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Heard Black Sails is finally on Netflix! To celebrate here is the menace man himself 🌊 🏴‍☠️⚔️

Crayola pastels on card stock [tap for HQ] (Oh and happy belated birthday to Toby! 💖)

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If they don’t win this one the next question will be which show has better queer representation and Taika Waititi… 🤪

*Note: this poll is NOT about the overall quality of the shows, it is specifically about how the shows address queer characters and stories

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Happy Birthday to one of the best people I know! ❤️🎉

Happy 55, Toby!

#toby stephens #birthday

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TOBY STEPHENS: KEEPING UP THE PACE OF CORRUPTION

Brendan Lemon | April 8, 2024

Let us now praise Toby Stephens. Since rehearsals began in January he has played Corruption’s central character, Tom Watson, and however collaborative the production has been the fact remains that Stephens has been a primary motor in the running of this high-paced ensemble.

As the show heads into its final week, I was curious to know how Stephens has kept up the tempo for these many months. “It was terrifying at first,” he said. With a complicated new play, he added, “it’s not fully cooked” right away. “With the early previews you’re throwing it out there. And it’s like a hedge: it needs trimming.”

What’s more, Stephens said, “Corruption has a lot of scene changes, so it was always going to take a little time to get everything to flow.” He had done Oslo, the previous play by J.T. Rogers, in London, and even there, Stephens said, after Oslo had been worked out in New York, at LCT, “it was such a technical exercise. But no matter. With both Oslo and Corruption you’re dealing with really interesting subjects. And how lucky have I been to be doing a new play.”

That Corruption has been hurtling along so excitingly these past weeks has to do not just with Stephens but with everyone surrounding him. “We really have been a great group backstage,” he said. “A hard-working and happy cast.”

It is the director, Bartlett Sher, and playwright, J.T. Rogers, who set the tone for that atmosphere. “What’s so welcome about Bart and J.T.,” Stephens said, “is that they are very collaborative. You’re free to say, ‘Let’s try this,’ or “This isn’t working.’” He added, “It’s gratifying that they’re both very relentless. Somebody less relentless wouldn’t get results at this level. They keep at it until it's as good as it can possibly be. I appreciate their doggedness because I’m a bit like that myself.”

Stephens’ work ethic comes in part from his mother, the actress Maggie Smith. “As a boy, I remember her coming home from work and worrying about things – teasing little knots of performance until they were smoother. She would say, ‘There’s this bit that I can’t quite get,’ or, ‘I know there’s a laugh there but I haven’t got it yet.’ I was fascinated by that part of her process.”

With Corruption, Stephens has kept honing his Tom Watson character – another relentless type -- throughout the run. “He keeps up his crusade against the Murdoch empire,” Stephens said, “because he knows that what they’re doing is wrong. And he’s propelled by the damage they’ve done to his family.”

But Watson is not just defending his brood. “There’s a certain amount of vanity with any politician,” Stephens said, “and that drives him as well.” Watson also has a pragmatic side: he’s trying to interest the public in his anti-Murdoch campaign. “As a member of Parliament,” Stephens explained, “Tom Watson has to be extremely careful about what he says, to be in line with his party whips. He can’t just stand up and start spouting.”

Outside the House of Commons, Watson is freer. “He has to galvanize attention to the corruption, so he can attack and expose more,” Stephens said. “Otherwise, he’s pissing in the wind.” From an unprivileged background in northern England, Watson is also driven by class. “He hasn’t been born into any of the elites that run London and the U.K.,” Stephens said. “So he’s motivated by having to struggle to gain his place amongst the powerful.”

In this final part of the Corruption engagement, Stephens said he is motivated to portray Watson ever more clearly. “When you open, there’s a certain amount of hysterical energy underneath whatever you’re doing. After that, you can calm down a bit and try to get better.” He added, “There’s always a point I get to with plays, where I say to myself: If only I could have got here so much earlier. But of course you can’t, because it takes a certain amount of repetition, and building your confidence, to arrive anywhere close to where you want to be. So you keep going.”

#toby stephens #corruption play #lincoln center theater #theatre

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Toby Stephens in McDonald & Dodds S4 E2 The Rule of Three

#toby stephens #mcdonald and dodds #itv #my gifs

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Toby Stephens in McDonald & Dodds Ep 2 The Rule of Three

#toby stephens #mcdonald and dodds #itv

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Toby in NYC April 2024

#toby stephens #corruption play #lincoln center theater #theater #broadway

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Flint...

I needed to debrain. Our Captain is the best for that <3

Markers on sketchbook paper.

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"What's the target, Captain?" "Whatever's left."

Markers on sketchbook paper, with a bit of crayons. No idea why the beam of light is there, I have no excuse... Well. I'm celebrating not dying yesterday, gimme some slack xD

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Toby Stephens Returns to the New York Stage to Investigate the Media In ‘Corruption’

Stephens talks about playing Tom Watson, the member of Parliament who pursued the investigation of the UK phone hacking scandal. “We’re still living in the aftermath of all the stuff that came out," he says.

By Harry Haun • 03/25/24 4:55pm

Toby Stephens as Tom Watson in Corruption at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. T Charles Erickson

“I love doing what I do on stage,” declares Toby Stephens, more joyfully than boastfully. Call it a (very) early calling. The gifted offspring of genuine theatrical royalty (Sir Robert Stephens and Dame Maggie Smith), he plies the family trade with distinction on two continents. He can’t help it.

When Broadway first saw Stephens, he was drawing double duty in the 1999 revival of Jean Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon, playing patrician twins who turn into romantic rivals. A quarter of a century later he has finally returned to New York in Corruption, where he is one of just two actors in a company of 13 who does not play multiple roles.

Stephens portrays Tom Watson, a British Parliament member who helped squeeze a death rattle out of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World for hacking the phones of thousands of celebrities. Playwright J.T. Rogers adapted Watson and journalist Martin Hickman’s 2012 book Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and The Corruption of Britain into Corruption, currently getting a world-premiere staging from Bartlett Sher at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, the site of the duo’s previous Tony winner, 2016’s Oslo.

In the 25 years between his New York stage sojourns Stephens has been busy doing his thing “in an industry that’s becoming more and more precarious,” he tells Observer. That’s meant keeping “a variety going,” trading movie roles like the Bond villain Gustav Graves in Die Another Day with a turn as Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company. “I still try to balance theater with making money. That’s what it comes down to—finding that balance.”

What was the lure that brought Stephens back to New York? “A number of things,” he begins. “Firstly, I worked with Bart and J.T. on Oslo in London and enjoyed the experience. Secondly, Corruption is a new piece. Really interesting new writing is quite rare these days. Lots of revivals are done, but I really want to work on something new.” And then there’s focus of Corruption: the media, privacy, and truth itself. “It’s an important subject because we’re still living in the aftermath of all the stuff that came out. It’s still on-going.”

It’s not been an easy play to bring off. “There’s a point in rehearsals and previews where you suddenly feel like ‘Oh, I’m in control of this. It’s not in control of me,’” he says. “What I hate is when you aren’t quite in control of the material. It’s just beyond your fingertips.” The challenge of Corruption was its complexity. “The play is freighted with information, and you have to get that across and make it all seem naturalistic and real. You must leave the audience believing this narrative.”

Adding to the complexity, the show changed throughout previews, a process Stephens calls “terrifying,” though, “that’s how J.T. and Bart work,” he adds. Some of the changes were subtle, others were major. “By the time we reached the first night, it was a very different piece than what we started with. The skeleton was there, but the way we told the story was different. They tightened it up, cut things, rearranged things, even put new scenes in.” Still, there was enough time to work with the material that by opening night Stephens had found the control he was looking for. “I had fun because I knew it was cemented and this would be the piece we’re doing.”

How deeply did Stephens delve into the character of the man he was playing? “Not very,” the actor admits. “I know of him because I’m aware politically in the U.K. I read the newspaper and follow current affairs. I’ve watched him through the years. In terms of research, I believe the play is the play. That’s my main touchstone. I have to trust J.T. has done thorough research, which he has.”

Tom Watson, Toby Stephens, playwright J.T. Rogers, and director Bartlett Sher on opening of Corruption. Tricia Baron

In fact, Stephens opted not to read the book the play is based on. “I find doing loads of research—beyond what the material is— isn’t helpful. All that does is confuse and muddy what you’re doing,” he says. “My business is to do the play I’m given and make my character dramatic and nuanced enough for audiences to deal with.”

So for Stephens, the research is the script, though he does admit one addition to get Watson’s accent right. “He’s got an accent that’s quite broad when he’s talking as himself, but when he’s in Parliament or talking officially, it’s slightly subtler,” he says. To nail that, he watched “a lot of videos—but up to a point. I don’t want to do an impersonation.”

Tom Watson was a surprise guest at Corruption’s opening. “Thank God, I didn’t know that he was present,” Stephens sighs. “Afterwards, Tom said, ‘If this play was done in London, it would be a lightning rod.’ I think he’s right about that. It’s still very fresh in people’s memory. There’s still legal action against newspapers for hacking.” Though Watson had read the play before seeing it, Stephens thinks he was slightly stunned by the whole thing. “Actually seeing it, seeing somebody else playing you, is a completely different thing. You’ve got someone who has lived the real story, and you’re doing a simplified version of that. But I think that he was very, very impressed by the show. ”

#toby stephens #corruption play #lincoln center theater #Broadway #theater #interviews #tom watson

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Interview: Unpacking Corruption, With Stars Saffron Burrows and Toby Stephens

Stephens and Burrows star in the latest play from dramatist J.T. Rogers and director Bartlett Sher at Lincoln Center Theater.

David Gordon Off-Broadway March 25, 2024

Following up on the massive, international success of Oslo, playwright J.T. Rogers and longtime director Bartlett Sher have turned to another socio-political subject for their newest theatrical collaboration at Lincoln Center Theater. Corruption, running through April 14 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, tells the story behind the 2011 phone-hacking scandal that upended British politics and almost brought Rupert Murdoch’s media empire down.

The David-and-Goliath story, which Rogers presents in customarily epic form, follows Parliament member Tom Watson as he takes on News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, not only risking his career, but also his life, to expose the nefarious goings on. Taking on these two roles are esteemed actors Toby Stephens (who last collaborated with Rogers and Sher in the National Theatre production of Oslo) and Saffron Burrows, a film and tv regular making her New York stage debut.

Both Burrows and Stephens recognize the importance of this particular story — they lived it in their native England, after all — and also the controversy that could come with it. Here are excerpts from a recent coversation we had with them.

Toby Stephens and Saffron Burrows © Tricia Baron

Having lived through this case in real time, what was it like when you first read the play? At times it felt like watching a Shakespearean history play.

Toby Stephens: Bart and J.T. kept on comparing it to Shakespeare plays, and I always slightly wince when things are compared to Shakespeare. It’s like the history plays because it moves around so much; you’re suddenly in all these different locations and following different characters with disparate interests, and they’re politically and morally complex. In that regard, it’s true. We’re dealing with an incredibly complex story and the morality is very interesting. Tom Watson is slightly ambiguous in a sense: he’s done bad things in the past, but he is obsessed by bringing down this woman because he has been hurt by that machine.

Personally, I think it’s about time somebody wrote about this. It was such a massive story and there are so many different parts of this thing, and they were getting away with it. But everyone was so terrified of attacking them because then they would become a target themselves. So, it’s about time somebody wrote a play, but you understand the fear. An American writer can do this, but if you were a British playwright, you’d probably think twice, because they’re still very influential and powerful.

Tom Watson and Toby Stephens © Tricia Baron

Saffron, your character, Rebekah Brooks, is obviously the “villain” of the piece. How did you find your way into that?

Saffron Burrows: It’s tricky terrain to navigate. Clearly, there are about four white cis men running the world right now, and I didn’t want it to just be that the woman’s the demon, you know? Because there’s a whole mechanism at play. In rehearsals, we talked about how this is a story about what happens when capitalism starts to eat itself and ravages society. The writing became more and more nuanced. J.T. refined and refined it, so there’s now a scene where it becomes evident that Rebekah, too, is part of an order of things. There’s some subtle stuff at play between her and her superior now, which helped me a lot because she too has her adversaries that she has to tackle.

Bart and J.T. have obviously worked together for decades now. As actors, what is it like to be welcomed into their collaboration? I know, Toby, you did Oslo in the West End.

Saffron: I was struck by how truly collaborative Bart and J.T. are. It’s a new play and it was evolving throughout the rehearsal period, and I loved that part of the process. They’ve got huge creative confidence about their own skills, which made it all the more collaborative. Members of our company would bring in stories and things they read, so it was evolving daily. It’s a lovely, exciting way to work.

Toby: Oslo, in a way, was an inherited play. The great people who did it in the Mitzi Newhouse handed it onto us and we got that script and did our own thing with it. One of the reasons I wanted to do Corruption was because it’s a new play, not yet another revival, and it’s about something that’s really important. It was very collaborative. It’s really exciting when you’re working on something that is still finding where it wants to go, as they figured out how to tell this incredibly complicated story in a way that not only an American audience will follow, but will draw their own parallels with. The Oslo experience was different because we got something they knew works. The interesting thing about this is that it’s not a particularly optimistic play. There are optimistic parts about it, in that it’s about people who are fighting against the system and care about that, but at the moment, the system is winning.

What do you think audiences in England would make of this play?

Toby: I really don’t know. I think it would be hugely controversial. There’s a huge amount of vested interest there in people who were part of that system and who are part of the story. Doing it here is almost safe, in a way, because you’re doing it in a different country.

Saffron: I had a friend come to opening who, not to name names, but she’d been hacked, and then she reminded me that I’d had someone go through my bins in the early 2000s, and then went to my grandmother’s house when my mom was walking my five-year-old brother to school. That was a bad period, but when my friend reminded me of the details I thought “Jesus.” I’m sure it happened to Toby, too. It’s absurd how low the bar was in terms of what you’d expect from “journalists” — journalists in quotes. So I agree, Toby, I think it would be very close to the bone in London. Some people who are in power now are depicted in the play, so it’s present-day, relevant, and powerful. It would be quite electric having it there.

Toby: I had a friend, he’s not even famous, he was just going out with somebody moderately successful and she was going through a divorce, and his father, who was 80, found these so-called journalists on their doorsteps saying “What do you say about your son?” It was deeply upsetting for him because dad was so confused by the whole thing. He didn’t understand why it was happening. That’s just a minor, minor case. This is a discussion that’s still going on. Doing it in London, in the heart of this whole system, I would imagine would be really, really chilling and scary, to some degree.

#toby stephens #lincoln center theater #corruption play #broadway #theater #interviews

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'Corruption,'an Important Play at Lincoln Center Theater, Mitzi E. Newhouse

'Corruption' by Oslo's JT Rogers directed by Bartlett Sher is an important play exposing the nefarious News Corup, Rubert Murdoch's evil media company.

The cast of Corruption (T. Charles Erickson) Corruption‘s well paced reimagining of the UK phone hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdock’s News Corp. empire is written by JT Rogers (Oslo) and directed by Bartlett Sher (Oslo). The hybrid drama/comedy is enjoying its premiere off Broadway, Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse. Rogers’ epic chronicle exposes key individuals employed by…

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James McGraw with his whole life ahead of him

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I’m sorry but I just love that Poseidon was in the same shirt when he came to save Percy that he was when he talked to Sally. You can look into it as deep symbolism or smth but I just love the idea that the all powerful sea deity has like. three shirts. or that being thousands of years old he repeats clothing at all. sustainable king!!

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Memorable (and favorite) moments of Captain James Flint cursing.

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I will come like wave scrashing at your shore

~ 1 h.