I spent my first decade in New York working at Variety’s former offices on Park Avenue South and more than once found myself sharing an elevator with James Earl Jones while he was on his way to or from Verizon to shoot commercials. The giant of an actor, who died today at age 93, never failed to say a warm, “Good morning” or “Good afternoon,” and even if I hadn’t recognized his face or his imposing 6-foot, 2-inch frame, there was no mistaking that sonorous voice.
His voice was the earth-shaking basso rumble coming from behind the forbidding mask of Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga, starting with the original 1977 film, and the stentorian growl of Mufasa, King of the Pride Lands and father of Simba in The Lion King.
It was also the voice of a revered stage actor, who forged his reputation in the 1960s and ‘70s,...
His voice was the earth-shaking basso rumble coming from behind the forbidding mask of Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga, starting with the original 1977 film, and the stentorian growl of Mufasa, King of the Pride Lands and father of Simba in The Lion King.
It was also the voice of a revered stage actor, who forged his reputation in the 1960s and ‘70s,...
- 9/10/2024
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Spain’s Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival will fete Annette Bening with its Icon Award at this year’s edition, which runs from October 30 to November 5.
The award will be presented at the festival’s opening ceremony on October 30. Bening will attend the ceremony. As part of the festivities, she will also introduce and discuss a special screening of Stephen Frear’s The Grifters, for which Bening received her first of five Academy Award nominations in 1990.
Bening’s previous honors include a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. Some of her credits include Bugsy (1991) with husband Warren Beatty, American Beauty (1999), and Being Julia (2004), which won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress, with additional Oscar nominations to follow for her leading roles in The Kids Are All Right (2010) and most recently, as swimmer Diana Nyad in the Netflix biographical film.
On stage, Bening was last seen...
The award will be presented at the festival’s opening ceremony on October 30. Bening will attend the ceremony. As part of the festivities, she will also introduce and discuss a special screening of Stephen Frear’s The Grifters, for which Bening received her first of five Academy Award nominations in 1990.
Bening’s previous honors include a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. Some of her credits include Bugsy (1991) with husband Warren Beatty, American Beauty (1999), and Being Julia (2004), which won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress, with additional Oscar nominations to follow for her leading roles in The Kids Are All Right (2010) and most recently, as swimmer Diana Nyad in the Netflix biographical film.
On stage, Bening was last seen...
- 9/4/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Sandro Rosta will be joining the new class of Starfleet cadets in Paramount+‘s upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, the latest chapter in the Star Trek universe, the streamer announced today. Production is set to begin later this month.
The series, starring Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti, will follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy. Diané and Steiner join previously announced fellow cadets Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard and George Hawkins. Hunter portrays the captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy, and Giamatti is the season’s villain.
Rosta joins the cast alongside previously announced Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard, George Hawkins, Karim Diané and Zoë Steiner. Additional cast members include Tig Notaro and Robert Picardo, reprising their roles as Jett Reno and The Doctor, and guest stars Oded Fehr and Mary Wiseman, reprising their...
The series, starring Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti, will follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy. Diané and Steiner join previously announced fellow cadets Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard and George Hawkins. Hunter portrays the captain and chancellor of Starfleet Academy, and Giamatti is the season’s villain.
Rosta joins the cast alongside previously announced Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard, George Hawkins, Karim Diané and Zoë Steiner. Additional cast members include Tig Notaro and Robert Picardo, reprising their roles as Jett Reno and The Doctor, and guest stars Oded Fehr and Mary Wiseman, reprising their...
- 8/14/2024
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
“I can’t believe we’re here,” a friend said to me about halfway through this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato, which takes over the center of Bologna for nine glorious days every summer, before correcting himself: “It actually makes a lot of sense that we’re here, but I still can’t believe it.”
My friend was in awe not that we––a pair of New York cinephiles, both fairly well-traveled––managed to make it to beautiful Bologna, but that we had entered some kind of an Olympic village for cinephiles, each day filled with some of the most memorable moviegoing events of our lives and each night filled with hours of discussion about the day’s pleasures. At the festival, everyone’s first question is “how many years have you been coming?” and newcomers are warmly welcomed into the fray. The favored departure is not a “ciao” or...
My friend was in awe not that we––a pair of New York cinephiles, both fairly well-traveled––managed to make it to beautiful Bologna, but that we had entered some kind of an Olympic village for cinephiles, each day filled with some of the most memorable moviegoing events of our lives and each night filled with hours of discussion about the day’s pleasures. At the festival, everyone’s first question is “how many years have you been coming?” and newcomers are warmly welcomed into the fray. The favored departure is not a “ciao” or...
- 7/11/2024
- by Forrest Cardamenis
- The Film Stage
(This Interview Contains Spoilers About The HBO Film)
For Mac Quayle, composing the score for the HBO film project “The Great Lillian Hall” proved something of a departure from his most recent projects, which have included nine seasons of the FX anthology “American Horror Story,” the Fox/ABC procedural “9-1-1” and the Netflix drama “Leave the World Behind.” “Lillian Hall” tells the story of a legendary Broadway star (Jessica Lange) fearfully facing the ticking clock of time while doggedly working to defy it following a dementia diagnosis. In talking to director Michael Cristofer about the music, “we recognized this is an intimate story about Lillian Hall and this sudden dementia that she’s experiencing,” Quayle recalls. “We thought that (when) it needed some music that it shouldn’t be too big, it needed to have a little more intimate sound. So we chose as our palette nine strings and piano,...
For Mac Quayle, composing the score for the HBO film project “The Great Lillian Hall” proved something of a departure from his most recent projects, which have included nine seasons of the FX anthology “American Horror Story,” the Fox/ABC procedural “9-1-1” and the Netflix drama “Leave the World Behind.” “Lillian Hall” tells the story of a legendary Broadway star (Jessica Lange) fearfully facing the ticking clock of time while doggedly working to defy it following a dementia diagnosis. In talking to director Michael Cristofer about the music, “we recognized this is an intimate story about Lillian Hall and this sudden dementia that she’s experiencing,” Quayle recalls. “We thought that (when) it needed some music that it shouldn’t be too big, it needed to have a little more intimate sound. So we chose as our palette nine strings and piano,...
- 6/7/2024
- by Ray Richmond
- Gold Derby
June 4, 2024 – Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley, beloved James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and Star Wars universe luminary Mark Hamill form the ultimate vocal rogues’ gallery in Mofac Animation’s upcoming The King of Kings, an animated family film inspired by a little-known short story by Charles Dickens depicting the life and times of Jesus Christ.
Kingsley voices High Priest Caiaphas, who presided over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus. Hamill takes on the role of King Herod, who, according to the Gospel of Matthew, ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in an attempt to kill Jesus as an infant. And Brosnan gives animated life to Pontius Pilate, who ultimately ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. The triumvirate of villainous voices further enhances the A-list cast behind the faith-based animated film, which also includes Academy Award & Emmy Award winners Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) and Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Golden Globe...
Kingsley voices High Priest Caiaphas, who presided over the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus. Hamill takes on the role of King Herod, who, according to the Gospel of Matthew, ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in an attempt to kill Jesus as an infant. And Brosnan gives animated life to Pontius Pilate, who ultimately ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. The triumvirate of villainous voices further enhances the A-list cast behind the faith-based animated film, which also includes Academy Award & Emmy Award winners Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) and Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Golden Globe...
- 6/5/2024
- by ComicMix Staff
- Comicmix.com
On May 31, 2024, “The Great Lillian Hall” premiered on HBO to predominantly positive reviews from critics. In the film, Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner Jessica Lange plays the titular character, a Broadway star battling dementia as she prepares for a big role on the Great White Way. The movie reunites Lange with her “American Horror Story” co-stars Kathy Bates and Lily Rabe, who play Lillian’s assistant and daughter, respectively. Pierce Brosnan and Jesse Williams also star.
The HBO movie is loosely inspired by actress Marian Seldes, who was the aunt of the film’s screenwriter, Elisabeth Seldes Annacone. Michael Cristofer directed the movie for HBO Films. Read our full review round-up below.
See Jessica Lange (‘Mother Play’) explores ‘what it means to be lonely’ within 12 minutes of haunting silence
Caryn James of The Hollywood Reporter writes, “Jessica Lange is perfection as the fictional actress Lillian Hall, known for decades as...
The HBO movie is loosely inspired by actress Marian Seldes, who was the aunt of the film’s screenwriter, Elisabeth Seldes Annacone. Michael Cristofer directed the movie for HBO Films. Read our full review round-up below.
See Jessica Lange (‘Mother Play’) explores ‘what it means to be lonely’ within 12 minutes of haunting silence
Caryn James of The Hollywood Reporter writes, “Jessica Lange is perfection as the fictional actress Lillian Hall, known for decades as...
- 6/4/2024
- by Vincent Mandile
- Gold Derby
In “The Great Lillian Hall,” Jessica Lange plays a veteran theater actress — a legend of the Broadway stage — who is always putting on airs, reciting bits from her favorite roles, and carrying on in the tradition of fabled actresses who get known for playing characters like Blanche DuBois because they’ve actually got a lot of Blanche in them. (They believe their own illusions.) Yet just because Lillian Hall is a flamboyant grand dame doesn’t mean that she’s not showing you who she is. Lange, a beauty at 75, has a face that has only grown more expressive with the years. In “The Great Lillian Hall,” that face is a map of emotion we read. Even when Lillian is being deceptive (even when she’s deceiving herself), the majesty of her feelings shines through.
There’s a moving scene in which she’s seated on a porch with her adult daughter,...
There’s a moving scene in which she’s seated on a porch with her adult daughter,...
- 6/1/2024
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Depending on how Russian your sense of humor is, Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” could be classified as either the darkest of comedies or a tragedy that sometimes manages to be mildly humorous. The play follows a past-their-prime family of Russian aristocrats who are forced to sell their eponymous orchard, which they spent most of their lives ignoring and neglecting. But once it’s time to actually part ways, they become overwhelmed by morose nostalgia as they struggle to let go of something that they assumed would always be there. It’s both a brilliant satire of wealth-induced decadence and a somber exploration of how humans struggle to say goodbye at the ends of their eras.
So it’s fitting that, whether she knows it or not, Lillian Hall’s (Jessica Lange) upcoming turn as Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” will be her final performance. Michael Cristofer...
So it’s fitting that, whether she knows it or not, Lillian Hall’s (Jessica Lange) upcoming turn as Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” will be her final performance. Michael Cristofer...
- 5/31/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
I am a sucker for movies about Broadway and those who spend their lives in the theatre. Of course the crown jewel of the genre is the Oscar-winning All About Eve, but there are so many others including 1933’s Morning Glory which won a young Katherine Hepburn her first Academy Award, as well as its rarely seen remake, 1958’s underrated Stage Struck. Ginger Rogers did a good one, too: Forever Female. The list goes on and on and now includes a stellar new entry, The Great Lillian Hall which gives the great Jessica Lange a challenging role worth her talents.
Premiering on HBO May 31, just barely under the wire for Emmy consideration, Lange’s performance as a stage legend facing dementia should send chills down the spine of any other contenders for Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie this season. This veteran star simply knocks it out of the park.
Premiering on HBO May 31, just barely under the wire for Emmy consideration, Lange’s performance as a stage legend facing dementia should send chills down the spine of any other contenders for Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie this season. This veteran star simply knocks it out of the park.
- 5/30/2024
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Above: 1980 Japanese poster for Apocalypse Now. Design by Eiko Ishioka, artwork by Haruo Takino.With Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestated Megalopolis having premiered yesterday at Cannes, it's a good time to look back at the posters from his 60-year-long career. The only problem is that many posters for his films are either too well known or nothing to write home about. Like Coppola’s career itself, there are peaks and valleys—one of my very first posts for Notebook, almost exactly fifteen years ago, was about the gorgeous design for The Rain People (1969)—but a career retrospective of his posters seems like it might result in less than the sum of its parts. Yet of all his posters there are three rare Japanese designs that have always stood out as utterly extraordinary: two for Apocalypse Now (1979) and one for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).I’ve always seen these posters attributed to Eiko Ishioka,...
- 5/17/2024
- MUBI
The actor, 43, talks about irreverence, trying to look more awake, his love of music, and the pursuit of art
I have mixed feelings about being the first non-white actor to win a Bafta. I was very grateful, but it also raised questions. I remember watching The Buddha of Suburbia and Bhaji on the Beach as a kid. British-Asian culture didn’t start in 2017, when I won. It’s weird to think it wasn’t recognised until that point.
Working on Four Lions with Chris Morris was a great lesson in irreverence. Even if people insist you take things seriously, you don’t have to. Actually, it’s probably more important not to. Comedy can take the teeth out of even the most serious issues.
I only started acting because my mum wanted me to pronounce my “T”s properly. When I was seven, she took me to speech and drama lessons.
I have mixed feelings about being the first non-white actor to win a Bafta. I was very grateful, but it also raised questions. I remember watching The Buddha of Suburbia and Bhaji on the Beach as a kid. British-Asian culture didn’t start in 2017, when I won. It’s weird to think it wasn’t recognised until that point.
Working on Four Lions with Chris Morris was a great lesson in irreverence. Even if people insist you take things seriously, you don’t have to. Actually, it’s probably more important not to. Comedy can take the teeth out of even the most serious issues.
I only started acting because my mum wanted me to pronounce my “T”s properly. When I was seven, she took me to speech and drama lessons.
- 4/6/2024
- by Michael Hogan
- The Guardian - Film News
Exclusive: Annette Bening, who just received her fifth Oscar nomination last week for her portrayal of champion swimmer Diana Nyad in Nyad, has been named as the inaugural recipient of the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Arlington Award.
The Arlington represents the first new award the festival has created in more than two decades and is named for the historic venue where all the fest’s annual tributes timed to Oscar season take place. It will be presented on Friday, February 16, 2024 at the theater, preceded by an in-person conversation I will be moderating covering her entire career.
“This is the first award added to our slate in 20 years. It is made to honor an artist who is greatly admired and who has demonstrated an incomparable commitment to film and its craft. Ms. Bening has not only displayed all of those qualities, but is considered by us to be a friend of the film festival.
The Arlington represents the first new award the festival has created in more than two decades and is named for the historic venue where all the fest’s annual tributes timed to Oscar season take place. It will be presented on Friday, February 16, 2024 at the theater, preceded by an in-person conversation I will be moderating covering her entire career.
“This is the first award added to our slate in 20 years. It is made to honor an artist who is greatly admired and who has demonstrated an incomparable commitment to film and its craft. Ms. Bening has not only displayed all of those qualities, but is considered by us to be a friend of the film festival.
- 1/30/2024
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
“Expats” star Sarayu Blue remembers the first time imposter syndrome bowled her over.
She was on set for David E. Kelley’s “Monday Mornings” with the “inimitable” Alfred Molina, who just performed a big speech in a key scene.
“We got done, and we were walking to our rooms and he turned back and he said, ‘Was that all right?'” Blue recalled in a conversation with IndieWire. “And I looked behind me cause I thought, ‘Well, he can’t be asking me, who the hell am I?'”
After assuring Molina that he was “brilliant,” Blue remembered realizing: “In that moment, I thought ‘Oh, we never quite release that impostor syndrome.’ We always will check. ‘Did I get that? Did we get it?’ It was a beautiful moment, and I love him so much.”
Going into “Expats” with Nicole Kidman, Blue was experienced at working with big stars and...
She was on set for David E. Kelley’s “Monday Mornings” with the “inimitable” Alfred Molina, who just performed a big speech in a key scene.
“We got done, and we were walking to our rooms and he turned back and he said, ‘Was that all right?'” Blue recalled in a conversation with IndieWire. “And I looked behind me cause I thought, ‘Well, he can’t be asking me, who the hell am I?'”
After assuring Molina that he was “brilliant,” Blue remembered realizing: “In that moment, I thought ‘Oh, we never quite release that impostor syndrome.’ We always will check. ‘Did I get that? Did we get it?’ It was a beautiful moment, and I love him so much.”
Going into “Expats” with Nicole Kidman, Blue was experienced at working with big stars and...
- 1/27/2024
- by Proma Khosla
- Indiewire
Petr Jancarek’s ‘Havel Speaking’ Captures Czech Ex-President’s Bittersweet Foray Into Film Directing
Petr Jancarek’s chronicle of the last years of Vaclav Havel’s life, “Havel Speaking, Can You Hear Me?,” screening in its world premiere at the Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival, is as naturalistic and down to earth as its subject.
The director, who filmed the former Czech president for nearly a decade in various capacities, says Havel was unlike any national leader he ever knew. “I could see this modest person who is incredibly hardworking,” Jancarek recalls, “a true director of everything, standing by his beliefs, despite discomfort or loss of personal freedom.”
In the years before Havel’s death in 2011, Jancarek filmed hundreds of hours behind the scenes as the one-time dissident playwright, who found himself leading then Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, endeavored to complete his life dream, directing a feature film.
Havel was adapting his own play, “Leaving,” a biting satire of...
The director, who filmed the former Czech president for nearly a decade in various capacities, says Havel was unlike any national leader he ever knew. “I could see this modest person who is incredibly hardworking,” Jancarek recalls, “a true director of everything, standing by his beliefs, despite discomfort or loss of personal freedom.”
In the years before Havel’s death in 2011, Jancarek filmed hundreds of hours behind the scenes as the one-time dissident playwright, who found himself leading then Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, endeavored to complete his life dream, directing a feature film.
Havel was adapting his own play, “Leaving,” a biting satire of...
- 10/24/2023
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger will star in the world premiere of Mother Play on Broadway.
The play, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, who wrote How I Learned to Drive and Indecent, and directed by Tina Landau, will play a limited engagement at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater starting April 3, with an opening night on April 25.
This marks Lange’s first return to Broadway since she starred as Mary Tyrone in the 2016 revival of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, for which she received a Tony Award for lead actress in a play. The American Horror Story and Tootsie star made her Broadway debut in A Streetcar Named Desire and also appeared in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway.
Parsons, who starred in the long-running sitcom The Big Bang Theory, recently appeared Off-Broadway in a revival of A Man of No Importance. He has starred on...
The play, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, who wrote How I Learned to Drive and Indecent, and directed by Tina Landau, will play a limited engagement at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater starting April 3, with an opening night on April 25.
This marks Lange’s first return to Broadway since she starred as Mary Tyrone in the 2016 revival of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, for which she received a Tony Award for lead actress in a play. The American Horror Story and Tootsie star made her Broadway debut in A Streetcar Named Desire and also appeared in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway.
Parsons, who starred in the long-running sitcom The Big Bang Theory, recently appeared Off-Broadway in a revival of A Man of No Importance. He has starred on...
- 9/6/2023
- by Caitlin Huston
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger will star on Broadway this spring in a world premiere production of Paula Vogel’s new Mother Play, to be directed by Tina Landau.
The Second Stage Theater production will begin a limited engagement at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater on Wednesday, April 3, with an official opening on Thursday, April 25.
Mother Play by Pulitzer Prize winner Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) is described by Second Stage as “a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past.”
The synopsis: “It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis is supervising her teenage children, Carl and Martha, as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path.
The Second Stage Theater production will begin a limited engagement at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater on Wednesday, April 3, with an official opening on Thursday, April 25.
Mother Play by Pulitzer Prize winner Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) is described by Second Stage as “a bitingly funny and unflinchingly honest new play about the hold our family has over us and the surprises we find when we unpack the past.”
The synopsis: “It’s 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis is supervising her teenage children, Carl and Martha, as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path.
- 9/6/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Sarah Paulson will return to Broadway in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play, Appropriate.
The play, directed by Lila Neugebauer, will begin previews at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater starting Nov. 28, with an opening set for Dec. 18. Paulson was last on Broadway in the 2010 run of Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories, where she starred opposite Linda Lavin, and most recently on stage in the 2013 off-Broadway run of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly.
This production is the Broadway debut for Jacobs-Jenkins, whose plays, Gloria and Everybody were both Pulitzer Prize finalists. Appropriate first premiered off Broadway in 2014 and won the Obie Award for best new American play, an honor it shared with An Octoroon, also written by Jacobs-Jenkins. Appropriate transferred to London for a limited run in 2019.
Paulson will play Toni, the eldest daughter in the Lafayette family, who returns home, alongside her brother, Bo, to settle her father’s estate. The two reminisce...
The play, directed by Lila Neugebauer, will begin previews at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater starting Nov. 28, with an opening set for Dec. 18. Paulson was last on Broadway in the 2010 run of Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories, where she starred opposite Linda Lavin, and most recently on stage in the 2013 off-Broadway run of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly.
This production is the Broadway debut for Jacobs-Jenkins, whose plays, Gloria and Everybody were both Pulitzer Prize finalists. Appropriate first premiered off Broadway in 2014 and won the Obie Award for best new American play, an honor it shared with An Octoroon, also written by Jacobs-Jenkins. Appropriate transferred to London for a limited run in 2019.
Paulson will play Toni, the eldest daughter in the Lafayette family, who returns home, alongside her brother, Bo, to settle her father’s estate. The two reminisce...
- 7/27/2023
- by Caitlin Huston
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Emmy-winning actor Sarah Paulson will return to Broadway this fall for the first time in 13 years when she stars in the Second Stage Theater production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ darkly comedic family drama Appropriate. Lila Neugebauer (The Waverly Gallery) will direct.
The production, part of Second Stage’s 45th Anniversary Season, will begin previews Tuesday, November 28 at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater, with an official opening on Monday, December 18. Appropriate will mark Jacobs-Jenkins’ Broadway debut.
Paulson, whose Broadway credits include The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), The Glass Menagerie (2005) and Collected Stories (2010), last appeared on the New York stage in a 2013 Off Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly opposite Danny Burstein.
Additional casting and creative team for Appropriate will be announced in the coming weeks.
Lila Neugebauer (Credit: Courtesy)
The playwright is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner best known for his plays An Octoroon and The Comeuppance.
The production, part of Second Stage’s 45th Anniversary Season, will begin previews Tuesday, November 28 at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater, with an official opening on Monday, December 18. Appropriate will mark Jacobs-Jenkins’ Broadway debut.
Paulson, whose Broadway credits include The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), The Glass Menagerie (2005) and Collected Stories (2010), last appeared on the New York stage in a 2013 Off Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly opposite Danny Burstein.
Additional casting and creative team for Appropriate will be announced in the coming weeks.
Lila Neugebauer (Credit: Courtesy)
The playwright is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner best known for his plays An Octoroon and The Comeuppance.
- 7/27/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Revivals have been a mainstay of Broadway for decades. But it wasn’t until the 31st ceremony in 1977 that the Tony Awards added a new category honoring these productions. The nominees for the inaugural prize were “Guys and Dolls,” “The Cherry Orchard” and “The Three Penny Opera” with “Porgy and Bess” taking the honors. Other winners over the years included “The Pirates of Penzance,” “Anything Goes,” “Death of a Salesman,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Gypsy.”
In 1994, the category was divided into best revival of a musical with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” winning the award and “An Inspector Calls” taking home the best revival of a play honor.
This year’s nominees in both categories celebrate the work of Stephen Sondheim, Henrik Ibsen and three landmark black playwrights: August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks and Lorraine Hansberry. Here’s a closer look at this year’s contenders.
Best Revival of a Musical
“Into the Woods”
“Company,...
In 1994, the category was divided into best revival of a musical with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” winning the award and “An Inspector Calls” taking home the best revival of a play honor.
This year’s nominees in both categories celebrate the work of Stephen Sondheim, Henrik Ibsen and three landmark black playwrights: August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks and Lorraine Hansberry. Here’s a closer look at this year’s contenders.
Best Revival of a Musical
“Into the Woods”
“Company,...
- 6/8/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Broadway and film star Joel Grey and John Kander, composer of Cabaret, Chicago and more, will receive the 2023 Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.
Grey was the original Amos Hart in the 1996 Chicago and the original Emcee in Cabaret on Broadway, for which he won a Tony Award. He later received an Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA for his performance in the film adaptation. Kander, who co-wrote those legendary musicals with the late lyricist Fred Ebb, is currently represented on Broadway with the musical New York, New York.
“We are immensely thrilled to honor two legends in their own rights. John Kander has composed the soundtrack to all of our lives – meeting us in every decade – creating unforgettable scores for Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and his current Broadway hit New York, New York,” said Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League.
“As a legendary actor and director,...
Grey was the original Amos Hart in the 1996 Chicago and the original Emcee in Cabaret on Broadway, for which he won a Tony Award. He later received an Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA for his performance in the film adaptation. Kander, who co-wrote those legendary musicals with the late lyricist Fred Ebb, is currently represented on Broadway with the musical New York, New York.
“We are immensely thrilled to honor two legends in their own rights. John Kander has composed the soundtrack to all of our lives – meeting us in every decade – creating unforgettable scores for Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and his current Broadway hit New York, New York,” said Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League.
“As a legendary actor and director,...
- 5/3/2023
- by Caitlin Huston
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Actor Joel Grey and composer John Kander will each receive the 2023 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, the Tony Awards Administration Committee announced today
“We are immensely thrilled to honor two legends in their own rights,” said Charlotte St. Martin, President of The Broadway League. “John Kander has composed the soundtrack to all of our lives – meeting us in every decade – creating unforgettable scores for Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and his current Broadway hit New York, New York.”
Heather Hitchens, President and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, said of Grey, “As a legendary actor and director, Joel Grey has made an everlasting impact, from Cabaret, to Goodtime Charley, The Normal Heart and his acclaimed Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof. Mr. Grey and Mr. Kander are true giants of the theatre, and we are honored to say Wilkommen as the recipients of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Awards.
“We are immensely thrilled to honor two legends in their own rights,” said Charlotte St. Martin, President of The Broadway League. “John Kander has composed the soundtrack to all of our lives – meeting us in every decade – creating unforgettable scores for Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and his current Broadway hit New York, New York.”
Heather Hitchens, President and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, said of Grey, “As a legendary actor and director, Joel Grey has made an everlasting impact, from Cabaret, to Goodtime Charley, The Normal Heart and his acclaimed Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof. Mr. Grey and Mr. Kander are true giants of the theatre, and we are honored to say Wilkommen as the recipients of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Awards.
- 5/3/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
I used to think that directing was all about commanding – about knowing the answers to all the questions,” says Richard Eyre. “Now I feel the opposite.” Eyre, one of the titans of British theatre since the 1970s, has of course done his share of commanding in the past. Of Ian McKellen in one of the definitive stagings of Richard III. Of Daniel Day-Lewis in Hamlet, which saw the actor walk off stage mid-performance and never return. Of the National Theatre, throughout his 10-year stint as creative director between 1987 and 1997, when he championed the work of firebrand artists such as David Hare and Howard Brenton.
On screen, he cut his teeth on Play for Today before moving on to films such as 2006’s Notes from a Scandal and the BBC’s 2018 King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins and a cusp-of-stardom Florence Pugh. Now 79 years old, Eyre speaks to me over video chat...
On screen, he cut his teeth on Play for Today before moving on to films such as 2006’s Notes from a Scandal and the BBC’s 2018 King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins and a cusp-of-stardom Florence Pugh. Now 79 years old, Eyre speaks to me over video chat...
- 3/16/2023
- by Louis Chilton
- The Independent - Film
Eugene Lee, the six-time Emmy-winning production designer for Saturday Night Live since 1975 and a multiple Tony winner for such Broadway hits as Wicked, Sweeney Todd and Candide, died Tuesday in Providence, Ri. He was 83.
Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story Woody Harrelson To Host 'Saturday Night Live' For Fifth Time Related Story 'SNL's Weekend Update Takes Swipes At George Santos' "New Lie" About 'Spider-Man' Musical & Donald Trump
As the production designer of SNL since the year of its debut, Lee was the longest-serving member of the NBC show’s production staff. He also served as production designer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon from 2014-2018 and numerous SNL specials.
He also led the production design for Late Night with Seth Meyers and the 2000 television movie On Golden Pond, among others. For his work in television production design,...
Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story Woody Harrelson To Host 'Saturday Night Live' For Fifth Time Related Story 'SNL's Weekend Update Takes Swipes At George Santos' "New Lie" About 'Spider-Man' Musical & Donald Trump
As the production designer of SNL since the year of its debut, Lee was the longest-serving member of the NBC show’s production staff. He also served as production designer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon from 2014-2018 and numerous SNL specials.
He also led the production design for Late Night with Seth Meyers and the 2000 television movie On Golden Pond, among others. For his work in television production design,...
- 2/8/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Abandoning the Mundane: Ran Li’s Tender 'Till Love Do Us Part’ Premieres at the 38th Warsaw Film FestBy Jared FeldschreiberFor nuanced filmmaker Ran Li, various cultures are interwoven seamlessly within her tender film, ‘Till Love Do Us Part’. The story focuses on a college lecturer who falls madly in love with a theatre director while on a work trip. The hitch is that the 30-year-old already has a fiancé back home in what can be best perceived as a decent middle class life in China. The 110-minute film made its debut at this year’s Warsaw Film Festival.
The uncertainty motif permeates throughout Li’s film, and this theme is clearly an intentional one. Uncertainty fits the protagonist’s main lot as an urban planner and lecturer as her innate sensibilities perhaps juxtaposes with the impulses of a freethinking theatre director. Her reawakening, though, makes for a most interesting balance of self discovery and female interiority.
“I have a female friend who is a lecturer and teaches urban planning at a top Chinese university. She was the inspiration for the character, Shu,’’ says Li. “Urban planning, like any type of planning, deals with uncertainty. Life is full of planning and calculation, but life is also spontaneous and ever-changing. The only thing that wouldn’t change is probably ‘change’ itself — which we all learn to embrace in the end.”
The lead actress is played by up-and-coming actress, Liang Cuishan, who “has very little acting experience in films prior to the shooting [of this picture],” adds Li. “She responded to my casting call and impressed me in the audition. I needed a fresh face to give life to this character. She blends in the mainstream society humbly. When she gradually becomes her own person during her love encounter, it touches us.” Till Love Do Us Part took part in the “1–2 Competition” at this year’s Warsaw Film Festival, which featured various categories — and genres — over its ten days of movies.
Liang Cuishan, courtesy of Bunnylake Productions
Li, who was born in Beijing, earned her law degree from Tsinghua University. She lived and worked in law in Europe before attending Prague Film School. Leading up to her feature film’s debut, Li’s short films were selected in more than sixty international film festivals and won over twenty awards. These festivals included SXSW, Shanghai International Film Festival, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival amongst others. Till Love Do Us Part was selected in various financing forums, including the Shanghai International Film Festival Film Market, Film London Pfm New Talent Program, Udine Far East Film Festival Focus Asian Project Market and others.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/700724300
Like the film’s director, the protagonist Shu has a love of architecture. Till Love Do Us Partfeatures an array of beautiful landscapes throughout Prague. “Basically architecture’s my hobby. I had architecture classes back in university. Theatre, also, has been my passion. In school, I directed plays and we did the classical ones, like Tennessee Williams, and all of the Russian playwrights. In Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, [for instance], I was the leading actress in it. I played in a lot of them,” says Li.
So how much of Till Love Do Us Part autobiographical?
“This is interesting because I know a Slovak who is also a theatre director,” responds Li. “A lot of the events in the film had happened to him. I used to work with him as I was his videographer when he worked in information technology. He used to do this side job as a coder to support his theatre performances. He didn’t make money from theatre but he put his whole heart into it, and he was inspiring.”
Till Love Do Us Part can best be portrayed as a sociological love story that explores a Chinese woman’s struggles with societal expectations. The film’s heady and deeply felt female protagonist embarks on a journey to find love and her own self-worth. The film also deftly balances different values and customs — from eastern and western perspectives. As a result, the shoot was split up between Beijing and Prague over thirty-nine days.
Liang Cuishan, courtesy of Bunnylake Productions
“We managed to make everything according to plan,” says co-producer Michal Sikora. “One of the challenges was to bring a crew from China to Czech Republic. It would have not been possible without the support of the Czech Film Commission and the exemption granted by the Ministry of Culture. It was a small miracle.” Sikora also helped with some of the casting work while the crew was in Prague. Li’s company, Bunnylake Production, together with Attention Productions and Lonely Production, produced the film. All of the initial shooting scenes took place first in China, and lasted for seventeen days. The plan was to shoot throughout the summer of 2020 “but it it took us 2.5 months to get all of our visa work done. So, when we got there, it was already October and it was cold,” says Li.
“A British actor recommended me for the audition for this film,” adds Aaron Wan, one of the film’s co-stars. “[Playing the part of a Chinese businessman], I asked a few Mandarin-speaking actresses to help me prepare for my role. The rehearsal process was intense. As many directors are clever, I have great respect for Ran because she follows her heart and does not bow to being [manipulated by the constraints] of money.”
Li’s gumption brought her from graduating at the top law school in China to working as a lawyer in Europe. But her destiny lay in film directing. “In 2016, I graduated from Prague Film School and returned to Beijing and started this new chapter in my life. All of my friends were living a stable and comfortable middle-class life. Meanwhile, an impulse to break free from the shackles of ordinary life [had already brewed in my mind]. My story was inspired by this reality.”
The second half of Till Love Do Us Part brings Shu to her native country where she is bound to the very strict societal mores she sought to shed while experiencing self-fulfillment and love while in Prague. “It is a turning point,” says Li. “For Shu, being in China [means] being unaware of developing choices. It is when she is in Europe that she learns what love feels like and it’s another side of the same coin. There is a chance as the door opens up for her, but the door also closes because of disappointments. Life has to go on — but life back in China is different because she’s different.” Li, a cinematic craftswoman with literary sensibilities, told her cinematographer, Hu Chen, that she wanted the camera to be “invisible” so that “the audience can focus on character and story.”
The post-production work for Till Love Do Us Part took a year to do before the film made its debut in large crowds at the main theater halls of Warsaw’s Multikino complex.
Contact Information: Ran Li (Bunnylake Production) ranli1220@hotmail.com
First two photos via Bunnylake Production
Ran Li with Wff moderator: via Warsaw Film Festival...
The uncertainty motif permeates throughout Li’s film, and this theme is clearly an intentional one. Uncertainty fits the protagonist’s main lot as an urban planner and lecturer as her innate sensibilities perhaps juxtaposes with the impulses of a freethinking theatre director. Her reawakening, though, makes for a most interesting balance of self discovery and female interiority.
“I have a female friend who is a lecturer and teaches urban planning at a top Chinese university. She was the inspiration for the character, Shu,’’ says Li. “Urban planning, like any type of planning, deals with uncertainty. Life is full of planning and calculation, but life is also spontaneous and ever-changing. The only thing that wouldn’t change is probably ‘change’ itself — which we all learn to embrace in the end.”
The lead actress is played by up-and-coming actress, Liang Cuishan, who “has very little acting experience in films prior to the shooting [of this picture],” adds Li. “She responded to my casting call and impressed me in the audition. I needed a fresh face to give life to this character. She blends in the mainstream society humbly. When she gradually becomes her own person during her love encounter, it touches us.” Till Love Do Us Part took part in the “1–2 Competition” at this year’s Warsaw Film Festival, which featured various categories — and genres — over its ten days of movies.
Liang Cuishan, courtesy of Bunnylake Productions
Li, who was born in Beijing, earned her law degree from Tsinghua University. She lived and worked in law in Europe before attending Prague Film School. Leading up to her feature film’s debut, Li’s short films were selected in more than sixty international film festivals and won over twenty awards. These festivals included SXSW, Shanghai International Film Festival, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival amongst others. Till Love Do Us Part was selected in various financing forums, including the Shanghai International Film Festival Film Market, Film London Pfm New Talent Program, Udine Far East Film Festival Focus Asian Project Market and others.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/700724300
Like the film’s director, the protagonist Shu has a love of architecture. Till Love Do Us Partfeatures an array of beautiful landscapes throughout Prague. “Basically architecture’s my hobby. I had architecture classes back in university. Theatre, also, has been my passion. In school, I directed plays and we did the classical ones, like Tennessee Williams, and all of the Russian playwrights. In Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, [for instance], I was the leading actress in it. I played in a lot of them,” says Li.
So how much of Till Love Do Us Part autobiographical?
“This is interesting because I know a Slovak who is also a theatre director,” responds Li. “A lot of the events in the film had happened to him. I used to work with him as I was his videographer when he worked in information technology. He used to do this side job as a coder to support his theatre performances. He didn’t make money from theatre but he put his whole heart into it, and he was inspiring.”
Till Love Do Us Part can best be portrayed as a sociological love story that explores a Chinese woman’s struggles with societal expectations. The film’s heady and deeply felt female protagonist embarks on a journey to find love and her own self-worth. The film also deftly balances different values and customs — from eastern and western perspectives. As a result, the shoot was split up between Beijing and Prague over thirty-nine days.
Liang Cuishan, courtesy of Bunnylake Productions
“We managed to make everything according to plan,” says co-producer Michal Sikora. “One of the challenges was to bring a crew from China to Czech Republic. It would have not been possible without the support of the Czech Film Commission and the exemption granted by the Ministry of Culture. It was a small miracle.” Sikora also helped with some of the casting work while the crew was in Prague. Li’s company, Bunnylake Production, together with Attention Productions and Lonely Production, produced the film. All of the initial shooting scenes took place first in China, and lasted for seventeen days. The plan was to shoot throughout the summer of 2020 “but it it took us 2.5 months to get all of our visa work done. So, when we got there, it was already October and it was cold,” says Li.
“A British actor recommended me for the audition for this film,” adds Aaron Wan, one of the film’s co-stars. “[Playing the part of a Chinese businessman], I asked a few Mandarin-speaking actresses to help me prepare for my role. The rehearsal process was intense. As many directors are clever, I have great respect for Ran because she follows her heart and does not bow to being [manipulated by the constraints] of money.”
Li’s gumption brought her from graduating at the top law school in China to working as a lawyer in Europe. But her destiny lay in film directing. “In 2016, I graduated from Prague Film School and returned to Beijing and started this new chapter in my life. All of my friends were living a stable and comfortable middle-class life. Meanwhile, an impulse to break free from the shackles of ordinary life [had already brewed in my mind]. My story was inspired by this reality.”
The second half of Till Love Do Us Part brings Shu to her native country where she is bound to the very strict societal mores she sought to shed while experiencing self-fulfillment and love while in Prague. “It is a turning point,” says Li. “For Shu, being in China [means] being unaware of developing choices. It is when she is in Europe that she learns what love feels like and it’s another side of the same coin. There is a chance as the door opens up for her, but the door also closes because of disappointments. Life has to go on — but life back in China is different because she’s different.” Li, a cinematic craftswoman with literary sensibilities, told her cinematographer, Hu Chen, that she wanted the camera to be “invisible” so that “the audience can focus on character and story.”
The post-production work for Till Love Do Us Part took a year to do before the film made its debut in large crowds at the main theater halls of Warsaw’s Multikino complex.
Contact Information: Ran Li (Bunnylake Production) ranli1220@hotmail.com
First two photos via Bunnylake Production
Ran Li with Wff moderator: via Warsaw Film Festival...
- 12/18/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Sam Mendes was writing the screenplay for what would become Empire of Light and he’d hit a wall.
He knew he was writing it for Olivia Colman even though they’d never met.
Observing her husband’s frustrations with his script, Alison Balsom, an eminent trumpet soloist, suggested he somehow get in touch with Colman in the hope that the actress could excavate him from the rubble of that darned wall.
Eventually, Mendes reached Colman (The Favourite) via her agent. They met on Zoom. “Look, I’m writing something for you,” he recalled telling her.
They had a gossip, then chatted briefly about the project. “I told her it’s a love story of sorts and I talked about how personal it is, and how much it’s drawn from my own life. The upshot of it is that I got a very powerful sense of her.”
Mendes told...
He knew he was writing it for Olivia Colman even though they’d never met.
Observing her husband’s frustrations with his script, Alison Balsom, an eminent trumpet soloist, suggested he somehow get in touch with Colman in the hope that the actress could excavate him from the rubble of that darned wall.
Eventually, Mendes reached Colman (The Favourite) via her agent. They met on Zoom. “Look, I’m writing something for you,” he recalled telling her.
They had a gossip, then chatted briefly about the project. “I told her it’s a love story of sorts and I talked about how personal it is, and how much it’s drawn from my own life. The upshot of it is that I got a very powerful sense of her.”
Mendes told...
- 9/14/2022
- by Baz Bamigboye
- Deadline Film + TV
There are very few actors with Rebecca Hall’s facility for making difficult, even contradictory characters seem plausible. So it’s quite something to say that even her knack for the dignified and intelligent portrayal of mental and behavioral instability meets its Waterloo with Andrew Semans’ “Resurrection,” a psychological thriller that starts off promisingly before swerving into serious (and sadly self-serious) derangement. It winds up several stops north of bonkers, in a finale that shoots for transgressive, psycho-biological role-reversal, but plays like 1994’s Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy “Junior” given a torture-porn makeover.
Initially, Margaret (Hall) is an aspirational figure. With a glass-walled office at her lucrative pharma job, a well-appointed apartment and intimate yet no-strings sex-on-demand with married co-worker Peter (Michael Esper), she is also a doting mom to 17-year-old Abbie (Grace Kaufman), who is about to head off to college. (On one level “Resurrection” can be read as the mother of all empty-nest breakdowns.
Initially, Margaret (Hall) is an aspirational figure. With a glass-walled office at her lucrative pharma job, a well-appointed apartment and intimate yet no-strings sex-on-demand with married co-worker Peter (Michael Esper), she is also a doting mom to 17-year-old Abbie (Grace Kaufman), who is about to head off to college. (On one level “Resurrection” can be read as the mother of all empty-nest breakdowns.
- 1/23/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Meryl Streep is set to star in Places, Please, a film drama that will be directed by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Michael Cristofer from a script by UCLA Mfa alum Elisabeth Seldes Annacone (The Changing Room). The film is a love letter to Broadway, where both Streep and Cristofer started their careers. In an interview here, they describe their start together on a Broadway performance of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, which figures in the film. Their comments on the stage, and how Broadway can reemerge from its pandemic plight, are included below.
Places, Please will shoot this summer in New York, and will be introduced to buyers for the virtual Berlin Market, with CAA Media Finance repping domestic distribution rights and Filmnation handling international sales. Streep, Steven Rogers and Jane Rosenthal (The Irishman) will produce. Berry Welsh will executive produce.
In the film, Streep will play Lillian Hall,...
Places, Please will shoot this summer in New York, and will be introduced to buyers for the virtual Berlin Market, with CAA Media Finance repping domestic distribution rights and Filmnation handling international sales. Streep, Steven Rogers and Jane Rosenthal (The Irishman) will produce. Berry Welsh will executive produce.
In the film, Streep will play Lillian Hall,...
- 2/25/2021
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Easton, who broke a 30-year break from Broadway to make an acclaimed performance in Tom Stoppard’s 2001 play The Invention of Love, died Dec. 2 at age 86.
Easton’s death was announced in a Facebook post by his friend and colleague James Wallert, co-artistic director of Epic Theatre Ensemble. No cause of death was disclosed.
Born in Canada and building an acclaimed, six-decade Broadway career beginning in the 1950s, Easton won the Tony for leading actor for his performance as A.E. Housman in the Stoppard play.
Easton made news of a different sort when he appeared in another Stoppard play five years later: During a preview of The Coast of Utopia, Easton fainted on stage after experiencing a heart arrhythmia. Co-stars Ethan Hawke and Martha Plimpton called out for a doctor in the house.
Easton’s death was announced in a Facebook post by his friend and colleague James Wallert, co-artistic director of Epic Theatre Ensemble. No cause of death was disclosed.
Born in Canada and building an acclaimed, six-decade Broadway career beginning in the 1950s, Easton won the Tony for leading actor for his performance as A.E. Housman in the Stoppard play.
Easton made news of a different sort when he appeared in another Stoppard play five years later: During a preview of The Coast of Utopia, Easton fainted on stage after experiencing a heart arrhythmia. Co-stars Ethan Hawke and Martha Plimpton called out for a doctor in the house.
- 12/11/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Sam Mendes first found prominence as a theater director in his native England, making a name for himself at age 24 by directing a West End production of “The Cherry Orchard” starring Judi Dench. In 1990, he would become the artistic director of the cutting-edge Donmar Warehouse. He would make his way to Broadway in 1998 with a bleaker take on the musical “Cabaret” with Alan Cumming as the Emcee and Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles.
Pretty soon, Hollywood beckoned and Mendes was recruited by DreamWorks to direct 1999’s “American Beauty,” a scathing satire of hypocritical suburban lifestyles written by Alan Ball and starring Kevin Spacey as a family man who suffers a mid-life crisis and drops out of the rat race. It would be the then-fledgling studio’s first Best Picture Oscar winner while Mendes became the sixth helmer to take home an Academy Award for his directing debut — a feat that...
Pretty soon, Hollywood beckoned and Mendes was recruited by DreamWorks to direct 1999’s “American Beauty,” a scathing satire of hypocritical suburban lifestyles written by Alan Ball and starring Kevin Spacey as a family man who suffers a mid-life crisis and drops out of the rat race. It would be the then-fledgling studio’s first Best Picture Oscar winner while Mendes became the sixth helmer to take home an Academy Award for his directing debut — a feat that...
- 11/30/2019
- by Susan Wloszczyna
- Gold Derby
In recent years, Roundabout Theatre Company has demonstrated a knack for pairing stellar actresses in revivals by acclaimed playwrights, including Annette Bening in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” (2019), Jessica Lange in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (2016), and Diane Lane in Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” (2016).
That trend continues this fall with Marisa Tomei’s return to the stage in Tennessee Williams’s early-career play “The Rose Tattoo.” Set in a predominantly Sicilian community in a Gulf Coast town in 1950, the play centers on Tomei’s Serafina Delle Rose, a widowed seamstress who finds lust after her husband’s death with a man who resembles her late spouse.
This production of “Rose Tattoo,” which originated at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016, officially opened on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre on October 15. Trip Cullman directs the 18-member ensemble.
Sign Up for Gold Derby’s...
That trend continues this fall with Marisa Tomei’s return to the stage in Tennessee Williams’s early-career play “The Rose Tattoo.” Set in a predominantly Sicilian community in a Gulf Coast town in 1950, the play centers on Tomei’s Serafina Delle Rose, a widowed seamstress who finds lust after her husband’s death with a man who resembles her late spouse.
This production of “Rose Tattoo,” which originated at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016, officially opened on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre on October 15. Trip Cullman directs the 18-member ensemble.
Sign Up for Gold Derby’s...
- 10/16/2019
- by David Buchanan
- Gold Derby
So here we are, almost at the fountain where everything started. “Eyecatch Junction” is the second film directed by Takashi Miike, but was released prior to his first motion picture, “Lady Hunter: Prelude to Murder” (1991), which makes this the first Miike material presented to a broad audience.
“Eyecatch Junction” is a police comedy about three women who decide to establish a secret crime-fighting unit, because all the interesting cases are done by their male colleagues. By joining the police fitness club, they find a perfect cover for their activities. The investigation of a panty thief at the local women’s dormitory leads them to a serious murder case.
Besides fighting criminals in colorful gymnastic outfits, the main part of the film consists of girls being watched by perverts and some minor efforts of solving the actual crime. “Eyecatch Junction” is playful, silly and contains a lot of comical notes.
“Eyecatch Junction” is a police comedy about three women who decide to establish a secret crime-fighting unit, because all the interesting cases are done by their male colleagues. By joining the police fitness club, they find a perfect cover for their activities. The investigation of a panty thief at the local women’s dormitory leads them to a serious murder case.
Besides fighting criminals in colorful gymnastic outfits, the main part of the film consists of girls being watched by perverts and some minor efforts of solving the actual crime. “Eyecatch Junction” is playful, silly and contains a lot of comical notes.
- 2/5/2019
- by Alexander Knoth
- AsianMoviePulse
Michelle Williams opened up about the “All the Money in the World” pay gap in her September 2018 cover story interview for Vanity Fair. Williams made headlines throughout the beginning of the year when it was revealed she made the SAG-AFTRA minimum of $80 per diem for the “All the Money” reshoots while her male-costar, Mark Wahlberg, was paid $1.5 million. The reshoots took place so director Ridley Scott could replace scenes starring Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer after the former was accused of sexual abuse.
“It wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask for money for the reshoots,” Williams told Vanity Fair about returning to the “All the Money” set. “I just wanted to do the right thing on his behalf.”
Williams is referring to Anthony Rapp, the “Rent” and “Star Trek Discovery” actor who was the first person to publicly come forward and accuse Spacey of making unwanted...
“It wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask for money for the reshoots,” Williams told Vanity Fair about returning to the “All the Money” set. “I just wanted to do the right thing on his behalf.”
Williams is referring to Anthony Rapp, the “Rent” and “Star Trek Discovery” actor who was the first person to publicly come forward and accuse Spacey of making unwanted...
- 7/26/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
John Christopher Jones is a veteran “actor’s actor” with many Broadway shows including Simon Gray’s Otherwise Engaged (directed by Harold Pinter), Hurlyburly (directed by Mike Nichols), The Iceman Cometh (with Jason Robards), and Shaw’s Heartbreak House. He is the subject of a documentary film, The Endgame Project, which follows him in his tenth year with Parkinson’s as he rehearses and performs Beckett’s masterpiece. A “text-lover” through and through, he continues to translate the major plays of Chekov (he received a Lortel Award for his version of The Cherry Orchard) and work on his memoir. I’ve often heard the word “craftsman” […]...
- 7/10/2018
- by Peter Rinaldi
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
John Christopher Jones is a veteran “actor’s actor” with many Broadway shows including Simon Gray’s Otherwise Engaged (directed by Harold Pinter), Hurlyburly (directed by Mike Nichols), The Iceman Cometh (with Jason Robards), and Shaw’s Heartbreak House. He is the subject of a documentary film, The Endgame Project, which follows him in his tenth year with Parkinson’s as he rehearses and performs Beckett’s masterpiece. A “text-lover” through and through, he continues to translate the major plays of Chekov (he received a Lortel Award for his version of The Cherry Orchard) and work on his memoir. I’ve often heard the word “craftsman” […]...
- 7/10/2018
- by Peter Rinaldi
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
These are the films that have been announced as their countries’ official selections for the 2017 Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film. Submission does not guarantee acceptance — they must still be vetted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, which will release the official list of qualifying films in early October. This list will be updated as more countries announce their entries. An asterisk indicates that TheWrap has seen the film. Also Read: Academy President John Bailey Vows to Finish the Museum - and Get Along With Dawn Hudson Azerbaijan “Pomegranate Orchard” Director: Ilgar Najaf Inspired by Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,...
- 8/24/2017
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Charlie's Angels. We said, "Sooner or later, they are going to make it impossible." We looked at other people, and some were wonderful and some were adequate. Then Sam Cohn, my agent, said, "Would you do me a favor and see Meryl Streep?" I said, "I saw her [onstage] in The Cherry Orchard and she was wonderful, but we need somebody who has an enormous presence and skill." He...
- 1/6/2017
- by Robert Benton, as told to Stephen Galloway
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
When Joel Grey’s favorite leading ladies came together to celebrate his 75 years in show business Monday, they each had a different take on the Broadway legend.
Bernadette Peters remembered “falling in love with him” at their first meeting while costarring in the musical George M, Bebe Neuwirth danced and sang to “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago, and Sutton Foster — his costar from Anything Goes — remembered the time he knocked on her dressing room door with a “present” in a paper bag. “It was half a donut,” she said. He’d eaten the other half. “He’s always full of surprises,...
Bernadette Peters remembered “falling in love with him” at their first meeting while costarring in the musical George M, Bebe Neuwirth danced and sang to “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago, and Sutton Foster — his costar from Anything Goes — remembered the time he knocked on her dressing room door with a “present” in a paper bag. “It was half a donut,” she said. He’d eaten the other half. “He’s always full of surprises,...
- 12/7/2016
- by lmcneil0264
- PEOPLE.com
Aussie actor Martin Dingle Wall has a long list of local credits, having appeared in 'Home and Away', 'All Saints', 'Satisfaction', 'Underbelly', 'Rescue Special Ops' and 2015 feature 'Strangerland'.
Dingle Wall has returned to Oz from La, where he's lived for the past four years, to promote 'All That Jam', a rom-com shot in Moscow for which the actor had to learn Russian.—.only days before the shoot began. The feature screened in Sydney last week as part of The Russian Resurrection Film Festival.
Next year Dingle Wall stars with Olga Kurylenko and Antonio Banderas in 'Salty', which has been drumming up interest at Afm. He also plays the lead role in indie horror feature 'Happy Hunting', co-directed by Louie Gibson, son of Mel.
How did All That Jam come to you?
It's really the quintessential Hollywood left-field scenario.
Dingle Wall has returned to Oz from La, where he's lived for the past four years, to promote 'All That Jam', a rom-com shot in Moscow for which the actor had to learn Russian.—.only days before the shoot began. The feature screened in Sydney last week as part of The Russian Resurrection Film Festival.
Next year Dingle Wall stars with Olga Kurylenko and Antonio Banderas in 'Salty', which has been drumming up interest at Afm. He also plays the lead role in indie horror feature 'Happy Hunting', co-directed by Louie Gibson, son of Mel.
How did All That Jam come to you?
It's really the quintessential Hollywood left-field scenario.
- 11/9/2016
- by Harry Windsor
- IF.com.au
The Cherry Orchard is Anton Chekhov's masterpiece about a family on the edge of ruin-and a country on the brink of revolution. The story of Lyubov Ranevskaya and her family's return to their fabled orchard to forestall its foreclosure captures a people-and a world-in transition, and presents us with a picture of humanity in all its glorious folly. By turns tragic and funny, The Cherry Orchard still stands as one of the great plays of the modern era.
- 10/30/2016
- by Alexa Criscitiello
- BroadwayWorld.com
A new production of Anton Chekhov’s final play “The Cherry Orchard,” with a modernized text by Tony-winning playwright Stephen Karam (“The Humans”), opened on Broadway on Oct. 16. This production marks Oscar nominee Diane Lane’s return to the rialto for the first time since 1977 when, at age, 12, she was an ensemble member in another remounting of this classic play. […]...
- 10/18/2016
- by David Buchanan
- Gold Derby
Anton Chekhov, fearing a sentimental interpretation of his play “The Cherry Orchard,” never wanted us to see Madame Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya’s actual orchard. Andrei Serban brilliant 1977 revival of the play at Lincoln Center defiantly put those trees upstage for the entire performance, and the effect proved riveting. So was the cast led by Irene Worth and Raul Julia, with a very young Meryl Streep cast in the small but significant role of the ditsy maid Dunyasha. The theater’s most famous cherry orchard makes a return appearance in the Roundabout’s new revival, which opened Sunday at the American Airlines Theatre.
- 10/16/2016
- by Robert Hofler
- The Wrap
The Cherry Orchard is Anton Chekhov's masterpiece about a family on the edge of ruin-and a country on the brink of revolution. The story of Lyubov Ranevskaya and her family's return to their fabled orchard to forestall its foreclosure captures a people-and a world-in transition, and presents us with a picture of humanity in all its glorious folly. By turns tragic and funny, The Cherry Orchard still stands as one of the great plays of the modern era.
- 10/13/2016
- by Alexa Criscitiello
- BroadwayWorld.com
Roundabout Theatre Company presents Diane Lane, Chuck Cooper, Tavi Gevinson, John Glover, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Harold Perrineau and Joel Grey in a new production of The Cherry Orchard, currently in previews for anOctober 16, 2016, opening on Broadway.This is a limited engagement through December 4, 2016 on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre 227 West 42nd Street. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below...
- 9/28/2016
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Roundabout Theatre Company's new production of The Cherry Orchard, starringDiane Lane, Chuck Cooper, Tavi Gevinson, John Glover, Celia Keenan-Bolger,Harold Perrineau and Joel Grey, will begin preview performances on September 15, 2016, and opens officially on Sunday, October 16, 2016. This is a limited engagement through December 4, 2016 on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre 227 West 42nd Street. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company in rehearsal below...
- 8/18/2016
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
At one point in Ira Sachs’ Little Men, the young Jake (Theo Taplitz) explains to his parents (played by Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) how they can avoid evicting their tenant, Leonor (Paulina García), from the store she’d been renting from his late grandfather for years. Jake’s simple economic plan makes the heart ache because of how perfect it is: it calls for empathy, equality, and, without being completely naive, proposes something that could be achievable within the right political system. But his plan is even more heartbreaking because he knows it’s his last chance to salvage his friendship with Tony (Michael Barbieri), Leonor’s adolescent son, who’s become his closest, dearest friend. As the adults stand in disbelief of Jake’s plea, is he addressing their inner child or are they merely getting a preview of the troublesome teenage years ahead? Sachs makes us wonder...
- 8/8/2016
- by Jose Solís
- The Film Stage
For nearly two decades, Keegan-Michael Key has been tirelessly chiseling out a successful path in comedy. Name a standout sitcom from “Reno 911” to “How I Met Your Mother,” “Parks and Recreation” to “It’s Always Philadelphia,” “Modern Family,” “The Muppets” or “Ricky and Morty,” and Key has popped by to add his hilarious flare. The path began back in 2004 when he was cast on “MADtv,” and eventually led to he and castmate Jordan Peele spawning their own sketch show, the critically heralded and sharply satirical “Key and Peele.”
Through all of the above, Key has shown himself to be one of the boldest and most entertaining comedy performers working today. But in his new film, “Don’t Think Twice,” the funny man smoothly slides into drama. Which turns out to be an important next step for the challenge Key’s looking to take on next.
Read More: ‘Don’t Think Twice...
Through all of the above, Key has shown himself to be one of the boldest and most entertaining comedy performers working today. But in his new film, “Don’t Think Twice,” the funny man smoothly slides into drama. Which turns out to be an important next step for the challenge Key’s looking to take on next.
Read More: ‘Don’t Think Twice...
- 7/20/2016
- by Kristy Puchko
- Indiewire
Exclusive: Eriq Ebouaney and Sandrine Bonnaire to co-star in asylum seeker love story.
MK2 Films has taken on world sales of Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s [pictured] upcoming drama A Season In France.
Eriq Ebouaney and Sandrine Bonnaire have signed to co-star in the film revolving around the relationship between an asylum seeker and a French woman.
Ebouaney – who was recently seen in Bastille Day – plays Abbas, a widower and teacher from the war-torn Central African Republic seeking asylum in France. Awaiting a decision on his application, he works in a food market on the outskirts of Paris to support his two young children.
Bonnaire will play Carole, a French woman who falls in love with Abbas and offers him a home.
Florence Stern of Paris-based Pili Films is producing the film, which is due to shoot in Paris and Northern France this October.
The production marks Haroun’s first feature shot in France after dramas set in...
MK2 Films has taken on world sales of Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s [pictured] upcoming drama A Season In France.
Eriq Ebouaney and Sandrine Bonnaire have signed to co-star in the film revolving around the relationship between an asylum seeker and a French woman.
Ebouaney – who was recently seen in Bastille Day – plays Abbas, a widower and teacher from the war-torn Central African Republic seeking asylum in France. Awaiting a decision on his application, he works in a food market on the outskirts of Paris to support his two young children.
Bonnaire will play Carole, a French woman who falls in love with Abbas and offers him a home.
Florence Stern of Paris-based Pili Films is producing the film, which is due to shoot in Paris and Northern France this October.
The production marks Haroun’s first feature shot in France after dramas set in...
- 7/4/2016
- ScreenDaily
Diane Lane is heading back to Broadway! The Academy Award-nominated actress will be starring in The Cherry Orchard, the same play where she made her stage debut back in 1977 at the age of 11. In the 2016 production of Anton Chekhov's classic play, Lane, 51, plays Madame Ranevskaya, a Russian landowner who returns with her family to their orchard estate to save it from foreclosure. "I'm thrilled that Diane Lane will be playing Madame Ranevskaya, and bring glamour, excitement and exhilaration to this most extraordinary character - an actress of her caliber will make the play soar to new heights," director Simon Godwin tells People.
- 6/25/2016
- by Karen Mizoguchi
- PEOPLE.com
Diane Lane is heading back to Broadway! The Academy Award-nominated actress will be starring in The Cherry Orchard, the same play where she made her stage debut back in 1977 at the age of 11. In the 2016 production of Anton Chekhov's classic play, Lane, 51, plays Madame Ranevskaya, a Russian landowner who returns with her family to their orchard estate to save it from foreclosure. "I'm thrilled that Diane Lane will be playing Madame Ranevskaya, and bring glamour, excitement and exhilaration to this most extraordinary character - an actress of her caliber will make the play soar to new heights," director Simon Godwin tells People.
- 6/25/2016
- by Karen Mizoguchi
- PEOPLE.com
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