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Only Meryl Streep would take rehearsing so seriously for “Saturday Night Live.” The “Only Murders in the Building” star made her “SNL” debut during the recent “SNL50” special, when the lauded actress appeared in the alien abduction “Close Encounters” skit with Kate McKinnon, Woody Harrelson, and Pedro Pascal.

According to “SNL” alum Amy Poehler, who was also featured in “SNL50,” Streep rehearsed so “hard” prior to the live taping. Poehler and Streep shared a dressing room during the show, where Poehler witnessed some of Streep’s acting process.

“It was a night of famous alumni and people,” Poehler said during a recent appearance on the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast in the below video. “There were so many people that people had to share dressing rooms, so I was sharing my dressing room with Meryl Streep. Just like a fan, I was taking a picture of the door that...

Years before Academy Award-winning actors Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe went head-to-head in Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, the two would first face off in the cult classic, techno-thriller Virtuosity. Whereas, in American Gangster, Washington played the drug kingpin and Crowe was the hardened cop on his tail, in Virtuosity, Crowe was a Joker-esque digital amalgamation of serial killers, while Washington plays the cop that hunts him down. Blu-ray.com reports on the new 4K Blu-ray of the movie that will be distributed by Vinegar Syndrome sometime this month.

The description reads,

“The near future: A virtual reality company is completing the development of a highly sophisticated training simulator designed to give police a taste of how to handle the dangers they might encounter in the field while tracking and apprehending criminals. In order to perfect this state-of-the-art technology, prisoners are selected based on their skills and toughness and forced to serve as test subjects.

Marcia Gay Harden said that, years after starring in a New York production of “The Seagull” for Mike Nichols, the “Graduate” director apologized for being so hard on her because Philip Seymour Hoffman told him to.

Speaking with “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson in this week’s episode of his “Dinner’s On Me” podcast, Harden said that Nichols blamed her for everything that went wrong with the 2001 New York production.

Harden had just won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Pollock,” which meant she didn’t have to audition to join the cast, which included Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stephen Spinella, Larry Pine, Deborah Monk and John Goodman.

The cast was “bonkers,” so Harden said she didn’t hesitate to say yes. “I had in my mind, my vain little mind, that Mike would see me and realize I was the new Meryl Streep.

Even Philip Seymour Hoffman recognized how “hard” Mike Nichols was on Marcia Gay Harden during the famed “The Seagull” Broadway production in 2001.

More than 20 years later, Harden recalled during Sony Music Entertainment’s “Dinner’s On Me” podcast, hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, how director Nichols treated her like the “guinea pig” during the star-studded play. Years later, Nichols apologized to Harden for how he treated her — but only after Hoffman’s urging.

“I had won an Oscar for ‘Pollock’ and I got an offer, not even an audition, to play [character] Masha in ‘The Seagull’ in Central Park,” Harden said. “The cast of names was bonkers: It was Chris[topher] Walken, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stephen Spinella, Larry Pine, Deborah Monk, John Goodman. So of course I’m going to do it.”

Harden continued that she hoped Nichols would find her to be “the new Meryl Streep,...

Academy Award winner Denzel Washington is rightly considered one of the greatest actors not only of his generation, but of all time. But even a powerhouse performer like Washington is not immune to critics, with one of his earlier, much-maligned, efforts now landing on the streaming service Prime Video. Titled Virtuosity , Washington starred in the sci-fi action movie way, way back in 1995, alongside fellow Academy Award winner Russell Crowe . While the movie was panned at the time, and holds a rating of just 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, knowing what we know about the actors now, and the plots use of Ai, was it perhaps misunderstood?

Coming after acclaimed performances in the likes of Cry Freedom, Glory, Malcolm X, and Philadelphia, Virtuosity is set in the futuristic year of...1999, and finds Washington starring as Parker Barnes, a former cop who is imprisoned for killing the psychopath who killed his family. While serving time,...

Before the age of Primetime Emmy Awards sweeps for comedy “Schitt’s Creek” and drama “The Crown” – a trend that could very well continue this year by either “The Bear” or “Shōgun” – there was “Angels in America.” The HBO miniseries adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tony Kushner won 11 Emmys back in 2004 and famously took home the prizes in all seven top categories, making it the very first program to do so. This year’s 76th annual ceremony marks the 20th anniversary of the show’s historic night. To celebrate Kushner’s birthday on July 16, let’s flashback to that epic Emmys sweep.

The television adaptation followed just 10 years after the premiere of both plays on Broadway in 1993. Those original productions of “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika” nabbed seven Tony Awards combined, including two wins for Best Play, one for director George C. Wolfe, one for actor Ron Liebman as Roy Cohn,...

Russell Crowe, Academy Award-winning actor and all-around Generally Very Aussie Guy, has never turned in a bad performance. Some of his best films are benchmarks for who we are in modern pop culture, from his relentless turn as Maximus in Gladiator to his tactical and charming Captain Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander. The rest, well, they’re somebody’s favorite, anyway. And then, there’s his early ride to Hollywood as Sid 6.7 in 1995’s Virtuosity, a brain-dead summer sci-fi flick that even Denzel Washington cannot help but sleepwalk through.

The premise is classic ‘90s cheese on toast points: With appropriate magical science, AI will become real and hurt us, and it will take One Cool Cop to save us from technology’s predations. At that time, I think roughly two people on Earth genuinely liked this movie. Me and Roger Ebert. Ebert liked it for trying to do new...

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...

A new episode of the Black Sheep video series has just been released, and in this one we’re taking a look at a movie you might expect to be really popular, since it’s a sci-fi action thriller that pits Denzel Washington against Russell Crowe. It’s not popular… but maybe it should be. The movie is Virtuosity (watch it Here), and you can hear all about its virtues by checking out the video embedded above.

Directed by Brett Leonard from a screenplay written by Eric Bernt, Virtuosity has the following synopsis: A former cop who has been imprisoned for murdering the psychopath who killed his family, Parker Barnes is recruited to test out a new virtual-reality program where the goal is to apprehend a computer-generated being called Sid 6.7, who has been modeled on hundreds of deranged criminals. When Sid manages to escape into the real world, Barnes must...

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...

Marc Maron wanted “Bad Education” to be more queer.

The 2019 Emmy-winning TV movie based on a true story starred Hugh Jackman as corrupt school district superintendent Frank Tassone who embezzled millions of dollars in school funds. Frank’s husband Tom was played by Stephen Spinella, while Rafael Casal portrayed his boyfriend Kyle, whose Las Vegas lifestyle was in part funded by the stolen money.

Comedian Maron revealed he auditioned to play the role of Kyle but ultimately turned it down over a lack of “gayness.”

“I thought I was auditioning for the role you had,” Maron told guest Ray Romano during his “Wtf” podcast. “I just didn’t want to do it. I read the script and I said I don’t want to do it. It was for Hugh Jackman’s boyfriend. He’s got nothing in there.”

Maron added, “I said, ‘If I’m going be gay in a movie,...

Marc Maron has said that he turned down a role opposite Hugh Jackman in Bad Education because it needed “more gay-ness”.

The actor, comedian and podcast host had auditioned to play the boyfriend of Jackman’s character in the 2018 fact-based drama.

However, Maron, who is straight, suggested that he thought there wasn’t enough to the role.

“[The role was] Hugh Jackman’s boyfriend. He’s got nothing in there,” he said, while speaking to Ray Romano on his popular podcast Wtf. “I said, If I’m gonna be gay in a movie, [Jackman] would be a good guy to be gay with, but there didn’t seem to be much to the role other than that.

“I said, ‘I’ll wait to be gay when there’s more gay-ness.’”

Bad Education focuses on the story of school district superintendent Frank Tassone, who, along with assistant Pam Gluckin (played by Allison Janney), embezzled millions of dollars in school funds.

Myles Frost became the latest addition to the list of people who have taken home a Tony Award for their Broadway debut. His win makes him the 98th member of this particular winners’ club.

Frost, who won Best Actor in a Musical for playing Michael Jackson in “Mj,” is the 13th person to win that category for their first time stepping into a character on a Broadway stage. He joins:

Ezio Pinza, “South Pacific” (1950)

Robert Alda, “Guys and Dolls” (1951)

Robert Lindsay, “Me and My Girl” (1987)

Brent Carver, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1993)

Alan Cumming, “Cabaret” (1998)

Hugh Jackman, “The Boy From Oz” (2004)

John Lloyd Young, “Jersey Boys” (2006)

Paulo Szot, “South Pacific” (2008)

David Álvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish (joint nomination), “Billy Elliot” (2009)

Douglas Hodge, “La Cage aux Folles” (2010)

See 2022 Tony Awards: Every winner (and nominee) in all 26 categories

Below are the Broadway debuts in the seven other acting categories that have...

HBO announced today that its feature documentary Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known, from director Michael John Warren, will debut on the premium cabler on May 3rd at 9 p.m. Et/Pt, and will also be available for streaming on HBO Max.

The film picking up 15 years after the smash Broadway run of Spring Awakening watches as the original cast and creative team reunite for a spectacular, one-night only reunion concert to benefit The Actors Fund. Chronicling their whirlwind journey back to the stage, it follows the players as they reconnect and rediscover the beauty and timelessness of the hit musical, examining the show’s underdog origins, its path to Tony glory, its universal themes of teenage repression and angst, and the unconventional love story of breakout stars Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele.

Spring Awakening forever changed the lives of its mostly unknown teenage cast and inspired a generation of...

The star-studded cast of the critically-acclaimed musical Spring Awakening reunited for a one-night-only 15th anniversary concert benefitting The Actors Fund on Nov. 15. And HBO has confirmed that the sold-out musical event will be the subject of an upcoming reunion documentary, produced by RadicalMedia. Stars Lea Michele, Skylar Astin, Jonathan Groff, Lauren Pritchard, John Gallagher, Jr., Gerard Canonico, Lilli Cooper, Jennifer Damiano, Christine Eastbrook, Gideon Glick, Robert Hager, Brian Johnson, Krysta Rodriguez, Stephen Spinella, Phoebe Strole, Jonny B. Wright, and Remy Zaken performed at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre as original director Michael Mayer directed the musical once again. “Thank you to HBO and RadicalMedia for all you’ve done to make our Spring Awakening reunion happen and for bringing the magic and vitality of this story to the world, while continuing to drive awareness to the crucial work The Actors Fund provides our community through this documentary,” original cast members and...

Exclusive: The much-anticipated, one-night and sold-out Spring Awakening reunion concert will be the subject of an HBO documentary, produced by RadicalMedia.

The reunion concert, featuring the entire original Broadway cast of Jonathan Groff, Lauren Pritchard, Lea Michele, Skylar Austin, John Gallagher, Jr. and others, is taking place tonight at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre as a benefit for The Actors Fund. The musical’s original director Michael Mayer returns to direct the concert.

The documentary will debut on HBO next year and be available to stream on HBO Max.

In a statement, cast members Groff and Pritchard, who are credited as producers of the documentary, said, “Thank you to HBO and RadicalMedia for all you’ve done to make our Spring Awakening reunion happen and for bringing the magic and vitality of this story to the world, while continuing to drive awareness to the crucial work The Actors Fund provides our community through this documentary.

The original cast of Broadway’s Spring Awakening – including Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, Skylar Austin, John Gallagher, Jr. and others who would go on to major stardom following the 2006 staging – will reunite for a one-night-only concert benefitting The Actors Fund.

Directed by the musical’s original director Michael Mayer, the concert is set for Monday, November 15, 7 pm Et at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre.

“The chance to reunite our remarkable cast 15 years after their first Broadway performance of Steven Sater, Duncan Sheik, and Michael Mayer’s gorgeous show, is a beautiful and thrilling idea,” said original producers Tom Hulce and Ira Pittleman in a joint statement. “I think all of us are looking forward to revisiting our younger selves, even for just one night, and we...

In a Gold Derby exclusive, we have learned the category placements of the key Emmy Awards contenders for Netflix. For this season, the streamer has returning hits “After Life” (Ricky Gervais), “Black Mirror” (Andrew Scott), “The Crown”, “Dead to Me”, “Glow” (Alison Brie), “The Kominsky Method” (Michael Douglas), “Ozark”, “Stranger Things” (Winona Ryder) as part of their 2020 campaign. Newcomers include “#blackAF” (Kenya Barris), “Living with Yourself” (Paul Rudd), “The Politician”, “Space Force” (Steve Carell) and “The Witcher” (Henry Cavill).

Below, the list of Netflix lead, supporting and guest submissions for their comedy, drama, TV movies and limited series. We’ve also got the full list of titles for variety, reality and other major genres. More names might be added by the studio on the final Emmy ballot. Also note that performers not included on this list may well be submitted by their personal reps.

13 Reasons Why

Drama Series

Drama Actor...

HBO is both a great and slightly regrettable home for Bad Education. When they picked up the movie out of the festival circuit, it was somewhat of a surprise. After all, the flick had gotten some strong awards buzz, especially for star Hugh Jackman. Would they really be going for potential Emmy (and Golden Globe) attention, as opposed to gunning for Oscars? Well, it appears that way, and aside from that unusual quirk, it’s undeniable that they have a quality picture on their hands. This is actually one of the better titles of the year, no matter where you actually see it. The film is a true crime character study, looking at a massive instance of long term fraud in the affluent Long Island city of Roslyn. The school system in the town is among the best in the nation, due in no small part to the work of the Superintendent of the district,...

Truth trumps fiction once again in Bad Education, Cory Finley’s whipsmart and wickedly fascinating take on a 2002 scandal about trusted educators who embezzled more than $11 million from the public-school system in Long Island, New York. A stellar Hugh Jackman, like you’ve never seen him (or Wolverine) before, tackles the complex role of Long Island school superintendent Frank Tassone, a hero in the posh district for making Roslyn High fourth in the country by getting top seniors into Ivy League colleges, which brings cheers from parents and students — he...

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,...

Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone, Gregory Korostishevsky, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Christian Navarro, Pun Bandhu, Erik Laray Harvey, Brandon Scott Jones, Shae D’lyn | Written by Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty | Directed by Marielle Heller

Directed by rising star Marielle Heller, her latest offering comes after the 2015 breakout comedic hit film The Diary of a Teenage Girl. Heller turns her attention from a coming of age story to the more overly serious and tonally mature, yet comedically balanced drama, Can You Ever Forgive Me? A film that inhabits a truly outstanding and splendid array of performances. Specifically, that of leading actress Melissa McCarthy, of Bridesmaids and Life of the Party fame, who is terrific and exceptional as subject Lee Israel – fully deserving to be recognised in this year’s awards season with an astonishing dramatic turn.

Heller’s film follows a delightfully simplistic and jaunty template...

Melissa McCarthy will receive this year’s Spotlight Award at the 30th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival in recognition of her dramatic turn in this year’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

Richard E. Grant, McCarthy’s co-star in the film, will present the award. McCarthy joins Glenn Close and Rami Malek as the other honorees of this year’s festival.

Previous recipients of the Spotlight Award include Amy Adams, Jessica Chastain, Bryan Cranston, Andrew Garfield, Helen Hunt, Allison Janney, Rooney Mara, Julia Roberts and J.K. Simmons.

Also Read: Glenn Close to Receive Icon Award From Palm Springs Film Festival

McCarthy is a contender for Best Actress for her work as real-life author Lee Israel in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” and all of the previous recipients of the Spotlight Award have gone on to receive Academy Award nominations in the year they were honored, with Simmons winning an...

Following a nearly ten-year journey, Can You Ever Forgive Me? hits theaters this weekend via Fox Searchlight. Starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant, and based on the true story of celebrity biographer Lee Israel, the film will have a platform start this weekend en route to several hundred runs.

The feature is one of several Specialty titles heading into release with name casts and possible awards hopes. Paul Dano makes his directorial debut with Wildlife, which he co-wrote. The film, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan, opens via IFC Films after playing recent festivals.

Bleecker Street is opening What They Had with Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Robert Forster and Blythe Danner. Launching in several locations, the film is the first-time directorial by actor Elizabeth Chomko. And on the doc side, Menemsha Films is giving a New York launch for Austria’s Foreign Language contender, The Waldheim Waltz.

Also one...

It’s not uncommon for up-and-coming writers to imitate the voices of influential authors in the process of creating their own style, but biographer Lee Israel took the process a step further by faking letters by literary legends for her own illicit profits. Portraying Israel in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”, Melissa McCarthy captures the thrill of successful mimicry, although her screen performance is quite unlike anything she’s done before.

Like many great comic creations, McCarthy’s earlier roles have often contained a core of barely-concealed rage, allowing her to blast through a world that barely knows how to handle her. Here, the character is subsumed with such misanthropy that she can barely make it to her local gay bar to knock back some scotch-and-sodas.

Other McCarthy films – particularly the ones she co-creates with her husband, actor-director Ben Falcone – often call for her character to weepily atone for her obstreperousness.

Melissa McCarthy is a lock for a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the true story of Lee Israel, a lonely, embittered author of celebrity biographies who took up forgery to pay the bills when her jobs dried up. The Academy previously rewarded McCarthy with a Best Supporting Actress nod for 2011’s Bridesmaids, the kind of raucous comedy that became her specialty. McCarthy gets laughs for sure here, but the demands of this role — a boozy, cranky woman with a battered heart and a backbone of steel — are primarily dramatic.

Dolly Wells on costume designer Arjun Bhasin: "I mean I had worked out Anna but once I was putting on his clothes, I thought, oh my god, this is so good." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Dolly Wells, star of Doll & Em with Emily Mortimer (Isabel Coixet's The Bookshop) plays Anna, a bookshop owner in Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me?, co-written by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (original book for Michael Mayer's Head Over Heels and Tony winner for Avenue Q). Based on the book by Lee Israel, the film stars Melissa McCarthy as Lee Israel with Richard E Grant as Jack Hock, Jane Curtin as her agent Marjorie, Anna Deavere Smith as Israel's ex Elaine, and bookstore owners Alan and Paul, played by Ben Falcone and Stephen Spinella.

Dolly Wells on her role as Anna with Melissa McCarthy's Lee Israel: "She instructs her, which is so ironic.

Vintage typewriters and forged letters might seem like unusual decor for New York’s Sva Theatre, but there could be no better tribute to Lee Israel, the subject of the new Melissa McCarthy-led biopic “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” which premiered there on Sunday. Israel was a biographer of celebrated women who turned to forging and selling letters from her literary heroes when her own career hit a standstill.

“The city is full of people that we often don’t bother to look at who have had incredibly interesting lives,” producer Anne Carey told Variety on the red carpet. “Lee’s invisibility is part of what made her able to accomplish what she did, and I think that’s the thing — you never know who you’re walking by in the street.”

The FBI eventually caught on to Israel’s scheme, but not before she had already sold about 400 fake letters.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Fox Searchlight Pictures Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Director: Marielle Heller Screenwriter: Nicole Holofcener, Jeff Whitty, based on Lee Israel’s book “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Jane Curtin, Anna Deavere Smith, Stephen Spinella Screened at: Fox, NYC, 10/4/18 Opens: October 19, 2018 Considering […]

The post Can You Ever Forgive Me? Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Hari Dhillon has joined the ensemble of the pic “Bad Education” starring Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney.

Ray Romano, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Alex Wolff are also on board. Stephen Spinella, Annaleigh Ashford, Jimmy Tatro (“American Vandal”), Jeremy Shamos, Kathrine Narducci, Welker White, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Peter Appel, Ray Abruzzo, and Catherine Curtin are also appearing in the movie.

“I Think We’re Alone Now” scribe Mike Makowsky penned the script. Cory Finley, who recently helmed the Sundance darling “Thoroughbreds,” will direct.

The screenplay, which insiders say is akin to the 1999 Reese Witherspoon movie “Election,” is based on true events that Makowsky experienced at his high school.

“La La Land” producer Fred Berger and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones of Automatik will produce alongside Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, and Oren Moverman of Sight Unseen. Makowsky is also producing the pic, which begins production in October.

Production is currently underway in New York. Bloom is handing international sales,...

Rafael Casal has rounded out the cast of “Bad Education,” joining Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney.

Ray Romano, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Alex Wolff are also on board. Stephen Spinella, Annaleigh Ashford, Hari Dhillon, Jimmy Tatro (“American Vandal”), Jeremy Shamos, Kathrine Narducci, Welker White, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Peter Appel, Ray Abruzzo, and Catherine Curtin are also appearing in the movie.

“I Think We’re Alone Now” scribe Mike Makowsky penned the script. Cory Finley, who recently helmed the Sundance darling “Thoroughbreds,” will direct.

The screenplay, which insiders say is akin to the 1999 Reese Witherspoon movie “Election,” is based on true events that Makowsky experienced at his high school. Details behind who Casal will be playing are currently unknown.

“La La Land” producer Fred Berger and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones of Automatik will produce alongside Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, and Oren Moverman of Sight Unseen. Makowsky is also producing the pic, which begins production in October.

Out of all the winners (and losers) in the 26 competitive categories at the 2018 Tony Awards, several of them stand out as particularly noteworthy when considered in the context of history. So what were this year’s most interesting facts, records and milestones?

“The Band’s Visit” is the first Best Musical winner to have been based on a movie since “Kinky Boots” in 2013. Of its 11 Tony nominations it managed to win a whopping 10 awards (including Best Musical). The only prize it didn’t end up taking home was Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Scott Pask. It is now tied with “Hello, Dolly!” (1964) and “Billy Elliot” (2009) as the third most awarded production in Tony history, behind “The Producers” with 12 wins in 2001 and “Hamilton” with 11 victories in 2016.

“The Band’s Visit” is also the first Best Musical winner to have won every single acting award it was nominated for since...

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,...

The 72nd Tony Awards were held on Sunday (June 10) and were hosted two past nominees, composer Sara Bareilles (“Waitress”) and actor Josh Groban. The CBS telecast from New York’s Radio City Music Hall aired live in the Eastern and Central time zones while those in the Mountain and Pacific time zones had a three-hour tape delay. Scroll down for our live updating report and analysis of the winners as they happened.

Thirty shows were eligible for consideration. A whopping 21 of these earned at least one nomination across the 26 Tony Awards categories. While the nominations were determined by 51 theater professionals, the 2018 Tonys winners were decided by 846 members of the Broadway community.

Heading into the evening, two new musicals – “Mean Girls” and “SpongeBob SquarePants” — had a leading 12 Tony Awards nominations apiece while a third, “The Band’s Visit,” had to settle for 11. The hit British import “Harry Potter and the Cursed...

Three-time Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne”) won her first Tony Award only last year but could well add a second one to her crowded mantle this Sunday. This would be a nice makeup award for Metcalf who lost a close Supporting Actress Oscar race this year for her performance in “Lady Bird” to Allison Janney for “I, Tonya.”

See 2018 Tonys online: How to watch 72nd Tony Awards live stream without a TV

Last season Metcalf took home the Best Actress in a Play Tony Award for her bravura performance in “A Doll’s House Part 2” which told the story of what happened to Ibsen’s heroine in the years after she walked out on her husband. This season Metcalf has returned to Broadway in an acclaimed revival of Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women.” With Glenda Jackson all but certain to win her first Tony up in the lead race,...

Irish actress Denise Gough won her first Olivier Award in 2016 for the starring role as a recovering addict in Duncan Macmillan’s play People, Places and Things, and her second earlier this year for her turn as Harper Pitt in Marianne Elliot’s London revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Last week, Gough – along with co-stars Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane and Susan Brown – earned the Broadway transfer of Angels a record-setting 11 Tony Award nominations with her spot in one of the season’s most competitive categories: She’ll vie for Best Featured Actress in a Play, alongside her Angels co-star Brown, Noma Dumezweni (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Deborah Findlay (The Children) and Laurie Metcalf (Three Tall Women).

Though better known in the U.K., Gough has hit New York and hit it hard, reprising both her Angels performance and, prior to that, People, Places & Things at Off Broadway’s St. Ann’s Warehouse (she’s up for a Drama Desk Award for that one).

She’ll soon get an even wider audience with her role as Mathilde de Morny in Colette, the 2018 Sundance Fest biopic starring Keira Knightley as the French novelist, set for a September release by Bleecker Street.

Deadline spoke with Gough just days before her Tony nomination. Reflecting on her breakthrough London successes and Broadway audiences, Roy Cohn and Donald Trump, and Tony Kushner’s famous note-giving, Gough also took a deep dive into Angels’ Harper Pitt, the hallucinating “jack Mormon,” Valium-taking wife of the closeted gay Republican lawyer Joe Pitt. Harper is one of the great roles of the contemporary stage, a magnificent character in a magnificent play, and Denise Gough brings her to life on stage and, here, in this conversation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Deadline: I’m wondering if you had to recalibrate your performance in any way for a New York audience, after London?

Gough: Not really. I mean, I had to change everything because I have a new partner [Lee Pace plays Joe Pitt on Broadway; Russell Tovey played the character in London], so you’re reacting to an entirely different human being. I kind of feel like I’ve got to play two quite different Harpers, which is great.

But I feel like New York just owns this play, so there’s a real sense of it being at home, which I thought would be kind of intimidating but actually it’s really lovely. Like, people know Harper here. The very first night it just felt like everybody knew who she was. There was a tiny bit of that in London, as well that this was the first play I was doing after People, Places, & Things, and I had become something of a…I was everywhere. So it felt a bit like, “This is what Denise Gough does next in London,” and here I just don’t have any of that at all. I’m just playing Harper, with no baggage at all.

Deadline: Are you aware of what other actresses have done with this role?

Gough: I’ve never seen or watched [Angels in America]. I’ve never. And also I just don’t believe in an actor owning a part, you know? I believe that every actress who played Harper, played it for the time they were supposed to play it and they were exactly the right person that was needed to play it at that time. I’m exactly the right person at this time, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.

Deadline: And in the earlier productions, there were many different Harpers, whereas the Angel was so associated with Ellen McLaughlin, and Stephen Spinella was always Prior Walter.

Gough: And I’ve been playing Harper for a long time now. And this time around [on Broadway] I realized just how abusive her relationship with Joe is, you know? He gaslights her, tells her she’s crazy, acts like the problem is her taking drugs.

And then you have to ask the question, where is she getting the drugs? Like, she hasn’t left the apartment in four years and he keeps talking to her about taking pills, but if he really didn’t want her to take the pills he could take them away from her. He could stop her from taking them but he doesn’t. Joe has this line in the bar scene with Roy Cohn (Lane) where he says, What I’m afraid of is that what I love about her is the part that’s farthest from the light, farthest from God’s love, and that I’m keeping that alive for something. And I always hear that line and I think, That motherf*cker knows what he’s doing. He’s keeping her doped up in the apartment because it’s easier for him. I’m not saying that he does it consciously, but an abusive relationship doesn’t necessarily have to be somebody battering somebody.

Harper is an incredibly emotionally intelligent woman who was born into a fundamentalist religion that told her that her only role is to be a wife and mother, and she never fit that role. Tony talked to me about how Harper in Utah was like the punk, you know? She was the girl who never washed her hair and wore black eyeliner and punk t-shirts. She wasn’t a sweet little Mormon. She was always fighting. Then she was in love with this man and she knew, she always knew [that he was closeted]. Some of the first things she says in the play are, “Things are collapsing. Lies are surfacing.”

Deadline: There’s a thinking that of all the characters – and I think you touched on it in your description of Joe – Joe is the only one that the play doesn’t ever really forgive.

Gough: He never takes responsibility. If you don’t take responsibility for your actions you can’t move on. At the end of the play he goes back to Harper, and he would go back to lying again. That’s his choice. Joe is a brilliantly written part because of that. It can be difficult for actors to…you know, we all want to be the hero, don’t we? But there’s something incredible about being the person who doesn’t get redemption, and showing that to an audience.

Deadline: Someone once said about Harper that, despite her hallucinations, we meet her not when she’s in the fog of her pills – we meet her on the day the pills don’t work. She’s coming through, the denial is already fading by the time we first see her.

Gough: Yes. Yes. The greatest grief for an addict – and Harper has a mild Valium addiction, that’s how Tony describes her, and he has also said to me that the pills are sort of a side thing, something she uses to stop the truth from coming through – but the greatest devastation for an addict is that the drugs stop working. So you meet Harper at a point when lies are surfacing whether she likes it or f*cking not, you know? Even in her hallucinations, Joe keeps coming to her.

Deadline: In some ways Harper is the truth of the play…

Gough: When she gets described as drug addled and pill popping, I think, God, that’s just so reductive. That’s not her place in this play at all. And politically, especially now with #MeToo, she’s a female making her way in a world that has told her that her only role is to have babies and to be married, to the detriment of her own soul. And she walks away from that. By the end she’s so empowered.

In one of the books I read, Marcia Gay Harden [Harper in the original Broadway production] said something like, Oh, she never learns, she leaves her gay husband but goes off to San Francisco. And I was like, Hang on, her closest confidant and soulmate in this play is Prior [a gay character played by Andrew Garfield]. At every point that she thought she was falling apart, Prior comes along and they kind of steel each other up for the next part of their journey, so why wouldn’t she go to San Francisco? She’s not going to look for a man, she’s going to look for herself. And in my life the gay men are the ones who have always pushed me towards myself more than anyone else.

Deadline: Do you have a favorite of Harper’s speeches? You have one of the great monologues [the “Night Flight To San Francisco” scene near the end of the play]…

Gough: I know, but even Tony Kushner knows that it’s one of the great f*cking monologues. It makes me want to pick something else. [Laughs]. No, of course “Night Flight” is everything, and it’s so healing for me as an actress, too. At the end of it all, I get to walk away with hope. With both Harper and Prior, our journey through the play is devastation. When Andrew and I see each other backstage, we kind of feel like we’re willing the other person on. You’re like, Oh, God, you’re right in the center of your devastation and so am I, and they’re both seeking freedom, and we both get freedom. He gets his epilogue and I get my epilogue. So yeah, I do love doing that speech.

But there’s so much else. There’s loads. Her first speech is wonderful, though it’s really hard to do. It was harder in London. The character is talking to the audience about people who are lonely, and the rhythm of it is kind of…you don’t know whether it’s meant to be funny. And then her imaginary friend appears. London audiences were trying to work her out, whereas in New York as soon as I start speaking I felt the entire audience almost collectively say, Oh, there’s Harper!

Deadline: Much has been said about this era being a perfect time for Angels, with the connection between Donald Trump and the play’s Roy Cohn. Are you guys playing that at all? Does that even enter your minds?

Gough: No, I don’t think so. With this play I have discovered that no matter what you try to do, the play will do whatever it wants. Like, the play undoes you. So if I’m going to try to do anything that is not the play, it won’t work, you know? The beauty of this play is you just do it and it will have its effect.

I remember in London I was really nervous about playing [Roy’s friend] Martin because I’m onstage with Nathan Lane, who I love, and I’m playing a man, and I didn’t want to f*ck it up. So I was really nervous about it, thinking, Oh God, it’s going to look silly, and then the first night I went out and I spoke those words and I thought, Oh, just say the words. It doesn’t f*cking matter – you could be standing here dressed as a chicken.

Deadline: I seem to remember that in the original Broadway production [1993, the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency], when Martin talks about Republicans taking over the Supreme Court, the Senate and the Oval Office, that speech got a laugh. It does not get a laugh anymore.

Gough: It really doesn’t. What it gets is this really uncomfortable…People can’t laugh about it now because it’s so dark. You kind of think, when this was written audiences must have thought, Aren’t we lucky that’s not how it is anymore? And now you think, Oh, God, how did we let this happen again?

And it’s the confidence of these people. I wanted Martin this time around to be real sharp. These guys know that they’re winning. It’s terrifying. I enjoy playing that scene much more than I did in London, I must say.

Deadline: Tony Kushner has been known to give notes. Has he given you any?

Gough: He gave me one note and that’s all he’s ever given me.

Deadline: You may have set a record.

Gough: Yeah. I was finding a scene really difficult, the scene in the rain. He loves Harper very much, Tony, so I feel like he also knows that it’s a very strangely written scene, that little piece when Harper says, “Water won’t ever accomplish the end, no matter how much you cry. Flood is not the answer, people just float.” I was like, f*ck. How? What? So I asked him and he said, Oh, I dreamt that in its entirety and I’ve never touched it. The thing about Harper is that she is open to emotional interpretation, and Tony let me do that. Now, if it had been bad he would have stopped me.

And we talked about the pills. Joe talks about how Harper’s pill addiction is the problem, and if she just didn’t take pills everything would be fine. I was like, Hang on, where does she f*cking get these pills? I spoke to Tony and he was like, Yeah, from him. And you think, Oh, that’s a whole other…that’s like being kept drugged up by your partner, you know? That added a whole different element for me this time around that I couldn’t quite catch in London, but here I really catch it. So when he shames her – “how many pills today, Buddy?” – and she’s so ashamed of herself, he’s giving them to her.

Deadline: It just struck me, but I think in this production Harper doesn’t give Joe her bottle of pills at the end, right?

Gough: Oh, I think you might have seen the night where I didn’t give them to him because I forgot them! Which was mortifying. Mortifying. F*cking…

Deadline: Then I’m glad I mentioned it. I was going to build some big theory around it.

Gough: No. No. No. But there is something different. In the old production she would pour some pills out and give him some and then she would take the bottle, but in this one she gives him the whole bottle of pills and she walks away with no pills. She leaves them to him. Well that’s what’s meant to happen.

Also in this [production], she kisses Joe at the end, which is an idea of mine. It’s a difficult scene [for the audience] with Joe to be left like that, so I wanted, through Harper, for the audience to find a way to be kind to Joe, too, you know?

Deadline: You’ve won a lot of awards. Are you allowing yourself to think about the Tonys?

Gough: I just can’t get involved in it. I had no idea that I would win an Olivier for it, I really didn’t. I was sure that The Ferryman was going to win everything, so I was really shocked that I won. I was delighted though, because it’s not an easy gig, this. And I can wear them as earrings now because I have two.

But listen, I’m nearly 40 and things took as long as they took just for me to start getting regular work. So the fact that I’m on Broadway with Angels in America, and having done People, Places, & Things in one of the coolest theaters in New York at St. Ann’s Warehouse, I’m living my best life right now. So you know, it’s all cherries and icing at the moment. It’s just so nice. I feel so f*cking lucky.

Deadline: Tell me about Mathilde, the character you play in Colette.

Gough: She’s basically at the forefront of the trans movement, before anybody knew what that word meant. She dressed as a man and she was referred to as a man. At a time when it was illegal for women to wear trousers, she wore trousers, and she and Colette had a seven year love affair, and then she tried to kill herself by committing hara-kiri, and when she was caught doing that she was arrested. She eventually killed herself by sticking her head in an oven. Whether I would play it or not, somebody should play her story fully. Colette is fantastic, and Kiera Knightley is really great in the film, but there are so many female stories that you think, God, if this was a man Tom Hanks would have played it and won Oscars for it 200 times over. It’s just really exciting that we’re at a time when these women’s stories are starting to be considered as leading, proper Hollywood movies. It’s fantastic, isn’t it?...

Warholcapote is currently playing in previews, opens September 24, and closes October 13, 2017 at American Repertory Theater. BroadwayWorld has a first look at Stephen Spinella Andy Warhol and Dan Butler Truman Capote in action below...

The American Repertory Theater A.R.T. announces that Dan Butler has joined the cast of adaptor Rob Roth's new play Warholcapote in the role of Truman Capote. He will appear with Stephen Spinella Tony Award winner for Angels in America who portrays artist Andy Warhol.

October is upon us. The leaves are changing. Sweaters are becoming more abundant. Awards contenders are popping up in theaters nationwide. But those are far from the only films opening throughout the coming weeks. Below, you’ll find every planned theatrical release for the month of October, separated out into films with wide runs and limited ones. (Synopses are provided by festivals and distributors.)

Each week, we’ll give you an update with more specific information on where these films are playing. In the meantime, be sure to check our calendar page, where we’ll update releases for the rest of the year. Stay warm and happy watching!

Week of October 7 Wide

The Birth of a Nation

Director: Nate Parker

Cast: Aja Naomi King, Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union, Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Boone Junior, Nate Parker

Synopsis: Set against the antebellum South and based on a true story, “The Birth...

"It's going to be chaos on the streets outside." A trailer has debuted for a feature film called The Lennon Report, about the fateful night where John Lennon was shot and killed in New York City in 1980. Similar to the assassination film Bobby, this focuses on the people (and the hospital) that instantly became involved in the event. The film profiles a number of people, including an ambitious young news producer, the staff at the emergency department at the Roosevelt Hospital, and the police investigating the shooting. Starring Gregory Barr as John Lennon, Karen Tsen Lee as Yoko Ono, as well as Evan Jonigkeit, David Zayas, Richard Kind, Stef Dawson, Devin Ratray, Adrienne C. Moore and Stephen Spinella. Take a look. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Jeremy Profe's The Lennon Report, direct from YouTube: The unheard true story of the moments after John Lennon was shot as...

Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man no more, will star in the National Theater's production of Angels in America in May 2017. Part one of Tony Kushner's epic two-part, six-hour play had its British premiere in 1992 (with the second part premiering the year after), making this something of a 25th-anniversary staging. Garfield will play Prior Walter, a gay man diagnosed with AIDS at the height of the epidemic in New York. The role was originated by Stephen Spinella in the play's 1992 debut in L.A. and its later Broadway staging. Justin Kirk played Prior in Mike Nichols's 2003 HBO adaptation. In London, Angels in America will be directed by Marianne Elliott. The rest of the cast has not yet been announced.

Last night HBO hosted the premiere of Larry Kramer In Love amp Anger, airing June 29 at 9pm, at the Time Warner Center. In attendance to support both Kramer and the documentary were stars of stage and screen includingMark Ruffalo and Joe Mantello, both of whom starred in The Normal Heart on HBO and Broadway, respectively as Ned Weeks, the character that Kramer based on himself.Documentary director Jean Carlomusto, Christine Baranski, Kelly Bishop, Cherry Jones, Stephen Spinella, and President of HBO Documentary Films, Sheila Nevins were also in attendance to screen the film and present Larry with a cake celebrating his upcoming 80th birthday on June 25.Check out a just-releasd trailer for the film below...

• It’s a good time to be Chadwick Boseman: The actor, who was cast as the Black Panther in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War last week, has also just claimed the lead in Message From The King. Fabrice du Welz is directing the revenge thriller from a script by Stephen Cornwell and Oliver Butcher. The film follows Jacob King (Boseman), a South African man who comes to Los Angeles to find his younger sister. Upon discovering she’s been killed, the story follows Jacob's subsequent revenge in the six days before he flies home. Message from the King is...

Red Bull Theater's Revelations Readings kicked off its new season with a gala benefit reading of William Shakespeare'S The Tempest, featuring Michael Cerveris as Prospero. Directed by Jesse Berger the cast also included De'Adre Aziza, Gerry Bamman, Clifton Duncan,Angel Desai, Sean Patrick Doyle, Glenn Fleshler, Carman Lacivita, Drew Ledbetter, Matthew Rauch, Jay O. Sanders,Stephen Spinella, Raphael Nash Thompson, Auden Thornton,Michael Urie, Marc Vietor, and more. The Tempest featured original live music by Greg Pliska. It took place for one night only on October 20th at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues. An exclusive party with the cast and special guests followed this benefit reading. Scroll down for photos from the festivities...

Stars: Robert Carlyle, Guy Pearce, Jeffrey Jones, Jeremy Davies, Neal McDonough, David Arquette, Stephen Spinella, John Spencer, Joseph Runningfox | Written by Ted Griffin | Directed by Antonia Bird

In honor of Ravenous finally being released on Blu-Ray from those magnificent madmen at Scream Factory, I thought I’d conjure up some words about one of the great, underrated chillers of the 90’s. It’s a film I’ve deemed a personal favorite amongst mixed fans of film. I’ll recommend it without batting an eye. It’s essential viewing for horror fans, period. One of the key elements to understanding why I love Ravenous, you have to understand the background of my film going history that brought me to it.

For a great period in the 90’s, I saw many films in theaters with my uncle, and when I say many, I’d say it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a metric ton.

If you'll allow me a personal and quite biased recommendation, I'd love to send any Floridians reading to the Orlando Fringe Festival (May 14th-25th) to check out Allen Sermonia or Jenn Remke in An Iliad. Jenn and Allen are friends of mine and I had the privilege of attending a full rehearsal last week in which Jenn performed the entire show (they're doing it in repertory so Allen gets alternating nights) and apparently she's the first female actor to ever perform it!

I've seen Jenn in a few previous plays so I knew she was talented but holding an entire stage by yourself is a true challenge and I'm happy to report she was riveting. By the time the play sunk its hooks in, I forgot I was watching my friend and was just watching "the poet" working her way through numerous character sketches and a retelling of the...

Sneak Peek footage from director A.D. Calvo's Anchor Bay Entertainment horror release "House Of Dust", available on DVD, May 20, 2014. Cast includes Inbar Lavi, Steven Grayhm, Eddie Hassell, Holland Roden, John Lee Ames, Alesandra Assante, Joy Lauren, Nicole Travolta and Stephen Spinella:

"...'Emma' is one of the bright new faces at 'Camden College'. Plagued with visions and voices all her life, she’s now trying to move past her personal demons of schizophrenia, and substitute hallucinations with higher learning.

"Emma joins her friends when they break into the shuttered remnants of the abandoned 'Redding House Asylum' on campus.

"When they accidentally shatter canisters holding the ashes of former mental patients and subsequently inhale the dust-filled air, they’re soon possessed by the souls once held within them. One of them happens to be a convicted killer from 1959..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "House Of Dust"...

The Velocity Of Autumn will play its final performance at Broadway's Booth Theatre today, having played 22 preview and 16 regular performances. Starring Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons and two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Spinella, The Velocity Of Autumn began performances on Tuesday, April 1, 2014 and opened Monday, April 21, 2014, following a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at Washington DC's Arena Stage in the fall of 2013.

Inspired by twisted tales of cannibalistic survival like the real-life Donner Party, cult terror feature Ravenous graphically depicts a twist on an old cliché: You are who you eat. Directed by the late Antonia Bird (Priest), this unnerving cult thriller stars Guy Pearce (Iron Man 3, Prometheus), Robert Carlyle (TV’s Once Upon A Time), Jeremy Davies (Lost, Saving Private Ryan), Jeffrey Jones (Deadwood, Sleepy Hollow), John Spencer (The West Wing), Stephen Spinella (Milk, Royal … Continue reading →

Horrornews.net...

The Velocity Of Autumn will play its final performance at Broadway's Booth Theatre on Sunday, May 4, 2014, having played 22 preview and 16 regular performances. Starring Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons and two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Spinella, The Velocity Of Autumn began performances on Tuesday, April 1, 2014 and opened Monday, April 21, 2014, following a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at Washington DC's Arena Stage in the fall of 2013.