IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Report finds New York writers, stages remain extremely white
Billboard Awards: Alicia Keys, Bad Bunny, Malone to perform
NEW YORK » Alicia Keys, Bad Bunny, Luke Combs and leading nominee Post Malone will perform at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards.
NBC and dick clark productions announced the performers for the show, which will broadcast live from The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Oct. 14. With restrictions set due to the coronavirus pandemic, it wasn’t clear if the performances will be live or pre-taped.
The awards show was originally supposed to take place in April but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, which caused a halt to live performances and TV and film productions.
Kelly Clarkson will host the Billboard Awards, and Garth Brooks will receive the ICON Award.
Malone’s 16 nominations include top male artist, top rap artist and the show’s biggest prize, top artist. Others competing for the top honor include Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Khalid and Jonas Brothers.
Nicki Minaj gives birth to her first child
Nicki Minaj has welcomed her first child.
The “Super Bass” rapper gave birth Wednesday in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed. No additional birth details were immediately available. As of Thursday, Minaj had not commented on social media about her new baby.
It’s the first child for the 37-yearold artist and her husband, Kenneth “Zoo” Petty. She and Petty got married in October last year after about a year together. They had previously dated when the “Bang Bang” rapper was 16 and living in Queens, N.Y.
Minaj, whose full name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, announced her pregnancy on social media in July with a series of bikini-clad photos taken by photographer David LaChapelle.
A new report on racial representation on New York stages has found that little has been changing — there remains an over-representation of white actors, writers and directors.
The annual study, “The Visibility Report: Racial Representation on NYC Stages,” from the Asian American Performers Action Coalition in partnership with the American Theatre Wing, analyzed the 18 largest nonprofit theaters as well as Broadway companies in New York City during the 2017-18 season.
Over 61% of all roles on New York City stages went to white actors, a rate double the population of white people in New York City (32.1% of residents). According to the study, 23.2% of roles went to Black actors, 6.9% to Asian American actors and 6.1% to Latino actors.
That represents a slight improvement from the previous season, which had 67% white actors, 18.6% Black actors, 7.3% Asian actors and 5% Latino actors.
Overall, nearly 80% of Broadway and off-Broadway shows’ writers were white and 85.5% of directors during the 201718 season.
Last year’s report — on the 2016-17 season — found that 86.8% of all Broadway and off-Broadway shows were from white playwrights and 87.1% of all directors hired were white.
The 2017-18 season did see some breakthroughs for people of color — including Young Jean Lee becoming the first Asian American woman playwright produced on Broadway and the Tony-winning “The Band’s Visit,” a musical set in the Middle East. But the report warned against celebrating examples that “often serve as the poster child of diversity for a particular season, encouraging a false sense of progress.”