Boston, MA
Behind the scenes & songs of ‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical’

In 24 hours, Justin Levine went from happily, furiously working on arrangements for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” to wondering how to redo half the show after watching a dozen songs evaporate.
“In one day, we lost 12 songs scattered across Act One,” Levine told the Herald. “It was endlessly frustrating, endlessly. It was an exercise in attachment.”
As arranger, orchestrator, and music supervisor, Levine’s job was to build “Moulin Rouge” out of a century of pop songs. The musical, which runs Jan. 16 to Feb. 4 at the Citizens Bank Opera House, features bits and pieces of 70 some songs composed by more than twice as many writers. Very few tunes were off the table and the end result uses works by Nat King Cole, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Beyonce, and Adele.
Levine and the production team had to secure the rights to each scrap of music. When they could get the rights, they lost weeks of work.
“When we started playing with (the catalog of pop songs), we weren’t sure if we were going to get to use all of them or not,” Levine said. “Because of the brilliance of our licensing team, we managed to get most of them.”
Based on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film, the show features a ton of new songs and arrangements. The reinvention has proved to be a massive hit — it received 14 Tony nominations and won 10 including Best Musical. In a Broadway landscape populated by jukebox musicals, it’s refreshing to see something that isn’t a, well, what exactly is “Moulin Rouge.”
“Unlike most jukebox musicals, the music had to be found to serve the story, as opposed to picking a catalog, knowing what the subject is and what songs you want to use,” Levine said. “This was sort of the reverse of that process.”
Every old song had to be made new. Each lyric had to drive forward the story of wide-eyed young composer Christian and his love for actress Satine, star of a Parisian cabaret at the end of the 1800s.
The most epic example of the production’s innovative storytelling via pop mashups comes in “Elephant Love Medley.” The duet between Christian and Satine has the two flirting by tossing lines back and forth from a score of songs (“Take On Me,” “Love is a Battlefield,” “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Such Great Heights” …).
“When I set out to make the ‘Elephant Love Medley’ it was really important to me that you could read the lyrics through and be able to follow the scene,” Levine said. “Before I even began to explore musically how to transition from song to song, I printed up all the lyrics, cut them up and rearranged them, almost like magnetic poetry. I did that for two days.”
And then he did it again, and again, working and reworking pop’s greatest hits into the show.
Levine and the team spent about three years developing “Moulin Rouge.” It’s a tiny sliver of time considering the herculean feat of putting the sonic and dramatic spectacle together. Of course, it didn’t feel tiny when trying to figure out how to gracefully, impactfully transition from Rick Astley to Lorde to T. Rex.
For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com
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Boston, MA
Receiver of troubled Boston nursing home defends hire of disgraced ex-senator Dianne Wilkerson

A court-appointed receiver of a financially-strapped Boston nursing home defended his hire of disgraced ex-senator Dianne Wilkerson, after “allegations of nepotism and self-dealing” were lodged against her in Superior Court last month.
In a post-hearing order, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Christopher Belezos, who is overseeing hearings regarding the receivership of Roxbury’s Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center, raised “significant concerns” about the considerable pay Wilkerson testified that she was making at a facility on the brink of bankruptcy.
“On April 16, the court heard testimony from several witnesses regarding allegations of nepotism and self-dealing by a member of the receivership’s team,” Belezos wrote in the April 22 order. “The subject of such allegations, Ms. Wilkerson offered, under pains of penalties of perjury, testimony that she is an employee of the EPBHC, receiving full benefits, being paid at a rate of $82 per hour, working an average of 90 hours per week.
“If such testimony is accurate, it raises significant concerns as to the rate of remuneration being paid to Ms. Wilkerson by an institution in receivership with a projected 2025 loss in the area of $4.4 million,” the judge added.
Wilkerson, an ex-state senator whose political career ended after she was busted by the feds for taking a bribe, is executive assistant to Joseph Feaster, the court-appointed receiver of the troubled nursing home.
She was present for a hearing held Thursday in Superior Court, but didn’t take part in the day’s proceedings, and deferred comment to Feaster.
Speaking with reporters after a roughly half-hour hearing, Feaster defended his decision to hire Wilkerson and her compensation, in the wake of last month’s mismanagement allegations. He described Wilkerson as “talented” and said she was thoroughly vetted before being added to the facility’s receivership team.
“Donald Trump has a past, and he’s president of the United States,” Feaster said when asked about Wilkerson’s checkered past. “She served her time. She doesn’t have a CORI. She has nothing which would preclude her from working, and so that has to be the determinant.
“So that was looked at, because I certainly am not going to have any situation which would be problematic for the organization or for me,” he said. “She’s employable and she’s talented.”
Wilkerson resigned from the state Senate in 2008 and spent more than two years in jail after agreeing to plead guilty to charges tied to a federal corruption bust. She was infamously shown stuffing $1,000 in cash bribes into her bra in a photo that was released by the feds.
Feaster said Wilkerson didn’t perjure herself on the stand last month, when she testified about her compensation. He said there was a “misinterpretation” about his assistant’s testimony, when she said she works 90 hours a week, when in fact, she gets paid on a bi-weekly basis for a total of 80 hours.
“I think that she was saying I work more hours than what I get paid for, and what we wanted to confirm is that … she only gets paid for bi-weekly, 80 hours,” Feaster said.
Wilkerson told the Herald last month that it’s true that she makes $82 an hour and works 90 hours a week, but “no one asked me a third question.”
“How many hours do I actually get paid for? And the answer to that question is 40. That’s all,” she said at the time.
Feaster also said he saw Wilkerson’s hourly rate as reasonable, given that he makes $450 an hour as the facility’s receiver.
Benjamin Healthcare, which has roughly 80 patients, was placed into receivership last April to avoid the facility’s closure and allow it to begin a financial turnaround. Wilkerson was hired as Feaster’s executive assistant upon his appointment as receiver at that time.
This week’s hearing centered around the facility’s finances, whether receivership should be continued and what the court-appointed team’s contingency plan was if a buyer doesn’t materialize from the bid process.
In a May 14 court filing from Feaster, the “receiver informed the court” at the April 16 hearing “that the most viable path forward for the facility to continue operating would be through soliciting proposals for third party owner/operator.”
Belezos, the judge, pressed for a breakdown of the facility’s financial information from the receivership team, and set a deadline for May 29.
A lawyer for Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, which represents state agencies like the Department of Health, said the state wants to keep the Roxbury facility open, rather than move forward with a closure and transfer of patients.
To try to recover funds, Feaster is pursuing a civil lawsuit that has been filed against the facility’s former administrator, Tony Francis, who ran the Benjamin before he was appointed as receiver, Commonwealth Beacon reported.
The lawsuit alleges that Francis “siphoned” more than $3 million in funds from the facility, per a prior court filing from Feaster.
The matter returns to court on June 28.
Boston, MA
Defiant Knicks fans brush off Game 5 blowout, blast ‘cocky’ Celtics supporters in Boston: ‘Worst city in America’

Knicks fans brushed off their team’s blowout loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 5 — and still talked trash to their rival’s fanbase outside TD Garden Wednesday night.
“F–k Boston,” said Brooklyn resident Rick Haddad, 18, outside the Beantown venue. “It’s the worst city in America. Worst people, worst culture, worst sports team.”
His buddy Edward Dweck then took a shot at the Celtics’ home arena.
“This is a fake garden. This is a p—y-ass garden,” the 18-year-old Brooklynite yapped. “I’ve never heard of TD Garden, only Madison [Square] Garden and the Botanical [Garden].”
The Brooklyn pals were among scores of fans who were still defiant after New York lost 127-102, which will stretch the series to at least six games.
The Knickerbockers are still up 3-2.
“You ain’t been paying attention,” Kevin Shah huffed.
“You don’t see patterns. Game f–king 6 at home. It’s gotta be.”
“The formula is you go all do your thing and you get cocky, and we punch you in the mouth without knowing it,” said Shah, a Bronxville native who now lives in Ohio.
“The whole time it’s been the formula, dog,” he continued to rant. “Every time they got full of themselves, they got met with a reality check, bitch.”
Even Mayor Eric Adams got involved with a two-word response to the disappointing loss.
“BUCK FOSTON,” Hizzoner tweeted.
Another fan outside TD Garden, David G., shouted “Knicks in six” for several minutes as fans left the venue.
“It’s OK. We are good, buddy,” he said. “Knicks in six. We are good.”
“I’m getting a lot of f–k yous, but I don’t care,” he added as a pair of Boston fans told him to pipe down.
“We just kicked your ass! Jesus. Shut the f–k up!” an angry Celtics fan shouted at him while another screamed, “You smell like s–t.”
A group of girls decked out in Knicks jerseys also felt the wrath of some insufferable Boston fans who shouted, “Keep walking! Go home! Go back to New York!”
Back in the Empire State outside MSG, fans were clamoring for another shot at the Celtics.
“Jaylen Brown thinks he’s all hot s–t. He f–king sucks, bro,” Nia Newkirk, 25, said of the Boston guard.
“He is not the best driver in the NBA. He’s not the best driver on his team, bro. You needed [Boston forward] Jayson Tatum. Y’all got f–king lucky tonight. Knicks in six.”
The series heads back to the Big Apple for Game 6 Friday night, where the Knicks will have another shot to close out the Celtics and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.
“I don’t care about Boston. Boston’s a bitch,” said Bronx resident Damion Jones, 30. “They, they always be a bitch … Oh, man, f–k Boston. We lost because of us. Yes, we lost because of us.”
Hoboken resident Liam Walker, who rooted for the Knicks inside the watch party inside the world’s most famous arena, predicted beldam if New York took Game 5 or wins Friday.
“I mean, there’s like way more people here [inside the Garden on Friday], they’ll be like hundreds of people outside, like it would be people going like crazy,” he said.
“It would just be like a riot in the streets. It would be awesome.”
Boston, MA
Boston City Council to debate removal of Tania Fernandes Anderson

The Boston City Council is expected to discuss removing Tania Fernandes Anderson today after she pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges.
The city’s own lawyers have explained that councilors cannot remove Fernandes Anderson from office before she is sentenced in her case, but that doesn’t stop the council from adding to the growing calls urging the disgraced councilwoman to resign.
It also doesn’t stop them from taking action to formally address the situation.
We know Fernandes Anderson has already pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. Her decision to conceive a kickback scheme involving a family member who she hired to her staff isn’t up for debate. She admitted giving them a large bonus and then pocketing $7,000 — thus her federal convictions and upcoming sentencing in July.
Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson did not show up for the body’s first meeting since pleading guilty to federal corruption charges.
But until then, the councilor is allowed to maintain her seat. The council, however, also has some options.
They’ve already removed Fernandes Anderson from her city council committee positions, and an existing rule mandates that if a council member is convicted of a felony, the president — in this case Ruthzee Louijeune — has to refer the matter to council for a two thirds majority vote.
In 2010, the council voted and removed one of their own who was convicted, but the supreme judicial court overturned that and ruled the council didn’t have the authority.
Today’s formal proceeding at noon to address Fernandes Anderson’s conduct and conviction may demonstrate to the public that the council is working to restore public trust and add pressure to Fernandes Anderson to resign — but ultimately their hands may be tied until she is sentenced this summer.
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