Philip Seymour Hoffman will appear on Broadway in a revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman next fall, Arts Beat reports, confirming rumors floated by Michael Riedel at the end of last month. The production will be directed by Mike Nichols, and Hoffman will reprise the role of Willy Loman, which he first portrayed in high school in Rochester. (Hoffman's character in Synecdoche, New York also directed a regional production of the play.) This will be the first Broadway production of the play since Brian Dennehy's critically acclaimed performance ten years ago; Riedel asked Dennehy if he had any advice, and Dennehy said, laughing, "I'm not going to give advice to Phil Hoffman. He's a tremendous actor. He's a little young for it, but what the hell?" more ›

Prestige filmmakers take note: If you want the Times critics to really love you, what you need to do is put the fear in them. At least it worked for Tim Burton; his adaptation of Steven Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd gave reviewer A.O. Scott nightmares. And for that, Scott deems the film “close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme – I am tempted to say evil – genius.” (Current Rotten Tomato rating: 88% fresh.) One big question was whether the non-singing actors cast in the film would be able to pull it off; according to Burton the film is almost 90 sung. Well, it worked for Scott:

Johnny Depp’s voice is harsh and thin, but amazingly forceful. He brings the unpolished urgency of rock ’n’ roll to an idiom accustomed to more refinement., and in doing so awakens the violence of Mr. Sondheim’s lyrics and melodies.

(directed by Mike Nichols) more ›

Start sharpening your spurs, gays and gals, because Jake Gyllenhaal is coming to Broadway! If director Mike Nichols has his way, you’ll soon have your chance to stalk the sensitive heartthrob as he flees through the stage door of Farragut North, a new play about presidential campaign hardball penned by a former Howard Dean staffer. According to today’s Post, Gyllenhaal (who made his stage debut in a Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed production of Cats in their parents’ living room) is all-but-confirmed for the cast. But before that, Nichols will shepherd other boldface names to Broadway with a spring revival of Clifford Odets’s The Country Girl, about a washed up wino actor and his beleaguered wife. With Morgan Freeman and our personal favorite Frances McDormand rumored to play the couple, this has Compelling Theatrical Event written all over it. more ›

American counterculture and literary idol, Kurt Vonnegut, died yesterday at the age of 84. He was in Manhattan, and his death was the result of brain injuries from a fall several weeks ago. more ›

Proving that everything has a price, the launch of website PrimeTime Tables.com has attracted a bit of attention. PrimeTime Tables sells those hard-to-get reservations to hot restaurants - like let's say 8PM at Eleven Madison Park (since the website uses an Eleven Madison Park photo) - for anywhere between $30 to $45 a pop or $35 and under if you purchase a $450 yearly membership. And we can already see big corporations that need to wine and dine clients at swanky joints signing up...and Valentine's Day is just 23 days away! more ›

The Observer recognizes Power Geezers - basically old New Yorkers who make the world go round. Entrance to this group is a double digit age that begins with at least 7 - director Mike Nichols qualifies, while someone like Knicks coach Larry Brown is a "Baby Geezer" - and "optimism, ambition, pleasure in daily routine." Hmm, so a grandparent whose daily goal is to clean out the rest of the nursing home during Bingo is a Power Geezer too? Luckily, we have a few decades to find optimism and ambition! more ›

Bill Irwin, Actor more ›

It’s that time of the year again – that special time you brave New York’s notoriously humid and sticky summer to battle for one more blanket inch on a crowded park lawn. This year’s free outdoor movie festivals – RiverFlicks, Riverside Park Movies Under the Stars, Brooklyn Music & Movies Series, and HBO Bryant Park Summer Film Festival–offer a wide range of musicals and old favorites, from The Sound of Music to The Big Lebowski (see below for June/July schedule). Also be sure to check out the Rooftop Films series, showcasing short, low-budget and underground films every Friday at Automotive High School in Williamsburg and every Saturday at Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn at 9:00 PM; $8. more ›

So since the whole country united around the television set on Sunday night to watch the awards and then every conceivable media outlet chewed over the results for the whole day Monday, Gothamist can skip right to previewing what’s coming up this week, yes? Oh…heh…we’re talking about the Tonys. Even with a 2% increase in viewership the audience was still only 6.6 million, so maybe there does need to be a little explanation, although there weren’t really any huge surprises. The main news, probably, was how little Spamalot got; top musical honors were in the bag ever since Ben Brantley declared, a bit sniffily, in his Times review that it was “the best new musical to open on Broadway this season…but that's not saying much.” more ›

Three times a year, comedians and comedy writers gather before a live, drunk audience to showcase 5-minute film shorts. SPOILER, a film project run by a creative bunch of rowdy, young filmmakers and emerging comics, feels more like a party than it does a festival. This SPOILER's theme is "Action" and features standup by Slovin & Allen (SNL writers) and Andrea Rosen (Comedy Central's Stella), films by Aziz Ansari (Comedian, Filmmaker), Late Night Ritalin, The Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz & more as well Mr. Move as a musical guest. Tonight April 18th @ 8pm at the Knitting Factory [74 Leonard Street], ADV $5, Door $7 more ›

The new hit off-Broadway production by the New Group of Hurlyburly is reportedly transfering to Broadway, we are especially glad that we had the chance a few nights ago to see it at the intimate Acorn Theatre at 42nd Street's Theatre Row complex. more ›

The reaction camera is off its game, as it catches celebrities at the oddest moments. You see Maria Shriver, Governator is looking down at the floor, probably for that yummy piece of shrimp that fell.
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Gothamist readily admits to getting a major kick out of Michael Reidel's Wednesday and Friday theater beat columns in the Post. We love that directors punch this guy out when they dis their shows and that he seems to love to stir up controversy. He also seems to have a good feel for the mechanics of Broadway, so we took notice at his column yesterday when he declared that the upcoming Mike Nichols-directed prodcution of Monty Python's Spamalot will be the big hit of the Broadway season. He's saying it's going to be a smash on the level of The Producers. Remember when that show opened and the lines wrapped all over Times Square? more ›

Jenny Oh, Documentary Filmmaker more ›

Variety's Todd McCarthy: "Fully capturing the grandeur, extravagance, urgency, poetry and humor of the produced play, the savvy veteran director [Nichols]has brought out an elemental dimension of emotional melodrama that makes the piece compulsive screen fare without subtracting one bit from its status as great theater." more ›