The glitz and glamour and hedonism and heartbreak of Moulin Rouge are coming to the Museum of Broadway for a special exhibit celebrating the 10-time Tony Award-winning Best Musical.
The new exhibit, created exclusively for The Museum of Broadway, invites fans to step into the glamorous underworld of Belle Époque Paris. “Moulin Rouge! The Musical: Spectacular, Spectacular” opens May 17 and runs through September 8, 2024; it’s included with museum admission.
Expect to see dazzling costumes while learning how costumers transformed sketches and swatches into eye-catching gowns and bodices fit for the Sparkling Diamond herself. You’ll also see set installations—and even get a chance to sit on Satine’s luxe chaise lounge. Before you go, leave your personal mark on a heart-themed wall.
Photograph: By Evan Zimmerman / Courtesy of Museum of Broadway
This is the fourth installation created exclusively for The Museum of Broadway, following up on “SIX: The Royal Gallery,” “ALL THAT JAZZ: The Legacy of Chicago The Musical,” and “The American Theatre As Seen by Hirschfeld.”
“We are thrilled to bring the beauty of the international smash-hit Moulin Rouge! The Musical to life at The Museum of Broadway,” Julie Boardman, co-founder of The Museum of Broadway, said in a press release. “We are excited to spotlight the glamour and grandeur of this iconic show just in time to celebrate its 5th anniversary on Broadway, and transport museum-goers into the Spectacular, Spectacular world of Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”
Photograph: By Darren Cox / Courtesy of Museum of Broadway
If you haven’t been to the Museum of Broadway yet, it’s definitely worth your time. This female-founded museum is the world’s first-ever permanent museum dedicated to the storied history and legendary artists, creators and stars of Broadway musicals and plays, past and present. Inside, you’ll get to go behind the scenes, learning how shows go from idea to the stage. It highlights more than 500 productions across three floors of exhibits. Opening in late 2022, it’s also one of NYC’s newest museums.
The museum’s new Moulin Rouge exhibit builds upon the history of powerhouse exhibitions the museum has already created in its time in Midtown so far. “Moulin Rouge! The Musical: Spectacular, Spectacular” is presented in partnership with Chase Freedom.
See it the Museum of Broadway located at 145 W 45th St, between Sixth and Seventh Aves, open from 10am to 10pm daily. Tickets cost $39–$49.
I’m starting off straight up corny by saying I’ve been a “transparent soul” with anyone who’d listen to me about my anticipation of WILLOW’s sixth and latest solo LP, which finally dropped May 3rd.
My owning of my corniness, turns out, totally vibes with the messages about the freedom to express & accept your feelings, warts and all, coursing throughout the #greatalbum “empathogen” (2024).
Not only do I absolutely love how WILLOW wrestles lyrically (and musically) with Big Ideas such as existence, ego, anxiety, pain, self-sabotage, fear and love, she does so in such soul-felt, sophisticated & surprising ways, I have to compliment the precise production by WILLOW and her fellow producers Chris Greatti, Eddie Benjamin and Jon Batiste.
There are myriad sounds, echo effects and vocal arrangements involved in each track, even the stripped down ones, but none ever feel overdone — just purposeful and fresh. It’s as if WILLOW threw her hands into the cosmic river of music, tapped into its source, and allowed it to flow freely through her.
There’s a lot going on technically in the music I can’t speak on with any authority (e.g. the multiple time signatures, turnarounds, uncommon verse/chorus structures) but what I can talk about is how it hits the ears and how it feels — free, unexpected, relatable, or, in one word — embracing.
WILLOW is clearly a student of music and draws on varied influences (her IG post of her working her voice out to Ella Fitzgerald’s legendary scat on “How High The Moon” blew my mind a few months ago and still lives rent free in what’s left of my head), but right now she’s reminding me most of the great Esperanza Spalding, particularly during her “Emily’s D+Evolution” (2016) jazz/pop/rock era.
WILLOW’s own pop/rock/punk/soul explorations from the past few years also inform her current jazz/funk/fusion present (and hopefully future).
The singles released from the LP, “symptom of life” and “bigfeelings”, are the best ambassadors for this tight 12-song offering which literally begins with what sounds like an off-mic Jon Batiste screeching, as if being born, “I love everything!”
(BTW, could Batiste be on more of a roll? He also co-produces and co-writes “Ameriican Requiem”, the opening track on COWBOY CARTER. If I’m an artist, I’m thinkin get this man to help kick off my LP, stat, cuz greatness will surely follow!)
After Batiste, we hear steady rimshots underneath WILLOW’s “ah oo ah ah” breaths until she sings “I live my life” — and I didn’t conjure my previous cosmic music river metaphor out of nowhere as WILLOW then sings “I trust this river to carry me / home” in this mystifyingly captivating LP opener titled “home”.
There are stops, starts, some cascading piano from Batiste (which sounds like a river)… I mean, wow. On first listen, this track made me think “I have no idea where this LP is going but I dig how it feels and I’m down for this journey.”
BTW, I think every choice WILLOW makes is purposeful with this LP so when I asked myself, “Why 12 songs?”, I looked up the number 12 and in magical symbolism, 12 represents perfection, entirety, one cycle ending and another beginning, one built on harmony and positive transformation. (And FWIW, almost every one of Esperanza Spalding’s LPs is comprised of 12 tracks.)
We then go into the 90-second “ancient girl” as if we’re going back to the beginning of time — with acoustic guitar doubling the melody, Willow chant/sings “girl — irl-irl gi-rlrlrlrlrl” in a way that sounds like it’s coming from a primordial, ancestral source.
From there the LP glides into “symptom of life”, the first familiar-sounding tune (in terms of modern song structure), its delicate opening piano melody quickly counterpointed by halting, arrhythmic drums and ethereal backing vocals — thus making it gorgeous, challenging, and gorgeously challenging.
From this point on, “empathogen” cooks with place-your-favorite-accelerant here — “the fear is not real” has layered vocals in its last third that are evocative some of Beyoncé’s most potent vocal stacks on COWBOY CARTER (i.e. “My Rose” and “Amen”); the minimal “pain for fun” featuring St. Vincent delivers mightily on what the intensity of (and need for) intimacy can feel like:
“no words 1&2” is another under 90-second wonder that despite its brevity is a fulfulling aural treat; “down” is even shorter — 1:11 — but it’s also its own singular piece of beauty that feels spiritually conjured from the DNA of Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Bitter” LP.
The kinetic, driving rock/funk/emo exploration of anxiety and intrusive thoughts in “run!” comes next, and in the track following it, the more wistful, indie pop/rock-sounding “between i and she”, WILLOW attempts to sort out what it’s like when you struggle to find the space in your head between the first and third person where you can just be yourself.
WILLOW evokes yet another genre-blending, introspective musical foremother on “I know that face.” The rhythmic melody of the song’s first verse “I’ve been / searching / for what / I don’t know / Maybe / I’m too / urgent / to know it all” brings to mind the first verse from the Janet Jackson track “My Need”: “I know / you know / what exactly’s on my mind / I can’t help / myself / part of how I feel tonight”.
I don’t know if this is an intentional hat tip, musically or otherwise (Jackson’s brilliant sixth studio LP “The Velvet Rope” explores similar themes of self-worth and self-doubt), but even if it isn’t WILLOW’s ability to artfully express interior emotions and thoughts through lyric and sound is mature, creative and sits perfectly in this generational continuum.
The piano that’s been cascading in moments throughout “empathogen” is highlighted in the intro of its final, explosive, monster track “bigfeelings”. This song sums up “empathogen” perfectly in its accelerated, fluctuating tempos, its chaotic/melodic bass & piano lines and in its chorus/verse of “I have such big feelings / can’t shut ’em down without a sound / i have such big feelings / can’t shut ’em down or let ’em out / i know I’m not fine / but yes i say I’m fine…”
“bigfeelings” is a gripping, absorbing, all-around expression of individual and collective anxiety and not knowing what to do with all of your emotions, because expressing them sometimes isn’t “acceptable.” But if you shut them down and don’t express them, it can cause just as much if not more harm.
Lastly, I have to give a special shout out to my personal favorite, “false self”, the fifth and possibly funkiest, most danceable track on the LP. Its lyrics are as potent as the groove and just totally nail the inner struggle with self-esteem and growth that people at all ages and stages can relate to: “I wanna crash / feel so attacked / on a mad dash in my own brain / I’m so attached / I’m so detached / Yeah, I don’t know / it’s all the same / Am I insane? / Feel the answer change each day / Feel the answer change / I don’t wanna change / But I need to change / Feel the answer change each day / Feel the answer change / I don’t wanna change / But I need to change / How do I need to change? / Ask myself the same every day”.
It makes total sense that “false self” is so danceable, because this is the dance we do with ourselves internally.
The LP’s title and cover imagery are teeming with metaphoric levels, too. The word “empathogen” is defined as a drug that induces experiences of emotional communion, oneness as well as feelings of empathy and benevolence.
And the LP cover (shown above the headline) is WILLOW, bare shouldered, hair styled in an afro (aka, a “natural”), smiling with a grill (in a way that you’re not quite sure if it’s from joy or turmoil) against a light brown backdrop that matches her skin color.
I ordered the vinyl version of this LP via willowsmith.com, and the vinyl itself is the same shade of brown — visually signifying “this is me in my natural state, this is me in my skin”, and at every turn the whole “warts and all, I feel in all kinds of ways that I wrestle with and that’s okay” theme of the music residing inside “empathogen”.
If all this weren’t enough, WILLOW’s recent appearance on NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concert series with her crack band featuring Liso Lee on guitar & vocals, Zach Tenorio on keys, Mohini Dey on bass, and Taylor “The Pocket Queen” Gordon on drums promises a live concert experience that will extend and expand on what is an already absorbing and impressive LP.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic to some (though it feels right to me, so I’m going with it — WILLOW has taught me that!), “empathogen” is to WILLOW what “Music of My Mind” was to Stevie Wonder — a breakthrough lyrical and musical expression of self, soul (and, by extension, the universal) — and a grand overture to what promises to be even more innovative, insightful, mind/heart-altering music to come.
Wilson Tang knowsNew York dim sum: after taking over the city’s oldest operating dim sum den, Chinatown’s Nom Wah Tea Parlor, in 2010, he transformed the usually a.m.-only food experience into a proper dinnertime destination. Though he has since left that restaurant (he still owns other Nom Wah outposts, including Nom Wah Nolita), Tang’s latest venture explores another beloved culinary tradition: the Hong Kong-style diner, known as a cha chaan teng, which translated to “tea restaurant.” Think of it like a good old greasy spoon, a casual, affordable restaurant serving both Hong Kong cuisine and Western food.
Operating every Sunday and Monday through June 16, Tang’s pop-up Cha Cha Tang will take over John McDonald’s Hancock St. space at 257 Avenue of the Americas and Downing Street. There, the restaurateur will bring his playful takes on the Canto-Western comfort food he grew up eating in Hong Kong’s cha chaan tengs to New York.
The six-week pop-up will see chefs Doron Wong and Akiko Thurnauer in the kitchen, who will be cooking up dishes like a Cantonese roast duck sandwich on a sesame hero ($26), a Cobb salad with char siu pork ($21), milk bread French toast stuffed with taro cream ($19), General Tso’s fried chicken with charred broccoli ($33), and macaroni soup with Spam wontons and bone broth ($18).
There will, of course, be dumplings and other dim sum-y items, like scallion pancakes crowned with caviar and crème fraîche ($22), pork and shrimp siu mai skewers ($16), crispy turnip cakes with hoisin mayonnaise, and chicken dumpling gratin with sawtooth pesto and tomato sauce ($15). And large groups can partake in a convenient family-style menu for $88 per person.
Reservations are now open for the Cha Cha Tang pop-up over on Hancock St.’s Resy page, but seatings for the limited-time concept are already going fast so move quick! Check out the full menu and photos of some of the dishes below:
Brittney Griner continues her efforts to settle into a normal routine following her release from a Russian prison 17 months ago.
Life isn’t what it once was for the perennial WNBA All-Star.
The 6-foot-8 center looks different and has different priorities. Gone are her familiar dreadlocks that couldn’t be maintained during her incarceration. She regularly sees a therapist to help her cope after being imprisoned for 10 months. And since her release, Griner has been an advocate for the return of other Americans detained overseas.
She has met with President Joe Biden twice since her release, including once last month in Phoenix.
“Got to talk to him about a couple of people and just keep it on the forefront of everyone’s mind,” the Phoenix Mercury star said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “You want to get exposure and that keeps it on the forefront of people’s minds. Keep people accountable.”
Griner was detained at a Moscow airport in February 2022. Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis.
She shares details about the harrowing experience in her new book — “Coming Home” — which comes out Tuesday.
Griner hopes one takeaway for anyone who reads the book will be a vivid picture of what detainees have to endure. She said it’s why it took her all of last season to write it with Michelle Burford.
“I didn’t leave anything out from the detainment, to being over there, the conditions. As much as we could fit into a book, we basically did,” Griner said. “People will be shocked at some of the things.
“I hope it brings a little bit more of an understanding to the conditions that detainees go through.”
Griner says it is important people have a clear picture of what it’s like for those Americans not home yet, including Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, so that no one gives up the fight.
“It took everyone to come together to bring me home,” she said. Government officials “have to make really hard decisions.”
Griner, who first met President Biden at the White House Correspondent’s dinner in 2023 a few months after her return to the U.S., said she and her WNBA teammates must keep the momentum going to get everyone home.
“How are we going to do it? Bringing in families, playing videos, give them airtime?” she said. “Maybe someone that doesn’t know, sees (the book) and they write a letter to Congress that tips over the scale to get someone home.”
Griner said her days of playing basketball overseas during the WNBA offseason are over.
Though many WNBA players still play in international leagues to supplement their league salaries, Griner said she is done, except with USA Basketball. She hopes to be on the Olympic team at the Paris Games this summer, and the odds are in her favor that will happen.
Griner had played in China for a few years during the WNBA offseason, before making the move to Russia — where she had played since 2015 before her arrest.
It’s not just her ordeal in Russia, however, that is going to keep her home. Griner’s wife, Cherelle, is expecting the couple’s first child.
“The only time I’ll go overseas is with Team USA,” Griner said. “I need to be in the states. About to be a parent. Last thing I want to do is be in and out of my kid’s life. I want to be there for everything. I don’t want to uproot my family and take them overseas with me. It’s too much.”
Griner, who has been an advocate for mental health for the past decade, said she sees a therapist regularly — something she did for several years before she went to Russia — and it helps her process what she endured while in prison.
“They are instrumental to my mental health,” Griner said about her sessions. “Everyone can benefit from having someone to talk to. Someone outside of their every day life. It just helps to have a different perspective on life from someone.
“That way if you do feel nervous or struggling with something, it’s very beneficial.”
The 33-year-old took a mental health break for several days last summer during the WNBA season, missing three games. She’ll begin her 12th year in the league May 14.
Griner is looking forward to it after the welcome she received in her return last year. One of the only positives that Griner will take away from her ordeal was the outpouring of support she received from people in the form of letters they wrote to her in prison.
“The letters were amazing from the fans, teammates, opponents, GMs, they all meant so much to me,” she said. “It was very dark at times, especially going through the trial. When I was in isolation for weeks, it was an emotional rollercoaster and those letters made me remember that I wasn’t forgotten.”
Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga today shared some important tips for college students to keep in mind as the school year ends. “The end of the school year can be an exciting, but stressful time for college students and we want to make sure that students, like all New Yorkers,…
Little Island, the beautiful 2.4-acre elevated park that sits above the Hudson River on Manhattan’s west side, just announced the lineup of star-studded performances happening throughout the summer season—and the curation does not disappoint.
This year, the programming will include nine commissioned world premieres of live performances that will kick of on June 1 and close out on September 22, spanning the realms of music, dance, theater, opera, comedy, jazz, pop and funk.
Just as exciting is the debut of The Glade, a brand new cocktail lounge opening on the island that will be offering a selection of beers, wines, cocktails and mocktails to be enjoyed anywhere throughout the park. The bar will also be the site of a few shows, including a cabaret act by Justin Vivian Bond and a live oyster shucking demonstration by Robert LaValva.
The season kicks off with a show produced by the legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp, featuring original music by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield. The new full-length piece, “How Long Blues,” previews on June 1, 2 and 5 and will then run from June 6 to 23.
“Robeson,” a work created and performed by bass baritone Davóne Tines and co-created and directed by Zack Winokur, will center on the life story of musician Paul Robeson and will run from June 27 through the 29.
The summer program will conclude on September 22 with “The Marriage of Figaro,” an original play in which outré opera icon Anthony Roth Costanzo will sing every leading role.
All of the scheduled performances will take place at The Amph, the park’s 200-seat venue.
Price-wise, all tickets run $25, but there will be plenty of smaller performances throughout the season that will be free to the public.
“We are planning, season by season, to offer the people of New York City a nightly party with great art, great food and drinks, great sunsets, and great views,” said Zack Winokur, Little Island’s Producing Artistic Director, in a statement. “By opening with a new dance, closing with a reimagined opera, and filling the intervening weeks with works of all different disciplines and scales, we are offering audiences an astonishingly broad array of work in a relatively condensed amount of time.”
You can learn more about Little Island’s full summer programming and get advance tickets to the bigger performances on their website.
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Let’s be honest: QC NY, the luxury Italian spa that opened on Governors Island a couple of years ago and entirely revamped the previously underused neighborhood, is pretty awesome as it is—but things are about to get even better.
QC NY just announced that it is working on a major expansion set to debut this July. The 15,000-square-foot, multimillion dollar addition will bring along with it new sensory saunas, waterfalls, a salt room, a lavender room, an ice room and a relaxation room with waterbeds, according to an official press release.
There’s more: Casa QC is a new 5,000-square-foot building that will house a 142-seat bistro serving both soft and alcoholic drinks plus Italian fare “from artisanal gelato to aperitivo trays with delicacies liked aged pecorino and taralli crackers,” according to the release.
Rendering: Courtesy of QC New York
If you’re a fan of the spa’s currently operating eatery, Flora Café, worry not: the restaurant will stay in place as well.
The remarkable destination will expand once more in the spring of 2025, when a third building will be completed, bringing QC NY’s footprint to a staggering 100,000 square feet.
Since first opening back in 2022, QC NY has already undergone a revamp of sorts: last summer, two outdoor infinity pools debuted on site, each one featuring proprietary underwater hydro seats and loungers that massage, relax and increase lymphatic circulation.
Rendering: Courtesy of QC New York
In addition to the slew of new offerings, spa guests will continue to be able to access a vast variety of indoor amenities, including steam baths, relaxation rooms, themed saunas, foot baths, Vichy showers and much more—all the while taking in views of the New York Harbor.
A ferry ride away from Manhattan, QC NY has truly transformed the stretch of land that it calls home—expanding the scope of interest of both New Yorkers and tourists while in New York. We’re happy to hear that the people responsible for said changes continue to work towards additional offerings.
By HWM Partner Incontinence, a medical condition marked by the involuntary loss of bladder or bowel control, affects millions of individuals worldwide, spanning all ages and backgrounds. This condition not only has physical implications but also affects the emotional and social well-being of those who experience it. In this article, we will delve into the…
