Northeast
Jessica Stone, who knits Broadway and circus in thrilling 'Water for Elephants,' enjoys a Tony nod
You don’t initially see a full elephant at the Broadway musical “Water for Elephants.” It’s more like a tease. First come a pair of enormous ears. Then a trunk. And then the legs.
The execution is by director Jessica Stone, who wanted to make it extra special for the audience when they finally get to see the big reveal at the end of Act 1. She thought it had to be awe-inspiring, tender and the spirit of an elephant.
ARIANA DEBOSE TO HOST TONY AWARDS FOR THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR, THIS TIME AT NEW LOCATION
“People were talking about how moved they were when they finally were seeing her in full and I was like, ‘OK, I think it’s going to be OK,’” Stone says.
It’s been more than OK for Stone, whose show earned seven Tony Award nominations, including one for best new musical and one for her heroic efforts to seamlessly create a big Broadway musical with elements of circus.
Jessica Stone attends the Broadway opening night for “Water For Elephants” at The Imperial Theatre on Thursday, March 21, 2024, in New York. (CJ Rivera/Invision/AP)
Stone knits puppets and vaudeville acts, songs and somersaults, as well as melds two groups of people who might not have shared a lunch table in high school — the jocks and the theater geeks.
“It’s a very humble, disciplined, hard-working, loving cast,” she says. “I overuse this metaphor, but it couldn’t be more true: We literally and figuratively hold out our arms and catch each other.”
The show — adapted by Sara Gruen’s popular 2006 historical romance novel and with music by the band PigPen Theater Co. — follows a love triangle in a traveling circus during the Depression.
The New York Times called it “a stunning, emotional production that “leads with movement, eye candy and awe.” Variety raved that Stone brought “it all under one spectacular tent without forgetting its human — and animal — hearts.”
Her skill is on show with the first big song — “The Road Don’t Make You Young” — a nine-minute, upbeat number that involves 23 performers, singing, dancing and flipping. It leans on circus designer Shana Carroll, who co-choreographs with Jesse Robb, both who also earned Tony nods.
The number starts with a circus train coming into town, and the audience learns about each of the characters as they get off and raise a tent. Soon we’re in the middle of a circus act, with acrobats flying through the air, twisting on ropes and poles.
That took two years to develop, and Stone calls it “the gate to the rest of the show.” She credits producers for giving her team the time to create it and to figure out the way to marry Broadway timing to circus.
“You actually have to have a little wiggle room for circus because you don’t fly through the air on the exact same counts every single time,” she says. “So everywhere throughout the show and the number, there’s always a little bit of wiggle room. We’ve had to build it in for safety.”
Rick Elice, the playwright of “Jersey Boys” and “Peter and the Starcatcher” who earned a Tony nod for “Water for Elephants,” said he was intrigued when Stone auditioned as director and spoke her mind even about elements that seemed non-negotiable, like his initial framing device.
“She’s brilliant. She’s funny. She’s totally prepared. She’s fast on her feet. She’s somebody that you just love to have lunch with because you laugh a lot and you bat ideas back and forth, which to me is a great lunch,” he says.
“Water for Elephants,” framed as an elderly former circus worker fondly looking back, joins a raft of recent memory plays on Broadway like “Mother Play,” “The Notebook,””A Beautiful Noise” and “Harmony.”
“It’s not like we all got in a room and said, ’You know what? 2024 is going to be the memory season,” she says with a laugh. She thinks it’s a byproduct of the pandemic.
“Memory plays have to do with looking back on your life and determining whether or not you did it right, and whether or not you’re still doing it right,” she says.
That became the key to how to marry circus elements in “Water for Elephants” — they are hazy memories for the main character, fragmented and not fully formed.
“I really didn’t want people arbitrarily peeling off into back handsprings for no reason. It had to really honor his most, important memories,” Stone says.
“Once you realize you’re looking at it through that prism, you don’t really want to see a literal animal. Go to the zoo if you want to see a literal animal. What you want to see is a fragment.”
So, a lion is presented as just a head and a jaw and a horse in pain is shown by a mask in an actor’s lap while French performer Antoine Boissereau elegantly swings high from a white cloth, the spirit of the animal drifting between life and death.
Stone was an actor on and off-Broadway, in television and in film, for decades before transitioning to directing. She previously earned a Tony nod directing the Tony-winning Broadway musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” which beautifully captured sadness with humor.
“That dichotomy is the thing that’s most interesting to me — that you can feel great pain and still something can really make you laugh in that moment. That’s something that I seek when I’m telling stories.”
Elice says Stone’s background as an actor gives her an ability to know how to talk to actors, comparing her favorably to the late, great Mike Nichols, which is saying a lot.
“I’ve never seen anybody better than Nichols talking to actors. She just has the knack of being able to cut through a lot of b.s. and say exactly the right thing to get a great performance.”
Stone is part of a sisterhood of directors who crashed through a Broadway barrier this year: Seven women took the 10 musical and play directing nomination slots. Only 10 women have gone on to win a directing crown.
Stone, who is married to Broadway veteran actor Christopher Fitzgerald, celebrated her nomination in a very New York way: She got an everything toasted bagel with cream cheese and a manicure.
That’s in keeping with a director who likes to leaven something profound with something ordinary. “You can be nominated for an award and just want a bagel,” she says, laughing.
Read the full article from Here
Northeast
Pilot, passenger swim to safety after plane crashes into New York’s Hudson River
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A pilot and passenger swam through the frigid waters of the Hudson River and reached shore safely after their Cessna 172 made an emergency landing Monday night, officials said.
The aircraft had taken off from Long Island when the pilot was forced to land in the river just after 8 p.m., the Middle Hope Fire Department said in a Facebook post.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.
Middle Hope Fire Department responders, along with personnel from other agencies, were dispatched to the scene. After a brief search, first responders located the plane within the City of Newburgh, authorities said.
A plane wades in the Hudson River. (Facebook/Middle Hope Fire Department)
Fire officials said the two occupants were able to free themselves from the aircraft and swim to shore. Newburgh Emergency Medical Services evaluated the pair before they were transported to a nearby hospital for further treatment.
Multiple agencies were on the scene after a plane crashed into the Hudson River. (Facebook/Middle Hope Fire Department)
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul hailed the incident as “Another miracle on Hudson.”
“Thank God both the pilot and passenger of a single engine plane that performed an ice landing near Newburgh have been located with only minor injuries,” the governor wrote in a post on X. “Grateful to our first responders for their quick actions.”
A plane made an emergency landing on the Hudson River Monday evening. (Facebook/Middle Hope Fire Department)
New York Rep. Pat Ryan said he was “closely monitoring reports of a small plane making an emergency landing near the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.”
“I’m in touch with officials on the ground, who have shared that both passengers are safely out of the water & have been evacuated by EMS,” he said. “Incredibly grateful for our Hudson Valley first responders who are responding swiftly and put their lives on the line to keep others safe.”
First responders found the plane within the city limits of Newburgh. (Facebook/Middle Hope Fire Department)
The cause of the emergency landing remains under investigation.
Read the full article from Here
Boston, MA
Boston honors first casualty of American Revolution – The Boston Globe
“In moments of challenge and in moments of conflict, it does feel easier to put your head down,” Wu said at an event at the Old State House commemorating Attucks.
“Remembering the full history pushes us to be the beacon of freedom that the rest of the country and the rest of the world so very much needs.”
Inside the Old State House’s council chambers, city leaders, historians, and students gathered to celebrate Attucks’ legacy. They talked about the importance of memorializing him during a time when many present said the contributions of people of color to American history were being erased by the Trump administration, and the country’s founding principles were under attack.
Senator Lydia Edwards said the death of Attucks and the four others killed during the Boston Massacre helped establish important legal principles that still guide the country today.
Following the killings, British soldiers involved in the incident were put on trial. John Adams, who later became president, agreed to defend them in court, arguing that the rule of law must be upheld even during times of intense conflict.
“Even in these moments of strife, oppression of rogue federal government, that we remember that we stood up and still held to our court system, to the rule of law and to due process,” Edwards said. “We also remember who had to die in order to remind ourselves to do that.”
City Councilor Brian Worrell said Attucks was a symbol of the long struggle for equality in the country.
“It’s a story that is a reminder that Black and Indigenous Americans have always been at the forefront [of] the fight for justice,” Worrell said.
He said when he recounts Boston’s Black history, he almost always starts with Attucks’ story.
“He fought not simply against the tea tax or the Stamp Act, he fought for the most basic of rights. He fought for equal human lives. It’s a fight we as a city are still having,” he said.
Wu spoke about how on March 5, 2025, she was called to testify before Congress about Boston’s immigration policies during a six-hour hearing. She touted Boston’s safety record amid aggressive questioning, arguing that the city’s immigration policies improved public safety.
“On the 255th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, on Crispus Attucks Day, there was no way that this city wasn’t going to be represented in standing up for what’s right,” Wu said.
A chandelier lit the council chamber and red curtains covered its historic windows. On both sides of the room, students sat with their teachers. Winners of the Crispus Attucks Essay Contest, which invites local students to explore Attucks’ legacy, sat next to the podium.
“Sometimes history repeats itself,” said Toni Martin, an attendee at the event, who came to support her niece, who was being awarded. “Sometimes it gets better, but it takes revolutionary people to make change perfect.”
Outside of the State House after the commemoration, Sharahn Pullum, 18, who came in second for the essay contest, said, “My inspiration was just getting the opportunity to speak on something that matters.”
Michael Kelly, 65, joined the wreath-laying ceremony that took place at the Boston Massacre Commemorative Plaza. Kelly held a sign that said, “Ice Out Be Goode,” referring to Renee Good, a US citizen who was shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Kelly said he had been standing at the plaza for three hours and is planning to stand there the entire day.
“People can stretch their imaginations to understand that this place, what happened here, is not at all different than what happened in Minneapolis,” Kelly said with tears in his eyes. “People standing up for something they believe in is vastly important, and we can’t be daunted.”

Aayushi Datta can be reached at aayushi.datta@globe.com.
Pittsburg, PA
Pirates Winning Streak Ends With Loss to Cardinals
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates have had a strong showing so far in the Grapefruit League, but suffered a surprising defeat.
The Pirates lost 3-2 to the St. Louis Cardinals at LECOM Park in Bradenton, Fla., taking just their third defeat in Spring Training so far, dropping to 9-3 in the Grapefruit League.
Pittsburgh saw their five-game winning streak come to an end, but they are still level with the New York Yankees at the top of the Grapefruit League standings.
This game also came after the first off day for the Pirates on March 4 and a 7-1 win over Team Colombia in an exhibition at LECOM Park on March 3.
How the Pirates Fell to the Cardinals
Pirates right-handed pitcher Mitch Keller made his third start in the Grapefruit League and threw three scoreless innings, before giving up a solo home run to Cardinals third baseman Nolan Gorman on a slider down in the zone, putting the road team up 1-0 in the top of the fourth inning.
That represented the first run that Keller gave up all Spring Training and Pirates left-handed relief pitcher Derek Diamond came in for him after he gave up a single to Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker.
Keller has just a 1.23 ERA over 7.1 innings for the Pirates in the Grapefruit League, a good start for the veteran on the starting rotation.
St. Louis loaded the bases against Pirates left-handed relief pitcher Evan Sisk in the top of the fifth inning with three walks, but Sisk struckout top prospect in shortstop JJ Wetherholt and forced Gorman into a double play to keep it a one-run game.
Pirates right-handed relief pitcher Chris Devenski gave up a run in the top of the sixth inning, as he walked second baseman Ramón Urías, who stole second base, then gave up a single to catcher Pedro Pagés, doubling the Cardinals’ lead at 2-0.
The Pirates tied the game up at 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning, as shortstop Alika Williams hit a two-run home run off of Cardinals left-handed pitcher Quinn Mathews.
Pirates right-handed relief pitcher Cam Sanders gave up the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth inning, hitting leadoff batter Joshua Baez with a pitch and then giving up a single to pinch-hitter Jimmy Crooks to make it 3-2.
Right fielder Ryan O’Hearn had a strong showing for the Pirates in the loss to the Cardinals with two hits in two at-bats. He is now slashing .462/.563/.769 for an OPS of 1.332 in six Grapefruit League games.
Outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia had a hit off the bench for the Pirates, as he is now slashing .533/.611/.733 for an OPS of 1.344 in seven games.
Make sure to visit Pirates OnSI for the latest news, updates, interviews and insight on the Pittsburgh Pirates!
-
World1 week agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Wisconsin4 days agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Maryland5 days agoAM showers Sunday in Maryland
-
Massachusetts3 days agoMassachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
-
Florida5 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Denver, CO1 week ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Oregon6 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling