Diep Tran
Editor in Chief of Playbill. Other words NY Times, NBC Asian America, NY Mag, Time Out NY. Views are my own.
dtran@playbill.com
dieptran.com
- "There is a long history of the public rushing to vilify women without curiosity or compassion for their point of view, not to mention the truth." Update to my reporting from yesterday.
- Reposted by Diep Tranthe $75 million Jeff Bezos set on fire for that Melania propaganda piece could have funded most independent newsrooms for literally decades
- So sad about this. Naveen deserves better. So do the artists of D.C. and all of us readers. Billionaires are a mistake
- So many brands this year releasing Lunar New Year collections, as immigrants (many of them Asian) are being rounded up. Before you buy because “representation,” ask which immigrant charities they support? Have they condemned ICE? Otherwise they’re taking your money while stabbing you in the back
- Political persecution. Dad was a South Vietnamese lieutenant during the war, got thrown into a POW camp for 6 years, government would not allow his kids to go to college. So we came in 1990. I was 2. He’s heartbroken by what this country has become
- "It comes to the point where I have to use a wheelchair, then I'll just change the title to Watch Me Roll." I talk to the always compelling Anne Gridley about her disability, her Soho Rep show Watch Me Walk, and accepting loss with grace and humor.
- So psyched that horror musical Sinners got 16 Oscar nominations that it made me want to tell you all about me watching Sinners on a plane where they kept all the blood, Michael B Jordan’s sex scene, lynching references, but removed all the cunnilingus moments. Really sums up the culture
- Reposted by Diep TranIf every Democrat voted NO on funding ICE, it would not have passed the House. But, 7 House Democrats voted to fund Trump's lawless, masked goons, so it passed. Hakeem Jeffries refused to whip his members to vote against ICE funding. Genuinely unforgivable.
- Reposted by Diep TranEvery time the Trump regime uses the words "funded protesters" and "outside agitators" news outlets need to cut to this photo from last week. ICE has invaded these communities. Outside agitators don't show up in their fucking bathrobes.
- Reposted by Diep Tranthe question to ask about this is, okay, he wants to cancel the midterms. how does he get the VA state board of elections to cancel the midterms? how does he get the georgia board of elections to do it? how does he convince republican house members to quit their jobs and give up their paychecks?
- Trump says a lot of deranged shit, but, per this Reuters article — and the threats of invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota this morning — he is very clearly exploring how to cancel the midterms. www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
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- Time to call your reps, especially if they're Democrats, to join the call to Abolish ICE and Defund DHS
- Rewatching Mad Men. I so remember the early 2010s discourse being so hateful against Betty and blaming her for Don's behavior. When it's clear now, she's a person slowly realizing everything she was sold on how to be happy is a lie. With no tools, or language, to help her grow
- Today, I'm really feeling Shaina Taub as Emma Goldman yelling "strike!" on the Ragtime cast album
- Reposted by Diep Tranhis name is Jonathan Ross and he shouldn't get a good night's sleep for the rest of his life www.startribune.com/ice-agent-wh...
- As Book of Mormon turns 15, it’s pretty fitting that the South Park crew are leading the resistance www.usatoday.com/story/entert...
- Not surprising the people who have demonized "diversity, equity, and inclusion" hate theater kids. They hate people who are earnest about their beliefs, who are passionate about self expression, and who don't back down when people call their dreams silly. Under fascism, theater kids are dangerous
- The Vanity Fair Susie Wiles piece and photos is the gold standard of what journalists should be doing in the Trump/disinformation era. You can report on terrible people without sane-washing or normalizing their behavior and rhetoric. The old rules around editorializing needs to be thrown away
- In the latest Knives Out, we discover Benoit Blanc listens to Cats in the car and can play the opening bars of Phantom of the Opera. First Follies, now Cats, the man really does contain multitudes
- First Kumail Nanjiani and now Simu Liu. It’ll be pretty funny if every Marvel superhero eventually does OH MARY! Fighting a drunk Mary Todd is arguably more challenging than Thanos
- I'm so happy that Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami are pulling an Idina Menzel circa 2014 and performing "Golden" everywhere. I will watch all of them and I hope no one mispronounces their name at the Oscars
- Bring back John Proctor is the Villain
- I talk to Lear deBessonet and Maria Goyanes, the first (!) women to run Lincoln Center Theater about the tough business of producing theatre in this economy.
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- Did I overanalyze every frame of the new Merrily We Roll Along pro-shot? Yes, yes I did.
- Guillermo Del Toros design for Frankenstein’s monster looks eerily like Ridley Scott’s architects in Prometheus. There’s an opportunity for a crazy, nonsensical crossover here. I would watch.
- Struck by how, prior to working on KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, Korean American artists Arden Cho and EJAE had either retired or were working mostly in Korea. American entertainment is continuing to fail its Asian American artists by not giving them enough opportunities www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IGi...
- Wild how this year, the Best Musical category at the Tony Awards will be slimmer and less of a nail biter than the Best Play category.
- Someone compared Elphaba’s sex cardigan to Grizabella’s outfit in CATS and now I can’t stop laughing.
- Whatever your thoughts about Queen of Versailles, it did accomplish a Broadway first: a show tune about a dead lizard.
- Pedro Pascal announcing the finalist of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is even more delightful when you realized he did the Materialists, written by playwright Celine Song. We love an ally playbill.com/article/pedr...
- There's a dystopian and unexplored aspect to Wicked where the entire reason the citizens of Oz started subjugating intelligent animals is because they wanted to eat them. Very Soylant green
- I wonder what Chess would be like if a female playwright tried her hand at writing the book and made it about Florence, and her discovering her own brilliance after hiding behind two dysfunctional men. And maybe working with the CIA to help free her father
- I think the least surprising thing about WICKED: FOR GOOD is it has the flaws and strength of the second act of Wicked. The most surprising thing: Wonderful is now a good number that actually furthers the plot. I break the film down here playbill.com/article/all-...
- Life observation: if you think of exercise and eating well as something you’ll need to do your whole life, and not just a short term thing until you hit your goals—you’ll have long term results and you forgive yourself when your skip a workout or overeat. I tell myself as I skip running today
- Speaks of how beloved Zohran is by New York that we're proud he made it through, and happy he didn't get arrested by ICE.
- “If we are getting dumber, there’s a good chance we made each other that way.” Really interesting article about how social media has exposed us to more noise than ever before, which has crippled our brains. There’s even data!
- AI is going to use up all of our power and water, and all because tech bros are upset that no matter how much money they have, they will never have artistic talent. Why couldn’t they just invest in a Broadway show like normal rich people
- I asked Tappan Wilder, Thornton Wilder's nephew, what he thought of SEAT OF OUR PANTS, the SKIN OF OUR TEETH musical. Surprisingly, he loved it, which is notable because there's been two previous failed attempts.
- At today's matinee of This World of Tomorrow, Tom Hanks' sci-fi romance play, a loveseat got stuck, instead of disappearing via lift. But instead of stopping the show, Tom Hanks just pushed the loveseat off the lift, gestured to stage management, and then continued with the seat. The real deal
- Between CHESS, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, THE BAKER’S WIFE, the past few years have shown that with time and smart revisions, what was once a flop can become a hit. Really a good reminder that nothing is set in stone, especially not art
- What I appreciate about Celine Song was her commitment in Past Lives and Materialists to having one of her main characters work in the New York theater scene, and showing how it’s a creative, humble life style. It also made me wish I’d seen her play Endlings, which gets reference in Past Lives
- The starry Twelfth Night from Shakespeare in the Park airs tonight on PBS. I talked to Great Performances producer David Horn about his goal to create a library of American Shakespeare performances, Suffs coming to PBS next May, and surviving despite the Trump administration. Anyway, donate to PBS
- "Now bear with me here. Okay, this is the kind of stuff I talk about at dinner. So I'm going to drive you nuts." One of the most surreal conversations I've ever had, with Tom Hanks, where he told me about how the Atlantic Ocean was discovered and how he feels being a playwright
- Had the most surreal time at QUEEN OF VERSAILLES Saturday night. The real Jackie Siegel was in the room, along with her kids and friends, all dressed in pink. Jeanine Pirro was there too. And Jackie had her Pomeranian on her lap the whole time
- At the airport and I am very impressed with professionalism of the TSA agents. Because if I was being forced to work even though I am not getting paid, especially at the crack of dawn, I would hate everybody
