Cristin Milioti, the charming and hilarious star of the hit Broadway rock musical Once talks about her Broadway debut, and why she avoids Internet commenters who think she looks like Dracula.
Cristin Milioti, Tony-Nominated Star Of Once, Talks Broadway And Molecules
The Lion King Now The Highest-Grossing Broadway Musical Of All Time
Disney executives are all "Hakuna Matata" over this AP story: The Broadway musical The Lion King is now Broadway's highest-grossing show, beating out the all-time gross from The Phantom of the Opera last week.
What's Up Sluts? Clerks Is Coming To Broadway
Kevin Smith might be bringing his 1994 cult classic Clerks (his directorial debut) to the New York City stage. The filmmaker is hoping to open up his Clerks-themed play by the end of 2014, the 20th anniversary of the flick. Smith says, "If [Clerks star Jeff Anderson] says yeah, then that's what we'll do—we'll do it as a Broadway play, which I think will be so fun for all of us."
Tim Tebow Graces Broadway With His Holy Presence
Jets backup quarterback/"All-American' sandwich Tim Tebow hasn't had any time to turn water into Gatorade because he has been getting acclimated to his new surroundings: Tebow visited Broadway last night to see "Wicked," and yea, it was really good: “It was really good," he told the News after the show. Tebow does Broadway? Poor, poor Mark Sanchez: first Tebow wants his job, then Tebow wants his housing community...can't he just let him have his showtunes??
Mike Tyson Will Bring His One-Man Show To Broadway
Notorious pigeon lover Mike Tyson will see the opening of his one man show "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth—Live on Stage" in Las Vegas this April (and there are plenty of tickets still available). But never thinking small, Kid Dynamite has already expressed his true dream: bringing the show to Broadway, if he can get it on tour.
Animal House Musical Happening, With Music From The Triple-Platinum Barenaked Ladies
One way to celebrate the late, great, John Belushi? Announce a musical version of Animal House on the 30th anniversary of the star's death. Because, yeah, that just happened. And the icing on the cake? The Barenaked Ladies are writing the music. Hey, it kinda worked for Bono and the Edge.
Lawsuit: Drunk Bono, Distracted By Supermodels, Held Up Spider-Man
Wait, wait, wait. Famous rockers may have a thing for drinking and beautiful women? You don't say! That shocking (but still potentially embarrassing) revelation is the latest bit of news to come out of the ongoing Spider-Man: This Is The Song That Never Ends Turn Off The Dark legal mess. And if the teases in a a 46-page filing submitted Friday on behalf of Spidey's original director Julie Taymor are any indication, the show's producers (and U2's Bono and The Edge) probably don't want this case to go to trial next January.
Tupac: The Musical! Is Real And Is Casting
Tupac Shakur may have been dead for almost 18 years, but soon he'll be coming back to life...on Broadway? Yup, a new Tupac musical, Holler If Ya Hear Me, has started casting for actors for a series of workshops set to run later this spring with an eye on an eventual Broadway production.
The Bodyguard Is Now A British Musical, Featuring Every Whitney Hit
England, the place that brought us Andrew Lloyd Weber, Ghost The Musical and the straight play of The Graduate (to name just a few of its, uh, gifts) is at it again. Just in time for Whitney-mania, some clever producers are ramping up production of a musical version of The Bodyguard and, as Michael Musto notes, the whole thing is going to be a Whitney Houston jukebox musical. So you can bet your bottom dollar it is going to come to the Great White Way soon enough.
Phantom 2 Is Coming To New York (Movie Theaters)
The history of Broadway is littered with ill-advised sequels that didn't quite work (see: Bring Back Birdie or The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public) but the biggest sequel of them all, the Phantom followup Love Never Dies (in which the masked musician moves to Coney Island to open the "Phantasma"), will most likely never even make it to the Great White Way. But! It will be playing on 42nd Street. At least a filmed version of it will. Camp fans might want to mark February 28th and March 7th on their calendars!
Great Scott! Is Back To The Future Coming To Broadway?
Broadway makes great business out of adapting Hollywood movies into musicals, with everything from Catch Me If You Can to Shrek to Legally Blonde and Ghost all making their way to the Great White Way. Now, Broadway has its eye on adapting Back To The Future—and the movie is looking back at Broadway, mouthing, "What are you looking at butthead?"
Taxi & Car Collide, Injure Pedestrian On Upper West Side
At around 12:15 p.m. this afternoon, a taxi and another car were involved in an accident at 97th Street and Broadway. According to the FDNY, a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle and sustained head injuries. The identity of the victim is unknown, but they've been transported to St. Luke's Hospital. No injuries to the passengers in the vehicles were reported, and the NYPD couldn't tell us whether any criminality is suspected.
Wishes Come True, Not Free: Rob Marshall Wants To Make An Into The Woods Movie
Last night, The Hollywood Reporter put up a story with good news and bad news for Broadway buffs. The good news? After multiple failed attempts, it looks like Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Broadway classic fairy tale musical Into The Woods is getting another chance at becoming a movie—with a book by Lapine and additional music and lyrics by Sondheim! The bad news? The director who is pushing for the movie is Rob Marshall, the man who brought us the tone-deaf stage-to-screen musical adaptations Chicago and Nine. Ugh. Is this the last midnight?
Dolly Parton And Her Life Story Are Coming To Broadway, People!
Dolly Parton, who is turning a young 66-years-old this month, is suddenly everywhere—she's coming to the big screen on January 13th in A Joyful Noise with Queen Latifah, and after that she's going to bring her musical, which she's writing herself, to Broadway! But it's not her Broadway debut, as Parton also helped write songs for the 9 to 5 musical back in 2009.
Houdini! Wolverine And West Wing Scribe To Bring Magic Back To Bway
Hugh Jackman, hot on the heels of his smash one-man show, has tied himself to another Broadway production. Come the 2013-14 season he says he'll be starring on Broadway in a musical about Harry Houdini—which really shouldn't be a problem for The Prestige star. And if Wolverine in chains weren't enough to get a theater geek's panties in a twist, the fact that Aaron "The West Wing" Sorkin is going to write the "contemporary look at the life and death" of the illusionist should do the trick (oh, and Steven "Wicked" Schwartz will be doing the music and Jack "Hairspray" O'Brien will direct).
Yeah, Baby? Austin Powers Might Be Coming To Broadway
For reasons that are not entirely clear, someone is egging Mike Myers into adapting his once-popular, now pretty dated Austin Powers character into a Broadway musical. The only people benefiting from the potential deal are Myers, for whom this will likely be a total cash cow, and the legions of Midwestern tourists who will feed him. Why can't there just be more singing Mormons on stage instead?
Sanitation Truck Driver Kills 25-Yr-Old Woman In Williamsburg, No Criminality Suspected
A 25-year-old woman was run over by a Dept. of Sanitation truck driver last night around 7 p.m. as she crossed Broadway near Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg. The victim has been identified as 25-year-old Katherine Yun, an NYU graduate originally from Syosset, Long Island. Witnesses tell the Daily News Yun was crossing Broadway headed north when she was run over by the eastbound truck driver.
Video: The Best Argument We've Seen For An X-Men Musical
Though we've yet to meet a person who enjoyed it, Spider-Man: Bring Out Your Dead Turn Off The Dark turns out to be a moneymaking (if not yet profitable) hit for its producers and Disney corporate overlords. So clearly it's time for them to start digging into their Marvel pockets for another property to make into a Broadway smash. To that end, our first thought was that a Fantastic Four musical could be a campy kick...but then we saw this amazingly edited X-Men: The Animated Musical video, and well, see for yourself:
Audio Flashback: Listen To Stephen Sondheim's John Lindsay Campaign Song Starring Ethel Merman!
Once upon a time Broadway was (really!) the source of major radio hits. Similarly, once upon a time politicians campaigned with actual campaign songs with personalized lyrics rather than just using an existing song. And, tipped off by Stephen Sondheim's second book of annotated lyrics (Look, I Made A Hat) we've got our hands on a mashup of those two historical facts that is going to blow the minds of a certain subset of Broadway geeks and NYC history nerds. Ladies and gentleman, we present you "With Lindsay It's Coming Up Roses," a mayoral campaign song for John Lindsay performed by no less than Ethel freaking Merman! They don't make 'em like this anymore, kids:
Occupy Big Food Rally Set For 1 PM Across From Zuccotti Park Today
After their last gathering coincided with the freak October snowstorm, Occupy Big Food is staging a rally at Union Square in front of the big red cube sculpture at 140 Broadway (across from Zuccotti Park) at 1 p.m. today as a "protest against the corporate feeding of America." The group are an off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street hoping to take meat, dairy, and other agricultural industries out of the hands of a few large corporations—just as OWS wants to take control of the financial sector from large corporations.
Writer/Actor Danny Hoch Talks Broadway, Gentrification, People With TVs In Their Heads
Award-winning playwright, actor and director Danny Hoch is currently on Broadway in Relatively Speaking, a trio of one-act plays by Ethan Coen, Elaine May, and Woody Allen. But Broadway isn't where you usually find Hoch, who's known for rollicking and provocative solo performances such as Taking Over, a critically-acclaimed show that grappled with the ways gentrification methodically destroys communities in New York City. We caught up with Hoch last week to talk about gentrification, Williamsburg, and Broadway, where you can now catch him six nights a week—he appears in Coen's and Allen's plays, and he's very funny in both.
Time Lapse Video: Biking Broadway From The Bronx To Bowling Green
What was once the Native American's Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan is now Broadway, probably the most famous thoroughfare in all the land. Stretching north from Bowling Green all the way up to Westchester, it rambles even further as U.S. 9. Perhaps inspired by all that pavement's potential, one intrepid cyclist recently picked up the trail in the Bronx and pedaled all the way down to the bottom of Manhattan, filming the entire trip. Here's the kinetic time lapse video of the adventure—be sure to stay tuned for a "terrible idea" at the 2:44 mark.
Director Julie Taymor Sues Spider-Man Producers For More Money
Julie Taymor, the envelope-pushing director who co-created the much-maligned Broadway spectacle Spider-Man: Please Make It Stop Turn Off the Dark, is suing the show's producers. After critics savaged the production before opening night, and several cast members sustained injuries, Taymor was pushed aside by the producers, who made significant changes before officially opening in April to mixed reviews and packed houses. Taymor's lawyer claims his client spent more than seven years creating the musical but was paid just $150,000—and that was five years ago. Now she's come to collect.
Flashback: That Time A Llama Took Broadway
Happy Friday... here are some photos of a llama cruising around West 44th Street. Redditors noticed this vintage photo of the llama, taken by Inge Morath in 1957, when Judy Holliday was starring in "Bells Are Ringing" at the Shubert Theater... but where was s/he going?
Sheryl Crow Will Help Bring Diner: The Musical To Broadway
First there was Elton John, then, regrettably, Bono and The Edge. Who's the next pop music superstar to dabble into showtunes? Sheryl Crow!
Les Misérables: The Movie Marches Into Theaters
Are you still mourning the loss of Les Misérables, which closed on Broadway in May 2003 following an impressive 16-year run (and was subsequently revived just three years later)? Here's some good news: a film adaptation starring Hugh Jackman is scheduled to begin filming next March with a projected December 2012 release.
Book Of Mormon Is Coming To The Big Screen
Can't get tickets to what is probably the hottest show on Broadway right now? Don't worry about it! Book of Mormon, Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Broadway hit that has somehow managed to rise above its scandal-baiting plot, is heading to the big screen...eventually.
Dexter's Michael C. Hall May Be Coming To Broadway, People
Michael C. Hall, who we know and love as Dexter on the small screen, may be coming to Broadway next year. Sadly, not for a musical about the serial killer's murders of morally wrong people. (It could happen!) Instead, Hall is rumored to be negotiating to play the lead in Big Fish, a stage adaptation of the Tim Burton film/Daniel Wallace novel, produced by Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks.
Nick Jonas Is Coming To Broadway!
Stagehands: prepare your eardrums for another six months of shrieking in 2012, because it's just been announced that teen dream Nick Jonas is coming to Broadway.
2-For-1 Tickets For Broadway Week, Off-Broadway Week On Sale At 10 AM
At 10 a.m. today, the city's tourism arm, NYC & Company, is offering 2-for-1 tickets to various Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, as part of its Broadway Week, which runs September 18 to 30, and Off-Broadway week (September 26 to October 9). The Broadway shows include long-running stalwarts like Chicago, The Lion King, Wicked, Jersey Boys and Billy Elliot, plus newcomers like Memphis and the upcoming The Mountaintop, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. On the Off-Broadway side, the participating shows include Avenue Q, Stomp, Love, Loss and What I Wore, and Naked Boys Singing! A list of shows is below:

