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Last month playwright Jez Butterworth brought his latest work, “The Hills of California,” to Broadway. The haunting family drama explores the relationships between four sisters and their dying mother in their creaky seaside home, seamlessly moving back and forth in time between 1976 and 1955. The play previously bowed in London earlier this year, and before coming stateside it earned two Olivier Award nominations for Best New Play and Best Actress for Laura Donnelly, who reprises her performance in New York.

Since his Broadway debut only 13 years ago, Butterworth has quickly established himself as one of the theater’s most accomplished contemporary playwrights. He has two Tony nominations to his name, for New York debut “Jerusalem” in 2011 and for his Tony-winning epic “The Ferryman” in 2019. Those nominations alone already tie him with theater royalty including Ayad Akhtar, Tony Kushner, Tracy Letts, David Mamet, Lynn Nottage, Eugene O’Neill, and Wendy Wasserstein — all...

Stephen King has never been shy about expressing his opinions, and his 2013 comments on popular YA and erotic fiction series simply proved his outspoken attitude. Sending shockwaves through the literary world and fandom, the horror genre writer surprisingly took aim at Twilight and even attacked Jennifer Lawrence’s The Hunger Games.

Stephen King on CBS’ Saturday Morning show

In an interview with The Guardian, Stephen King dissed popular works of fiction that have been adapted into films, earning millions. Criticizing Stephenie Meyer’s series, while going ballistic on Suzanne Collins’ trilogy, King also dismissed Fifty Shades of Grey. However, amid showers of criticism, King lauded one writer with utmost praise—J.K. Rowling.

Stephen King’s Attack on Twilight, Hunger Games, and Fifty Shades of Grey

Popularly known as the legendary master of horror, Stephen King shared his take on some of the biggest literary phenomena of recent years. Appearing...

The first question that pops up in connection to Dito Montiel’s dark crime comedy about a messy family reunion, Riff Raff, is how in hell he assembled such a cast of proven talents. Even if they never really mesh as an ensemble, there are pleasures to be had watching an Ed Harris-Bill Murray face-off, Pete Davidson as a depressed gangster, Gabrielle Union classing up the joint and Jennifer Coolidge bringing the tone crashing down as a sloppy drunk with a mouth like a trucker and a raging libido.

Had all those assets been funneled into a movie with some tonal consistency and a script that built credible relationships, the result might have been a nasty bit of fun. Instead, it wobbles awkwardly between creeping mob menace and scrappy sitcom, inching toward a violent climax that still doesn’t acquire cohesion. Montiel, who remains best known for his 2006 autobiographical first feature,...

The emptiness of the old West allowed many to start a new life. This became the critical idea behind westward expansion throughout the 1800s, and eventually, some found the happiness they craved. Catching Dust, the debut narrative feature from Stuart Gatt follows a couple trying to reinvent themselves. However, when new neighbors are dropped in the remote desert where they live, the couple frays at the seams. The secrets they hold may prove dangerous if their new neighbors were to discover the truth.

RELATEDErin Moriarty Movies You Should Definitely Watch If You Love The Boys Catching Dust Plot Summary

Living out on the fringes of the desert, Clyde (Jai Courtney) and Geena (Erin Moriarty) continually fight. Geena believes Clyde took her power to express herself by moving them away from society. In doing so, he disrupts everything about her life, and their love cannot sustain her needs. Clyde worries about...

Exclusive: Laurie Metcalf has signed with CAA.

Metcalf, who stars on ABC’s The Conners, is a four-time Emmy winner and two-time Tony winner. The signing comes at a time of impending change for the actor, with The Connors recently renewed for what will be its seventh and final season. Although a premiere date hasn’t been announced, the very popular comedy is expected back sometime mid-season, probably early 2025.

Three of her four primetime Emmys were for her role in Roseanne, with her most recent win coming in 2022 for her guest appearance on Hacks. She’s been Emmy-nominated an additional eight times.

She was Oscar-nominated for 2017’s Lady Bird written and directed by Greta Gerwig, a performance that also garnered nominations from the Golden Globes, British Film Academy, Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirt Award.

A founding member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Metcalf’s extensive and acclaimed stage...

"The Simpsons" gets a lot of mileage out of its voice actors. Seriously, it feels like half of Springfield is voiced by Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, or Tress MacNeille. Despite the numerous cases of voice actors doubling up, each character in the cast sounds unique and immediately recognizable. Even Maggie Simpson, the perennial infant who never says a word, has her distinctive pacifier sound.

Most of Maggie's baby sounds are provided by Nancy Cartwright (whose primary "Simpsons" is playing Maggie's older brother Bart). On the rare occasions where Maggie does do more than squeal or suck on her binky, the show has brought out some big acting guns.

In season 2's "Bart vs Thanksgiving," Bart imagines his family being angry with him; Maggie declares, "It's your fault I can't talk!" That one line was provided by none other than an uncredited Carol Kane (who these days is rocking it as...

Exclusive: Tony and Grammy winner Steve Kazee has signed with Industry Entertainment for representation.

Kazee won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his starring role as Guy in Broadway’s Once as well as the 2013 Grammy for Musical Theater Album.

He recently starred in and co-produced Lifetime’s Devil On My Doorstep, opposite his fiancée Jenna Dewan, and had a recurring role on ABC’s The Rookie. He previously had recurring roles on The Walking Dead, Shameless and Nashville. Other TV credits include Blindspot, Legends, Working Class, CSI and NCIS.

Other Broadway credits include Monty Python’s Spamalot, Roundabout’s 110 in the Shade, and Edward Albee’s Seascape. Regional credits include The Subject Was Roses at the Kennedy Center, for which Kazee received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best Actor.

Jerry Herman’s musical “Hello, Dolly!” dominated the 18th Tony Awards which took place at the New York Hilton on May 24, 1964. “Hello, Dolly!” entered the ceremony with 11 nominations and walked out with ten awards including best musical, best actress for Carol Channing, original score for Herman and for Gower Champion’s choreography and direction.

Other musicals in contention for multiple awards that year were “High Spirits,” based on Noel Coward’s classic comedy “Blithe Spirit,” “Funny Girl,” which transformed Barbra Streisand into a Broadway superstar, and “110 in the Shade,” based on the straight play “The Rainmaker.”

Bert Lahr, best known as the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz,” won lead actor in a musical for “Foxy,” based on Ben Jonson’s “Volpone.” The musical was not a hit closed after 72 performances. Also nominated in the category was Bob Fosse for a short-lived revival of Rodgers and Hart’s “Pal Joey.

When photo archivist Michael Ochs brokered a deal to offload his sprawling collection of 20th century iconography to Getty Images in 2007, neither seller nor buyer knew absolutely everything that was included in the transaction. Ochs had a decades-long reputation as the ultimate source of rock ‘n’ roll imagery, but his collection, at the time of its sale, included 3 million vintage prints, proof sheets and negatives. Many hadn’t been seen in decades, and others, presumably, never at all — particularly some shots of Old Hollywood, obtained in countless acquisitions over the decades that built up the Michael Ochs Archive.

“The Earl Leaf collection alone was over 100,000 negatives,” Ochs says of the late beatnik photographer, who shot many unknowns (Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood) before they blew up and Leaf went on to become the house photographer for The Beach Boys.

Getty has scanned, edited, captioned and digitized nearly 400,000 images from the collection since the acquisition,...

Exclusive: Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts has signed with UTA for representation in all areas, the agency said today.

A prolific playwright and actor, Letts’s career in theater has spanned decades, including the Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated The Minutes, which he wrote and starred in. The dark comedy opened on Broadway on April 17, 2022.

Letts’ other recent Broadway productions include his play Linda Vista in 2019. The same year, he starred opposite Annette Bening in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and he won a Tony for his portrayal of “George” in the 2012 revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Letts was honored with the Pulitzer in 2008 for his August: Osage County, winner of five Tony awards including Best Play.

In 2019, Letts played Henry Ford II in James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari and starred in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

Following a couple who are hosting an event to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, director Arne Gjelten’s short film The Best Day of Our Lives takes a turn when one member of the couple reveals that he has no memory of their big day. The brilliance of Gjelten’s tense relationship drama comes in its tone and carefully construed depiction of a contemporary relationship. The soft colour palette, the lack of a score, the carefully constructed dialogue and camerawork. It all feeds into an awkward whirlwind that grips the viewer whilst subtly unpacking societal expectations of relationships and marriage. Dn is delighted to premiere Gjelten’s thought-provoking short alongside a deep dive with the filmmaker where he talks through the film’s inception as a satire, its tonal evolution through the writing phase and the process of nailing its uncomfortable ambience in the edit.

The Best Day of Our Lives,...

Tony McNamara was a voracious reader as a kid growing up in a rural town outside Melbourne, Australia. But he never once considered becoming a writer. “I was always failing English,” he says. “I couldn’t get my head around grammar. Still can’t.”

And yet today, McNamara, 56, is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind some of the most sharp-witted, intricately verbal projects of the past five years, including 2018’s “The Favourite,” for director Yorgos Lanthimos; the 2020 Hulu series “The Great,” with Elle Fanning; and 2021’s “Cruella,” starring Emma Stone. Most recently, McNamara reunited with Lanthimos and Stone for “Poor Things,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival to a rapturous reception and opened in limited release on Dec. 8. It tells the fantastical story of Bella Baxter (Stone), a Victorian woman transplanted with an infant’s brain who launches on an odyssey of sexual and intellectual self-discovery.

The common thread in all...

Frances Sternhagen, a Tony-winning actress with many decades on the stage and screen, died Monday of natural causes in New Rochelle, N.Y.

She was known for her recurring role as the regal grandmother of Dr. Carter (Noah Wyle) on “ER” and as Cliff’s mother on “Cheers,” for which she was twice nominated for Emmys.

“Frannie, as she was known to her family, friends, and colleagues was a hardworking, award-winning, beloved and celebrated actress for over 60 years. Her foundation was the theater, but she was known for roles in film, television, and spoken arts. She was versatile – adept at comedy as well as drama, character roles and leading ladies,” her family said in a statement.

Sternhagen made a distinct impression in her role as the doctor who helps Sean Connery’s cop in Peter Hyams’ 1981 sci-film “Outland” and in “Misery,” she played the sheriff’s wife Virginia, who was...

Frances Sternhagen, the legendary Broadway actress who won two Tony Awards, was nominated for another five and achieved lasting and widespread recognition for her comedically stern portrayal of Esther Clavin, the demanding mother of insufferable postman Cliff Claven on Cheers, died Nov. 27 of natural causes. She was 93.

Her death was announced by her son, the actor John Carlin, on Instagram.

“Frannie. Mom. Frances Sternhagen. On Monday night, Nov 27, she died peacefully at her home, a month and a half shy of her 94th birthday,” Carlin wrote today, ending the tribute with “Fly on, Frannie. The curtain goes down on a life so richly, passionately, humbly and generously lived.”

See Carlin’s Instagram post below.

Sternhagen, one of the New York stage’s most celebrated and beloved stars, gave indelible performances in productions including the 1972 production of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Equus in 1975, Angel in 1978, On Golden Pond in 1979 and,...

Steve Carell will make his Broadway debut next spring in the title role of Lincoln Center Theater’s Uncle Vanya, appearing with, among others, Alison Pill as Sonya, Alfred Molina as Alexander Serabryakov and Anika Noni Rose as Yelena.

The production will begin previews Tuesday, April 2, 2024, at Lct’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, opening on Wednesday, April 24. As previously announced, Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me) is writing a new translation, and Lila Neugebauer (The Waverly Gallery) will direct.

Also joining the cast are William Jackson Harper as Astrov, Jayne Houdyshell as Mama Voinitski and Mia Katigbak as Marina. Complete casting will be announced soon.

The synopsis: Sonya (Pill) and her uncle Vanya (Carell) have devoted their lives to managing the family farm in isolation, but when her celebrated, ailing father (Molina) and his charismatic wife (Rose) move in, their lives are upended. In the heat of the summer,...

Bradley Cooper’s Maestro opens presumptuously with a quote that Leonard Bernstein uttered during a lecture he gave at Harvard University in 1976: “A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.” To some degree, the quote encapsulates Cooper and co-writer Josh Singer’s mosaic-like method in attempting to capture Bernstein as a human being—one that lays the man’s contradictions bare without overt psychologizing. It also, though, inevitably raises the question of whether Cooper’s film approaches the breadth and majesty of its subject.

Maybe no biopic, however sensitively done, can come close to encompassing the entirety of Bernstein’s life. This was a man so filled with passion for music in all its forms that he couldn’t help but let it out not only in the music he composed, but also on...

At every turn, Garth Davis’s Foe not only fails to adequately redress or rework played-out tropes within its high-concept world, but its examination of marriage and identity is also hackneyed. Written by Davis and Iain Reid, this sci-fi chamber piece feels Frankensteined together, each limb a reminder of more heartbreaking, wondrous, or sophisticated works that reconciling with the end of the world and the fragility of human relationships.

In the dystopia of Foe, new “self-determinative” lifeforms are conceived to take on dirty work in a ravaged land. They’re first introduced to us as an idea via the opening title card, which informs us that Earth’s natural and fertile resources, like water and soil, will become rare and valuable commodities later this century. Then they’re presented as the solution to marital loneliness, such as in the case of Junior (Paul Mescal) being drafted to try a government-funded...

André Bishop will conclude his 33-year leadership tenure at Lincoln Center Theater in June 2025 at the conclusion of the non-profit theater company’s 40th anniversary 2024-25 season.

Bishop, whose celebrated tenure as Lct’s Artistic Director and more recently Producing Artistic Director included the premieres of such acclaimed new works as Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia and Arcadia, Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig, and The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, to name a very few, announced his intended departure today.

“My years at Lincoln Center Theater have been happy ones,” he said in a statement, “and I will miss working with all my friends and colleagues. But the time has come, as it inevitably does, for the next generation to step in and step up. I look forward to that. Lct has...

Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour,” is one of the trickiest balancing acts at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. You could call the film, which premiered Friday at the Princess of Wales Theatre, a black comedy — but that term usually suggests a seriocomic tone running through the film.

“Woman of the Hour,” by contrast, is humorous sometimes and not funny at all at others. It can be amusing when portraying kitschy ’70s pop culture shot through with casual sexism, but it is simply horrifying when sexism turns to rape and murder.

It’s the kind of tonal schizophrenia that would be a challenge for an experienced director to pull off, but first-timer Kendrick manages to make her film both weirdly entertaining and thoroughly disturbing.

The premise itself is completely bizarre, not least because it’s true. In 1978, serial killer Rodney Alcala was a contestant on “The Dating Game,...

A remarkably audacious debut, Director Jessica Morris has created a surreal and dark tragicomedy with her short Round Robin, which depicts the awkward realities of a family gathering where the yearly Christmas card photo is due to be taken. Morris uses this routine familial outing as the basis from which to interrogate what it truly means to be part of a ‘happy family’ and how the build up of tensions, on a particularly hot day, can quickly lay waste to that once-strong facade. Now, as the film is due to kick off its run on the festival circuit, Dn joins Morris for an extensive discussion about the making of Round Robin, talking through the plethora of creative influences that make up the short’s style and tone, the notions of family she wanted to thematically deconstruct and the challenge of nailing the rapid-fire editing needed to bring her vision to life.

Jeffrey Carlson, the actor who played one of the first trans characters on television as Zoe Luper on ABC’s soap opera “All My Children,” has died at the age of 48, according to Time Out New York theater editor Adam Feldman. Neither a cause nor location was disclosed.

Carlson joined “All My Children” in 2006 as Freddie Luper, a British rock star who goes by the stage name of Zarf. The show followed Zarf’s path of personal discovery and coming out to others as a transgender woman named Zoe, receiving acceptance from some and ostracization from others.

Rip Jeffrey Carlson, 48, exposed-nerve star of Broadway and TV (the groundbreaking trans character Zoe on All My Children). A powerful actor and a painful loss. pic.twitter.com/ZdZdmlKtTP

— Adam Feldman (@FeldmanAdam) July 9, 2023

After meeting with a support group and slowly repairing her relationship with her parents, Zoe’s run on “All My Children...

All My Children actor Jeffrey Carlson, known for his groundbreaking role as a trans character on the soap show, has reportedly died. He was 48 and no details were immediately available on the cause or location.

The actor had been on the daytime TV series since 2006.

The news was announced by Time Out New York theater editor Adam Feldman on Twitter.

Feldman said Carlson was a “‘”powerful actor.”

Carlson came to the show as a character named Zarf in August 2006, then returned that November as a trans woman named Zoe.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company wrote a tribute on Facebook. “Stc is saddened to learn of the recent passing of Jeffrey Carlson. Jeffrey gave beautiful and nuanced performances during his career, which took him from television and film to Broadway and, fortunately for us, to Stc.”

The post noted his memorable performances included Lorenzaccio (2005), Hamlet (2007), 2008’s Free For All, and Romeo and Juliet...

The 76th Annual Tony Awards — which was nearly canceled outright because of the writers’ strike — went ahead on June 11. All the work to come to agreement with the WGA on the unscripted ceremony was worth it. It was a ratings bonanza for CBS and a notable lift to ticket sales for the winners, newly reported numbers show.

For many shows, the publicity from Broadway’s biggest night can mean the difference between keeping the curtain up and posting a closing notice. A Tony nomination typically only has a nominal impact on sales, whereas, depending on the show’s category, a win can be a game changer, said Hunter Arnold, a co-producer on multiple productions this season including “Some Like It Hot,” “Leopoldstadt,” “Life of Pi,” and “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.”

Before the compromise had been reached, theater producers worried that losing the Tonys to the writers’ strike could darken stages,...

Broadway’s Prima Face, the Suzie Miller play staring Jodie Comer, has recouped its $4.1 million capitalization costs as of June 18, ten weeks after the start of performances.

The recoup announcement by lead producer James Bierman of Empire Street Productions follows a strong post-Tony week at the box office: For the week ending June 18, Prima Facie set an eight-performance house record at the Golden Theatre with $1,107,829.96.

The previous record was set by Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, which grossed $1,077,919 for the week ending June 17, 2018.

Prima Facie began performances on April 11 and opened April 23. The production ends its limited engagement on Sunday, July 2.

The Broadway production of Prima Facie has recouped its $4.1 million capitalization costs as of June 18 and broke a house box office record on the way.

The one-woman play, starring Jodie Comer, recouped its Broadway capitalization in 10 weeks of performances — a quick turnaround for any production — and grossed $1,107,829 last week, a record for any eight-show week at the Golden Theatre. This beat the previous box office record at the Golden Theatre held by Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, starring Glenda Jackson and Laurie Metcalf, which grossed $1,077,919 in the week ending June 17, 2018.

Prima Facie began performances on April 11 and runs through July 2. The production has grossed close to $1 million for several weeks of its run, with an average ticket price hovering around $150 and capacity close to 100 percent.

The recoupment comes a week after Comer won the Tony Award for best lead actress in a play. In Prima Facie, written by Suzie Miller...

Glenda Jackson, the British actress who hit the snooze bar on her acting career for a 23-year career in politics, died on Thursday, as per her representatives. During her peak years in the 1970s and 80s, she won two Oscars (and was nominated for two more) and two Emmy Awards. She was nominated for four Tony Awards, finally winning one in 2018 after a late-in-life career resurgence. She was 87 years old.

Jackson, whose father was a bricklayer and whose mother was a barmaid and domestic, studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She was told by the academy’s principal that, due to her looks, she would likely only find work as a character actress, and she shouldn’t depend on getting jobs after 40.

This proved to be the opposite of true. Her big break came when experimental theater director Peter Brook cast her in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s groundbreaking adaptation of “Marat/Sade.

Glenda Jackson, the two-time Oscar- and Emmy Award-winning actress who later made the transition to politics, has died. She was 87 years old.

In a statement, Jackson’s agent Lionel Lerner told our sister site Deadline that she “died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London… after a brief illness with her family at her side.” A specific cause of death was not disclosed.

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Jackson’s career spanned seven decades, during which she...

Glenda Jackson, the two-time Oscar winner who walked away from a hugely successful acting career to spend nearly a quarter-century in the U.K. parliament, only to make a comeback on the stage, died Thursday. She was 87.

Jackson died peacefully after a brief illness at her home in Blackheath, London, and her family was at her side, her agent Lionel Larner said in a statement. “Today we lost one of the world’s greatest actresses, and I have lost a best friend of over 50 years,” he said.

She recently completed filming The Great Escaper opposite Michael Caine, Larner noted.

The British actress collected a slew of honors that included best actress Academy Awards for Women in Love (1969) and A Touch of Class (1973); two Emmys for her performance as Elizabeth I in the BBC miniseries Elizabeth R (a role she also played in the 1971 film Mary, Queen of Scots); and a...

Glenda Jackson, the double Oscar-winning British actress and former Labour MP, has died. She was 87.

In a statement, her agent Lionel Larner said she died at her home in Blackheath, south-east London, following a “brief illness.”

Larner’s statement read: “Glenda Jackson, two-time Academy Award-winning actress, and politician, died peacefully at her home in Blackheath, London this morning after a brief illness with her family at her side.”

Statement continued: “She recently completed filming The Great Escaper in which she co-starred with Michael Caine.”

Jackson was perhaps best known for her two Oscar-winning performances in Ken Russell’s 1970’s pic Women in Love, a D. H. Lawrence adaptation, where she starred alongside Alan Bates and Oliver Reed and 1973’s A Touch of Class. Jackson also won a BAFTA Best Actress gong for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).

Jackson was born in 1936 in North West England. She studied at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...

Tom Stoppard won the Best Play trophy for “Leopoldstadt” at the 2023 Tony Awards. This is his fifth win in the category, breaking his own Tony record. The theater legend maintains an impressive lead as the winningest playwright in the Best Play category.

“Leopoldstadt” is a sprawling epic which traces the lineage of a Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 to 1955. The play considers important questions of assimilation and identity. The show picked up four wins in total, with additional victories for Brandon Uranowitz in Featured Actor in a Play, Patrick Marber in Director of a Play, and Brigitte Reiffenstuel in Costume Design of a Play.

Stoppard has now won the Best Play category five times in his career, more than any other playwright in history. He previously prevailed for “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” (1968), “Travesties” (1976), “The Real Thing” (1984), and the three-part epic “The Coast of Utopia” (2007). The Tony Awards do not...

[Obviously, major spoilers follow.] Brutal. Bloody. Big-hearted. In an extraordinary week for much-anticipated series finales, three Emmy-winning shows found their own distinctive ways to take a last bow: two from HBO — one an acclaimed drama of dynastic conflict, the other a perverse fable of violent retribution in the shadow of Hollywood — and the third from Apple’s streaming upstart, a charming sports comedy saturated in sweetness. Of the three, the most likely to be remembered in the pantheon of all-time great finales is HBO’s Succession, the brilliant but bleak masterpiece of media mendacity from Jesse Armstrong. Often compared to Shakespeare with its King Lear-like patriarch igniting familial strife, but in the end closer to the lacerating Edward Albee of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and A Delicate Balance, the final run of Succession was shocking from the moment that multimedia mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox) died midflight in the third of 10 episodes.

George Maharis, who starred as the brooding Buz Murdock on Route 66 before he quit the acclaimed 1960s CBS drama after contracting hepatitis, has died. He was 94.

Maharis died Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, his longtime friend and caregiver Marc Bahan told The Hollywood Reporter.

Route 66, created by Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard, featured the Hell’s Kitchen native Murdock and Martin Milner‘s Yale dropout Tod Stiles touring the highways of America in Tod’s Chevrolet Corvette, encountering adventure along the way.

The show “was really kind of a searching or what you may have seen hundreds of years ago where the people came over the mountains to go from one place to the other to find a better life, a place where they belonged, and they didn’t rely on anybody else to do it for them,” Maharis told The Seattle Times in 2008.

All 116 installments of...

Imagine you’re a filmmaker, and you’ve assembled a dream cast of A-list stars, crack character actors, and your usual stock company of famous faces. Your production-design team has gifted you with a set that’s evocative of a 1950s Southwestern desert landscape, complete with Monument Valley vistas and Route 66 iconography. The costume designer has absolutely nailed the period couture, from cowpoke denim-on-denim to aristocratic golf duds to bewitching fitted dresses. The sunbaked color palette suggests a faded postcard from family vacations past. A longtime friend and fellow idiosyncratic...

Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) is here for legal counsel. But her questions for Hal Porterfield (Christopher Abbott) are getting inappropriate, and fast. She wants to know about the frequency of his masturbation, how much he drinks, if he’s capable of taking on the herculean task of running his father’s massive hotel monopoly. And Hal is getting annoyed. After all, this isn’t the script that he had written for Rebecca to perform.

Rebecca isn’t a lawyer, nor an actress. Not really. She’s a hired dominatrix in a no-contact sexual relationship with Hal, who really is set to step in as CEO of his recently passed father’s company, and who really does write extensive scripts to support his unusual sexual proclivities.

Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary is a two-hander that sees a power play through the prism of performance, class, and sexual dynamics. As Hal prepares to be...

What do the 76th annual Tonys have in common with the 17th annual awards?

Stephen Sondheim.

The late, great influential composer is represented in this year’s Tonys with the acclaimed, popular revivals of his 1979 classic “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Street” earning eight nominations and 1987’s “Into the Woods” receiving six.

Sixty years ago, it was Sondheim’s musical comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” which dominated the Tony Awards with six wins: best musical, best producer for Harold Prince, best director for George Abbott, best author for Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, leading actor for Zero Mostel and featured actor for David Burns. Ironically, Sondheim failed to earn a nomination for best original score (music and/or lyrics) written for the theater. He would not win for his tunes until “Company” in 1971. Vying in that category were “Stop the World I Wanted...

Carrie Coon is an American actress who is best known for her award-winning performances on the stage and in both television and film. She won a Tony Award in 2013 for her role as Honey in the Broadway revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Carrie also had starring roles on such acclaimed television series as The Leftovers, Fargo, and The Sinner. She has appeared in numerous films including The Post, Widows and Avengers: Infinity War. Carrie Coon is also highly regarded for her work in the theater and has performed extensively with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in productions ranging from Shakespeare to contemporary works by playwrights like Tracy Letts and Bruce Norris. In 2018 Carrie was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her performance as Gloria Burgle on Fargo season three. Carrie Coon continues to be a...

Exclusive: Jesús I. Valles’ play Bathhouse.pptx has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, with the honor’s judge Jeremy O. Harris calling the new work an exploration of “a queer history that is quickly being erased.”

The prize for emerging playwrights, now in its 16th year, was selected from more than 1,500 entries. As is the prize’s custom, Harris, the author of Slave Play and a Yale alum, was the selection process’ presiding playwright, or sole judge. Previous judges have included Edward Albee, David Hare, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Nicholas Wright, Ayad Akhtar and Paula Vogel.

“This is one of the most exciting speculative fictions I’ve encountered in years,” Harris said, “using a unique dramaturgy to explore a queer history that is quickly being erased. It brought to mind the works of many heroes like Samuel Delaney, Martin Crimp, and Kathy Acker.”

Winning playwright Velles said,...

A24 is getting into the theater business with the purchase of the Off-Broadway venue Cherry Lane Theatre for the purchase price was $10 million, according to a deed filed on Friday.

Cherry Lane Theatre is the longest continuously running theater in New York City’s West Village. It features a 179-seat mainstage and a 60-seat studio theater. The space will reportedly be maintained as a place for live theater.

The studio behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Uncut Gems,” “Hereditary” and “Lady Bird” raised a $225 million equity round in March of last year, with plans to use the money to produce and distribute films while also continuing to develop initiatives beyond just big-screen cinema.

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The Cherry Lane Theatre was first established as a playhouse in 1923, courtesy of Evelyn Vaughn, William Rainey, Reginald Travers and Edna St. Vincent Millay. The theater would...

After conquering the independent film and TV world, A24 is venturing into live theater. The production and distribution company has bought the Cherry Lane Theatre, one of the oldest Off-Broadway venues in New York City.

According to a deed filed Friday in the New York City Department of Finance, the venue was purchased for $10 million by a corporation called the Cherry Lane Venue; said corporation’s stated address is the same as A24’s New York offices. The deal comes after the venue’s longtime owner, actor Angelina Fiordellisi, attempted to sell to the Lucille Lortel Theater Foundation in 2021, before the sale fell through due to price disagreements. A24’s interest in the property was first reported last November.

A source with knowledge of the deal told IndieWire that A24 will keep the newly acquired venue in the live theater business, as opposed to using it for film screenings or premieres.

Off Broadway’s historic, if long financially beleaguered, Cherry Lane Theatre has been purchased by The Whale and Everything Everywhere All at Once film studio A24.

The 179-seat mainstage venue, located on one of the most picturesque side streets of Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood, is a central part of Off Broadway history, founded as a playhouse in 1923 and eventually providing a home space for such major theatrical figures as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, Harold Pinter, Eugene Ionesco, LeRoi Jones, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Joe Orton and David Mamet.

Recent years have seen the small, tucked-away venue hitting one financial brick wall after another, most recently when executive director Angelina Fiordellisi agreed to sell the theater to the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation for $11 million in 2021. According to The New York Times, that deal fell through over the selling price.

A deed...

Independent film studio A24 has purchased a small Off-Broadway venue, the Cherry Lane Theatre.

The theater, which is located in New York City’s West Village, was purchased for just over $10 million, according to a deed filed Friday. Cherry Lane Theatre is the longest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York and features a 179-seat mainstage and a 60-seat studio theater.

A person with knowledge of the deal told The Hollywood Reporter that A24 plans to keep the space as a venue for live theater.

The purchase comes after the studio, which is behind this awards season’s The Whale and Everything Everywhere All at Once, raised a $225 million equity round in March 2022, with plans to use the capital to continue to produce and distribute films but also “continue to develop high-quality initiatives beyond the screen.” New York-based venture capital firm Stripes was the lead investor in that round.

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The Screen Actors Guild presented legendary comic actor Eddie Cantor with the first annual Life Achievement Award back in 1962. Over the past six decades, the award for ‘outstanding achievement in fostering ideals of the acting profession” has been given to such Hollywood icons as Stan Laurel, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. More recently, Mary Tyler Moore, Charles Durning, Debbie Reynolds, Rita Moreno, Carol Burnett, Helen Mirren and Robert De Niro have received the honor.

Two-time Oscar and three-time Emmy Award winning Sally Field is the latest recipient of the Life Achievement Award. The 76-year-old actress, who came to fame as the ultimate teenager “Gidget” in the 1965-66 ABC sitcom, is currently starring with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno in the hit feature comedy “80 for Brady.” She appeared with Jim Parsons last year in the drama...

A Christmas Story and Close Encounters of the Third Kind wouldn’t have been the same without Melinda Dillon. Dillon leaves behind an incredible legacy after dying on Jan. 9, 2023. So, how much money did the Oscar-nominated actor accrue in her lifetime? Here’s Melinda Dillon’s net worth at the time of her death.

Melinda Dillon died at 83 years old in February 2023 Kenneth Mars and Melinda Dillon | CBS via Getty Images

Melinda Dillon leaves behind a hefty net worth thanks to her incredible legacy. According to CNN, the actor died on Jan. 9, 2023, with no cause of death listed. The public learned of her death by early February 2023, and she died at 83.

Dillon was most well-known for her role as the mother in A Christmas Story, the 1983 classic that’s now a holiday favorite. She also worked with Steven Spielberg as a lead in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and...

Melinda Dillon, the actor best known for roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and A Christmas Story, has died at the age of 83.

The news was announced by her family, with no cause of death disclosed.

Born in Arkansas in 1939, and raised in Alabama, Dillon began her acting career on Broadway, with a role as Honey in the original 1963 production of Edward Albee’s playWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In 1969, she had her first film role, in the Jack Lemmon-Catherine Deneuve romcom The April Fools.

Dillon was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1976 (in the Best Female Acting Debut category), for her role in the Woody Guthrie biopic Bound for Glory.

The year after, she played a mother whose child is abducted by aliens in Steven Spielberg’s classic sci-fi Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Her performance in the film earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Oscar and Tony-nominated actor Melinda Dillon, who played Mother Parker in “A Christmas Story,” and appeared in “Magnolia” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” died Jan. 9. She was 83.

Her death was reported by the Neptune Society.

Dillon is celebrated for her role as Jillian Guiler in Steven Speilberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), for which she earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actress. She received a second supporting actress nomination in 1982 for her role as Teresa in Sydney Pollack’s “Absence of Malice” (1981). In 1977, she received a Golden Globe nomination for acting debut in a motion picture for Hal Ashby’s “Bound for Glory” (1976).

In a statement, Spielberg praised Dillon, saying, “Melinda was generous of spirit and lent such kindness to the character she played in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’… We will all miss her.”

Dillon also played the matriarch of the Parker family in...

Melinda Dillon, the two-time Oscar nominee known for her roles in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “A Christmas Story,” died January 9 in Los Angeles, according to an announcement from her family. She was 83.

Dillon was born in 1939 in Hope, Arkansas. Her stepfather was an army veteran, and she grew up on military bases around the country and in Germany before graduating from the Hyde Park High School in Chicago. She studied acting at the Goodman School of Drama and began her career performing improv at The Second City.

In 1962, Dillon played Honey in the original Broadway production of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” The performance earned her a Tony nomination at 23 years old. Over the course of her career, she picked up two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her turns as a mother whose children are abducted by aliens in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind...

Melinda Dillon, who was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and Sydney Pollack’s “Absence of Malice,” has died at age 83, her family said in a public obituary.

She died on Jan. 9, but the obituary gave no cause of death.

Dillon memorably played single mother Jillian Guiler, whose son Barry (Cary Guffey), is abducted by aliens in “Close Encounters.” Like Richard Dreyfuss’s lead character, she also becomes obsessed with Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and both their quests lead them there. After running the gauntlet of military obstacles, they are the only two civilians who witness the alien ship landing in the film’s emotional finale.

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She received her second nomination for playing a Catholic who commits suicide after a reporter (Sally Field) writes about...

Sally Field will receive the 2023 SAG Life Achievement Award at the 29th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Feb. 26.

The award is giving annually to an actor who exhibits the “finest ideals of the acting profession.” Field, a two-time Oscar winner, has also received a SAG Award, three Emmys, two BAFTA Awards, the New York Film Critics prize, the National Board of Review Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award and the National Society of Film Critics honor, among many more.

In 2012, the actress was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2015 received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama. Additionally, she received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019.

Her career credits include Places in the Heart, Norma Rae, Lincoln, Smokey and the Bandit, Absence of Malice, Kiss Me Goodbye, Steel Magnolias, Forrest Gump, An Eye for an Eye, Mrs. Doubtfire, Hooper, Stay Hungry and Hello,...

Edyth “Edie” Landau, producer of The David Susskind Show and Long Day’s Journey Into Night as well an executive at National Telefilm Associates, died in her home on December 24, 2022. She was 95.

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The producer was born on July 15, 1927, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After graduating college she moved to New York City to pursue a career in entertainment where she became an executive at National Telefilm Associates, a company run by Ely Landau, who Edie ended up marrying.

Edie became Executive Vice President of the company, overseeing the station’s original programming including the anthology drama series The Play of the Week, The Mike Wallace Show, The David Susskind Sho, and Open End.

She and...

The tonal demands of a romantic-comedy tearjerker prove far too much to handle for director Michael Showalter in “Spoiler Alert,” an awkward and uncertain adaptation of TV critic Michael Ausiello’s memoir, which deals with the illness of Ausiello’s longterm partner Kit Cowan.

Many of the scenes here seem to have been shot in a spirit of tense desperation; the comedy doesn’t land, the romance takes too long to get going, and the tearjerking scenes are spoiled by a meta framework that makes Showalter’s job even more difficult.

“Spoiler Alert” starts with Ausiello (Jim Parsons) embracing a very sick Cowan in a hospital bed, and this leads to a flashback to their first meeting 14 years or so earlier. We see Ausiello at his job at TV Guide, where he is asked to write more about “Fear Factor” instead of “Gilmore Girls,” and then we see him out...