To promote the forthcoming DVD release of the first 13 episodes of the new musical television series “Glee,” FOX has unveiled a one-minute recap video. The video is set to the operatic overture from Bizet’s Carmen and centers around the show’s dreaded slushie-to-the-face. (Think: Carrie’s pig-blood prom incident but at any given moment in the halls of high school.)
“Glee Season 1: Road To Sectionals” — featuring Broadway stars Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele — will debut on DVD Dec. 29 (the full season will reportedly be released on DVD in 2010).
A host of theatre favorites took part in the Dec. 6 tribute to Tony Award winner Mel Brooks at the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, DC.
The salute to the co-creator of Broadway’s The Producers and Young Frankenstein included Matthew Morrison, Richard Kind and Tony Award winners Martin Short, Matthew Broderick, Frank Langella, Jane Krakowski and Gary Beach.
The Kennedy Center Honors Gala — featuring an array of entertainment — will be broadcast nationwide on CBS Dec. 29 at 9 PM ET.
For a preview of the Mel Brooks tribute, including performances by Tony winners Short and Beach, click below:
The much-anticipated duet between YouTube sensation Susan Boyle and her idol Elaine Paige was broadcast in the UK on Dec. 13, part of a special program that charted Boyle’s meteoric rise to fame.
Boyle, the 48-year-old Scottish singer who became famous after appearing on the reality show “Britain’s Got Talent,” is now also a recording sensation, having sold over a million copies Stateside of her debut CD “I Dreamed a Dream” in just two weeks.
During her stint on “Britain’s Got Talent,” Boyle mentioned that she hoped to have a career like the one enjoyed by Elaine Paige, who created the lead roles in the West End productions of Evita, Chess and Cats.
As part of the Dec. 13 broadcast on ITV1, Boyle and Paige joined voices for a rendition of Paige’s Chess hit, “I Know Him So Well.”
One might expect a little trepidation when asked to follow Liliane Montevecchi and Chita Rivera in Nine's flashy, feather boa-waving ditty, "Folies Bergeres" — but not Judi Dench, who appears in the new film version.
“For 52 years, I have been doing plays that — unless they’re Shakespeare — I’ve never read,” she declared recently, astonishing a roomful of movie press. “I just said ‘Yes’ when I’ve been offered something so I’ve been lucky when something [good] comes along.”
Roundabout Theatre Company opens the new year with a fresh revival of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, beginning previews at the American Airlines Theatre Jan. 2, 2010.
The loosely-autobiographical comedy tells the story of matinee idol Garry Essendine, a man who sits at the center of his own universe. While Garry struggles to plan his upcoming trip to Africa, his elegant London flat is invaded by a love struck ingenue, an adulterous producer and a married seductress, not to mention Garry’s estranged wife and a crazed young playwright. Just before Garry escapes, the full extent of his misdemeanors is discovered and all hell breaks loose.
Four-time Tony nominee Victor Garber heads a cast that includes Tony winner Harriet Harris, Tony nominee Brooks Ashmanskas, Lisa Banes, Nancy E. Carroll, Alice Duffy, Holley Fain, Pamela Jane Gray, James Joseph O’Neil, Richard Poe and Marc Vietor. Nicholas Martin directs.
The explosively funny monologist Mike Daisey was working The Public Theater last fall, performing his Homeland Security send-up, If You See Something, Say Something, when the economy took that long, agonizing nosedive into the toilet, setting him off on another raging routine. The result is The Last Cargo Cult, and he is premiering it appropriately (through Dec. 13), at The Public.
“All together, counting previews, that’s about two weeks,” Daisey said of the Public gig. “There was the desire to create something that was An Event — that was event-driven so that it happened and then it’s gone. With our schedule and The Public’s schedule — this was the marriage that makes the most sense. I think everybody wants it to run longer, but then again — Barnum always said you should leave while people want more.”
Here at Playbill.com we get deluged by press releases and media alerts so color us surprised when we found out that Lea Michele, formerly of Broadway’s Spring Awakening and of course co-star of FOX’s break-out hit show “Glee,” made an unpublicized appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Thursday night.
The ABC talk show had listed only action star-turned-reality TV personality Steven Seagal and comic Eddie Pepitone for the broadcast, when it normally features three guests, so Michele appears to have been a late booking.
The singer-actress, who was promoting the Dec. 29 release of the “Glee” fall season DVD and the just-released “Glee: The Music Vol. 2″ CD, spoke about her experience performing on Broadway in Les Misérables and Spring Awakening. She also confirmed that her Spring co-star, Jonathan Groff, will appear in the spring season of “Glee”.
Last seen on Broadway in 1998, Arthur Miller’s drama A View From the Bridge returns in a new revival beginning performances at the Cort Theatre Dec. 28.
The 1955 work tells the story of Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman obsessed with his 17-year-old niece Catherine. When Catherine falls in love with a newly arrived immigrant, Eddie’s jealousy erupts in a rage that consumes him, his family, and his world.
Gregory Mosher directs a starry cast headed by Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson. Also featured are Jessica Hecht, Michael Cristofer, Santino Fontana and Corey Stoll.
Christian McKay, Chris Feder, Zac Efron and Richard Linklater
On Nov. 11, 1937, director Orson Welles, the archetype in boy geniuses, premiered a culturally historic, modern-dress version of Julius Caesar that put his freshly formed Mercury Theatre on the map. Richard Linklater’s new movie, “Me and Orson Welles,” chronicles the chaotic week leading up to this event. It was just hard — impossible — to find a stand-in for the venue itself; the Mercury Theatre on any map of today.
“We couldn’t have shot it in New York,” admitted director Linklater. “The Mercury was pretty ephemeral, anyway. I think it got torn down in the early ’50s. It was right by Bryant Park, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. That whole world is long gone.”
In late November, to mark the spot — in conjunction with the film’s release, of course — a plaque was unveiled at 110 West 41st Street (between Sixth Avenue and Broadway) proclaiming that this was the site of the original Mercury Theatre where Welles did his theatrical magic.
In attendance for this special event, in addition to director Linklater, were Zac Efron (in movie-star shades), the fictional “Me” of the title; Christian McKay, the factual and sometimes fatuous Welles of the movie, and one of Welles’ daughters, Chris Feder.
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