YCLOAK

Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who in prose both dense and brittle took readers from the southern Appalachians to the desert Southwest in such novels as The Road, Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses, died Tuesday. He was 89.

McCarthy died of natural causes in Santa Fe, New Mexico, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said.

McCarthy, raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, was compared to William Faulkner for his Old Testament style and rural settings. McCarthy’s themes, like Faulkner’s, often were bleak and violent and dramatized how the past overwhelmed the present. Across stark and forbidding landscapes and rundown border communities, he placed drifters, thieves, prostitutes and old, broken men, all unable to escape fates determined for them well before they were born.

McCarthy’s own story was one of belated, and continuing, achievement and popularity.

Little known to the public at age 60, he would become one of the country’s most honored and successful writers despite rarely talking to the press. He broke through commercially in 1992 with All the Pretty Horses and over the next 15 years won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, was a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show and saw his novel No Country for Old Men adapted by the Coen brothers into an Oscar-winning movie.

The Road, his stark tale of a father and son who roam a ravaged post-apocalyptic landscape, brought him his widest audience and highest acclaim. It won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was selected by Winfrey for her book club. In his Winfrey interview, McCarthy said that while typically he didn’t know what generates the ideas for his books, he could trace The Road to a trip he took with his young son to El Paso, Texas, early in the decade. Standing out of the window of a hotel in the middle of the night as his son slept nearby, he started to imagine what El Paso might look like 50 or 100 years in the future.

“I just had this image of these fires up on the hill … and I thought a lot about my little boy,” he said.

He told Winfrey he didn’t care how many people read The Road.

“You would like for the people that would appreciate the book to read it. But, as far as many, many people reading it, so what?” he said.

McCarthy dedicated the book to his son, John Francis, and said having a child as an older man “forces the world on you, and I think it’s a good thing.”

In 2022, Knopf made the startling announcement that it would release McCarthy’s first work in more than 15 years, a pair of connected novels he had referred to in the past: The Passenger and Stella Maris, narratives on a pair of mutually obsessed siblings and the legacy of their father, a physicist who had worked on atomic technology. Stella Maris was notable, in part, because it centered on a female character, an acknowledged weakness of McCarthy’s.

“I don’t pretend to understand women,” he told Winfrey.

His first novel, The Orchard Keeper — written in Chicago while he was working as an auto mechanic — was published by Random House in 1965. His editor was Albert Erskine, Faulkner’s longtime editor.

Other novels include Outer Dark, published in 1968; Child of God in 1973; and Suttree in 1979. The violent Blood Meridian, about a group of bounty hunters along the Texas-Mexico border murdering Indians for their scalps, was published in 1985. His Border Trilogy books were set in the Southwest along the border with Mexico: All the Pretty Horses (1992) — a National Book Award winner that was turned into a feature film — The Crossing (1994) and Cities of the Plain (1998).

McCarthy said he was always lucky. He recalled living in a shack in Tennessee and running out of toothpaste, then going out and finding a toothpaste sample in the mailbox.

“That’s the way my life has been. Just when things were really, really bleak, something would happen,” said McCarthy, who won a MacArthur Fellowship — one of the so-called “genius grants” — in 1981.

McCarthy attended the University of Tennessee for a year before joining the Air Force in 1953. He returned to the school from 1957 to 1959 but left before graduating. As an adult, he lived around the Great Smoky Mountains before moving West in the late 1970s, eventually settling in Santa Fe.
…

A young actress drags a suitcase despondently up a tree-shaded street, as a crew shoots a scene in a film about director Norris Wong’s unachieved dream of becoming a Cantopop lyricist. 

The movie “The Lyricist Wannabe” is the latest from Wong and part of an unprecedented trend in Hong Kong’s moviemaking history — the growth of its indie films.  

Hong Kong films used to be made by big production companies. They were exported around the world in the industry’s heyday from the 1970s to early ’90s when Hong Kong was considered the Hollywood of Asia, turning out stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and recent Oscar Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh. 

But the industry has declined in recent decades. Hollywood blockbusters flooded in and companies switched to making movies that appealed to China’s bigger and more lucrative market, according to industry players. 

“The Hong Kong market had totally collapsed. Very experienced directors all went to the mainland. They make $10 million films there, so they won’t make $1 million films here,” said Mani Man, vice president of mm2, a company that supports indie films. “It’s like the parents have all left, we’re like orphans creating a new world.”  

Now, Hong Kong may be starting to see a revival in its film industry. In the five years before COVID-19 hit, 275 locally produced movies were made, more than the 256 in the previous five years, including independent films by new directors, according to the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association. 

Fewer films were made during the pandemic, but several enjoyed great success, breaking box office records. 

What has helped drive this trend are Hong Kong’s tough COVID-19 travel restrictions, which kept directors and audiences at home, giving the former a chance to make local films and the latter the time to watch them. 

The government has also provided $50 million in funding to revive the industry in the past 15 years, including $30 million in just the past six years, enabling many small- and medium-budget films and new directors’ first feature to be made, according to statistics from the Film Development Council.  

Also, the 2019 social and political unrest in Hong Kong and Beijing’s passage of a national security law in response to it have made some worry about changes to their way of life. Industry experts say there is a yearning among audiences in the city for films that reflect their lives. 

“Because of all these uncertainties in Hong Kong society, it inspired some local movies which try to tell the stories about Hong Kong people,” said Dorothy Lau, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University’s Academy of Film. “People are trying to pursue their own identity, stories that belong to themselves.” 

For example, the highest recent local earner, “A Guilty Conscience,” a film about a lawyer trying to find evidence to get his innocent client acquitted, dealt with the issue of justice — a theme that resonated with moviegoers as they see pro-democracy activists, a newspaper publisher and protesters tried under the new law.  

“In the mind of many local residents, they look for justice but feel disappointed when they see reality. When they watch ‘A Guilty Conscience,’ they feel somebody is speaking their mind to inspire them to stay hopeful in what they see as the bleak reality,” Lau said. 

The government has said the law has restored peace after disruptive and sometimes violent anti-government protests in 2019. 

The film, which raked in $15 million, setting a record for a Hong Kong film, is among three that made it onto the list of Hong Kong box office hits over the past year, a list previously dominated by Hollywood blockbusters. 

Low-budget movies also made profits or broke even, while winning local and regional awards as they took on subjects that big studios neglected. Some of those include the struggles of blue-collar workers (“The Narrow Road”), the repressed love of closeted elderly gay men (“Twilight’s Kiss”), and homelessness (“Drifting”).

“It’s important for Hong Kong to have its own movies and stories to be told on the big screens because cinema has always been a very good medium that preserves local culture,” said the 36-year-old Wong, who cobbled together $294,000 for her latest movie, with a loan from a director friend and earnings from her debut film “My Prince Edward,”  which is about a woman who learns to assert herself. 

Still, there are limits to the kinds of topics that can be featured. The national security law and subsequent amendments to film censorship guidelines make subjects with political content untouchable. 

Several documentaries about the 2019 pro-democracy protests have been banned, according to media reports. Some content deemed sensitive has been deleted from films, including three being screened at a local film festival this month. 

In response to questions from VOA, the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration issued a statement saying the amendments “did not change the fact that the public and the film industry continue to enjoy freedom of creation and freedom of speech under the premise of abiding by the law and protecting national security.” 

It said that since the amended guidelines took effect in 2021, it has approved all but six of the more than 4,100 applications for film classification and public screening.  

Directors meanwhile continue to make films about Hong Kong, with some showing them overseas or switching to less sensitive topics. At the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival, which runs from June to July, filmmakers highlighted censorship by replacing deleted scenes with black images and muted sound.  

Independent film and documentary maker Lam Sum’s 2021 film “May You Stay Forever Young” — about the 2019 protests — was not approved. But he went on to be nominated for Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards this year for “The Narrow Road.”    

“I didn’t think about giving up because I really like to make films. To me, this is a challenge for creators — how to tell stories in this space,” said Lam, 37.  

Despite the concerns about censorship, funding, and fewer audiences with the lifting of travel restrictions, directors believe now is as good a time as any to make films.  

“I’m quite optimistic. … We no longer need to have big production companies’ support to make a film,” Wong said. “It will bring about more Hong Kong homegrown films.” 
…

In its heyday, Hong Kong was the Hollywood of Asia, turning out stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and recent Best Actress Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. While the industry has seen a decline over the past two decades, Hong Kong is experiencing what some say is a film revival, despite stricter controls and censorship. For VOA, Cindy Sui reports from Hong Kong.
…

Skyscrapers, bridges and other landmarks in South Korea’s capital will be lit up in purple Monday as the country begins celebrating the 10th anniversary of K-pop band BTS, whose global popularity is a source of national pride.

The lights will provide the backdrop for various social media-driven events marking the 2013 debut of the seven-member group, which is now on a temporary hiatus as its singers take turns releasing solo material while the others begin to serve their mandatory military duties.

From Monday evening, numerous Seoul structures, including City Hall, the 123-story Lotte World Tower, several Han River bridges, and the futuristic DDP — a Zaha Hadid-designed aluminum and concrete dome that’s often used for visual art — will be bathed in purple, a color associated with BTS, according to city officials and the group’s management company, Hybe.

Messages congratulating BTS were displayed on digital screens in buildings across Seoul, while postal authorities issued stamps marking the group’s anniversary, which will be available at post offices starting Tuesday.

Seoul officials hope that the celebrations, which will continue for around two weeks, will boost tourism. The city has designated more than a dozen sites associated with BTS, including places where the group held major performances or shot some of their famous videos.

Fireworks are planned at a park Saturday night near the Han River, hours after one of the BTS singers, RM, holds a live talk with fans that will be broadcast online.

Quickly garnering huge followings in Asia following their debut, BTS’ popularity expanded across the globe with their 2020 megahit “Dynamite,” the band’s first all-English song that made it the first K-pop act to top Billboard’s Hot 100. BTS has since performed in sold-out arenas around the world and was invited to speak at United Nations meetings, supported by a legion of global followers who call themselves the “Army.”

BTS’ activities as a full group are currently on hold as the artists begin to serve in the military. Two BTS singers – Jin and J-Hope – have already started their compulsory 18-month service and other members are to follow in the coming months, which likely means the group will reconvene around 2025.

In South Korea, all able-bodied men are required to serve in uniform 18-21 months under a system meant to deter aggression from rival North Korea.
…

The new Modern Art gallery at the Denver Art Museum includes two painters from Ghana. VOA’s Scott Stearns gives us a look.
…

Best musical: “Kimberly Akimbo” 

Best play: “Leopoldstadt” 

Best revival of a musical: “Parade” 

Best revival of a play: “Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog” 

Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical: Victoria Clark, “Kimberly Akimbo” 

Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play: Sean Hayes, “Good Night, Oscar” 

Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play: Jodie Comer, “Prima Facie” 

Best book of a musical: “Kimberly Akimbo,” David Lindsay-Abaire 

Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical: J. Harrison Ghee, “Some Like It Hot” 

Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical: Alex Newell, “Shucked.” 

Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a play: Miriam Silverman, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” 

Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical: Bonnie Milligan, “Kimberly Akimbo” 

Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play: Brandon Uranowitz, “Leopoldstadt” 

Best direction of a play: Patrick Marber, “Leopoldstadt” 

Best direction of a musical: Michael Arden, “Parade” 

Best choreography: Casey Nicholaw, “Some Like It Hot” 

Best original score: “Kimberly Akimbo,” Music: Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics: David Lindsay-Abaire 

Best orchestrations: Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter, “Some Like It Hot” 

Best costume of a musical: Gregg Barnes, “Some Like It Hot” 

Best costume of a play: Brigitte Reiffenstuel, “Leopoldstadt” 

Best lighting design of a play: Tim Lutkin, “Life of Pi” 

Best lighting design of a musical: Natasha Katz, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” 
…

The intimate, funny-sad musical “Kimberly Akimbo” nudged aside splashier rivals on Sunday to win the musical crown at the Tony Awards on a night when Broadway flexed its creative muscle amid the Hollywood writers’ strike and made history with laurels for nonbinary actors J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell.

“Kimberly Akimbo,” with songs by Jeanine Tesori and a book by David Lindsay-Abaire, follows a teen with a rare genetic disorder that gives her a life expectancy of 16 navigating a dysfunctional family and a high school romance. Victoria Clark, as the lead in the show, added a second Tony to her trophy case, having previously won one in 2005 for “The Light in the Piazza.”

Producer David Stone credited the musical’s writers for penning a magic trick, calling “Kimberly Akimbo” a “musical comedy about the fragility of life, so healing and so profound and joyous that is almost impossible.” The musical took home a leading six awards.

Earlier, Tony Awards history was made when Newell and Ghee became the first nonbinary people to win Tonys for acting. Last year, composer and writer Toby Marlow of “Six” became the first nonbinary Tony winner.

“Thank you for the humanity. Thank you for my incredible company who raised me up every single day,” said leading actor in a musical winner Ghee, who stars in “Some Like It Hot,” the adaptation of the classic cross-dressing comedy film. The soulful Ghee stunned audiences with their voice and dance skills, playing a musician — on the run from gangsters — who tries on a dress and is transformed.

Newell, who plays Lulu — an independent, don’t-need-no-man whiskey distiller in “Shucked” — has been blowing audiences away with their signature number, “Independently Owned.” They won for best featured actor in a musical.

“Thank you for seeing me, Broadway. I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black little baby from Massachusetts. And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face that you can do anything you put your mind to,” Newell said to an ovation.

Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, won best play, also earning wins for director Patrick Marber, featured actor Brandon Uranowitz and Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes.

The British-Czech playwright, who now has five best play Tony Awards, joked he won his first in 1968 and noted that playwrights were “getting progressively devalued in the food chain” despite being “the sharp ends of the inverted pyramid.”

Strike leaves show script less

Second-time Tony Awards host Ariana DeBose opened a blank script backstage before dancing and leaping her way to open the main show with a hectic opening number that gave a jolt of electricity to what is usually an upbeat, safe and chummy night. The writers’ strike left the storied awards show honoring the best of musical theater and plays without a script.

Before the pre-show began, DeBose revealed to the audience the only words that would be seen on the teleprompter: “Please wrap up.” Later in the evening, virtually out of breath after her wordless opening performance, she thanked the labor organizers for allowing a compromise.

“I’m live and unscripted. You’re welcome,” she said. “So to anyone who may have thought that last year was a bit unhinged, to them, I say, ‘Darlings, buckle up.'”

Winners demonstrated their support for the striking writers either at the podium or on the red carpet with pins. Miriam Silverman, who won the Tony for best featured actress in a play for “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” ended her speech with: “My parents raised me to believe in the power of labor and workers being compensated and treated fairly. We stand with the WGA in solidarity!”

Jodie Comer, the three-time Emmy nominated star of “Killing Eve” won leading actress in a play for her Broadway debut, the one-woman play “Prima Facie,” which illustrates how current laws fail terribly when it comes to sexual assault cases.

Sean Hayes won lead actor in a play for “Good Night, Oscar,” which dramatizes a long night’s journey into the scarred psyche of pianist Oscar Levant, now obscure but once a TV star.

“This has got to be the first time an Oscar won a Tony,” Hayes cracked.

Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about sibling rivalry, inequality and society’s false promises, won the Tony for best play revival. She thanked director Kenny Leon and stars Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: “They showed up to be large in a world that often does not much want the likes of us living at all.”

Bonnie Milligan, who won for best featured actress in a musical for “Kimberly Akimbo,” also had a message to the audience: “I want to tell everybody that doesn’t maybe look like what the world is telling you what you should look like — whether you’re not pretty enough, you’re not fit enough, your identity is not right, who you love isn’t right — that doesn’t matter.”

“‘Cause just guess what?” she continued, brandishing her award. “It’s right, and you belong.”

Kander gets lifetime award

Many of the technical awards — for things like costumes, sound, lighting and scenic design — were handed out at a breakneck pace during a pre-show hosted by Skylar Astin and Julianne Hough, allowing winners plenty of airtime for acceptance speeches but little humor.

The pre-show telecast on Pluto featured some awkwardly composed shots and some presenters slipped up on certain words. The tempo was so rapid, it ended more than 10 minutes before the main CBS broadcast was slated to start.

John Kander, the 96-year-old composer behind such landmark shows as “Chicago,” “Cabaret” and “The Scottsboro Boys,” was honored with a special lifetime award. He thanked his parents; his husband, Albert Stephenson; and music, which “has stayed my friend through my entire life and has promised to stick with me until the end.”

Jennifer Grey handed her father, “Cabaret” star Joel Grey, the other lifetime achievement Tony. “Being recognized by the theater community is such a gift because it’s always been, next to my children, my greatest, most enduring love,” the actor said.

Echoing the there of antisemitism, “Parade” — a doomed musical love story set against the real backdrop of a murder and lynching in pre-World War I Georgia that won Tonys as a new musical in 1999 — won for best musical revival, with Michael Arden winning for best musical director.

“‘Parade’ tells the story of a life that was cut short at the hands of the belief that one group of people is more valuable than another and that they might be more deserving of justice,” Arden said. “This is a belief that is the core of antisemitism, white supremacy, homophobia and transphobia and intolerance of any kind. We must come together. We must battle this.”

The telecast featured performances from all the nominated musicals and Will Swenson — starring on Broadway in a Neil Diamond musical — led the audience in a vigorous rendition of “Sweet Caroline.” Lea Michele of “Glee” and now “Funny Girl” fame also performed a soaring version of “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”

It all took place at the United Palace Theatre, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan — a new venue for the ceremony, many miles from Times Square and the theater district.

“Thank you all for coming uptown. Never in my wildest dreams, truly,” Lin-Manuel Miranda joked onstage. He, of course, wrote the musical “In the Heights,” set in Washington Heights.
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It was Miles Morales and the Spider-Verse versus the “Transformers” at the box office this weekend and the bots came out on top.

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh entry in the series, took the No. 1 spot in its first weekend in North American theaters with $60.5 million according to studio estimates Sunday. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” wasn’t too far behind, however, with an estimated $55.4 million in its second weekend.

Paramount Pictures released “Rise of the Beasts” in 3,678 locations starting with Thursday previews. Set in 1994, it’s technically a sequel to the 1980s-set “Bumblebee” and a prequel to the other films. With a new cast led by Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback and a new director in Steven Caple Jr., it’s also an attempt to reset and breathe fresh life into the $4.8 billion franchise.

“Rise of the Beasts” also earned $110 million from 68 international markets, giving it a $170.5 million global debut.

Critics didn’t love the movie, but that’s also par for the course for this franchise. Overall, Rotten Tomatoes aggregated a less-than-fresh 52% rating.

“The problem with “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is the same problem faced by all of the installments — balancing the humanity with the metal,” wrote AP’s Mark Kennedy in his review.

In fact, the only movie that did get a fresh rating was “Bumblebee,” which also made the least money of all of them. Audiences (62% male) were more positive, giving “Rise of the Beasts” an A- CinemaScore. According to PostTrak surveys, general audiences gave it 4.5 stars out of 5.

While a $60.5 million opening might not seem like enough to support a $200 million production budget, “Rise of the Beasts” is a movie that will make most of its money abroad. Since 2011’s “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” international ticket sales have accounted for at least 70% of the global box office total. Two of the seven movies, “Dark of the Moon” and “Age of Extinction,” from 2014, made over $1 billion each.

“To have a No. 1 debut is impressive given the formidable competition from ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ which had a much stronger opening than anyone anticipated and in its second weekend is a really powerful player,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore.

Sony’s “Spider-Verse” sequel fell about 54%. In just two weeks, it’s already surpassed the total domestic box office of the first film with $225.4 million in ticket sales and become the highest grossing Sony Pictures Animation release. With terrific reviews in its arsenal, “Spider-Verse” is likely destined for a longer life at the box office, too.

Third place went to Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” which earned $23 million in its third weekend, where it’s playing in 4,320 locations in the U.S. and Canada. The live-action movie has made $414.2 million globally to date.

Two other Walt Disney Co. releases rounded out the top five, with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” in fourth with $7 million in its sixth weekend and “The Boogeyman,” in weekend two, in fifth place with $6.9 million.

While many of the films in the top 10 are known brands or IP, one original property, A24’s ” Past Lives,” is making waves in the specialty space. Playing on just 26 screens in its second weekend, Celine Song’s romance made $520,772 for a stunning $20,030 per screen average. It expands nationwide on June 23.

The summer movie season should continue to pick up heat with major new films coming nearly every week. Next weekend family audiences get Pixar’s “Elemental,” while the superhero crowd can catch up with “The Flash.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” $60.5 million.

2. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $55.4 million.

3. “The Little Mermaid,” $22.3 million.

4. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $7 million.

5. “The Boogeyman,” $6.9 million.

6. “Fast X,” $5.2 million.

7. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $2.1 million.

8. “About My Father,” $845,000.

9. “The Machine,” $575,000.

10. “Past Lives,” $520,772.
    …

New location? No script? No rehearsal? No sweat. 

Welcome to the 2023 Tony Awards, a show with an extra jolt of electricity this time due to the Hollywood writers’ strike. 

Unpredictability has been inserted into what is usually an upbeat, safe and chummy night. The strike has left Broadway’s biggest night without a script, in a new venue far from the theater district. 

A 1 1/2-hour pre-show on Pluto TV from 6:30-8 p.m. Eastern, hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin, will then throw to the three-hour main event led by Ariana DeBose on CBS and Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. Eastern. 

A total of 26 Tony Awards will be handed out Sunday for a season that had 40 new productions — 15 musicals, 24 plays and one special engagement during the first post-pandemic full season. 

Broadway had some very serious works this season, like the new plays “Cost of Living” and “The Kite Runner” and revivals of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Death of a Salesman,” led by Wendell Pierce. A revival of “Parade,” about the lynching of a Jewish businessman starring Ben Platt, was also well received. 

The season also had an element of the fantastical in a puppet-heavy adaptation of the lifeboat book “Life of Pi,” satire in “The Thanksgiving Play” and pure silliness in “Shucked” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong.” 

“Just like the country and the world is resetting, I think our storytelling and how we get our stories out there is resetting as well,” said Kenny Leon, who directed “Topdog/ Underdog” and “Ohio State Murders” this season. “The positive I take away is the variety of the material, from a Black-led ‘Death of a Salesman’ to new plays like ‘KPOP’ and ‘Ain’t No Mo” and ‘Leopoldstadt’ and ‘Prima Facie.’ I felt the diversity in almost every way — racially, generationally.” 

“Some Like It Hot,” a musical adaptation of the classic cross-dressing movie comedy that starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, goes into the night with a leading 13 Tony Award nominations. For the top crown, it is pitted against “& Juliet,” which reimagines “Romeo and Juliet” and adds some of the biggest pop hits of the past few decades, “New York, New York,” which combined two generations of Broadway royalty in John Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and “Shucked,” a lightweight musical comedy studded with corn puns. 

The critical musical darling and intimate, funny-sad “Kimberly Akimbo,” with Victoria Clark playing a teen who ages four times faster than the average human, rounds out the best musical category. 

The best new play category is a competition among Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, and “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” set at a Black family’s barbecue in the modern South. 

The rest of the category is made up of “Ain’t No Mo,'” the short-lived but critical applauded work by playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Between Riverside and Crazy” and “Cost of Living,” parallel stories of two caretakers and their respective patients. 

The answers to some intriguing questions pend: Can Audra McDonald (“Ohio State Murders”) extend her record as the most awarded actor in Tony Awards history? Will either J. Harrison Ghee (“Some Like It Hot”) or Alex Newell (“Shucked”) become the first nonbinary person to win a Tony for acting? (Last year, “Six” composer and writer Toby Marlow became the first out nonbinary winner.) 

Performances are slated from the casts of “Camelot,” “Into the Woods,” “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Parade,” “Shucked,” “Some Like It Hot” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” 

In addition, Joaquina Kalukango — the winner of last year’s Tony for best lead actress in a musical — will sing, as will the casts from “A Beautiful Noise” and “Funny Girl.” That means there’ll be plenty of star power, from Josh Groban to Lea Michele. 

It will all take place at the United Palace Theatre, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan — a new venue for the ceremony, many kilometers from Times Square and the theater district. 
…

In the heart of Maryland, the Frederick Keys baseball team introduced its newest player last week, one unlike any other the team has seen in its 35-year history.

Dennis Kasumba, 18-year-old catcher. From Uganda.

Kasuma recently turned what seemed like an impossible dream into a reality, making the leap from the rough fields of his home country to the manicured grass of American professional baseball stadiums. For those following his journey, he stands as a symbol of resilience.

Just three days after flying to the U.S., Kasumba took his first official steps onto an American baseball diamond on June 1 with the Keys. Batting in the ninth inning, he struck out on three pitches, but was able to make contact on the first pitch, fouling it off.

The young player who once honed his skills on muddy streets using old tires and oil drums in Uganda, now finds himself playing high-quality amateur league baseball, one step below the professional minor leagues.

“My first game was very, very good because I faced a pitcher who threw 95 [miles per hour – about 153 kph], yeah. And I hit it,” Kasumba told VOA. “I need to hit because I am here to hit, to show my skill, I am ready to hit. I want to show I can hit. I want to show them I can throw.”

Kasumba’s story extends beyond his on-field skills. His journey from Uganda to the U.S. has captured the imagination of thousands on social media who have marveled at his intense workouts. In one, he practices his catching drills with a tire strapped to his back.

One of these admirers was Joshua Williams, an American attorney and baseball enthusiast who helped make Kasumba’s dream a reality.

“It all just started because I saw a video of him hitting off of a tire, hitting a baseball off of the tire with a Coke bottle,” Williams said. “So, I reached out to him on Facebook, started talking to him. We talked about his dreams and aspirations.”

It took Kasumba almost two years to get a contract with an American team and several attempts at the U.S. Embassy in Uganda to secure a travel visa.

Williams and some friends intensified their efforts after his third visa request was denied.

“We started making our application a lot stronger. Several immigration attorneys at my firm jumped in and they were like, ‘Let’s figure this out,’” Williams told VOA. “And so, we just kind of put our heads together. So, he was denied on Friday. And on Tuesday we got a call from the embassy, and they said, ‘Be there Thursday at 2 o’clock.’”

Kasumba is not the first Ugandan to try his hand at baseball. Last year, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed two Ugandans, Umar Male and Ben Serunkuma, to contracts. Both have played some games in the low minor leagues.

In his debut, Kasumba showed that he too may have a future in baseball, and also underscored his desire to learn.

“When I saw my pitchers throwing in 88, 95, 98. I thought, ‘Can I hit these guys? They are faster.’ But when I got to my first batting, in my heart I said, ‘I can hit, because I believe in myself,’” he said.

For Frederick Keys Manager Rene Rivera, Kasumba is already giving the team a jolt.

“This guy has so much energy, he brings so much to the other guys, you know, he’s hardworking,” Rivera said. “We all saw some of his videos on Instagram, the passion he puts behind him so he can be good. And I think that the players already see that, they come and work.”

Kasumba, who grew up an orphan in Wakiso, Uganda, is determined to make the most of the opportunity.

“There are a lot of kids, uh, people calling my name, my jersey number: Kasumba! Kasumba! Kasumba! This is my first time, to have someone asking me for a signature, photos,” he said. “I was so surprised. It makes me feel very, very good. I think I am blessed.”

The months ahead will bring challenges and opportunities alike for Kasumba. And to face these head-on, the young man has a few people he can count on, starting with his manager.

“We helped him come over here. And now he’s here,” Rivera told VOA. “So, I think that my job is to be his role model, to show him what I know and what I know from many years playing baseball, help him get to the next. I think that’s my main goal right now.”

Catching is baseball’s most complicated and physically arduous position, but Rivera can teach Kasumba a lot – he spent 13 years as a catcher in the major leagues.

As Kasumba steps onto the field, bat in hand, he believes he’s not just playing for the Frederick Keys — he’s playing for his country, his thousands of online supporters around the world and every dreamer who’s ever dared to dream big.
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