The Arts

Opera News reports: The Metropolitan Opera announced today that it has canceled the first few months of its 2020-season, and will now open its doors next season with a special gala performance on December 31st. The company’s performances will then continue through through June 5, 2021. “Given the enormous organizational complexity of the Met’s schedule, we have no choice but …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Meryl Streep, Audra McDonald and Christine Baranski donned bathrobes and guzzled drinks for their performance of “The Ladies Who Lunch” during a special tribute to Stephen Sondheim that aired online Sunday night. The trio also were seen imbibing on wine and other libations during their performance of the song from Sondeim’s Company. Streep even mixed her …

The New York Post reports: Actress Faye Dunaway relentlessly berated her gay personal assistant on play “Tea at Five,” calling him “a little homosexual boy” before he was fired for complaining, a new lawsuit alleges. Michael Rocha says in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that he began working for the Broadway-bound production — from which Dunaway was eventually fired — …

Vulture reports: The celebrated novelist Toni Morrison died Monday night, according to a source at her publisher, Knopf. She was 88 years old. The cause of death is not yet known. Born Chloe Ardella Wofford, Morrison was best known for her critically acclaimed and best-selling novel Beloved, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among her other memorable and …