On the Menu: Manuscripts

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During his more than 30 years in publishing, Peter Gethers, a senior vice president and editor at large at Penguin Random House, has gotten used to having strangers foist manuscripts on him at inopportune moments. The unsolicited novels are rarely good, and almost never good enough to acquire.

So his expectations were modest when a young waitress who works at Buvette, a cozy French restaurant in the West Village where Mr. Gethers is a regular, told him she’d just completed her novel — about a young, adrift waitress working at an upscale New York restaurant. As it happens, she was the second waitress at Buvette who let it slip to Mr. Gethers that she was working on a novel.

Mr. Gethers delivered his usual polite, deflecting line: have your agent send it to me.

“The book came in and within 10 pages, I was going, oh my God, this woman is an extraordinary talent, “ Mr. Gethers said. “One doesn’t see a lot of first novels like this, or any novels like this.”

The restaurant connection proved fitting. The novel, “Sweetbitter,” by Stephanie Danler, centers on a recent transplant to New York who gets a job at a fancy restaurant near Union Square. (Ms. Danler worked at the Union Square Cafe, a popular lunch spot for publishing industry executives, for a year after she moved to the city.) The young woman falls into a sort of love triangle with two co-workers.

Mr. Gethers mentioned the book to another editor, Claudia Herr, and urged her to buy it. Ms. Herr had already heard about the novel from Melissa Flashman, Ms. Danler’s literary agent, who compared it to Jay McInerney’s “Bright Lights, Big City.” News of an exciting submission bounced around the office. Days later, in early October, Ms. Herr acquired the book for Alfred A. Knopf, in a pre-emptive high six-figure, two-book deal.

“Sweetbitter” is both a coming-of-age and coming-to-New York story, and a novel about the seductive pleasures of food and wine. The story unfolds inside the glamorous, cutthroat and sometimes seedy world of elite Manhattan restaurants. Ms. Danler, 30, who’s from California and went to Kenyon College in Ohio, moved to New York in 2006. Since then, she’s cycled through several restaurant jobs and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the New School, where she studied with Helen Schulman and Jonathan Dee and worked on “Sweetbitter.” Knopf plans to release the novel in 2016.

“The way she writes about food, you can actually taste it,” Mr. Gethers said.

Mr. Gethers said he’s now looking forward to reading the other novel by the other Buvette waitress. “She hasn’t finished it yet,” he said. “I’ve been promised it by the end of November.”

Taylor Swift’s ’1989’ Likely to Sell a Million Copies This Week

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Taylor Swift Josh Haner/The New York Times

When Taylor Swift released her album “1989” on Monday, the music industry at large doubted it could sell one million copies in a week, as Ms. Swift’s last two records have done.

But the last few days have taught the business a lesson: never bet against Taylor Swift.

While early estimates for “1989” had been as low as 750,000 copies, the album now appears very likely to cross the million mark, according to industry estimates reported by Billboard, and could reach as high as 1.1 million. The success is a testament to Ms. Swift’s lasting star power as well as her tenacity and canniness as a marketer. Even in a deeply depressed music market, Ms. Swift has remained a master of inspiring deep loyalty among her fans, in part through social media.

“Fans really feel they have a connection with Swift, and want to have the full experience, so to speak, by buying the ‘1989’ album,” said Keith Caulfield, an associate director of charts at Billboard. “Fans feel like Swift is their BFF.”

Taylor Swift’s “1989” is set to become the first platinum album of the year, according to Billboard.

If “1989” does sell one million copies this week, it would instantly become the first platinum album released this year, as well as the first to open with a million since Ms. Swift’s own “Red” two years ago. Ms. Swift would also take her place as the only act to have three albums hit a million in a single week since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking music sales in 1991. (The Backstreet Boys, N’ Sync and Eminem have each done it twice.)

To promote “1989,” Ms. Swift and her record company, Big Machine — in partnership with Universal Music’s Republic label — went on a marketing blitz across virtually every platform of media. This week Ms. Swift made a string of television appearances, including “Good Morning America,” “Late Show With David Letterman” and “The Voice,” where she is a talent mentor. She is also in commercials for Diet Coke and Target, and has received extensive promotion from big radio networks like iHeartMedia and CBS Radio.

And, of course, Ms. Swift was all over Twitter and Instagram, counting down the hours until the album release and retweeting dozens of pictures of her fans holding up the album after they bought it. In the weeks leading up to the release, Ms. Swift held “secret sessions” with fans, playing them the album and serving Rice Krispies treats.

Ms. Swift is one of a handful of major acts that have withheld their newest releases from streaming services like Spotify, a strategy intended to drive greater sales of the album.

The music industry’s standard accounting week for sales ends on Sunday, and Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks retailers, will report the final numbers for the week on Wednesday. On this week’s Billboard chart, which counts sales made last week, the heavy metal band Slipknot opened with 132,000 sales of its new album, “.5: The Gray Chapter” (Roadrunner).

Director of Atlanta’s High Museum to Step Down

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Michael E. Shapiro, who has served for 14 years as director of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and has overseen a fundamental transformation of the institution, greatly enlarging its collection and its international standing, announced on Wednesday that he planned to step down in the summer of 2015.

Mr. Shapiro, who previously served as the museum’s chief curator and deputy director, said that two milestones – he is turning 65 next month and will mark his 20th year at the museum next January – led him to the decision. “It’s been on my mind for five years or so that it seemed like a natural time to finish that chapter,” he said. “Because otherwise there is no natural end point, and I feel like we’ve accomplished a tremendous amount. And the idea of a fresh voice to take the museum to the next level makes a lot of sense to me.”

During his tenure, the museum nearly doubled the number of works in its permanent collection, acquiring important paintings by 19th and 20th century and contemporary artists like artists Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Mary Cassatt, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly and Julie Mehretu. The High raised nearly $230 million during that time, increasing its endowment by nearly 30 percent and building an acquisition fund of nearly $20 million. It greatly enlarged its educational programs and accessibility for school children. And it completed an expansion by Renzo Piano that more than doubled the museum’s size.

The museum became known for actively pursuing international loan partnerships, showing works from the Louvre, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Museum of the Terracotta Army and the Cultural Relics Bureau of Shaanxi Province in Xi’an, China, which made possible “The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army” in 2008, the most highly attended show in the High’s history.

“It’s not a perfect model,” Mr. Shapiro said of such art exchanges. “But we’re all hungry for content, as they call it now, and to be able to mine that kind of content from around the world is a great thing for a museum.”

Of his future plans, he added: “I’m kind of an open book now. And as people around here like to say, I feel blessed.”

Tyne Daly and Harriet Harris to Star in ‘It Shoulda Been You’ on Broadway

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The Tony Award winners Tyne Daly (“Gypsy”) and Harriet Harris (“Thoroughly Modern Millie”) will square off as warring mothers at a wedding from hell in the Broadway musical comedy “It Shoulda Been You,” which will start preview performances on March 17 at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, the producers announced on Wednesday. The show will mark the Broadway directing debut of David Hyde Pierce, whose acting has earned a Tony (“Curtains”) and four Emmy Awards for “Frasier.”

Ms. Daly will be the Jewish mother of the bride, played by Sierra Boggess, who starred in “The Little Mermaid” and performed opposite Ms. Daly in the 2011 Broadway revival of “Master Class.” Ms. Harris will be the Protestant mother of the groom, played by David Burtka, who played Tulsa in the 2003 Broadway revival of “Gypsy” and may be best known as the husband of Neil Patrick Harris.

The cast will also include Lisa Howard in the key role of the bride’s sister, as well as Edward Hibbert and Steve Rosen. In addition to Mr. Pierce, the production includes two other “Frasier” alums: Ms. Harris, who played the scheming agent Bebe Glazer, and Mr. Hibbert, who was the pompous food critic Gil Chesterton. Additional casting will be announced later.

“It Shoulda Been You,” which drew mixed reviews during its 2011 premiere at the George Street Playhouse, has music by Barbara Anselmi and a book and lyrics by Brian Hargrove, a television writer who is married to Mr. Pierce. Opening night is scheduled for April 14. The lead producers include Daryl Roth (“Kinky Boots”) and Scott Landis (“Nice Work If You Can Get It”).

BAM Season Offers a Mariinsky Residency and More

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A 10-day residency by the Mariinsky Theater, the world premiere of a work by the idiosyncratic pop composer Sufjan Stevens and the American premieres of productions by the Canadian Opera Company and the Fugard Theater of South Africa are among the highlights of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s winter and spring season, which opens on Jan. 14 with the Mariinsky production of a Rodion Shchedrin opera, “The Enchanted Wanderer.”

The Shchedrin work, composed in 2002, is the Mariinsky’s only opera offering this visit, and it will have only one performance. It will be directed by Alexei Stepanyuk and conducted by Valery Gergiev, who will also conduct the opening of the Mariinsky Ballet production of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” on Jan. 15, and performances of Prokofiev’s “Cinderella” on Jan. 17 and 18.

The Mariinsky Ballet will also present “Chopin: Dances for Piano,” a single evening of repertory works including Michel Fokine’s “Chopiniana,” Jerome Robbins’s “In the Night” and Benjamin Millepied’s “Without” (Jan. 24). The dancers scheduled to appear in the Mariinsky Ballet productions include Ulyana Lopatkina, Yekaterina Kondaurova, Diana Vishneva, Alina Somova and Vladimir Shklyarov. The opera cast and the conductors for the remaining Tchaikovsky performances (Jan. 16-23) have not yet been announced.

The Canadian Opera Company will present Handel’s “Semele,” in a 2009 production by the Chinese visual artist Zhang Huan, who has blended the Greek myth of Semele with the story of a modern Chinese love triangle. The set is built from the walls of a 450-year old Ming Dynasty temple. Jane Archibald will sing the title role (March 4-8).

The new work by Mr. Stevens, “Round-Up,” was commissioned by the academy and will be performed by the percussion and piano ensemble Yarn/Wire (Jan. 20-25). Also on the academy’s music program, the Japanese ensemble Kodo will present the New York premiere of “Mystery,” an elaborately costumed and choreographed program rooted in ancient Japanese folk art (March 19-21).

The Mark Morris Dance Group will present two programs. The first includes the world premiere of an untitled new work, as well as “Pacific” and “Grand Duo,” set to music by Lou Harrison, and “Words,” set to Mendelssohn (April 22, 24). The centerpiece of the second program is “Spring, Spring, Spring,” a work based on Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” in which the troupe will be accompanied by the Bad Plus, performing its jazz arrangement of the score (April 23, 25, 26).

Other dance performances include an installment of the academy’s DanceAfrica festival, which will explore the African influence in Brazilian dance (May 22-25) and the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, which will present a new work choreographed by Richard Siegal on the first of its two programs (June 3-6).

The academy’s theater presentations include the Goodman Theater’s previously announced staging of the Eugene O’Neill play, “The Iceman Cometh” (Feb. 5-March 15); the Tectonic Theater Project’s production of Daniel Beaty’s “Tallest Tree in the Forest” (March 22-28); Richard Eyre’s adaptation of Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” by the Almeida Theater and Sonia Friedman Productions (April 5 to May 3); and the Fugard Theater production of “A Human Being Died That Night” by Nicholas Wright (May 29-June 21).

The schedule also includes a conversation series, BAMcafé concerts, and an installment of BAMcinémaFest. Full details can be found at BAM.org.

Sondheim Meets Reich at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series

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Lincoln Center has long been interested in expanding its American Songbook programming beyond the repertory of standards its title implies, and in the 2015 season, which opens on Jan. 21, the series will continue to explore fresh ground. In one of the season’s most intriguing programs, the composers Stephen Sondheim, whose work easily fits the songbook definition, and Steve Reich, whose mostly instrument scores do not, will share the stage – partly, Lincoln Center promises, to discuss how they have been influenced by each other’s work, and partly to preside over performances of their music (Jan. 31).

In another bold stroke, the series will expand its portfolio of contemporary pop offerings with a program by the Los Angeles hip-hop performer Talib Kweli (Feb. 13). Other contemporary pop presentations include concerts by Steven Reker, of the Brooklyn rock band People Get Ready (Feb. 26), the Americana duo Shovels & Rope (Feb. 27) and the singer-songwriter (and sometime glockenspiel player) Dawn Landes (Feb. 14).

Several programs straddle multiple styles. San Fermin, the “Baroque pop” band led by the composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone, is joining forces with the Metropolis Ensemble, a more overtly classical new-music group (Feb. 12). A concert by Magos & Limón – the Mexican jazz singer Magos Herrera and the flamenco guitarist Javier Limón (March 26) – also blurs musical boundaries.

The series opener, a free concert at the David Rubenstein Atrium on Jan. 21, will be programmed, in part, by fans of the series, who can vote on the American Songbook’s Facebook page for one of three potential headliners: Owel, a chamber pop band; Grace McLean, a singer-songwriter; or the David Mayfield Parade, an Americana group. The winner, to be announced on Dec. 12, will play the opening concert; the others will have concerts at the atrium in the spring or summer. (The rest of the American Songbook performances are at the Appel Room and the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.)

Other highlights of the series include “Obsesión,” a program of Latin American songs, by Danny Rivera and Nelson González (Feb. 7); “Pour Une Âme Souveraine,” a tribute to Nina Simone by Meshell Ndegeocello (Feb. 11); a centenary tribute to Billie Holiday, by Joey Arias (Feb. 25); and concerts by Norm Lewis, the first black actor to sing the title role in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway (Jan. 29) and Barbara Cook (Feb. 28).

The full schedule will be available at AmericanSongbook.org.

Music

Play Guitar? Head on Over to City Winery

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City Winery will host as many guitarists as it can hold on Nov. 16 – roughly 350, all told, including well-known players as well as amateurs who just like to strum – for Guitar Mash, a concert at which the audience is encouraged to play along.

Among the starrier players at this year’s installment, the third, are the folksinger David Bromberg; Chris Eldridge of Punch Brothers; the polystylistic Memphis-based performer Valerie June; the pedal steel player Robert Randolph; the blues players Duke Robillard and Scott Sharrard; and the teenage virtuoso Quinn Sullivan. Mark Stewart, the founding guitarist of the Bang on a Can All Stars (and a member of Paul Simon’s and Sting’s touring bands) is the music director.

For audience members who want to take part – and perhaps get some practicing in first – charts and chords for the songs on the program will be available at the Guitar Mash website, guitarmash.org, on Nov. 10.

The event, which also includes a display of vintage guitars and a silent auction of instruments, will raise money for music education programs run by the Church Street School for Music and Art as well as Little Kids Rock, which provides instruments, teachers and music curriculums to public schools.

Guitar Mash also runs its own educational programs. In one recent project, guitars and digital recorders were lent to a group of teenage players who each had a week to write and record a new song. The music they produced will be available at a listening station at the City Winery concert.

Pharrell Williams Joins the Apollo Theater’s Board

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Pharrell Williams at the Apollo Theater in June. Chad Batka for The New York Times

Pharrell Williams made his debut at the Apollo Theater less than five months ago, and now he’s taking a seat in the Apollo’s boardroom. On Tuesday, the Harlem theater announced that Mr. Williams, along with five corporate leaders, would join the theater’s board of directors, expanding its membership to 32.

Among the board’s main projects at the moment is raising $20 million for its 21st Century Apollo Campaign, to support programming and education and update the theater’s facilities. So far about $11 million has been raised, a spokeswoman for the theater said.

The technical upgrade includes digital technologies meant to help the Apollo reach audiences around the world. Mr. Williams’s concert, in June, demonstrated the potential for that global reach: it was streamed live, in a production directed for the Internet by Spike Lee, as part of “Unstaged,” a series sponsored by American Express. (Videos from the evening are archived online.)

“The Apollo Theater embodies a tremendous amount of music history,” Mr. Williams said in a statement, adding that he was “so excited to help preserve, and expand, its legacy in American culture.”

The other new board members are Robert Kraft, chairman of the Kraft Group; Jason L. Matthews, a managing director at Goldman Sachs; Carolyn Minick Mason, a labor and employment lawyer; Charles Phillips, the chief executive of Infor, a software company; and Bronson van Wyck, an event planner.

The board’s chairman is Richard D. Parsons, the former chief executive of Time Warner and chairman of Citigroup (and currently the interim chief executive of the Los Angeles Clippers).

Authors Auction Off Novelistic Naming Rights

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Julian Barnes Luke Macgregor/Reuters

Ian McEwan is offering “the genuine opportunity of an afterlife.” The same promise is coming from the authors Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Ken Follett, Hanif Kureishi, Will Self, Alan Hollinghurst and Zadie Smith. It’s not a new literary religion but an auction, to be held on Nov. 20 for the charity Freedom from Torture, during which 17 authors will sell the right to name characters in their upcoming novels.

Mr. Barnes, who is a patron of the charity, which works with torture survivors, was the first to offer a character to name, and he has been followed by an impressive group of his peers, who also include Pat Barker, Martina Cole, Tracy Chevalier, Sebastian Faulks, Adam Foulds, Robert Harris, Kathy Lette, Adam Mars-Jones and Joanna Trollope.

At least one writer has offered guidelines. Ms. Chevalier has asked for a name for a “tough-talking landlady of a boarding house in 1850s Gold Rush-era San Francisco.” Ms. Atwood is offering the possibility of either appearing in the novel she is currently writing, or in her retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” to be published in a Vintage Books series in 2016.

Authors have sold naming rights for charity before. Stephen King auctioned a name for his 2006 novel “Cell,” (the character dies a gruesome death), and two fans recently paid $20,000 each to have their names used in George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” saga. The characters were killed, but the names live on.

In Performance: Barrett Wilbert Weed of ‘Found’

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This week’s video features the actress Barrett Wilbert Weed singing the number “Barf Bag Breakup” from “Found,” a new musical with a book by Hunter Bell and Lee Overtree and music and lyrics by Eli Bolin. The show, based on the magazine of the same name, sets to music handwritten letters, anonymous scribblings and other “found” notes.” In this number, a note to a lover begins: “I think this is it for us.” “Found,” which was directed by Mr. Overtree, continues through Nov. 9 at the Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater.

Recent theater videos in this series include Rachel Dratch in a scene from the political comedy “Tail! Spin!” and Bridget Everett singing a number from her show “Rock Bottom.”

Coming soon: Alysha Umphress sings “I Can Cook Too” from the Broadway revival of “On the Town” and scenes with Blythe Danner and Eric Lange of “The Country House” and Joely Richardson of “The Belle of Amherst.”