"A young tech entrepreneur who recently moved to Florida got upset when he ran into obstacles while trying to build a house on the habitat for the endangered Florida scrub-jay. So he filed a lawsuit attempting to strip the bird of its federal protection."

"Schmigadoon!" has landed where it's always belonged: on a Broadway stage. I liked it a lot. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/t...

Not enough space to include our Catan chat in my Robert Aramayo piece. His new movie, "I Swear," is less a biopic than a very British social dramedy à la "Full Monty" or "Pride." And "LOTR: The Rings of Power," where he plays Elrond, comes back in a few months! www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/m...

That headline is no overstatement. Sound on for this great article about the Finnish singer Vilma Jää: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/a...

When will the NYT Spelling Bee finally accept “incel”??

By my count there are three former SNL cast members in musicals in NYC right now: Rachel Dratch in “Rocky Horror Show,” Ana Gasteyer in “Schmigadoon” and Alex Moffat in “Bigfoot.”

This morning's book post. The English translation of Aymeric Leroy's exhaustive history of the Canterbury scene has been a long time coming (ten years in fact), but here it finally is - all 643 pages of it!

Jack O'Brien won his Tonys for directing (inc. for "Hairspray" and "The Coast of Utopia") but it's as an actor that he's slaying "The Comeback" on HBO. We talked about that and a lot more on our latest episode. marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/wait-what-...

Nathalie Baye, one of French cinema’s support beams for the past 50+ years, has died. www.lemonde.fr/en/obituarie...

Billionaire Vincent Bolloré is a scourge on French media and by extension French politics and society, with an influence comparable to Rupert Murdoch's in the English speaking world. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

The Majestic Theater’s bathrooms aren’t ready for the onslaught of women at “Beaches.”

this is fucking unreal stuff from Noah Wyle on the magic of The Pitt. www.gq.com/story/noah-w...

Very David Cromer touch at the end of “The Fear of 13,” with a dog acting as the bacon of “Our Town.” Unfortunately it feels contrived rather than earned this time around.

In our latest podcast (for paying subs), we have a blind item: a show I recently saw that was so bad that I didn't say what it was to protect the guilty. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out… marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/wait-how-m...

I live nearby and can testify to how crossing Grand Army Plaza now can be like running a gauntlet, especially since the number of cars going through red lights is staggeringly high.

“You aren't our customers, your bosses' bosses are. It's not our job to look after you or your family. We're just here to make money, and make you obsolete. “ I recommend checking out replacement.ai

Good library haul today. The one with the craziest life isn’t the one who was in a band with Courtney Love!

This made my day: P!NK is going to host the 2026 Tony Awards.

I’m seeing “Death of a Salesman” today and “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” tomorrow: perfect double bill for Easter! Even better would be a mashup in which Willy Loman goes to the Heaviside Layer.

I’m going to repost this at regular intervals.

This thread about the research/writing process and its relationship to AI is spot-on.

I love writing mood boards, explainers and behind-the-scenes articles, and this one about “Tristan und Isolde” at the Met has a bit of everything: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/a...

Yes, there are times when Lilli Cooper and Jason Kravits decide very quickly to get rid of some guest spellers in the hit revival of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." This and more from these two very funny people in our latest episode! marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/peter-was-...

There's a long, bad journalistic tradition: All conservative grass-roots political movements are fascinating heartland phenomena, all progressive grass-roots political movements are ineffectual bleating. This one is written off as powered by white female college grads--the wine-moms slur, basically.

Hear hear.

Weird to think that Liza Minnelli and Dusty Springfield were respectively only 43 and 50 when they made their comeback records with the Pet Shop Boys. At the time they felt like ancient ghosts of showbiz past. The equivalents now (in age if not in stature) would be Cheryl Tweedy and Emma Bunton.

Chances are you haven’t heard of the band the Nightingales but the doc about them, or rather frontman Robert Lloyd, is a sheer delight. Free on Plex! l.plex.tv/KWwBnfmr

Good note.

A friend was offering her great Brooklyn apartment for free in exchange for feeding her cat in June, and not one of my European friends wanted to come here. A few years ago they would all have jumped on the opportunity. (She found someone — from the US.)

When will we stop pretending that “Succession” and “The White Lotus” skewered the rich? They did no such thing, merely delighted in their foibles. One of the ways to stop glorifying wealth is to stop using rich characters to tell stories. The vast rest of us are just as interesting. Imagine that.

“Project Hail Mary”: What’s going on in Sandra Hüller’s head? Is she running lines from “The Maids” or something?

The only reason to watch “Rooster” on HBO is Danielle Deadwyler, who turns out to be a perfect rom-com protagonist — a side of her talent I hadn’t seen before and I’m so there for it. (But boo for yet another handsome, bumbling British cad that the female characters apparently find irresistible.)

"the speed with which US democracy is being dismantled is unprecedented in modern history." www.theguardian.com/world/commen...

Steven Boyer and Adam Chanler-Berat devouring a filet-o-fish in "Mother Russia" is for the ages. We discussed that scene on the podcast, but what really made me reel was Boyer informing me that Laurie Metcalf had done "Trevor" in LA! What? Just listen! marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/adam-chanl...

Not crazy about the Broadway iteration of "Every Brilliant Thing": Does it really need to be performed at breakneck speed? It's as if the show doesn't want us to notice its lapses into mawkishness. And the sound is appalling: half of the shout-outs from the audience are unintelligible.

The news of Maya Rudolph stepping into "Oh, Mary!" deserves this many exclamations marks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/t...

Gia Kourlas with a sensible take on that Timothée Chalamet dance/opera kerfuffle www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/a...

Every other page of Marc Shaiman’s memoir is sending me to YouTube. Today’s discovery: this 1985 skit in which Bette Midler finds many, many different ways to ask “why bother?” youtu.be/vwynMCSAFFs?...

Been doing a bit of traveling lately (first vacation since August — phew) but still managed to wrap up this preview of "Starstruck." Indigo Girl power! www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/t...

The Ketchum, Idaho, library is one of my new favorite places in the world. #library

Flying Southwest for the first time since the change to assigned seats and they’re acting like we’re all new to that system: “your group number is on your boarding pass,” “look for the seat number that’s on your pass.” Guys, we know how it works!

Aside from every other issue this appalling account raises, it makes me wonder — as I have for months — how worried the NYC theater ecosystem in particular is about the international audience and artists from abroad choosing not to risk the trip and staying home. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Between the sabotaging of the Kennedy Center and the sabotaging of arts coverage at WaPo, the Washington, DC, theater scene is in turmoil. We talked to the good folks at DC Theater Arts to get an idea of what's going on. marksvincentelli.substack.com/p/dc-theater...

Excellent Rachel Donadio article about Malaparte in @nybooks.com

Oh, “Ponies,” you take place early 1977 — why do you have a character put on Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone,” which came out in 1978?

Tonight: Heartbeat Opera's take on Massenet's "Manon," with a book adapted by Jacob Ashworth and Rory Pelsue, and new arrangements by Dan Schlosberg — who is so busy, I have no idea when he sleeps. www.heartbeatopera.org/manon

The pants that Emporio Armani designed for the Italian team are the single ugliest garment at the 2026 Olympics: baggy, pleated cargo horrors beamed from the darkest recesses of the 1990s. Not a single athlete looks good in them.

If you’re casually going to describe some people as “trailer trash” in a fancy magazine, maybe don’t. Besides, the real trash these days has many mansions and yachts.

Raúl Esparza is returning to Broadway next season in "Galileo" — with a score cowritten by Zoe Sarnak, whom I profiled a few months ago: www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/t...

As an avid follower of alpine ski racing all season long, I welcome all the people who tune in once every four years! AMA and I’ll do my best to explain. Like, Super G and GS? Whaaa?