Samuel D. Hunter
Darren Aronofsky adapted Hunter’s play The Whale for the screen. The playwright’s latest project, A Bright New Boise, premieres Off-Broadway next week
Ottessa Moshfegh
The novelist behind My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Eileen—plus its screen adaptation, premiering at Sundance—reveals her travel routine
A Rebel with a Cause
In the midst of protests in Iran, a London show by the artist Soheila Sokhanvari spotlights the country’s early feminist icons
An Afternoon with Thomas Mallon
The author and editor of Gore Vidal discusses the influence of Mary McCarthy, his latest book, and the upcoming TV adaptation of his 2007 novel, Fellow Travelers
Marriage Stories
Works about marital strife made by artist duo Ed and Nancy Kienholz go on view at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Torch Relit
Lise Davidsen’s 2019 Bayreuth debut in Tannhäuser gave Wagnerians something to cheer about
Bach Re-Boxed
Alisa Weilerstein, cellist in excelsis, premieres an immense new collage that incorporates, in their entirety, the master’s six suites for her instrument
Beyond the Grave
Ahead of his new solo show, the artist Scott Covert discusses his artistic breakthrough and sneaking into cemeteries to create his paintings
Fifty Shades of Gropius
His great-uncle designed Berlin’s Gropius Bau, and he studied alongside Mies van der Rohe. Then he started Bauhaus. An illustrated biography tells the many-layered story of Walter Gropius
Irresistible Force, Immoveable Object
From Glyndebourne, Mozart’s Orientalist fantasy The Abduction from the Seraglio
The Accidental Collector
Judy Glickman Lauder didn’t set out to become a collector. Yet she ended up amassing some of the most important images in photography, shot by everyone from Berenice Abbott to William Klein, to Weegee
Happy Endings
When Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along first appeared, it was a disaster. Forty years on, it’s a triumph
A Cri de Coeur for the Moment
Alice Diop discusses Saint Omer, a drama of race and motherhood that marks the filmmaker’s first fiction feature, selected as France’s entry in the upcoming Academy Awards
Before Mozart Was Mozart
A Japanese director in Berlin gives the teenage whiz kid’s first operatic hit a dazzling makeover
Carla Frayman
The jet-setting D.J. who goes by “Carlita” uses her classical-music background to curate sets for party-goers around the world
Cleopatra vs. Caliban
Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller trade off as Frankenstein and the Creature in the National Theatre’s 2011 take on Mary Shelley’s masterpiece
Step-Mama’s Boy
Verdi’s season-opening Don Carlo from the Teatro San Carlo, Naples
A Different Kind of Holiday
How to enjoy Christmas alone in the big city
Fighting Spirit
For World Opera Day, seven companies join forces to showcase Ukraine’s Golden Crown
Suzanne Vega Is Watching You
The singer-songwriter performs her folk-pop hits at City Winery in Greenwich Village
Fetch Me Her Slippers
From Frankfurt, Rimsky-Korsakov’s shaggy-dog Christmas Eve, a tranche of tsarist holiday cheer that resembles Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker not at all
