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Ken Page was best known as a stage actor, with Deadline referring to him as one of Broadway’s most familiar character actors, but he did earn several film credits over the decades as well, appearing in films like Torch Song Trilogy, The Kid Who Loved Christmas, I’ll Do Anything, and Dreamgirls, as well as TV shows like Gimme a Break!, Family Matters, Touched by an Angel, and more. Page also did a good amount of voice acting work – with his most popular credit coming when he provided the voice of Oogie Boogie in the Henry Selick / Tim Burton stop-motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Page would go on to voice Oogie Boogie again for the Kingdom Hearts video games, the video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge, and the ride walk-through short Haunted Mansion Holiday. Sadly, it’s being reported that Page passed away in his sleep...

Ken Page, the Broadway veteran who provided the voice of the ghastly villain Oogie Boogie in the Tim Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas, has died. He was 70.

Page died peacefully Monday at his home in St. Louis, his manager, Todd M. Eskin, announced.

In his Broadway debut, Page stepped in as a replacement to play the Lion in the original 1975-79 production of The Wiz, and he won a Drama Desk Award and drew standing ovations when he sang “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”

The baritone also originated the role of Old Deuteronomy in 1982 in the original production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats; starred in the original 1978-82 Broadway production of Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’, winner of the Tony Award for best musical; and played Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the 1976-77, all-Black revival of Guys and Dolls, a turn that earned him a Theatre World Award.

Ken Page, one of Broadway’s most familiar character actors who indelibly lent his voice to Tim Burton’s holiday film classic The Nightmare Before Christmas as the villainous Oogie Boogie, died Monday, September 30. He was 70.

His death was announced on social media by his friend Dorian Hannaway, who wrote that he “passed quietly and peacefully at his home.”

Born January 20, 1954, in St. Louis, Page was determined to pursue a career on the stage as early as high school, and received a full scholarship in musical theater at Fontbonne College in Clayton, Missouri. He began his professional career in the chorus of St. Louis’ Muny theater before making his Broadway debut in 1977 in the replacement cast for Cats as the Lion.

A more noticeable star turn came in the 1976 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, with Page all but stealing the show as Nicely-Nicely. Next came the 1978 hit Ain’t Misbehavin...

Veteran actor and Broadway star Ken Page, who voiced the role of Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas, has died. He was 70. Page’s death was announced by his friend, Dorian Hannaway, who wrote on Facebook, “Ken Page has passed onto the next show. My heart is broken.” She later added that he “passed quietly and peacefully at his home.” Born on January 20, 1954, in St. Louis, Missouri, Page began his show business career in the chorus of the Muny outdoor theater in St. Louis. He made his Broadway debut in The Wiz before going on to star in productions of Guys and Dolls, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Wizard of Oz, Les Misérables, Little Shop of Horrors, and Cats, in which he played Old Deuteronomy. On screen, Page was best known for voicing Oogie Boogie in Henry Selick’s animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. He also appeared...

Maleah Joi Moon has become the 101st performer to win a Tony Award for their first outing on a Broadway stage for her performance in the musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”

She won Best Actress in a Musical at the 77th Tony Awards for portraying Ali, a 17-year-old girl searching for her place in the world while living in the titular New York City neighborhood and also being restrained by her overbearing mother. She is the 10th person to win the category for her Broadway debut. She joins:

Elizabeth Seal, “Irma La Douce” (1961)

Anna Maria Alberghetti, “Carnival” (1962)

Liza Minnelli, “Flora the Red Menace” (1965)

Leslie Uggams, “Hallelujah, Baby” (1968)

Alexis Smith, “Follies” (1972)

Natalia Makarova, “On Your Toes” (1983)

Lea Salonga, “Miss Saigon” (1991)

Catherine Zeta-Jones, “A Little Night Music” (2010)

Cynthia Erivo, “The Color Purple” (2016)

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Other performers who pulled off this accomplishment in recent years include...

This year’s Tonys will be held on June 16, so the American Theatre Wing will likely be announcing its Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in the near future. Who do you think should take home this prestigious trophy, which honors an individual’s body of work? It has gone to veteran stage performers, directors, choreographers, playwrights, songwriters, producers and designers. In some years we get multiple recipients.

Last year these honors went to actor Joel Grey and composer John Kander. The following living male Broadway vets have also received this award in the past and thus won’t be chosen again: Paul Gemignani, Alan Ayckbourn, Athol Fugard, Marshall W. Mason, Tommy Tune, James Earl Jones, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Harold Wheeler.

Here are 10 possibilities featured in our poll below, all accomplished men over the age of 65. Vote to let us know who you’d like to see honored. And take a...

Jodie Comer has become the 100th performer to win a Tony Award for their Broadway debut for her performance in the play, “Prima Facie.”

She won Best Actress in a Play for portraying Tess, a lawyer who concentrates in providing legal defense for men who are accused of sexual assault but soon has the unthinkable happen to her. She is the 11th person to win the category for her first outing on a Broadway stage. She joins:

SEE2023 Tony Awards: Every winner (and nominee) in all 26 competitive categories

Martita Hunt, “The Madwoman of Chaillot” (1949)

Beryl Reid, “The Killing of Sister George” (1967)

Phyllis Frelich, “Children of a Lesser God” (1980)

Jane Lapotaire, “Piaf” (1981)

Joan Allen, “Burn This” (1988)

Pauline Collins, “Shirley Valentine” (1989)

Janet McTeer, “A Doll’s House” (1997)

Marie Mullen, “The Beauty Queen of Leeane” (1998)

Jennifer Ehle, “The Real Thing” (2000)

Deanna Dunagan, “August: Osage County” (2008)

Below are the Broadway debuts in the seven other...

The 76th annual Tony Awards have already made history. For the first time, two of the acting nominees identify as non-binary: Harrison Ghee who is contending for lead actor in musical for “Some Like It Hot” and Alex Newell, vying for featured actor in a musical for “Shucked.” Their nominations have been warmly embraced. But 40 years ago, a history-making acceptance led to death threats.

At the 37th annual Tony Awards on June 5, 1983, producer John Glines thanked his lover when he accepted the best play honor for Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” a three-act drama set in New York in the 1970s and early 80s starring Fierstein as a gay, drag queen and torch singer. “He expressed gratitude to an assortment of people , ‘lastly but most importantly, to the one person who believed and followed the dream from the beginning, who never said ‘You’re crazy; it can’t be...

Theater, film and television writer-director Robert Allan Ackerman died Jan. 10. He was 77.

Nominated twice for Golden Globes and five times for Emmys, Ackerman also received numerous theater directing awards.

Ackerman started out directing at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre. In the 1980s his theater productions included Martin Sherman’s Tony nominated “Bent,” starring Richard Gere and David Dukes; John Byrne’s “Slab Boys,” starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Val Kilmer and William Mastrosimone’s “Extremities” starring Susan Sarandon. He went on to direct Peter Allen in “Legs Diamond” and Al Pacino in Oscar Wilde’s “Salome.”

When reached for comment, Al Pacino said, “I love Bob. I loved being around him, his aurora, his steady peace. To work with him was joyous. He understood the language of theater art and communicated it with such ease. His gift was intangible and there’s no way of understanding how he created.

Robert Allan Ackerman, the director whose television work scored five Emmy nominations and who directed acclaimed Broadway productions including Bent and Extremities, died Jan. 10 of kidney failure at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 77.

His death was announced by family through a spokesman.

“I love Bob. I loved being around him, his aurora, his steady peace,” said actor Al Pacino, who starred in Ackerman’s 1992 Broadway staging of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. “To work with him was joyous. He understood the language of theater art and communicated it with such ease. His gift was intangible and there’s no way of understanding how he created. When an artist has that special gift it is unexplainable, it just happens. When he stopped directing, he started writing again and his writing also had that same magic. He will be missed.”

In 2016, Pacino would re-team with Ackerman in a Pasadena Playhouse production of God Looked Away,...

Travis Coles and Michael Urie are starring in “Summoning Sylvia,” a LGBTQ+ horror comedy.

The feature film recently wrapped production, and its previously unannounced cast also includes Frankie Grande (“Henry Danger”), Nicholas Logan (“I Care a Lot”), Troy Iwata (“Dash & Lily”), Noah Ricketts (Frozen), Sean Grandillo (“Scream: The TV Series”), Camden Garcia (“Station 19”), and Veanne Cox (“You’ve Got Mail”). “Summoning Sylvia” was written and directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse, who previously created the Emmy-nominated digital series “Indoor Boys.”

“Summoning Sylvia” centers on a gay bachelor party that takes a spooky turn when sinister spirits are suddenly summoned. Larry (Coles) and his three best friends Nico (Grande), Reggie (Iwata), and Kevin (Ricketts) take off for a weekend getaway at a haunted house. But Larry forgot he’d promised his fiancé Jamie (Urie) that he’d entertain his mysterious future brother-in-law Harrison (Logan) that same weekend. After he...

Martin Markinson, a producer and theater owner who took Torch Song Trilogy to Broadway and returned the venue now known as the Hayes Theatre to theatrical use, died Thursday, January 7 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 89.

Arlena Markinson, his wife of 58 years, said the cause of death was cancer. The producer had been battling the disease for two years.

In addition to the Tony-winning Torch Song Trilogy (1982), Markinson, over a five-decade career, produced such notable Broadway productions as The Gathering starring Hal Linden (2001), Honeymoon in Vegas, Gigi and the Gloria Estefan musical On Your Feet (2015), as well as George Gershwin Alone (2001), Getting and Spending (1998), Corpse! (1986), Peter Nichol’s Passion (1983), Ned and Jack (1981). He served as associate producer on Chicago (1975), Poor Murderer (1976), Some of My Best Friends (1977), Cheaters (1978) and Whoopee! (1979).

Another of Markinson’s contributions to Broadway: The 1979 purchase, with nephew Donald Tick, of what was then called the Little Theatre,...

HBO Max has a major job on its hands to justify its approximately $15 a month subscription fee, especially given the strong competition out there from established names like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Disney Plus faced a similar challenge last year in arriving onto an already-saturated streaming marketplace, but at least had the advantage of major series like The Mandalorian to promote. While HBO Max will eventually be home to the Snyder cut of Justice League, and has some originals for its first week of availability, the big draw right now is its enormous back-catalogue of movies.

Given the various corporate elements that are going into HBO Max, including the Warner Bros. library, owners AT&T will be hoping that the combination of brand recognition for HBO programming, and a deep bench of movies, will convince people to add a new subscription to their list. To this end, HBO Max have added 122 films today,...

To help you anticipate and navigate all that HBO Max has to offer, TVLine presents this comprehensive list of all the TV series, movies, documentaries and specials making their debut on the new streaming service this month — all as a 100-percent free supplement to our daily and handy What to Watch and weekly TVLine-Up columns, and our monthly New on Netflix roundup.

Among Max Originals coming in June are a new Adventure Time special, Doom Patrol Season 2 and Search Party Season 3. You’ll also be able to stream the most recent episodes of HBO original series, including Insecure, I Know This Much Is True...

Welcome to the HBO Max era! WarnerMedia’s streaming giant arrived on May 27 and is absolutely bursting with Warner movies, TV shows, and other titles. But time waits for no man or streaming service and each new month HBO Max will be expected to bring new content to the table. Things get started in June 2020 with the first batch of HBO Max new releases.

To be clear, the majority of the original series coming to HBO Max actually belongs to HBO. Shows like I May Destroy You (June 7), Perry Mason (June 21), and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (June 28) all belong to HBO…which now just happens to be a part of HBO Max. Confusing stuff, we know, but rest assured that if you have HBO Max you’ll get these shows…and if you only have HBO, you can go ahead and just get HBO Max for the same price anyway.

HBO Max launches May 27 with a whole lot of content ready to stream immediately. But throughout the nascent streamer’s first month, even more titles will be added, from HBO Max originals like “Adventure Time: Distant Lands Bmo,” to old favorites like “Amelie,” “Black Beauty” and “The Bucket List.”

Other brand-new HBO Max originals include the third season of comedy “Search Party,” and the second seasons of “Doom Patrol,” and “Esme & Roy,” all coming June 25, and on June 18, the second season of “Summer Camp Island” and the series premiere kids competition series “Karma.”

For a list of everything that will be available on launch day, look here.

Below is the full list of everything new coming to HBO Max in June.

Also Read: Chelsea Handler Sets First Standup Comedy Special in 6 Years at HBO Max

June 1

4th & Forever: Muck City, Season One

Adventures In Babysitting, 1987 (HBO)

Amelie, 2001 (HBO)

An American Werewolf in London,...

Is one hotel bathroom big enough for personalities as outsized as Harvey Fierstein and Bella Abzug? The playwright’s Bella Bella, opening tonight at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Off Broadway venue in the New York City Center, suggests a pretty tight fit.

A public personality has reached true large-than-life status when a mere signifier can stand for whole shebang. A bright red hat with a brim the size of a manhole cover shouts to any New Yorker of a certain age “Bella Abzug”, and if the voice doing the shouting has more gravel than a Bronx construction site, it’s probably Harvey Fierstein.

Both battle for attention Fierstein’s solo show, in which the playwright channels the late, great Congresswoman from New York.

If the show seems more Harvey Harvey than Bella, Bella, the playwright’s love and reverence for his subject is louder than the hat and voice combined.

The forever hatted Abzug was a fierce, lifelong fighter for women’s rights and righteous causes who became New York’s voice in Congress through much of the 1970s. Witty, combative, beloved, hated, feared and revered, Abzug was a major figure on the city and national political scenes through much of that decade, her failures as notable as her victories.

Bella Bella, directed by Kimberly Senior, takes place on the eve of one of those rare failures: An unsuccessful bid in 1976 for the the Democratic nomination to U.S. Senate. Her loss to the moderate Daniel Patrick Moynihan all but ended her political career, though she remained active in public life until her death in 1998.

Fierstein tells her story in a way that will be familiar from various one-person shows, particularly Jay Presson Allen’s form-setting Tru from 1989. Allen had Truman Capote trapped in his United Nations Plaza apartment awaiting the fallout from a just-published scandal-mongering magazine piece, while Fierstein ensconces Abzug in the bathroom (efficiently designed by John Lee Beatty) of the New York Summit Hotel as she awaits the election results from that final Senate race. Here a nervous Abzug takes a breather from her loyal – and sometimes famous – supporters gathered just outside the door.

Fierstein, dressed in a man’s black shirt and pants – that red hat, the sole nod to Abzug’s own look, is doffed within seconds of Fierstein’s entrance – speaks directly to the audience (as Tru’s Capote did) in a non-stop monologue of history lesson, confession, braggadocio, name-dropping, joking and intimacy.

Much of the monologue seems in Abzug’s own words, for better or worse. Zingers that once zinged, no matter how true they still ring, can now seem like dialogue for a ’70s-era Norman Lear comedy. When Abzug says “A woman’s place is in the house,” at least some in the audience will know – and others should guess – that the punchline will be “of Representatives.”

That’s not to suggest that Bella Bella lacks contemporary relevance – Abzug’s crusades for equal rights, abortion rights, and political representation and visibility, well conveyed in this play, remain as vital as ever, the causes they espouse newly under threat. Few in Fierstein’s Off Broadway audience will disagree with a word Abzug says – anecdotes about Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, with barely veiled and eerily accurate shades of the current White House occupant, received rounds of applause at the reviewed performance.

And if there’s a comfort-food element to Abzug’s compassionate, common-sense humanism, the same can be said of the man onstage. With the exception of adopting Abzug’s Yiddish accent, Fierstein is as much Harvey as Bella, blustering, shouting, emoting and capping many a rant with the sheepish smile that dates back at least to Torch Song Trilogy.

Endearing? As always. Rehearsed? Absolutely. Fierstein knows just how to speak to his audience, even if he has to talk over Bella Abzug to do it.

At 25 years old and after nearly 200 films, four Best Picture Oscars, and serving as the creative home for auteurs like Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Steve McQueen, Fox Searchlight is in an unusual position. As the fall festivals begin with the awards season in hot pursuit, new corporate parent the Walt Disney Co. will be judging its performance to determine exactly how the deeply respected specialty division will serve its new world order.

Searchlight will be absorbed in the care and feeding of three titles this fall with Noah Hawley’s “Lucy In the Sky,” Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,” and Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life.” All have hopes for awards, if not box office. But on Disney’s most recent earnings call, CEO Bob Iger delivered what was interpreted as a verbal hand-slap: He noted that, going forward, Fox divisions would be going in a “new direction … applying...

At 25 years old and after nearly 200 films, four Best Picture Oscars, and serving as the creative home for auteurs like Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Steve McQueen, Fox Searchlight is in an unusual position. As the fall festivals begin with the awards season in hot pursuit, new corporate parent the Walt Disney Co. will be judging its performance to determine exactly how the deeply respected specialty division will serve its new world order.

Searchlight will be absorbed in the care and feeding of three titles this fall with Noah Hawley’s “Lucy In the Sky,” Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,” and Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life.” All have hopes for awards, if not box office. But on Disney’s most recent earnings call, CEO Bob Iger delivered what was interpreted as a verbal hand-slap: He noted that, going forward, Fox divisions would be going in a “new direction … applying...

For only the third time this decade, none of the acting winners at this year’s Tony Awards did so for their Broadway debut. This is the 21st time that this has happened over the 73-year history of these top theater honors. Most of the winners were actually on the opposite end of the spectrum, winning for the first time after years of Broadway experience and several nominations to their name including André De Shields, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Stephanie J. Block. Check out the complete list of winners here.

The previous instances of Broadway debuts being shut out at the Tonys were in: 1948, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1970, 1971, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1982, 1990, 1991, 1994, 2001-2003, 2012 and 2017.

Below, you can see the names of all 96 people who have won Tonys for their debut on the Great White Way.

SEE2019 Tony Awards: Best Musical ‘Hadestown’ sweeps with 8 wins, ‘The Ferryman’ takes Best Play

Best Actor In A Play: 16 winners

Paul Scofield, “A Man for All Seasons” (1962)

Cliff Gorman,...

Out of all the nominees spread across the 26 categories at the 2018 Tony Awards, 20 of them stand out as particularly noteworthy. Check out the complete list of nominations here.

The following Broadway productions from this past season were completely shut out by the nominating committee: “Head Over Heels,” “Straight White Men,” “Pretty Woman,” “The Nap,” “The Lifespan of a Fact,” “American Son,” and “True West.”

This year marks the second time this decade that the category of Best Musical consisted of five nominees, the first being in 2016. It’s also the third time for both Best Play (which had five nominees in 2014 and 2018) and Best Play Revival (which had five nominees in 2016 and 2018). And this year marks the fourth instance when the category of Best Musical Revival had only two nominees; the previous times were in 1995, 2002, and 2011.

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Two of this year...

00The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the third time in the 2018-2019 Broadway season, and announced eligibility rulings for the 73rd Annual Tony Awards. Seven productions were discussed in the meeting: “King Kong,” “Choir Boy,” “True West,” “Be More Chill,” “Kiss Me Kate,” “Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations” and “What the Constitution Means to Me.”

The committee made the following decisions:

Christiani Pitts and Eric William Morris will be eligible for Lead Actress/Actor in a Musical for their respective performances in “King Kong.”

Peter England’s projection design will be considered eligible along with his scenic design in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category, for “King Kong.”

Jeremy Pope will be considered eligible for Lead Actor in a Play for his performance in “Choir Boy.”

Will Roland will be considered eligible for Lead Actor in a Musical category for his performance in “Be More Chill.

Playwrights Kenneth Lonergan, Harvey Fierstein and Mart Crowley – each of whom had older works produced on Broadway this season – will be eligible for Tony Awards, the Tony administration committee has determined.

The eligibilities were among a raft of such rulings made by the committee today in the third of four planned meetings. Other rulings focused mostly on category eligibility for performers in ensemble cast productions.

In the cases of Crowley and Lonergan, the two playwrights will benefit from a new Tony rule that allows living authors and composers of plays and musicals that had not previously been staged on Broadway to be eligible along with the producers in the Best Revival of a Play/Musical category. This season, Crowley’s The Boys in the Band and Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery were staged on Broadway after debuting years ago Off Broadway..

As for Fierstein, he’s eligible for this season’s Torch Song due to another new rule: Authors and composers of Best Revival nominees are eligible with producers even if those authors and composers have previously won Tonys for the works – so long as the revivals have been “substantially reworked.” (Fierstein made significant changes to the former Torch Song Trilogy for the recent Torch Song).

Other determinations made today by the committee:

Christiani Pitts and Eric William Morris will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress/Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical categories for their respective performances in King Kong; Peter England’s projection design will be considered eligible along with his scenic design in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category, for his work on King Kong Jeremy Pope will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play category for his performance in Choir Boy Will Roland will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in Be More Chill; Beowulf Boritt and Alex Basco Koch will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Be More Chill; Corbin Bleu will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical category for his performance in Kiss Me, Kate; Derrick Baskin will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category for his performance in Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations; Robert Brill and Peter Nigrini will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations; Heidi Schreck will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category for her performance in What the Constitution Means to Me.

Nominations for the 2019 Tony Awards will be announced April 30. The 73rd Annual Tony Awards will air live on Sunday, June 9 at 8 Pm Et/delayed Pt) from New York’s Radio City Music Hall on CBS. James Corden will host.

Ken Jacobson, one of the pioneers of talent management, died unexpectedly on Tuesday after more than three decades as a manager. I hear he was found unresponsive in his home. The cause of death is still being determined.

For 20 years, Jacobson was a founding partner of management firm James/Levy/Jacobson. Working alongside his partners, Jacobson was involved in launching the careers of such actors as James and Dave Franco, Jennie Garth, Jaimie Alexander, Michelle Williams, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mena Suvari and Erika Christensen. He signed Hilary Swank when she was 15, represented her for 10 years and helped her get Boys Don’t Cry, which earned her an Oscar. He also signed Ben Foster at the age of 12 and repped him for 20 years.

Jacobson’s career started in 1975 as an actor. For 10 years he appeared in theater in New York, including playing the role of David in the 1983 Tony Award-winning play Torch Song Trilogy.

The Actors Fund has named playwright Harvey Fierstein, actress Rita Moreno, Broadway producer John Gore and Iatse president Matthew D. Loeb as its 2019 Medal of Honor recipients. The awards will be handed out at the Fund’s annual gala on Monday, April 29.

“Harvey, John, Matthew and Rita are legends in our community,” said Brian Stokes Mitchell, Chairman of The Actors Fund. “They are rightfully due this highest honor from The Actors Fund, both for their dedication to performing arts and entertainment and for the leadership they provide in guiding the way for the next generation of artists and arts workers.”

The gala at the New York Marriott Marquis will include special tribute performances by guests to be announced.

The Actors Fund is a national human services organization that fosters stability and resiliency and provides a safety net for performing arts and entertainment professionals over their lifespan. Through offices in New York,...

Fox Searchlight has acquired the short film “Lavender” out of the Sundance Film Festival.

The company said the movie, which tells the story of a young gay man who develops a complex relationship with an older couple, will be released on its social media channels.

The film stars Michael Urie, Michael Hsu Rosen, and Ken Barnett. Urie and Rosen are best known for their stage work and recently starred in the Broadway revival of Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy.” Barnett is also known to theater circles, having recently appeared in “Fun Home” on Broadway.

The film was directed by Matthew Puccini, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker whose short films have screened at Sundance, SXSW, and Palm Springs. “Lavender” is produced by Casey Bader, Tyler Rabinowitz, and Corey Deckler. It screened in Sundance’s short film program.

“We are always looking for fresh filmmaking talents, and the short film world led us...

Over 40 years ago, Harvey Fierstein did something that seemed impossible. He shared a story of a gay man, a drag queen, who was looking for love and a “normal” life. His three plays, originally called Torch Song Trilogy, ended up being produced on Broadway and earned him Tonys for Best Actor and Best Play in 1983, beating out Marsha Norman’s ‘Night, Mother.

The original production closed on Broadway in May 1985 and was was later made into a movie, which also starred Matthew Broderick. Last year, Torch Song was revived (with...

Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song will end its Broadway run on Sunday, January 6, 2019 at the Hayes Theater before embarking on a national tour next fall with star Michael Urie reprising his Broadway role.

The tour launches next fall at Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group at the Ahmanson Theatre, with Urie as Arnold Beckoff.

Torch Song, which opened to mostly good reviews on November 1 but has done middling box office, will have played 26 preview performances and 77 regular performances when it closes. In addition to Urie, the Broadway production stars Mercedes Ruehl, Ward Horton, Roxanna Hope Radja, Michael Hsu Rosen, and Jack Difalco.

No word on additional cast for the touring production.

“Since we first began the Torch Song journey, I have heard from people all

over – including our director Moisés Kaufman, who first met Arnold when Torch Song Trilogy toured in the ‘80s – that Arnold’s pride, strength, and frankness helped them come out,...

Harvey Fierstein’s glorious voice, that frog with a human stuck in it, remains so powerful you might swear you still hear it, loud and, well, loud in a Torch Song that can often only shout over the Harvey-shaped hole at its center.

Last year’s hit Off Broadway revival, Torch Song (nee Torch Song Trilogy, the award-gathering marvel from 1982 that introduced Fierstein to the world) opens at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater tonight, its oh-so-cute bunny slippers in place. Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) and Oscar-winner Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King) reprise their Off Broadway performances as the big-hearted drag queen Arnold Beckoff and his caustic, disapproving but down-deep lovin’ Ma.

Okay, so the slippers fit better than the roles that were custom-made way back when by Fierstein and a soon-to-be-Golden Estelle Getty. And no some of the gags don’t land. Urie is too trim for big-boned jokes, Ruehl...

Ari’el Stachel became the latest person to take home a Tony Award for their Broadway debut. This victory puts him in a freshman club that now has 96 members. Watch him discuss his victory in the Tonys press room in the video above.

Stachel, who won Best Featured Actor in a Musical for playing Haled in “The Band’s Visit,” is the ninth person to claim that particular honor for his first Broadway outing. He joins:

Harry Belafonte, “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac” (1954)

Sydney Chaplin, “Bells are Ringing” (1957)

Frankie Michaels, “Mame” (1966)

Wilson Jermaine Heredia, “Rent” (1996)

Dan Fogler, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (2005)

Levi Kreis, “Million Dollar Quartet” (2010)

John Larroquette, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (2011)

Daveed Diggs, “Hamilton” (2016)

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Below are the Broadway debuts in the seven other acting categories that claimed Tony Awards.

Best Actor In A Play: 16 winners

Paul Scofield,...

Today is my birthday! Wish me well. Or better yet, donate to the site (see right hand sidebar) to keep it healthy. That's my only birthday request since I have a roof over my head and food in the fridge and friends to  have weekend activities with and really that's the important stuff in the grand scheme of things so I'm hashtag blessed... without the icky religious connotations! My only church is the cinema.

Anyway,  here's what was happening in showbiz history on June 6th throughout the years!

1933 The first ever drive-in movie theater opened starting a popular but now essentially lost tradition. 

1944 D-Day a World War II and inspiration for many filmmakers since.

1950 Director Chantal Akerman born in Belgium

1954 Multiple Tony winner and queer icon Harvey Fierstein is born in Brooklyn. I love that one of my heroes shares my special day. Credits include Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage Aux Folles,...

Forty minutes into NBC’s broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar Live on Sunday, former Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly tweeted his displeasure with the production’s choice to depict the Son of Man’s followers as a bunch of inked-up true believers. “My best friend texted me right after she saw it,” Superstar makeup designer Joe Dulude II — who created the rock opera’s sacred skin art — tells TVLine a few days later, laughing as he recalls posting a screen shot to his Instagram account immediately after reading O’Reilly’s grumpy take.

“It’s not as good...

It turned out to be a downright risible night at the Tony Awards. On June 5, 1983, “Torch Song Trilogy” beat out “Plenty” and “‘night, Mother” for best play of that Broadway season. Granted, the David Hare and Marsha Norman plays have not been blessed with stellar revivals to enhance their reputations since then, but at least no one ever felt the need to cut huge chunks from either work or change the title. A revival of Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song” opened Thursday at Off Broadway’s Second Stage; it’s 45 minutes shorter than the original, and is performed with only.

“We need to be heroes again,” Michael Urie tells Et before a full weekend of performances at Second Stage Theatre, where the Younger star is leading the first major New York revival of Torch Song Trilogy, Harvey Fierstein’s seminal play about gay life and identity in 1970s and early ’80s New York. “We had a president who was a hero for us,” Urie says, recalling the past eight years with Barack Obama. “Now we have to be the heroes again and stand up for who we are.”

That conviction is at the heart of Torch Song, which will open off-Broadway Oct. 19 and continue through Dec. 3. As the actor notes, the original production “actually changed people’s lives” when it premiered, first in three parts downtown and then on Broadway in 1982, when Urie was just 2 years old. (It has been revised and condensed to a more conventional length -- and renamed Torch Song -- for the new revival...

In addition to fall TV and a new slate of prestigious films, theater is gearing up for a new season, both on and Off-Broadway.

This year, there is no shortage of Hollywood star power -- ahem, the Broadway debuts of Amy Schumer and Uma Thurman, the return of Anna Camp and Clive Owen, and the Boss -- as well as anticipated new productions, must-see revivals and the redemption of director Julie Taymor. And the action is not limited to New York as two major musical adaptions get their feet wet with out of town tryouts.

2017 Fall Preview: Et's Complete Coverage

Frozen

Through 10/1

Denver Center for the Performing Arts (Colorado)

Disney’s global animated phenomenon is headed to the Broadway stage with a new musical from composers and lyricists RobertLopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and book writer Jennifer Lee in February 2018 after a limited engagement in Denver. The Snow Queen-inspired fairy tale and its Norwegian kingdom of Arendelle...

(See previous post: “Gay Pride Movie Series Comes to a Close: From Heterosexual Angst to Indonesian Coup.”) Ken Russell's Valentino (1977) is notable for starring ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev as silent era icon Rudolph Valentino, whose sexual orientation, despite countless gay rumors, seems to have been, according to the available evidence, heterosexual. (Valentino's supposed affair with fellow “Latin Lover” Ramon Novarro has no basis in reality.) The female cast is also impressive: Veteran Leslie Caron (Lili, Gigi) as stage and screen star Alla Nazimova, ex-The Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Phillips as Valentino wife and Nazimova protégée Natacha Rambova, Felicity Kendal as screenwriter/producer June Mathis (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), and Carol Kane – lately of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt fame. Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) is notable as one of the greatest musicals ever made. As a 1930s Cabaret presenter – and the Spirit of Germany – Joel Grey was the year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner. Liza Minnelli...

Turner Classic Movies' 2017 Gay Pride film series comes to a close this evening and tomorrow morning, Thursday–Friday, June 29–30, with the presentation of seven movies, hosted by TV interviewer Dave Karger and author William J. Mann, whose books include Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines and Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969. Among tonight's movies' Lgbt connections: Edward Albee, Tony Richardson, Evelyn Waugh, Tab Hunter, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Linda Hunt, Harvey Fierstein, Rudolf Nureyev, Christopher Isherwood, Joel Grey, and Tommy Kirk. Update: Coincidentally, TCM's final 2017 Gay Pride celebration turned out to be held the evening before a couple of international events – and one non-event – demonstrated that despite noticeable progress in the last three decades, gay rights, even in the so-called “West,” still have a long way to go. In Texas, the state's – all-Republican – Supreme Court decided that married gays should be treated as separate and unequal. In...

Joseph Baxter Jun 26, 2019

Netflix's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance will serve as a prequel to the 1982 fantasy classic from Jim Henson.

The Dark Crystal entered the pop culture fray as a fantastical theatrical offering during the 1982 Christmas season. Directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, featuring groundbreaking animatronics and imaginative creatures from Henson’s Creature Shop, the Tolkien-esque fantasy film earned fans, but was hardly a box office smash. However, the fandom apparently endured enough to warrant Netflix’s greenlight for offshoot series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

The 10-episode series – a prequel set many years before the events of the movie – will be directed and executive-produced by Louis Leterrier, a French helmer who’s best known from work on The Transporter and its sequel, as well as Marvel Cinematic Universe sophomore offering The Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans, Now You See Me and The Brothers Grimsby.

Esquire cool interview with the director of John Wick: Chapter 2, a former stuntman

Stage Buddy on a new book about the immortal classic Casablanca

Vox an excellent piece on AMC's Humans and how it differs from HBO's similarly AI themed but wildly different Westworld  

Nyt Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy to return to the stage 

Indie Wire Tulip Fever gets pushed back Again even though it was supposed to open in less than two weeks

Silver Screening Room on the Adapted Screenplay race of 1976 for reasons I dont know but I enjoyed 

More after the jump including Avengers Infinity War...

In the gallery above, we’ve picked 29 moments among a multitude from “The Golden Girls,” the ‘80s-‘90s comedy that is available to binge in its entirety on Hulu now. Click through for a rough guide to what’s in store when you revisit Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia.

Read More: Friends of Dorothy: Was ‘The Golden Girls’ Really as Queer-Friendly as Its Reputation Suggests?

Created by Susan Harris, who had also created the controversial but critically acclaimed sitcom “Soap,” “The Golden Girls” was unlike anything America had seen before on TV. It centered on four older women living in one house in Miami, who, despite the gray in their hair (some of it camouflaged with dye), still had plenty of zest for life, sex, and troublemaking.

Based on their performances on “Maude” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Rue McClanahan and Betty White were cast first. Director Jay Sandrich...

Happy Birthday, Harvey Fierstein In addition to Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage aux Folles and A Catered Affair, Fierstein's Broadway acting credits include playing the mother, Edna Turnblad in Hairspray 2002, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He later replaced Alfred Molina as Tevye in the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Fierstein returned to the theatre when he toured as Tevye, replacing Chaim Topol in Fiddler on the Roof starting in December 2009. On February 15, 2011, he replaced Douglas Hodge as AlbinZaza in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles playing opposite Christopher Sieber. He is nominated for a 2012 Tony Award for the book of Newsies.

Asolo Rep, in collaboration with Tony Award winner Kenneth Waissman Grease, Torch Song Trilogy presents the world premiere of the new, Broadway-bound musical Josephine. Opening tonight, Friday, May 6 at 8pm, the production runs at the Mertz Theatre, located in the Fsu Center for the Performing Arts, through May 29. Grammy nominated, multi-platinum selling recording artist Deborah Cox Broadway's Aida, Jekyll amp Hyde vocals for the Whitney Houston Lifetime movie Whitney stars as the legendary African-American performer Josephine Baker. Check out a first look at the cast on stage below...

I started writing Torch Song Trilogy almost 40 years ago, a play in which the lead character was an openly gay man who wanted to be in a committed relationship and to raise a child. Straight audiences easily identified with this story. Gays could not. Family, commitment, acceptance in society were ideals from an alternate universe. In that play I wrote the character of a mother, a disapproving, anti-gay, uncompromising woman. It was natural for gays and lesbians to identify with my character and rail on against the mother. But interestingly even older women — even older men — who held the same

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Three performers -- Alex Sharp, Richard McCabe and Ruthie Ann Miles -- won Tony Awards for their Broadway debut. These victories put them in a freshman club that now has 90 members.  -Break- Sharp, who won for his portrayal of socially awkward genius Christopher Boone in "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," is the fifteenth Best Actor (Play) champ to take home the trophy for his first time on Broadway. He joins: Paul Scofield for "A Man for All Seasons" (1962); Cliff Gorman for "Lenny" (1972); John Kani and Winston Ntshona (joint nomination) for "Sizwe Banzi is Dead/The Island" (1975); Tom Conti for "Whose Life is it Anyway?" (1979); Harvey Fierstein for "Torch Song Trilogy" (1983); Jeremy Irons for "The Real Thing" (1984); Ralph Fiennes for "Hamlet" (1995); Stephen Dillane for "The Real Thing" (2000); Jefferson Mays for "I Am My Own W..."...

Happy Birthday, Harvey Fierstein In addition to Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage aux Folles and A Catered Affair, Fierstein's Broadway acting credits include playing the mother, Edna Turnblad in Hairspray 2002, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He later replaced Alfred Molina as Tevye in the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Fierstein returned to the theatre when he toured as Tevye, replacing Chaim Topol in Fiddler on the Roof starting in December 2009. On February 15, 2011, he replaced Douglas Hodge as AlbinZaza in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles playing opposite Christopher Sieber. He is nominated for a 2012 Tony Award for the book of Newsies.

Bryan Cranston and Sophie Okonedo won Tony Awards for their Broadway debut. These victories put them in a freshman club that now has 87 members.  -Break- Bryan Cranston on adding a Tony Award to his mantel in press room (Video) Cranston, who won for his portrayal of Lyndon Johnson in "All the Way" is the fourteenth Best Actor (Play) champ to take home the trophy for his first-time on Broadway. He joins: Paul Scofield for "A Man for All Seasons" (1962); Cliff Gorman for "Lenny" (1972); John Kani and Winston Ntshona (joint nomination) for "Sizwe Banzi is Dead/The Island" (1975); Tom Conti for "Whose Life is it Anyway?" (1979); Harvey Fierstein for "Torch Song Trilogy" (1983); Jeremy Irons for "The Real Thing" (1984); Ralph Fiennes for "Hamlet" (1995); Stephen Dillane for "The Real Thing" (2000); Jefferson Mays for "I Am My Own Wife" (2004); Ri...

Very few stars have had a career that rivals that of the remarkable Harvey Fierstein. A seven-time Tony-nominee, he has two acting wins Torch Song Trilogy and Hairspray, one for Best Play Torch Song, and one for Best Book of a Musical La Cage Aux Folles. He also has three other Best Book nominations A Catered Affair, Newsies, and Kinky Boots. In addition to being a phenomenal writer and actor, Harvey is also one of Broadway's most outspoken activists for the arts and equality, making him Broadway's Unofficial Mayor...

New York – The 1982 work that put playwright-actor Harvey Fierstein on the map was Torch Song Trilogy, a bittersweet account of a New York Jewish drag queen's longing for love and family. In Casa Valentina, his first full-length non-musical play on Broadway in almost 30 years, he explores a curious footnote in transgender history, setting the action in 1962 at a Catskill Mountains cross-dressing resort where married men went to lose themselves in female identities for the weekend. Joe Mantello's impeccable production and a cast of outstanding actors make this an engrossing portrait of a

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When Lgbt people leave the safety of the city in films, it usually spells bad news – and Stranger by the Lake and Tom at the Farm don't buck the trend

Gay people and the city have been a good match since Sodom and Gomorrah. From the molly houses of 18th-century London to 1970s San Francisco via prewar Berlin, the urban environment has always been the natural habitat of queer culture – a place where Lgbt people can set their own rules, form their own families, be anonymous when they want to and find company when they fancy it. The countryside, on the other hand, is the place they escape from – a realm of social conformity with limited opportunities for culture, sex or socialising, and perhaps even a site of danger.

That's the stereotype, anyway, both in reality and on screen. Innumerable movies with claims to gay-classic status are inseparable from their urban settings: London has Victim,...

It's a little weird to watch a trailer for an upcoming Disney cartoon like "Planes" and hear among the characters the voice of Dane Cook. What's a typically adults-only comic like Cook doing in the G-rated world of a Disney animated feature?

Well, maybe it's not that weird. After all, the family-friendly studio has a history, going back 60 years, of casting performers from the world of grown-up entertainment in its cartoons, and most have proved they can be fun and kid-safe in fantasy worlds far from smoky nightclubs. In fact, Disney and Pixar's classic cartoons are full of unlikely voice actors -- not just blue comics but also performers cast radically against type, and even people not considered actors at all.

Cook, then, joins a distinguished list of stars you'd never have expected to find in a Disney cartoon feature, as you can see from the gallery below.

Gallery | Unlikely...