Curtains up! How Broadway is coming back from its longest shutdown

NEW YORK — Broadway is back. Or so it hopes.

A year and a half after the coronavirus pandemic forced all 41 theaters to go dark, silencing a symbol of New York and throwing thousands out of work, some of the industry’s biggest and best known shows are resuming performances on Tuesday.

Simba will reclaim the Pride Lands in the “The Lion King.” Elphaba and Glinda will return to Oz in “Wicked.” A young, scrappy and hungry immigrant will foment revolution in “Hamilton.” The long-running revival of “Chicago” will give ‘em the old razzle dazzle. Plus there’s one new production, the childhood reminiscence “Lackawanna Blues,” offering a reminder that Broadway still provides a home for plays, too.

Broadway’s reopening is a high-stakes gamble that theater lovers, culture vultures and screen-weary adventurers are ready to return — vaccinated and masked — to these storied sanctuaries of spectacle and storytelling.

But it comes at a time of uncertainty.

In May, when Broadway got the green light to reopen, it seemed imaginable that the coronavirus pandemic was winding down, thanks to readily available vaccines. Since then, a combination of vaccine hesitancy and the delta variant sent cases skyrocketing again. And while New York is doing better than much of the nation, the city is still facing a sharp drop in tourists, who typically make up two-thirds of the Broadway audience; many businesses in the region have postponed bringing workers back to their offices; and consumer appetite for live theater after months of anxiety and streaming remains unknown.

The industry’s recovery is enormously important to New York City, for symbolic as well as economic reasons.

Broadway is, of course, a big employer with substantial impact on a variety of businesses throughout midtown, the tourism sector, and the arts world. But Broadway — which has been a point of pride for New Yorkers through the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the cleanup of Times Square in the 1990s, and the recovery after the Sept. 11 attacks 20 years ago — has also come to function as a sort of barometer of the city’s health.

With Broadway closed, New York appears to be ailing. With Broadway reopening, recovery seems possible.

There are reasons for concern: The resumption of theater in Australia and Britain has been bumpy. And Broadway is, even during boom times, a high-risk business in which most shows flop; now producers face even more daunting odds.

But there are also reasons for hope. Four trailblazing productions — the concert show “Springsteen on Broadway,” the new play “Pass Over,” and the musicals “Waitress” and “Hadestown” — started performances this summer, serving as laboratories for the industry’s safety protocols. None has yet missed a performance.

By the end of the year, if all goes as planned, 39 shows will have begun runs on Broadway.

As casts and crew come back to work, much has changed: There have been deaths (the virus claimed the lives of playwright Terrence McNally and actor Nick Cordero) and births (the writer and director of “Hadestown” were among the many who had babies), an uprising (over racism, prompting promises of change) and a downfall (of powerful producer Scott Rudin, over chronically tyrannical behavior).

The task now: making sure everything, and everyone, is ready for showtime.

A Positive Test Before Opening Night

It was a half-hour before curtain on the night of Sept. 2, and the company of “Waitress,” led by Sara Bareilles, had gathered onstage at the Ethel Barrymore Theater for one of those kooky theater rituals — an opening night ceremony at which the chorus member with the most Broadway credits runs three circular laps in a quilted robe, inviting other actors to touch it before visiting each dressing room to bestow a blessing.

The “Waitress” legacy robe ceremony was even odder than usual. The robe recipient, Anastacia McCleskey, was not present: She had tested positive for the coronavirus, though vaccinated, and was isolating at home.

What to do? Theater artists are nothing if not resourceful, so another cast member placed a FaceTime call to McCleskey, and then, holding the phone aloft, donned the robe, ran the laps, and visited the dressing rooms with a virtual McCleskey along for the ride.

And, oh yes, the show went on, with an understudy in McCleskey’s place.

Producing during a pandemic is going to be complicated. There are upgraded air filtration systems, digital tickets, ubiquitous disinfectant and frequent testing.

There is a whole new job category: the COVID-19 safety officer. Disney’s theatrical division has six, overseeing 500 tests daily at the company’s four American productions.

And, at least for a while, fans can forget about backstage tours and stage door selfies.

“There’s an extraordinary new layer of logistics that every show and every theater has learned, adopted and implemented,” said Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which runs five of the Broadway houses.

The biggest safety measure Broadway has taken is to require that everyone 12 and over — audiences as well as employees — be vaccinated (children can get in with a negative coronavirus test) and that everyone except performers wear a mask.

The theater owners, competitors who have become more collaborative as the pandemic has upended their industry, announced those requirements in July, as the danger of the delta variant became clear. To get there, the industry had to overcome initial reluctance from producers worried mandates could inhibit potential ticketbuyers and imperil family shows.

But many producers came to believe that strict safety protocols comfort more potential ticketbuyers than they alienate, and at a video meeting, a consensus emerged. “It was just the right thing to do,” said Robert Wankel, CEO of the Shubert Organization, which owns and operates 17 Broadway houses.

The theater owners were slightly ahead of government officials — days later, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a vaccine mandate for a variety of indoor spaces, including performing arts venues.

Whether the safety measures are sufficient remains to be seen. In Australia, where strict lockdowns and border closures initially thwarted the spread of the virus, theaters successfully reopened last winter but are now closed as rising infections prompt tighter restrictions. In London, many theaters canceled performances over the summer because of positive coronavirus tests and contact tracing alerts prompting people to go into isolation; guidance has since eased and productions are now running.

New York has higher vaccination rates than Australia, and does not employ the contact tracing practices that initially disrupted performances in Britain, so Broadway officials are hopeful shows will be able to run. They know it’s inevitable that some theater workers will test positive for the virus, but are banking on vaccines, masks, and testing to contain the spread.

McCleskey, the “Waitress” performer who tested positive on Aug. 30, said she had no idea how she became infected. “As safe as I felt like I was being — wearing a mask, carrying hand sanitizer — clearly I came in contact with someone or something that had the virus on it,” she said. She was sick for a week, but has recovered and is expecting to rejoin the show this week. “I’m excited to go back,” she said, “and to feel the energy from the audience.”

Dusting Off the Spotlights

“Have a good show, everybody!” Antonia Gianino, a stage manager for “The Lion King,” said over her headset. “House lights at half! House lights out! And, go!”

As “The Lion King” began its dry tech — an actorless rehearsal to test sets and lights — it was clear right away that there was work to be done. The Minskoff Theater stage wasn’t sloping upward as it should during “Circle of Life.” Note taken. That’s why they rehearse.

Up and down Broadway, where theaters have been gathering dust since they were forced to close on March 12, 2020, design teams and stage crews have been burnishing dirty fixtures, replacing dead batteries, re-fireproofing safety cloths, and testing automated devices, trying to make sure everything still functions.

“If you turn off your car or computer for 18 months and then turn it back on, you don’t know what problems you might come across,” said Guy Kwan of Juniper Street Productions, which works on shows including “Moulin Rouge!,” “Come From Away” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” “We didn’t want to be in a situation where we start finding problems after audiences come back.”

For the most part, shows reported that their physical productions held up reasonably well. Even rats gave theaters a break: Kwan said there were actually fewer rodents than feared in the shuttered buildings, probably because there were few food sources.

But there were other issues as a shutdown initially expected to last a month dragged on much longer. “Six,” a new musical which imagines the wives of Henry VIII as pop stars, had to replace all of its plastic-and-foil costumes, which deteriorated even though they had been stored in blankets in an attempt to prevent damage.

“Everything turned from bright beautiful colors to pastels,” said John Kristiansen, who runs the shop that builds that show’s divas-in-Tudor-garb outfits, and who wound up in the emergency room with the coronavirus on the day Broadway shut down. “All the costumes had been ruined.”

One upside: the new costumes should be sturdier and shinier. At “Hamilton,” too, the pandemic provided an opportunity to upgrade: more than 100 lights were replaced with newer technology. For the remaining fixtures, crews sent cranes up into the flies to clean out interiors with compressed air, change old gels that had been blurred with dust, and apply new fire retardant. “We literally started from the top of the theater, and are cleaning all the way down,” said Sandy Paradise, the show’s head follow spot operator.

Some theaters felt like time capsules. As the “Lion King” dry tech got underway, associate lighting designer Carolyn Wong settled into her seat and booted up the computer. Her last set of show notes popped up on the screen, dated Friday, March 13, 2020.

“It’s not often,” she said wryly, “we let our equipment sit unused for 18 months.”

Getting Back in Shape, Vocally and Physically

Kevin Clay was working a register at Trader Joe’s when, just to break up the hours, he thought he should try touching his toes.

Oof.

He had spent five years in various productions of “The Book of Mormon,” but now it had been nearly a year away from the stage, and he just wasn’t as flexible as he had been.

“I had been doing the show eight times a week, and working out five days a week, and then I went from that to nothing,” he said.

As hundreds of performers return to Broadway, among the first tasks for many is reconditioning their bodies, their voices, and their minds. Some shows are adding extra rehearsal time for warm-ups; others are providing voice lessons.

There are even medical programs focused on helping actors get their game back: the Center for Voice and Swallowing at Columbia University Medical Center developed a four-week video “prehabilitation” program to help performers rebuild vocal strength, flexibility, and endurance that is being used by “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Jagged Little Pill,” while the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital developed “Back to Broadway” strengthening and stretching programs used by performers in “Wicked.”

“I knew that in the NFL there were lots of injuries after the strike season, and I saw that when baseball returned there was an increase in the injured list,” said Dr. Michael Pitman, director of the Columbia center. “It became clear to me that musical theater performers are athletes, and they’re going to have the same problems getting back onstage because they’re not in good vocal health — they’re deconditioned and being asked to ramp up quickly.”

Mark Hunter-Hall, a physical therapy supervisor at the Harkness Center, said there is another factor to contend with: the aftereffects of COVID-19 for those performers who had bouts of the disease. “We do an injury assessment to pick up folks who had harsher respiratory symptoms that might need more work to address,” he said. Clay, who will be starring as Elder Price on Broadway when “Mormon” resumes performances Nov. 5, said he had noticed changes in his body simply as a result of not performing. “I lost a fair amount of muscle mass — my abdomen does not look the same, and my arms don’t look the same,” he said. “And I was playing with the dog and getting winded now.”

The downtime affected his voice, too. On the day he learned “Mormon” was returning, he sang through the score in his apartment, and noticed strain. “It was a bit of a brutal wake-up call,” he said.

He sprang into action. He signed up for voice lessons, seeking to rebuild vocal stamina and technique. And, although unwilling to return to the gym because of potential coronavirus exposure, he supplemented outdoor running with weight training and core work in his apartment.

“I was way more nervous than excited, because I couldn’t shake the thought that I’ll never get back to where I was,” he said. “It wasn’t until we ran the whole show from beginning to end and I felt good that I was like, ‘OK, now I can see it, and I’m excited to keep pushing until we get there.’”

Luba Mason, a performer in “Girl From the North Country,” which returns Oct. 13, has started physical training, daily vocal exercises, and drum lessons, because she drums in the show. “Like many people, I had the 15-pound COVID on me,” she said. “It’s not about how I look — it’s really about stamina, about having the strength to do eight shows a week, six days a week.”

Traffic Jams at Rehearsal Studios

Talk about déjà vu: the stars of “Six” returned to the New 42nd Street Studios this summer to re-rehearse a show that came within 90 minutes of its Broadway opening, but never got there.

The saga of “Six” is among Broadway’s most striking. A British pop musical dreamed up by two college students, it was barreling toward opening night with a huge head of steam: significant advance sales, multiple productions underway, and an energized and youthful fan base dubbed the Queendom. Following a month of previews, after friends and family had flown into New York, party dresses were pressed, and sushi was waiting downtown, the opening was canceled.

Now the show plans to begin a second round of previews Friday, and to open Oct. 3. So one August morning, clad in leotards and sweatshirts, the cast took it from the top, ready to discover what they remembered and what they forgot, screaming and laughing as they reacquainted themselves with the sound of the harpsichord and the feel of a hip roll. Eliza Ohman, an associate choreographer, cradled a laptop as she refreshed her own memory, pausing every few minutes to check in. “Feel OK?” she would ask. “It’s coming back, right?”

The answers varied. “I feel like I used to look at her over my left shoulder?” a hesitant Samantha Pauly (she plays Katherine Howard) said as she worked through a dance move. “I just don’t remember it,” Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn) acknowledged of one pose.

But at another point, when a dance seemed to jell, an exuberant Brittney Mack (Anna of Cleves) blurted out “We know this!” punctuating the thought with an expletive.

At “Six,” as at many shows, there is also a dollop of disquiet, as artists steel themselves for possible disruptions. “Every day I’m just waiting for an email or a phone call or some big shutdown again,” Pauly acknowledged. “I think a lot of people are feeling that way, unfortunately.”

The act of re-rehearsing every Broadway show, first in studios and then in theaters, has proved costly — $1.4 million to $4 million per show, according to the Broadway League — and has caused a logjam in Times Square. The New 42nd Street Studios are booked for months, in part because an unusual number of shows are rehearsing at once; in part because they are simultaneously rehearsing tours and Broadway productions; and in part because COVID-19 protocols mean there is only one show per floor.

At the Walter Kerr Theater, during the final dress rehearsal for “Hadestown,” the production stage manager, Beverly Jenkins, called the show from inside a booth enclosed by a plastic curtain intended to protect her from aerosols. She mouthed the words to the songs and bopped up and down in her chair as she exuberantly gave lighting cues.

As Reeve Carney sang his big number, “Wait For Me,” the crowd of essential workers invited to the rehearsal roared, and a stage manager on the headset exclaimed “Still got it!” Jenkins nodded in agreement. “Mmm hmm,” she said. Then she called the next cue.

Using the Pause for a Racial Justice Reset

The band for “Hadestown” is small, and five of the seven musicians are white men. That’s not atypical — orchestras are a sector of Broadway that is not particularly diverse — but it is conspicuous because the players are seated onstage.

During the pandemic, as the police killing of George Floyd inspired protests against racism and demands for social change, the “Hadestown” band took action. They realized they could directly effect change because on Broadway, individual musicians recruit the substitutes who fill in for them when they are away, and many are away a lot.

Dana Lyn, the show’s violinist and one of the two musicians of color, drafted a letter in which each member of the band pledged that at least two of their five “subs” would be people of color, including one who would be Black, and at least two would be women. “We hope that other Broadway orchestras will do the same,” they wrote on Instagram.

Lyn said the change shouldn’t be that hard. “Even if you don’t have women friends who are drummers, they’re out there in New York City,” she said, by way of example. “You might go find them.”

The band pledge is one of the more concrete steps taken on Broadway to address diversity concerns that arose during the pandemic, but there are broader measures too.

Broadway is slated to feature at least seven works by Black playwrights this season, a historically large number. Also, a year-old organization called Black Theater United negotiated a “New Deal” with a variety of industry leaders who pledged to stop hiring all-white creative teams and to rename some theaters after Black artists, among other steps.

There are new ways for employees to flag mistreatment, and new training programs to combat racism. New fellowships and other programs are being created to nurture producers and company managers and theater administrators and casting directors of color.

There are also new positions being created, especially at shows with multiple productions and deep pockets: The Broadway League and “Moulin Rouge!” are among the entities hiring directors of equity, diversity and inclusion, while “Wicked” hired Christina Alexander as director of social responsibility.

“I want to be part,” Alexander said, “of making this feel more like the community we were assuming it was.”

The Show Won’t Go on for Everyone

On the road back to Broadway, there have been more than a few speed bumps.

There are casting issues: Some children aged out of their roles, while some grown-ups got other jobs. Chad Kimball is not returning to “Come From Away” after a social media furor over his declaration on Twitter that he would defy a Washington state policy barring congregational singing in church. Karen Olivo left a starring role in “Moulin Rouge!” after declaring Broadway to be unjust. Celia Rose Gooding is venturing into the final frontier, departing “Jagged Little Pill” for “Star Trek.”

At least five shows that were running when Broadway shut down have opted not to return. Among them were two big musicals, “Frozen” and “Mean Girls,” that had been softening at the box office and chose to refocus their energy on touring. Then there were two plays that started previews but never made it to opening night: Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen” and a revival of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

The latest to fall: Ivo van Hove’s highly anticipated, polarizing revival of “West Side Story,” which opened three weeks before the shutdown. The show was always going to be tough — with heavy use of video and elaborate onstage rainfall it was expensive to run, and the avant-garde staging of a classic musical was not for everyone. Also, there is a looming film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg, which could boost or dampen interest in the stage production. Once the lead producer, Rudin, stepped away, the show’s future was left to the producers Barry Diller and David Geffen, who had put $20 million into the project. They were hoping to reopen, but on Aug. 9 announced that they would instead shutter the production, returning $10 million in federal aid.

“We tried like crazy to be able to do it, up until the last minute when we said it just, unfortunately, made no sense,” Diller said. The movie, now slated for a Dec. 10 release, posed a “major complication,” he said, because rights restrictions prevented the musical from reopening during the film’s advertising window. Scheduling also posed a problem because some key members of the creative team are based in Europe. “In the end,” Diller said, “it just collapsed of its immense weight.”

“So Come See Me!”

One afternoon late last month, Michael James Scott, the actor who plays the Genie in “Aladdin,” slipped into a booth in a midtown recording studio to tape a radio spot.

Scott has done his share of Genie work, but this one would be different: His task was to persuade those who might not know Broadway is open, or might be hesitant to return, that it’s time to emerge from isolation.

“I don’t know about you, but my tiny house is way too tiny,” he began, voice rising, hands gesticulating. “It’s a lamp, actually.”

After a few more beats like that — “I’m ready to get back into a whole new world (see what I did there?)” — he landed on the message: “The stage is calling my name, and I got a big production number to do. So come see me!”

Getting shows ready to run is one thing. Getting people to show up is another.

That’s one reason productions announced their opening dates months ago, even though they only needed four or five weeks for rehearsals. With a raft of openings and rows and rows of seats to fill eight times a week, producers needed time to alert fans that Broadway was coming back, and to urge them to buy tickets. The delta variant complicated the marketing strategy. Back in the spring, producers thought they could count on a core audience of avid theatergoers to come early and often, so they could devote their attention to broadening that audience. But as the news about the pandemic grew increasingly alarming, the industry decided to focus on its base: known theatergoers living in the Northeast.

That poses a challenge for shows like “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Chicago” that have been especially dependent on tourists, but also for new shows like “Mrs. Doubtfire,” which could benefit from a national audience nostalgic for the film.

So how are shows doing thus far? Anecdotal reports suggest that a handful of musicals, including “Hamilton,” “Hadestown” and “Six,” are selling strongly, while plays are struggling. But there’s a dearth of data, because the Broadway League, worried about soft sales dampening consumer confidence, has decided not to disclose box office grosses this season.

Hoping to shore up sales, the Broadway League and the New York City tourism agency have both launched marketing campaigns. Press agents who gave up their offices during the pandemic are back at work trying to gin up coverage, in some cases operating out of WeWork spaces.

And the long-delayed Tony Awards ceremony, honoring work performed during the truncated 2019-20 season, will take place Sept. 26 — timed to coincide with Broadway’s reopening. With most awards relegated to a stream on Paramount Plus, the two-hour CBS broadcast will be dominated by a “Broadway’s Back!” show tunes concert that industry officials hope will encourage ticket buying.

Scott said he’s eager to do his part to sell shows at a time when many potential patrons still seem uncertain as to whether Broadway is back.

“I’ve had questions from family members: ‘Oh, my gosh, is it really happening?’” Scott said. “Yes, it’s happening.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder constantly vilified by the press ahead of California recall election

Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder could make history as California’s first Black governor if he unseats Gov. Gavin Newsom in Tuesday’s recall election – but the liberal media hasn’t done the conservative radio host any favors. 

Elder has been constantly vilified by the press since emerging as the frontrunner among the 46 candidates looking to replace Newsom. The GOP hopeful has been called the “Black face of White supremacy,” a “very real threat to communities of color,” and even a  a “model minority.”

Fox News contributor Leo Terrell has called coverage of Elder “disgraceful” and Fox News Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock was particular peeved that that a racially charged attack on Elder went largely unreported by prominent liberal news organizations. 

LARRY ELDER BRUSHES OFF LA TIMES COLUMN THAT CALLED HIM ‘THE BLACK FACE OF WHITE SUPREMACY’

Conservative radio talk show host Larry Elder speaks to supporters during a campaign stop outside the Hall of Justice downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Conservative radio talk show host Larry Elder speaks to supporters during a campaign stop outside the Hall of Justice downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) (AP )

“It’s no surprise any longer, but nonetheless pathetic: A White female leftist dressed as an ape throws an egg at a Black Republican candidate, barely missing him. The media snore loudly enough to shake leaves from trees,” Murdock said. 

“Imagine the reverse: A white male Rightist in a gorilla mask hurls an egg at Kamala Harris. The dinosaur media response would be universal: Outrage, condemnation, wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth, foaming of mouths,” Murdoch continued. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Here some noteworthy moments from the media’s coverage of Elder: 

L.A. Times column calls Elder “the Black face of white supremacy”

The Los Angeles Times published a piece last month titled “Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned,” which accused the Republican of using “overly simplistic arguments that whitewash the complex problems that come along with being Black in America.”

L.A. Times columnist Erika D. Smith said Elder uses “taunting and toddler-like name-calling of his ideological enemies” before belittling the gubernatorial candidate with her own insults. 

However, Elder wasn’t surprised by the column. 

“I anticipated that would happen. This is why a lot of people don’t go into politics because of the politics of personal destruction,” Elder said on Fox News’ “Hannity.”

“This is not the first time the L.A. Times has attacked me, there is another writer who all but called me a Black David Duke,” Elder continued. “They are scared to death.” 

LA TIMES COLUMNIST CALLS LARRY ELDER ‘VERY REAL THREAT TO COMMUNITIES OF COLOR’

L.A. Times columnist said Larry Elder is ‘very real threat to communities of color’

Columnist Jean Guerrero said on Sunday that Elder poses a “very real threat to communities of color.”

CNN’s left-wing host Brian Stelter enlisted Guerrero to discuss whether Elder is acting on a “Trump playbook” in the state to avoid the often negative media coverage of him. Guerrero agreed, claiming that Elder has only appeared and spoken with right-wing media pundits.

“He’s refused to talk to non-partisan media outlets and to journalists who are critical of him, has refused to answer difficult questions, often uses the few interviews that he does give as an opportunity to give a performance on social media, denouncing those journalists, playing the victim,” Guerrero said. 

“He has been able to reach the minority of voters in California who embrace his white supremacist worldview,” Guerrero continued. “He’s co-opted this line by my fellow columnist from the headline calling him ‘the Black face of White supremacy’ but he refuses to engage with the actual substance of our reporting.” 

Guerrero further added that Elder, “poses a very real threat to communities of color.” 

ELDER FORCEFULLY DENIES BRANDISHING WEAPON ON EX-FIANCEE: ‘POLITICS OF PERSONAL DESTRUCTION’

On Monday, Elder was interviewed by MSNBC.

Elder denied Politico report that he brandished a gun at former fiancé 

Elder forcefully denied an August claim published by Politico from his former fiancée that he brandished a gun during an argument the two had in 2015. Alexandra Datig told Politico that she broke off their 18-month engagement in 2015 after Elder waved a gun at her during an argument

“I have never brandished a gun at anyone. I grew up in South Central; I know exactly how destructive this type of behavior is. It’s not me, and everyone who knows me knows it’s not me. These are salacious allegations,” Elder tweet following the report. 

Weeks later, Politico called Elder a “poster child for everything Trump” in its nightly newsletter

Liberal media largely ignored egg attack

Elder had an egg thrown at him by a person in a gorilla mask while walking in Los Angeles last week but liberal media organizations didn’t seem particularly interested. 

MSNBC didn’t mention the egg incident on the day it occurred, but found time to claim Elder pushes White supremacy. ABC’s “World News Tonight,” “NBC Nightly News” and CBS’ “Evening News” didn’t find time for the story. 

Many critics pointed out that a similar attack on a Black Democrat would presumably result in wall-to-wall coverage by the mainstream media. 

FOX NEWS TO AIR SPECIAL CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL RECALL ELECTION PROGRAMMING

LA Times downplayed racially charged attack with misleading tweets

Last week, the L.A. Times came under fire for a pair of misleading tweets after Elder had an egg thrown at him by a person in a gorilla mask while walking in Los Angeles

First the liberal newspaper tweeted, “Larry Elder cuts short Venice homeless encampment tour after hostile reception,” without mentioning that the Black Republican was attacked by a White person in a gorilla mask. The L.A. paper was aware that ape characterizations “have been used as a racist trope for centuries,” because it was mentioned in the accompanying report, but the headline and tweet simply chalked the incident up to a “hostile reception.” 

The L.A. Times then followed up with another shocking tweet when reporting that the Los Angeles Police Department is now investigating the attack on Elder. 

“LAPD is investigating altercation involving Larry Elder at Venice homeless encampment,” the Times tweeted alongside a photo of Elder touching the face of a female supporter.  The image made it appear the “altercation involving” Elder involved him slapping a woman, but the GOP gubernatorial candidate was actually the victim. 

The Times changed the image after significant backlash.

The Los Angeles Times came under fire for a pair of misleading tweets about Republican California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder.

The Los Angeles Times came under fire for a pair of misleading tweets about Republican California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder.

LA TIMES DOWNPLAYS RACIALLY CHARGED ATTACK ON GOP GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE LARRY ELDER WITH MISLEADING TWEETS

L.A. Times column calls Elder ‘model minority’ who says what Whites ‘love to hear about Black people’

Elder came under a racially charged attack in the media yet again Monday, as a columnist called him a “model minority” who says “the things white people love to hear about Black people.”

Elder was framed by Los Angeles Times columnist Frank Shyong as a token African American who flatters White Republicans’ racial anxieties.

“The term ‘model minority’ has a specific history in the Asian American community, but I can’t think of a better embodiment of its concepts than Larry Elder, the Black Republican gubernatorial candidate who has made a career of saying the things white people love to hear about Black people,” Shyong wrote.

Due to Elder’s opposition to Black Lives Matter and rejection of the notion of “systemic racism,” Shyong argued his candidacy comforted the “most racist” wings of the GOP.

“And I don’t think Elder’s sudden prominence is an accident,” he wrote. “Fielding a ‘model minority’ candidate will probably become a common electoral strategy for the largely white Republican Party as it attempts to maintain control of a rapidly diversifying nation. Model minority candidates can help affirm far-right perspectives on racism while offering a defense against the charge that the Republican Party is too white.”

The “model minority” term, Shyong wrote, stemmed from Whites in the 1960s downplaying racism against African Americans by pointing to financial success for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Elder was a perfect “model minority” because he downplays White supremacy, touts his own success as proof against racism, and embraces the “bootstraps” narrative that anyone can succeed in the United States, Shyong claimed.

Elder accused critics of distorting column he wrote more than 20 years ago

Elder slammed Democrats for “slandering” him for characterizing a 2020 op-ed he wrote for Capitalism Magazine, titled, “Democrats and the ‘SHE’ Vote,” as sexist. 

The op-ed focused on female voting issues such as Social Security, health care and education in the 1990s, and cited a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. 

In the op-ed, Elder wrote: “But there’s a problem. Women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events. Good news for Democrats, bad news for Republicans. For the less one knows, the easier the manipulation.”

He went on to explain in the piece that researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center “asked 25 questions about candidates and specific issues during the recent primary season” and found, “Men knew more than women in 15 categories.”

The piece also quoted one female Penn researcher, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who said: “The perplexing finding that women do not perform as well as men on political knowledge still persists in the year 2000.”

Elder was questioned about it by an Eyewitness News reporter who asked him if he believed that men are smarter than women. 

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“Is that what I said? Men are smarter than women?” Elder countered to the reporter. 

“You quoted a study done by the Annenberg School, not exactly a right-wing organization, that looked at 25 issues that turned out men were more knowledgeable about 15 of those issues,” Elder continued in his remarks to the reporter.

“Calif. Dems are desperate & slandering me, distorting what I wrote in a column 21 yrs ago. Here’s what I wrote, decide for yourself,” Elder tweeted last month along with a link to the op-ed.  

Fox News’ David Rutz, Lindsay Kornick, Emma Colton, Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report. 

George T. Wein, co-founder, Newport Jazz & Folk Festivals dies at 95

George T. Wein: October 3, 1925 – September 13, 2021

Reprinted from The Newport Festivals:

Photo: Nina Westervelt, The Newport Festivals

Impresario, promoter, pianist, art collector and philanthropist George T. Wein, co-founder and creator of the Newport Jazz Festival® and the Newport Folk Festival®, who for seven decades, was the most influential presenter of music around the globe, died peacefully in his sleep on Monday, September 13, 2021. He was 95.

When Wein received a Grammy® Honorary Trustee Award in 2015, the awards show host, rap star/actor LL Cool J, said, “George Wein defined what a music festival could be with the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This is a great guy. More than anyone, George set the stage for what great festivals today look like; festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo … he made this possible…”

Known more as a producer than a performer, Wein made stars of, and revived the careers of generations of musicians who performed at his venues. Miles Davis, who told Wein that “you can’t have a festival without me,” performed his comeback in 1955 with his immortal performance of ‘Round Midnight. The following year, Duke Ellington said he was “born at Newport” when he recorded one of his biggest hits, Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. Wein created the music festival as we know it, putting jazz and folk and their many variations in the most accessible performance spaces to the widest audiences possible.

Just before his 90th birthday, Wein began planning for the sustainability of Newport Festivals Foundation, the non-profit that runs the two music events. First he tapped producer Jay Sweet, who had brought new life into the Folk Festival, to work as Executive Producer to oversee the organization with the board of directors. Then he set his sights on bassist Christian McBride, who, unrivaled, became Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival in 2017.

“He not only invented the idea of a modern-day music festival and made the careers of numerous music icons, but his investment in music appreciation is to me what makes him the biggest icon of them all,” said Sweet. “George has an undeniable gift for making things happen.  As a result, he has perhaps done more to preserve jazz than any other individual. He was my mentor and, more importantly, my friend and I will miss him dearly.”

Upon the announcement of his new role, McBride said, “To be able to work with a legend like George Wein, not only as a musician, but now as an understudy, is a task I will cherish and approach with openness and excitement.”  He told Elmore magazine in 2019, “He’s still the source and guiding light for every person who runs a major festival.” 

Even now, that sentiment continues to be echoed by producers in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and all across North America.

In his 2003 biography, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, with Nate Chinen, Wein wrote, “whether it’s one of the many festival producers throughout the world, or the concert promoters, or the individual nightclub owners struggling night to night – their contributions are essential to the history of this music. I’m glad to have been part of this process: in the development of the jazz festival, the acceptance of this music as art, the efforts to bring jazz to a wider audience worldwide …”

George Theodore Wein was born in Newton, MA, on, October 3, 1925, to Jewish parents. His father, Dr. Barnet Wein, was an ear, nose, and throat specialist. His mother, Ruth, was a homemaker, and he had an older brother, Lawrence. He started taking piano lessons at the age of eight. He was later introduced to Earl Hines’ horn-like piano style and the die was cast for his life in jazz and music. Wein played in various jazz bands around Boston while still in Newton High School. After a year in college, he was drafted into the Army. He maintained that he got his greatest education and life lessons from negotiating with fellow soldiers of many races, ages and faiths.  Following his honorable discharge from the Army, he returned to Boston University on the G.I. Bill and graduated from the School of Liberal Arts in 1950. 

After college, 25-year old Wein opened his own jazz club, Storyville, in Boston, which featured world-renowned stars and emerging artists. He created a record label of the same name, recording some of the best in live music. But, he would undergo the biggest opportunity and challenge of his life in 1954, when he met Newport socialites, Louis and Elaine Lorillard, who asked him to create something to liven up summers in the City-by-the-Sea. A fan of the classical music festival in Tanglewood, Wein began to formulate his plan.

He wrote in his memoir, “What was a festival to me? I had no rule book to go by. I knew it had to be something unique, that no jazz fan had ever been exposed to. I remembered my nights in New York City when I had started off in Greenwich Village at 8 pm, gone to Harlem, and ended up seven hours later at 52nd Street. I could never get enough jazz. I heard Dixieland, big bands, swing, unique singers, and modern jazz. If this is what I loved, then that’s what should appeal to any jazz fan. I’m sure that’s what directed my concept of the Newport Jazz Festival … They wanted to ‘do something with jazz’ in their community. I took that vague but earnest request and hatched the festival. There is no doubt that the driving force and inspiration behind the festival was Elaine … Louis provided the necessary financial support and local influence.” Wein did the rest and made music history many times over.

From that moment on, the Newport Jazz Festival was the gold standard for presenting jazz to the public. To list all of the jazz artists who played there would be exhausting. Simply put, all of the major and emerging stars have performed there, and 67 years later, they still do. Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Tony Bennett, Chick Corea as well as Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Jon Batiste, Robert Glasper, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Snarky Puppy, Diana Krall, Christian McBride and countless others have been a part of the festival’s storied history.

In 1959, the same year Wein married Joyce Alexander, an African-American biochemist, he co-founded the Newport Folk Festival with folk artist Pete Seeger. They later hired producer Bob Jones, and went on to present the best and brightest musicians of folk, blues, and gospel, including Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary and the Dixie Hummingbirds. Today artists have included Mavis Staples, Brandi Carlile, Jim James, Nathaniel Rateliff, Michael Kiwanuka, Dolly Parton, Rhiannon Giddens, The Decemberists, Jason Isbell, Alabama Shakes and the late John Prine. It was on a Newport Folk stage in 1965 that Dylan famously (infamously to some) went electric. Wein, who sensed the displeasure of the audience, asked Dylan to go back on stage and play some acoustic selections. He did as requested and the set became known as one of the defining moments in 20th Century music. After turning over the reigns of the Folk Festival to producer Sweet in 2009, Wein attended every event (except 2021), listening to old favorites and new music while marveling at the sold-out crowds and enjoying the many surprise artist collaborations.

The decades from the 60s to the 90s saw Wein’s operation, Festival Productions, expand. In 1970, he founded the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which he later turned over to his protégé Quint Davis.  In 1972, one year after the Newport riots, Wein came to New York City, and produced concerts in the summer months when Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall were traditionally closed. Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival-New York, along with his afternoon concerts and workshops breathed new life into the Big Apple jazz scene, which was diminished at that time.

Three years later, Wein and promoter Dino Santangelo launched the KOOL Jazz Festivals, which featured jazz, R&B and soul artists on the same stages in large arenas across the country, including Oakland, Atlanta, Hampton, VA, Cincinnati, San Diego, Houston and Kansas City. Jazz superstars McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Quincy Jones, Donald Byrd and Cannonball Adderley played on the same bill with the Ohio Players, the O’Jays, The Isley Brothers and B.B. King. Those concerts became more than just music events – they were annual celebrations of Black music that were revered as major cultural events. 

In 1984, he negotiated a sponsorship with JVC, which lasted in New York for 25 years. Wein’s company circled the globe with events in Newport, Los Angeles, Chicago, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Berlin, Tokyo, and Paris, among others, bringing top-flight American jazz overseas and opening up the world to touring jazz musicians.  His influence also made it possible for many international artists to work in the United States.

Wein pioneered the idea of sponsor association with music events, and during those periods of changing public taste in music and society, he engaged with many sponsors including Essence, for which in 1995 he and the magazine’s co-founder, Ed Lewis, developed the annual music festival that became the largest African-American culture and music event in the United States. Wein also built sponsorships with Mellon Bank, Ben & Jerry’s, Verizon, and Playboy, which bred a 42-year working relationship and friendship with producer Darlene Chan.

In 2007, Wein sold his company to a group of young entrepreneurs, who within two years ran into financial trouble. To keep his legacy alive, Wein, then 81, reacquired the festival names and remained active with them until his death. In 2009, he aptly titled his flagship events George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival 55 and George Wein’s Newport Folk Festival 50, funding both events with his own money and funds from a few friends. The following year, he established and was named Chairman of the non-profit Newport Festivals Foundation. Shortly after announcing that he was looking for a sponsor for Newport Jazz, the Foundation landed the healthcare company, Carefusion, and then Natixis Investment Managers as presenting partners.

In addition to its festivals, the Foundation began sending its Jazz Assembly Band into schools to celebrate the rich history of jazz. Since its inception in 2016, the program, spearheaded by Deborah Ross, Education Director and Wein’s Operations Manager for over three decades, has given access to more than 35,000 students. Particularly excited by this initiative, Wein fondly remembered an elementary school assembly, which featured a jazz band that played “Rhapsody in Blue.”  He called it “an experience he would never forget.”  Newport Festivals Foundation also provides instruments to schools, free content for music educators, financial relief to hundreds of musicians impacted by the pandemic and presented over 100 grants for music education programs across the country.

In 2020, the pandemic forced Newport and other festivals around the world to cancel and go virtual. Wein was no fan of virtual concerts and was looking forward to returning to his beloved Newport to ride around Fort Adams on his golf cart, The Wein Machine, sampling a taste of all the music on every stage. That was not to be, but Wein was thrilled to take part in the festival from his Manhattan home where he introduced his friend Mavis Staples over the telephone and singer Andra Day (star of The United States vs. Billie Holiday) via FaceTime.

A life-long student of Black culture, Wein and his wife, who died in 2005, created The George and Joyce Wein Collection of African-American Art, which went on display at Boston University in 2019. The collection contained 60 works from a host of artists including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Norman Lewis, Beauford Delaney and Jacob Lawrence. The Joyce and George Wein Foundation contributes to a number of organizations, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, which administers the annual $50,000 Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, one of the most significant awards given to individual artists in the United States today.  The award recognizes and honors African-American artists who demonstrate great innovation, promise and creativity. The Foundation also established The Joyce and George Wein Chair of African American Studies at Boston University and the Alexander Family Endowed Scholarship Fund at Simmons College. The Foundation also supports Dr. Glory’s Youth Theater, a multi-ethnic non-profit children’s theater that presents original works by Dr. Glory Van Scott twice a year.

As a result of his diverse contributions to jazz and world culture, Wein was honored by heads of state, educational institutions, and leading publications.  In addition to the Grammy Award, he was named an NEA Jazz Master (Jazz Advocate) in 2005, and in 2012, he received the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) Award of Merit for Achievement in Performing Arts for an individual “whose genius, energy and excellence has defined or redefined an art form.”  In addition, honors and awards were bestowed upon him by Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, AARP, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the French Legion d’Honneur and Chile’s Order of Bernardo O’Higgins. Wein was the recipient of honorary degrees from Boston University, the Berklee College of Music, Salve Regina University, Rhode Island College of Music and North Carolina Central University. He was a lifetime Honorary Trustee of Carnegie Hall and on the board of The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.

In 2014, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation opened the George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center, an education and community facility that offers free music classes in the city’s Tremé section. He said it gave him great pleasure “to drive down North Rampart Street to see their names across the top of a building in a city where Joyce was not welcome in the first meetings to discuss the festival in New Orleans.” 

Though he slowed down in later years, Wein was still active not only in Newport, but before the pandemic, he enjoyed going to jazz clubs several nights a week, sharing gourmet dinners with friends, collecting and sampling wines from around the world and playing piano and singing for guests at his Eastside home. As a pianist, he recorded over 10 records, including Wein, Women and Song, George Wein and the Newport All-Stars, and Swing That Music. He made his last public performance in 2019 in Newport at a pre-festival concert and he presented his band, the Newport All-Stars, at the 2010 and 2012 jazz festivals.

“The mark of a great business leader is to be able to take an idea and build it into something memorable, something wonderful for the world to enjoy,” said Bruce Gordon, who was President of Verizon Retail Markets when he first met Wein 20 years ago and now succeeds him as Chairman of Newport Festivals Foundation. “As a young man of just 25, George listened to a dream, created an idea and built a team to help nurture it.  It also takes someone very special like George to know that, while your mind is still sharp, you can handpick the people to carry on your legacy. To be able to live long enough to watch it flourish is an added blessing. But, most importantly, George was not just a business colleague, he was friend and family to me and my wife, Tawana, to the entire board and to the team of people with whom he surrounded himself, many who had worked with him for multiple decades. To say that we loved him and will miss him is an understatement.”

The Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals are Wein’s greatest endeavors, but his true legacy is that he proved that jazz and folk music can be presented to the public with quality and dignity beyond the clichéd confines of nightclubs and coffeehouses and brought into the light of day, where everyone can mingle and swing in harmony. And, he also proved that one can have a good life from doing exactly what you love. As he told National Public Radio in 2014, “Jazz will go where musicians take it, because they’ll always want to play. And, as long as they want to play, somebody’s going to listen.”

George Wein is survived by his nieces Margie Wein of Brooklyn, NY, and Carol Wein of Watertown, MA; sister-in-law Theodora McLaurin of Chestnut Hill, MA; and long-time friend, Dr. Glory Van Scott of New York City. George and Joyce had no biological children, but he loved and nurtured dozens of festival “children and grandchildren” around the world.

It was George’s wish that any memorial tributes be made in the form of charitable donations to Newport Festivals Foundation, the 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation he established in 2010 to preserve the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals.   Donations can be made at www.newportfestivals.org/george or by mail at Newport Festivals Foundation, PO Box 650, Essex, MA 01929.

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Amid Uncertainty, Art Museums Respond to Demographic Shifts

At some point early in the past pandemic year and a half, with the art calendar tanking — museums shuttered, galleries closed — I felt myself switch into optimist mode. I began to see the disruption not as a setback but as an opportunity, an enforced readjustment of balances. A new normal that’s actually new.

Sure, some big shows got canceled by Covid-19, or postponed, or shut down. But blockbusters will always be with us. I’m looking forward to one delayed from last season, “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror,” a career retrospective of the studiously mystifying artist that will stretch over two institutions, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this fall. (Sept. 29-Feb. 13, 2022).

But I’m also anticipating with even more pleasure two smaller solo surveys by artists less widely celebrated. One, “Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., is the first substantial East Coast look at a California painter who trained in China during the Cultural Revolution, came to the United States in 1984, and turned a Socialist Realist style into a meditation on the psychic complexities of the immigrant experience. (Through May 30, 2022).

“Yolanda López: Portrait of the Artist” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is another long-overdue career tribute (Oct. 16-April 24, 2022). With roots in the Chicano Art Movement of the 1970s and 80s, Lopez has produced anti-colonialist, pro-feminist work of tremendous warmth and vitality. Her 1978 self-portrait painting as a marathon-running Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the great images of revolutionary joy.

(Both Liu and López died this summer, just weeks before their exhibitions opened.)

The season brings a bounty of museum group shows of work by women. From California, which gave us the benchmark 2007 “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” come two: “New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century” at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (through Jan. 30, 2022), and “Witch Hunt” at the Hammer Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Originally scheduled to coincide with the 2020 presidential election, the Los Angeles show will include work by transgender artists (including the redoubtable Vaginal Davis) which “WACK!” left out (Oct. 10-Jan. 9, 2022).

The past decade has given us reason to wonder whatever became of the internationalist art energy of the 80s and 90s when, it seemed, everybody was looking at everything on the planet and generosity was the vibe. There are a few marquee-scale “non-western” shows this season: “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” traveling from São Paulo, Brazil to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a major one. But, overall, the numbers are thin, so it’s to smaller shows of unfamiliar material that we’ll look to for a global perspective.

At a time when post-Civil War Black history is being rewritten, museums in the American South are doing extraordinary things. In 2018, the telling of that history took a big leap with the inauguration of the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, created by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala. A larger version of the museum — four times the size of the original and with a significantly expanded contemporary art presence — is set to debut on Oct. 1.

I’ll also be checking out “Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration,” an exhibition commemorating the resettling, from the start of the 20th century into the 1970s, of more the six million African Americans from the rural South to cities across the United States. The show, made up of work commissioned from a dozen Black artists with Southern ties, including Mark Bradford, Theaster Gates and Carrie Mae Weems, has been organized by two venturesome institutions, the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson (where it opens in April 2022), and the Baltimore Museum of Art (where it opens in October 2022).

And venturesome is what art institutions need to be in a time when the pandemic continues to morph and — the 2020 census tells us — the American population continues to shift.

Among Black migrants heading north in the 70s were contemporary artists who found no place to land in an overwhelming white New York art world until a young dealer, Linda Goode Bryant, created a welcoming gallery and helped change the country’s cultural landscape. The story of that gallery, its pioneering curator and its artists will be told in the exhibition “Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present” at MoMA (Oct. 9-Feb. 18, 2022).

Bryant herself is still hard at work. I’m eager to see what she’ll do in “RAW Académie Session 9: Infrastructure,” a project she’ll be directing at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, beginning in February 2022. RAW Material Company, based in Dakar, Senegal, is one of Africa’s leading experimental art spaces. For the project, RAW’s Dakar staff will temporarily join Bryant and an international roster of curators and artists in Philadelphia to brainstorm on how museums can become more useful to artists and audiences alike in a world in flux.

There’s no predicting what kind of show — if there even is one — will result. And unpredictability is the positive starting principle behind another institutional initiative this season, “Year of Uncertainty” at the Queens Museum.

A response to the challenge to “normal” created by the Covid crisis, and an assertion of the proposal that “not normal” can be a healthy direction to take, the museum will call upon Queens political activists, community organizations and the local public — along with its own artists-in-residence — to shape what the institution does and whom it serves.

In the process, definitions of art, audience and museum will all be up in the air. What kind of shape they take when they land, who knows? But I want to be there when they do.

RankTribe™ Black Business Directory News – Arts & Entertainment

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