The Super Bowl introduced us to the Snickers commercial featuring Betty White and Abe Vigoda, but a new commercial for the diva-inclined is about to air.
Liza Minnelli and Aretha Franklin team up in the latest Snickers commercial that proves “you’re not you when you’re hungry.” The clever commercials show every day dudes who become various celebrities when they haven’t had their candy bar fix.
According to Liza’s official website, the commercial was filmed in Detroit this past January and will begin airing Feb. 15.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies (Dinner With Friends) was one of the guests at the Feb. 8 panel “The Secret Lives of War Reporters: The real-life dramas behind Time Stands Still,” which was presented at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in collaboration with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.
Marguiles’ play, Time Stands Still, currently running at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, follows a married couple, one a war photographer and the other, a war-time journalist, who have returned home and are forced to examine their relationships to their work and each other.
The production, directed by Daniel Sullivan, stars Tony nominees Laura Linney and Brian d’Arcy James as the couple, Jamie and Sarah, with Drama Desk-nominated actor/playwright Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone as another couple who are, respectively, employed in and question the morals of Jamie and Sarah’s line of work.
The panel was moderated by Dart Center executive director Bruce Shapiro. Photojournalist Santiago Lyon and journalist-turned-human-rights-activist Emma Daly also appeared as panel guests.
Margulies said he “did not have an agenda” politically in writing Time Stands Still, preferring to focus on the offstage war catastrophes that affect the relationship onstage.
Margulies, whose play Sight Unseen focuses on a painter and his complicated relationships, said, “I keep coming back to certain ethical dilemmas of the artist” in writing plays, including the question of “who owns the story [or] … the image” and the “fear of exploiting an artist to feed a career.”
He discussed Sarah’s internal conflict over whether to choose a career over personal relationships, saying of her final choice, “She owns it and I [as playwright] have no value judgment to make.”
Lyon and Daly are also a couple (though married, where the play’s couple are not) and spent several years covering violence in war-torn countries. Lyon suffered serious wounds while working (in his case, in Sarajevo in 1995). Their observations added an effective and poignant real-life counterpoint to the discussion of the play.
The Dart Center, a project of the Columbia Journalism school, “is dedicated to informed, innovative and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy,” according to the Center’s Website, dartcenter.org.
Martin Moran's poignant one-man memoir, The Tricky Part, will be revisited by the actor 8 PM Feb. 9 for one night only at The Barrow Group Theatre in Manhattan as a benefit for the Group’s new-play development program, from which the solo show sprang.
The play, which received a 2004 Obie Award and two Drama Desk nominations, chronicles a sexual relationship Moran (Titanic, Bells Are Ringing, Spamalot) had for three of his teenage years with an older man, a counselor at a Catholic Boys’ camp, and how that influenced his life.
Seth Barrish, artistic director for The Barrow Group, directed the original production. Barrow Group is at 312 West 36th Street. Visit barrowgroup.org.
Dame Edna is currently in rehearsals for her Broadway return in All About Me, a new evening of song and comedy in which she will co-star with musician Michael Feinstein.
While Feinstein promises to be a gracious co-star, one never knows what could go on backstage when two megawatt talents of the theatre must share the stage. Just to be safe, producers of All About Me will be holding “auditions” for an honorary understudy for Dame Edna on Feb. 17 at the Henry Miller’s Theatre.
Titles have been announced for The 24 Hour Musicals program, a benefit in which short original musicals are created, cast, rehearsed and performed all in the span of one day.
The 24 Hour Company and the Exchange produce the event. The shows will be performed at 7:30 PM tonight at The Gramercy Theatre.
The titles will be:
You Can See the East River From Here, Too by Jeanine Tesori (music and lyrics) and Jonathan Bernstein (book). Ted Sperling directs a cast of Dee Roscioli, John Ellison Conlee and Katie Thompson.
Anti Valentines by Jeff Blumenkrantz (music and lyrics) and Julia Jordan (book). Moisés Kaufman directs Celia Keenan-Bolger, Marnie Schulenburg, Michael Winther and Zachary Prince.
The First of His Heart by Adam Gwon (music and lyrics) and Jonathan Marc Sherman (book). Trip Cullman directs Julian Fleisher, Nancy Opel and Darius DeHaas.
What’s Wrong with Twinkie? by Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler (music and lyrics) and Josh Koenigsberg (book). Kathleen Turner directs Alicia Witt, Cady Huffman, Mo Rocca and Raven-Symoné.
Tony Award-nominated In the Heights cast member Olga Merediz will guest on the Food Network’s “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” March 10.
“Throwdown” features Flay competing against various cooks (who specialize in a certain dish or style) to prove who is the true master in the kitchen. The set up is that most of the chefs and cooks believe they are being profiled by the Food Network until Flay shows up to challenge them.
“Throwdown with Bobby Flay” will air from 9-10 PM ET. Check local listings.
Merediz earned a Tony nomination for her performances as Abuela Claudia, a role she continues to play, in the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights on Broadway.
Florence Henderson — Broadway's original Fanny in the Harold Rome, S. N. Behrman and Joshua Logan musical — popped in to visit with the cast of City Center Encores! recent production of that musical Feb. 5.
Henderson — known to TV audiences as beloved matriarch Carol Brady on “The Brady Bunch” — began her career on the stage appearing on Broadway in Wish You Were Here and Oklahoma! before originating the title role in 1954’s Fanny opposite Ezio Pinza and Walter Slezak (who earned a Tony Award for his role).
Here are some shots of Henderson backstage with her Fanny successor Elena Shaddow (top left) and Encores! cast members Priscilla Lopez (top right) and Ted Sutherland (bottom):
Although it has yet to make its Broadway debut, the new Green Day musical American Idiot is already tempting fans with three versions of “21 Guns.”
The cast of American Idiot appeared on the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards performing “21 Guns” with Green Day’s lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong and the band. The single, which also features lead vocals by Rebecca Naomi Jones, is now available on iTunes.
In addition to the live audio performance of “21 Guns,” a video of the performance is also available on iTunes.
Studio recordings of “21 Guns” are also available on iTunes featuring Green Day and the American Idiot cast performing together, as well as a single with just the members of the stage production. American Idiot will rock Broadway beginning April 20 at the St. James Theatre.
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