The New Yorker November 15, 2021

Ian Parker (“Inorganic,” p. 46) contributed his first piece to the magazine in 1994 and became a staff writer in 2000. Brooke Jarvis (“Animal Passions,” p. 38) is a writer based in Seattle. Clarence Major (Poem, p. 74) is the author of numerous books, including the novels “Thunderclouds in the Forecast” and “The Lurking Place.” His next poetry collection, “Sporadic Troubleshooting,” will be out in 2022. Leslie Jamison (Books, p. 82) has published four books, including “The Recovering” and “The Empathy Exams.” She teaches at Columbia University. Eric Drooker (Cover) is a painter and a graphic novelist whose drawings have been on display at the Guggenheim Museum. This is his thirty-seventh cover for the magazine. Yiyun Li (Fiction, p. 70) won a 2020 Windham Campbell Prize. Her latest book is “Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of…

THE FUTURE OF FUSION Rivka Galchen, in her piece about the prospects for harnessing fusion power, notes that the astrophysicist Arthur Eddington, in a publication speculating on the source of the sun’s tremendous energy, mentions the legend of Daedalus and Icarus (“Green Dream,” October 11th). He defends Icarus’ flight, seeing it as encouragement to push a scientific theory to its breaking point. In the paper, Eddington follows this take with the comment “If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces, it seems to bring a little nearer to fulfillment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race—or for its suicide.” We should keep that warning in mind at this critical juncture in humanity’s history. Ed DevinneyDelanco, N.J. Having grown…

WINTER PREVIEW NOVEMBER 10 – 16, 2021 Nigeria’s film industry boomed in the nineteen-nineties, with thousands of low-budget, high-spirited movies shot and distributed on video. Nollywood, as it became known, now produces some twenty-five hundred films per year. Its formative era is the setting for Jocelyn Bioh’s vampy Off Broadway comedy “Nollywood Dreams” (opening on Nov. 11, at MCC Theatre), which finds two sisters dreaming big when one of them lands an audition. The cast features (clockwise from top) Emana Rachelle, Sandra Okuboyejo, and Ade Otukoya. As New York City venues reopen, it’s advisable to confirm in advance the requirements for in-person attendance. DANCE Luciana Achugar “A theatre without a theatre,” “the uncivilized body”: such language has long been the style of the choreographer Luciana Achugar’s artist statements. The Chocolate Factory Theatre’s new space—much bigger than…

At one point during the Joyce Theatre’s streaming presentation of the tap dancer and choreographer Ayodele Casel’s “Chasing Magic,” in April, Casel turned to the pianist Arturo O’Farrill and said, “What will be will be.” With a smile, they launched into a joyously intimate passage of rhythmic repartee. “Chasing Magic” conveys, with great power, the pleasure of dance, of rhythm, and of making music together. It comes to the Joyce, live at last, Jan. 4-9. Jamar Roberts emerged as a powerful new force in dance just before the pandemic, with works that explore pain, history, and the beauty of the body in motion. Roberts is the choreographer-in-residence at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, where he has been a dancer since 2002; he retires from Ailey with a show on Dec. 9.…

This winter, many major museums in New York City look closely at a single artist. An intriguing exception is “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” at the Jewish Museum. The exhibition, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, takes its title from the British ceramicist Edmund de Waal’s best-selling memoir, which traces the legacy of the Ephrussi family, a European banking dynasty whose fortune was plundered by the Nazis. Paintings by Fragonard, Monet, and Renoir, among others, are accompanied by a selection of tiny ivory netsuke—including the book’s namesake hare. (Opens on Nov. 19.) In 1966, Andy Warhol’s mother told a reporter that her son was a “good religious boy.” It’s true—the openly gay artist was a quietly devout Byzantine Catholic. The Brooklyn Museum considers the Pop icon’s seemingly inexhaustible œuvre through the…

It’s been fourteen long months since a marquee heralding a splashy revival of “The Music Man,” starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, went up at the Winter Garden. Originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2020, the production was delayed until spring, then winter, holding out a post-pandemic promise of seventy-six trombones and a big parade. Along the way, it lost its lead producer, Scott Rudin, who stepped back amid accusations of workplace bullying. River City, meet trouble. Meredith Willson’s classic finally starts previews on Dec. 20, under the direction of Jerry Zaks. It’s one of several mammoth musicals careening toward midtown. Michael Mayer’s production of “Funny Girl” (starting March 26, at the August Wilson) is the first attempt at a Broadway revival since the show premièred, in 1964—likely because…