The 20-foot orange blossoms cascaded over the tranquil scene as they have done around this time since the early 1900s when Gardner started the tradition to, as the museum explains, “celebrate Spring, Easter and her birthday (April 14, 1840).”

The floral show will be on display through April 14. The museum recommends reserving tickets at GardnerMuseum.org.

“It feels validating in a way,” Coleman told the Herald. “I never have to think, ‘How would a 35-year-old feel about x, y, and z,’ because I’m pulling from personal experience.”

“Company,” which plays April 2 – 14 at Citizens Opera House, revolves around Bobbie’s birthday party and her friends’ endless questions about her finding a partner and settling down. Nearly plotless, the action in the musical comedy unfolds as the couples she’s friends with play out vignettes while Bobbie tries to make sense of modern marriage, bachelorhood, and life.

“I resonate a lot with how Bobbie presents in social situations because, in every scene, the moments she is having with these couples aren’t centered on ‘just another day at the office,’ ” Coleman said. “There is something unique that’s happening with each couple. Like, the first scene, with Harry and Sarah, all the sudden has them doing jiu-jitsu in the living room.”

“Bobbie has to be supportive of what’s going on with her friends, and has to keep cool and calm on the surface,” she continued. “You see that a lot and it allows Bobbie to eventually interpret everything, digest everything, through her own songs.”

In Sondheim and Furth’s original 1970 production, Bobbie was Robert — and the show was a smash,  nominated for a record-setting 14 Tonys, winning six. This revival, also a hit and Tony winner, switches the gender of the protagonist and a few other characters. Actors and audiences have found the changes pull the piece forward into today.

“Looking at that original material, there’s nothing obtusely masculine in George Furth’s writing,” Coleman said. “That’s why it lends itself to having genders swapped so easily… I’ve done quite a few revivals and the ones that have a fresh take and perspective and still does the material justice have been more successful.”

Sondheim himself loved the changes to reflect the contemporary. Before he died in 2021, Sondheim worked with director Marianne Elliott around the revival’s revisions.

“He was around a little bit in New York and we got to see him and he told us ‘Thank you,’ so many times and I thought, ‘What? We should be thanking you,’” Coleman said. “With Sondheim, he writes about the full human experience. I love how he asks questions of the audience, especially in ‘Company.’ It makes ‘Company’ very malleable.”

Coleman loves spending so much time with Bobbie. And she does spend a lot of time with the character — Bobbie leaves the stage for only a flash during the duration of the show. The character also gets whole songs, long moments in the spotlight, to herself.

“It’s me fully alone on stage, no set, and I get to just assess what is happening,” she said of those songs with a laugh. “Touring, these theaters are so much bigger than what we did on Broadway, twice as big. The first thing I thought of was that I’m going to have some very, very vulnerable moments on stage fully alone, so alone in front of so many people. It’s a little daunting, a little terrifying, but it’s certainly a dream.”

For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com

Jerry Holkins, the co-founder of the long-running webcomic that spawned an international series of video and board game-focused conventions, sat down with the Herald shortly after gathering with his team to celebrate the event’s 20th birthday.

“It is nice to build and be able to enjoy a context that really is authentically communal. It’s a nice antidote to more or less everything you see online and in every form of social media,” Holkins said. “It’s really nice to have a little space cut out where we can hang out and engage with each other in a sort of purpose-built space that is about this topic.”

The showcase of big-name and independent game producers returned this week and annually brings thousands of gamers to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, where attendees are offered a chance to encounter the latest in video and board gaming, meet industry insiders, and drop some cash on merchandise.

Holkins said that the ongoing success of PAX comes down to the power of getting people in the same room together, where they can experience mutual curiosities while forgetting the outside world for just a moment.

After spending a significant amount of time trying to help his own teenage “larvae” navigate the things they see presented in social media, the father of two said he recognizes now more than ever just how valuable helping people find a community can be.

“A lot of my day is sort of spent helping them interpret just how chaotic the world is. They have real questions,” he said.

“So I think it’s really nice to have a place to rest, then go back to the world where we have really important things that we need deal with. This is normal, now. It’s, like, aggressively normal, right? Purpose made, intentional space — and it only lasts and should only last a specific period of time — and then when it’s over, we can take that rest and engage with the rest of the things that need to be engaged with,” he said.

PAX East runs through Sunday.

“I watched it a lot,” Han told the Herald. “I knew one day I wanted to be a Cinderella because (the dancers) were just amazing.”

For fellow company principal Lia Cirio, seeing “The Nutcracker” hooked her. She wasn’t aware of Ashton’s version of fairy tale until she joined the Boston Ballet. .

“The ballet wasn’t part of my childhood,” Cirio said. “Of course I loved the Disney version and the Brandy ‘Cinderella,’ that’s pretty iconic.”

Turns out, there are a lot of iconic Cinderellas — and both Han and Cirio will have their chance to put their mark on the character when the Boston Ballet performs “Cinderella” from March 14 – March 24 at the Citizens Bank Opera House. The story has run through the Roman Empire, renaissance Italy, the Brothers Grimm, Russian and English ballets, Disney, Broadway, and Brandy. Being nearly universal makes this production a perfect second step to take if you’ve fallen for “The Nutcracker” and are looking to dive deeper into the art form.

“There are so many magical moments in this ‘Cinderella’ that are similar to ‘The Nutcracker,’” Cirio said. “And because it’s a familiar story, it’s great for kids, but it’s also a great segue to spur people on to want to see more, like our ‘Raymonda’ or Kylián’s ‘Bella.’”

While there are diverse takes on the myth, Ashton’s vision of the character is very specific — the choreographer outlined exact arm positions, precise leg heights for arabesques. But Han and Cirio find ways to make the role their own.

“It’s a magical fairytale, it’s not real, but I have to make the audience believe that this is a real story,” Han said. Then she added with a laugh: “I always think about how I have to blink my eyes. I have to blink my eyes like a princess.”

Cirio says she enjoys the character work as much as the dancing.

“The first act is all about the acting, about embodying who Cinderella is,” Cirio said. “My favorite part of doing classical story ballets is the acting. We think of Cinderella only as a fairy tale where she gets rescued by the prince. But she is deeper than that, and this version really shows how pure of heart she is.”

Cirio and Han revel in the fact that Boston Ballet is so committed to a wide repertoire. Between the classics, the company slots modern gems and sometimes radical new works. Han loves Helen Pickett’s “Petal,” part of the recent Winter Experience program. Cirio looks forward to Kylián’s “Bella,” which will be performed during May’s Spring Experience. But right now, the two are happy to take on one of ballet’s, one of the world’s, most legendary characters.

“(Artistic director) Mikko (Nissinen) has conditioned us to be versatile,” Cirio said. “He’s conditioned us to go from a Cinderella rehearsal to a Forsythe rehearsal to a Kylián rehearsal, classical to all the modern stuff.”

For tickets and details, visit bostonballet.org

“(Playwright and director) Conor McPherson asked me via our associate director if I would consider relocating the character to the North East,” Benoit told the Herald. “For me that was easy because I grew up in Somerset, Massachusetts and I was born in Fall River, and the textile industry was huge in Fall River in the early 1900s, so I said guess what, ‘The Burkes are from Fall River and worked in textiles.’ ”

Most plays don’t give an actor the room to bring a new vision to a character’s history. But “Girl From The North Country,” which runs March 12 -24 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, depends deeply on fresh visions.

A decade ago, representatives for Bob Dylan approached Irish playwright McPherson to build a show out of Dylan’s catalog. McPherson took a very un-Broadway approach — “Girl From The North Country” is no “Jersey Boys” or “Mamma Mia!” Instead, he filled a story of wayward travelers looking for hope at a guesthouse in Duluth, Minnesota during the Depression with dramatically rearranged, mostly-obscure Dylan songs — numbers in the show run from “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Like a Rolling Stone” to tracks from “Saved,” “Infidels,” and “Empire Burlesque.”

“It’s not all his greatest hits, it’s what Conor found applicable to the story,” Benoit said. “And (musical director and supervisor) Simon Hale orchestrated these songs to be reimagined and reinvented, and he won a Tony Award for his work. And his arrangements really are beautiful. He captures this folky, American style and the songs take on a whole new life.”

Dylan himself said the show moved him to tears. So purists might want to embrace the vision despite “Hurricane” sounding (nicely) like something between bluegrass and gospel.

“This show is a completely unique piece of theater,” Benoit added. “It is a jukebox musical but Conor has really crafted a beautiful script with beautifully flawed characters, mine included. This role is a gift, something I’ve always wanted to play.”

A graduate of the Boston Conservatory, Benoit has worked on loads of shows spanning a wide artistic range — “Les Miserables” to “Avenue Q.” But creating Mr. Burke has given him a true thrill.

“He’s a father who is trying his best and failing miserably,” he said.

Of course, many of the characters are failing miserably — it is, after all, a story about the Great Depression constructed from Dylan songs.

There is the landlord renting rooms in his broken-down house looking to hold off the bank from foreclosing. The landlord’s wife, who is often pushing through the symptoms of dementia. There are racial tensions, lost fortunes, parents helpless to provide for their children, and wave after wave of crashed dreams. And, among the pianos, fiddles, and vocal harmonies, flickers of hope.

“Hope and humor is there in the dark times,” Benoit said. “Humanity perseveres.”

For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in all-black, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” has died. He was 76.

Lewis, who revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham.

A regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV for decades, Lewis also played Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series “Anything But Love” and the reliably neurotic Prince John in “Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men In Tights.” He re-introduced himself to a new generation opposite Larry David in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” kvetching regularly.

“I’m paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror, which I’m not thrilled about,” he once joked onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel he said: “This morning, I tried to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep but I only had six of them and they all had hip replacements.”

Comedy Central named Lewis one of the top 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ magazine’s list of the “20th Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humor for charity causes, including Comic Relief and Comedy Gives Back.

“Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a very funny and often dark therapy session,” the Los Angeles Times said in 2014. The Philadelphia’s City Paper called him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks once said he “may just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”

Comedians took to social media Wednesday to share their thoughts, including Albert Books who called Lewis “a brilliantly funny man who will missed by all. The world needed him now more than ever” on X, formerly Twitter. Other tributes came from Bette Midler, Michael McKean and Paul Feig, who called Lewis “one of the funniest people on the planet.”

Following his graduation from The Ohio State University in 1969, the New York-born Lewis began a stand-up career, honing his craft on the circuit with other contemporaries also just starting out like Jay Leno, Freddie Prinze and Billy Crystal.

He recalled Rodney Dangerfield hiring him for $75 to fill in at his New York club, Dangerfield’s. “I had a lot of great friends early on who believed in me, and I met pretty iconic people who really helped me, told me to keep working on my material. And I never looked back,” he told The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2010.

Unlike contemporary Robin Williams, Lewis allowed audiences into his world and melancholy, pouring his torment and pain onto the stage. Fans favorably compared him to the ground-breaking comedian Lenny Bruce.

“I take great pains not to be mean-spirited,” Lewis told The Palm Beach Post in 2007. “I don’t like to take real handicaps that people have to overcome with no hope in sight. I steer clear of that. That’s not funny to me. Tragedy is funny to other humorists, but it’s not to me, unless you can make a point that’s helpful.”

Singer Billy Joel has said he was referring to Lewis when he sang in “My Life” of an old friend who “bought a ticket to the West Coast/Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.”

In 1989 at Carnegie Hall, he appeared with six feet of yellow legal sheets filled with material and taped together for a 2½-hour set that led to two standing ovations. The night was “the highlight of my career,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

Lewis told GQ his signature look came incidentally, saying his obsession with dressing in black came from watching the television Western “Have Gun – Will Travel,” with a cowboy in all-black, when he was a kid. He also popularized the term “from hell” — as in “the date from hell” or “the job from hell.”

“That just came out of my brain one day and I kept repeating it a lot for some reason. Same thing with the black clothes. I just felt really comfortable from the early ’80s on and I never wore anything else. I never looked back.”

After getting sober from drugs and alcohol in 1994, Lewis put out his 2008 memoir, “The Other Great Depression” — a collection of fearless, essay style riffs on his life — and “Reflections from Hell.”

Lewis was the youngest of three siblings — his brother was older than him by six years, and his sister by nine. His father died young and his mother had emotional problems. “She didn’t get me at all. I owe my career to my mother. I should have given her my agent’s commission,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

“Looking back on it now, as a full-blown, middle-aged, functioning anxiety collector, I can admit without cringing that my parents had their fair share of tremendous qualities, yet, being human much of the day, had more than just a handful of flaws as well,” he wrote in his memoir.

Lewis quickly found a new family performing at New York’s Improv. “I was 23, and all sorts of people were coming in and out and watching me, like Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner certainly took me under his wing. To drive home to my little dump in New Jersey often knowing that Steve Allen said, ‘You got it,’ that validation kept me going in a big, big way.”

He had a cameo in “Leaving Las Vegas,” which led to his first major dramatic role as Jimmy Epstein, an addict fighting for his life in the indie film, “Drunks.” He played Don Rickles’ son on one season of “Daddy Dearest” and a rabbi on “7th Heaven.”

Lewis’ recurring role on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” can be credited directly to his friendship with fellow comedian, producer and series star Larry David. Both native Brooklynites — born in the same Brooklyn hospital — they first met and became friends as rivals while attending the same summer camp at age 13. He was cast from the beginning, bickering with David on unpaid bills and common courtesies.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce Lapinsky.

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Peer Gynt: Music of the Midnight Sun, March 7-9, Symphony Hall

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and director/writer Bill Barclay’s latest collaboration is a new interpretation of Henrik Ibsen’s play “Peer Gynt.” Following 2019’s “Black Mozart,” a piece about composer Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Barclay and the BSO will follow Peer on an epic journey from his Nordic village to Northern Africa and back again. Bso.org

“Exception to the Rule,” March 7-17, the Modern Theater

Somewhere between “The Breakfast Club,” a Sartre play, and dystopia, six students try to make it through detention on “Exception to the Rule.” Front Porch Arts Collective teams with Northeastern University and Suffolk University to tell the story of six Black students battling violence, bullying, and romance at a struggling city high school and looks at how we fail teenagers we think of as failures. Frontporcharts.org

“Deep River,” March 8 & 9, Emerson Cutler Majestic

Alonzo King LINES Ballet collaborated with Grammy-winning vocalist Lisa Fischer and MacArthur Fellow and jazz pianist Jason Moran to create “Deep River.” Both reflective and high energy, the new work blends dance with spiritual music from Black, Jewish, and Indian traditions. emersontheatres.org

“King Hedley II,” March 8-31, Hibernian Hall

The Actors’ Shakespeare Project returns to August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with “King Hedley II.” Set in 1985 in Wilson’s favorite locale, the Hill District of Pittsburgh, this edition of the cycle follows Hedley, just released after seven years in prison, trying to keep his family above water during the violence and racism crushing so many people in Reagan’s America. Actorsshakespeareproject.org

The Stave Sessions, March 20-23, Crystal Ballroom

Classical meets contemporary, jazz meets electronica, and the past meets the future at the Stave Sessions. Over four nights, the Celebrity Series brings Nathalie Joachim, Jiji, Chromic Duo and Mark Lettieri Group to the Crystal for some of the weirdest and most wonderful artists in modern music. If you’re stuck in a sonic rut, let Chromic Duo’s toy pianos and real pianos bust you out. If you’re looking for red thread from Paganini to ambient guitar jams, let Jiji be your guide. celebrityseries.org

Hallyu! The Korean Wave, opens March 24, Museum of Fine Arts

Korean culture and art have washed over America from K-pop to “Squid Game” to the films of Bong Joon-ho. But what started this wave? This exhibition traces the path through some 250 pieces of art and ephemera from pop stars costumes to couture fashions, ancient artifacts to props, photographs, and videos. mfa.org

“Our idea was to show people our culture from another side, Ukraine is not only about war, it’s about (humor) and happiness,” principal dancer and artistic director Oleksandr Stoianov told the Herald.

But for the second tour, Grand Kyiv Ballet will take on a heavier piece, French ballet masterpiece “Giselle” — the company debuts the 60-city tour at Boston’s Colonial Theater on Feb. 23. Created almost a century ago, “Giselle” is an enduring work about love and death.

Stoianov and his wife, fellow principal dancer Kateryna Kukhar, were both out of the country working when Russia invaded Ukraine. After a period of intense chaos and uncertainty, Stoianov and Kukhar managed to move their immediate family to Washington State. From there, they began to put the company back together to bring their art to American audiences.

For Grand Kyiv Ballet, carrying this art, culture, and emotion — the full range of emotions — is the mission of touring “Giselle.”

“‘Giselle’ is another emotion, a different performance (from ‘Snow White’), but when people come to the theater people must experience emotions,” Stoianov said. “They can cry. They can smile. But it must be about emotion.”

“‘Giselle’ is not just an old classic, not just a beautiful performance, with beautiful costumes and music,” he added. “It’s full of drama, full of love. And at the end of the performance there is a sunrise. This sunrise for us represents a sunrise for our country. When darkness disappears we receive a chance for a sunny future.”

This tour features 35 dancers — 25 of whom are from the Ukraine — so it also represents a chance to showcase the country’s legendary ballet legacy and connect with the public in a unique way.

“What we do now, this is the best weapon for artists,” Stoianov said about supporting the Ukrainian cause. “After performances, we show our flag. We speak with mayors of cities, with councils, about Ukraine, about our situation.”

Stoianov, Kukhar, and the dancers know exactly how dire this situation is.

Kukhar still acts as the director of the Kyiv State Ballet College, which is still functioning. Although Stoianov points out the students study at great risk.

“When there are air alarms, the children must stop their studies, go to the bomb shelters,” he said. “It’s really difficult, but we must do it. We must survive, we must go forward, and we must keep celebrating our culture.”

For tickets, details and information about supporting Grand Kyiv Ballet’s charity work, visit grandkyivballet.com

“I didn’t realize that Barbie would take over the planet, and now plastic figurines are the most mainstream thing in the world,” he said this week. “So maybe a surreal story like mine isn’t that big a stretch.” Of course you probably wouldn’t confuse the two stories otherwise, but they both have music attached. Guild’s heroine Erin lives in a figurine dystopia torn by war and eco-terrorism, taking solace from a musical TV show that she loves. After completing the novel Guild worked on a set of songs from that fictional show, and “Plastic” is being released this week as a book with a separate soundtrack. Guild will give a reading at Brookline Booksmith Friday, and will also preview (on tape) some of the songs.

Guild was a notable Boston musician before he became an author. His band, the New Collisions, were a big local attraction around 2010; the Cars’ Greg Hawkes guested on keyboards with them and they wound up opening for some heavy hitters. “That was one of the most exciting times in my life,” Guild said. “The music scene boosted us to where we had enough visibility that we could open for Blondie, and then we did a whole East Coast tour with the B-52’s. Those were the biggest shows we ever played, and it happened because of that warm community that supported us.”

He left town around 2013 when the band split up, getting his MFA at the University of Texas and later a Ph.D. Work on “Plastic,” his debut novel began around that time. “At a certain point in my late 20’s I transitioned into writing full time. I wanted to tell a story about someone who in a deep sincere way is trying to make sense of living in a troubled chaotic moment, and faces some difficulty on the way. There has been a nuclear war and there is eco-terrorism; so it relates to our own moment, but is further along a dark timeline. So even though Erin is a plastic figurine from the future, I feel like I’ve been with her for a long time now.”

The album was conceived afterwards, based on lyrics that were part of the story. True to the setting, it’s a futuristic electronic sound based in classic emotive pop. He collaborated with the composer Cindertalk and the singer Stranger Cat, who plays the part of Erin. “We made the sonic choices to echo what the book feels like. There are plastic figurines who go into a virtual world now and then, but they’re also meant to be human beings who feel a lot of emotion. So it’s meant to feel organic and synthetic at the same time. Whenever Erin has a song experience she gets a spotlight shining down on her, which I know sounds completely bizarre until you read the book.”

Though he’s currently doing a reading tour, Guild has hopes that “Plastic” can ultimately become a full stage show. “It’s actually been getting a nice response from sci-fi fans and in some ways it’s literary fiction, so I guess those two audiences are the main ones. And of course, anyone who enjoys reading about figurines.”

“The South can be a very misunderstood place so when I started to become a young artist, I felt I had to kind of hide the fact that I was from the South or people wouldn’t take me seriously,” she told the Herald. “As I got older, I realized (my upbringing) was a gold mine of specificity and it means more and more to me.”

Belflower unearthed nuggets from her life to build the world of “John Proctor is the Villain” — presented by the Huntington now through March 10 at the Calderwood Pavilion.

The play takes a hard, biting look at “The Crucible” as a group of 11th graders study Arthur Miller’s work about the Salem witch trials at their backwater Georgia high school. Through class, “The Crucible,” and the trials of the modern high school experience, friends Beth, Raelynn, Nell, Ivy, and Shelby find their own definitions of friendship, feminism, and repressive, destructive gender-based power dynamics.

In the wake of the Me Too movement, Belflower reflected on her own past and the power dynamics she grew up with while writing “John Proctor is the Villain.”

“As a 30-year-old, I looked back and reframed all of these things that I just accepted as fact (and wondered) ‘What would it be like to be coming of age in this moment when the cultural norms are shifting? When the rules are being rewritten in real time?” she said. “I also wanted to write about where I grew up and examine in what ways was the place isolated and in what ways was it connected to the large culture in a new way.”

Despite the heavy subject matter, “John Proctor is the Villain” is often described as a comedy. Belflower doesn’t dispute this description, but she also doesn’t think it defines the work.

“It’s a comedy until it’s not,” she said. “There is some structural trickery. We talked a lot in rehearsals about not wanting to tip the hat to the central reveal (of the play).”

Part of this comes from Belflower’s writing style. Part of it comes from the natural language of teenagers.

“Comedy is just so central to how groups of teenager friends are with each other,” she said.

The Huntington’s production arrives in Salem’s backyard. The witch trials examined in “The Crucible” and reinterpreted in “John Proctor is the Villain” happened just up the road.

But Belflower’s work — as grounded as it is in a specific place — serves as a reminder that these unjust, unrelenting power dynamics are ubiquitous. They run from 17th century Salem to rural Georgia to Boston.

For tickets and details, visit huntingtontheatre.org

The internationally acclaimed maestro, with his trademark mop of salt-and-pepper hair, led the BSO from 1973 to 2002, longer than any other conductor in the orchestra’s history. From 2002 to 2010, he was the music director of the Vienna State Opera.

He died of heart failure Tuesday at his home in Tokyo, according to his office, Veroza Japan.

He remained active in his later years, particularly in his native land. He was the artistic director and founder of the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, a music and opera festival in Japan. He and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1984, won the Grammy for best opera recording in 2016 for Ravel’s “L’Enfant et Les Sortileges” (“The Child and the Spells”).

In 2022, he conducted his Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival for the first time in three years to mark its 30th anniversary. That turned out to be his last public performance.

Ozawa exerted enormous influence over the BSO during his tenure. He appointed 74 of its 104 musicians and his celebrity attracted famous performers including Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. He also helped the symphony become the biggest-budget orchestra in the world, with an endowment that grew from less than $10 million in the early 1970s to more than $200 million in 2002.

When Ozawa conducted the Boston orchestra in 2006 — four years after he had left — he received a hero’s welcome with a nearly six-minute ovation.

Ozawa was born Sept. 1, 1935, to Japanese parents in Manchuria, China, while it was under Japanese occupation.

After his family returned to Japan in 1944, he studied music under Hideo Saito, a cellist and conductor credited with popularizing Western music in Japan. Ozawa revered him and formed the Saito Kinen (Saito Memorial) Orchestra in 1984 and eight years later founded the Saito Kinen Festival — renamed the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival in 2015.

Ozawa first arrived in the United States in 1960 and was quickly hailed by critics as a brilliant young talent. He attended the Tanglewood Music Center and was noticed by Leonard Bernstein, who appointed him assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1961-62 season. After his New York debut with the Philharmonic at age 25, The New York Times said “the music came brilliantly alive under his direction.”

He directed various ensembles including the San Francisco Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra before beginning his tenure in Boston in 1970.

At the time there were few nonwhite musicians on the international scene. Ozawa embraced the challenge and it became his lifelong passion to help Japanese performers demonstrate they could be first-class musicians. In his 1967 book “The Great Conductors,” critic Harold C. Schonberg noted the changing ranks of younger conductors, writing that Ozawa and Indian-born Zubin Mehta were the first Asian conductors “to impress one as altogether major talents.”

Ozawa had considerable star quality and crossover appeal in Boston, where he was a well-known fan of the Red Sox and Patriots sports teams. In 2002, Catherine Peterson, executive director of Arts Boston, a nonprofit group that markets Boston’s arts, told The Associated Press that “for most people in this community, Seiji personifies the Boston Symphony.”

Ozawa is largely credited with elevating the Tanglewood Music Center, a music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, to international prominence. In 1994, a 1,200-seat, $12 million music hall at the center was named for him.

His work at Tanglewood was not without controversy. In 1996, as music director of the orchestra and its ultimate authority, he decided to move the respected academy in new directions. Ozawa ousted Leon Fleisher, the longtime director of Tanglewood, and several prominent teachers quit in protest.

Despite glowing reviews for his performances in Europe and Japan, American critics were increasingly disappointed in the later years of his tenure with the BSO. In 2002, Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times wrote that Ozawa had become, after a bold start, “an embodiment of the entrenched music director who has lost touch.”

Many of the orchestra’s musicians agreed and even circulated an anti-Ozawa newsletter claiming he had worn out his welcome in Boston.

Ozawa won two Emmy awards for TV work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra — the first in 1976 for the BSO’s PBS series “Evening at Symphony” and the second in 1994, for Individual Achievement in Cultural Programming, for “Dvorak in Prague: A Celebration.”

Ozawa held honorary doctorates of music from the University of Massachusetts, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. He was one of five honorees at the annual Kennedy Center Honors in 2015 for contributing to American culture through the arts.

In later years, Ozawa’s health deteriorated. He was treated for cancer of the esophagus in 2010, and in 2015 and 2016 he canceled performances for various health problems.

Ozawa’s management office said his funeral was attended only by close relatives as his family wished to have a quiet farewell.

He cancelled some appearances in 2015-16 for health reasons, including what would have been his first return to the Tanglewood music festival — the summer home of the Boston symphony — in a decade.

As Black History Month 2024 unfolds, it’s time to celebrate and explore some of the most compelling Black art exhibits that not only showcase talent but are pivotal in understanding the cultural narrative that spans continents. From contemporary canvases to historical statements, these exhibits promise to wield the power to move, educate and inspire.

Get ready to be challenged, inspired and transformed as you witness the talent and rich narratives through Black art waiting to be discovered in each of the five cities below.

New York City: Metropolitan Museum of Art (“Met”)

The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism

This highly anticipated exhibit will showcase a redefinition of the Harlem Renaissance at the prestigious Met. This groundbreaking exhibition shatters conventional narratives, showcasing how this vital movement wasn’t just a local phenomenon but a key player in the global dialogue of modern art and culture. Prepare to be dazzled by iconic works, discover lesser-known gems, and delve into the transatlantic artistic exchanges that fueled this vibrant era.

Runs through July.

Chicago: Museum of Science and Industry

Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition

Head to the Windy City for a vibrant explosion of contemporary creativity. This juried exhibition of Black art promises visitors an array of artistic voices. The artwork will showcase diverse themes and mediums by emerging and established Black artists. From thought-provoking installations to soul-stirring paintings, prepare to be surprised, challenged, and moved by the sheer scope of talent on display.

Runs through April 21.

Williamsburg, Virginia: Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown

Black Artist Showcase

Step into the heart of American history and explore the often-overlooked narratives of Black artists in Williamsburg. This exhibition presents Black artwork that spans centuries, from poignant colonial-era artifacts to powerful contemporary pieces. Engage with the complex legacies of slavery, freedom, and resistance through the lens of art, gaining a deeper understanding of the Black experience in America.

Runs through February.

Detroit: Cranbrook Art Museum

Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit

Take a visit to Motor City and Immerse yourself in the unique artistic movement of Detroit Black Realism at the Cranbrook Art Museum. Explore works that celebrate the dignity and humanity of working-class Black communities, showcasing the everyday struggles and triumphs of ordinary Black people. From gritty cityscapes to intimate portraits, these powerful art pieces will challenge stereotypes and reveal the beauty and resilience found in everyday life.

Runs through March 3.

Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage

Touch down in H-Town and get ready to have your perceptions of collage disrupted! This innovative exhibition delves into the creative world of contemporary Black artists who utilize this dynamic medium to explore identity, history, and the complexities of the Black experience. Witness intricate narratives layered into vibrant assemblages, playful deconstructions of stereotypes, and powerful social commentary – all through the captivating lens of collage.

Runs through May 12.

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Admire the art, but also engage. Make an effort to participate in conversations, workshops and community events that align with these exhibitions and connect with artists, fellow art lovers and local communities. Your experience will truly be immersive and transformative.

©2024 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, book designer Janet Halverson created covers for an array of authors and titles: Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Jack Kerouac’s “Big Sur,” Leonard Gardner’s “Fat City” and Susan Sontag’s “The Benefactor,” among them.

And it’s her work in the 1960s and 1970s that might be the most indelible – especially her iconic cover design for Joan Didion’s “Play It As It Lays.”

“The world is filled with so much noise,” says Michael Russem, a book designer and owner of Katherine Small Gallery, which is located north of Boston. “So when you see something that is clear and quiet, it pops out. And I think that’s what a lot of Janet’s covers do.”

So who is Janet Halverson? That’s something of a mystery. Not much is known about her aside from her work, says Russem, who, full disclosure, is a friend. So after years of trying to learn more about Halverson, he put together an exhibit, Janet Halverson: An Introduction, at the gallery to show off her book covers.

“She was a book designer. She mostly worked on covers in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and into the ‘90s. She was the art director at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. She worked on all sorts of notable books and notable authors. So she was trusted to do really important books,” says Russem, who adds that she ran in the same circles as celebrated graphic designers Milton Glaser and Paul Rand.

Still, Russem says he repeatedly came up empty when trying to learn more.

“There’s nothing about her anywhere. There are all sorts of magazine articles about these other guys, but nothing about her,” he says. “Graphic designers … all recognize her work and recognize it as being good. But she just went unnoticed, which is true of all the women of her generation. There are no magazine articles about any of them.”

“This is something I’ve been working on for years,” he says. “I wanted to tell a story for myself, and then I knew that people were interested so I wanted to share that story with others.”

Finally, Russem figured, rather than wait any longer, he’d gather what he had and put it up for all to see.

“I wanted to share that story with others because she’s someone that designers have questions about, but we don’t have any answers,” he says. “I don’t know what she thought about anything, and I think that’s a disappointment for me.”

The surprising thing is, Russem believes Halverson may still be alive and living in New Jersey, though his efforts to make contact haven’t paid off.

“I believe she just turned 98 on Monday [Jan. 29]. I don’t know what she’s doing presently,” says Russem.

It’s too soon to say whether the exhibition, which closes on Feb. 17, will stir up fresh interest, but Russem says another website has already picked up his images and writing about her.

“That’s what publishing is: It’s about sharing and getting information out into the world,” he says. “So it’s not my information. It’s for everyone. And I think that is happening, whether or not anything productive comes of it.”

Russem, who designs exhibition catalogs and university press books, has a quiet sense of humor that runs through everything from the store’s outdoor sandwich board messages and Instagram posts to his beautifully printed “A Complete Checklist & Map of Brick & Mortar Typography & Graphic Design Bookshops in & Around Boston,” which is as comprehensive as it is concise. (There is only one.)

Even Katherine Small Gallery’s seemingly staid name isn’t exactly what it seems.

“Katherine was my dog,” he says, “and this place is small.”

But Russem is serious about using the space to introduce people to good design.

“It’s a bookstore and gallery dedicated to graphic design, and the shows here are meant to encourage affordable collecting,” he says. “You can come here and not feel guilty about not buying anything in the shows.”

If that sounds like a questionable business plan, that’s by design.

“I’m a book designer, and I have a graphic design bookstore. I make all my money designing books,” he says. “And I lose it all selling books.”

For more information about the exhibit and catalogue, visit the website. 

The bookstore that looms large in Manjula Martin’s mind

Manjula Martin coauthored the award-winning “Fruit Trees for Every Garden” with her father, Orin Martin, and her nonfiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Cut and more. Formerly the managing editor of Francis Ford Coppola’s literary magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story, she’s worked in both the nonprofit and publishing sectors. She lives in West Sonoma County and is the author of “The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural Memoir.” She spoke with Michael Schaub and took the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. What are you reading now?

I just started “The Parisian,” a novel by Isabella Hammad. So far it’s gorgeous.

Q. How do you decide what to read next?

Honestly, it’s often whichever one of my holds the local library decides to give me next! Or, I’m guided by the mood of whatever writing project I’m working on—usually over the course of a project I’ll accumulate a small stack of books that are aspirational peers to mine, or books that are instructive in style, topic, or temperament.

Q. Is there a book you’re nervous to read?

I’m usually afraid of reading contemporary novels that are very widely lauded as “the best ever,” because they’re often not.

Q. Do you have any favorite book covers?

I love the cover design and typesetting for poet and essayist Mary Ruefle’s books, which are all published by Wave Books. A particular favorite is “Madness, Rack, and Honey,” which is just a bold type treatment on a white background, with the type pushing against the boundaries of the cover space. It’s so simple, but summons such curiosity in me as a reader.

Q. Which books do you plan, or hope, to read next?

Currently on my coffee table: “White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination” by Jess Row, “Enter Ghost” by Isabella Hammad, “Our Wives Under the Sea” by Julia Armfield, and “Ordinary Notes” by Christina Sharpe. Fellow 2024 releases that I’m looking forward to reading are “Feeding Ghosts,” a haunting graphic memoir by artist Tessa Hulls, and Lauren Markham’s “A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging.”

Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?

Both my parents are avid readers and lovers of literature. But probably what most shaped my reading life was a place — the used bookstore where I worked in high school (shoutout to Logos Books & Records, in Santa Cruz). It’s no longer around, but it still looms large in my mind as a place where I was encouraged to form my own identity as a reader.

Q. What’s a memorable book experience – good or bad – you’re willing to share? 

I first read “Moby-Dick” in high school, in an Honors English class. The teacher had us read only one chapter a week (the chapters are short), and in class we dissected at length any and every hint of “symbolism.” We were also assigned to skip all the “whaling bits”—the interstitial chapters about whale anatomy, the whaling industry, and other far-out marine fictions. I hated every moment of the experience, and demoted myself from Honors English after that semester. I didn’t revisit “Moby-Dick” until I was in my thirties, at which point I realized I love it. It’s a truly excellent novel written in smart, funny, audaciously modern English. This is why I am a fan of re-reading books at different times in one’s life. Things change!

More books, authors and bestsellers

Women in war

Why Kristin Hannah decided to write about Vietnam War nurses in “The Women.” READ MORE

• • •

Unfinished business

Flannery O’Connor didn’t complete her final novel. So a Pepperdine scholar tried. READ MORE

• • •

Power of ‘Sweetgrass’

How Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ became a phenomenon 10 years on. READ MORE

• • •

The week’s bestsellers

The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE

• • •

Next on ‘Bookish’

The next installment is Feb. 16, at 5 p.m., as hosts Sandra Tsing Loh and Samantha Dunn talk about upcoming books. Sign up for free now.

• • •

El Monte book event

The Libros Monte Launch Party at C.A.S.A. Zamora is next week, Feb. 10, from noon to 3 p.m. The event will feature readings from El Monte authors including Carribean Fragoza, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Mirlanda Robles, Sesshu Foster and Steve Valenzuela.

As well, attendees will get an introduction to the Libros Monte Lending Library and the opportunity to sign up for a free library card.

Location: Zamora Park, 3820 Penmar Ave., El Monte

For more information, go to South El Monte Arts Posse Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/semartsposse

• • •

Read any books that you want to tell people about? Email epedersen@scng.com with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.

And if you enjoy this free newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone who likes books or getting a digital subscription to support local coverage.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

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The megastar is dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, one of the NFL’s most celebrated players. The growing romance between the couple has been closely watched, with Swift showing up at several games — which has meant much travel on private jets. The chatter got even louder after the Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens last week, sending them to the Super Bowl, which is in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.

Swift, the hitmaker whose dominance of pop culture now includes the first tour to gross more than $1 billion, is the latest in a long list of celebrities, government officials and elite businesspeople to come under scrutiny about private jet travel.

If Swift attends the Super Bowl, she will be traveling from Tokyo, where she is on tour. That will mean more than 19,400 miles (30,500 kilometers) by private jet in just under two weeks. Just how much carbon dioxide will that be?

While exact carbon emissions depend on many factors, such as flight paths and number of passengers, a rough estimate is possible, said Gregory Keoleian, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. Traveling 19,400 miles on a Dassault Falcon 900LX, one of Swift’s jets, could release more than 200,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, he said.

That would be about 14 times as much as the average American household emits in a year, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

How realistic commercial travel would be for Swift is open for debate. After all, she’s so famous that even if she wanted to, flying on commercial flights might be chaotic for an airline crew and any public airport she frequents.

The controversy over Swift’s use of private jets illustrates the “great disparity” between the wealthy and lower-income people when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions each person generates, said Julia Stein, a professor at University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

“You’re seeing this play out on kind of a microcosmic scale (with Swift), but that’s true too of industrialized countries their carbon emissions historically,” she said.

Swift is the latest of many famous people to be scrutinized over pollution from their globe-trotting. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio and many others have periodically gotten attention for their travel on private jets.

“It’s striking that Ms. Swift gets so much of the outrage when private jet customers are overwhelmingly men over 50,” said Jeff Colgan, a professor of political science at Brown University. “The focus really should be on a broader class of people.”

Big events, from Olympic Games to the annual U.N. climate summit have also been criticized because of the thousands of people flying in to attend, travel that all contributes to climate change.

All air travel creates emissions, though private jets produce much more per person. A 2023 study by the Institute for Policy Studies found that private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants per passenger compared to commercial planes.

NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.”

Comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as he was joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development,” Weathers was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

Most recently, Weathers has starred in the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” appearing in all three seasons.

“We lost an icon,” former “Predator” co-star Jesse Ventura wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Carl Weathers was a phenomenal talent, a true professional and a dear friend.”

Creed, who appeared in the first four “Rocky” movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984’s “Rocky IV,” going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroided-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. Before he entered the ring, James Brown sang “Living in America” with showgirls and Creed popped up on a balcony in a Star-Spangled Banner shorts and waistcoat combo and an Uncle Sam hat, dancing and taunting Drago.

A bloodied Creed collapses in the ring after taking a vicious beating, twitches and is cradled by Rocky as he dies, inevitably setting up a fight between Drago and Rocky. But while Creed is gone, his character’s son, Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed, would lead his own boxing trilogy starting in 2015.

Weathers went on to 1987’s “Predator,” where he flexed his pecs alongside Ventura, Schwarzenegger and a host of others, and 1988’s nouveau blaxploitation flick “Action Jackson,” where he trains his flamethrower on a bad guy and asks, “How do you like your ribs?” before broiling him.

He later added a false wooden hand to play a golf pro for the 1996 comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opposite Adam Sandler and starred in Dick Wolf’s short-lived spin-off series “Chicago Justice” in 2017 and in Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” earning an Emmy Award nomination in 2021. He also voiced Combat Carl in the “Toy Story” franchise.

Weathers grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in “Spartacus” made an early impression. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, stars who broke the mold and the color barrier.

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate, and just kind of hit the benchmarks they hit in terms of success, who created a pathway that I’ve been able to walk and find success as a result. And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well,” he told the Detroit News 2023. “I guess I’m just a lucky guy.”

Growing up in New Orleans, Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path but he would reunite with his first love later in life.

Weathers played college football at San Diego State University — he majored in theater — and went on to play for one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders, in 1970.

“When I found football, it was a completely different outlet,” says Weathers told the Detroit News. “It was more about the physicality, although one does feed the other. You needed some smarts because there were playbooks to study and film to study, to learn about the opposition on any given week.”

After the Raiders, he joined the Canadian Football League, playing for two years while finishing up his studies during the offseason at San Francisco State University. He graduated with a B.A. in drama in 1974.

After appearing in several films and TV shows, including “Good Times,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Starsky & Hutch,” as well as fighting Nazis alongside Harrison Ford in “Force 10 From Navarone,” Weathers landed his knockout role — Creed. He told The Hollywood Reporter that his start in the iconic franchise was not auspicious.

He was asked to read with the writer, Stallone, then unknown. Weathers read the scene but felt it didn’t land and so he blurted out: “I could do a lot better if you got me a real actor to work with,” he recalled. “So I just insulted the star of the movie without really knowing it and not intending to.” He also lied that he had any boxing experience.

Later in life, Weathers developed a passion for directing, helming episodes of “Silk Stalkings” and and the Lorenzo Lamas vehicle “Renegade.” He directed a season three episode of “The Mandalorian.”

Weathers introduced himself to another generation when he portrayed himself as an opportunistic and extremely thrifty actor who becomes involved with the dysfunctional clan at the heart of “Arrested Development.”

The Weathers character likes to save money by making broth from discarded food — “There’s still plenty of meat on that bone” and “Baby, you got a stew going!” — and, for the right price, agrees to become an acting coach for delusional and talent-free thespian Tobias Funke, played by David Cross.

Weathers is survived by two sons.

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

NEW YORK (AP) — Chita Rivera, the dynamic dancer, singer and actor who garnered 10 Tony nominations, winning twice, in a long Broadway career that forged a path for Latina artists and shrugged off a near-fatal car accident, died Tuesday. She was 91.

Rivera’s death was announced by her daughter, Lisa Mordente, who said she died in New York after a brief illness.

Rivera first gained wide notice in 1957 as Anita in the original production of “West Side Story” and was still dancing on Broadway with her trademark energy a half-century later in 2015’s “The Visit.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t moving or telling a story to you or singing a song,” she told The Associated Press then. “That’s the spirit of my life, and I’m really so lucky to be able to do what I love, even at this time in my life.”

In August 2009, Rivera was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. can give a civilian. Rivera put her hand over her heart and said she shook her head in wonderment as President Barack Obama presented the medal. In 2013, she was the marshal at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.

“She was a true Broadway legend,” playwright Paul Rudnick said on X, formerly Twitter. “She always delivered and audiences adored her. The moment she stepped onstage, the world became more exciting and glorious.”

Rivera rose from chorus girl to star, collaborating along the way with many of Broadway’s greatest talents, including Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Kidd, Harold Prince, Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro and John Kander and Fred Ebb.

She rebounded from a car accident in 1988 that crushed her right leg and became an indefatigable star on the road. She was on Broadway in a raucous production of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” in 2012 and the chilly “The Visit” in 2014, earning another best actress Tony nomination.

“She can’t rehearse except for full-out,” said playwright Terrence McNally in 2005. “She can’t perform except for full-out, no matter what the size of the house. She’s going to be there 101% for that audience.”

She won Tonys for “The Rink” in 1984 and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” in 1993. When accepting a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, she said “I wouldn’t trade my life in the theater for anything, because theater is life.”

She was nominated for the award seven other times, for “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened in 1960; “Chicago,” 1975; “Bring Back Birdie,” 1981; “Merlin,” 1983; “Jerry’s Girls,” 1985; “Nine,” 2003; and “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life,” 2005.

“I don’t think we have enough original musicals,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “I know I’m being old fashioned, but the theater is the place where music, lyrics, words, scenery and stories come together. And I’ve been blessed enough to have done several shows when they really did. They take you places and they’re daring. That’s what we need.”

Her albums include 16 tracks pulled from her original cast recordings and put out as part of Sony’s Legends of Broadway series and two solo CDs — “And Now I Sing” for a tiny record label in the 1960s and “And Now I Swing” in 2009 for Yellow Sound Label.

“I looked up to you and always will admire you as a talent and mostly as a person!” wrote Kristin Chenoweth on X. “A kick butt woman you were. All the rest of us just wanna be you.”

In the 1993 musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Rivera played the title role, a glamorous movie star at the center of the fantasy life of an inmate in a South American prison. The story, from a novel by Manuel Puig, had already been made into an Oscar-winning 1985 movie.

In his review, then-Associated Press drama critic Michael Kuchwara wrote that Rivera “is more than a musical theater star. She’s a force of nature — which is exactly what is needed for the role of the Spider Woman. With her Louise Brooks haircut, brassy voice and lithe dancer’s body, Rivera dominates the stage whenever she appears.”

In 1975, she originated the role of Velma Kelly (to Gwen Verdon’s Roxie Hart) in the original Broadway production of “Chicago.” Rivera had a small role in the 2002 film version, while Catherine Zeta-Jones won the best supporting actress Oscar as Velma — just as Rita Moreno had picked up an Oscar for her portrayal of Anita in “West Side Story.”

The songwriters for “Chicago,” Kander and Ebb, also wrote Rivera’s first Tony-winning performance, for “The Rink.” In winning the Tony for best actress in a musical, Rivera topped the show’s top star, Liza Minnelli, who also had been nominated. The two played a mother and daughter who struggle to rebuild their relationship after a long estrangement; the setting is an old-fashioned roller rink that has seen better days.

“Spider Woman” had been her first Broadway show since 1986, when she suffered a broken leg in the traffic accident while she was appearing in “Jerry’s Girls,” a Broadway tribute to the songs of Jerry Herman.

At the Tony awards a few weeks later, she flashed her cast and belted out “Put on a Happy Face” from the musical “Bye, Bye, Birdie.”

It took months of physical therapy to bring back her dancing skills. She told The Associated Press: “It never entered my mind that I wouldn’t dance again. Never. I can’t explain to you why. It’s hard work getting back but that’s what I’m doing.”

“My spirit is still there.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Broadway songwriter and performer, featured Rivera in a scene in his 2021 film adaptation of “Tick, Tick… Boom,” and in a statement said having her included “remains one of the all-time joys of my life.”

Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero was born Jan. 23, 1933, in Washington, D.C. Her Puerto Rican father, Pedro del Rivero, was a musician who played in the United States Navy Band, who died when she was 7. Her mother was of Scottish and Italian descent.

She took dance classes and then entered the prestigious School of American Ballet in New York. Her first theater gig, at age 17, was in the touring company of “Call Me Madam.” That led to chorus stints in such shows as “Guys and Dolls” and “Can-Can.”

In her 2023 memoir, “Chita: A Memoir,” another woman steals scene after scene: her self-proclaimed alter ego, Dolores. Unapologetic and fiery, Dolores was the unfiltered version of Chita and served as motivation in times of self-doubt. In one chapter, Rivera writes that she doesn’t read reviews “or Dolores just might invest in a dozen voodoo dolls.”

“I consist of — and I think we all do — I consist of two people: Dolores and Conchita,” Rivera sain in an interview with the AP that year. “Conchita, she’s the one that has been taking all the glory, you know. She’s been doing all the shows, but Dolores is the one that’s pushed her into it. And she’s been keeping me on track, so I listen to Dolores. I listen to her. She’s growing in my head now as we speak.”

Among other early appearances on the New York stage were roles in “The Shoestring Revue,” 1955; a 1955 musical version of “Seventh Heaven” starring Ricardo Montalban; and “Mr. Wonderful,” a 1956 show starring Sammy Davis Jr.

“I can’t believe that I’ve been given the gift to look back and relive my life,” she told The Associated Press shortly before “The Dancer’s Life” opened on Broadway in late 2005. “It’s about how anybody can do it — if you really believe it, you have the good fortune, you do all the right things and you really work hard.”

Rivera, who had a relationship with the now-deceased Davis, married fellow “West Side Story” performer Tony Mordente in 1957. The marriage ended in divorce. Their daughter, Lisa Mordente, also became a performer who occasionally appeared on Broadway, garnering a Tony nomination in 1982 for “Marlowe.”

Among those honoring Rivera on social media were actor Jason Alexander, who said “she set the bar in every way,” and actor and dancer Debbie Allen, who wrote: “I will miss touching you, but I will forever hear your laughter and hold that baton of power you tossed my way.”

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

We are playing twister in front of a couple hundred people.

I am fine with it. Or I will be later. Right now I feel nothing beyond a sort of blinding euphoria.

Boston theater staple Blue Man Group revised and reimagined much of the show last fall. My editor thought I should check it out. What could go wrong?

I feel comfortable reviewing a range of things. I’ve managed to make sense of operas, ballets, Broadway musicals, fringe theater, and Iron Maiden performances. So I happily went to work during the first half of the show. I scribbled notes about French mimes, theater of the absurd, “Waiting for Godot.” Then he came for me.

As revolutionary as the show was when it debuted in New York in 1991 (it started its Boston residency at the Charles Playhouse in 1995), the Blue Man Group are basically clowns. And like all clowns, their role is to shock people out of a humdrum reality by evoking wonder and joy in close quarters. So the three tinted men spend nearly as much time in the audience as on the stage.

The trio is endlessly silly, witty and creative, from catching dozens of marshmallows in their mouths from 20 yards to banging on musical PVC pipes. But it’s when they’re right on top of you that the euphoria becomes overwhelming. You could see it on the faces in the audience the Blue Men approached, a mix of giggles and terror taking over, mind racing between “good Lord, don’t come closer” and “please, please, pick me.”

That’s certainly what I imagine my face looked like as one of them took my reporter’s notebook from my hand and passed it to my date before leading me up on stage.

It took a while for me to remember exactly what happened while I was up there — it’s one thing to watch another be yanked into the Platonic ideal of clowning — but here’s what I have pieced together:

They sat me and the stranger down on stools on opposite sides of them. I answered a cordless phone and chatted with the stranger awkwardly. They forced us to paint portraits of one of the trio with a rose in his mouth then had the audience judge the results (I lost). They handed me a “participant” pendant and camera and asked me to take a photo of them with the woman in a winner’s sash. Then everything accelerated at a wild pace — we were forced to exchange romantic gifts, put on the twister mat, handcuffed, handed champagne flutes, I think I somehow had a wedding veil on, and then like bride and groom we were marched through an aisle and out of the theater.

Later, back in my seat, my date said his greatest fear was being pulled onto stage by one of those “dead-eyed bastards.” And I get that. Audience participation is an overwhelming fear — note, while the troupe gets everyone engaged via dance parties, group cheers, and more surprises I won’t spoil, only half a dozen get pulled deep into the performance.

But there’s nothing like the experience — the high, the rush, the blinding exhilaration of getting deep in it all. For five minutes (or two or 20, I really don’t know), I wasn’t thinking about the crushing stress of adulthood. The relentless sense of unease that follows so many of us around had been exorcized. All it took was three, blue, dead-eyed bastards handcuffing me to a stranger on a twister mat in front of a crowd.

For tickets and details, visit blueman.com/boston.

“In one day, we lost 12 songs scattered across Act One,” Levine told the Herald. “It was endlessly frustrating, endlessly. It was an exercise in attachment.”

As arranger, orchestrator, and music supervisor, Levine’s job was to build “Moulin Rouge” out of a century of pop songs. The musical, which runs Jan. 16 to Feb. 4 at the Citizens Bank Opera House, features bits and pieces of 70 some songs composed by more than twice as many writers. Very few tunes were off the table and the end result uses works by Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Beyonce, and Adele.

Levine and the production team had to secure the rights to each scrap of music. When they could get the rights, they lost weeks of work.

“When we started playing with (the catalog of pop songs), we weren’t sure if we were going to get to use all of them or not,” Levine said. “Because of the brilliance of our licensing team, we managed to get most of them.”

Based on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film, the show features a ton of new songs and arrangements. The reinvention has proved to be a massive hit — it received 14 Tony nominations and won 10 including Best Musical. In a Broadway landscape populated by jukebox musicals, it’s refreshing to see something that isn’t a, well, what exactly is “Moulin Rouge.”

“Unlike most jukebox musicals, the music had to be found to serve the story, as opposed to picking a catalog, knowing what the subject is and what songs you want to use,” Levine said. “This was sort of the reverse of that process.”

Every old song had to be made new. Each lyric had to drive forward the story of wide-eyed young composer Christian and his love for actress Satine, star of a Parisian cabaret at the end of the 1800s.

The most epic example of the production’s innovative storytelling via pop mashups comes in “Elephant Love Medley.” The duet between Christian and Satine has the two flirting by tossing lines back and forth from a score of songs (“Take On Me,” “Love is a Battlefield,” “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Such Great Heights” …).

“When I set out to make the ‘Elephant Love Medley’ it was really important to me that you could read the lyrics through and be able to follow the scene,” Levine said. “Before I even began to explore musically how to transition from song to song, I printed up all the lyrics, cut them up and rearranged them, almost like magnetic poetry. I did that for two days.”

And then he did it again, and again, working and reworking pop’s greatest hits into the show.

Levine and the team spent about three years developing “Moulin Rouge.” It’s a tiny sliver of time considering the herculean feat of putting the sonic and dramatic spectacle together. Of course, it didn’t feel tiny when trying to figure out how to gracefully, impactfully transition from Rick Astley to Lorde to T. Rex.

For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com

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“Trouble in Mind,” Jan. 12 – Feb. 4, Lyric Stage

Black actress Wiletta Mayer is set to take Broadway by storm in 1955. But stereotypes and racism follow her through her debut in a supposedly progressive play by a white writer. Funny, warm, and cutting, “Trouble in Mind” is a backstage look at the theater of the past that resonates in the present. Lyricstage.com

“Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” Jan. 16 – Feb. 4, Citizens Bank Opera House

Here we are now! Entertain us! The fever dream, sugar rush, glitz and glam of Baz Luhrmann’s film has been put on stage. And everybody loves it. The winner of 10 Tonys comes to life with help from the catalogs of Madonna, Beyonce, Gaga, Britney, Adele, Elton, and many, many, many more. Boston.broadway.com

“A Case for the Existence of God,” Jan. 26 – Feb.  17, the Calderwood Pavilion

Heartbreaking, humorous and heavy, playwright Samuel D. Hunter’s work takes place in an Idaho office cubicle where mortgage broker Keith and yogurt plant worker Ryan connect over their infant daughters. Ryan, white and divorced, tries to build stability for his daughter while Keith, a Black, gay foster father works to adopt his foster child. speakeasystage.com

“Moby Dick,” Jan. 23 – 28, Emerson Paramount Center

Director Yngvild Aspeli and Norwegian theater company Plexus Polaire present Herman Melville’s masterpiece in a wild and thrilling new way. The production sets sail with seven actors, 50 puppets, video projections, a drowned orchestra and one monstrous whale. artsemerson.org

“John Proctor is the Villain,” Feb. 8 – March 10, the Calderwood Pavilion

Playwright Kimberly Belflower uses Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” as a window into the lives of teen girls. As a class of high school students in a small town in the South dive into the play, they wrestle with love, teen drama, and sex (or at least sex ed). In their exploration they learn about their own strengths and determination. Smart and sharp, humorous and heartfelt, this play is a snapshot of a generation growing up. Huntingtontheatre.org

Winter Experience, Feb. 22 – March 3, Citizens Bank Opera House

The Boston Ballet reinvents Marius Petipa’s “Raymonda” erasing outdated and offensive caricatures. This new, one-act version is paired with two works by Helen Pickett, world premiere “SISU” and 2007 Boston Ballet commission “Petal.” bostonballet.org

“Exception To The Rule,” March 7 – 17, the Modern Theatre

Six Black students navigate violence, bullying, and romance in detention in a struggling city high school in a production that asks if we are failing kids considered to be failures. The Front Porch Arts Collective teams with Northeastern University and Suffolk University for Dave Harris’ “Exception To The Rule.”  Frontporcharts.org

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Revelers make their way along Tremont Street during the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Pipers pass the Park Street Church as they walk along along Tremont Street during the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Revelers with the Jamaica Plain Honk Band make their way along Tremont Street during the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Ice skaters entertain the crowd during First Night on the common. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Chinese dragon dancers walk along Tremont Street during the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Revelers walk along Tremont Street during the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Revelers make their way along Tremont Street during the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

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  Boston, MA -December 31, 2023: Early fireworks light up the common after the First Night parade. (Chris Christo/Boston Herald)

While Bailey was rehearsing to perform “Yippee Ki Yay” — a one-person retelling of “Die Hard” — he kept crushing his German accent. Only Alan Rickman himself doesn’t actually do all that well with the accent of legendary villain Hans Gruber (note: I acknowledge there is vigorous debate around this subject).

“There’s a joke very early on in the show about how Alan Rickman’s accent isn’t very good, how it’s very English,” Bailey told the Herald from London. “I struggled trying to nail down a bad German accent. Mine was too good. I have a good frame of reference because I have good German friends. But the director at the time was like, ‘Too German, make it more posh English.’”

Eventually Bailey mastered along with the dozen of other voices he invented for “Yippee Ki Yay,” Dec. 27 to 31 at the Huntington Theatre. And the dozens of mannerisms. And the character ticks. And how to fight a teddy bear.

If you celebrate every Christmas by watching Gruber fall off of Nakatomi Plaza, this is for you. If you have never seen “Die Hard,” well, first, wow, and second, this is for you. Written by London poetry slam champion Richard Marsh and starring Bailey, the show is an absurd parody and show within a show — not only does he play Gruber, John McClane, and various henchmen, but himself.

Not convinced? Bailey was skeptical himself.

“At first, looking at it, I was like, this is the silliest thing,” he said. “My audition was literally role playing a bullet getting shot out of a gun then becoming someone to receive the shot. It was bananas. But I loved it.”

Bailey has had a pretty impressive career that runs from Shakespeare’s greatest hits to BBC dramas. But he has never done anything like this — maybe because there is nothing like this. Bailey had never even done a one-person show. Now he’s fully embraced the format.

“What saves me is the fact that I don’t take it too seriously,” he said. “At the beginning, I do break out (letting the audience know) this isn’t what you expect, this isn’t just a ‘Die Hard’ show. By doing that I think I give myself permission to laugh at myself and acknowledge that a lot of the jokes are tongue-in-cheek, and if you don’t find them funny I will.”

“Things can never go wrong,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a comedy so there’s a way to find fun even in the faults.”

Unless of course you’re Hans Gruber falling 40-stories to your death.

For tickets and details, visit huntingtontheatre.org

Spencer Elden’s lawsuit against the grunge rock group alleges that he has suffered “permanent harm” as the band and others profited from the image of him underwater in a swimming pool, appearing to grab for a dollar bill on a fish hook.

The suit says the image violated federal laws on child sexual abuse material, although no criminal charges were ever sought.

A federal judge in California threw out the lawsuit last year but allowed Elden to file a revised version, which the judge later dismissed on grounds that it was outside the 10-year statute of limitations of one of the laws used as a cause of action.

Thursday’s decision by a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California reversed that ruling and sent the case back to the lower court.

The appellate panel found that each republication of an image “may constitute a new personal injury” with a new deadline and cited the image’s appearance on a 30th anniversary reissue of “Nevermind” in 2021.

“The question whether the ‘Nevermind’ album cover meets the definition of child pornography is not at issue in this appeal,” the court wrote, according to the New York Times.

In an email to The Associated Press, Nirvana attorney Bert Deixler called the ruling a “procedural setback.”

“We will defend this meritless case with vigor and expect to prevail,” he wrote.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Elden has.

The Rijksmuseum said the portraits of Jan Willemsz van der Pluym and his wife Jaapgen “disappeared from view for almost two centuries, before resurfacing two years ago.”

The paintings, believed to be the last known pair of privately held Rembrandt portraits, were sold at auction this year and given on long-term loan by the family of wealthy Dutch businessman Henry Holterman, the museum said.

“Given my close relationship with the museum and the fact that the team of experts has been conducting research into these portraits over a period of years, I feel that these works belong in the museum,” Holterman said in a statement.

The museum said that based on their small size and “dynamic, sketchy style,” the portraits likely were painted by Rembrandt as a favor to the couple, who had close links to his family since Jan and Jaapgen’s son Dominicus married the painter’s cousin, Cornelia Cornelisdr van Suytbroek.

Rijksmuseum Director Taco Dibbits welcomed the loan and said the portraits “will bring visitors closer to Rembrandt’s family circle.”

Researchers at the museum worked to establish that Rembrandt painted the portraits, which measure about 20×16.5 centimeters (8×6 inches), using high-tech scans and paint analysis.

“When taken together, the various research results amount to compelling evidence,” the museum said.

The portraits were hung alongside other works by Rembrandt.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Norman Lear, the writer, director and producer who revolutionized prime time television with “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Maude,” propelling political and social turmoil into the once-insulated world of TV sitcoms, has died. He was 101.

Lear died Tuesday night in his sleep, surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said Lara Bergthold, a spokesperson for his family.

A liberal activist with an eye for mainstream entertainment, Lear fashioned bold and controversial comedies that were embraced by viewers who had to watch the evening news to find out what was going on in the world. His shows helped define prime time comedy in the 1970s, launched the careers of Rob Reiner and Valerie Bertinelli and made middle-aged superstars of Carroll O’Connor, Bea Arthur and Redd Foxx.

Lear “took television away from dopey wives and dumb fathers, from the pimps, hookers, hustlers, private eyes, junkies, cowboys and rustlers that constituted television chaos, and in their place he put the American people,” the late Paddy Chayefsky, a leading writer of television’s early “golden age,” once said.

Tributes poured in after his death: “I loved Norman Lear with all my heart. He was my second father. Sending my love to Lyn and the whole Lear family,” Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “More than anyone before him, Norman used situation comedy to shine a light on prejudice, intolerance, and inequality. He created families that mirrored ours,” Jimmy Kimmel said.

“All in the Family” was immersed in the headlines of the day, while also drawing upon Lear’s childhood memories of his tempestuous father. Racism, feminism, and the Vietnam War were flashpoints as blue collar conservative Archie Bunker, played by O’Connor, clashed with liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic (Reiner). Jean Stapleton co-starred as Archie’s befuddled but good-hearted wife, Edith, and Sally Struthers played the Bunkers’ daughter, Gloria, who defended her husband in arguments with Archie.

Lear’s work transformed television at a time when old-fashioned programs as “Here’s Lucy,” “Ironside” and “Gunsmoke” still dominated. CBS, Lear’s primary network, would soon enact its “rural purge” and cancel such standbys as “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Green Acres.” The groundbreaking sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” about a single career woman in Minneapolis, debuted on CBS in Sept. 1970, just months before “All in the Family” started.

But ABC passed on “All in the Family” twice and CBS ran a disclaimer when it finally aired the show: “The program you are about to see is ‘All in the Family.’ It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are.”

By the end of 1971, “All In the Family” was No. 1 in the ratings and Archie Bunker was a pop culture fixture, with President Richard Nixon among his fans. Some of his putdowns became catchphrases. He called his son-in-law “Meathead” and his wife “Dingbat,” and would snap at anyone who dared occupy his faded orange-yellow wing chair. It was the centerpiece of the Bunkers’ rowhouse in Queens, and eventually went on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Even the show’s opening segment was innovative: Instead of an off-screen theme song, Archie and Edith are seated at the piano in their living room, belting out a nostalgic number, “Those Were the Days,” with Edith screeching off-key and Archie crooning such lines “Didn’t need no welfare state” and “Girls were girls and men were men.”

“All in the Family,” based on the British sitcom, “Til Death Us Do Part,” was the No. 1-rated series for an unprecedented five years in a row and earned four Emmy Awards as best comedy series, finally eclipsed by five-time winner “Frasier” in 1998.

Hits continued for Lear and then-partner Bud Yorkin, including “Maude” and “The Jeffersons,” both spinoffs from “All in the Family,” with the same winning combination of one-liners and social conflict. In a 1972 two-part episode of “Maude,” the title character (played by Arthur) became the first on television to have an abortion, drawing a surge of protests along with high ratings. And when a close friend of Archie’s turned out to be gay, Nixon privately fumed to White House aides that the show “glorified” same-sex relationships.

“Controversy suggests people are thinking about something. But there’d better be laughing first and foremost or it’s a dog,” Lear said in a 1994 interview with The Associated Press.

Lear and Yorkin also created “Good Times,” about a working class Black family in Chicago; “Sanford & Son,” a showcase for Foxx as junkyard dealer Fred Sanford; and “One Day at a Time,” starring Bonnie Franklin as a single mother and Bertinelli and Mackenzie Phillips as her daughters. In the 1974-75 season, Lear and Yorkin produced five of the top 10 shows.

Lear’s business success enabled him to express his ardent political beliefs beyond the small screen. In 2000, he and a partner bought a copy of the Declaration of Independence for $8.14 million and sent it on a cross-country tour.

He was an active donor to Democratic candidates and founded the nonprofit liberal advocacy group People for the American Way in 1980, he said, because people such as evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were “abusing religion.”

“I started to say, This is not my America. You don’t mix politics and religion this way,” Lear said in a 1992 interview with Commonweal magazine.

The nonprofit’s president, Svante Myrick, said “we are heartbroken” by Lear’s death. “We extend our deepest sympathies to Norman’s wife Lyn and their entire family, and to the many people who​, like us,​ loved Norman.”

With this wry smile and impish boat hat, the youthful Lear created television well into his 90s, rebooting “One Day at a Time” for Netflix in 2017 and exploring income inequality for the documentary series “America Divided” in 2016. Documentarians featured him in 2016’s “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You,” and 2017’s “If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast,” a look at active nonagenarians such as Lear and Rob Reiner’s father, Carl Reiner.

In 1984, he was lauded as the “innovative writer who brought realism to television” when he became one of the first seven people inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. He later received a National Medal of Arts and was honored at the Kennedy Center. In 2020, he won an Emmy as executive producer of “ Live In Front of a Studio Audience: ‘All In the Family’ and ‘Good Times’.’”

Lear beat the tough TV odds to an astounding degree: At least one of his shows placed in prime-time’s top 10 for 11 consecutive years (1971-82). But Lear had flops as well.

Shows including “Hot L Baltimore,” “Palmerstown” and “a.k.a. Pablo,” a rare Hispanic series, drew critical favor but couldn’t find an audience; others, such as “All That Glitters” and “The Nancy Walker Show,” earned neither. He also faced resistance from cast members, including “Good Times” stars John Amos and Esther Rolle, who often objected to the scripts as racially insensitive, and endured a mid-season walkout by Foxx, who missed eight episodes in 1973-74 because of a contract dispute.

In the 1990s, the comedy “704 Hauser,” which returned to the Bunker house with a new family, and the political satire “The Powers that Be” were both short-lived.

Lear’s business moves, meanwhile, were almost consistently fruitful.

Lear started T.A.T. Communications in 1974 to be “sole creative captain of his ship,” his former business partner Jerry Perenchio told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. The company became a major TV producer with shows including “One Day at a Time” and the soap-opera spoof “Mary Hartman Mary Hartman,” which Lear distributed himself after it was rejected by the networks.

In 1982, Lear and Perenchio bought Avco-Embassy Pictures and formed Embassy Communications as T.A.T.’s successor, becoming successfully involved in movies, home video, pay TV and cable ownership. In 1985, Lear and Perenchio sold Embassy to Coca-Cola for $485 million. They had sold their cable holdings the year before, reportedly for a hefty profit.

By 1986, Lear was on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in America, with an estimated net worth of $225 million. He didn’t make the cut the next year after a $112 million divorce settlement for his second wife, Frances. They had been married 29 years and had two daughters.

He married his third wife, psychologist Lyn Davis, in 1987 and the couple had three children. (Frances Lear, who went on to found the now-defunct Lear’s magazine with her settlement, died in 1996 at age 73.)

Lear was born in New Haven, Conn. on July 27, 1922, to Herman Lear, a securities broker who served time in prison for selling fake bonds, and Jeanette, a homemaker who helped inspire Edith Bunker. Like a sitcom, his family life was full of quirks and grudges, “a group of people living at the ends of their nerves and the tops of their lungs,” he explained during a 2004 appearance at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

His political activism had deep roots. In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, Lear recalled how, at age 10, he would mail letters for his Russian immigrant grandfather, Shia Seicol, which began “My dearest darling Mr. President,” to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sometimes a reply came.

“That my grandfather mattered made me feel every citizen mattered,” said Lear, who at 15 was sending his own messages to Congress via Western Union.

He dropped out of Emerson College 1942 to enlist in the Air Force and flew 52 combat missions in Europe as a turret gunner, earning a Decorated Air Medal. After World War II, he worked in public relations.

Lear began writing in the early 1950s on shows including “The Colgate Comedy Hour” and for such comedians as Martha Raye and George Gobel. In 1959, he and Yorkin founded Tandem Productions, which produced films including “Come Blow Your Horn,” “Start the Revolution Without Me” and “Divorce American Style.” Lear also directed the 1971 satire “Cold Turkey,” starring Dick Van Dyke about a small town that takes on a tobacco company’s offer of $25 million to quit smoking for 30 days.

In his later years, Lear joined with Warren Buffett and James E. Burke to establish The Business Enterprise Trust, honoring businesses that take a long-term view of their effect on the country. He also founded the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, exploring entertainment, commerce and society and also spent time at his home in Vermont. In 2014, he published the memoir “Even This I Get to Experience.”

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Longtime AP Television Writer Lynn Elber retired from The Associated Press in 2022. Contributors include Alicia Rancilio in Detroit and Hillel Italie in New York.

González-Nacer can find overlaps between the two works — “They are shows that center around the underdog and an often overlooked group of people and they are both filled with amazing songs,” she told the Herald. But she also sees something unique in “Real Women Have Curves,” Dec. 6 to Jan. 21 at the ART.

The new musical has its bones in Josefina López’s 1990 play and the 2002 feature film of the same name (the film that started America Ferrera on her journey from unknown to icon). It’s the story of an 18-year-old Mexican American in Los Angeles in 1987who is struggling to keep her dreams of college and a new life in New York from being crushed under the weight of familial and cultural expectations.

“It offers a perspective on topics like immigration in a new and exciting way,” González-Nacer said. “ ‘Real Women Have Curves’ is a powerful and accessible window into the lives of these women and truly a celebration of Latina women with bodies and dreams in all shapes and sizes.”

Transforming films into Broadway blockbusters has become something of a cliche — see “Back to the Future,” “Beetlejuice,” a dozen Disney movies, and, well, “Moulin Rouge!” But this feels different. It feels closer to the ARTs other strange, tender, and wonderful adaptations. Recall how an ART team turned the songs from Alanis Morissette’s album “Jagged Little Pill” into an original narrative or how it partnered with writer Dave Malloy to build “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812” out of a 70-page chunk of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”

“There is a very special energy with this show and with this group,” González-Nacer said of the award-winning team of LatinX artists behind the production. “There has been a narrative that has reinforced the idea that us BIPOC folk are a niche market or this homogeneous monolithic group that is separate from the mainstream instead of the diverse demographic it is.”

“I think representation matters so much because, especially to young people, it changes their perception of what’s possible and how confident they feel taking up space in the world,” she continued. “For a young girl to see me or someone like me on stage, as a leading lady in a Broadway show, where there are not many female leads, let alone females of color as leads, allows such a girl to see that she can too do that one day and if not that, then anything else she can dream of.”

The dreams in “Real Women Have Curves” are dynamic, grounded in a place, time and culture, and also universal. This is something González-Nacer sees reflected in the character she plays, Mrs. Wright. In the character, she sees many, even a bit of Satine.

“Mrs. Wright is the person in the show that everyone assumes is just a tyrannical boss lady but there is a twist in the show that you’ll have to come to the show to find out,” she said. “I loved playing Satine in ‘Moulin Rouge’ and telling her story and there is an interesting juxtaposition that I feel playing Mrs. Wright in ‘Real Women Have Curves.’ Satine was very much an anchor in the sea of spectacle and Mrs. Wright seemingly appears to rock the boat. Yet both women had to find ways to play a character to get ahead in life.”

For tickets and details, visit americanrepertorytheater.org

“The Nutcracker,” Through Dec. 31, Boston Opera House

“We at the company don’t think of (‘The Nutcracker’) as entertainment, we think of it as a serious piece of art,” Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen told the Herald earlier this season. “I choreographed it to be incredibly difficult for the dancers for a couple of reasons. I know I have a tired company on December 31st, but I also know I have a better company.” So, sure, nostalgia and the Christmas connection fuel a love for the piece, but remember it’s a grand piece of art, complex and compelling. Bostonballet.org

“Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical,” Sunday, Shubert Theater

Misfits as heroes! Come see the songs, message, and characters you love — Hermey the dentist elf, Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster, Clarice, Yukon Cornelius, and, of course, the most famous reindeer of all them all — live and in person! (You can close your eyes and picture the claymation.) bochcenter.org

The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show, Nov. 28, Wang Theatre

BenDeLaCreme and Jinkx Monsoon whip up whip-smart laughs, seasonal spectacles and sugary songs. What does that mean? Basically “RuPaul’s Drag Race” with more tinsel and mistletoe. bochcenter.org

“The Slutcracker,” Dec. 1 – Dec. 31, Somerville Theater

Have you been naughty or nice? Nice? Oh, you better stay home for this one. This bawdy, burlesque, and satirical adaptation follows the adventures of a suburban dude through a weirdo wonderland. Theslutcracker.com

“Black Nativity,” Dec. 1 – 17, Emerson Paramount Mainstage

Langston Hughes’ poetry joins with dancers, singers, and musicians to explore the Gospel of St. Luke. From gospel music to African drums, the performers bring this tradition to life once more. Emersontheatres.org

“A Christmas Carol,” Dec. 7 – 23, North Shore Music Theatre

The man, the myth, the legend, David Coffee returns for his 29th holiday season as Ebenezer Scrooge. The story you know, done with more cheer, magic and redemption than you’ll likely ever see in a New England retelling of the Charles Dickens’ classic. Nsmt.org

“Midwinter Revels: The Feast of Fools,” Dec. 15 – 28, Sanders Theatre

The 53rd Midwinter Revels carries the audience to a medieval Feast of Fools. During this holiday celebration up is down, calm is chaos, and, as always, song, dance, and merrymaking rule the day. revels.org

“Urban Nutcracker,” Dec 16 – 23, Shubert Theatre

Boston dance legend Anthony Williams’ twist on Tchaikovsky has become as essential as the Boston Ballet’s traditional take. In this version, we get a little ballet and a lot of other stuff: hip hop, flamenco, swing dance, tap, and more set to Duke Ellington’s riff of the Russian composer. Bochcenter.org

“Yippee Ki Yay,” Dec. 27 – 31, Huntington Theatre

If you’re the type of person who doesn’t think it’s Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off of Nakatomi Plaza, well, grab a Twinkie, take off your shoes, and enjoy this unauthorized parody of “Die Hard.” A one-man retelling of this Christmas movie (oh, yeah, we went there) written by London poetry slam champion Richard Marsh and starring Darrel Bailey, this show will have you yelling “Yippee Ki-Yay, Mr. Falcon!” huntingtontheatre.org

“In this play, you are taking two groups of people, two very different groups, two groups from different cultures, religions, and countries,” actor Jared Troilo told the Herald. “You are putting them in the same room and they aren’t discussing politics. They aren’t discussing religion. They aren’t discussing where they differ. They are coming together through their relationships, and shared experiences, and most of all through music.”

Troilo plays Itzik, one of the kind residents of the Israeli village who takes in some of the lost members of an Egyptian band of musicians. A language mix-up at a bus terminal has landed the band in a town too small to accommodate them so the residents must open their houses, and minds.

Both a musical out of time and deeply needed today, “The Band’s Visit” — now through Dec. 17 at the Huntington — is an intimate piece that has found huge success among the blockbusters of modern Broadway. At the 2018 Tonys, the musical competed with blunt and broad big-budget shows such as “Escape to Margaritaville,” “Mean Girls,” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.” “The Band’s Visit” crushed all comers winning an astounding 10 Tonys plus a Grammy and an Emmy.

“It’s not your ‘jazz hands’ musical,” said Troilo, a Massachusetts native who got his musical theater degree at the Boston Conservatory. “It is a musical, but it feels more like a play with music. The music is part of the story. This is how the characters bond, this is how they relate to each other through their differences. It’s through their mutual love and admiration for music… so it doesn’t ever feel like you are stepping into a big Broadway musical. Instead it feels like you are living in the world with them and experiencing music with them.”

Itzik is a welcome role for Troilo. The character is a dreamer who is down on his luck, trying to work through his marriage and learning to become a father. As a father himself, he found a great tenderness in his character’s solo song,

“There’s something about singing to your (infant) child knowing they can’t talk back to you,” he said. “It allows Itzik to open up and really share what’s going on inside of him, and unfortunately he’s just lost. He’s doing his best to save his family, to keep everybody together.”

Through universal moments like this “The Band’s Visit” proves that it’s less a reflection of history and more a lesson about our common humanity.

“Of course there’s a lot happening underneath it all, a lot happening in the world that’s subtextual to the whole show, but the play itself never goes there,” Troilo said. “In that way the play is very aspirational. This is what can be. It’s different people getting along, enjoying music, enjoying food. It’s what the world can be and is sometimes, even if we don’t hear about it.”

For tickets and details, visit huntingtontheatre.org

The Boston Planning and Development Agency last week approved to relocate the theater to Harvard University’s Allston campus as part of a $370 million project that also includes a 13-story residential building for graduate students, faculty and staff.

“But the facility was not built to support a boundary-breaking regional theater,” A.R.T. Executive Director Kelvin Dinkins Jr. said of the current facility which has operated in Harvard Square since its founding in 1980. “Over the years, our mission has remained constant but our vision has expanded, and so has our work.”

The 70,000 square-foot center, slated to break ground at 175 North Harvard St., next year and open in late fall 2026, will include two performance venues, rehearsal studios, teaching spaces, a public lobby, and an outdoor performance yard designed to host ticketed and free programming.

“Our programming will be designed to engage the local, national and international creative ecosystems and to make meaningful contributions to them,” Delkins said. “This new building will become a fixture among the city’s cultural offerings as an international destination and a local hangout.”

The 13-story residential building will include 276 students with capacity to house roughly 500 Harvard affiliates in apartments ranging from studios to four-bedroom townhouses, according to project documents.

A.R.T and Harvard officials say the project will “contribute to an emerging hub of creativity and innovation in Allston and will add vibrancy to the corridor due to the significant scale of its residential component.”

It will be located around the corner from Harvard’s Science and Engineering Complex on Western Avenue and up the road from the university’s Enterprise Research Campus, under development, and Harvard Stadium.

Harvard received a $100 million gift in 2019 from alumni David and Stacy Goel that officials say “catalyzed the process of reimagining the University’s arts campus to include a new home for the A.R.T. that would enhance Harvard’s and Greater Boston’s arts communities.”

Several neighborhood residents on the Allston Task Force raised concerns that community benefits included in the project don’t fully encapsulate what they had asked for in past conversations with the university.

They asked for Harvard to renegotiate the benefits, some of which include a connection to nearby Smith Field and $300,000 to the Boston Parks and Recreation Department to improve the park as well as $173,376 for the Boston Transportation Department to create a new Bluebikes station.

“It seems as though (Harvard) will say something, they will agree that they will do something about it, but in the end, unfortunately, it’s never done once their projects are approved,” resident Edward Kotomori said.

The project was included in Harvard’s 10-year development plan for the Allston campus in 2013, said Mark Handley, the university’s director of government affairs and community relations.

Approval of the Institutional Master Plan served as a “key step in the realization of Harvard’s long-visualized future in Allston and comes after a year of intensive community engagement,” officials said at the time.

Throughout the course of the past decade, community benefits, such as more than $5 million for public realm projects and $3 million to encourage home ownership, have been rolled out,” Handley said.

“We have successfully deployed those benefits continuously for nearly 10 years now,” he said. “Our approach to benefits on this project … I can tell you that every piece of feedback I’ve heard on the introduction of (the new center) has been one of excitement, it has been enthusiastic.”

“I’m writing this from my dressing room in the stadium. The decision has been made to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio,” the singer said in a handwritten note on Instagram. “The safety and well being of my fans, fellow performers, and crew has to and always will come first.”

The cause of death for Ana Clara Benevides Machado, the young woman who sought medical attention at Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium during Friday’s show, has not yet been announced. The office of Rio’s public prosecutor opened a criminal investigation and said Benevides’ body was being examined.

Benevides’ death shook many people in Brazil. She had taken her first flight ever to travel from the country’s center-west region to Rio to see her favorite musician. She also created a WhatsApp group to keep her family updated, sending photos and videos every step of the way, family members told online news site G1.

Fans and politicians reacted to her death with outrage, speculating it was linked to extreme heat.

Concertgoers complained they were not allowed to take water into the stadium despite the stifling weather. As temperatures continued to rise Saturday and with two more shows to go at the time, federal authorities announced that free water would now be made available at concerts and other large events.

One of Benevides’ friends, who also went to the concert, told local outlets they had both been given water while waiting to enter the stadium.

In a previous statement shared on her social media Saturday morning, Swift said she had a “shattered heart.”

“There’s very little information I have other than the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful and far too young,” the singer wrote of the young woman.

The show’s organizer, Time4Fun, said on Instagram that paramedics attended to Benevides after she reported feeling unwell. She was taken to a first-aid center and then to a hospital, where she died an hour later, the statement from the Brazilian live entertainment company said.

Fans who attended the Friday show said they were not allowed to bring water bottles into the stadium even though Rio and most of Brazil have had record-breaking temperatures this week amid a dangerous and lasting heat wave. The daytime high in Rio on Friday was 39.1 degrees Celsius (102.4 degrees Fahrenheit), but it felt much hotter.

Apparent temperature — a combination of temperature and humidity — hit 59 C (138 F) Friday morning in Rio, the highest index ever recorded there.
Elizabeth Morin, 26, who recently moved to Rio from Los Angeles, described “sauna-like” conditions inside the stadium.

“It was extremely hot. My hair got so wet from sweat as soon as I came in,” she said. “There was a point at which I had to check my breathing to make sure I wasn’t going to pass out.”

Morin said she drank plenty of water but saw “a good amount of people looking distressed” and others “yelling for water.” She said she was able to get water from the sidelines of the area she was standing in, but that water was a lot harder to access from other parts of the stadium, “especially if you were concerned about losing your specific position.”

During the show, Swift paused her performance and asked from the stage for water to be brought to a group of people who had successfully caught the singer’s attention, according to Morin.

“They were holding up their phones saying ‘We need water,'” she recalled.
Two other concertgoers interviewed by The Associated Press said they witnessed people feeling unwell from the heat during the show.

On her way to Rio, Benevides sent a video to family members that was broadcast by TV channel Globo News, telling them: “Mom, look at the plane, it’s moving. Mom, I’m on the plane. My God in heaven! I’m happy!”

Then before the concert, she posted a video of herself on Instagram wearing a Taylor Swift T-shirt and friendship bracelets, seeking shade under an umbrella while waiting in line to enter the stadium.

Like her, thousands of fans waited hours in the sun before being allowed inside.
She told her followers while fanning her face that she’d arrived at 11 a.m. — the show began around 7:30 p.m. — and was “still in the mess.”

Benevides’ friend, Daniele Menin, who attended the concert with her, told online news site G1 that her friend passed out at the beginning of the concert, as Swift performed her second song, “Cruel Summer.”

“We always said that when (Taylor Swift) came to Brazil we would find a way to go. The ticket was very expensive, but we still found a way,” Menin told G1.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that going forward in Brazil, “water bottles for personal use, in suitable material, will be allowed” at concerts and festivals and that show producers must provide free and easily accessible drinking water.

Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes wrote on X that the “loss of a young woman’s life … is unacceptable” and demanded more brigades and ambulances at future shows.

Still, the concert was postponed.

“We are on the train. And everyone is so disappointed,” said Hely Olivares, a 41 year-old Venezuelan who had traveled from Panama to see the artist.
Before postponing the concert, Swift wrote on Instagram that she would not address the death from stage “because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it.”

“I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends,” she said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert De Niro’s former top executive assistant said she found it “creepy” when the actor insisted she scratch his back, an example of behavior she found controlling and abusive before she quit her job in 2019, she testified Friday at a New York civil trial.

In a full day of testimony, Graham Chase Robinson became emotional several times as she claimed that the trauma she endured before she quit working for De Niro in 2019 after 11 years has left her jobless and depressed.

“I was having an emotional and mental breakdown. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. Couldn’t run. I was overwhelmed,” she told jurors in Manhattan federal court. “I felt like I hit rock bottom.”

She said she suffers from anxiety and depression and hasn’t worked in four years despite applying for 638 jobs.

“I don’t have a social life,” she said. “I’m so humiliated and embarrassed and feel so judged. I feel so damaged in a way. … I lost my life. Lost my career. Lost my financial independence. I lost everything.”

Robinson, 41, is seeking $12 million in damages from De Niro, 80, for gender discrimination and retaliation. De Niro has asked a jury to award him $6 million on breach of loyalty and fiduciary duty grounds.

Robinson said the back-scratching had occurred several times over the years until she offered a mild protest once, suggesting to De Niro that there was a device he could use instead.

“I like the way that you do it,” she said De Niro told her.

She described the comment as “creepy” and “disgusting.”

During testimony earlier in the week, De Niro scoffed at the back-scratching claim and other assertions, saying he always treated Robinson with respect and never with “disrespect or lewdness.”

He also claimed he never yelled at her just before he did in court, shouting: “Shame on you, Chase Robinson!” He quickly apologized for the outburst.

Robinson said part of her duties that required her to be available around the clock included helping De Niro navigate a complicated love life that at one point involved a wife, an ex-girlfriend and a new girlfriend that he didn’t want the world to yet know about.

Robinson portrayed De Niro in her testimony as sexist with his language toward female employees and discriminatory in how he paid them.

Her testimony was undercut on cross-examination when a lawyer for De Niro confronted her with the fact that the actor’s highest-paid employee was a woman and that a man who worked for one of De Niro’s companies, Canal Productions, just like Robinson, was paid less than a third of the $300,000 salary she secured before she quit.

Robinson testified about several instances when she claimed De Niro, who gained fame and two Oscars over the past five decades in films like “Raging Bull,” “The Deer Hunter” and the new Martin Scorsese film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” erupted angrily at her, sometimes using profanity.

Around Christmas of 2017, Robinson said, an inebriated De Niro called her angry one evening because he couldn’t find some presents that had been sent to him from the office for the holiday.

“He was screaming about not being able to find some of the presents,” Robinson said. “He was cursing left and right.”

He then called her an expletive and hung up, she said.

She said she found it “incredibly hurtful … especially when you’re just trying to do your job.”