Ready to start the New Year?

Hi guys -

After the seemingly long and endless holiday break (at least for me it was), we’re all excited to get back to work – acting wise, I mean.

What are your resolutions or goals for the year?

Let me know by leaving a comment here or emailing me at Lance@dailyactor.com

I’ll write up a column with some of them and include your twitter handles, facebook pages or websites if you want them included. 

Let’s all hope for a great year!

Broadway Review: ‘Lysistrata Jones’

With a book by Douglas Carter Beane and music and lyrics by Lewis Flinn, Lysistrata Jones, based on Aristophanes Greek comedy, follows the awful Athens University basketball team who haven’t won a game in years. When Lysistrata jones transfers to the school, she joins the cheerleading squad and then challenges the girls to stop “giving it up” to their player boyfriends till they win a game.

Go see this show now!

Because it’ll probably be closing very soon.   

The show was originally staged last summer in a church gym in downtown New York. It had great reviews and was quickly scheduled to move to the Walter Kerr Theatre where it opened on December 14^th. But, in the move uptown, it lost its magic.  Read more

18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations

The nominations for the 18th Annual SAG Awards were announced this morning while I was patiently sitting in an airport waiting to board my flight to JFK.

Congrats to all the nominees!

But, I just have one WTF as I go through the list: Glee was nominated as in the Ensemble category? The cast is fine with Jane Lynch, Heather Morris and Matthew Morrison being the standouts but nominating the cast for best ensemble? Seriously?

Check out the nominations below!
Read more

Hollywood Managers Challenge Talent Agencies Act

According to the Talent Agencies Act (which is a California law), actors are only allowed to gain work through licensed talent agents.  Managers on the other hand, are only allowed to provide advice generally on a client’s career.

It seems like this law would be hard to enforce, but there have been cases where talent will make claims of TAA infractions to get out of paying manager commissions.

Rick Siegel, former manager of Rosa Blasi, fought a case that went all the way to the California Supreme Court in 2008; however, the court did not overturn the TAA or its penalties. Siegel also lost an appeal made against his lawyers for failing to argue what he felt were key points in the case. Now he’s back again, but this time he’s receiving the support of countless managers. A full list of the managers has been posted by The Hollywood Reporter.  Read more

No! Samuel French To Close Studio City, CA Location

Well, here’s some bad news to anyone (including me) who frequents the Studio City location of Samuel French.

The company announced on it’s Facebook page that on February 20th, they will close that location and merge it with the Hollywood store.

What’s strange was they way they put it:

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

SAMUEL FRENCH, THEATRE and FILM BOOKSHOP IS ON THE MOVE!!

Samuel French will be COMBINING it’s two stores, making our HOLLYWOOD LOCATION your MAIN theatre and film RESOURCE.

On FEBRUARY 20, 2012, our STUDIO CITY Bookshop will JOIN FORCES with our HOLLYWOOD STORE to create an ALL-IN-ONE Sunset Boulevard location where you can CONTINUE to find LA’s LARGEST SELECTION OF PLAYS as well as all your theatre, film, and television resource needs.

Read more

Trailer: ‘A Warrior’s Heart’ starring Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene

We have another entry into the Awful Trailers Award category. Watch. Enjoy.

A Warrior’s Heart: Twilight’s Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene re-team in a story of young love and the true meaning of sportsmanship and life. Co-starring Glee’s Chord Overstreet.

Director: Mike Sears

Cast: Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, Adam Beach, Gabrielle Anwar, Chord Overstreet, Aaron Hill, William Mapother

In Theaters: December 2nd, 2011
Read more

Josh Hutcherson on ‘The Hunger Games’ Audition Process

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins has become a sensation with readers and very quickly was poised for adaptation into film. The only problem of course with both fans and filmmakers is that the actors have to be right for the part. Casting is already a difficult process but it must be even harden when you’re dealing with finding the person that can live up to fan expectations.

Just watching Winter’s Bone (2010) showed just how powerful Jennifer Lawrence is as an actress. She’s definitely the right choice to play Katniss Everdeen; however, casting the two young actors that will form a love triangle with Katniss must have been an even greater challenge.

Josh Hutcherson will play the part of Peeta Mellark, the boy chosen along with Katniss to compete in a tournament – to the death (hence the film’s title).  Read more

‘My Week with Marilyn’ Featurette

Michelle Williams is fantastic as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, but did you expect anything less?

He performance is both a sad portrait and blissful homage to the actress who died way too young.

In this featurette, the cast members (Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Emma Watson, Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh) are interviewed about their work on the film and all marvel at Williams’ work. They also go into some detail of the work the production took to re-create parts of the film, The Prince and The Showgirl, which is the film Monroe went to London to shoot.

Check it out!  Read more

Samuel French Introduces New eBook Program

Well, this is cool. Samuel French, the oldest and largest publisher of plays and musicals, announced this week that they will start to sell both plays and musicals in the popular eBook format.

Which means if you have a Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone or even your trusty old laptop, you’ll be able to read them.

They are on sale now and most of the plays will sell for $8.99. I just checked the site and it’s only available via iTunes and Apple products which leaves us Android owners out of luck but French plans to roll out their program in all eReader formats and titles will be available for sale from all major e-retailers by the end of 2012.

2012?! Dag.   Read more

SAG and AFTRA ‘Deplore Age Discrimination Facilitated by IMDb’

The Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA just issued a joint press release about the lawsuit brought on by the actress suing IMDb and Amazon for displaying her age on the widely used site.

“Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA Deplore Age Discrimination Facilitated by IMDb.com and Similar Online Databases,” they wrote in their headline.

They follow it up by adding: “An actor’s actual age is irrelevant to casting. What matters is the age range that an actor can portray. For the entire history of professional acting, this has been true but that reality has been upended by the development of IMDb as an industry standard used in casting offices across America.”

Go SAG, go!

“IMDb publishes the actual dates of birth of thousands of actors without their consent, most of them not celebrities but rank-and-file actors whose names are unknown to the general public. When their actual ages then become known to casting personnel, the 10+ year age range that many of them can portray suddenly shrinks, and so do their opportunities to work.”  Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »