Category: Новини

A startup professional golf tour backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has roiled the usually staid world of professional golf — the PGA Tour — in the United States.

The PGA suspended 17 professional players last week for participating in the inaugural Saudi tournament, which began June 9.

The new tour, the LIV Golf Invitational Series, has caused controversy for months, in large part because critics of the Saudi regime’s policies claimed it was a way to launder the reputation of the country’s monarchy, particularly that of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The crown prince has been held in disrepute internationally since at least 2018, when agents of his government allegedly assassinated journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul and dismembered his body to hide the evidence. The CIA later concluded that Salman ordered the killing.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who, as a candidate in 2019, declared that Saudi Arabia should be considered a “pariah” state based on its record of human rights abuses, including the Khashoggi killing, is currently attempting a rapprochement with the Saudi regime. He is expected to visit Riyadh in July.

A new approach

The Roman numerals in the new tour’s name — LIV, or 54 — refer to its format. Unlike the traditional PGA Tour, which typically involves four rounds of golf totaling 72 holes, LIV Golf consists of just three rounds, for a total of 54 holes.

LIV Golf markets itself as taking a fresh approach to a sport steeped in history, decorum and understatement. Its tournaments feature loud music, a team format and “shotgun” starts in which all teams begin play at the same time at different holes.

The new tour also offers large purses. On Saturday, South African golfer Charl Schwartzel won the tournament’s top individual prize of $4 million. Schwartzel’s side also won the team competition, splitting an additional $3 million between the four of them.

The Saudis are also reportedly paying top players undisclosed appearance fees, which in some cases might exceed the prize money on offer at specific tournaments.

Indeed, the amount of money the Saudis are pouring into LIV Golf appears be a major reason it has been able to separate well-known players, including Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed, from the PGA Tour.

LIV ‘leverage’

Early this year, American golfer Phil Mickelson, one of the most popular and successful players of his generation, sparked anger after a biographer quoted him weighing the pros and cons of playing in the new league.

Characterizing the Saudi leadership as “scary,” Mickelson said, “We know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it?”

Mickelson went on to say that he has joined LIV Golf because he saw the new league as a way to force change on the PGA Tour, which he characterized as “manipulative” and “coercive,” toward players.

“The Saudi money has finally given us that leverage,” he said.

Mickelson was immediately dropped by a number of high-profile sponsors. He later apologized and withdrew from professional golf for months. However, he was on hand when the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational London tournament kicked off June 9 in Hemel Hempstead, England.

Dueling statements

As the LIV event began, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan sent a letter to the tour members announcing that 17 players had been suspended for their participation. Ten of them had already voluntarily resigned their PGA Tour membership.

“These players have made their choice for their own financial-based reasons,” a decision, he wrote, that “disrespects you, our fans and our partners.”

He added: “I am certain our fans and partners — who are surely tired of all this talk of money, money and more money — will continue to be entertained and compelled by the world-class competition you display each and every week, where there are true consequences for every shot you take and your rightful place in history whenever you reach that elusive winner’s circle.”

LIV Golf responded immediately with a statement of its own.

“Today’s announcement by the PGA Tour is vindictive and it deepens the divide between the Tour and its members,” it said. “It’s troubling that the Tour, an organization dedicated to creating opportunities for golfers to play the game, is the entity blocking golfers from playing. This certainly is not the last word on this topic. The era of free agency is beginning as we are proud to have a full field of players joining us in London, and beyond.”

‘Staggering’ amount of money

John A. Fortunato, a professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, told VOA that the question of “free agency” in golf is not new. Some European players, for example, play in PGA Tour events in the U.S. but also participate in non-PGA events in Europe.

Fortunato, the author of the book Making the Cut: Life Inside the PGA Tour System, also said that freedom from the PGA’s participation rules is probably not the main driver behind some players opting for the LIV, he said.

“The amount of money is staggering,” he said. Indeed, Schwartzel’s $4 million purse in the LIV opener dwarfed the approximately $1.5 million that Rory McIlroy took home for winning a PGA Tour event in Canada on the same weekend.

Television deals and sponsors

Fortunato said the new league’s long-term success will hinge in part on getting television networks to cover its tournaments — a task that will be difficult in the U.S., given that most major broadcast networks as well as cable sports giant ESPN have long-standing relationships with the PGA Tour.

He said another factor will be how two “major” tournaments in the U.S. that are not run by the PGA Tour decide to address the issue of LIV participation.

One of those tournaments, the U.S. Open, begins Thursday, June 16, and appears poised to allow LIV participants to play. But that may be in part because the organizers did not have time to develop a policy toward the new tour.

The next Masters Tournament, held by the Augusta National Golf Club, will not take place until spring 2023. The Masters could prevent LIV participants from playing in Augusta.

“That’s the big domino that I’m watching,” Fortunato said. “And that is the thing that the PGA Tour, I think, is most hoping for.”
…

June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Month. In the Western U.S. state of Colorado, multimedia artists are exploring the intersections of gender identity and disability. VOA’s Scott Stearns has the story from Denver. WARNING: The video contains a brief depiction of nudity.
…

“A Strange Loop,” an irreverent, sexually frank work about Blackness and queerness took home the best new musical crown at the Tony Awards on Sunday, as voters celebrated Broadway’s most racially diverse season by choosing an envelope-pushing Black voice.

Michael R. Jackson’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize drama winner is a theater meta-journey — a tuneful show about a Black gay man writing a show about a Black gay man. Jackson also won for best book. Many of the night’s other Tonys were spread over several productions.

The victory of a smaller, more offbeat musical against more commercial offerings continues a recent trend, as when the intimate musical “The Band’s Visit” beat the big brand-musicals “Frozen,” “Mean Girls” and “SpongeBob SquarePants” in 2018 or when “Hadestown” bested “Tootsie,” “Beetlejuice” and “Ain’t Too Proud” a year later.

“A Strange Loop” beat “MJ,” a bio musical of the King of Pop’s biggest hits, for the top prize, although the other Jackson musical nabbed four Tony Awards including for best choreography. Myles Frost moonwalked away with the award for best lead actor in a musical for playing Michael Jackson, becoming the youngest solo winner in that category. “Mom, I made it!” he said.

“MJ” represents the 22-year-old Frost’s Broadway debut as he plays Jackson with a high, whispery voice, a Lady Diana-like coquettishness and a fierce embrace of Jackson’s iconic dancing and singing style. “Heal the world,” Frost said from the stage, channeling Jackson.

Joaquina Kalukango won the Tony for best leading actress in a musical for her work in “Paradise Square,” a show about Irish immigrants and Black Americans jostling to survive in New York City around the time of the Civil War. Earlier in the night, she blew the house down with a stunning performance of the musical’s “Let It Burn.”

A gender-swapped revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” rode the fondness Broadway has for the late iconic composer by earning five statuettes, including best musical revival. 

“Company” is an exploration of a single person’s conflicted feelings about commitment, traditionally focusing on a 35-year-old bachelor. This time, it had a bachelorette and the sexes of several couples were swapped.

Marianne Elliott made Tony history by becoming the only woman to have won three Tonys for directing, the latest for “Company.” She thanked Sondheim for letting her put a woman “front and center.” She dedicated her award to everyone fighting to keep theaters open. 

Patti LuPone won best featured actress in a musical for her work in the revival, thanking COVID-19 safety officials in her acceptance speech. Matt Doyle won for best featured actor in a musical for “Company.”

“The Lehman Trilogy,” spanning 150 years and running three and a half hours, follows the fortunes of a single family into the financial crash of 2008. It was crowned best new play and Sam Mendes won for best direction of a play, praising the season for its “rampant creativity.” One of its three stars, Simon Russell Beale, won for best actor in a play and thanked the audience for coming to see a trio of British actors tell a New York story.

Deirdre O’Connell won for best actress in a play for her work in “Dana H.,” about a real woman kidnapped by a former convict and white supremacist. O’Connell never speaks, instead, lip-syncing to an edited recording of the survivor. On Sunday, O’Connell urged the crowd to ignore safe options and “make the weird art.”

“Take Me Out” won for best play revival, and “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson won the Tony for best featured actor in a play for his work in it. “Mom, Dad, thank you for letting me move to New York when I was 17-years-old. I told you it would be OK,” said Ferguson, who also thanked his understudy and his husband.

Host Ariana DeBose kicked off her portion of the show in a sparkling white jumpsuit and wide-brimmed hat, dancing and singing to the song “This Is Your Round of Applause,” which mashed up shards of musical theater favorites, like “Chicago, “The Wiz,” “Evita,” “Rent,” “Hair,” “Cabaret,” “Hairspray” and “West Side Story,” the movie remake for which she recently won an Oscar.

Still panting while welcoming viewers, she told the crowd that this was the season “Broadway got it’s groove back.”

Phylicia Rashad won best featured actress in a play for “Skeleton Crew.” The Dominique Morisseau play is about blue-collar job insecurity set in a Detroit auto stamping plant. “It’s wonderful to present humanity in all it’s fullness,” Rashad said.

And the Tonys ushered in the latest EGOT winner: Jennifer Hudson, who has an Emmy, Grammy and Oscar, and joined that elite group Sunday when “A Strange Loop” won best musical — she’s a producer.

A starry revival of the classic show “The Music Man” with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster walked away empty-handed despite six nominations and being a box office smash, regularly pulling in more than $3 million a week.

The season was marked by the embrace of seven Black playwrights, from contemporary writers like Dominique Morisseau, Keenan Scott II and Antoinette Nwandu, to underappreciated historical playwrights like Alice Childress and Ntozake Shange. DeBose said Broadway was more representative.

DeBose celebrated the Black voices and onstage talent — as well as noting that two Broadway theaters were being renamed for Black icons James Earl Jones and Lena Horne — saying that The Great White Way was now a nickname “as opposed to a how-to guide.”

DeBose also hailed the heroic efforts of understudies, swings and standbys to keep shows going throughout pandemic spikes, noting that she and many other Tony nominees had once been unheralded understudies and swings. After the cast of “Six” performed, DeBose noted that one was a fill-in at the last minute. 

Having been freed of handling the technical awards, the main telecast had a less frantic, more airy feel. DeBose was an assured, funny and versatile host, one who roamed the seats, sat in Andrew Garfield’s lap, danced with Sam Rockwell and prompted Laurence Fishburne to do a Daffy Duck imitation. She closed the show with a medley of the musical nominees, at one point making “MJ” part of the Dylan show: “You’ve been hit by/A rolling stone.”

Some of the show highlights included the massive cast of “The Music Man” filling the massive Radio City stage with “Seventy-Six Trombones,” as well as Prince Jackson and Paris Jackson introducing the show about their father before the “MJ” cast danced to an energetic “Smooth Criminal.”

Billy Crystal taught the crowd “Yiddish scatting,” and the original cast of the 2007 Tony-winning musical “Spring Awakening” — including Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff — reunited for a performance.

Many acceptance speeches thanked the audiences for braving spikes in COVID-19 to come to see shows, and Marsha Gay Harden cheered 150 safety officers invited as guests to the Tonys.

Earlier, Darren Criss and Julianne Hough kicked off the four-hour awards, handing out mostly design awards. Criss opened the telecast with the original song, “Set the Stage,” as he and Hough energetically danced up ladders, on laundry hampers and in sliding theater seats to celebrate the artists who keep theater alive.

The first award of the night — for best score — went to “Six: The Musical,” with music and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Marlow became the first out nonbinary composer-lyricist to win a Tony. “Six: The Musical” also picked up the award for best costumes for a musical.

The season — with 34 new productions — represents a full return to theaters after nearly two years of a pandemic-mandated shutdown. At the last Tonys nine months ago, the winners were pulled from just 18 eligible plays and musicals, and many of the competitive categories were depleted.

Sondheim, the iconic composer who died in late 2021, was honored in a special segment by Bernadette Peters singing his song “Children Will Listen.” Angela Lansbury, who was honored with a lifetime achievement Tony, wasn’t present so her “Sweeney Todd” co-star Len Cariou accepted on her behalf.
…

Darren Criss and Julianne Hough kicked off the four-hour Tony Award celebrations at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night, handing out mostly design awards exclusively on the streaming Paramount+. 

Criss opened the telecast with the original song, “Set the Stage,” as he and Hough energetically danced up ladders, on laundry hampers and in sliding theater seats to celebrate the artists who keep theater alive. 

The first award of the night — for best score — went to “Six: The Musical,” with music and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Marlow is the first out nonbinary composer-lyricist to win a Tony. 

Criss and Hough have an hour to hand out a total of eight technical awards for things such as best lighting and sound design, along with best score, orchestrations and choreography. They will then pass hosting duties to Ariana DeBose for the main three-hour telecast on CBS and Paramount+ from the same stage, live coast to coast for the first time. 

The season — with 34 new productions — represents a full return to theaters after nearly two years of a pandemic-mandated shutdown. At the last Tonys nine months ago, the winners were pulled from just 18 eligible plays and musicals, and many of the competitive categories were depleted. 

DeBose, the Tony-nominated theater veteran and freshly minted Oscar winner for “West Side Story,” said Broadway is due for a party. 

“I feel like if there was ever the time, the time is now,” she said. “I think it’s a triumph to have simply made it to this point, to have made art and to have a show.” 

The telecast will have performances from this year’s Tony Award-nominated musicals, including “A Strange Loop,” “Company,” “Girl from the North Country,” “MJ,” “Mr. Saturday Night,” “Music Man,” “Paradise Square” and “Six.” The original cast members of the 2007 Tony-winning musical “Spring Awakening” will also reteam and perform. 

“A Strange Loop,” a theater meta-journey about a playwright writing a musical, goes into the show with a leading 11 Tony nominations. Right behind with 10 nominations each is “MJ,” a bio musical of the King of Pop stuffed with his biggest hits, and “Paradise Square,” a musical about Irish immigrants and Black Americans jostling to survive in New York City around the time of the Civil War. 

Front-runners for best actress in a musical are Sharon D Clarke from the revival of “Caroline, or Change” and Joaquina Kalukango of “Paradise Square.” The best actor in a musical may come down to Jaquel Spivey from “A Strange Loop” versus Myles Frost as the King of Pop in “MJ the Musical.” 

“The Lehman Trilogy,” Stefano Massini’s play spanning 150 years about what led to the collapse of financial giant Lehman Brothers, is the leading best new play contender, while David Morse in a revival of Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive” is the leading contender as best actor in a play. His co-star, Mary-Louise Parker, could become the first actor to receive consecutive Tonys for best actress in a play. 
…

An exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is showcasing a sculpture of a Hindu god that was carved into a Cambodian mountain around year 600. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports on the importance of this Hindu sculpture to a nation that is now primarily Buddhist.
…

Favorite Mo Donegal romped to victory at the 154th Belmont Stakes on Saturday while Rich Strike, the longshot winner of the Kentucky Derby could not pull off another surprise at Elmont, New York. 

Mo Donegal, fifth at the Kentucky Derby, settled in midpack for much of the mile-and-a-half race then made his move coming onto the home stretch. 

Under jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.’s urging Mo Donegal powered away from the field coming home ahead of stable mate Nest to give trainer Todd Pletcher a 1-2 finish and a fourth Belmont win. 

Skippylongstocking finished third. 

“This has been a dream I’ve had for 40 years,” said Mo Donegal owner Mike Repole, a native New Yorker. “This is New York’s biggest race, and to win it here, with family, friends, I’m sort of overwhelmed.” 

Rich Strike had given up a shot at the Triple Crown when owner Rick Dawson decided to skip the second jewel, the Preakness Stakes, in order to rest the chestnut colt for the Belmont marathon known as the “test of a champion.” 

At 80-1 odds Rich Strike was one of the greatest longshots to win the Kentucky Derby but no one was overlooking the chestnut colt on Saturday going off as second favorite. 

The distance proved too much as Rich Strike spent most of the race trailing the eight-horse field finishing sixth. 

“Our biggest change today was that we decided to stay a little out, off the rail and try to give him a good open run when he would take off,” said Rich Strike trainer Eric Reed. “He is a routine horse, and this is the first time he has not been on the inside rail. 

“The whole way. If you watch, his head turned he’s trying to get to the inside I guess we made a mistake not putting him on the fence.” 
…

Although the war in Ukraine has entered its fourth month, local artists have not stopped working. For many Ukrainians, art during the wartime is a powerful tool that helps people stay strong and inspired. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story.
Video Editor: Yuriy Dankevych
…