nanushka

Johnsey has always been "male referred," I believe (he/him/his pronouns, etc.).

I don't. Kourlas implicitly answers the question: That's not to say I think it's good for ballet or anything — just that I'm not at all surprised ballet is getting the attention while symphony orchestras or even opera aren't. As far as I can see, she doesn't say that he did either of those things. The "women" involved included Waterbury; she doesn't imply that both dancers were implicated in actions against Waterbury herself. If the expectation is to be that any reported mention of the case is going to spell out in exact detail all facets of the case in order to guard against confusion by all readers, then yes — it's true that legitimate journalistic outlets such as the Times have failed in that. But, in my opinion, that is an unrealistic expectation. It is not the job of a TV review to make sure that no readers misunderstand the facts of the Waterbury case, so long as what is written (when read with a basic degree of care) is true, not false.

On the other hand, I think the lack of such an explanation makes it even clearer that this is not at all what happened.

The plot of the episode, as recounted by Gia Kourlas, makes it clear that this is more "very loosely inspired by" than "ripped from the headlines": Waterbury agrees that the episode should not have been made while the case is still unresolved: And Kourlas loved John Waters in it, though he unfortunately only appears in one scene.

Just one data point (and there are obviously many other factors involved), according to the company website, Colorado Ballet has 32 dancers across its ranks, from principal to apprentice. ABT has 91.

No, they weren't supposed to be laid off, but when the tours got canceled, the company laid them off for 5 weeks (beginning around the start of last week, I believe). Numerous dancers reported this on social media. NYCB seems not to have laid everyone off, as the recent NYT article about the spring season cancellation reports. Unless the ABT dancers were using the term in an unusual manner, ABT's layoff likely entails no pay. (ABT does not have nearly the financial resources that NYCB has.) I believe the company has set up this Crisis Relief Fund in order to try to ameliorate that.

I know. It’s hard to keep track of all the pervasive ramifications. 😕 I don’t think there’s really any chance SAB will be in session on April 20.

Surely SAB is not in session now (at least in person), no?

This is great news, though.

I assume that is the case, as they are currently laid off for 5 weeks.

I think "substantially" may be the key, though. If the changes are substantial enough (which is why I used the term "historically inspired fiction" rather than "historical fiction" — or say "past-inspired fiction" or "reality-inspired fiction" if "historically" sounds too remote....but the key word is "fiction"), it's potentially much less problematic, because there's more awareness that the show is inspired by true events rather than a depiction of true events. If John Waters is playing a porn producer, that means this is not just a "distortion" of what actually happened but something further removed from the facts. I personally find it hard to believe that, if it weren't for the current Broadway shutdown, there'd be any serious escalation as a result of this episode's airing.

For historically inspired fiction to not stick to the historical facts is hardly surprising or unprecedented (it's been happening probably since the dawn of human storytelling), much less troubling, at least in my mind.

Gia Kourlas has an article in the Times about dancers taking and offering ballet classes on Zoom, IG, YouTube, etc. I'm surprised at the inclusion of so many photos taken (by visiting professional photographers, presumably) in people's homes at this time — though, as Unity Phelan notes, they are fun to see:

Suspended suggests not necessarily for good, which is why I was confused. In any case, it doesn't say any of those happened; it says Scarlett "is leaving the company." Exactly. Nothing unfair about it that I can detect.

Where does it say he’s suspended?