NEW YORK (AP) — Jesse Williams vowed not to be discouraged after leaked video and images of his onstage nude scene in the Broadway play “Take Me Out” were posted online.
NEW YORK (AP) — Video of a naked Jesse Williams captured onstage in a shower scene from a Broadway play has been posted online, prompting an outcry from the producers and the union that represents actors and stage managers.
Some reactions from Tony Award nominees on Monday:
"Coming out of the pandemic, I just feel a validation and a further mandate to keep digging down into the Blackness of my art and to put that forward as something that’s worth paying attention to and shelling out money to produce and shelling out money to come and see because it is worth it.
NEW YORK (AP) — “A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s critically cheered theater meta-journey earned a leading 11 Tony Award nominations Monday as Broadway joined the national discussion of race by embracing an envelope-pushing Black-written and Black-led musical.
OBERAMMERGAU, Germany (AP) — Almost 400 years ago, the Catholic residents of a small Bavarian village vowed to perform a play of “the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ” every 10 years, if only God would spare them any further losses from the plague known as the Black Death.
NEW YORK (AP) — There is a cosmic deliciousness to the fact that “A Strange Loop” has landed on Broadway mere yards away from one of its juiciest targets.
In the new musical that opened Tuesday at the Lyceum Theatre, we meet the character Usher, an unhappy playwright slumming as an usher at “The Lion King,” which in real life is playing just across 7th Avenue at the Miskoff Theatre.
NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of notebooks, scripts, speeches, drafts of letters, artwork and even signed baseballs owned by the late playwright Neil Simon have been donated to the Library of Congress. The collection offers offering historians and researchers access to the creative process of American theater’s most successful and prolific playwright.
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Robert Morse, who won a Tony Award as a hilariously brash corporate climber in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and a second one a generation later as the brilliant, troubled Truman Capote in “Tru,” has died.
LONDON (AP) — To run or not to run - that is the question troubling Donald Trump at the start of Mike Bartlett’s play “The 47th,” an audaciously Shakespearean take on recent and future U.S. politics.
NEW YORK (AP) — Playwright Noah Haidle's Broadway debut is all about time and yet none was on his side as the pandemic closed in.
Rehearsals for his play “Birthday Candles” were in their second week in March 2020 when his career achievement was snatched away.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Josh Brolin grew up on California’s central coast knowing men like Royal Abbott, the laconic and emotionally distant rancher he plays in “Outer Range.” The actor is glad he’s not one of them.
LONDON (AP) — An intimate, sold-out production of “Cabaret” was the big winner at Sunday’s Olivier Awards, taking seven prizes including acting trophies for its high-voltage stars, Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley.
LONDON (AP) — The winners of the 2022 Olivier Awards, handed out Sunday for achievement in London theater, opera and dance:
NEW YORK (AP) — Author, playwright and longtime champion of multiculturalism Ishmael Reed is receiving a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to literature.
Reed is among this year's winners of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, given for work that “confronts racism and explores diversity," the Cleveland Foundation announced Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Playwright and author Thornton Wilder is being honored in multiple ways during 2022, with new productions of his plays, the first-ever staging of an unfinished script and new editions of his works being published to mark the 125th anniversary of his birth.
NEW YORK (AP) — During the pandemic, people have made a lot of noise about nurses, cheering them on and banging pots and pans. But have we really listened to them?
Rank-and-file nurses are getting a chance to talk about how they've navigated the last few harrowing years as part of a theater project that is hosting a free Zoom reading of Sophocles’ 2,500-year-old play “Antigone.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor-playwright-educator Anna Deavere Smith, playwright Adrienne Kennedy and author-essayist Phillip Lopate are among this year's recipients of career achievement prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
LONDON (AP) — Qatar's investment in sports has extended to the ownership of Paris Saint-Germain launching a new global tour for the squash-tennis racket game of padel.
The Qatar Sports Investments-backed Premier Padel tour has scheduled at least 10 tournaments each year — starting in Doha later this month.
NEW YORK (AP) — During February, a special ritual takes place backstage at “The Lion King” musical on Broadway.
On show days, the four young actors who play the lion cubs Simba and Nala seek out fellow actor Bonita J.
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — America’s 33rd president is taking center stage over Presidents Day weekend in the Florida Keys as Clifton Truman Daniel, Harry Truman’s oldest grandson, depicts his grandfather in the one-man play “Give ’Em Hell, Harry!” at the former commander in chief’s one-time retreat.
Ricky Ian Gordon headed downtown where his “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” was being premiered by the New York City Opera on Jan. 27. When not absorbed with that, he walked from his Upper West Side home to Lincoln Center, where previews were being staged of his “Intimate Apparel” ahead of opening night a few days later.
NEW YORK (AP) — Elaine May is receiving a literary prize named for a director and stage performer she knew well.
The 89-year-old May is this year's recipient of the PEN/Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award, a $25,000 prize established in 2019 to honor the legacy of Nichols, whose many achievements included his work with May as one of the leading comedy duos of the late 1950s and early '60s.
Celebrity birthdays for the week of Jan. 16-22:
Jan. 16: Opera singer Marilyn Horne is 88. Singer Barbara Lynn is 80. Country singer Ronnie Milsap is 79. Singer Katherine Anderson Schaffner of The Marvelettes is 78.
NEW YORK (AP) — Sidney Poitier, who played roles of such dignity and intelligence that he transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, becoming along the way the first Black actor to win an Oscar for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, has died.
NEW YORK (AP) — Keenan Scott II made his Broadway acting debut this week in “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” which is a remarkable milestone. It's even more remarkable when you consider he also wrote it.
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— Stephen Karam adapts his Tony-winning play “The Humans,” about three generations gathering in a prewar New York apartment for Thanksgiving, into a feature debuting on Showtime and in theaters on Wednesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — Alice Childress’ searing play “Trouble in Mind” has finally made it to Broadway and the only frustrating thing about the show is that it has taken this long.
The two-act play takes place — appropriately enough — on a Broadway stage and is an uncomfortable exploration of the racial divide in the 1950s.
MADRID (AP) — A leading Cuban pro-democracy activist has vowed to return to his home country only hours after he and his wife landed in Spain following pressure by authorities in Cuba and their supporters that, he said, had become unbearable for the couple.
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's top diplomat said Wednesday that the fizzled attempt by young activists to encourage anti-government protests this week was a failure in political communication by the organizers, who he again accused of being supported by U.S.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — After days of mounting pressure by Cuban authorities, Yunior García, a leading activist against the communist regime who was trying to organize banned pro-democracy marches, unexpectedly left the country and flew to Spain on Wednesday with his wife.
Chase Young will not play the rest of this season after injuring his right leg and is scheduled to undergo surgery.
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— Tennis anyone? In “King Richard,” Will Smith plays Richard Williams, father and tennis guru to Venus and Serena Williams.
“Tick, Tick... BOOM!,” Lin-Manuel Miranda's affectionate, well-crafted adaptation of Jonathan Larson's “rock monologue,” captures all that's grand and beautiful about musical theater, and a little of what can make it insufferable, too.
NEW YORK (AP) — Three years ago, Lauren Ridloff gave an interview that concluded with the actor contemplating what she wanted to do next.
At that point, Ridloff only had one major role under her belt, albeit an acclaimed one.
NEW YORK (AP) — Audra McDonald is going from host of the Tony Awards to another stage role.
The six-time Tony-winner will return to Broadway in the play “Ohio State Murders” by Adrienne Kennedy, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.
NEW YORK (AP) — At the Tony Awards, John Legend played live with cast members from the Broadway musical “Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations.” Now he's going further and joining the show's producing team.
NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway is in need of a boost these days so it has smartly called on one of its most beloved, award-winning stage veterans for help — Audra McDonald.
McDonald has been tapped to host the Tony Awards on Sunday, a telecast which theater producers hope can serve as a splashy advertisement that a post-pandemic Broadway is inching back to normalcy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Melvin Van Peebles, the groundbreaking filmmaker, playwright and musician whose work ushered in the “blaxploitation” wave of the 1970s and influenced filmmakers long after, has died.
NEW YORK (AP) — Most playwrights who dip their toes into musical theater for the first time go small. Not Katori Hall: Her first assignment was to capture the life of a musical giant — Tina Turner.
NEW YORK (AP) — One of the most intriguing parts of the costumes at the Broadway play “A Soldier's Story” was something the audience likely never saw.
Each of the 12 actors wore uniforms carefully reflecting the attire of real soldiers in 1944.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — The Patriots made some big plays in their season opener against the Dolphins. They were overshadowed by bigger mistakes.
New England had more first downs than Miami, converted a higher percentage of third downs, had more success running the ball, and finished with more total yards.