A ‘Hamilton’ Star Discovers Lunatic Comedy With ‘Girls5eva’
The New York Times
Renée Elise Goldsberry plays a delusional diva reuniting a girl group in a music biz satire executive produced by Tina Fey. It’s her midcareer moment.
It could have happened in her early 20s, fresh from college, with a face like a cherub and lungs like a hurricane, when she booked an understudy role in a Broadway-bound show that never arrived. Or 10 years later, when she moved to Los Angeles and sang with a jazz ensemble. Or five years after that, back in New York for a run on “One Life to Live,” or in the decade following, spent bounding between plays and short TV stints. But Renée Elise Goldsberry had her first decisive success later, at 44. In 2015 she astonished as Angelica, the eldest Schuyler sister, in the musical “Hamilton,” earning a Tony Award and a share in a Grammy for her work. Independent movies followed, plus a series regular role on the Netflix sci-fi show “Altered Carbon.” And now, at 50, Goldsberry is a breakout star of the Peacock comedy “Girls5eva” as Wickie, a member of a Spice Girls clone 20 years defunct who reunite after a young rapper named Lil Stinker samples their one hit. As Wickie, “the fierce one,” Goldsberry gets to sing, dance and display a knack for lunatic comedy. She fakes a fempire, crab walks into a Duane Reade, pilots a motorized bed, seduces a young influencer and shoots geese off an airport runway. Her catchphrase? “Cease and desist, bitch!”
In the months leading up to the election, Donald J. Trump sat for a slew of casual and unconventional conversations with podcasters and streamers. We watched them all.
In the last year, museums, book festivals, arts journals and other organizations have experienced bitter discord over what qualifies as tolerable speech about the conflict and its combatants.
John Krasinski may not have the raw energy of Glen Powell, but a collaboration with the stylist Ilaria Urbinati has paid huge dividends.
The star of Jacques Audiard’s showy new musical about a trans Mexican crime boss, Karla Sofía Gascón, adds soul to the melodrama. Zoe Saldaña also shines.
The powerhouse soprano, already a company stalwart at 37, still seems to be figuring out a character whose moods change on a dime.
The artist’s works are the subject of two New York shows, at the Metropolitan Museum and the Jack Shainman Gallery.
The YouTube star has a coffee company, a podcast and a new collaboration with Warby Parker. One thing she isn’t doing much? Posting.
The FX series strives to capture the complexity of its subject: the long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.
Nora Holt was a pioneer of Chicago’s Black classical music scene. A friend of Josephine Baker, she later became a blues singer in Parisian nightclubs.
In the film “Conclave,” the costume designer Lisy Christl clothed an army of catty cardinals, from their miters down to their quirky glasses.
The sprawling PST festival of more than 70 exhibitions doesn’t quite live up to its theme of art and science colliding. But there is a handful of impressive entries.