a word from the other person's dialogue and repurpose it for their own use. Williams does that a lot—the language volleys, and when that happens it is usually a sign that the two people are listening to each other, or they couldn't share that language. I'm super interested in how playwrights do that, and I like to play around with that when I'm acting—and also it takes my attention off myself, because I have a lot of stage fright. When I say that, people are like, 'Oh my God, you seem so crazy and free!' But it takes me so much to get there. I feel very anxious. If I take my attention off myself and listen to the way the language is working, it's much more fun. If somebody hands me a word in a unique way that day, I can play around with it right back. It keeps my mind alert to new things I can pick up. That's the way I was trained, and it really is interesting to me. I've found that when you're playing characters that can look adversarial or testy on the page, you tend to come at them from surprising angles. In Eureka Day, for instance, your character Suzanne has very strong convictions, but she arrives at revealing them in…not a sneaky way, exactly, but— Sort of through the side doors. Through the side doors. Even when she's being intransigent, she seems very open and accommodating. Is that an intentional intentional strategy on your part—to soften things or go around them? These questions are really making me reflect on what's interesting to me. The things that are interesting to us relate to our own aesthetic and also just our own pleasure in life. I love little kids. Anyone in my family can attest—they're constantly saying, 'You are going to get arrested staring at these children.' [ Laughs.] And when my kids were little, I loved being in their school. So when I read the play, I immediately thought, Oh my gosh, she just loves little kids. If someone is going to devote that much time to a school that is that beautiful, and to idealize childhood in such a way, she must love children. So I created a character around my own desire to be around small children. It's not really woven in there linguistically, but the language fit beautifully into a framework where Suzanne was often explaining everything to a small child, thinking that a child would really be interested [ laughs ]—it's insane, but it's the way she navigates the world. And that was definitely supported in the script: She goes about her business until she just can't anymore, and then she becomes very coarse. She can't handle life. And also it seemed to work that since her child had had such a tragic destiny, she was stuck at that moment in time. I think most people are arrested at a certain point in their life. Once I was talking to my therapist about a family member, like, 'Oh my God, I don't know that we'll ever get to this evolved place that I would hope we would get to.' And my therapist said, 'Don't you realize that most people aren't interested in taking a journey with you? They just wanna get through the day. They just wanna just feel basically okay.' So when I look at characters, I often think about how evolved they are. Where is their evolution headed, and where did it maybe stop? I was interested to see that you went from Eureka Day into something completely different just six weeks later: A Mother, at Baryshnikov Arts Center, which you also co-conceived with the playwright, Neena Beber. I feel very lucky in terms of the work I get to do. But there are things I've wanted to do for a long time that I have felt able to muscle into reality, and it feels like a now-or-never moment for me. You create enough theater that you finally think, I should trust my instinct and know what I'm interested in and just make a few things like that. [ Laughs. ] The play is an updated version of Bertolt Brecht's The Mother, which is a fairly obscure play. What drew you to this project? I run this organization that does work in refugee camps around the world, and we were consistently struck by the mothers in these refugee camps who feel completely overwhelmed with their kids' lack of a future. When I returned from our first trip, I was at the Strand, and The Mother jumped out at me. It was one of those plays—I don't know if you studied theater as a kid—but when I was in high school, I had this teacher who would introduce us to plays far beyond our emotional or intellectual understanding. We did Brecht's St. Joan of the Stockyards at my high school! Kudos to our drama teacher, Mr. Meyer. So you know exactly. And you think, What are they up to? But in reality, they're planting this little seed. When I saw that play, it suddenly overwhelmed me with a sense of the meaning of what Brecht was doing—that these stories are appropriate for multiple times in one's own life and multiple historical and social contexts. War and strife will continue to plague us, and every time you look at these plays, you can adapt the story to what's going on for you. I was coming back from a very despairing refugee camp in Greece during the height of the Syrian civil war, and at first I wanted to adapt the play to speak to that crisis, but then I sort of adapted it to speak to who I was and my sense of theater as a vehicle for telling stories. I was gifted in that experience to have Misha Baryshnikov running an institution that is all about allowing artists to have a laboratory—rather than what we're used to, which is the pressures of commercial theater. It's useful to have a foot in the commercial world, though. Even after decades on stage, you surely encounter people who know you only from Friends and Breaking Bad. Yeah. And I don't watch TV that much! I feel very embarrassed that I didn't watch Friends very often. Early in my career, I was even more uncomfortable watching myself, so I don't really know the episodes at all. But I thought the actors were amazing. Lisa Kudrow is one of the most talented women I've ever encountered. And Matthew Perry was the kindest. I mean, they all had remarkable gifts. But when people talk to me about stuff, I'm so ashamed—I don't even know the storylines. And Breaking Bad was a whole 'nother moment. I'm very lucky to have done shows that were enormously successful. And I was there at the very beginning and the very end of both of those. It's this bizarre gift I was given. I also enjoyed seeing you pop up on The Boys as the Deep's psychotherapist. That kind of part is great for an actor who's the right kind of listener. If you're the right kind of listener, and also if you don't put too much weight on things. Particularly if you get onto a show early. I think of going onto these TV shows or films that are unknown entities as being a helpful player in their process. [ Laughs. ] On The Boys, I kept thinking, 'I just wanna do a nice job for them, because they have to have something to balance all this depraved superhero stuff out.' You just walk in like you're going to do a reading of something that might be lovely. And then you never know what'll happen and you don't have to put too much pressure on it. Also, I come from a whole family of mental health workers. My dad was a psychiatrist. My sister's a psychiatrist. My mom and my sisters are therapists. Same! My dad's a psychiatrist, and my mom's a therapist and social worker. You and I have got to meet and talk about that at another juncture. Where did they work? In Montreal. In Montreal! Oh my God. I love Montreal. My grandmother and all her siblings were at the Baron de Hirsch orphanage there, which helped so many destitute Jewish kids who came to Montreal. Baron de Hirsch was a big name in the Jewish community—this incredible philanthropic man. Montreal has a history of helping. And also, my husband says the best bagels are from there. Speaking of Jews, I saw you in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, opposite Laurie Metcalf, and I thought it was wonderful. I was sad that it closed so quickly. That was awesome. My mother grew up in the same neck of the Bronx as [producer] Manny Eisenberg and Manny's dear sister who just passed away, Cookie Eisenberg—my mother went to school with her. And Neil really had a lot of roots in that area, although he's known for being from Brooklyn. My mother was originally from Brooklyn, so that whole world of immigrant Jews trying to find their way was super familiar. Historically, Neil didn't usually cast Jewish women in those parts, but somehow I slid in. And I felt like I had to very delicately play my Bronx 1937 card or whatever it was. But I knew it in my gut. That was a fascinating thing—not to make a caricature of the people you knew, not to blow it up too much, which is always very difficult if you know someone. And Neil was there in the room, and Manny, who I think is one of the greatest minds of the American theater. But also acting with Laurie Metcalf is utterly thrilling. It's like a sporting event in the best way. You have to get it right—you come right back and try to meet her incredible depth and energy. I loved trying to do that with a character who was slightly blind. And that was my first experience with [director] David Cromer. He had just arrived from Chicago, and he has a magnificent storytelling technique, which also inspired me deeply. Later I did Streetcar with Cromer at Williamstown, with the truly great Sam Rockwell. I'm always struck by how allergic to sentimentality Cromer seems to be. I love that you said allergic. He is. He has a horror of it. Horror! 'Why are you crying? Why are you crying? He died. Come on, move forward.' He has that great phrase: 'Just do what a person would do.' Which is true. And he does have an extraordinary mind for storytelling. That's sort of like what we were talking about at the beginning, about how you think I manage the language. I just want people to hear what the words are so they can have a relationship to the language, to the story, and not just to me. Cromer has an impeccable way of looking at the information the audience needs, rather than letting the behavior of the character override that. It can be hard when you're navigating that kind of linguistic precision and delivery on stage to not have it be empty. The trick is to find something happening— —even though you're managing stuff. I think that is a big trick, but you know, I think we are affected by our own storytelling more than we ever trust. You don't have to fabricate—I shouldn't say fabricate, but you don't have to generate as much emotion around storytelling. If you are really listening, as we were just talking about, and really trying to find the way in which you as a person are experiencing the story in the moment, you just automatically generate emotion. We do as actors, but also—think about how much emotion you go through in the course of a day, hearing something that happened in the world. If you are really organized toward your emotional response to that, you realize how much that can happen on stage if you are able to empty yourself to the simplicity of the story. The more we kind of fabricate stuff, the more distant we get from the story. I had a really great conversation on something related to this a few years ago with Didi O'Connell, whom I absolutely adore— [ Gasps. ] Goddess. Just, goddess. —and she was doing Dana H., which was incredibly physically disciplined. [The entire performance was lip-synched to audio of a real woman's description of a harrowing sequence of events] so there was no room for her to add any big emotional theatrics. But what was also striking is that there was no such emotional moment in the audio itself. The woman's tone was very straightforward. And that made me think about how artificial a lot of storytelling approaches are—those moments when people are telling stories on stage or onscreen and they kind of act out the story instead of telling it. I was just thinking about that piece literally yesterday—how she talks about that guy putting the gun up her ass, the shock that that had happened. She did have an emotion, but it was more about the… absurdity of the situation. So the audience was terrified for her. If you don't fill in all the emotion, the audience can have the emotion of sheer terror and despair. But she's still not even able to process it. Right. If you're talking about someone having a gun in your face— Let alone in your ass! —let alone in your ass!—you're not behaving the way you would if someone were actually doing that to you. You're telling the story of someone having a gun in your face, you're navigating what it is to tell that story. Whom are you telling it to? What are their reactions going to be? How do you feel about bringing it up again? When was the last time you told this story? Right, a story with detail. The detail of the story is what you want someone to hear, and that's what great writing does. Not just that you were really upset; you forget that after a while. It's so interesting. I was thinking about these stories—I don't mean to go back to the refugee stuff I work on, but most of these kids have been tortured, and when they write their asylum statements they are desperate to tell all the details, because the accumulation of those details is why someone had to flee. It's not that they're sitting there crying that someone tried to kill them multiple times, it's the detail. What Didi does, and what I aspire to do, is create enough details that you completely believe the person. That's all! And there's really no amount of emotional gymnastics that you could do every night the same way that would be as trustworthy as the description. [ Laughs.] Does that make sense? You can't trust that you'll get there emotionally every night. You'd make your scene partner crazy, because it would require that they give you the same prompts every night in the same exact way. That's so punitive. You never know what the person opposite you is going to be capable of! We're human! We don't know! We're going to be doing a hundred shows, two hundred shows! You've been in three Arthur Miller plays on Broadway: After the Fall, A View from the Bridge and The Price. Miller's language is generally less poetical than that of other playwrights whose work you've done in revivals, such as Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams. How do you make that language sing? That's a great question. He wrote many of his plays to approximate authentic human speech. He was super interested, particularly in A View from the Bridge —he would go to those places and really try to write out what he thought people were doing, with a kind of literal justice to the way language worked that he was hearing. Your responsibility to that is enormous. He was still around when you were doing After the Fall, right? Yes. He was there for After the Fall, and he didn't like that we had books about Marilyn on the table. Carla Gugino played Maggie [the Marilyn-like part] and she was stunning. She's a magnificent actress, and she's a deeply thoughtful actress and person. Even though she's stunning and often cast in parts that create this goddess-like impression, her whole thing as a person is about connection. But yes, Arthur was with us, and that was life-changing. I auditioned for Arthur several times before I got that job, for different things. And he was always so kind. He would say, 'We're going to work together at some point.' As I said, I get nervous a lot, and many times I've literally had to talk to myself—when I'm in a situation where somebody much less brilliant than Arthur Miller is telling me how a scene works, or telling me I'm coming up short, I think: Just calm down. I figured out something with Arthur Miller. I will figure it out. It just breaks my heart thinking about him. He suffered from such a feeling of—I love that documentary his brilliant daughter Rebecca made, about how much he focused at the end on critics and what he didn't succeed at doing, and how they didn't really always get him. Isn't that funny? Authors' relationships to their own work can be so fraught. I have a weird relationship to that, obviously, as someone who writes about people's work. Sometimes I'll hit on something that is exactly what they were trying for, and sometimes they'll think I got it wrong. And sometimes maybe I did get it wrong! But also maybe sometimes I'm seeing what they did in a way they aren't seeing, because they're too close to it—where someone doesn't realize that what they've written reveals something about them, or that it operates in a way they didn't intend. And Miller was always cagy about the autobiographical elements of After the Fall even though it's obviously autobiographical. But maybe a public denial can be necessary for the thing to happen at all, because otherwise it's too lurid. It's like what I said about becoming a caricature of yourself if you're playing your mother or your sister or your cousin—someone you really know. I think he was cognizant of his own life being seen in a two-dimensional way, because people think they can read a book about him and then play him, and then they often play him with less complexity than he had. That was probably his biggest fear: that we'd do research by reading Timebends rather than just looking at the language of the play. He wanted very badly to put things into simple terms for the actors doing his work. In After the Fall I played Louise, his first wife and the mother of two of his kids. When we were working on that play—and he knew we had all read Timebends and this and that—he said: 'Look: You're such a nice wife, and you made a beautiful dinner, and every night you do the same, and you get everyone organized, and your husband is never on time. And you have this beautiful dinner, and this night was particularly special.' And you're like, Oh, okay! [ Laughs. ] I don't need to think about your wife. I'm a mom with two kids and a husband! I understand what it means to feel, like, 'Where the fuck are you? I made this dinner.' You've had the chance to work with a lot of great living playwrights—not just Miller at that time but also people like Richard Greenberg and Sarah Ruhl. Is it better or worse to work with a living writer? It depends on the living writer. It depends on how difficult it is to simplify what you think will work with that writer. If it's someone as clear-thinking as Miller, at a certain juncture in his life where he knows how things work for him and how to talk to actors, then you reorganize yourself and say, 'I can fulfill this mission of simplifying things.' If you're dealing with someone who has a more elusive sense of what they want, and you can't figure out how to get that from them, that's really challenging. Someone like Sarah, who is an exquisite writer—if you just follow the poetry of what she's doing, very simply, and try not to manipulate it into a different frame, then you're fine. It's all about trying to codify—for yourself—how to do different writers' work. It's not going to be the same. Each writer is different, and that's the puzzle of working with a living writer who has an aesthetic you appreciate but you don't know how to do it yet. Another Broadway performance of yours that I really treasured was in Greenberg's The Assembled Parties. A friend of mine who knows her work well said he felt like you were channeling Jill Clayburgh in that one. Was that something you had in mind? It actually was. Because she died right around that time. Rich is just peerless in his work, and I am so fond of his writing. And we were doing a reading of My Mother's Brief Affair, and he had written it for Jill, which before Linda [Lavin]—bless both of them—before Linda took that part. And Jill had a quality with his writing that was unlike anybody I'd seen. She didn't know the charms she had, when she was reading or being. Maybe it was because she was sick, too, and was just trying to get through the reading without causing any waves that might make her feel unwell. But I thought she was so graceful. I didn't know, but her grace was definitely something that influenced me. And Rich was very fond of her. So, yeah. She was magnificent. Okay, I have one more question for you, but it's a two-part question. When you look back on your stage career, what part would you want to go back and do again because you had such a great time doing it, and which part would you want to go back and do again because you think you would do something differently? Oh, beautiful. The one I would wanna go back and do again, because I feel new things might be new things to be revealed, is this play called Stop Kiss [by Diana Son]. That was my first big success. This was at the Public in the late 1990s? At the Public, yeah. I relied a lot on my own, for lack of a better word, 'quirkiness' at that time to figure out how the language worked in a way that was seamless—so that when there were all of these different things going on there was still a seamlessness to it. It was the first time I felt like, 'Oh, now I can do multiple things at once, and go from a serious scene to a funny scene. I know how to do this thing, and I didn't know I knew how to do this thing before!' But I would like to do it again with my head screwed on a little bit better, with more precision and less abandon. I was also pregnant when I did that play, so it was a little bit overwhelming. Is that the one where the Times critic compared you to Sandy Dennis? Maybe? Or that might've been—because it's funny, I genuinely stay away from reading reviews, but my mother still gives me a sense of things—and that might've been Rich's great play The House in Town, because she said, 'Well, they didn't really like what you did, but they said it was because you were too much like someone I think is very talented, Sandy Dennis.' No, this one was a compliment! I guess you were compared to her in two Times reviews. So not just a fail! And I like Sandy Dennis. I remember Joe Mantello once saying that one of his favorite actors was Sandy Dennis, and I was like, Oh, good! [ Laughs. ] She was great in the right part! I just saw Another Woman again, the Woody Allen movie, and she has only two scenes but she runs away with that movie. That scene in the restaurant booth is just amazing. Because she found this little portal. She was more of a Method actor, but she would find a little portal, and then you were like, Oh my God, nobody would figure that out besides you. And what about the part that you would like to do again just for the pleasure? I would want to do Blanche again [in A Streetcar Named Desire ], although I'm obviously far too old. I would want to do Blanche again because the specificity of that language—to be able to speak that again… I teach that play, and I sometimes think of the language of Blanche as just a Bible for one's existence, in terms of why I act, and why people get lost in life. David Cromer explained a lot about that play when he said, 'Blanche and Stanley are two very, very capable human beings, real survivors. Stanley has had very good luck, and Blanche has had terrible luck. She's not just crazy. She's had horrible luck.' I think about how people survive with terrible luck. And I think it's such an interesting task as an actor to figure that out.
Sky News AU
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster's extensive relationship timeline revealed through throwback photos over more than two decades
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster went from Broadway friends to lovers over the course of 23 years. Jackman and Foster's relationship was confirmed earlier this year after months of speculation when People magazine published photos of the couple holding hands on a date night in Los Angeles in January. What appeared to be the start of their whirlwind romance was, in fact, the ultimate culmination of years of being acquainted. Here's a look back at how the Deadpool & Wolverine star, 56, and the 50-year-old Younger actress's friendship blossomed into something more. Decades of dynamic In 2002, Foster and Jackman's careers were on the rise in the Broadway scene. While Foster starred as Millie Dillmount in the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, Jackman visited her backstage at one of her performances. The actress later won a Tony Award for her act. The following year, Jackman starred on Broadway as the titular role in the hit musical The Boy from Oz. In 2021, Foster took to Instagram to recount their meeting two decades ago through a throwback photo of the pair behind the scenes. "Backstage at Thoroughly Modern Millie almost 20 years ago. Millie and Wolverine. Harold and Marian," she wrote in the caption. Early Broadway days Jackman and Foster were pictured again in 2008 when she starred as Princess Fiona in Shrek: The Musical. The fresh-faced duo documented their encounter backstage with a photo. Foster could be seen leaning slightly towards Jackman. At the time, the Australian A-lister was set to star in several notable projects, including the drama film Australia, alongside Nicole Kidman. He beamed beside Foster in a black leather jacket and shirt. Another of the first photos of Jackman and Foster surfaced on Instagram, showing her placing an affectionate hand on him in 2008. Dance the night away In 2014, Jackman and Foster shared a dance during Jackman's performance at the 68th Tony Awards in 2014. The Greatest Showman star hosted the ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. He waltzed with the actress throughout the audience while introducing the category for best performance by a leading actress in a musical. Jackman also danced with the other nominees on the glamorous evening. The following day, Foster gushed over the moment on Instagram, writing, "This happened." Broadway buddies In 2019, Jackman and Foster were announced as the leads of The Music Man. The Broadway production saw Jackman as Harold and Foster as Marian. In November 2021, the X-Men star took to Instagram to share a behind-the-scenes look at the production. 'We're coming your way Broadway. And here's a sneak at what we're packing,' he wrote in the caption. Jackman and Foster beamed widely while walking the red carpet together for the opening night in February 2022. An insider at The Music Man said the co-stars did not shy away from showing affection for each other backstage throughout their run. "At intermission, Sutton and Hugh would stand and hug for a minute, two minutes in front of the entire cast coming up the stairs," the source told Daily in January. The Broadway stars performed a number from the show at the 75th Tony Awards in June 2022. While Jackman and Foster were nominated respectively for best actor and best actress, they didn't secure a win. Jackman and Foster wrapped up the musical in January 2023. Double dates The insider also said the Wolverine star and his ex-wife Deborra-Lee Furness, 69, opened their home to Foster and her ex-husband of ten years Ted Griffin for double dates during The Music Man. "They had dinners with each other's spouses and Sutton and her husband Ted were invited over for dinner with Hugh and his wife Deborra-Lee," the source said. Respective separations Jackman and Foster separated from Furness and Griffin, respectively, within a year of each other. In September 2023, Hollywood insiders were rattled when the Deadpool & Wolverine star and Furness ended their seemingly rock-solid marriage of 27 years, jointly revealing they simply grew apart. 'We have been blessed to share almost three decades together as husband and wife in a wonderful, loving marriage,' the former power couple wrote in a statement. 'Our journey now is shifting, and we have decided to separate to pursue our individual growth.' Nearly two years later, Furness filed for divorce from Jackman in New York last Friday. Furness's lawyer Elena Karabatos submitted further filings, which include a health care coverage notice, a proposed qualified medical child support order, a New York state case registry form, the settlement, a proposed judgment of divorce, and a certificate of dissolution of the 27-year union. The exes share two children, Oscar, 25, and Ava, 19. Foster split Griffin, whom she was married to for ten years, last October. They share a seven-year-old adopted daughter, Emily. Head over heels An insider told Page Six Foster and Jackman were "100 per cent together" around the time of her divorce from Griffin. 'They are 100 percent together and are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together,' the source said. Multiple insiders explained the two were keeping their romance out of the public eye but claimed their relationship was 'common knowledge.' Affair rumours Rumours Jackman and Foster had had an affair gained traction in November 2024 when a friend of Furness spoke out. Actress Amanda de Cadenet claimed the rumours were 'on point' on Instagram 'My beloved friend Deb is about to have her glow up any moment FYI!' de Cadenet wrote. On Wednesday, Furness made a pointed statement about her "traumatic journey of betrayal" after finally filing for divorce from Jackman. She told her "heart and compassion goes out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal. "It's a profound wound that cuts deep, however I believe in a higher power and that God/the universe, whatever you relate to as your guidance, is always working FOR us," the actress said. "This belief has helped me navigate the breakdown of an almost three-decade marriage. I have gained much knowledge and wisdom through this experience. Even when we are presented with apparent adversity, it is leading us to our greatest good, our true purpose. "It can hurt, but in the long run, returning to yourself and living within your own integrity, values and boundaries is liberation and freedom." Hard launch Foster and Jackman took their romance public in January 2025 when they were spotted holding hands in Santa Monica, California. That same month, photos surfaced of the lovebirds making out in an In-N-Out drive-thru in San Fernando, California. The former co-stars were seen laughing and kissing in a Range Rover. The couple is believed to be moving into Jackman's New York penthouse, which he purchased for USD$21.12 million (AUD $30 million) in 2022 with Furness. According to one source close to the Oscar-nominated who spoke to Closer in February, Jackman 'wants to make Sutton his wife' after recommitting to Foster following a trip back to Australia. The source said the timing of Jackman's official divorce from Furness will impact when he can get married again, but that 'as soon as they are both free and clear, they (Jackman and Foster) want to walk down the aisle'.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Special Tony for educators goes to NYC high school teacher who urges students to 'step out the box'
NEW YORK (AP) — The special Tony Award that honors educators is going to a New York public high school teacher who shows how theater skills can apply to a career in the arts — and also far away from it. 'My platform is career focused,' says Gary Edwin Robinson. 'So, as I am working with my students, it's always, 'How is theater going to help develop you in whatever area you're going into?'' Robinson, head of the Theatre Arts Program at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, will receive the 2025 Excellence in Theatre Education Award on June 8 at the Tony Awards in New York City. 'I love what I do, and I get up and I go to work every morning and I go to the theater. It's a black box theater and the theater just happens to be in a school, but it's theater to me. There's no distinction,' he told The Associated Press ahead of the announcement. Robinson teaches five drama classes a day, offering an average of 95-100 students a three-year sequence of 45-minute parts. 'My thing is 'Go explore and find yourself in this thing called theater,'' he says. Year one is teaching the foundations of theater arts and performing. 'I encourage my students every time they come to class to step out the box, explore, try something new today.' Year two is more text-based, as students explore playwriting and do character analysis. The third year pulls it all together at the school's black box theater. Even if a student is poised for a life in athletics, Robinson says theater skills can help: Theater can make you a better communicator and can even help when you do commercial endorsements. The annual Excellence in Theatre Education Award bestowed by the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University recognizes U.S. educators who have 'demonstrated exemplary impact on the lives of students and who embodies the highest standards of the profession.' 'Edwin's dedication to empowering the next generation of artists, both on and off the stage, is both profound and inspiring,' said Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian in a statement. 'Carnegie Mellon University is thrilled to help recognize his impact in arts education and to celebrate his record of equipping students with the skills, confidence and community needed for lifelong success.' Robinson graduated from Andrew Jackson High School in Queens, focusing on music and art. He played the flute and was a second baritone in the school's choir. Robinson went on to the Dance Theatre of Harlem and then to Howard University, where he earned his bachelor's in theater education. He earned an honorable mention in the education category at the 2023 Tonys. He has leaned on the Arthur Miller Foundation Fellows Program and Broadway Bridges Program to take his students to Broadway shows. This season, they've seen 'Hell's Kitchen,' 'Gypsy,' 'A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical' and 'John Proctor Is the Villain.' 'We don't call them trips. I call them theater experiences,' says Robinson. 'It's not a trip and a day out. You're exploring what you learned in class through your drama book and textbook. What do you see on the stage happening? What did you learn in class and how do you make those connections?' After seeing a show, Robinson is often asked by his students when they are going back, so eye-opening has the experience been. 'Many of them walk around the whole day holding the Playbill. I said, 'You can put it away.' But it's like this little Broadway treasure that they have in their hand. And that makes me proud because I know that it has had a major impact on them.' The award includes a $10,000 prize for the Theatre Arts Program and a pair of tickets to the Tony ceremony and gala. Robinson's students will also receive a visiting master class taught by Carnegie Mellon drama professors. A panel of judges comprised of the American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League, Carnegie Mellon and other leaders from the theater industry selects the winner, from candidates submitted by the public. Many of Robinson's students have gone on to careers in the arts — one is on tour in 'Moulin Rouge,' another is a manager at the famed Apollo Theater and another just finished a TV show. 'The ones that are teaching theater, that's the gift to me,' he says. 'When you have these students that are holding positions in professional organizations in the theater, film, and television, that's another award out there. It lets me know that I've done my job and I connected with students and it's worked.' —-
