According to an article on Deadline, Spike Lee has signed on to direct a film adaption of David Byrne's Broadway hit, American Utopia.
Oscar winner Spike Lee has signed on to direct a filmed version of the acclaimed Broadway show David Byrne’s American Utopia. Participant adds another title to its portfolio of films meant to engage positive social change, as it will be lead financier and executive producer for the project. It is financing the film with River Road Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
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Said Byrne: “Pinch me. This couldn’t have worked out better for this project. Spike Lee directing and Participant producing — two socially engaged teams, well, three if you count us in the band, coming together in what I feel will be something moving, important, and unlike anything anyone has seen before.”
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Jeremy O. Harris's Slave Play is meant to be provocative—certainly moreso than most other Broadway productions that transfer from Off Broadway theatres. The play itself is about a group of interracial couples who go to a kind of psychosexual couples' therapy that involves BDSM, reflecting Antebellum master-slave dynamics. During previews, the show even hosted a "Black Out," or a dedicated performance for black audiences, so they can enjoy and discuss the play without worrying about the reactions of white people around them.
As such, it's not surprising that it might make some white people (and others) uncomfortable; that is, after all, the purpose of provocative art. But it reached a head after the Friday night performance on November 29 during a post-show talkback hosted by the playwright:
Apparently, the unnamed woman missed the whole part of the play about white people taking up space and centering things around themselves. She yelled at Harris for—in her words—"being told as a single woman I'm not good enough to fucking raise [my own children]," and asked, "How the fuck am I not a fucking marginalized member of this goddamn society?" Read the rest
After all the hoopla surrounding the new and creepy Cats movie trailer, this delightful 1986 PSA from the American Lung Association may provide some relief. Read the rest
On Saturday night, a blackout darkened Manhattan's West Side for several hours. But that didn't stop cast members from several Broadway shows, and Carnegie Hall, from performing. Not in their scheduled stage performances but impromptu ones outside on the sidewalks.
The New York Times:
The electricity failed about an hour before curtain for most shows, meaning the casts and crew were already in place and audiences were on their way.
Some lucky patrons were treated to brief sidewalk songs while producers tried to figure out whether the lights might return in time to salvage Saturday night — generally the most lucrative night of the week for Broadway.
The shows got canceled, but "the show must go on," as they say:
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Kavanaugh got you pissed off about the future of Roe v. Wade? Support this awesome event, and this awesome nonprofit.—The Editors.
In 2012, A is For was launched as a response to the ever-escalating legislative attacks on access to safe reproductive healthcare. I'm proud to be one of the co-founders and its vice president. Read the rest
Film director and journalist Cameron Crowe is adapting his fantastic 2000 film "Almost Famous" as a stage musical. Of course Crowe based the original film on his own life as a teen journalist for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s. From Rolling Stone:
Crowe has been developing the musical for the past couple years and first teased the project on Twitter (below) with a video of composer Tom Kitt performing at the piano. Jeremy Herrin (People, Places and Things) will direct the show, with Crowe’s book, music by Tom Kitt (American Idiot, Next to Normal) and lyrics by Kitt and Crowe. No further information on when or where the musical will premiere has been announced at this time.
“It doesn’t even feel like work,” Crowe continues. “It feels like a new adventure, a natural progression but still true to the question that started it all. ‘What do you love about music?’. Can’t wait to bring it to you in the coming months.”
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If you thought you've seen it all when it comes to iPhone rudeness and stupidity, think again. A fellow in the audience at the Booth Theater in New York had a sudden urge to charge his phone, and spotted an outlet on stage. So he jumped onto the set of Hand to God and tried to plug in his phone. But alas, the phone outlet was just a prop. Thanks for the good laugh, Mashable. Read the rest
Just in time for the Tony Awards on Sunday, the boys of Superfruit revamped some hip-hop songs into Broadway-ready duets, ballads, and dance numbers. Read the rest
