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Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in 2016 in New York City, the documentary film “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans) who are connected in some way to drag performer Taylor Mac and his one-time-only, 24-hour performance of pop hits.
Culture Clash: During his performance, Mac discusses some of the racism and homophobia behind some of history’s most popular songs.
Culture Audience: “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” will appeal primarily to viewers who are fans of drag performers and music documentaries that focus on unconventional artists and unusual performances.
Taylor Mac in “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” (Photo courtesy of HBO)
Vivacious and engaging, this concert documentary starring drag performer Taylor Mac offers a bittersweet presentation of iconic pop songs, without glossing over some of these songs’ problematic histories. It’s an extremely unique 24-hour performance. The 2016 show took place as a one-time-only event, at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York City’s Brooklyn borough. During this 24-hour continuous performance, Mac performed popular songs from 24 decades (each decade got its own hour), from 1776 to 2016. Attendees had the option to sleep at the venue in a separate room.
Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival. The majority of the documentary’s footage is of highlights from this epic concert. The rest of the documentary consists of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with principal members of the events team.
Mac explains in the beginning of the film that he conceived this event as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the AIDS crisis. The show starts with 24 musicians on stage, but after each hour, one less musician goes on stage, until the last hour, when Mac is be the sole performer on stage. The decreasing numbers of band musicians on stage are supposed to be symbolic of how communities and families lost people to the AIDS crisis.
Mac also says in the documentary, “The show is about our history of Americans. That history is in our souls.” He also says that “a queer body can become a metaphor for America.” He later adds, “I learned my politics from radical lesbians.”
Mac gives a brief personal background about himself, by saying that he grew up in Stockton, California, which he describes as a very homophobic city that’s overrun with a lot of “ugly tract houses.” After he graduated from acting school, Mac says that he had difficulty getting auditions. However, he found work at New York City drag nightclubs. And the rest is history.
Some of the key people on the event team also give their perspectives of the show. Niegel Smith, the show’s co-director, calls it a “radical realness ritual” that “asks us to move closer to our queerness.” During one of the audience interaction parts of the show, Mac tells audience members to slow dance with people who are of the same gender. The song selection for this same-sex slow dance is “Snakeskin Cowboys,” a song made famous by Ted Nugent, who is a political conservative. It’s obviously Mac’s way of reclaiming the song and putting it in a progressive queer context.
Matt Ray, the show’s musical director, comes from a jazz background. He says the biggest problem in America is “lack of community.” This 24-hour performance, says Ray, is Mac’s way of trying to bring back community to live events. Machine Dazzle, the show’s costume designer, is seen in costume fittings with Mac, who says that he gave no creative restrictions on how Dazzle could make the costumes. Also seen in the documentary is makeup artist Anastasia Durasova.
It’s no coincidence that the performance starts with the year 1776, since it’s the year of the Declaration of Independence of the United States. Freedom, liberation and fighting against oppression are constant themes throughout the show. During his performances of popular songs from each decade, Mac gives historical context of what was going on in the United States at the time when the song was popular and why some of the songs have a much more disturbing meaning than they seem to have.
“Yankee Doodle Dandy,” performed in the hour covering the years 1776 to 1786, sounds like an upbeat and patriotic song. But Mac also reminds people that during this time, the United States was also built on the enslavement of black people and the destruction of Native Americans. The 1820s song “”Coal Black Rose” has racist origins, since it was originally performed by white people wearing blackface makeup, and the song’s lyrics are about raping an enslaved black woman. For the 1830s song “Rove Riley Rove,” Mac says he’s performing the song to evoke a mother or nanny during the Trail of Tears era, when the Native Americans were forced to go on dangerous and deadly routes when they were forced off their ancestral lands.
Not all of the songs performed have depressing and bigoted histories. When Mac gets to the 1970s decades, he performs songs such as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and David Bowie’s “Heroes.” For “Heroes,” which is performed in the context of the Cold War between Russia and the United States, two giant inflatable penises—one with a U.S. flag decoration, one with a Russian flag decoration—float around on stage. Mac straddles at least one of these inflatable sex organs.
Other songs performed in the show include Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit “Gloria” (which Mac interprets in the performance as a sexual liberation song); the Rolling Stones’ 1969 classic “Gimme Shelter”; and “Soliloquy” from the 1945 musical “Carousel,” which Mac was his father’s favorite song. Mac also says that his father died when Mac was 4 years old.
Audience members are encouraged to sing along and participate. And sometimes, Mac invites audiences members on stage during the performance, such as when he selects the oldest person in the room (a man in his 80s) and youngest person in the room (a 20-year-old woman) to dance on stage together. In another part of the show, audience members throw ping pong balls at each other.
Mac doesn’t do all of the lead vocals during the show. There are also guest singers, including Heather Christian, Steffanie Christian, Thornetta Davis, and Anaïs Mitchell. However, there’s no doubt that Mac is the star. He has a charismatic command of the stage, even though he’s not a great singer. He has a wry sense of comedy and keeps the energy level fairly high, even though performing this 24-hour show would be exhausting by any standard.
“Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” has a simple concept with an extravagant and very flamboyant presentation. If drag performances and some bawdiness meant for adults have no appeal to you, then watching this documentary might be overwhelming or a little hard to take. The performance in “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” will never be duplicated by Mac, but this memorable documentary is the next best thing to being there.
HBO and Max will premiere “Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music” on June 27, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 2019 to 2021, in various parts of the U.S., the comedy mockumentary film “Cypher” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Real-life rapper Tierra Whack becomes the target of a conspiracy-theory cult.
Culture Audience: “Cypher” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Tierra Whack, hip-hop culture and movies that poke fun at how social media plays a role in how celebrities are perceived and how they interact with fans.
“Cypher” is an inconsistent but mildly interesting mockumentary starring real-life rapper Tierra Whack as herself. The movie could have done more with its conspiracy cult storyline, but what’s there is fairly amusing. “Cypher” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival, where became the first mockumentary to win the festival’s Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature. It’s the top prize at the Tribeca Festival. And this top prize might lead viewers to believe that “Cypher” is a prestigious film. It’s not.
“Cypher” (written and directed by Chris Moukarbel) is nowhere near the level of an Oscar-worthy film. It’s not even the type of movie that will win any MTV Awards. It’s a moderately entertaining mockumentary to watch for people who like or have tolerance for hip-hop culture. Everyone else will be bored or turned off by this hit-and-miss comedy. As far as music-industry mockumentaries go, if 1984’s “This Is Spinal Tap” is the gold standard, then “Cypher” is like imitation bronze. Imitation bronze has a purpose, but just don’t expect it to be gold.
As many music celebrity mockumentaries tend to do, a great deal of “Cypher” shows the artist on tour. The movie’s title is explained by an on-screen caption saying that the definition of “cypher” is “a gathering of rappers freestyling together in a circle.” The beginning of “Cypher” has the obligatory backstory on Tierra Whack (yes, that’s her real name), who was born in 1995. For the purposes of this review, the Tierra Whack character in the movie will be referred to as Tierra. The real-life Tierra Whack will be referred to as Whack.
From an early age, as Tierra says in an “interview” for the movie, she was introduced to hip-hop by her mother. She also started writing poetry while still in elementary school, which led to her being a freestyle battle rapper in her hometown of Philadelphia. At age 15, one of her rap videos went viral, and she became an Internet sensation. (Nyla Naveah has the role of teenage Tierra.) Tierra got a record deal as a direct result of her Internet fame.
Just as in real life, “Cypher” shows that Tierra’s debut album “Whack World” (released in 2018) became a hit, and she became a fan fave of other music celebrities. The movie has snippets of artists such as Rihanna, Cardi B and Billie Eilish praising Tierra Whack. “Cypher” is supposed to take place from 2019 to 2021, but some of the timeline looks off in the movie.
Tierra’s entourage consists mostly of people under the age of 35. They include her co-managers Kenete Sims and Johnny Montina; hair stylist Jamilah Curry; makeup artist Camille Lawrence; and photographer Nick Canonica. A few music producers who are “interviewed” in the film include Warren “Oak” Felder and Jay Melodic. All of them play versions of themselves in “Cypher” and say the usual sycophantic things about Tierra that people would say about celebrities who are paying their salaries.
“Cypher” director Moukarbel can occasionally be heard (but is never seen) on screen talking to the people he’s interviewing for the movie. “This Is Spinal Tap” director Rob Reiner played mockumentary director Marty DiBergi in “This Is Spinal Tap.” Moukarbel does not make his presence in “Cypher” compelling or amusing. In other words, there is no Marty DiBergi-type director character in “Cypher.”
However, film producer Natalia-Leigh Brown portrays herself as a producer of this mockumentary. (In real life, Brown is not a producer of “Cypher.”) The Natalia-Leigh character is intensely driven and, in many ways, seems more in charge of the movie than the director. Viewers will either find her kind of hilarious or really annoying.
“Cypher” wastes some time with repetitive “goofing off on tour” footage from 2019. After a concert in Philadelphia, Tierra falls off the stage and mildly injures herself. She’s mostly embarrassed instead of hurt by anything physical from this tumble. After the concert, she and her entourage are hanging out at a diner when Tierra meets a 58-year-old woman named Tina Johnson Banner (played by Chris Anthony), who claims to be a devoted fan of Tierra.
Tina seems shy and hesitant at first when she approaches Tierra, who invites Tina to sit next to her at the table. This scene cuts back and forth between the conversation that Tina and Tierra are having by themselves and the innocuous conversation that members of Tierra’s entourage are having at a nearby separate table. It isn’t long before Tina starts to get weird and makes Tierra feel uncomfortable.
Tina gives a rambling monologue about sounds influencing people’s thoughts. She says there’s a video that explains everything. At this point, Tierra is done with the conversation and politely but firmly tells Tina that it was nice meeting her, but Tina needs to leave Tierra alone now. Tina is reluctant to leave, but before she does, Tina makes these cryptic comments to Tierra: “Watch the video” and “Don’t let them use you.”
At first, Tierra thinks this was just a harmless encounter with an offbeat fan. But then, Tina sends Tierra a bizarre video about belonging to a group called Warren, which has worked for years to decipher a document called the True Vision Manuscript that they discovered in the early 20th century. The True Vision Manuscript was supposed to be written by a secret society in Europe called Oculus, an offshoot of the Freemasons. Part of the True Vision Manuscript translation says that there’s a “chosen one” who has to pluck an eyebrow hair to gain true powers.
It’s at this point in “Cypher” that viewers will be turned off from or intrigued by finding out more about this mystery. And things get weirder. Tierra finds out that Tina has gone missing. Tina’s young adult daughter Marigold Johnson (played by Bionca Bradley) has been going on social media blaming Tierra for Tina’s disappearance, because Tierra was the last-known person to have seen Tina. Police start to investigate.
Tierra wants to find out the truth too, partly to clear her name, and partly out of curiosity. During this investigation, Tierra and her entourage find videos online or elsewhere, showing that Tierra and her entourage have been filmed with hidden video cameras by an unknown stalker or stalkers. The rest of the movie then becomes a tangled web of solving the mystery of not only Tina’s disappearance but also the translation of the True Vision Manuscript.
It should come as no surprise that Warren is a cult-like group that’s obsessed with the True Vision Manuscript, which is believed to hold the answers to a conspiracy. Tierra says she doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories. Where “Cypher” falters a little bit is that it can’t quite keep the momentum of the mystery going in a consistent way, resulting in a shift in the movie’s tone that’s sometimes awkward. One minute, Tierra is acting like a hip-hop Nancy Drew. The next minute, she’s preoccupied with recording her next album.
Luckily for “Cypher,” Whack is a natural actress who often holds scenes together when other people in the scene are acting a little too fake and corny. It might seem easy to play a version of yourself in a movie, but it’s actually much harder to do this type of performance in a mockumentary. Except for the over-the-top conspiracy cult part of the plot, much of this mockumentary could pass for a real documentary.
The choppy editing and shaky camera work in “Cypher” is intended to make the movie look hastily compiled, as if the information in the movie is too urgent to wait for more polished editing. “Cypher” is not a must-see film for mockumentary enthusiasts. However, it’s worth checking out for viewers who are up for a fairly bizarre ride that mixes music-industry shenanigans with conspiracy-theory investigations.
UPDATE: Hulu will premiere “Cypher” on November 24, 2023, the same date that the movie will premiere in select U.S. cinemas.
RuPaul at the 71st annua Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles on September 22, 2019. (Photo courtesy of Fox)
Padma Lakshmi at Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’s Not The White House Correspondents’ Dinner at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 2017. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for TBS)
The following is a press release from the Critics Choice Association:
The Critics Choice Association (CCA) unveiled the winners of the fifth annual Critics Choice Real TV Awards, which recognize excellence in nonfiction, unscripted and reality programming across broadcast, cable and streaming platforms.
“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” “Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi,” and “Top Chef” tied with two awards each. “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” took home the award for Best Ensemble Cast in an Unscripted Series, while “Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi” was awarded Best Structured Series,and “Top Chef” won Best Culinary Show. The three shows also all won in the Best Show Host category, as RuPaul and Padma Lakshmi tied for that award.
Eugene Levy of “The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy” won the Star of the Year category, while Lisa Vanderpump was honored with the Impact Award this year.
Bravo and Netflix were the biggest winners of awards, topping four categories each.
A special program showcasing the winners, “2023 Critics Choice Real TV Awards – A Salute to the Winners” will be hosted by Sam Rubin and Megan Henderson. The special will premiere on KTLA+ and KTLA.com on Friday, June 16 at 7:30 PM PT, with repeat airings over the weekend. “2023 Critics Choice Real TV Awards – A Salute to the Winners” will also be available to stream on the Critics Choice YouTube channel.
The Critics Choice Real TV Awards were launched in 2019 as a large-scale awards platform to give the robust (and still growing) unscripted genre critical attention and support. The awards celebrate programming across platforms, and also recognize industry leaders with special awards highlighting career achievements.
The Critics Choice Association monitors all awards submissions and selects the nominees in all competitive categories. Blue-ribbon nominating committees made up of CCA members with expertise in nonfiction, unscripted and reality programming determine the nominees. Winners are chosen by a vote of the CCA membership.
About the Critics Choice Association (CCA)
The Critics Choice Association is the largest critics organization in the United States and Canada, representing more than 600 media critics and entertainment journalists. It was established in 2019 with the formal merger of the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, recognizing the intersection between film, television, and streaming content. For more information, visit:
Cast members and producers of “Kimberly Akimbo” at the 76th Annual Tony Awards at the United Palace in New York City, on June 11, 2023. (Photo by Michele Crowe/CBS)
With five prizes, including Best Musical, “Kimberly Akimbo” was the top winner at the 76th annual Tony Awards, which were presented at the United Palace in New York City on June 11, 2023. For the second year in a row, Ariana DeBose hosted the show, which was televised on CBS in the United States and streamed live and on demand on Paramount+, the streaming service owned by CBS parent company Paramount. A pre-show event called “The Tony Awards: Act One,” hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin, was shown on CBS and Pluto TV. Hough and Astin were also presenters at the Tony Awards ceremony.
The Antoinette Perry “Tony” Awards, which are for Broadway productions, are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. The competitive categories are voted for by 769 designated Tony voters within the theatre community, according to a Tony Awards press release.
In non-competitive categories, the 2023 Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre went to presented to Lisa Dawn Cave, Victoria Bailey and Robert Fried. The Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award was presented to Jerry Mitchell. Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre went to Joel Grey and John Kander. The Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University gave the Excellence in Theatre Education Award to Jason Zembuch Young of Plantation, Florida.
“Kimberly Akimbo,” which had eight Tony Award nominations, is about a lonely teenage girl (the title character), who has a disease that causes her to age four-and-a-half times as quickly as most other people. As a teenager, she has the outward appearance of an elderly woman. In addition to winning Best Musical, “Kimberly Akimbo” won Tony Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (for Victoria Clark); Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (for Bonnie Milligan); Best Book of a Musical (for David Lindsay-Abaire); and Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre (for Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori).
“Some Like It Hot,” a musical based on the 1959 movie of the same name, went into the show with the most nominations (13) and ended up winning four Tony Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (for J. Harrison Ghee); Best Costume Design of a Musical (for Gregg Barnes); Best Choreography (for Casey Nicholaw); and Best Orchestrations (for Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter).
“Leopoldstadt” (the Jewish family saga that takes place in Vienna, Austria, from 1899 to 1955) won four Tony Awards: Best Play; Best Direction of a Play (for Patrick Marber); Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (for Brandon Uranowitz); and Best Costume Design of a Play (for Brigitte Reiffenstuel). Written by Tom Stoppard, “Leopoldstadt” had six Tony nominations going into the ceremony.
In terms of diversity, some milestones were achieved at the 2023 Tony Awards ceremony. LaChanze became the first black person to win two Tony Awards in the same year for producing. As a producer of “Kimberly Akimbo,” she was one of the winners of Best Musical. As a producer of “Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog,” she was one of the winners of Best Revival of a Play. Alex Newell of “Shucked” and Ghee of “Some Like It Hot” became the first openly non-binary people to win Tony Awards. Newell won the prize for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.
The 2023 Tony Awards featured performances from the casts of Tony Award nominated best musicals and revivals, including “Camelot,” “Into the Woods,” “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Parade,” “Shucked,” “Some Like It Hot” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Also giving performances were the casts of “A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical” and “Funny Girl.” Joaquina Kalukango, winner of the 2022 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, performed the from “The Phantom of the Opera” song “Wishing You Were Somehow Here” for the In Memoriam segment that paid tribute to people in the Broadway community who passed away since the 2022 Tony Awards ceremony.
Presenters included Barry Manilow, Melissa Etheridge, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Marcia Gay Harden, Kelli O’Hara, Denée Benton, Colman Domingo, Leah Michele, Dominique Fishback, Lily Rabe, Marcel Spears, Wayne Brady, Kenny Leon, Lupita Nyong’o, Kennedy Kanagawa, Brian d’Arcy James, Sara Bareilles, Wilson Cruz, Tatiana Maslany, Common and Uzo Aduba.
For the CBS broadcast, Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss/White Cherry Entertainment were executive producers. Weiss also served as director of the show. Because of the Writers Guild of America strike, the 2023 Tony Awards was unscripted.
The following is a complete list of nominees and winners of the 2023 Tony Awards:
*=winner
Best Musical
& Juliet
Producers: Max Martin & Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Jenny Petersson, Martin Dodd, Eva Price, Lukasz Gottwald, 42nd.club, Independent Presenters Network, Jack Lane, Library Company, Shellback, Shivhans Pictures, Sing Out, Louise!, Kim Szarzynski, Taylor/Riegler, Tenenbaum/Keyes, Barry Weiss, John Gore Organization
Kimberly Akimbo*
Producers: David Stone, Atlantic Theater Company, James L. Nederlander, LaChanze, John Gore, Patrick Catullo, Aaron Glick
New York, New York
Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions, Tom Kirdahy, Wendy Federman & Heni Koenigsberg, Crossroads Live, Playing Field, Stephanie P. McClelland, Ambassador Theatre Group, Waiting in the Wings Productions, Colin Callender, Gilbert and DeeDee Garcia/Sue Vaccaro, Peter May, Rileyfan, Silverhopkins+/Hunter Johnson, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Eric Passmore, Thomas Swayne, Elliott Cornelious/SunnySpot Productions, Santino DeAngelo/Cynthia Tong, Craig Balsam, Richard Batchelder, Concord Theatricals, Creative Partners Productions, Marguerite Hoffman, Jessica R. Jenen, John Gore Organization, MGM on Stage, James L. Nederlander, Linda B. Rubin, Seriff Productions, Shivhans Pictures, 42nd.club/Beards on Broadway, AGL Productions/Brad Blume, Hunter Arnold/Red Mountain Theatre, Cue to Cue Productions/Roy Putrino, Jamie deRoy/Janet and Marvin Rosen, Edgewood/Silva Theatrical Group, Dale Franzen/Henry R. Muñoz, III, Deborah Green/Chris Mattsson, Branden Grimmett/DMQR Productions, Christen James/Gregory Carroll, NETworks Presentations/Lamar Richardson, Ron Simons/Adam Zell, Chartoff-Winkler
Shucked
Producers: Mike Bosner, Jason Owen, AEG Presents/Jay Marciano/Gary Gersh, Jeffrey A. Sine, Richard Smith, Silvia Schmid, Bob Boyett, Jeremiah J. Harris, James L. Nederlander, EST/Emily Tisch, Sony Music Entertaiment, DudaAllen, David W. Busch, Karen Fairchild, HoriPro Inc., Gordon-Helfner, John Gore Organization, Madison Wells Live, S&Co., Terry Schnuck, Jimi Westbrook, ZKM Media
Some Like It Hot
Producers: The Shubert Organization, Neil Meron, MGM on Stage, Roy Furman, Robert Greenblatt, James L. Nederlander, Kenny Leon, Hunter Arnold, John Gore Organization, The Dalgleish Library Company Group, Sheboygan Conservatory Partners, Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, Bob Boyett, Cue to Cue Productions, Janet and Marvin Rosen, The Araca Group, Concord Theatricals, Marc Howard, Independent Presenters Network, Juanita Jordan, Jujamcyn Theaters, Henry R. Muñoz, III, Ostar, Mariah Carey, D.S. Moynihan
Best Play
Ain’t No Mo’
Author: Jordan E. Cooper Producers: Lee Daniels, BET: Black Entertainment Television, Len Blavatnik, Ron Burkle, Aryeh B. Bourkoff, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, RuPaul Charles, I’ll Have Another Productions, Jeremy O. Harris, Lena Waithe, Tucker Tooley Entertainment, CJ Uzomah, Ann Cox, Gina Purlia, Bob Yari, Marvin Peart, Colleen Camp, Marvet Britto, Jeremy Green, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Jillian Robbins, The Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham, Mandy Hackett
Between Riverside and Crazy
Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis Producers: Second Stage Theater, Carole Rothman, Khady Kamara, Atlantic Theater Company
Cost of Living
Author: Martyna Majok Producers: Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow, Barry Grove, Williamstown Theatre Festival
Fat Ham
Author: James Ijames Producers: No Guarantees, Public Theater Productions, Rashad V. Chambers, National Black Theatre, Tim Levy, Bards on Broadway, Bob Boyett, Ghostbuster Productions, James Ijames, Cynthia Stroum, Audible, Adam Cohen, Blake Devillier, Firemused Productions/JamRock Productions, The Forstalls, Iconic Vizion/Corey Brunish, John Gore Organization, Midnight Theatricals, David Miner, Robin Gorman Newman/PickleStar Theatricals, Marc Platt, Play on Shakespeare, The Wilma Theater, Colman Domingo, Cynthia Erivo, Andy Jones, Dylan Pager, Roundabout Theatre Company, Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham, Mandy Hackett, Sade Lythcott, Jonathan McCrory
Leopoldstadt*
Author: Tom Stoppard Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, Lorne Michaels, Stephanie P. McClelland, Gavin Kalin, Delman Sloan, Eilene Davidson, Brad Edgerton, Patrick Gracey, Hunter Arnold, Burnt Umber Productions, Cue to Cue Productions, The Factor Gavin Partnership, Harris Rubin Productions, Robert Nederlander, Jr., No Guarantees, Sandy Robertson, Iris Smith, Jamie deRoy/Catherine Adler, Dodge Hall Productions/Waverly Productions, Richardo Hornos/Robert Tichio, Heni Koenigsberg/Wendy Federman, Thomas S. Perakos/Stephanie Kramer, Brian Spector/Judith Seinfeld, Richard Winkler/Alan Shorr
Best Revival of a Musical
Into the Woods
Producers: Jujamcyn Theaters, Jordan Roth, New York City Center, Daryl Roth, Hunter Arnold, Concord Theatricals, Nicole Eisenberg, Jessica R. Jenen, Michael Cassel Group, Kevin Ryan, ShowTown Productions, Armstrong, Gold & Ross, Nicole Kastrinos
Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot
Producers: Lincoln Center Theater, André Bishop, Adam Siegel, Naomi Grabel
Parade*
Producers: Seaview, Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, Alex Levy, Kevin Ryan, Eric & Marsi Gardiner, Interscope & Immersive Records, Erica Lynn Schwartz, Creative Partners Productions, Marcia Goldberg, John Gore Organization, Cynthia Stroum, Tom Tuft, Benjamin Simpson, Nathan Vernon, Brian & Nick Ginsberg, Ruth & Stephen Hendel, Roth-Manella Productions, Chutzpah Productions, 42nd.club, Ahava 72 Productions, The Andryc Brothers, The Array, At Rise Creative, Caiola Jenen Productions, Coles Achilles, deRoy Brunish Productions, Fakston Productions, Federman Batchelder, Level Forward, Pencil Factory Productions, Renard Lynch, Robin Merrie, Rubin Stuckelman, Runyonland Sussman, Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson, Bee Carrozzini, New York City Center
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Producers: Jeffrey Seller, Bob Boyett, Diana DiMenna & Plate Spinner Productions/Aaron Glick, Eastern Standard Time, Roy Furman, Thomas Kail, Jim Kierstead/Benjamin Leon IV, TourDForce Theatrical, Maggie Brohn, Andy Jones
Best Revival of a Play
August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson
Producers: Brian Anthony Moreland, Sonia Friedman, Tom Kirdahy, Kandi Burruss & Todd Tucker, Hunter Arnold, Playing Field, The Factor Gavin Partnership, FBK Productions/42nd.club, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Creative Partners Productions, Harris Rubin Productions, Marguerite Steed Hoffman, Alia Jones-Harvey, Mark Gordon Pictures, Stephanie McClelland, Moore Delman, James L. Nederlander, Seriff Productions, The Shubert Organization, Salman Al-Rashid/Jamie deRoy, Brad Blume/Cliff Hopkins, Jean Doumanian /Fakston Productions, Edgewood/DMQR Productions, Jay & Cindy Gutterman/Caiola Productions, Van Kaplan/Lu-Shawn Thompson, Erik A. King/Finewomen Productions, Marc David Levine/William Frisbie, Syrinda Paige/Kevin Ryan & Diane Scott Carter, Silva Theatrical Group/Tilted, Thomas Swayne/Cynthia J. Tong, Constanza Romero-Wilson
A Doll’s House
New Version by: Amy Herzog Producers: Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, Gavin Kalin Productions, Wessex Grove, Julie Boardman, Kate Cannova, Bob Boyett, Hunter Arnold, Creative Partners Productions, Eilene Davidson Productions, GGRS, Kater Gordon, Louise L. Gund, Los Angeles Media Fund, Stephanie P. McClelland, Tilted, Jessica Chastain, Caitlin Clements/Francesca Moody Productions, Caiola Productions/Amanda Lee, Ted & Richard Liebowitz/Joeyen-Waldorf Squeri, Richard & Cecilia Attias/Thomas S. Barnes, OHenry Theatre Nerd Productions/Runyonland MMP, The Jamie Lloyd Company
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window
Producers: Seaview, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Phil Kenny, Audible, Sony Music Masterworks, Jillian Robbins, Jeremy O. Harris, Larry Hirschhorn and Ricardo Hornos, Shields Smedes Stern Ltd., Kevin Ryan, The Shubert Organization, Willette and Manny Klausner, Marco Santarelli, Be Forward Productions, Concord Theatricals, Creative Partners Productions, Invisible Wall Productions, Salman and Moudhy Al-Rashid, TodayTix Group, Ido Gal, HarrisDonnelly, Sally Cade Holmes, Stella LaRue, LAMF Protozoa, Kati Meister and John Sorkin, Meredith Lynsey Schade, Catherine Schreiber, Dennis Trunfio, MCM Studios, 42nd.club, BAMM Productions, CarterMackTaylorWilliam, HB2M Productions, HK-Undivided Productions, MAJIKK Theatricals, Tanker Kollev Productions, Douglas Denoff, OHenry Productions, Plate Spinner Productions, Runyonland Productions, Mad Gene Media, Scrap Paper Pictures, Joi Gresham, BAM, Gina Duncan, David Binder, Elizabeth Moreau
Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog*
Producers: David Stone, LaChanze, Rashad V. Chambers, Marc Platt, Debra Martin Chase, The Shubert Organization
Best Book of a Musical
& Juliet
David West Read
Kimberly Akimbo*
David Lindsay-Abaire
New York, New York
David Thompson & Sharon Washington
Shucked
Robert Horn
Some Like It Hot
Matthew López & Amber Ruffin
Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
Almost Famous
Music: Tom Kitt Lyrics: Cameron Crowe & Tom Kitt
Kimberly Akimbo*
Music: Jeanine Tesori Lyrics: David Lindsay-Abaire
KPOP
Music & Lyrics: Helen Park & Max Vernon
Shucked
Music and Lyrics: Brandy Clark & Shane McAnally
Some Like It Hot
Music: Marc Shaiman Lyrics: Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog Corey Hawkins, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog Sean Hayes, Good Night, Oscar* Stephen McKinley Henderson, Between Riverside and Crazy Wendell Pierce, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
Jessica Chastain, A Doll’s House Jodie Comer, Prima Facie* Jessica Hecht, Summer, 1976 Audra McDonald, Ohio State Murders
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
Christian Borle, Some Like It Hot J. Harrison Ghee, Some Like It Hot* Josh Groban, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Brian d’Arcy James, Into the Woods Ben Platt, Parade Colton Ryan, New York, New York
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
Annaleigh Ashford, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Sara Bareilles, Into the Woods Victoria Clark, Kimberly Akimbo* Lorna Courtney, & Juliet Micaela Diamond, Parade
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
Jordan E. Cooper, Ain’t No Mo’ Samuel L. Jackson, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson Arian Moayed, A Doll’s House Brandon Uranowitz, Leopoldstadt* David Zayas, Cost of Living
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
Nikki Crawford, Fat Ham Crystal Lucas-Perry, Ain’t No Mo’ Miriam Silverman, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window* Katy Sullivan, Cost of Living Kara Young, Cost of Living
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
Kevin Cahoon, Shucked Justin Cooley, Kimberly Akimbo Kevin Del Aguila, Some Like It Hot Jordan Donica, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Alex Newell, Shucked*
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical
Julia Lester, Into the Woods Ruthie Ann Miles, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Bonnie Milligan, Kimberly Akimbo* NaTasha Yvette Williams, Some Like It Hot Betsy Wolfe, & Juliet
Best Scenic Design of a Play
Miriam Buether, Prima Facie Tim Hatley & Andrzej Goulding, Life of Pi* Rachel Hauck, Good Night, Oscar Richard Hudson, Leopoldstadt Dane Laffrey & Lucy Mackinnon, A Christmas Carol
Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Beowulf Boritt, New York, New York* Mimi Lien, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Michael Yeargan & 59 Productions, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Scott Pask, Shucked Scott Pask, Some Like It Hot
Best Costume Design of a Play
Tim Hatley, Nick Barnes & Finn Caldwell, Life of Pi Dominique Fawn Hill, Fat Ham Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Leopoldstadt* Emilio Sosa, Ain’t No Mo’ Emilio Sosa, Good Night, Oscar
Best Costume Design of a Musical
Gregg Barnes, Some Like It Hot* Susan Hilferty, Parade Jennifer Moeller, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Clint Ramos & Sophia Choi, KPOP Paloma Young, & Juliet Donna Zakowska, New York, New York
Best Lighting Design of a Play
Neil Austin, Leopoldstadt Natasha Chivers, Prima Facie Jon Clark, A Doll’s House Bradley King, Fat Ham Tim Lutkin, Life of Pi* Jen Schriever, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Ben Stanton, A Christmas Carol
Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Ken Billington, New York, New York Lap Chi Chu, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Heather Gilbert, Parade Howard Hudson, & Juliet Natasha Katz, Some Like It Hot Natasha Katz, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street*
Best Sound Design of a Play
Jonathan Deans & Taylor Williams, Ain’t No Mo’ Carolyn Downing, Life of Pi* Joshua D. Reid, A Christmas Carol Ben & Max Ringham, A Doll’s House Ben & Max Ringham, Prima Facie
Best Sound Design of a Musical
Kai Harada, New York, New York John Shivers, Shucked Scott Lehrer & Alex Neumann, Into the Woods Gareth Owen, & Juliet Nevin Steinberg, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street*
Best Direction of a Play
Saheem Ali, Fat Ham Jo Bonney, Cost of Living Jamie Lloyd, A Doll’s House Patrick Marber, Leopoldstadt* Stevie Walker-Webb, Ain’t No Mo’ Max Webster, Life of Pi
Best Direction of a Musical
Michael Arden, Parade* Lear deBessonet, Into the Woods Casey Nicholaw, Some Like It Hot Jack O’Brien, Shucked Jessica Stone, Kimberly Akimbo
Best Choreography
Steven Hoggett, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Casey Nicholaw, Some Like It Hot* Susan Stroman, New York, New York Jennifer Weber, & Juliet Jennifer Weber, KPOP
Best Orchestrations
Bill Sherman and Dominic Fallacaro, & Juliet John Clancy, Kimberly Akimbo Jason Howland, Shucked Charlie Rosen & Bryan Carter, Some Like It Hot* Daryl Waters & Sam Davis, New York, New York
Hosted by Lyrica Okano. Judges: Chef Masaharu Morimoto, Chef Dakota Weiss, Chef Kenji López-Alt
“Morimoto’s Sushi Master” features renowned chef and restateur Masaharu Morimoto as head judge of a cooking competition centered on the world’s most popular cuisine: sushi. Hosted by Lyrica Okano (“Marvel’s Runaways”), the six-episode series highlights the skill, ingredients, delicacy and talent needed to perfect the art of sushi-making.
Masaharu Morimoto, Lyrica Okano, Kenji López-Alt and Dakota Weiss in “Morimoto’s Sushi Master” (Photo courtesy of The Roku Channel)
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” features an all-white group of people discussing the life and career of retired actor Michael J. Fox.
Culture Clash: Fox has dealt with major health issues in his life, including Parkinson’s disease and alcoholism.
Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious fan base of Michael J. Fox fans, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in celebrity documentaries and documentaries about health issues.
An archival photo of Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan in “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)
Inspiring and with superb film editing, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” is a must-see documentary for anyone who wants to get a personal look at how Michael J. Fox refused to make his Parkinson’s disease into a tragedy but instead turned it into a triumph. The movie could have easily been a complete nostalgia trip, but the movie’s narrative cuts back and forth from the past to when the documentary was filmed, mostly in 2021 and 2022. It’s a visually striking contrast of Fox’s life when he was an award-winning, working actor to his current life of being a retired actor who continues to be an activist for Parkinson’s disease awareness and research. What hasn’t changed is that Fox still has a charming mix of confidence and self-deprecating wit.
Directed by Davis Guggenheim and narrated by Fox, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Story” doesn’t play coy about Fox living with Parkinson’s disease. The movie (which has several re-enactments) begins in Florida 1990, with a recreation of Fox waking up in a hotel room “with a ferocious hangover” and seeing the first signs that he had this disease: He saw one of his pinky fingers trembling uncontrollably. His bodyguard also had to prop him up when Fox tried to walk to the elevator. (Danny Irizarry, whose face is not shown in the movie, portrays Fox in the documentary’s re-enactments.)
At first, Fox assumed that his loss of muscle control was due to the heavy partying he had done the night before with actor Woody Harrelson. But as the world now knows, Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, but he didn’t go public about it until 1998. One of the most emotionally moving parts of the documentary is how Fox describes hiding this disease was in many ways just as damaging to his psyche as the disease was damaging to his body.
“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. There isn’t really anything new in “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” that he hasn’t already revealed in his memoirs (2002’s “Lucky Man: A Memoir by Michael J. Fox” and 2020’s “No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality”) or in interviews that he’s given before this documentary was made. But there never before has been a documentary like this made about Fox with Fox’s participation. Instead of just being a boring compilaton of archival clips and interviews, the documentary vividly brings Fox’s story to cinematic life with the way the movie uses clips from his on-screen roles to cleverly match the emotions and situations that Fox describes in his narration.
By now, most people who know why Fox is famous are already aware of his career highlights. Born in 1961 in the Canadian city of Edmonton, Alberta, he rose to fame in the 1980s, with starring roles in the 1982 to 1989 comedy TV series “Family Ties” (for which he won three Primetime Emmy Awards) and his breakthrough movie role in the 1985 sci-fi time-traveling comedy blockbuster “Back to the Future.” Many people also know about several of Fox’s other movies (such as 1985’s “Teen Wolf,” 1987’s “The Secret to My Success” and the “Stuart Little” movies), as well and his TV sitcom comeback in “Spin City,” which he starred in from 1996 to 2000. Fox won his fourth Primetime Emmy Award for “Spin City.” He won his fifth Primetime Emmy Award in 2009 for being a guest actor on the drama series “Rescue Me.”
Many of Fox’s fans already know the story of how he started acting while he was a child growing up in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. As someone who was always shorter than most of his peers, Fox learned at an early age to use comedy as a way to make people like him—or at least back off a little from bullying or insulting him. In the documentary, Fox describes his teenage years as being an academically dismal student and a “serial fender bender.” He also had a rocky relationship with his retired military father, whom Fox describes as a pragmatist with a quick temper.
Fox decided to drop out of high school at age 17 to pursue an acting career full-time in the Los Angeles area. In the documentary, Fox says that he was surprised that his strict father didn’t put up much of fuss over this decision. Fox remembers his father telling him this analogy: “If you’re going to be a lumberjack, you better go to the goddamn forest.”
Like many struggling actors in the Los Angeles area, Fox was living in near-poverty and was able to book some jobs, but they weren’t enough to pay the bills. His big break as conservative teen Alex P. Keaton on “Family Ties” came about because actor Matthew Broderick wasn’t available for the role, and Fox was able to win over a skeptical David Gordon Green, the showrunner of “Family Ties.” In the documentary, Fox describes the first time he made people laugh in his “Family Ties” audition was a high that was like no other: “No drink, no drug, not woman could touch that moment.”
Fox’s starring role as time-traveling teen Marty McFly in “Back to the Future” also came about because he wasn’t the first choice: Eric Stoltz was originally cast in the role and had started filming the movie when “Back to the Future” director Robert Zemeckis fired Stoltz for not being a good fit for the movie’s comedy. Just as Fox described in many other interviews and in his memoirs, for about three months, Fox kept a grueling schedule where he worked on “Family Ties” and “Back to the Future” at the same time. “Back to the Future” made him a household name worldwide.
Also duly noted in the documentary is the love story between Fox and Tracy Pollan, a theater-trained actress who played Alex P. Keaton’s girlfriend on “Family Ties.” Life imitated art. Fox and Pollan fell in love, and they got married in 1988. In the documentary, Fox says one of the reasons why he fell in love with Pollan was because she wasn’t impressed by his stardom and was honest with him, even if it might hurt his feelings.
Fox and Pollan have four children: son Sam (born in 1989); twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler (born in 1995); and daughter Esmé (born November 3, 2001). All four of the kids and Pollan are in the documentary with Fox. They are shown joking around with each other and being a loving family.
“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” doesn’t clutter up the movie with “experts” or “talking heads” discussing Fox. Occasionally, director Guggenheim can be heard talking to Fox off-camera. One of the questions that Guggenheim asks Fox is: “Before [you had] Parkinson’s, what did it mean to be still?” Fox replies, “I don’t know. I don’t remember being still.”
The documentary frequently juxtaposes Fox’s career highs with current footage that shows the contrast of what his life is like now: He has difficulty walking and is in constant physical therapy. Falling down and hurting himself are facts of life for him. One of the early scenes in the movie shows him taking a hard tumble on a sidewalk. In another scene, he has to have makeup applied to his fractured left cheekbone because of another fall that isn’t shown in the movie. There’s a montage of clips showing the tricks he used to do on camera to hide his shaking hands when his Parkinson’s disease was a secret from the public.
Fox also gets candid about becoming an alcoholic after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but he says he got sober in 1992. His father’s sudden death of a heart attack in 1990 also shook him to the core. Fox says it was like crossing another painful threshold in adulthood. He also admits there was a period of time from the late 1980s to the early 1990s when he became a workaholic in movies because he was under the delusion that keeping busy with work would make his Parkinson’s disease go away. His workaholic lifestyle and making movies far away from his home were taking a toll on his family life, which is why he decided to go back to doing a TV series with “Spin City.”
The Michael J. Fox Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to Parkinson’s disease resources and research, is mentioned as one of the most significant accomplishments of Fox’s life. The foundation has raised more than $2 billion, according to the documentary. Fox has also been an outspoken activist who has testified in front of congressional committees and campaigned for more government funding for Parkinson’s disease.
Despite all the information in “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” that has already been revealed in other media, there’s no denying that seeing Fox open up in a movie about his life is illumninating in ways that can’t be done in a book, news article or a short interview. What emerges in the documentary is a portrait of someone who is not afraid to reflect on his life (including his past mistakes and failings) but doesn’t want to be stuck in the past. And most importantly, the movie is a positive example of how someone with a disease that weakens the body can gain emotional strength and help others.
Apple Studios released “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” in select U.S. cinemas and on Apple TV+ on May 12, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area, the documentary film “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” features a racially diverse group of middle-class family members discussing what it’s like to be in multiracial families.
Culture Clash: Mixed-race children experience issues such as racism and pressure to identify with one race over another.
Culture Audience: “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” will appeal primarily to people who want to see a documentary about multiracial families, although the movie is admittedly limited to the director W. Kamau Bell’s circle of friends and family members.
Interviewees in “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed.” Pictured in top row, from left to right; father Bongo, daughter Samaya and mother Joti; siblings Myles and Georgio; mother Pica, daughter Kanani and father Anibal. Middle row, pictured from left to right: father Bryant, daughter Mila and mother Jidan; uncle Greg and niece Kaylin; paternal grandmother Janet, granddaughter Juno, granddaughter Sami and maternal grandmother Chris. Bottom row, from left to right: father Paolo, daughter Presley and mother Jenn; siblings Khalil, Anisa and Ibrahim; friends Carter and Nola. (Photo collage courtesy of HBO)
The insightful documentary “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” has wonderfully thoughtful groups of multiracial people and some of their families candidly sharing their stories. “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” director/executive producer W. Kamau Bell, who has biracial children, briefly narrates the movie and can be heard off-camera asking some of the interview questions. Bell tells viewers up front that he mostly interviewed members of his family and his social circle in the politically liberal San Francisco Bay Area. All of the interviewees, except for Bell’s family members, do not have their last names revealed in the documentary. John Legend, who is also a father of multiracial children, is one of the other executive producers of the documentary, but Legend and his family are not in this movie.
The biggest drawback to this one-hour documentary is that there could have been more variety in the socioeconomic statuses and residencies of the interviewees. The people who are interviewed clearly have the privilege of being educated and living in an area where there are numerous interracial families. However, these advantages don’t mean that their stories are less valid or less meaningful, or that they don’t experience racism and other ignorance that all multiracial families experience at one time or another.
W. Kamau Bell (who is African American) and his wife Melissa (who is white), who have been married since 2009, have three daughters: Sami, Juno and Asha. Their eldest daughter Sami (who was 10 years old when she was interviewed for the documentary) and middle daughter Juno (who was 7 years old) have obviously been taught well about what to say about living life in a multiracial family. Like all of the kids in the documentary, they are intelligent, articulate and empathetic when it comes to race and social issues.
Juno says she wasn’t aware of how many people expect her to identify as only one race until a girl at her school incorrectly told Juno that Juno is white. Juno said she felt sad that one of her races wasn’t acknowledged. It’s a challenge that all the mixed-race interviewees say that they’ve experienced at some point in their lives: people expecting multiracial people to prefer or identify with one race over another. And those expectations don’t always come from outsiders. They often come from within a family or from multiracial people themselves.
The good news for multiracial families that is there is now more awareness and tolerance for people’s mixed-race identities, compared to previous decades, when it comes to checking racial identity boxes on documents. In the past, the box would often just say “other” for multiracial people. Now, the box is more likely to say “mixed-race” or “multiracial.”
Myles, an 11-year-old interviewee whose father is African American and whose mother is Filipina, has a brother named Georgio, who is 22 years older than Myles. Georgio and Myles, who both love to play basketball, are interviewed separately and together in the film. Georgio says that when he was Myles’ age, there weren’t as many resources and information for mixed-race people as there are now. “I’m glad that space is there,” Georgio comments about this cultural shift in American society that makes more room for multiracial people.
Georgio also says that where a mixed-race child goes to school can make a big difference in that person’s self-esteem and views of the world. Georgio remembers that when he was in elementary school, he was one of only a few kids in the school who had being black as part of their racial identities, so he identified more as Filipino, because he felt he would be more accepted that way. Georgio’s middle school had many more black students than his elementary school did, but Georgio says he wasn’t fully accepted by black people at the middle school because the black people thought Georgio wasn’t “black enough.” Georgio says he found acceptance and comfort by being on the school’s basketball team, but the racism he experienced still had an effect on him.
One of the best things about “1000% Me” is that it acknowledges the harsh reality that people of color are often judged in terms of a warped racial hierarchy, where certain non-white races are considered “better” than others. An example is a story told by Kaylin, a 16-year-old girl who identifies as black, white and Korean. Her parents are also mixed-race.
Kaylin’s mother has African American as part of her racial identity. Kaylin confesses that her mother won’t like it that Kaylin is sharing this family secret in the documentary, but she says that when her mother filled out the racial identity part of Kaylin’s school application, her mother only identified Kaylin as white and Asian, not as black. Kaylin’s mother is not interviewed in the documentary, but Kaylin’s guidance counselor uncle Greg is interviewed, because he and Kaylin have a close relationship. Greg says his white mother never liked to talk about race.
Kaylin says she felt very hurt at the time she found out that that her own mother was denying that Kaylin is partially black. But now, Kaylin says she understands why her mother did that: Because of black people’s history of enslavement and other oppression in America, Kaylin thinks her mother wanted to protect Kaylin from the racists who think black people are the lowest of all the races. It’s a pathetically racist mindset to rank one race as better than another, but it’s unfortunately true, if you look at how many people don’t have a problem interacting with any race except black people.
And oftentimes, white supremacy is internalized by people of color who want to look as white as possible in order to be accepted. Paolo (who is a Filipino immigrant) and his white American wife Jenn met through their mutual passion for motorcycle riding. They have a daughter named Presley (named after Elvis Presley), who loves to sing (she rides with her father on his karaoke motorcycle), play bass guitar and play volleyball. All three family members are interviewed in the documentary.
Paolo says that when he was growing up in the Philippines, he was taught not to get too tan because he was told that it was desirable to have the lightest skin tone possible. When he moved to America as a child, he only wanted to be friends with white people, because he thought it would make his life easier. Paolo says that it wasn’t until after Donald Trump was elected president of the U.S. that Paolo started to embrace his Filipino identity. Paolo comments that this awakening was a reaction to Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, which disproportionately targeted non-white immigrants.
Speaking of immigrants in America, the documentary also addresses the issues of multiracial children who not only have more than one cultural identity but are also the children of non-English-speaking immigrants and therefore speak more than one language. Such is the case with 11-year-old Kanani. Her father Anibal is a Latino and indigenous immigrant originally from Costa Rica. Kanani’s mother Pica is a white American who was raised in the San Diego area.
Kanani and her parents, who are all interviewed in the documentary, talk about how Kanani is being raised with a strong sense of her Costa Rican heritage. Kanani says she goes to visit her father’s side of the family in Costa Rica at least twice a year, and she participates in traditional Costa Rican customs. Kanani’s parents also made the decision to teach her to speak only Spanish before she was old enough to go to school. Kanani’s parents figured that Kanani could learn English when she reached kindergarten age.
Even though the United States does not have an official language, Pica describes getting a rude awakening about the hostility that people can get in America if they don’t speak English. She said it happened when Kanani was pre-school age, and some kids around the same age got into a dispute with Kanani. One of the other kid’s mothers told Pica that the dispute wouldn’t have happened if Kanani knew how to speak English. Pica gets teary and emotional when she remembers this experience, while admitting that because she grew up as a white person in America, she wasn’t fully aware that kids who aren’t white could experience this type of racism at such an early age.
Some interracial couples give their children names that are combination of both parents’ cultural heritages. A 7-year-old girl named Sumaya and her parents Bongo (who is originally from Guinea) and her mother Joti (who is originally from India) was given a name that is a mixture of these two cultures. Bongo and Joti also have another daughter, and the spouses made the unusual decision to give the two daughters different surnames. Sumaya has Boti’s last name, while the other daughter has Joti’s maiden last name.
Meanwhile, 10-year-old Mila’s full first name is Funmilayo. She was named after Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a Nigerian activist/educator. Mila’s middle name is Chow-Mei Mia’s father Bryant is an African American who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Mila’s mother Jidan is a Chinese American who grew up in Berkely, California. All three family members are interviewed in the movie.
Three siblings with an African American father and a Pakistani mother are interviewed in the documentary: Anisa (11 years old) and her brothers Ibrahim (13 years old) and Khalil (15 years old). All three siblings are being raised as Muslim. Anisa says she’s proud to be the only Muslim in her school class and that she enjoys wearing traditional Muslim clothing (such as a hijab) in public. Anisa says the only thing that bothers her about her family is that her brothers sometimes pick on her because she’s smaller than she is and because she’s a girl.
Another multiracial kid who’s very confident about her racial identity is Mila, who refuses to choose one race over another. Mila’s mother Jidan gets emotional when remembering how she and Bryant got into a big argument when Jidan was younger because Bryant didn’t want Jidan to go to school with mismatched socks, while Jidean didn’t think it was that big of a deal that the socks were mismatched. Bryant had to explain to Jidan that he didn’t want people at the school to think that Jidan was a black girl who wasn’t getting proper care at home.
It’s a prejudice that Bryant said he learned from experience growing up in the Deep South that could lead to bigger problems for African American kids and their parents. Jidan says it pained her to find out that something as simple as wearing mismatched socks to school could have different repercussions for black kids, compared to kids of other races. Now that Mila is older, Bryant says he’s relaxed his views on what types of socks that Mila can wear.
An interesting part of the documentary is when W. Kamau Bell’s mother Janet and Melissa Bell’s mother Chris are interviewed together about what it was like growing up in racially segregated America and what it’s like to be grandmothers of mixed-race children. A segment in the documentary shows granddaughters Sami and Juno sitting in between their grandmothers on couch. Sami explains to Juno for the first time how in their grandmother’s youth, it was legal for white people to be kept separate from all other races and to have more rights than other races. Juno is shown looking shocked that her grandmothers and other people had to live this way in America.
A mixed-race man named Roy, who says he was born in 1941, also recalls this shameful era in America. He says back then, people didn’t know what to call his racial identity except “mulatto” (which is a word he disliked), or he was simply identified as “black” or “Negro,” since he obviously wasn’t completely white.
“1000% Me” also includes mixed-race people who are adopted by white people. In the case of best friends Carter and Nola (both 13-year-old girls), they were each adopted by white lesbian couples. Carter, who is black and Latina, is W. Kamau Bell’s goddaughter. Nola is white and black. Carter says that there are racial issues that her white mothers might not fully understand, so she’s grateful that she can sometimes get support and advice from her adopted 22-year-old African American sister Olivia, who is briefly shown in the movie with Carter and Nola. As Nola says in the documentary about being a mixed-race person: “Being multiple things doesn’t make you any less of those things.”
Mixed-race people have always existed, but it’s taken a surprisingly long time for there to be a comprehensive documentary film about it. Census data statistics suggest that the numbers of mixed-race people will continue to grow in the United States. “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” is an admirable start to helping open up the conversation even more about mixed-race people.
Erica, who identifies as black and Japanese, is a therapist interviewed in the documentary. She has this to say about race relations in America: “We have a lot of work to do. We live in a deeply racist society … There’s a lot of danger in not talking about race.” In other words, ignoring the problem will only make it worse. “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” is a worthy step in the right direction to helping being a solution to the problem.
HBO and HBO Max premiered “1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed” on May 2, 2023.
Mary Steenburgen, Candice Bergen, Diane Keaton and Jane Fonda in “Book Club: The Next Chapter” (Photo by Riccardo Ghilardi/Fifth Season LLC/Focus Features)
Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy and briefly in the Los Angeles area in 2020 and 2021, the comedy film “Book Club: The Next Chapter” (a sequel to 2018’s “Book Club”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Four elderly American women, who are best friends, travel to Italy to have a bachelorette party trip for one of the women who’s getting married, but they experience complications along the way.
Culture Audience: “Book Club: The Next Chapter” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s stars, the first “Book Club” movie and comedies about how senior citizens experience love, friendships and romance.
Don Johnson in “Book Club: The Next Chapter” (Photo by Riccardo Ghilardi/Fifth Season LLC/Focus Features)
“Book Club: The Next Chapter” is a comedy sequel where the book club exists in name only. Instead of reading books, the four women who are the longtime best friends at the center of the movie are reading attitudes about love and marriage when they go from their homes in the Los Angeles area to Italy for a bachelorette party trip. “Book Club: The Next Chapter” is a sequel to 2018’s “Book Club.” This breezy sequel puts more emphasis on the four best friends spending time together as a group. The movie doubles down on the sexual double entendres that are sometimes amusing, sometimes tacky. “Book Club: The Next Chapter” has its heart in the right place though and should be entertaining for anyone who is a fan of any of the movie’s headliners.
“Book Club” and “Book Club: The Next Chapter” are both directed by Bill Holderman and written by Holderman and Erin Simms. It’s very helpful to see or know about what happened in “Book Club,” in order to fully enjoy and understand “Book Club: The Next Chapter.” The love relationship issues that each of the four main characters had in the first “Book Club” movie are not fully explained in the beginning of “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” which takes place in 2020 and 2021.
In the first “Book Club” movie, the four main characters are also the four members of a book club that they’ve had since 1974. (Erica Jong’s feminist novel “Fear of Flying” was the book club’s first selection.) As part of the book club, the women read E.L. James’ erotic “Fifty Shades” book series, which inspires them to spice up their love lives. In “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” the focus is on a bachelorette party trip to Italy for the woman in the group who has never been married. The expected hijinks ensue in Italy, including stolen luggage, language barriers, and one of the women finding a possible love interest in Italy.
The four women who are at the center of the story are as follows:
Diane Whittaker (played by Diane Keaton), the most neurotic and nervous of the four friends, is a widowed mother of two adult daughters and is the narrator of the “Book Club” movies. In the first “Book Club” movie, Diane met and fell in love with an airline pilot named Mitchell (played by Andy Garcia), who treats her with kindness and respect. In the first “Book Club” movie, Diane was hesitant to date Mitchell because she was still grieving over the death of her husband. But in Book Club: The Next Chapter,” Diane and Mitchell are still going strong in a happy relationship and are now living together.
Vivian O’Donnell (played by Jane Fonda), the most strong-willed and assertive of the four friends, is a high-powered hotel mogul, who is admittedly commitment-phobic because she’s afraid of losing her independence. She’s never been married and has no children. The love of Vivian’s life is a now-retired music producer named Arthur (played by Don Johnson), a charismatic suitor, who proposed marriage Vivian back in the late 1970s, but she declined the offer. In “Book Club” (mild spoiler alert), Arthur came back into Vivian’s life, and they rekindled their romance, but had a few predictable obstacles along the way. In the beginning of “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” Vivian tells her three best friends that she and Arthur are now engaged to be married. The four friends decide to go to Italy for a bachelorette party for Vivian.
Sharon Meyers (played by Candice Bergen), the most sarcastic and logical of the four friends, is a retired federal judge and a divorcée. Sharon got divorced from the father of her adult son sometime around the year 2000. In the first “Book Club” movie, Sharon was bitter because her ex-husband got engaged to a much younger woman, and Sharon’s son got engaged to a woman whom Sharon had never met. But in the first “Book Club” movie, Sharon decided to get back into the dating scene, and she eventually made peace with her ex-husband, whom she had dumped because Sharon thinks he’s intellectually inferior to her. In “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” Sharon is newly retired and is the only woman of the four friends who’s not in a committed relationship and isn’t dating anyone special.
Carol Colby (played by Mary Steenburgen), the most nurturing and sensitive of the four friends, is a restaurateur who has been in a longtime marriage to her retired husband Bruce (played by Craig T. Nelson), who can be emotionally distant but who is an overall loyal spouse. Bruce and Carol have three adult children together: two daughters and a son. In the first “Book Club” movie, Carol was distressed because Bruce had lost interest in having sex with her. It should come as no surprise that this issue was resolved by the end of the film. In the beginning of “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” Carol has closed her restaurant permanently, because the COVID-19 pandemic caused irreparable financial damage to the restaurant. Now a retiree, Carol has become preoccupied with worries about Bruce’s health, ever since he had a minor heart attack.
“Book Club: The Next Chapter” has several mentions and references to the COVID-19 pandemic. The movie’s opening scene, which takes place in 2020, shows the four pals speaking together in a videoconference call during the height of the quarantine lockdowns. When they finally reunite in person about a year later, they’ve all been fully vaccinated. Carol is the one who suggests taking the trip to Italy because the four friends had planned the trip years ago but kept delaying it. Carol thinks that Vivian’s engagement is the perfect reason to finally take this trip to Italy.
Carol might have another reason to want to go to Italy. Decades ago, when she was a single woman, she had a short-lived, hot romance with an Italian man named Gianni (played by Vincent Riotta), who was an aspiring chef when Carol knew him. She’s not interested in rekindling what they had, but Carol is curious to know about what Gianni looks like now and what he’s been doing with his life. What are the odds in a romantic comedy that Carol will see Gianni again?
As for Sharon, she’s keeping her options open when it comes to love and romance. And through a series of circumstances in Italy, Sharon meets a retired professor of philosophy named Ouzmane (played by Hugh Quarshie), who is charming and intelligent. In other words, he’s Sharon’s type of man. Will they or won’t they have a love connection?
“Book Club: The Next Chapter” has the expected corniness, such as the four women making jokes when they go to museums and look at statues of naked men, or mistaking a real police officer for being a male stripper. But the movie also has some serious moments, when the four pals talk about their fears of rejection and death. A catch phrase they use when they’re about to have a candid heart-to-heart conversation is “Best friend, tough love.”
Some of the platitudes are often trite though. During one of these “real talks,” Diane somewhat lectures Carol, who has become obsessively worried about leaving her husband Bruce home alone during this trip. Carol thinks that if anything goes wrong with his health again, she should be there for Bruce. Diane tells Carol: “You’re so afraid of Bruce dying, you’re afraid of living.”
Although the movie has some unrealistic-looking comedy, the main reason to watch “Book Club: The Next Chapter” is the lively banter between all four of these characters. The chemistry between Keaton, Fonda, Bergen and Steenburgen looks authentic in their portrayal of longtime friends. The direction of the movie is solid but not outstanding.
And if anything else, viewers can at least enjoy the gorgeous scenery, as the four friends travel to picturesque cities in Italy, such as Venice and Tuscany. The last third of the film has a few twists and turns, but nothing too surprising. If the purpose of “Book Club: The Next Chapter” is to show how women over the age of 65 can have vibrant and interesting lives, despite what is often inaccurately portrayed in the media, than the movie fulfills that purpose.
Focus Features will release “Book Club: The Next Chapter” in U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023. A sneak preview of the movie was held at select U.S. cinemas on May 7, 2023.
Zooey Deschanel discussing salad shopping in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
The following is a press release from Max (formerly known as HBO Max):
The Max Original six-episode unscripted series WHAT AM I EATING? WITH ZOOEY DESCHANEL debuts TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2023 on Max. The series is produced by ATTN:, a Candle Media company.
Logline: Zooey Deschanel is on a mission to solve everyday food dilemmas by asking the tough questions we all have about what we eat. In the supermarket and in our own kitchens, Zooey explores common food mysteries and reveals the shocking truths big food manufacturers want to hide as she uncovers simple solutions to the question, “What am I eating?”
Will Lydgate explaining growing process to Sophia Roe in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Zooey Deschanel mixing ingredients with Jessie Sheehan in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Zooey Deschanel and Brandon Shahniani preparing a phosphate drink in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Zooey Deschanel at Munchies in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Paola Velez and Alex Weiser tasting rye grain in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Zooey Deschanel and Stephanie Tantillo in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Francis “River” Sullivan of Grow Good Urban Farm with Zooey Deschanel in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Francis “River” Sullivan of Grow Good Urban Farm with Zooey Deschanel in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Kevin Curry and Tirzah Love in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Zooey Deschanel discussing salad shopping in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
David Allen Burns and Austin Young of Fallen Fruit with Zooey Deschanel at Stoneview Nature Center in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Kevin Curry talking to Sara Hays Conner about IMF in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Zooey Deschanel and Anna McGorman in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Carlos Parisi and Lauren Cornell in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Dariany Santana, Kristopher Gean and Molly Gean in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Carlos Parisi and Cid Da Silva in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Sophia Roe and Valentine Humer in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Chef Timothy Hollingsworth of Otium Restaurant in “What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel” (Photo courtesy of Max)
Episode Descriptions:
Episode 1: “Big, Fat Lies” – Let’s face it. Fat. Is. Delicious. Turns out, it’s also nutritious, and we may have all been lied to for decades. Zooey Deschanel works with correspondents Carlos Parisi and Sophia Roe to give us the skinny on the right fats and oils we should be buying.
Episode 2: “Down To Fruit?” – Fruit can be organic, conventional, fresh or preserved, and the options are overwhelming! Zooey Deschanel joins Dariany Santana and Carlos Parisi to uncover which fruits should be our new BFFs and if non-organic is the friend we never knew we had.
Episode 3: “Cereal Thriller” – From sugar bombs to fruity circles, modern cereal has strayed far from its healthy origins. Zooey Deschanel gets some help from correspondents Carlos Parisi and Kevin Curry to discover new ways to get cereal back on the breakfast table.
Episode 4: “Stop Ghosting Greens” – In a world that thinks greens are gross, tasteless, and boring, Zooey Deschanel gets some pro tips from Dariany Santana and Kevin Curry that uncover the most delicious trends in the “greeniverse” and pinpoint the dream greens we should all be eating.
Episode 5: “No Pain, Eat Your Grain” – With diets avoiding carbs like the plague, grains have gotten a bad rap for years. Zooey Deschanel and correspondent Paola Velez flip the script as they explore ways to help us decide which grains should become our new grocery aisle buddies.
Episode 6: “Is Chocolate The Lover You’ve Been Neglecting?” – Zooey Deschanel considers eating chocolate every day as she decodes the mysteries surrounding one of the world’s most beloved sweets. Plus, correspondent Sophia Roe visits a chocolate farm to prove chocolate should be sliding into your DMs.
The following is a press release from the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League:
Nominations in 26 competitive categories for the American Theatre Wing’s 76th Annual Antoinette Perry “Tony” Awards® were announced by star of Funny Girl Lea Michele and 2022 Tony Award-winner Myles Frost. The nominees were selected by an independent committee of 40 theatre professionals appointed by the Tony Awards Administration Committee. The 2023 Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. (The list of nominations follows.)
Marking 76 years of excellence on Broadway, The Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, will air LIVE on Sunday, June 11, 2023 from the historic United Palace in Washington Heights, in New York City from 8:00-11:00 PM, ET/5:00-8:00 PM, PT on the CBS Television Network, and streaming live and on demand on Paramount+.
CBS and Pluto TV will present The Tony Awards: Act One, a pre-show of live, exclusive content leading into the 76th Annual Tony Awards. The celebration commences at 6:30-8:00 PM, ET/3:30-5:00 PM PT, on Pluto TV, the leading free streaming television service (FAST). Viewers can access the show on their smart TV, streaming device, mobile app or online by going to Pluto TV and clicking on the “Pluto TV Celebrity” channel (no payment, registration or sign-in required).
Legitimate theatrical productions opening in any of the 41 eligible Broadway theatres during the current season may be considered for Tony nominations. The 2022/2023 eligibility season began Thursday, May 5, 2022 and ended Thursday, April 27, 2023. The Tony Awards will be voted in 26 competitive categories by 769 designated Tony voters within the theatre community.
As previously announced, the 2023 Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre will be presented to Lisa Dawn Cave, Victoria Bailey and Robert Fried. The Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award will be presented to Jerry Mitchell.
The 2022-2023 Tony Award Nominating Committee consists of: Warren Adams, Becky Ann Baker, Pun Bandhu, Brenda Braxton, Christopher Burney, Eisa Davis, Carmel Dean, Jerry Dixon, Dionne Figgins, Kamilah Forbes, Scott Frankel, M L Geiger, Jessica Hagedorn, Raja Feather Kelly, John Kilgore, Kathy Landau, Andrea Lauer, Zhailon Levingston, Jose Llana, Priscilla Lopez, John Mauceri, Jess McLeod, James C. Nicola, Antoinette Nwandu, Peter Parnell, Ralph B. Peña, Nancy Piccione, Bill Rauch, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Susan Sampliner, Dick Scanlan, Kimberly Senior, Rachel Sheinkin, Devario Simmons, Natasha Sinha, Michael Stotts, Reginald Van Lee, Michael Benjamin Washington and Ben Wexler.
The Antoinette Perry “Tony” Awards are bestowed annually on theatre professionals for distinguished achievement. The Tony is one of the most coveted awards in the entertainment industry and the annual telecast is considered one of the most prestigious programs on television.
The 2023 American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. At The Broadway League, Lauren Reid is Chair and Charlotte St. Martin is President. At the American Theater Wing, Emilio Sosa is Chair and Heather A. Hitchens is President & CEO.
For the CBS broadcast, Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss/White Cherry Entertainment are Executive Producers. Weiss also serves as Director.
A limited number of tickets for the 2023 Tony Awards are currently on sale at: TonyAwards.com/tickets.
Sponsors for The Tony Awards include: Carnegie Mellon University – the first-ever, exclusive higher education partner; City National Bank – official bank of The Tony Awards; Playbill; Sofitel New York – the official hotel of The Tony Awards; United Airlines – the official airline of The Tony Awards for over 20 years; Zacapa Rum – the official partner of the Tony Awards; Baccarat – the official partner of the Tony Awards; and Ketel One Vodka – the official partner of the Tony Awards.
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Nominations for the 2023 American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards® Presented by The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League
Best Book of a Musical
& Juliet
David West Read
Kimberly Akimbo
David Lindsay-Abaire
New York, New York
David Thompson & Sharon Washington
Shucked
Robert Horn
Some Like It Hot
Matthew López & Amber Ruffin
Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
Almost Famous
Music: Tom Kitt Lyrics: Cameron Crowe & Tom Kitt
Kimberly Akimbo
Music: Jeanine Tesori Lyrics: David Lindsay-Abaire
KPOP
Music & Lyrics: Helen Park & Max Vernon
Shucked
Music and Lyrics: Brandy Clark & Shane McAnally
Some Like It Hot
Music: Marc Shaiman Lyrics: Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog Corey Hawkins, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog Sean Hayes, Good Night, Oscar Stephen McKinley Henderson, Between Riverside and Crazy Wendell Pierce, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
Jessica Chastain, A Doll’s House Jodie Comer, Prima Facie Jessica Hecht, Summer, 1976 Audra McDonald, Ohio State Murders
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
Christian Borle, Some Like It Hot J. Harrison Ghee, Some Like It Hot Josh Groban, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Brian d’Arcy James, Into the Woods Ben Platt, Parade Colton Ryan, New York, New York
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
Annaleigh Ashford, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Sara Bareilles, Into the Woods Victoria Clark, Kimberly Akimbo Lorna Courtney, & Juliet Micaela Diamond, Parade
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
Jordan E. Cooper, Ain’t No Mo’ Samuel L. Jackson, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson Arian Moayed, A Doll’s House Brandon Uranowitz, Leopoldstadt David Zayas, Cost of Living
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
Nikki Crawford, Fat Ham Crystal Lucas-Perry, Ain’t No Mo’ Miriam Silverman, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window Katy Sullivan, Cost of Living Kara Young, Cost of Living
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
Kevin Cahoon, Shucked Justin Cooley, Kimberly Akimbo Kevin Del Aguila, Some Like It Hot Jordan Donica, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Alex Newell, Shucked
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical
Julia Lester, Into the Woods Ruthie Ann Miles, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Bonnie Milligan, Kimberly Akimbo NaTasha Yvette Williams, Some Like It Hot Betsy Wolfe, & Juliet
Best Scenic Design of a Play
Miriam Buether, Prima Facie Tim Hatley & Andrzej Goulding, Life of Pi Rachel Hauck, Good Night, Oscar Richard Hudson, Leopoldstadt Dane Laffrey & Lucy Mackinnon, A Christmas Carol
Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Beowulf Boritt, New York, New York Mimi Lien, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Michael Yeargan & 59 Productions, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Scott Pask, Shucked Scott Pask, Some Like It Hot
Best Costume Design of a Play
Tim Hatley, Nick Barnes & Finn Caldwell, Life of Pi Dominique Fawn Hill, Fat Ham Brigitte Reiffenstuel, Leopoldstadt Emilio Sosa, Ain’t No Mo’ Emilio Sosa, Good Night, Oscar
Best Costume Design of a Musical
Gregg Barnes, Some Like It Hot Susan Hilferty, Parade Jennifer Moeller, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Clint Ramos & Sophia Choi, KPOP Paloma Young, & Juliet Donna Zakowska, New York, New York
Best Lighting Design of a Play
Neil Austin, Leopoldstadt Natasha Chivers, Prima Facie Jon Clark, A Doll’s House Bradley King, Fat Ham Tim Lutkin, Life of Pi Jen Schriever, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Ben Stanton, A Christmas Carol
Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Ken Billington, New York, New York Lap Chi Chu, Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot Heather Gilbert, Parade Howard Hudson, & Juliet Natasha Katz, Some Like It Hot Natasha Katz, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Best Sound Design of a Play
Jonathan Deans & Taylor Williams, Ain’t No Mo’ Carolyn Downing, Life of Pi Joshua D. Reid, A Christmas Carol Ben & Max Ringham, A Doll’s House Ben & Max Ringham, Prima Facie
Best Sound Design of a Musical
Kai Harada, New York, New York John Shivers, Shucked Scott Lehrer & Alex Neumann, Into the Woods Gareth Owen, & Juliet Nevin Steinberg, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Best Direction of a Play
Saheem Ali, Fat Ham Jo Bonney, Cost of Living Jamie Lloyd, A Doll’s House Patrick Marber, Leopoldstadt Stevie Walker-Webb, Ain’t No Mo’ Max Webster, Life of Pi
Best Direction of a Musical
Michael Arden, Parade Lear deBessonet, Into the Woods Casey Nicholaw, Some Like It Hot Jack O’Brien, Shucked Jessica Stone, Kimberly Akimbo
Best Choreography
Steven Hoggett, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Casey Nicholaw, Some Like It Hot Susan Stroman, New York, New York Jennifer Weber, & Juliet Jennifer Weber, KPOP
Best Orchestrations
Bill Sherman and Dominic Fallacaro, & Juliet John Clancy, Kimberly Akimbo Jason Howland, Shucked Charlie Rosen & Bryan Carter, Some Like It Hot Daryl Waters & Sam Davis, New York, New York
Best Play
Ain’t No Mo’
Author: Jordan E. Cooper Producers: Lee Daniels, BET: Black Entertainment Television, Len Blavatnik, Ron Burkle, Aryeh B. Bourkoff, 59th & Prairie Entertainment, RuPaul Charles, I’ll Have Another Productions, Jeremy O. Harris, Lena Waithe, Tucker Tooley Entertainment, CJ Uzomah, Ann Cox, Gina Purlia, Bob Yari, Marvin Peart, Colleen Camp, Marvet Britto, Jeremy Green, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Jillian Robbins, The Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham, Mandy Hackett
Between Riverside and Crazy
Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis Producers: Second Stage Theater, Carole Rothman, Khady Kamara, Atlantic Theater Company
Cost of Living
Author: Martyna Majok Producers: Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow, Barry Grove, Williamstown Theatre Festival
Fat Ham
Author: James Ijames Producers: No Guarantees, Public Theater Productions, Rashad V. Chambers, National Black Theatre, Tim Levy, Bards on Broadway, Bob Boyett, Ghostbuster Productions, James Ijames, Cynthia Stroum, Audible, Adam Cohen, Blake Devillier, Firemused Productions/JamRock Productions, The Forstalls, Iconic Vizion/Corey Brunish, John Gore Organization, Midnight Theatricals, David Miner, Robin Gorman Newman/PickleStar Theatricals, Marc Platt, Play on Shakespeare, The Wilma Theater, Colman Domingo, Cynthia Erivo, Andy Jones, Dylan Pager, Roundabout Theatre Company, Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham, Mandy Hackett, Sade Lythcott, Jonathan McCrory
Leopoldstadt
Author: Tom Stoppard Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, Lorne Michaels, Stephanie P. McClelland, Gavin Kalin, Delman Sloan, Eilene Davidson, Brad Edgerton, Patrick Gracey, Hunter Arnold, Burnt Umber Productions, Cue to Cue Productions, The Factor Gavin Partnership, Harris Rubin Productions, Robert Nederlander, Jr., No Guarantees, Sandy Robertson, Iris Smith, Jamie deRoy/Catherine Adler, Dodge Hall Productions/Waverly Productions, Richardo Hornos/Robert Tichio, Heni Koenigsberg/Wendy Federman, Thomas S. Perakos/Stephanie Kramer, Brian Spector/Judith Seinfeld, Richard Winkler/Alan Shorr
Best Musical
& Juliet
Producers: Max Martin & Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Jenny Petersson, Martin Dodd, Eva Price, Lukasz Gottwald, 42nd.club, Independent Presenters Network, Jack Lane, Library Company, Shellback, Shivhans Pictures, Sing Out, Louise!, Kim Szarzynski, Taylor/Riegler, Tenenbaum/Keyes, Barry Weiss, John Gore Organization
Kimberly Akimbo
Producers: David Stone, Atlantic Theater Company, James L. Nederlander, LaChanze, John Gore, Patrick Catullo, Aaron Glick
New York, New York
Producers: Sonia Friedman Productions, Tom Kirdahy, Wendy Federman & Heni Koenigsberg, Crossroads Live, Playing Field, Stephanie P. McClelland, Ambassador Theatre Group, Waiting in the Wings Productions, Colin Callender, Gilbert and DeeDee Garcia/Sue Vaccaro, Peter May, Rileyfan, Silverhopkins+/Hunter Johnson, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Eric Passmore, Thomas Swayne, Elliott Cornelious/SunnySpot Productions, Santino DeAngelo/Cynthia Tong, Craig Balsam, Richard Batchelder, Concord Theatricals, Creative Partners Productions, Marguerite Hoffman, Jessica R. Jenen, John Gore Organization, MGM on Stage, James L. Nederlander, Linda B. Rubin, Seriff Productions, Shivhans Pictures, 42nd.club/Beards on Broadway, AGL Productions/Brad Blume, Hunter Arnold/Red Mountain Theatre, Cue to Cue Productions/Roy Putrino, Jamie deRoy/Janet and Marvin Rosen, Edgewood/Silva Theatrical Group, Dale Franzen/Henry R. Muñoz, III, Deborah Green/Chris Mattsson, Branden Grimmett/DMQR Productions, Christen James/Gregory Carroll, NETworks Presentations/Lamar Richardson, Ron Simons/Adam Zell, Chartoff-Winkler
Shucked
Producers: Mike Bosner, Jason Owen, AEG Presents/Jay Marciano/Gary Gersh, Jeffrey A. Sine, Richard Smith, Silvia Schmid, Bob Boyett, Jeremiah J. Harris, James L. Nederlander, EST/Emily Tisch, Sony Music Entertaiment, DudaAllen, David W. Busch, Karen Fairchild, HoriPro Inc., Gordon-Helfner, John Gore Organization, Madison Wells Live, S&Co., Terry Schnuck, Jimi Westbrook, ZKM Media
Some Like It Hot
Producers: The Shubert Organization, Neil Meron, MGM on Stage, Roy Furman, Robert Greenblatt, James L. Nederlander, Kenny Leon, Hunter Arnold, John Gore Organization, The Dalgleish Library Company Group, Sheboygan Conservatory Partners, Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, Bob Boyett, Cue to Cue Productions, Janet and Marvin Rosen, The Araca Group, Concord Theatricals, Marc Howard, Independent Presenters Network, Juanita Jordan, Jujamcyn Theaters, Henry R. Muñoz, III, Ostar, Mariah Carey, D.S. Moynihan
Best Revival of a Play
August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson
Producers: Brian Anthony Moreland, Sonia Friedman, Tom Kirdahy, Kandi Burruss & Todd Tucker, Hunter Arnold, Playing Field, The Factor Gavin Partnership, FBK Productions/42nd.club, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Creative Partners Productions, Harris Rubin Productions, Marguerite Steed Hoffman, Alia Jones-Harvey, Mark Gordon Pictures, Stephanie McClelland, Moore Delman, James L. Nederlander, Seriff Productions, The Shubert Organization, Salman Al-Rashid/Jamie deRoy, Brad Blume/Cliff Hopkins, Jean Doumanian /Fakston Productions, Edgewood/DMQR Productions, Jay & Cindy Gutterman/Caiola Productions, Van Kaplan/Lu-Shawn Thompson, Erik A. King/Finewomen Productions, Marc David Levine/William Frisbie, Syrinda Paige/Kevin Ryan & Diane Scott Carter, Silva Theatrical Group/Tilted, Thomas Swayne/Cynthia J. Tong, Constanza Romero-Wilson
A Doll’s House
New Version by: Amy Herzog Producers: Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, Gavin Kalin Productions, Wessex Grove, Julie Boardman, Kate Cannova, Bob Boyett, Hunter Arnold, Creative Partners Productions, Eilene Davidson Productions, GGRS, Kater Gordon, Louise L. Gund, Los Angeles Media Fund, Stephanie P. McClelland, Tilted, Jessica Chastain, Caitlin Clements/Francesca Moody Productions, Caiola Productions/Amanda Lee, Ted & Richard Liebowitz/Joeyen-Waldorf Squeri, Richard & Cecilia Attias/Thomas S. Barnes, OHenry Theatre Nerd Productions/Runyonland MMP, The Jamie Lloyd Company
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window
Producers: Seaview, Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Phil Kenny, Audible, Sony Music Masterworks, Jillian Robbins, Jeremy O. Harris, Larry Hirschhorn and Ricardo Hornos, Shields Smedes Stern Ltd., Kevin Ryan, The Shubert Organization, Willette and Manny Klausner, Marco Santarelli, Be Forward Productions, Concord Theatricals, Creative Partners Productions, Invisible Wall Productions, Salman and Moudhy Al-Rashid, TodayTix Group, Ido Gal, HarrisDonnelly, Sally Cade Holmes, Stella LaRue, LAMF Protozoa, Kati Meister and John Sorkin, Meredith Lynsey Schade, Catherine Schreiber, Dennis Trunfio, MCM Studios, 42nd.club, BAMM Productions, CarterMackTaylorWilliam, HB2M Productions, HK-Undivided Productions, MAJIKK Theatricals, Tanker Kollev Productions, Douglas Denoff, OHenry Productions, Plate Spinner Productions, Runyonland Productions, Mad Gene Media, Scrap Paper Pictures, Joi Gresham, BAM, Gina Duncan, David Binder, Elizabeth Moreau
Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog
Producers: David Stone, LaChanze, Rashad V. Chambers, Marc Platt, Debra Martin Chase, The Shubert Organization
Best Revival of a Musical
Into the Woods
Producers: Jujamcyn Theaters, Jordan Roth, New York City Center, Daryl Roth, Hunter Arnold, Concord Theatricals, Nicole Eisenberg, Jessica R. Jenen, Michael Cassel Group, Kevin Ryan, ShowTown Productions, Armstrong, Gold & Ross, Nicole Kastrinos
Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot
Producers: Lincoln Center Theater, André Bishop, Adam Siegel, Naomi Grabel
Parade
Producers: Seaview, Ambassador Theatre Group Productions, Alex Levy, Kevin Ryan, Eric & Marsi Gardiner, Interscope & Immersive Records, Erica Lynn Schwartz, Creative Partners Productions, Marcia Goldberg, John Gore Organization, Cynthia Stroum, Tom Tuft, Benjamin Simpson, Nathan Vernon, Brian & Nick Ginsberg, Ruth & Stephen Hendel, Roth-Manella Productions, Chutzpah Productions, 42nd.club, Ahava 72 Productions, The Andryc Brothers, The Array, At Rise Creative, Caiola Jenen Productions, Coles Achilles, deRoy Brunish Productions, Fakston Productions, Federman Batchelder, Level Forward, Pencil Factory Productions, Renard Lynch, Robin Merrie, Rubin Stuckelman, Runyonland Sussman, Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson, Bee Carrozzini, New York City Center
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Producers: Jeffrey Seller, Bob Boyett, Diana DiMenna & Plate Spinner Productions/Aaron Glick, Eastern Standard Time, Roy Furman, Thomas Kail, Jim Kierstead/Benjamin Leon IV, TourDForce Theatrical, Maggie Brohn, Andy Jones
Tony Nominations by Production
Some Like It Hot – 13
& Juliet – 9
New York, New York – 9
Shucked – 9
Kimberly Akimbo – 8
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – 8
