Find some room on the proverbial couch because we’ve got some casting news to report:
- Ready to make your Broadway debut? The sashaying folks at Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Ticketmaster are offering a sweet opportunity to win a trip to NYC to meet the cast and dance on stage during the show. Tickets, airfare and hotel are all part of the deal. (You must enter by February 27, so get on it!)
- It’s been long rumored but Meryl Streep will indeed be playing the pill-popping matriarch opposite Julia Roberts in the film version of August: Osage County. Seems a shame that this Pulitzer Prize winning property couldn’t attract any big movie stars.
-
Remember how I said that this year’s Tony Awards are going to be crazy competitive in the Play categories? It just got more fun. Producers announced that The Lyons, the well-reviewed Off-Broadway play by Nicky Silver, is sneaking on to Broadway just in time to be eligible. Even better, it will make the move with the bravura performance from star Linda Lavin (the subject of our recent adoration); add another actress to the list of contenders including Cynthia Nixon, Nina Arianda, Tyne Daly, Rosemary Harris and many more.
- Two great actresses (and favorites of my youth) have been added to upcoming Broadway productions: the delightful Margaret Colin (Arcadia and As the World Turns!) is joining The Columnist and the criminally under-appreciated Carol Kane will appear in the revival of Harvey.
- Don’t speak? Well, she’s going to have to when Woody Allen’s brilliant Bullets Over Broadway comes to the Great White Way as a musical next season. Word is that the script is by Mr. Allen himself and it will feature period songs, not original songs…but the important question is whether Dianne Wiest reprise her Oscar winning role?
- You’ve got to love passionate fans. One such admirer has launched a Facebook campaign titled “5,000,000 Strong for Christine Ebersole as The Witch in Into the Woods”. There are only a handful of folks who’ve signed up for it so far but, you know what, it ain’t a bad bit of casting for the upcoming production at the Delacorte Theater. Power to the people!