READY: GREAT Cast for Staged Reading of Dustin Lance Black's Prop 8 Play!

Casting additions to the Broadway staged reading of '8', Dustin Lance Black's dramatization of the Prop 8 trial, have been added to and confirmed by the American Foundation for Equal Rights: Academy, Tony and four-time Emmy Award nominee Bob Balaban; acclaimed “White Collar” television star Matt Bomer; Emmy Award-winning journalist Campbell Brown; celebrated playwright and gay rights activist Larry Kramer; two-time Academy Award-nominated, multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning, two-time Tony Award-winning actor John Lithgow; Tony Award nominee and Broadway Impact Co-Founder Rory O’Malley; and Emmy Award winner and three-time Golden Globe Award nominee Bradley Whitford will appear in the world premiere of “8” on Broadway, joining the previously announced Anthony Edwards, Morgan Freeman, Cheyenne Jackson, Christine Lahti, Rob Reiner, Yeardley Smith and Marisa Tomei. The production is an unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), the case filed by AFER to overturn Proposition 8, which eliminated the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples in California.

It's a one-night-only event on September 19 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Link to ticket info here.

(OUTscene America RE-view): Soul(ful) Sister (Act)!

by MK Scott

OUTscene Editor

The Whoopi star rises as her most famous character (Sister Mary Clarence/Delores) jumps from the Big screen to London to Broadway, This show is Whoopi's lasting legacy. (so fitting that is took over the same Theater that once housed Oprah's The Color Purple a few years back!) 

While in NY, I had a great experience of attending the Tuesday, August 23rd performance of 'Sister Act, The Musical'. My date for the Evening was Dot429's event extraordinare, Jason Dorn and we were thrilled with our Seats (Row I, Seats 102 and 103) and the glitter and soul made an enjoyable evening.

(OUTscene America RE-view): Broadway's Spider-Man, Better than you think!

by MK Scott

OUTscene Editor

Since I had to be in NY anyway, I had to see Spider-man: Turn off the Dark to find out what the fuss was about.

COMMANDED: Performance of Dustin Lance Black’s new play “8″ attracts all-star cast!

An all-star cast has been assembled for the Sept. 9 benefit staged reading of 8, Dustin Lance Black’s play about California’s Prop. 8 trial, according to Greg in Hollywood.

Check out this cast: Oscar winners Morgan Freeman and Marisa Tomei, Cheyenne Jackson, Rob Reiner, Christine Lahti, and Anthony Edwards!

The reading will be performed Sept. 19 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in New York and is a benefit for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. It is being directed by Tony Award–winning actor and director Joe Mantello.

The show will follow the trial of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case AFER filed with the federal district court to overturn Prop.8, the gay marriage bill that struck down the right for gay and lesbian couples to marry in California.

SUCCESS: It’s official: Darren Criss is Broadway bound!

We knew this was a possibility but how great to know that it’s now official: Glee sensation Darren Criss will make his Broadway debut in January replacing Daniel Radcliffe in the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Radcliffe’s final performance is on Jan. 1, 2012 and Criss will step in beginning Jan. 3 for a three-week run that concludes Jan. 22.

Director/choreographer Rob Ashford said: “Daniel gives an extraordinary performance eight times a week and we knew finding someone to fill his shoes would be nearly impossible. When we learned of Darren’s dream of performing on Broadway we knew we had found our Finch but presumed his “Glee” schedule would eliminate any chance to work with him. We are ecstatic and grateful to Ryan Murphy and his “Glee” team at 20th Century Fox TV for helping to make both Darren’s and our dream come true.”

SHOWTIME: Three Gay Couples Married on Broadway at 'Hair' Performance!

Sunday night at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, following the performance of Hair, Tony Award nominee Colman Domingo (The Scottsboro Boys), who got ordained for the occasion, married three same-sex couples in celebration of the passage of marriage equality in New York state.

Those married were actress and singer Terri White (Finian's Rainbow; Follies) and her partner, jewelry designer Donna Barnett; actor Ryan Dietz (The Actor's Fund's Chess) and his partner, playwright Josh Levine (who also works at the Theatre Communications Group); and Broadway stage doorman John Raymond Barker and his partner, Jujamcyn theatre usher Jared Pike.

Dustin Lance Black's Latest Project Puts Proposition 8 Center Stage

The 37-year old screenwriter and activist who achieved fame, fortune and an Oscar for his work on Milk, Dustin Lance Black, spent the last six months sifting through thousands of transcripts from the Proposition 8 trial (Actually OUTview's own Ryan Burr spotted Black at the Trial) and has turned them into a play, 8.

The play, which features dramatized adaptations of all the California gay marriage trial's main characters, will hold its first reading on September 19th at the Eugene O'Neill Theater in New York City, the New York Times reports: [The new play] will be performed in a staged reading on Broadway in September and then produced at Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern, the University of Michigan, and elsewhere.

The play consists mostly of verbatim dialogue and statements from the trial transcript, Mr. Black said, as well as his own observations from sitting in the courtroom most days and interviewing people on both sides of the case.
...
“One of my hopes about the trial was to get the opposition in court, hands raised swearing to tell the truth, and have the world see the opposition called to account for going on TV saying gay people harm children, harm families,” Mr. Black said. “Since the trial itself wasn’t heard or seen, I wanted to get that story out another way.”

No word on who will star in the reading, but producers promise "a cast of top Hollywood names and Broadway's finest."

Gay NY Couples to Wed on Stage Following Broadway Performance of 'Hair': VIDEO

Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director, The Public Theater), Rory O'Malley (Book of Mormon, Broadway Impact) and Jordan Roth (President, Jujamcyn Theaters), announced at a press conference yesterday that the St. James Theatre, where Hair is staged, would host several same-sex weddings following a performance of the show on July 25, the day after marriage equality becomes legal in the state.

On TARGET: Spidey Musical Finally Opens!

After multiple delays, a record-breaking 183 preview performances, and so many mishaps that "troubled" seemed like part of its name, the Spider-Man musical officially opened on Broadway Tuesday night. True to form, the curtain rose for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark almost an hour later than scheduled, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

Audience members at the most expensive production in Broadway history included Bill Clinton, who was seated with daughter Chelsea and Bono, who wrote the show's music with U2 bandmate The Edge and complained about being stifled by former director Julie Taymor. "It works," Clinton said during intermission. "The sets are great, the choreography is great. I love it. The story really hangs together." Taymor, who was ousted by producers in March, was ushered to the stage during the curtain call.

So GAY: Book of Mormon Sweeps GAY Tonys!

Broadway's gaspingly irreverent Book of Mormon took home nine Tony Awards last night, winning everything from Best Musical to Best Score to Best Direction to Best Actress in a musical (Nikki M. James). "You did it, Joseph! You got the Tony!" joked the co-creator of the musical, Trey Parker, referring to Mormon founder Joseph Smith. It was one more dig linked to an over-the-top musical that jokes about Mormon missionaries, misery, gun-toting African war-lords, and sex with babies. Asked backstage if he and fellow South Park writer Matt Stone will jinx their chances in heaven for spoofing spiritual matters, Parker quipped that he'll tell God to "look at the box office." 

Puppeteering anti-war masterpiece War Horse won five awards, while the revival of Larry Kramer's play about AIDS The Normal Heart, and Anything Goes won three top spots each, AP reports. Frances McDormand won Best Actress in a play for Good People and Mark Rylance won top actor honors for Jerusalem. The top directing award for a play went to Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris for the tear-jerker War Horse. "We quite like it when people cry," Morris quipped.

It's WAR!- Streisand vs Kramer Regarding 'Normal Heart' Film!

When Barbra Streisand issued a statement last summer applauding the overturning of Proposition 8, Larry Kramer pounced.


His anger at her for acquiring the film rights to his play The Normal Heart but never making a movie was well known but the scathing post he wrote on the actup.org website was really beyond the pale. It said in part: “Barbra Streisand is a hypocrite. If she had made my play about aids, The Normal Heart, in 1986, when she first acquired the rights, only to sit on them for a full ten years without filming it, she could have done something for gay rights when we were really in the sewer of death. But no, she chose to go off and make such vitally important and classic movies as Nuts and The Mirror Has Two Faces.

In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, Streisand has finally reacted publicly and said: “When he printed that diatribe on the web, I was very hurt by it, because it’s not true. I started to write [a response] but then decided not to do it. It was wonderful to read some of the comments from the gay community about this. They fought the battle for me. It was really lovely for all these people to come to my defense.”

OBIT: Gay Icon Arthur Laurents, Dead at 93!

Arthur Laurents, writer of landmark Broadway musicals including West Side Story and Gypsy, has died at his Manhattan home at the age of 93. Laurents' career as a playwright spanned seven decades. He also enjoyed success as a director and as screenwriter of movie classics including Rope and The Way We Were, AP reports. The Brooklyn-born Laurents served as a writer of military training films and radio scripts during World War II. His first Broadway play, 1945's Home of the Brave, dealt with anti-Semitism in the military.

The famously blunt writer once told the New York Times that he was happiest alone, putting his daydreams on paper. "I say mean things as a defense," he told the Los Angeles Times in a 1984 interview during the smash success of La Cage Aux Folles, which he directed. "People who get their feelings hurt don't realize I have a very developed set of defenses. But also I will not suffer fools and amateurs." Laurents' partner of 52 years, actor-turned-real estate developer Tom Hatcher, died in 2006.

NOMINATIONS: 2011 Tony Awards

Nominations for the 2011 American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards®
Presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. Biggest Snubs: Priscilla and Daniel Radcliffe.

Best Play
Good People
Author: David Lindsay-Abaire

Jerusalem
Author: Jez Butterworth

The Motherf**ker with the Hat
Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis

War Horse
Author: Nick Stafford

Best Musical
The Book of Mormon
Catch Me If You Can (World Premiere in Seattle)
The Scottsboro Boys
Sister Act

Revival of a Play
Arcadia
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Merchant of Venice
The Normal Heart
Best Revival of a Musical
Anything Goes
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Not DRAG: George Hamilton set for ‘La Cage’ Tour!

The producers of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES have announced today that George Hamilton will star in the upcoming national tour of the show as Georges. The national tour of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES will be produced by Barry and Fran Weissler, Sonia Friedman Productions and David Babani in association with NETworks Presentations, reports Broadway World.

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES tells the story of Georges, the owner of a glitzy nightclub in lovely Saint-Tropez, and his partner Albin, who moonlights as the glamorous chanteuse Zaza. When Georges' son brings his fiancée's conservative parents home to meet the flashy pair, the bonds of family are put to the test as the feather boas fly! LA CAGE AUX FOLLES is a tuneful and touching tale of one family's struggle to stay together... stay fabulous... and above all else, stay true to themselves!

Looking forward to the Seattle stop in the 2012-13 season!

The Four J's Discuss 'Tales of the City' Musical!

Director Jason Moore, librettist Jeff Whitty, and composers Jake Shears and John Garden, the creative team behind the forthcoming Tales of the City Musical, talk about how they were introduced to the book.

The show has its world premiere on May 18 at San Francisco's ACT Theatre

Flying Solo—A Video Review Of Broadway Bares: Solo Strips

Broadway Bares: Solo Strips (please donate to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS) at Splash was on Sunday, April 3, More at Boy Culture..
Keep reading to see videos from chorus-boy knock-outs including Matt Skrincosky, Tony Guerrero, Dave August, Rickey Tripp, Tyrone A. Jackson, Andy Mills, Charlie Sutton, Kellen Stancil and Brandon Rubendall.

Tony Nominee Will Swenson to Direct Film of Gay Mormon Play, Facing East

Tony Award nominee and Priscilla Queen of the Desert star Will Swenson will direct the upcoming film adaptation of the Carol Lynn Pearson play Facing East, which centers on a young Mormon man who commits suicide after struggling with his homosexuality, reports Playbill.com.


Emily Pearson and Duane Andersen produce the independent film based on the play that premiered in Salt Lake City in 2006 and transferred Off-Broadway with its original cast intact in 2007 prior to a San Francisco run.

The New York Times reports that production on the film will begin this fall. Pearson is adapting her play for the silver screen. She is also the author of "Goodbye, I Love You," her personal account of her life with her gay husband and his ultimate death from AIDS; and "No More Goodbyes: Circling the Wagons Around Our Gay Loved Ones," a collection of true stories about homosexuality and religion.

Facing East centers on an upstanding Mormon couple coping with the death of their son after attempts to "heal" him from homosexuality has failed. On the day of his funeral, they meet his lover, who shows them a side of their son they never knew, and begin to fully understand their own role in the loss of their child.

Is Streisand back in as Mama Rose in “Gypsy”?

Okay, I’m getting a little confused about all of this too.

First it was reported that Barbra Streisand was going to play Mama Rose in the new feature film version of the great musical Gypsy. The last week, playwright-director Arthur Laurents, one of the rights holders to the work, told the Hartford Courant that the film version was not going to happen.

Now Entertainment Weekly reports: Looks like Rose will rise after all: Universal has confirmed to EW that the studio is in talks to acquire a Gypsy adaptation starring Barbra Streisand, despite reports that the project had been squashed. Apparently, both lyricist Stephen Sondheim and book writer Laurents are still on board.

'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' Opening Night!

Here is a round-up of reviews. The NYT's Charles Isherwood pretty much savaged it. If you're not prepared for something unapologetically gay and high-energy, probably not a good idea to see it. It's light on plot, heavy on joy, which was fine with me.

I've always been a fan of the movie so was anxious to see how it translated. Much of the quirkier tunes on the movie's soundtrack have been replaced by disco and pop classics more familiar to mainstream audiences, so don't expect a repeat musically, though some of the big numbers like Cece Peniston's "Finally" have been retained. I would say some of the more melancholic, darker musical edges of the film have been traded in and the insane wardrobe of the cinema version multiplied and exploded to great effect for the stage. The bus is a vision to behold.

The show is also going to make Nick Adams (Felicia) a star. It's hard to take your eyes off him, or his stacked thighs. Tony Sheldon is also terrific as Bernadette. The force of their personalities make it a bit difficult for Will Swenson (who was terrific as Berger in the recent production of Hair) to stake out distinct territory here!

Even Mario Lopez Gets Along 'Great' With Nick Adams!

Remember those reports from 2008 about Broadway dancer Nick Adams being told to cover up his muscled torso during performances of A Chorus Line once Mario Lopez was brought in as the lead of the show? Well it turns out it was never that much of a rivalry to begin with, or so says Lopez.

In his first public comment since the incident, Lopez told The Daily Beast he never asked for any changes. “It was so not true,” he said. “As you can see, we get along great, we even work out together. That was my first foray into that world and I would never go around saying anything and demanding anything.” Lopez says he has no idea who made the request, but suspects it came from an overly eager producer. When asked whether he was bothered by all the bad press, he said no. “I thought it was funny. We [Nick and I] both got a big kick out of it.” Perhaps the only negative thing to come out of that story is the perception that Adams owes his career to Lopez. “I think after that a lot of people only looked at me as being a body and not an actor,” he said. “I've been doing this my whole life.”

Adams says of the controversy: “It did nothing but help me in the end.” 2(x)ist even opted to shoot an ad campaign with Adams over Lopez. See the impressive result of that photo shoot above!