Tony and Academy Award-winning director Mike Nichols is reportedly in negotiations to direct Academy Award winners Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges in the upcoming film “Great Hope Springs.”
Thewrap.com reports that Streep and Bridges are close to finalizing deals to play an older couple who attend an intense counseling session over a weekend in the hopes of determining the future of their marriage. The screenplay for the film is by Vanessa Taylor.
Nichols has received seven Tony Awards for direction; the shows for which he was awarded the Broadway theatre’s highest honor include Barefoot in the Park, Luv, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Real Thing and Spamalot. He received an Academy Award for directing “The Graduate” and has also directed the films “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Silkwood,” “Postcards from the Edge,” “The Birdcage,” “Closer” and “Charlie Wilson’s War,” and the television adaptations of “Wit” and “Angels in America,” winning Emmy Awards for both.
Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown is hoping to stop illegal sharing of his sheet music one e-mail at a time. But it might take a blog post to really get his point across.
On June 29, the composer-lyricist of Parade, Songs for a New World, The Last Five Years and 13, posted a lengthy e-mail exchange on his official website that traces one particular online conversation with a young woman who couldn’t quite believe Brown had really contacted her.
Brown states that he contacted hundreds of users on a certain file-sharing site, requesting that they not illegally share his music online, in the hope that performers who wish to perform his songs would purchase the sheet music in compliance with the law.
Many of the individuals he contacted complied. Except for one, who, though she stopped sharing the files, gave Brown a run for his money… literally. Here’s an excerpt: “Let me get this straight. You expect me to believe that you are Jason Robert Brown. THE Jason Robert Brown. And that you have taken the time to go onto random websites and create an account just to message people not to trade your sheet music?”
As Oscar Wilde once said: “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” In a similar turn, Tony-nominated actress Sherie Rene Scott depicts an online e-mail/Youtube encounter with a young fan in her show Everyday Rapture. Scott practically jumps through hoops on her own quest to prove her identity to the fan, who refuses to believe she is who she says she is.
"American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks, who is set to take over the role of Nina in In the Heights on Broadway Aug. 19, offered a performance of Nina's solo "Breathe" at a June 28 concert at Houston's House of Blues.
In the Heights, the 2008 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, is currently running at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. To hear what Sparks might sound like in the role, look below:
Just in time for the Fourth of July, Broadway’s Matt Cavenaugh and the cast of the Dallas Theater Center revival of It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane… It’s Superman performed the patriotic number “On My Honor” June 29 for the Dallas/Fort Worth morning news program “Good Morning Dallas” (which airs on local channel ABC-8).
“On My Honor” is not on the original cast album of the Charles Strouse-Lee Adams musical about the Man of Steel. The production also features a new book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, from the original by David Benton and Robert Newman.
Superman runs at the Dallas Theatre Center through July 25. To view the video, click here.
Two lucky high school students received Jimmy Awards for Best Performance by an Actor and Actress at the Second Annual National High School Musical Theater Awards at the Marquis Theatre June 28.
Alexandria Payne, of the Tri-Cities High School in Atlanta, GA, was recognized for playing Ti Moune in Once On This Island. Kyle Selig, of Long Beach, CA’s Huntington Beach High School won for his performance as Don Lockwood in Singin’ in the Rain.
Additional awards were presented to Sarah Schultz of Fullerton, CA (Best Performance in an Ensemble), Arsalan Akhavan of Atlanta (Most Improved) and Claire Gerig of Wichita, KS (Spirit of the Jimmy Awards).
The Jimmy Award, named for Broadway theatre owner and producer James M. Nederlander, includes a scholarship to each student to further their high school education and eligibility for scholarships to attend New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The three additional award winners received scholarships “towards their future education,” according to organizers.
The ceremony was hosted by Kathie Lee Gifford and featured appearances by nine-time Tony Award winner Tommy Tune, The Addams Family’s Krysta Rodriguez and Adam Riegler, and A Little Night Music’s Hunter Ryan Herdlicka. The 44 competing students performed, as did the cast of Come Fly Away.
Tony nominees Constantine Maroulis (Rock of Ages) and Chad Kimball (Memphis) will be part of the panel reviewing applications for a scholarship to Arts Edge Summer, a two-week “musical theatre and college prep boot camp” that will take place in New York City Aug. 9-20.
The program, according to press notes, “gives aspiring singers, dancers and actors specialized guidance on the admissions process from prestigious performing arts schools while helping students hone their performances. High school and college transfer students seriously considering a college major in musical theater will learn how to make their college applications, portfolios and auditions stand out so they can get in.”
Triple-threat hopefuls are invited to submit a short application and online video of themselves singing two contrasting, age-appropriate Broadway songs through July 12. The scholarship recipients will be announced July 19.
For more information and to find the application, visit theartsedge.com.
They’ve tried the MySpace route, and now fans of "Glee" who hope to be cast on Fox’s hit musical comedy have the chance to sing their hearts out on television.
According to the New York Times, the cable network Oxygen will air a reality show or series of specials following the process of finding performers to join the cast of “Glee.”
The reality program will air on Oxygen beginning in June 2011. The network has also sealed a deal to carry repeats of the show’s episodes in syndication beginning in 2013.
… Spelling Bee and "Modern Family" star Jesse Tyler Ferguson co-hosted “The View” June 29, and appeared on the show’s online “ViewTube” segment to chat with executive producer Bill Geddie about his current stage appearance(s) in Central Park.
Ferguson is playing Launcelot Gobbo and Clown (a shepherd’s son) in the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park presentations of, respectively, The Merchant of Venice and The Winter’s Tale. He discusses working with Merchant star Al Pacino, handling the Central Park heat, and his work on “Modern Family.”
Ferguson has also appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shakespeare in the Park, On the Town, The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Where Do We Live, Little Fish, newyorkers, The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged),, the Encores! presentation of Hair and the sitcom “The Class.”
The Merchant of Venice and The Winter’s Tale play Central Park’s Delacorte Theater in rep through Aug. 1. To view video of Ferguson’s interview, look below:
Zach Braff, Bobby Cannavale, Tony winner Sutton Foster and Ari Graynor co-star in the world premiere of Paul Weitz’s Trust, set to begin performances at Off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre July 23.
“Harry is rich,” according to production notes. “Harry is married. But when Harry doesn’t trust any of it is enough, he looks to find something real in the most unlikely of places.” The dark comedy “explores the corrosive effect of power on relationships and the hope we need to make them better.”
Here is the first publicity photo of the cast:
Bobby Cannavale, Sutton Foster, Zach Braff and Ari Graynor
Stage and screen actor Cheyenne Jackson looks set to guest star on Larry David’s HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” according to papermag.com.
Jackson will appear on several episodes of the eighth season of the often-improvised, semi-true-to-life series from “Seinfeld” creator David, following an extended guest appearance on this past season of “30 Rock.”
Jackson’s stage credits include Finian’s Rainbow, Xanadu, Damn Yankees, All Shook Up and Alter Boyz. He appeared in the film “United 93.”
