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CBS News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Tony Award-winning musical, "The Light in the Piazza," takes audience on emotional journey about love
The Tony Award-winning musical, "The Light in the Piazza", is now on stage at the Huntington Theater, but it may not be your typical musical, as some of the characters speak and sing in Italian. But the story about love, hope, growing up, and letting go is universal. The piece takes place in the summer of 1953, as Margaret and Clara Johnson go on vacation in Florence. Tony-nominated actor Emily Skinner portrays Margaret, with Sarah-Anne Martinez taking on the role of Clara. Skinner said, "The show is about love. The show is about romantic love and familial love and maternal love. " "In the beginning, we see how much Clara relies on her mom as not only her eyes to the outside world, her way of understanding the world around her, but also her advocate," explained Martinez. That relationship changes once Clara meets Fabrizio and falls in love. "She has a moment of independence where she says, 'Mom, this is who I am. Will you support me in this journey that I want to go on?' And so Margaret then has to have faith that her daughter is ready to grow into herself. And I think that's so beautiful. That's something that so many people go through with their own mothers or their own parents. That moment of saying, this is who I am. I'm an adult now. See me, and then we can grow together," Martinez told WBZ-TV. A full orchestra accompanies the musical While many modern musicals feature a pop score, the music here is very different. Skinner said, "The Huntington is doing something amazing. We have a full orchestra with the show. That's rare. That's rare even on Broadway nowadays. And to get to hear this big lush, the orchestrations played so gorgeously." Martinez agreed, "It's not only a beautifully orchestrated piece, but it's also emotionally challenging to perform, because it's such a vulnerable moment in her life. And I think that it's so rare to have such a romantic, lush, original score. And so this one is just, it's so special." Director Loretta Grecco's take on the piece is to look at it as a play with music that enhances the storytelling, making an impact. "Not everybody knows about this show, and so some people might come into it knowing the story, knowing they're going to go on this emotional journey, but when you don't know, it's such a beautiful surprise," says Martinzez. "And so I think some people are really taken aback by how deeply this story gets into their hearts." You can see The Light in the Piazza at the Huntington Theater in Boston through Sunday, June 15th.
New York Times
28-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Pardons Become the Latest Trump Flex
Before he left office in 1953, President Harry Truman handed out a number of pardons to politically connected convicts — and, perhaps to avoid blowback, he did so entirely in secret. In 2001, Bill Clinton waited until the final day of his presidency to issue a pardon he knew would go off like a political bomb: to Marc Rich, the oil trader and fugitive indicted in a sprawling tax evasion case, whose former wife had made donations to the Clinton presidential library and the Democratic Party. And around Christmas in 2008, President George W. Bush rescinded a pardon he had granted to a Brooklyn developer, Isaac Toussie, after The New York Post reported that Toussie's father had donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee and another $2,300 to Senator John McCain. 'This is a good decision,' a Justice Department lawyer told the White House aide who went to retrieve Toussie's pardon grant before it could be delivered to him, according to my colleague Peter Baker's book on the Bush presidency, 'Days of Fire.' 'Because I don't know if anybody could survive this.' The power of the pardon is so absolute that the only way to punish a president for how he uses it is to impeach him or to vote him out. Most presidents have wanted to avoid those things. So they've granted pardons carefully, even furtively, often saving what might prove scandalous until the very last days of their terms. 'The pardon power for a president is virtually unlimited,' said Alberto Gonzales, who served under Bush as White House counsel and then as the attorney general. 'In almost every case at the federal level, the question is not a concern over the authority to grant clemency, but whether clemency is appropriate given history, the circumstances of the offender and the politics.' This week, though, President Trump has shown he has no intention of allowing such an unchecked executive power to go unexploited over as trifling a concern as the ordinary rules of politics. Rules that say, among other things, that doling out favors to donors and allies might carry an odor of impropriety. Today, Trump pardoned former Representative Michael Grimm, a Republican from New York who pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony tax evasion. Grimm has been a vigorous and public Trump supporter. My colleague Ken Vogel reported Tuesday that the president had pardoned Paul Walczak, a convicted tax cheat, after Walczak's mother raised millions of dollars for Trump's presidential campaigns and those of other Republicans. The same day, the White House announced pardons for two reality-television stars, Todd and Julie Chrisley, who had been convicted of evading taxes and defrauding banks of more than $30 million, after their daughter depicted them as persecuted conservatives in a speech at last summer's Republican National Convention. And this week, the president's new pardon attorney, Ed Martin, told The Wall Street Journal that he had personally fast-tracked a pardon for Scott Jenkins, a Virginia sheriff convicted of bribery who has been an outspoken supporter of Trump's immigration agenda. This is scarcely the first time Trump has defied political gravity. But it still represents something new. Trump knows that his first-term pardons of political allies like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn didn't cost him much if any political support. Since that first term, he has pressed so hard and for so long to demonize and undo the work of the Biden administration's Justice Department — claiming that it was weaponized against him and his supporters — that he may have conditioned much of the public to believe him if he says that the recipient of a pardon was indeed a fellow victim. He appears to be counting on his having changed the weather, hoping that the old rules won't apply to him in this term, either. Are Trump's approval ratings rising? My colleague Ruth Igielnik, a Times polling editor, looks at a key number that helps explain the political moment. Today, she has a temperature-check on how voters feel about President Trump. Donald Trump came into office in January with the lowest approval rating of any modern president — except for his own at the start of his first term. Over the first 100 days of his second term, Trump's approval rating steadily declined, similar to what Barack Obama and Bill Clinton faced in their first months as president. The difference is Trump's lower starting point: Unlike his predecessors, he quickly found himself underwater, with more Americans disapproving of his job performance than approving of it. But since the beginning of May, Trump's job approval has stopped dropping. It might even be improving ever so slightly — although the few high-quality polls we have seen recently show little change. One possible explanation: Trump may have already lost all of the tentative or hesitant support he once enjoyed among independents, and he can't drop much more because of his rock-solid Republican support. In our last New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted in late April, 86 percent of Republicans approved of Trump's job performance, while 92 percent of Democrats disapproved of it. So Trump is not losing many Republicans, and Democrats disliked him from the start. But among independents, just 29 percent approved of his performance. For a finer-grain look at his bleeding among independents, consider two polls by Quinnipiac University: In January, more independents viewed Trump unfavorably than favorably by a difference of five percentage points. In April, Trump was underwater with independents by a margin of 22 percentage points. What Iowa tells us about Trump's America Over the weekend, my colleague Shane Goldmacher published a report showing just how much President Trump has realigned the American political landscape. He found that 1,433 counties were 'triple-trending' Republican — that is, they shifted toward Trump in each of the last three presidential elections — while only 57 counties trended Democratic in that way. I asked him to tell us about one state that tells the story. President Obama won Iowa in 2012, but the state has since completely fallen off the battleground map. And while Iowa is too white to truly show the racial changes in the political coalitions of the two parties, it shows vividly how Trump has made inroads with the working class, while Democrats are inching up only in the richest and most educated enclaves. All told, 69 of the state's 99 counties were 'triple-trending' toward Trump — and by wide margins, with none shifting by fewer than 15 percentage points and nearly two dozen shifting by 40 or more. Not a single county in Iowa trended steadily toward Democrats between 2012 and 2024. Two Iowa counties did vote more Democratic in 2024 than they had 2012, however. But the demographics of those pockets were as revealing as the Trump bump across the rest of the state. One was the state's wealthiest county, Dallas, a suburb of Des Moines. It's the only Iowa county with a median household income above $100,000. The other was the most educated county in the state, Johnson, home to the University of Iowa. Democrats point to a handful of close House races in recent years to insist that they still have hope in Iowa, though notably Republicans currently hold every congressional seat in the state. If Democrats are ever going to make the state competitive again, it will require improving in a lot more counties than two. Not a taco fan, it would seem My colleague Shawn McCreesh sends this dispatch from the White House beat. President Trump learned a new acronym today. He was holding one of his marathon question-and-answer sessions with journalists in the Oval Office when one reporter asked him about a new term of art being used on Wall Street. Taco. It stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out.' Coined by a columnist for The Financial Times, it captures the belief — held by an increasing number of traders and analysts — that Trump never really follows through with his tariff threats in the end, and implies a warning to buy or sell accordingly. Evidently, this was the first time Trump had heard the term, which immediately sent him into a state of high dudgeon. 'Oh, isn't that nice,' he started to say. 'I chicken out? I've never heard that.' He offered a defense of his trade maneuvering. But he seemed as annoyed by the question as by the term itself. 'Don't ever say what you said,' he said to the reporter who had said what she had said. 'That's a nasty question. To me, that's the nastiest question.' It had seemed like sort of an inconsequential question compared with others he was getting on Wednesday. There were lots of big, scary, thorny, inconvenient questions, about Russia and Iran and Gaza and nuclear weapons, and about how Elon Musk dared take a swipe at Trump on CBS. But this was the one that clearly unnerved him. And there was a pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain kind of quality to the exchange: What will it mean if Wall Street and the world stop believing in the power of the tariff wizard? Taco is both a serious matter — Trump has, indeed, retreated from many of his trade threats — and what sounds like a joke. Made at his expense. And that clearly made an impression. Just before the press was ushered out, Trump alluded to the new term all on his own. 'They'll say, 'Oh, he was chicken, he was chicken!'' he said while riffing about continuing negotiations with China. 'That's so unbelievable,' he said, sounding perhaps a little bruised. 'Usually, I'm the opposite. They say, 'You're too tough.''
CTV News
27-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
‘The Coronation Girls' reunite to meet King Charles
A group of high school girls who were assembled to witness Queen Eliabeth's coronation in 1953 are reuniting to meet King Charles during his visit.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Caitríona Balfe lands first post-Outlander movie role alongside Tom Hiddleston
Caitríona Balfe has landed her first movie role since wrapping production on Outlander. The actor, who will bow out as Claire Fraser in the hit Starz drama's eighth and final season later this year, is teaming up with Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe for a new Apple Original Films feature titled Tenzing. The upcoming movie will chart the life of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and his summit of Mount Everest in 1953 with Edmund Hillary. According to Deadline, Balfe will play Jill Henderson, a friend of Tenzing who helped organise trips up Mount Everest. It was previously confirmed that Loki star Hiddleston will play Hillary, while Dafoe has been cast as expedition leader Colonel John Hunt. The role of Tenzing himself is yet to be cast. Related: Best film and TV tours for 2025 An official logline for Tenzing reads: "Tibetan-born Tenzing Norgay, alongside New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary, both outsiders on a British Expedition, defied insurmountable odds to achieve what was once thought impossible, reaching the summit of the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest. "After six previous attempts, Tenzing risked everything for one final venture. He had to navigate treacherous politics and perilous weather as he embarked on the most significant climb of his life. "Through it all, he did so with humour, warmth, and generosity towards his fellow climbers, but also deep reverence and respect for the sacred Mother Goddess of his Mountain, Chomolungma." Related: Tenzing will be directed by Jennifer Peedom, who previously helmed the award-winning documentaries Solo, Sherpa, Mountain and River. When the project was first announced last year, Peedom said she'd been "working towards this film my whole career". "Tom Hiddleston and Willem Dafoe are two of the most generous and talented actors in the business, so pairing them with our brilliant Himalayan cast is going to be electric," she added. "I have no doubt this film will resonate widely. We all have our own mountains to climb, and this film shows us what human beings are truly capable of." Digital Spy's first print magazine is here! Buy British Comedy Legends in newsagents or online now, priced at £7.99. at at Audible£49.99 at at £99.00 at Amazon at EE£328.00 at at £18.99 at at EE at £54.98 at at at at at at Amazon at at at at at at Game at at EE at Pandora at at at at Sky Mobile at at Game at Pandora at at at at at at Three£259.99 at at at at at AO at at at at at at £39.99 at at Fitbit$15.00 at at at at at John Lewis£119.00 at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at John Lewis & Partners at at John Lewis at at at Amazon£44.99 at at Three£32.99 at Amazon at at Amazon at at John Lewis & Partners£6.62 at at at at Fitbit£119.99 at at at at at Three at at at Apple£699.00 at at at at at at at Amazon at at at EE at at at at at at at at at John Lewis at at at Audible at at at at Amazon at at John Lewis at at at at Apple at EE£379.00 at at at Microsoft£229.00 at John Lewis at at Three at at Apple at at at Samsung at at crunchyroll£449.00 at John Lewis at at Amazon£79.00 at Samsung£1199.00 at AO at at at at at John Lewis & Partners at at at Microsoft£92.98 at at Microsoft£79.98 at at at at at at John Lewis£39.99 at Amazon at at at now at at John Lewis & Partners at at at at at Microsoft£399.00 at John Lewis at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at You Might Also Like PS5 consoles for sale – PlayStation 5 stock and restocks: Where to buy PS5 today? IS MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 THE BEST IN THE SERIES? OUR REVIEW AEW game is a modern mix of No Mercy and SmackDown
