Arts & Entertainment
‘AHS’ renewed through 13th season


It looks like 13 is a lucky number for “American Horror Story.”
The widely popular FX anthology series, created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk way back in 2011, has been renewed for at least three more seasons – meaning three more past the currently-in-production tenth season set to air later this year, according to Deadline. That means the show will make it all the way to season 13 – a perfectly fitting milestone for “AHS” – and potentially beyond.
FX – now owned by Disney – announced the good news via John Landgraf, Chairman of FX Networks and FX Productions, at a press tour event for the Television Critic’s Association in Hollywood, where he revealed that the cable network had made a deal with 20th Century Fox Television to produce the additional three entries.
Late last year, Murphy teased in a previous interview with the media outlet that the show would likely continue, saying “It’s FX’s most highly rated show in the history of the network, it’s had 96 Emmy nominations. I hope, knock wood, will get past 100. It’s one of the most awarded and lauded shows of that network. I have every good intention of it staying there and I think [John Landgraf] does too. We’re talking about it. We’re trying to figure it out.”
At the TCA press tour, Landgraf commented, “Ryan and Brad are the undisputed masters of horror TV, having created the anthological limited series with ‘American Horror Story’ and sustaining its success for nearly a decade as FX’s highest-rated series… AHS has showcased a wealth of award-winning actors since day one and we appreciate the contributions of everyone, including Ryan, Brad and fellow executive producers Tim Minear, James Wong, Alexis Martin Woodall and Bradley Buecker, the writers, directors, cast and crew for each new, unforgettable installment of ‘American Horror Story.’”
The show, as every fan knows, explores a different theme with every season, scaring its audiences with stories set in a haunted house, an asylum, a witches’ coven, a circus freak show, and many other dark corners of American cultural imagination. The most recent installment, “AHS: 1984,” paid tribute to the classic slasher films of the eighties with a bloody tale of a cursed summer camp.
No official word yet on the theme for season ten, though Murphy hinted in the earlier interview that it might be partly set in space.
Books
Tragedy and comedy intertwined in witty ‘Quietly Hostile’
Irby’s fourth essay collection addresses pandemic, TV writing career, more

‘Quietly Hostile: Essays’
By Samantha Irby
c.2023, Vintage
$17/304 pages
You know from the get-go that “Quietly Hostile,” essayist, television writer and humorist Samantha Irby’s fourth essay collection, is filled to the brim with the author’s mordant wit, cynicism and empathy. Who else but Irby, 43, who has struggled with depression, would write: “This book is dedicated to Zoloft”?
There are zillions of essay collections. But few are as memorable, poignant, funny (sometimes grossly, in a good way) and heart-filled (a term Irby might hate) as “Quietly Hostile”

This long-awaited collection is filled with what Irby would call “good shit”: from hilarious descriptions of her bad dog in doggie day care to bits about, literally, shit, (that will gross you out, but reduce your shame about pooping).
Irby, who is Black and bisexual, grew up in poverty in Evanston, Ill. Her parents died when she was 18 (her mother from multiple sclerosis; her father, who gambled, likely, suffered from post traumatic stress disorder).
At the age of nine, Irby’s mother’s MS went out of remission. While still a child, she was called upon to care for her Mom.
“When I was an actual kid growing up on welfare with a sick mom and expired Tuna Helper from the dollar store, the future and its infinite possibilities stretched before me like a sumptuous buffet I couldn’t afford to go to,” Irby writes.
There is a backdrop of pain, sadness and, sometimes, anger to much of Irby’s humor. But self-pity and rage don’t consume the book.
Irby, the author of “Meaty,” “We Are Never Meeting in Real Life” and “Wow, No Thank You,” knows that the cliche is true: tragedy and comedy often are often intertwined.
It’s fun to learn in “Quietly Hostile” that Irby, who was a writer for the popular TV shows “Shrill” and “Tuca & Bertie,” is as much a fan as the rest of us of the TV shows she loves.
In 1998, Irby couldn’t afford cable or HBO. She had to wait to watch the “City” until it came out on VHS. “The show reflected nothing of my life,” she writes, “but provided something of a road map for my future…” she writes.
In a future, she wouldn’t have dreamed of then, she grew up to become a writer on “And Just Like That,” the “Sex and the City” reboot. (She’s a writer on season two of “And Just Like That” which premieres on June 22 on Max.)
Irby was stunned when Michael Patrick King of “And Just Like That” asked her to write for the show. “I was like … Are you allowed to work on a show like this if you only wear nine-dollar T-shirts,” she writes, “and have no idea how many Brooklyns there are.”
“During my interview,” Irby jokes, “I said, ‘Can I give Carrie diarrhea?’ and I was hired immediately.”
Even ardent “Sex and the City” aficionados may find too much of SATC in “Quietly Hostile.”
No worries: Irby who speaks of herself as being “fat” and “sick” (she has arthritis and Crohn’s disease), riffs on many things in “Quietly Hostile.” Irby turns her sharp wit on everything from what it’s like to run for a public toilet when you have diarrhea to why she’s a David Matthew’s fan girl to her love for (approaching addiction to) Diet Coke to the “last normal day” before the pandemic to the “food fights” that are a part of the most loving marriages.
Grab a Diet Coke (or libation of your choice), tell your bad dog to quit barking and enjoy “Quietly Hostile.”
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Theater
Arena’s ‘Exclusion’ is a piece of art about art
Majority Asian production features intelligent performance by Karoline

‘Exclusion’
Through June 25
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
$56-95
Arenastage.org
When Asian-American historian Katie’s best-selling book about the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is optioned for a mini-series by a Hollywood mogul, she couldn’t happier. However, artistic and commercial visions clash and things go awry. This is the premise of Ken Lin’s new comedy “Exclusion” now at Arena Stage.
Katie is played by Karoline, the mononymously named New York-based actor who brings intelligence and energy to every role they tackle.
“I’m similar to Katie — honest to a fault, optimistic, both strong and naïve,” says Karoline, 28. “For me, the challenge is watching Katie choose yes or no at every turn. Should she address what’s coming at her with truth or not? Or hide what she’s thinking? My struggle in life has been similar. How do I stay true and at the same time get what I want in a corrupt world.”
When asked to be part of “Exclusion’s” early development, Karoline was unsure: Doing a piece of art about art can be tricky. But they soon changed their mind.
“The workshop changed my life. I got into the room and it was majority Asian. Seeing Ken [Lin] talk about coming back to theater and about being able to write about Asian people with a play that’s ostensibly a comedy and obviously super personal, drawing from his life and what he’s learned from colleagues.”
Karoline describes their experience with anti-Asian racism as more microaggressions. “I don’t have people point at me saying ‘you’re a chink.’ It’s been subtler versions of that.”
As a stage actor, they’ve had an activist history, taking complaints of racism to a company’s board, a move that can be contentious. Typically, it’s preferred actors “be grateful, listen and interpret, and not speak up.”
When a respected mentor later asked Karoline whether they wanted to be an actor or an activist, they didn’t understand why it had to be mutually exclusive. “I was too young to say it could be both. Now it depends on the situation. Maybe both in theater because I have more of a career there. But in TV, I don’t know.”
Karoline was born in Shanghai and grew up in South Texas where they had little exposure to the arts. After graduation from a pre-med magnet high school (with no intention of a career in medicine), they headed off to Harvard on full scholarship: “I showed my family that I can be smart, but I was going to do my own thing.”
They took a gap year from Harvard to train at Atlantic Acting School, then went to apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Weeks after moving to New York they were cast as closeted lesbian Bo in Tom Stoppard’s “The Hard Problem” at Lincoln Center Theater.
“I’ve played more than one lesbian in my career,” says Karoline with a chuckle. In the fall, they can be seen in the entire first season of “Death and Other Details” (Hulu) as a very rich lesbian heiress, a darkly funny role.
“It seems when you’re Asian, you’re expected to talk about your parents’ accents or dumplings,” they add. “The narrative is vivid and bright. I wanted to do classical theater so my work could speak about everything else. From the start, I was ready to do the work, and hoped to have a long career that included many different things.”
Not long ago, Karoline shed their surname owing to a difficult childhood and a feeling of estrangement from their family. “It’s unusual, especially for Asian Americans, but after some self-healing and thinking, I decided I didn’t need it. Now I feel a lot freer.”
And there have been other changes in addition to their last name including coming out as queer and sharing their gender identity. This is the first year they’ve only used “they” pronouns.
“When you’re queer, I believe you’re always queer even if you’re not in a queer relationship. I think of my character like that. In this space and time, Katie’s with a man but that doesn’t mean that’s the whole conversation about this person.
“For me, playing Katie in ‘Exclusion’ has been a huge vote of confidence. Sometimes it takes someone writing something wonderful and casting you for you to know where you need to be.”
Out & About
Mayor’s office to host Pride tie-dye party
Guests to make colorful shirts for ‘PEACE. LOVE. REVOLUTION’ theme

The Mayor’s Office for LGBTQ Affairs will host “Love Out Loud: Tie Dye Party for Pride” on Wednesday, June 7 at 5 p.m. at the Frank D. Reeves Center of Municipal Affairs.
The event, hosted along with the DC Center for the LGBT Community and Capital Pride Alliance, will be an afternoon for community and artistry. Guests are encouraged to bring their creativity to make some colorful tie-dye shirts in line with this year’s Pride theme, “PEACE. LOVE. REVOLUTION.”
This event is free to attend and more details are available on Eventbrite.
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