Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 9:30PM In the crazed travelling of Oscar rev-up season it occurs to me that I never wrote about my London theater-going in that blessed October weekend. While I was in that great great city, I saw two favorite actresses in plays centered around their gifts: one was a revelation, the other a canny reminder.
Imelda & Nicole triumph after the jump...
Wednesday, October 7, 2015 at 9:00AM While there may have been no news for years on that proposed (new) Anne Hathaway as Judy Garland biopic, that hasn't stopped other creatives from continuing to rob her grave. Will Judy ever rest in peace?
Not that we mind entertainment projects periodically winning The World's Greatest Entertainer new generations of fans whose parents weren't even born until after she died. But it does occassionally strike even this diehard Judy G fan as creepy, this perpetual exhuming of her corpse... If any of these projects came with a guarantee of pristine restorations and theatrically released revivals of her films outside of The Wizard of Oz, we'd grab a shovel ourselves!
Playbill reports that a new biographical Judy Garland musical will be heading (eventually... 2018?) to the Broadway stage. The twist is this: less tragic. The jukebox musical, which already has backing and which will be dubbed "Chasing Rainbows," apparently ends with The Wizard of Oz... the beloved classic that was released when Judy was all of 17 years old. The seeds of her tragedy were already planted by then of course but they had yet to bloom.
The Judy Garland story with a vaguely happy ending? Curious.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 10:10AM 
You've heard the news by now that Nicole Kidman will make an appearance on TV's mega-smash "Empire" at some point to be determined. Apparently her guest gig was meant to have happened already but her London run in Photograph 51 prevented it (hmmm. which role was it originally we wonder - have you been watching Season 2?)
Interview magazine, smart devils that they are, hooked her back up with Lee Daniels for their latest issue (with photos by Fabien Baron) and it's clear that the two were tight as bandits on the set of The Paperboy (2012) and feel each other as kindred spirits.
LEE DANIELS: Nic! Hi, honey. I just spoke to Chris yesterday. He told me that you were having the time of your life in London.
NICOLE KIDMAN: I am. I'm having a really good time here.
DANIELS: I was disappointed to hear that because, of course, I want you on my set. [both laugh]
The interview is full of "naughty" memories like why Nicole was dancing in the rain with Zac Efron in his undies in that infamous film, and her fearless dive-in commitment and 'use everything' approach to acting.
DANIELS: Does your personal life ever bleed into the work? In other words, if something is fucked up in your personal life—family, husband, kids, parents, friends, what you're going through—does any of that ever bleed into your work?
KIDMAN: Yeah, but we're taught to bring everything—the state of being, the environment—and use it. If it's raining, or the other actor doesn't know his lines, everything has to be used. So your own emotional state comes into play, and I certainly remember that happening a lot on, say, The Hours, when I was going through an enormous amount of turmoil. And even though it was appropriate at times for the character [Virginia Woolf], at other times it wasn't. But I would just bleed it in; it would manifest in different ways. For me, the idea of having a plan, that you've got to hit this particular place, shuts down other possibilities. And that's probably why I work well with you because you're also like that. You see something, you jump on it. Jane Campion is the same. You are very similar in the sense that everything is so detailed, and everything you see, or sense intuitively, you focus on and pull out.
There's also asides to talking theater with The Lovely Laura Linney (!), and how her voracious reading habits as a child (Tolstoy at 12, hee) led her to acting.
It's a must read so go there...
Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 5:00PM Stage Door is taking a little trip across the Atlantic, since David is lucky enough to live in London, where TFE deity Nicole Kidman is currently treading the boards in Photograph 51.
Every article announcing Nicole Kidman’s return to the London stage made reference to the infamous review labeling her “pure theatrical Viagra” when she first played in the West End in 1998’s The Blue Room. Seventeen years on, the subject of Photograph 51 could hardly seem more antithetical: Rosalind Franklin’s passion in life is her work, the groundbreaking research into the structure of DNA, her part in which has been forgotten by mainstream history, partially due to her premature death from ovarian cancer before her male peers were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work.
Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 10:20AM Manuel here with some big Denzel Washington news. While talking at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Washington revealed he has signed a deal with HBO to bring all ten of August Wilson’s plays to the screen. Yes, all ten!
