From Screen to Stage: Priscilla, Mary, Toxie and More

Lots of news on the theater front this week, including the announcements of no less than six new projects making their way From Screen to Stage:

- That half dozen includes musical versions of Ghost (with music by Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, and Bruce Joel Rubin adapting his own Oscar winning screenplay), Heathers (from the creators of the mucalized Reefer Madness and Legally Blonde), My Man Godfrey (by Urinetown Tony winner Mark Hollmann), Sleepless in Seattle (with tunes by Academy Award-winner Leslie Bricusse) and The Thomas Crown Affair (courtesy of Michael Feinstein), as well as a non-musical stage adaptation of The Kite Runner.

- The absolutely fabulous Priscilla Queen of the Desert – the Musical trekked all the way from Down Under to make its London debut this week prior to an official opening on March 24.

- The Catch Me If You Can musical (with a book by Terrence McNally and songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman) is shaping up for its world premiere in Seattle this summer. The cast will include Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron Tveit, Tom Wopat and Kerry Butler in the roles created onscreen by (respectively) Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Walken and Amy Adams.

- Movie Dearest fave Cheyenne Jackson took to the cabaret stage at Feinstein's recently for two sold out shows. Broadway.com has an exclusive video of the event, and you can also catch Cheyenne's recent guest appearances on Life on Mars and Ugly Betty at ABC.com.


- The North American national tour of Disney's Mary Poppins, starring Broadway originals Ashley Brown and Gavin Lee as Mary and Bert, took its first flight in Chicago yesterday.

- The Toxic Avenger will invade Off-Broadway starting March 18. The cast recently took to the recording study for the upcoming cast album,which will include such toxic tunes as "It's a Brand New Day in New Jersey", "Kick Your Ass" and "Bitch Slut Liar Whore".

- Who knew Dr. Bailey could sing? Grey's Anatomy's MVP Chandra Wilson will trade in her scrubs for the glitz and glamour of Broadway's Chicago as Matron "Mama" Morton starting June 8.

- Hollywood's favorite musical go-to-gal will get her own biopic titled Uncredited — The Marni Nixon Story.


- The hit West End production of La Cage aux Folles (recently headlined by Graham Norton) won Olivier Awards for Best Musical Revival and Best Actor in a Musical for its original Zaza, Douglas Hodge.

- After running a contest to find a replacement lyric for their "For Now" finale, Avenue Q is sticking with "George Bush" after all. An alternative, "Prop 8", will be heard when the Tony Award-winning show tours (naturally) California.

- Xanadu heads for Asia, while Cubby Bernstein heads to DVD.

- And finally: Among the film projects now rumored for freshly Oscar'ed Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle is the planned remake of My Fair Lady.

Women We Love: Audrey Hepburn

Object of our affection: Audrey Hepburn, beloved award winning actress (including all of the top four: Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy) of stage and screen, fashion icon and selfless humanitarian.

- Her first leading role on film was in the classic romantic comedy Roman Holiday, which made her an instant star and brought the actress her first (and only successful) Oscar nomination. She would be nominated four more times, for Sabrina, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Wait Until Dark.

- Other classic movies she starred in include War and Peace, Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon, The Children's Hour, Charade, My Fair Lady, How to Steal a Million, Two for the Road and Robin and Marion. Her final film was Steven Spielberg's Always.

- She received two Tony Awards for her work on Broadway, one for her performance in Ondine and a special award in 1968. Her Broadway debut was as the title role in Gigi.

- Her Emmy and Grammy, which were both won posthumously, were for the PBS documentary series Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn and the spoken word album Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales, respectively.

- Other honors include the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work as Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, three BAFTA Film Awards, two Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Cecil B. DeMille Award and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She was also named the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute in 1999.

Women We Love: Keira Knightley

Object of our affection: Keira Knightley, actress.

- Her first major role was in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, but her big breakthrough came with the crowd pleaser, Bend It Like Beckham.

- More smaller films followed (including playing Lara in a TV remake of Doctor Zhivago), but she really became a star when she took on the part of swashbuckling siren Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. She returned for the two sequels, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End.

- Next, she was part of the large ensemble of Love Actually, played an ass-kicking Guinevere in King Arthur and Laurence Harvey's bounty hunter daughter in Domino.

- She received her first Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as Elizabeth Bennet in the 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice. Another Globe nod came with last year's Atonement.

- As the title character in this week's The Duchess, she could get more award recognition, as could her turn in an upcoming version as King Lear, wherein she'll play Cordelia. She is also rumored for the part of Eliza Dolittle in the upcoming remake of My Fair Lady.

Women We Love: Emma Thompson

Object of our affection: Emma Thompson, actress/ writer.

- Warm and witty, she's the actress at the top of my "fantasy celebrity dinner party" invite list. In sharp contrast -- proof of her amazing talent -- she plays the cold and calculating matriarch at the center of the new Brideshead Revisited (opening wide this weekend), a performance already gaining whispers of Oscar #3 for Miss Thompson.

- She won Oscar #1 (along with every other award known to man) for her breakthrough role in Howards End. Two nominations at once followed, for The Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father, and then again for writing and starring in Sense and Sensibility; Oscar #2 came for adapting the Jane Austen classic to the screen.

- Prior to all that, she co-starred with her then husband Kenneth Branagh in Henry V, Dead Again, Peter's Friends and Much Ado About Nothing (she is currently married to her Sense co-star Greg Wise). Other notable film roles include The Tall Guy, Impromptu, Junior, Carrington, Primary Colors, Treasure Planet, Love Actually, Nanny McPhee (which she also wrote), Stranger Than Fiction and two Harry Potter movies (so far) as the loopy divination professor Sybil Trelawney.

- On television, she won an Emmy for hilariously playing a closeted lesbian (and Ohioan) version of herself on Ellen, and received nominations for Wit (for both acting and writing) and the landmark Angels in America.

- After Brideshead, her next films include the 60's set coming of age drama An Education, the late in life romantic drama Last Chance Harvey and the rock radio comedy The Boat That Rocked. Plus, she has just revealed that she will adapt George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion for the planned remake of the beloved musical My Fair Lady.

Women We Love: Julie Andrews

Object of our affection: Julie Andrews, actress.

- She began her illustrious career on the stage in the original productions of The Boy Friend, My Fair Lady and Camelot; she made a triumphant return to Broadway years later with her Tony Award nominated turn in the stage version of Victor/Victoria.

- Her supercalifragilistic film debut was as the practically perfect title character in the Disney masterpiece Mary Poppins, the role she famously took on when Jack Warner passed her over for the screen version of My Fair Lady; she won the Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA Film Awards for her troubles.

- Poppins made her an instant movie star, and she capitalized on her newfound fame with a string of hits through the 1960's, including the eternal classic The Sound of Music (Oscar nomination), plus The Americanization of Emily, Torn Curtain, Hawaii, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Star!; she strived to change her "wholesome" image with such racier fare as 10, S.O.B. and Victor/Victoria (Oscar nomination), all directed by her husband Blake Edwards; most recently, she has co-starred in the popular Princess Diaries and Shrek movies and narrated Enchanted.

- On television, she starred in the first television production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella and several Emmy Award-winning variety specials, including three with Carol Burnett; she has also starred in such dramatic TV movies as the gay-themed Our Sons, a live version of On Golden Pond and two Eloise movies.

- Her first volume of her autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years(available April 1), covers her pre-Poppins years.

Costume Dramas: Audrey Hepburn Edition

Welcome to Costume Dramas, an occasional feature spotlighting memorable movie costumes. And who better to spotlight first then the best dressed woman in cinematic history, Audrey Hepburn.

Has there ever been, before or since, an actress that was as effortlessly glamorous as Audrey? From the legendary black dress of her Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's to the flower girl gone upper crust stylings of her Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, her classic look has made her a fashion icon for the ages. No wonder the Gap used her Funny Face image to hawk their unworthy wares in an infamous commercial. Heck, she even made a habit look good in The Nun's Story.

Of course, Audrey merely wore the clothes; but the designers behind them were amply rewarded beyond that honor: six of her films were nominated for Best Costume Design, with three ultimately winning the Oscar.

Out in Film: George Cukor

Idol worship: George Cukor, director.

- He was known as a "director of women's pictures", studio era Hollywood-speak for a gay director. Regardless of whatever negative connotation that term elicited, he nevertheless emerged as one of the best "director of women's pictures", from screwball comedies to weepy melodramas to big budget musicals.

- He directed Katharine Hepburn ten times, including such certified classics as Little Women, The Philadelphia Story and Adam's Rib.

- More from his list of leading ladies: Jean Harlow (Dinner at Eight), Greta Garbo (Camille), Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind, uncredited "coaching"), Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight), Deborah Kerr (Edward, My Son), Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday), Judy Garland (A Star is Born), Marilyn Monroe (Let's Make Love) and the entire cast of The Women.

- Nominated a total of five times for the Oscar, he won for My Fair Lady starring another (unrelated) Hepburn, Audrey.

- His final film was Rich and Famous, which starred two more screen beauties, Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen.

Blonde Ambitions

For the first item in this week's From Screen to Stage, I'll channel big screen - to stage - to small screen star Elle Woods:

- "Ohmygod, you guys! It's only, like, one week until Legally Blonde - The Musical makes its TV debut on, like, MTV! The totally fab Broadway Blog thinks it's, like, an awesome idea, and check out all the pics and chat, like, live from the pink carpet!"

(Whew, that was exhausting ... how does Laura Bell Bundy do it every night?)

UPDATE: Ohmygod, they've postponed it! According to QueerSighted.com, Legally Blonde - The Musical won't air on MTV until Saturday October 13! A quick check of the MTV website confirms this -- so unfair! So, like, here's a montage of clips from the show to tide you over until then.

- New York movie musical fans take note: the "lost" Porgy and Bess movie (starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge) will be screened next week at the Ziegfeld Theatre. And this will be the rare original road show print, with overture, intermission music and exit music ... could a long-in-demand DVD be far behind?

- Speaking of older film favorites not on DVD, the movie version of The Ritz (starring original Broadway cast members Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller and F. Murray Abraham) will finally be released in January. This comes on the heels of the current revival starring Kevin Chamberlin and Rosie Perez. Meanwhile, Playbill.com's own Seth Rudetsky recounts his opening night trials and tribulations in his latest column.

- As Chicago celebrates its tenth year in London, could Tori Spelling and hubby Dean McDermott be Broadway's next Roxie and Billy?

- There are worse things Rizzo herself, Jenny Powers, could do then give fans a video backstage tour of Grease. In related news, Playbill News wonders "where are the You're the One That I Want stars now?", including Derek Keeling (smoldering up A Tale of Two Cities), Ashley Spencer (Hairspray's current Amber) and Kate Rockwell (Phantom's latest Christine).

- On the gay icons front: Rosie love Billy, Harvey has his Catered Affair and Ian rakes it in as King Lear. Plus: a "lost" Noel Coward play is found.

- Happy Days are here again - live and onstage. By the cast breakdown, it appears as if the new tuner is based on that episode where Fonzie and his newly reunited love Pinky Tuscadero take on the Malachi Brothers. Hey, at least it isn't the shark one.

- As I mentioned last week, West Side Story is turning 50 this year, and yet another album of its legendary score will be released to commemorate the occasion. But, unlike the previously mentioned (and already panned) compilation album, this will be a new recording, featuring opera singers in the lead roles. Uh, didn't they already try thatonce?

You can pre-order the West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Recordingfrom Amazon.com, available September 25, by clicking here.

- Are you itching to see the Cry-Baby musical? Well, here's our first look at the cast. Hey look, Harriet Harris!

- Those Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are going back on tour.

- Speaking of tours, Broadway World TV interviews The Color Purple tour star Jeannette Bayardelle.

- First, he was the King of Siam, now he's the Prince of Darkness. Ladies and gentlemen: Lorenzo Lamas is Dracula.

- "Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?" Donnie Darko hits the stage.

- Sally Ann Howes, who you'll recall was Truly Scrumptious in every way in the classic movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, is now Mrs. Higgins in the acclaimed My Fair Lady tour.

- It will be a White Christmas in Toronto this holiday season.

- Über-producer Cameron Mackintosh will bring several musical theater classics to Chinese audiences, including the French Les Miserables, the Swedish Mamma Mia! and the British Mary Poppins.

- And finally: Mark your calendars for next year's Tony Awards.

Links via BroadwayMouth.blogspot.com, Broadway.com, Playbill.com, QueerSighted.com, YouTube.com, BroadwayWorld.com, MSNBC.msn.com and IHT.com.

Horse Play With Daniel Radcliffe

The weekly look at all that's in the works from Broadway to Hollywood and back again:

- For you muggles out there who couldn't make it to London for his au naturale performance in Equus, Daniel Radcliffe promises that he will soon be blinding horses stateside by the end of next year, if all goes well. Radcliffe's Harry Potter uncle Richard Griffiths (Tony winner for The History Boys) will co-star.

- Like, ohmygod! Taking their cue from Hairspray and Grease (both of which have been benefiting nicely from exposure in other mediums), Legally Blonde will soon be filmed live for a future broadcast on MTV. And if you so desire (and are willing to wear a pink shirt), you can even be in the audience.

- Speaking of Grease (and really, when are we not?), meet the revival's scene-stealing Rizzo, Jenny Powers, and check out the track list for the newest cast recording, on sale October 2 (Click here to pre-order the new albumfrom Amazon.com).

Meanwhile, Grease: You're the One That I Want hostess Denise Van Outen has (get this) been cast as the militant Maureen in London's Rent. Not to be catty, but isn't she a teensy bit past her prime mooing years?

- In more music news, original Maureen Idina Menzel has released a club mix of her big Wicked showstopper, the divalicious "Defying Gravity". Click here to purchase the CDfrom Amazon.com.

- As playwright Terrence McNally and stars Rosie Perez and Kevin Chamberlin chat up The Ritz, Seth Rudetsky dishes on his co-star/fellow "bathhouse patron" Ryan Idol. Seth also recounts his recent one-on-one with Xanadu hunk Cheyenne Jackson.

- Get ready to return to La Cage aux Folles, via a West End revival; no word yet if the star of the recent New York run, Gary Beach, will "strap on his fake boobs again" for it though.

Elsewhere, this is what the Episcopalians think about a high school musical about drag queens. Who woulda thunk it?

- Director Rob Marshall has revealed his star-studded, international cast for his big screen adaptation of Nine, although only one (Sophia Loren) is actually Italian.

- "They're the Dreamgirls ..." The originals, that is: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Loretta Devine and Jennifer Holliday will reunite in LA for a "one night only" benefit performance. And I'm telling you, I'm going ... (OK, I'll stop now.)

- Tours from around the world: 42nd Street in China, Little Shop of Horrors in the UK and 12 Angry Men in the US of A.

- Billy Elliot, soon to be grande jeté-ing his way to Broadway, celebrates his 1,000th performance in London.

- Angela Arden has found her son. Charles Busch will be joined in Die Mommie Die! with current gay soap sensation Van Hansis (a.k.a. As the World Turns' Luke Snyder).

- In an unusual move, the producers of Young Frankenstein will reportedly not release the show's weekly grosses. Hmmm ...

- The 39 Steps is stepping closer to Broadway.

- In our Hairspray news of the week, the title of this Playbill article says it all: "Love Finds Beaver Cleaver".

- Do video games and show tunes mix? We'll find out when The Last Starfighter takes to the stage.

- Remember the opening number of the movie Hair, with all the hippies dancing about, all Twyla Tharp-y like, in the middle of Central Park? Well, now you'll be able to see that in person.

- While Claire Danes (who, having never seen My Fair Lady, must have had a really sad childhood) prepares for George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, John Lithgow mulls a return to Broadway with Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

- I don't know why but I don't care: the San Francisco Jersey Boys will perform on next Sunday's Emmy Award telecast. For a taste of the original Broadway Four Seasons, here's their electrifying performance at last year's Tony Awards.

Links via MoviesBlog.MTV.com, Playbill.com, Broadway.com, AfterEllen.com, AfterElton.com and YouTube.com.

Oh, Mamma Mia!

This week's From Screen to Stage kicks off with two of the biggest mothers to hit Broadway:

- Yes, that is the first look at Meryl Streep in the upcoming movie version of Mamma Mia! As for the other "mamma" pictured? It is none other then Michael Ball as Edna Turnblad in the long-awaited London production of Hairspray.

Speaking of Hairspray, the tuner just celebrated its fifth anniversary on the Great White Way, and current Corny Collins Lance Bass will host the annual "Broadway on Broadway" concert in Times Square.

- After Variety chipped in with its two-cents, the sharks (namely, the New York Post) started circling Disney's The Little Mermaid.

- Elsewhere on the road to New York, Young Frankenstein gets some love from the Seattle Gay News prior to closing its pre-Broadway run.

- In tour news, Chicago ends its long trek as The Wedding Singer begins theirs; and legendary movie muse Marni Nixon joins My Fair Lady.

- Broadway.com shines the spotlight on three recent hits: Legally Blonde, The Lion King and Monty Python's Spamalot.

- Can't make it to New York to see Cheyenne Jackson and Kerry Butler in Xanadu? BroadwayWorld.com has an exclusive video preview just for you.

- Start that clock: Dolly Parton herself says the 9 to 5 musical will hit Broadway in 2009.

- Harvey Fierstein talks all about his Catered Affair.

- Everyone's favorite 70's sitcom neighbor Valerie Harper stars in the movie adaptation of Golda's Balcony.

- All About My Mother premieres in London, while the American musical Chaplin finds new life elsewhere in England. Plus: is it rumor or real -- a Harry Potter musical to fly onto the West End?

- In the works: stage musical versions of The Three Musketeers, Mask (the Cher movie, not the Jim Carrey one), To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath, which is actually an opera.

- And finally: The latest incarnation of Forbidden Broadway (the twenty-fifth!), subtitled Rude Awakening, is now up and running, complete with spoofs of Grey Gardens, Mary Poppins, Legally Blonde and (easy target) Grease: You're The One That We Want.

Links via USAToday.com, MichaelBall.co.uk, Playbill.com, Variety.com, NYPost.com, SGN.org, Broadway.com, BroadwayWorld.com, SundayMirror.co.uk and Imdb.com.

AFI's 100 Movies: Facts & Figures

The AFI Top 10, circa 1998

"Can we ever get enough lists? Lists are the mix tapes of film buffs. Compilations of our favorites, presented to others in the hopes they'll love the selections as much as we do. Building a bond by finding mutual favorites. Showing what we love, and sharing it."

I love that quote (from "Rollerboy" over at AwardsDaily.com). It is such a fitting analogy for why movie lovers make so many lists of the best, worst, most, et cetera. It is also a great way to introduce this, the first of my "Facts & Figures" look at the best of the list makers, the American Film Institute.

The AFI began their annual countdown back in 1998 with this one, the ultimate "best of": AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies. It proved controversial then and, when they redid the poll earlier this year, it was controversial again.

However, whatever the critical pundits said pales in comparison to the exposure this list, and all the AFI lists for that matter, have given to classic films. In my opinion, there is no better starting point for someone interested in American film to use as a reference tool.

Sure, there are many great movies not included (not to mention foreign films and documentaries), but surely this is not the be-all/end-all of anyone's movie watching, nor was it ever intended to be; for example, if someone watches Gone With the Wind, and then moves on to other Clark Gable movies or other historical epics or other romantic dramas and so on, then the AFI -- and these lists -- did the job right.

Facts & Figures:

AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies was presented in 1998. 100 films were selected from a nomination list of 400, and films released in 1996 and prior were eligible.

By the Year:

• The oldest movie on the list: The Birth of a Nation (1915).
• The newest movie on the list: Fargo (1996).
• Most represented decade: The 1950's, with 20 movies total.
• Most represented year: 1939, with 5 movies total.

Sight & Sound:

• Total number of color films: 59 (including The Wizard of Oz, which has some black and white sequences).
• Total number of black and white films: 41 (including The Birth of a Nation, which has some color-tinted sequences).
• Total number of silent films: 5 (including The Jazz Singer, which has some sound sequences, and City Lights and Modern Times, which had soundtracks but no dialogue).

By Genre:

• Most represented genre is drama, with 46 films.
• Comedies come in next with 20 films.

And the Winner Is:

• 98 films on the list were eligible for the Academy Awards (The Birth of a Nation and The Gold Rush were released prior to the Oscars' first year, 1927).
• Total number of Best Picture winners: 33.
• Total number of Best Picture nominees: 41.

The Stars:

• Robert Duvall appears in the most movies, 6.
• James Stewart is the star of the most movies, with 5.
• Other actors who appear in 5 movies are Ward Bond, Robert De Niro and Thomas Mitchell.
• Katharine Hepburn is the most represented actress, with 4 movies.
• Actors who appear in 4 movies include Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, William Holden and Dennis Hopper.
• Note: these totals do not include uncredited bit roles.

The Directors:

• The most represented director is Steven Spielberg, with 5 movies.
• Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder come in second with 4 movies each.

Studio Call:

• United Artist has the most films on the list, with a total of 17.
• Warner Brothers follows with 15.

Miscellanea:

• There are 2 animated films on the list (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia).
• Only 1 sequel made the cut: The Godfather Part II.
• The longest title, with 68 letters, symbols and spaces, is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
• Shortest title: Jaws.

For the full list of 100 movies, see the comments section below (and for the record, I've seen them all!).

Links via AwardsDaily.com and AFI.com.