New York
9 Plays to Warm Up Winter in New York
In New York, Broadway hits its winter lull in January, as Off Broadway and beyond burst into activity. If most of the tourists have gone home after the holidays, many of the visiting theater artists have arrived from all over, for the annual festivals that draw a tantalizing breadth of new work.
The venerable Under the Radar festival (Saturday through Jan. 19), now in its post-Public Theater era, is blossoming lushly again, with some of the city’s major companies participating. The Prototype Festival (Thursday through Jan. 19) has a full menu of interdisciplinary opera, while the Exponential Festival (through Feb. 2) centers local emerging experimental theater makers. There’s also the International Fringe Encore Series (through March 16), whose lineup includes “Gwyneth Goes Skiing,” one of two Gwyneth Paltrow-focused shows at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
It’s a bountiful month, on festival stages and elsewhere. Here are nine shows worth keeping in mind.
‘Blind Runner’
In this hourlong play by the Iranian writer-director Amir Reza Koohestani, a political prisoner in Tehran asks her husband to help a young woman, who was blinded in a protest, to run a marathon in Paris. The more dangerous race is the one they undertake from there: trying to cross the English Channel through the tunnel without being hit by a train. A two-hander performed in Persian with English supertitles, and presented with Arian Moayed’s company, Waterwell, it’s about surveillance, oppression and the insistent pursuit of freedom. The critic Michael Billington called it “mesmerizing.” Part of Under the Radar. (Saturday through Jan. 24, St. Ann’s Warehouse)
‘Wonderful Joe’
The Canadian puppet artist Ronnie Burkett is a marvel to watch, manipulating populous casts of marionettes all on his own. Too seldom seen in New York, he arrives this month for a brief run of his new play, which landed on The Globe and Mail’s top-10 list of 2024 shows. The story is about an old man, Joe, and his aged dog, Mister, who lose their home to gentrification and hit the streets, approaching misfortune as adventure. This is not puppetry for little ones, though; audience members must be 16 or older. Part of Under the Radar. (Tuesday through Jan. 12, Lincoln Center)
‘Dead as a Dodo’
The company Wakka Wakka (“The Immortal Jellyfish Girl”) descends into the underworld with this sparkling puppet piece about a pair of skeletons: a dodo and a boy. Their ancient bones are in the process of disintegrating. Then, out of nowhere, the bird grows a new bone, sprouts fresh feathers — and is apparently not dead as a dodo after all. Directed by Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Waage, who wrote it with the ensemble, this show is recommended for ages 7 and up. But be warned: Wakka Wakka does not shy from darkness. Part of Under the Radar. (Wednesday through Feb. 9, Baruch Performing Arts Center)
‘Old Cock‘
American history and politics are Robert Schenkkan’s dramatic bailiwick. He won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Kentucky Cycle” and a Tony Award for “All the Way.” And Brian Cox starred as Lyndon B. Johnson in Schenkkan’s most recent Broadway production, “The Great Society.” For this satire, though, the playwright teams up with the Portuguese company Mala Voadora and the director Jorge Andrade to tell a distinctly Portuguese story, pitting the rooster that is a symbol of that country against António de Oliveira Salazar, the dictator who ruled it for decades. Part of Under the Radar. (Wednesday through Jan. 19, 59E59 Theaters)
‘Grief Camp’
Eliya Smith, a master of fine arts candidate at the University of Texas at Austin whose previous forays into New York theater include the intriguingly strange, fragmented elegy “Deadclass, Ohio,” makes her Off Broadway playwriting debut with this world premiere. Directed by the Obie Award winner Les Waters (“Dana H.”), it’s about a group of teenagers in a summer cabin in Hurt, Va., confronting loss. And, yes, even this camp has a resident guitarist. (Thursday through Feb. 16, Atlantic Theater Company)
‘Show/Boat: A River’
The experimental company Target Margin Theater does not pussyfoot when it comes to re-examining canonical classics. Adapted and directed by David Herskovits, this interpretation of “Show Boat” aims to reframe the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II musical from 1927, about the entertainers and others aboard a riverboat on the Mississippi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Groundbreaking in its time for its themes, including racism and interracial marriage, “Show Boat” has long been accused of being racist itself. The content advisory warns: “The production includes racially offensive language and incidents.” Part of Under the Radar. (Thursday through Jan. 26, N.Y.U. Skirball)
‘A Knock on the Roof’
The Golan Heights-based writer-performer Khawla Ibraheem plays a Gazan woman rehearsing what she will do if she hears a low-level warning bomb — a “knock on the roof” by the Israeli military — which would mean she had only minutes to evacuate her home before an airstrike escalated. Directed by the Obie winner Oliver Butler (“What the Constitution Means to Me”), who developed the play with Ibraheem, it won awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer. Part of Under the Radar, this production moves to the Royal Court Theater in London in February. (Jan. 10 through Feb. 16, New York Theater Workshop)
‘The Antiquities’
Jordan Harrison’s new play imagines a history of the Late Human Age as told by the “nonorganic beings” who will succeed us. Starting on the night in 1816 when Mary Shelley told her ghost story, it hops through time to 2240. Building on themes Harrison contemplated in “Marjorie Prime,” it’s about what it is to be human, and whether we’ve sown the seeds of our destruction. Produced with the Vineyard Theater in New York and the Goodman Theater in Chicago, where it is slated to run this spring. David Cromer and Caitlin Sullivan direct. (Jan. 11 through Feb. 23, Playwrights Horizons)
‘Vanya on Huron Street’
The writer-director Matthew Gasda, who first gained traction a few years back with his scenester play “Dimes Square,” now stages an adaptation of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” created with its actors over the past year. Bob Laine, a star of “Dimes Square” (which makes a fleeting return this month), plays the title role in “Vanya,” opposite fellow “Dimes Square” cast member Asli Mumtas as Vanya’s longed-for love interest, Yelena. (Jan. 14 through Feb. 4, Brooklyn Center for Theater Research)
Case 1:24-cr-00556-DEH Document 177 Filed 04/02/25
Page 40 of 78
of the leave-of-court requirement in Rule 48(a) is to enable a court to inquire into whether the
dismissal should be with prejudice”).
The Second Circuit has thus far declined to “rule out discretionary dismissals with
prejudice” in similar contexts. Hilbert v. Dooling, 476 F.2d 355, 361 (2d Cir. 1973); see also id.
at 363 (Friendly, C.J., dissenting) (stressing “the district judge’s discretion” under Rule 48(b) “to
dismiss either with or without prejudice as he deemed appropriate”). But the “Circuit has not
specifically addressed” under what circumstances, if any, a court may dismiss an indictment with
prejudice notwithstanding the government’s request that dismissal be without prejudice. United
States v. Hernandez-Hernandez, No. 18 Crim. 30, 2018 WL 4765129, at *2 (W.D.N.Y. Sept. 13,
2018), report and recommendation adopted, 2018 WL 4762255 (W.D.N.Y. Oct. 2, 2018).
In exercising their discretion to dismiss with prejudice under Rule 48(a), courts have
generally looked to the same principles that motivate the “leave of court” requirement. In district
courts for the District of Columbia, where Rule 48(a) is “routinely applied . . . to consider dismissal
with prejudice,” courts “take into account (1) the purpose of the government’s dismissal, (2) the
presence or absence of good faith, and (3) the objective effect that dismissal without prejudice
would have on the defendant.” United States v. Madzarac, 678 F. Supp. 3d 42, 48 (D.D.C. 2023).
Courts in this District have had less occasion to consider the question, but they have tended to look
to whether there is a risk of prosecutorial harassment from re-charging of the offense(s) or whether
there is evidence of bad faith on the part of the prosecution. See, e.g., Doody, 2002 WL 562644,
at *2 (explaining that “[c]ourts dismiss cases under Rule 48(a) with prejudice or deny such motions
19 (D.D.C. 2015); Poindexter, 719 F. Supp. at 10-12; United States v. Angilau, No. 08 Crim. 431,
2012 WL 346446, at *14 (D. Utah Feb. 1, 2012), aff’d in part, appeal dismissed in part, 717 F.3d
781 (10th Cir. 2013); United States v. Wecht, No. 06 Crim. 26, 2008 WL 65605, at *5-6 (W.D. Pa.
Jan. 4, 2008); Government of Virgin Islands ex rel. Robinson v. Schneider, 893 F. Supp. 490, 498
(D.V.I. 1995); United States v. Rossoff, 806 F. Supp. 200, 202-03 (C.D. Ill. 1992); United States
v. Fields, 475 F. Supp. 903, 904, 908 (D.D.C. 1979).
40
Meet the Staff
Marcos Gonzalez said his fashion makes his clients more open with him.
Thea Traff for The New York Times
Most Lenniger residents are assigned case managers who connect them to the resources that give supportive housing its name.
Mr. Mercado’s is Marcos Gonzalez, 31, athletic and personable, partial to braids and Gucci glasses. “When I first started working here, I was dressing very professionally, and I found out that it was actually intimidating a lot of my clients,” he said.
Residents with more complex needs have been assigned to Phil Ricciardi, 33, the Lenniger’s social worker, a former cook, tall, laconic and Eeyore-like, given to pronouncements like “This is my favorite job, but only because the others were so bad.” (Like many social service providers, the Lenniger sees a fair degree of turnover. Several staff members, including Mr. Ricciardi, left during the reporting of this story.)
Phil Ricciardi makes calls from his ground-floor cubicle.
Thea Traff for The New York Times
One morning in March, Mr. Ricciardi called a client and left a message: “Are you going to be coming downstairs, Diane? I believe the psychiatrist is still here. OK. Please come soon.”
Hours later, Diane Covington, 63 and gaunt, wearing an orange hoodie under a fur-collared parka, met him in the conference room. She had two goals: overcoming a decades-long heroin and crack addiction, and getting treatment for H.I.V.
Mr. Ricciardi meets with Diane Covington.
Thea Traff for The New York Times
“It’s not so much the addiction, it’s the illness that has me at this point,” she said. “I’m nothing now. I really want to go and get myself together. I’ll do a detox, 90 days.”
Mr. Ricciardi suggested St. Barnabas Hospital nearby, where another client had been connected to a roster of doctors.
“St. Barnabas,” she mused. “They don’t provide individuals the real energy of care.” Besides, she said, she wanted to move out of the rough neighborhood.
“If you want to move,” Mr. Ricciardi said bluntly, “it would be very helpful if they see that you actually are paying your rent.” One in five supportive housing tenants at the Lenniger is behind on rent, though no one has been evicted since 2017.
Ms. Covington reluctantly agreed to go.
Ms. Covington promised she would see him in the morning. After she left, Mr. Ricciardi predicted she would not show. “I’ve known her for two years, and it’s been this maybe 50 times.”
Thea Traff for The New York Times
He knocked on her door early the next day. “I’m getting ready,” she called out.
Another caseworker, Irma Mendez, stopped by for a pep talk. Ms. Covington was not her client, but Ms. Mendez had lost her own mother to AIDS decades ago. “I told her, ‘You’re a survivor,’” Ms. Mendez said.
But two hours later, Ms. Covington had not come.
Lenniger staff members said they did what they could without much leverage.
“You try to guide them and navigate them to making more beneficial decisions,” Mr. Gonzalez said, “but ultimately they’re the captain of their own ship.”
A Party in the Basement
Thea Traff for The New York Times
On the rainy afternoon before Good Friday, the Lenniger hosted an Easter party in the basement’s windowless multipurpose room. The ’90s R&B hit “This Is How We Do It” blasted while two grave-looking adults in bunny suits handed out decorating supplies.
Demi Sarita’s 2-year-old son drew on an egg with a marker. Ms. Sarita, 26 at the time, said she had moved from Florida, where she lived in her car, in part for New York’s superior social safety net.
Demi Sarita with her son Kendrick Clarke at the building’s Easter party.
Thea Traff for The New York Times
Ms. Sarita, who has bipolar disorder, spent three years in a family shelter before landing at the Lenniger, where she had another son.
She said her life was coming together. She was studying to be a radiology technician. “I’m just using this as a steppingstone,” she said.
Thea Traff for The New York Times
A few weeks later, she was feeling buoyant, but “a little out of it” — she had just started on lithium. She had also taken a job at a nearby Smashburger.
Ms. Sarita did not stay long at Smashburger. The Lenniger said that she was no longer working there but was doing “OK.”
When the Trump Organization sold its interest in a public golf course in New York City to Bally’s, the deal was freighted with symbolism.
Bally’s promptly erased the giant “Trump Links” sign from the property in the Bronx by the Whitestone Bridge. Suddenly, a visible artifact of President Trump’s despised presence in New York was gone, and Bally’s — one of several bidders hoping to win one of three coveted casino licenses up for grabs in the state — took credit.
The ceremony in 2024 created the impression of an irrevocable separation between the Bally’s bid and the Trump Organization. But the two in fact remain intertwined.
If Bally’s were to win a casino license, it would have to pay the Trump Organization $115 million, according to the companies’ purchase agreement. That is on top of the $60 million Bally’s already paid the Trump Organization to acquire the remainder of its lease for the city-owned golf course.
The agreement with Bally’s was referenced in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against Mr. Trump and his family business, but has received little publicity.
Bally’s and the Trump Organization made the agreement before Mr. Trump’s second term, but the payout would come while he is president, and as he considers countless issues affecting the finances and governance of New York State and New York City. The state is running the casino siting competition, with input from local elected officials, including Mayor Eric Adams.
The mayor frequently says he would like a casino in New York City, but has declined to endorse a particular bidder. Even so, he may have a vested interest in helping Mr. Trump, whose Justice Department is seeking dismissal of the mayor’s federal corruption case.
The mayor’s press secretary, Kayla Mamelak Altus, falsely accused The New York Times of implying that Mr. Adams was pushing for a specific casino and having done so before.
“This marks the second casino bid The New York Times has incorrectly implied the mayor is putting his weight behind, so perhaps the paper should make up its mind before falsely implying there’s a third,” she said in a statement.
Bally’s is one of at least 11 contenders that have expressed interest in bidding for one of the three downstate gambling licenses. Several of the other bidders have ties to Mr. Trump.
Steven Cohen, the Mets owner who wants to build a casino next to the team’s stadium in Queens, donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s first inaugural committee. The family of Miriam Adelson, one of Mr. Trump’s biggest supporters, controls Las Vegas Sands, which is bidding to build a casino on Long Island.
But none of the other bids, if successful, would seem to directly benefit Mr. Trump. The casino bids are due in June, with the state saying it will make a decision by the end of the year.
In an interview, Soo Kim, the chairman of Bally’s, described the agreement with the Trump Organization as a “a deferred purchase price mechanism,” and said it was an agreement that he did not come to lightly.
“When they first proposed it, I was like, ‘What the hell?’” said Mr. Kim on Tuesday. “They’re already getting a lot of money for a golf course. What do they think it’s worth? But they know what it’s worth to me and to us and to the Bronx.”
The Trump Organization, Mr. Kim said, agreed to transfer the lease on the condition that it would get more money if the land was approved for a casino.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, a Democrat whose Bronx district includes the golf course, dismissed the prospect of a $115 million Trump payout as merely “a contractual agreement made by two businesses” and said it would not influence whatever decision he ultimately makes about supporting the casino bid.
“People were just happy to get rid of the name ‘Trump’ from the golf course,” he said. “It was an embarrassment to the community.”
This week, Mr. Benedetto and State Senator Nathalia Fernandez said they had introduced legislation that would enable Bally’s to operate a casino on the golf course, should it win a license. Any such legislation is expected to require a home rule message, a message of support from the New York City Council.
Lincoln Restler, the Brooklyn councilman who chairs the committee that would have to advance that home rule message, said that elected officials were likely to look askance at any deal that would enrich the president’s company.
“I think that a $115 million check to the Trump Organization will be a difficult pill for many New York legislators to swallow,” Mr. Restler said.
The $115 million payout was mentioned in a scathing ruling that a New York State judge issued in the civil fraud case against Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization. In that case, which was brought by Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, the judge imposed a more than $450 million judgment against Mr. Trump, concluding he had fraudulently inflated his net worth to dupe banks into giving him favorable loans.
The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, referred to the golf course deal as giving the Trump Organization a “windfall profit.”
Mr. Trump is appealing Justice Engoron’s ruling.
Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.
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