Interview: Joe DiPietro Talks Writing ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It,’ His Tony Nomination and Casting Stars in Broadway Shows

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:53 — 11.6MB)

The new Broadway musical Nice Work If You Can Get It has been nominated for a whopping 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Kelli O’Hara), Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Michael McGrath) and Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Judy Kaye).

Nominated for Best Book of a Musical and one of the main forces behind the hit show is Joe DiPietro.

Joe is already a two-time Tony Winner for Memphis for Best Book and Best Score, wrote The Toxic Avenger, All Shook Up and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change – which has the distinction of being the longest running musical revue in off-Broadway history.

Nice Work If You Can Get It stars Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara and features songs by George and Ira Gershwin and tells the story of bootleggers, chorus girls, playboys and politicians is set 1920s.

Joe is terrifically funny and an all-around great guy. I talked to him recently about his nomination, how he came to write Nice Work, his writing process and his thoughts on casting stars in Broadway shows.

Oh, and if you ever see Joe on the streets of NYC, stop him and tell him he needs to take a vacation. He needs a break!

For tickets and more information about Nice Work If You Can Get It, click here Read more

Biography: John Cusack

John Cusack  has evolved into one of the most accomplished and respected actors of his generation, garnering prestigious accolades for his dramatic and comedic roles. Cusack will next be seen in Mikael Håfström’s Shanghai, a period piece in which he stars opposite Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat. In this remake of the 1935 thriller of the same name, Cusack plays an American man who explores a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor in order to solve the murder of his friend.

Cusack recently starred in Hot Tub Time Machine, a comedy co-starring Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke about friends who return to the ski lodge where they partied as youths and are transported back in time to 1987. Cusack produced the film through his New Crime Productions banner, which has produced several of his recent cinematic outings.

He also starred in Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic epic 2012. This international blockbuster, which grossed more than $766 million worldwide, co-starred Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet and Oliver Platt. Read more

Biography: Taylor Kitsch

Taylor Kitsch kick-started his career in 2002 when he moved to New York to study with renowned acting coach Sheila Grey. He landed his first major feature film the following year and has worked consistently in film and television ever since.

Perhaps best known for his part in NBC’s critically acclaimed television series “Friday Night Lights,” Kitsch brings poignancy and vulnerability to the role of Tim Riggins, a Texas high school fallback struggling to find his identity and wresting his demons by way of the bottle.

During the show’s first summer hiatus, Kitsch filmed the feature “Gospel Hill” alongside Julia Stiles, Danny Glover, Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Giancarlo Esposito, the film focuses on the bigoted former sheriff of a Southern town and a one-time civil-rights worker whose intersecting lives are still haunted by events that took place decades before.

Most recently, Kitsch starred in Steven Silver’s “The Bang Bang Club,” portraying Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Kevin Carter, whose work in South Africa helps to bring about the fall of apartheid. Read more

Actor/Rapper Donald Glover Has “More to Prove with Music”

Record store clearance bins are filled with albums recorded by actors and actresses who should’ve stuck to their day jobs, but Community star/up-and-coming rapper Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) is aiming a little higher with his first proper studio album, Bonfire.

“A lot of actors or comedians do music and they might even do an album but that’s it and people think it’s a vanity project and it feels like one because it doesn’t seem like they’re really into developing it and getting better,” Glover recently told BBC.

In March, Glover will embark on a nationwide tour while the fate of NBC comedy Community, a cult hit about a study group at a community college, is decided. NBC pulled the third-season series from its spring 2012 schedule and has not yet announced when it will return. It seems like Glover, who also moonlights as a stand-up comic, will have plenty to do even if he never steps foot on the Community set again. Read more

Q & A: Kiefer Sutherland on ‘Touch’, Coming Back to TV and ’24′

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:06 — 13.8MB)

Kiefer Sutherland returns to FOX in Touch, a show that attempts to ask the question: Are we all interconnected?

Sutherland stars as Martin Bohm, a widower and single father, who is unable to connect with his seemingly autistic son, Jake (David Mazouz). Jake never speaks, shows no emotion and never allows himself to be touched by anyone. Soon though, Martin finds out that Jake has a gift that allows him to see the random events of the universe and how they’re connected.

Touch was created by Heroes mastermind Tim Kring and Sutherland said that even though he wasn’t ready to come back to television, when he read the script, ““It was something that I knew I had to do.”

In this interview, Kiefer talks more about the reason he came back to TV, his hopes for the show and the legacy of 24.

Touch airs tonight at 9/8c on FOX in a special sneak preview. The shows begins airing regularly on Monday, March, 19th.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

At what point did you connect with your character and when did you know that this was a story that you wanted to tell and be a part of? 

Kiefer Sutherland: It was funny.  I was doing a play in New York on Broadway.  I had a film that I knew I was going to go do and so I read Touch almost reluctantly.  I don’t think I was completely ready to go back to television yet.  I was enjoying some of the different opportunities that I had had.  I think it was around page 30, I remember going, “Oh, …,” or I guess something you could print, …, which I just knew I would be so remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity that Touch was. 

I identified with him out of the gate.  There was something interesting because obviously this is very different than 24.Yet there is a real similar through line in the kind of character of the man.  Jack Bauer would be faced with unbelievable circumstances in the course of a day and he would never win completely.  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

Trailer: ‘The Muppets’ starring Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Jason Segel, Amy Adams

The Muppets: On vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary and Mary from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino tribute band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.

Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Alan Arkin, Zach Galifianakis, Jack Black, Kristen Schaal, Donald Glover, Paul Rudd, Ed Helms, Eric Stonestreet, John Krasinski, Rashida Jones

Directed by: James Bobin

In Theaters: November 23rd, 2011
Read more

Adam Pascal joins the cast of Broadway’s ‘Memphis’

Adam Pascal will take over the role of Huey Calhoun in the Tony winning musical, Memphis beginning October 25th. 

Chad Kimball who originated the role is leaving and his last performance will be October 23rd. You can catch Kimball in the show if you have Netflix where it’s currently streaming.

I saw the show when it was at the La Jolla Playhouse and loved Kimball as Huey. I can’t really imagine anyone doing the role but, I gotta admit, Adam Pascal is a great choice. Pascal is probably best know for playing Roger in the original production of Rent.

Memphis, also starring Montego Glover, takes place in the underground clubs of the segregated 50’s where a white DJ named Huey Calhoun falls in love with a black singer. 

The press release is below.  Read more

Broadway’s “Memphis” is now streaming on Netflix

If you missed Broadway’s Memphis when it played in theaters, you can now catch it while sitting on your couch!

They announced it this morning via their Twitter account that the show which was filmed earlier this year is now available on to stream on Netflix.

Starring Montego Glover and Chad Kimball, the show tells the story of the underground dance clubs of 1950s Memphis, Tennessee, where a white radio DJ who wants to change the world and a black club singer who is ready for her big break.

Q & A: Danny Pudi (Community)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:07 — 10.4MB)

Danny Pudi seems to be having the time of his life working on NBC’s Community. And why not, this season he’s battled zombies, played Jesus, manned a space mission and even helped give birth.

In the upcoming episode, Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas, he and the rest of the cast become stop-motion animated characters in yet another episode of inspired wackiness.

I talked to Danny in a conference call where he talked about working with the cast and how his stop-motion character is better looking than he is.

Community airs at 8/7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, on NBC.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download from iTunes.

As a kid, did you see Chevy in the Christmas Vacation in a movie theater?

Danny Pudi: I saw it later on VHS, the only way to see Chevy Chase. No.

So what’s it like when – here’s a guy whose made a big impression on you and suddenly you’re working with him?

Danny Pudi: You know, it’s very bizarre, I mean, the whole experience is bizarre. One day, you’re working with Chevy Chase and the next day you’re going to visit a claymation studio where they have a doll of you.

None of this really makes sense in this world, but that’s the really fun and beautiful thing about this job that I love is that every day is so different and unique.

But for me, literally, there are so many dreams coming true that sometimes it’s really hard to put into perspective until summertime when we’re on hiatus and then after a month of being away from people, I’m like, “Holy crap, I just spent a year working with Chevy Chase.” So to me, it’s just very fun, interesting, always, always interesting and I love that.

Read more

Next Page »