It’s officially hot vampire summer in New York City… and the living is easy. The first week of June kept local audiences booked and busy with a flurry of events ranging from TV show premieres and farewells to early Emmy precursor ceremonies to a landmark anniversary edition of a festival institution. Here are some of the sights and sounds that Gold Derby experienced in the Big Apple as things heat up.
Dance of the vampire
All the cool vamps and vixens took a walk on the wild side up to the Beacon Theatre on Tuesday night where AMC organized a suitably raucous and resplendent rock concert celebrating the premiere of The Vampire Lestat, aka Interview With the Vampire Season 3. The flagship series in the media group’s Anne Rice-inspired Immortal Universe franchise has drunk deeply from its passionate fanbase since its 2022 debut, but this event was the biggest test of that brand loyalty with star Sam Reid enlisted to perform a five-song, 30-minute set fully in character as his alter ego, that beloved butterscotch bitch, Lestat de Lioncourt.
It was a gambit that could have backfired if viewers saw through the act, but from the moment he took the stage, Reid gave them exactly what they wanted — a seductive vampire fantasy made flesh. The performance fused theater kid energy with genuine rock star showmanship, with experienced composer/songwriter Daniel Hart expertly backing up his novice frontman on lead guitar. In the unlikely event that an audience member had never seen an episode of Interview With the Vampire before stepping into Beacon’s storied auditorium, Lestat’s command performance gave you the full flavor of the show’s vibe.
Prior to the concert, the audience watched the third season premiere, which balances the tricky act of being both a continuation and a reset of what’s come before. Adapted from the second installment in Rice’s bestselling Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat moves Reid center stage after playing second fiddle to his fledgling and former lover, Louis (Jacob Anderson),the previous two years. That means that certain key storylines will be re-told from Lestat’s perspective, while also making room for fresh mythology that sets up future seasons. That means you don’t necessarily have to have seen what’s come before to hop aboard Lestat’s tour bus now; in fact, the vainglorious vamp would prefer it if you just listened to his side of the story and ignored his ex.
Don’t worry, though, Anderson is very much still in the picture this year and represented the power couple at the afterparty, thoughtfully giving Reid the night off after he left it all on the Beacon stage. Gold Derby bumped into Michael Arden — Tony-contending director of The Lost Boys Broadway musical — scoping out his vampire brethren in the hopes of introducing Lestat to David, the punk rock vamp played by Tony-nominated Ali Louis Bourzgui. (That meeting didn’t happen Tuesday night, but the two made it Instagram official later in the week.) Asked how he’s feeling ahead of Broadway’s biggest night on Sunday, Arden indicated that he’s just happy to be one of the week’s two vampire musical moments. “A vampire musical is going to the Tonys,” he said. “How cool is that?”
As for whether The Vampire Lestat could go to the Emmys, the show is still seeking to make inroads with voters who are traditionally slow to recognize horror-laced fare that’s not associated with Ryan Murphy. The good news is that Hart’s original songs offers Lestat new categories to flex his muscles in after Season 2 landed nods for hairstyling and makeup. (The revamped main title sequence also shouldn’t go overlooked.) It definitely wouldn’t suck to see Reid wearing those leather pants to the 2027 Emmys.
Tribeca’s so fire
The blood had fortunately dried on the Beacon stage before the venue hosted the opening night premiere of the Tribeca Festival’s 25th edition. That prime time slot went to Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World), musician-turned-director Questlove’s latest non-fiction feature to follow his Oscar-winning 2021 rock doc deubt Summer of Soul. This new jam chronicles the life and times of the Chicago-born band that’s still getting audiences on their feet today — as evidenced by all the dancing in the aisles that happened during Earth, Wind & Fire’s post-screening concert.
“I believe the Roots were the band for Year 1 of [Tribeca],” Questlove said ahead of the premiere, referring to his own history with the festival that launched the year after the Sept. 11 attacks changed the face of downtown New York. “There’s no way you could have told the drummer in the band where he would be 25 years from now.”
Given the competitive festival landscape, it’s no small feat that Tribeca has managed to endure and even expand over the past quarter century, adapting to its place on the calendar by embracing programming beyond feature films. Music has been especially key to that growth, with big-ticket acts like Madonna, Katy Perry, Alicia Keys, Peter Frampton, Bono, and Bruce Springsteen all participating in various events at this year’s festival. And while Tribeca may not be the place where you necessarily go to launch an Oscar or even an Emmy campaign, debuting the latest works from past winners like Questlove and Alicia Vikander does give it a certain shine.
It’s also a venue for emerging directors to get their works in front of a crowd of New York tastemakers. Gold Derby caught up with one of those filmmakers, Fatma Al-Ghanim, a former athlete who is bringing her first short film Theatre of Dreams to the fesival. “Sharing it at Tribeca feels like bringing a very intimate part of my life, my country, and my history to an international stage,” she says of the film, which blends documentary and narrative in re-telling the story of Qatar’s first women’s football team, which she captained at a pivotal moment in sports history.
Al-Ghanim hopes that a positive reception from Tribeca audiences will provide a launching pad for Theatre of Dreams to play additional festivals in the coming months. It helps that Tribeca is also on the Academy’s list of official Oscar-qualifying festivals for short films and documentaries. Naturally, the director says that making the cut for the shorts shortlist for the 2027 ceremony would be an “incredible honor,” but is keeping her eye on the proverbial football for now.
“For me, the dream is that Theatre of Dreams reaches people and helps preserve a piece of women’s sports history,” Al-Ghanim says. “If that journey leads to the documentary short Oscar conversation, it would be a beautiful milestone — not just for the film, but for the women whose story it honors.”
Kelly’s world
“Everybody thinks I’m good at this job,” Kelly Clarkson joked after epically bombing out during a quiz show segment during the first taping of her final week as a daytime chat show star. That was one of many self-deprecating asides that the American Idol icon and multiplatinum recording artist made to the audience — including Gold Derby — about her hosting abilities as she prepared to bid farewell after seven seasons.
For example, during her on-the-couch segments with that episode’s guests — Tina Fey, Will Forte and other cast members from Netflix’s The Four Seasons — Clarkson gave her staff real time nots about which off-note moments should be trimmed or dropped entirely from the aired episode, like an extended riff about artificial intelligence where she clearly lost the plot. “This might get cut, I don’t know,” the host said, cracking up after Fey made a snipping gesture.
And while filming that episode’s “Kellyoke” cover song, “Dare You to Move” by Switchfoot, Clarkson owned up to not nailing the first take. “This is the first time I’ve ever sung this song live,” she admitted, adding that she was coming off a bout with bronchitis. Deeming her initial performance to be “slow” and “sad,” she let loose a vocal riff sans house band that brought the audience to its feet, even without the spirited prompting of her usual hype man, Rubin Ervin.
Moments like that proved that, joking aside, Clarkson really is good at this job, and she has the Emmys to prove it. Since debuting in 2019, The Kelly Clarkson Show has been a Daytime Emmys champ, to the point where its rare loss last year inspired headlines. The host made the call to bring the curtain down earlier this year, citing a desire to put her family first following the 2025 death of her ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock. Gold Derby will be back in 30 Rock’s legendary Studio 6A — the former home of Late Night With David Letterman — for Clarkson’s farewell episode. Expect plenty of tears, laughs, and… yes, Emmy-worthy flubs.
HBO for the hat trick?
By now, it’s a given that HBO will be taking home the Best Drama Series and Best Comedy Series statuettes at the 2026 Emmys thanks to the one-two punch of Season 2 of The Pitt and the fifth and final season of Hacks. But the premium cable giant also has a legitimate chance at adding Best Limited Series to its haul setting the stage for one more three-category sweep before its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is absorbed into the Paramount Skydance mothership. For the record, the last time HBO pulled off that hat trick was back in 2015 when Game of Thrones scored Best Drama, Veep took Best Comedy, and Olive Kitteridge nabbed Best Limited Series.
The past few years have seen Netflix dominating the Limited Series race, and the streamer is hoping that the return of its second serving of Beef extends that streak. But unlike that show’s widely adored first season or subsequent limited series phenoms like Baby Reindeer and Adolescence, this new cut of Beef is fending off a strong crop of challengers that includes FX’s Love Story and HBO’s Half Man and DTF St. Louis. The latter two shows went head-to-head with Beef at the Gotham Television Awards on Monday night and River City ended up drawing first blood.
In fact, DTF ended up being the most-lauded show of the night, taking home prizes for limited series and David Harbor’s supporting performance. HBO also scored the Gotham prize for Breakthrough Comedy for I Love L.A. — with creator/star Rachel Sennott and her co-star Odessa A’zion on hand to accept — but missed out on completing the set with a Breakthrough Drama Series win. Apple TV’s Pluribus took that honor away from HBO’s two nominees, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Task.
As the One Battle After Another crew can tell you, a Gotham win can provide some early momentum headed into the thick of awards season. And DTF St. Louis could use the bump in awareness; the show is currently hovering in the No. 6 spot on Gold Derby’s experts-only Best Limited Series leaderboard while Half Man is sitting a little more comfortably at No. 4. With Peacock’s All Her Fault and Netflix’s The Beast in Me on shakier ground, Emmy voters might just find themselves feeling DTV — down to vote — for DTF.
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