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Joan Plowright, perhaps the greatest Anglophone actor of the 20th century and the widow of Laurence Oliver, died on Thursday. She was 95.

Plowright was a prominent actress of stage and screen in her own right, especially in her native England, and was a Tony winner for “A Taste of Honey.” The actress had retired in 2014 after going blind due to macular degeneration.

Her family confirmed the news of her death to The Guardian on Friday, writing: “It is with great sadness that the family of Dame Joan Plowright, the Lady Olivier, inform you that she passed away peacefully on January 16 2025 surrounded by her family at Denville Hall aged 95. She enjoyed a long and illustrious career across theatre, film and TV over seven decades until blindness made her retire. She cherished her last 10 years in Sussex with constant visits from friends and family, filled with much laughter and fond memories. The...

Jessica Walter, the award-winning actress best known for portraying Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, died Wednesday at age 80 at her home in New York City. A representative for Walter confirmed the news to Rolling Stone but did not provide a cause of death.

Walter is survived by her daughter, Brooke Bowman, and grandson, Micah Heymann. Bowman said in a statement: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom Jessica. A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to...

Jessica Walter, award-winning star of stage and screen with six decades in show business, passed away in her sleep in new York City on Wednesday March 24. (Via Deadline.) In recent years, Walter was best known for her Emmy-nominated role as matriarch Lucille Bluth in “Arrested Development,” as well as for voicing Malory Archer on Fxx’s animated series “Archer.” She won an Emmy in 1975 for her leading role in the police drama “Amy Prentiss.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Walter attended New York City’s High School of Performing Arts (now called Laguardia) and further studied acting at the famed Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. She began her career on Broadway, starring in productions such as “Advise and Consent,” Neil Simon’s “Rumors,” “A Severed Head,” “Nightlife,” “Tartuffe,” “The Royal Family,” and “Photo Finish.”

Her earliest prominent film role came in 1971’s “Play Misty for Me,” in which her...

Jessica Walter, the award-winning actress whose career spanned five decades, passed away in her sleep at home in New York City on Wednesday, March 24th.

Walter’s career included everything from a standout turn in Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me to The Flamingo Kid to her Emmy-nominated turns on Trapper John M..D. and Streets of San Francisco. For her performance as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, Walter earned yet another Emmy nomination (Outstanding Supporting Actress) and two SAG nominations. Walter won an Emmy for Amy Prentiss. She also voiced Malory Archer on Fxx’s animated series Archer.

Speaking of SAG, Walter served as 2nd National Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild, and was an elected member of the SAG Board of Directors for over a decade.

Walter began her career in her hometown of New York City where she appeared in numerous Broadway productions including Advise and Consent,...

Red Bull Theater today announced the complete cast for their 2016-'17 Season kick-off, a special benefit reading and party on Monday, October 10th 730pm at Symphony Space Moliere's Tartuffe, translated by Richard Wilbur, directed by Marc Vietor who directed last season's acclaimed The School for Scandal, and starring Bill Camp, Julie Halston, Dana Ivey, Reg Rogers, Derek Smith, and Michael Urie, along with Christian DeMarais, Gretchen Hall, Naomi Lorrain, and Ben Mehl.

At breakfast with Anton Honik, Miri Ann Beuschel and Forældre director Christian Tafdrup Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, Michael Haneke, a rabbit memory not from Alice In Wonderland, Danish fairy tales, Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Molière's Tartuffe and an Andrei Tarkovsky tracking shot pops up in my conversation with director/writer/actor Christian Tafdrup.

In a turn of events straight out of David Lynch's Lost Highway book of identity magic, Kjeld (Søren Malling of Nikolaj Arcel's A Royal Affair) dreams to relive his younger days. This comes true in unexpected ways through Miri Ann Beuschel and Elliott Crosset Hove. With their son Esben (Anton Honik) leaving for college, Kjeld and Vibeke (Bodil Jørgensen of Cæcilia Holbek Trier's Agnus Dei and Anders Thomas Jensen's Men & Chicken) feel that their suburban house has become too big and empty for them. They...

On 22 August, Eureka! Entertainment is releasing Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925 on its Masters of Cinema label in the UK. As its name might suggest, the deluxe three-disc Blu-ray set includes five masterpieces from German director F.W. Murnau - Schloß Vogelöd, Phantom, Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (The Grand Duke’s Finances), Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) and Tartuffe - all arriving on Blu-ray in new high definition transfers for the very first time. As if that wasn’t reason enough to pick up this set, the supplements have now been revealed to further whet your appetite: New high-definition presentations of all five films, created by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung Uncompressed Pcm audio on all five scores Original German-language intertitles with newly translated optional English-language subtitles on...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

On 22 August, Eureka! Entertainment is releasing Early Murnau: Five Films, 1921-1925 on its Masters of Cinema label in the UK. As its name might suggest, the deluxe three-disc Blu-ray set includes five masterpieces from German director F.W. Murnau - Schloß Vogelöd, Phantom, Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (The Grand Duke’s Finances), Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) and Tartuffe - all arriving on Blu-ray in new high definition transfers for the very first time. As if that wasn’t reason enough to pick up this set, the supplements have now been revealed to further whet your appetite: New high-definition presentations of all five films, created by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung Uncompressed Pcm audio on all five scores Original German-language intertitles with newly translated optional English-language subtitles on...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Theater has inspired, entertained, and challenged audiences for thousands of years, but at the crux of great work is often great controversy. These bold playwrights have courted scandal and worse for the sake of their messages; here are 10 important plays that have flown in the face of historical norms, confronting censorship (and even violence) for the sake of art and expression. “Lysistrata,” Aristophanes, 411 B.C.Politically charged theater is not a recent phenomenon; Aristophanes wrote this anti-war comedy in 411 B.C., and productions continue to spark angry protests to this day. The plot centers on a female-led sex-strike, and themes of power and sex are at the root of the comedy and the controversy. The United States’ Comstock Law banned “Lysistrata” in 1873, and the Moscow Art Theatre faced threats of arrest when it brought its production to the States in the 1920s. The play has since been adapted into numerous films,...

Sunrise

Scenario by Carl Mayer, from an original theme by Hermann Sudermann

Directed by F.W. Murnau

USA, 1927

William Fox had seen Faust, Nosferatu, and The Last Laugh, and on the basis of these German masterworks, he brought their creator, F.W. Murnau, to Hollywood. What he got was a truly distinct cinematic vision, which was what he had in mind: something to set a few Fox features apart from the other studios’ output. What he probably didn’t expect was just how much of that “artsy” European touch he was going to get with Murnau on contract. Were American audiences going to go for this type of movie, with its symbolism, melodious structure, and overtly self-conscious style? At any rate, Murnau’s first picture at Fox was one to remember. Sunrise, from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made,...

The Blue Angel

Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller, Robert Liebmann

Directed by Josef von Sternberg

Germany, 1930

It’s strange that the work of Josef von Sternberg has not been better represented in the realm of Blu-ray production. Aside from 1930’s The Blue Angel, available now on a new Kino Classics 2-Disc Ultimate Edition, not a single Sternberg film exists on the format. For such a stylish director, one who was expressly concerned with the ornate visual texture of his films, the enhanced images that go along with the standard digital restorations of Blu-ray titles would seemingly be ideal. That said, with at least The Blue Angel, it does become clear that this format and this filmmaker are indeed made for each other.

While not as deliberately composed to accentuate frames bursting to their edges with fore- and background elements (see The Scarlet Empress, for example), The Blue Angel nevertheless...

The Observer's critics pick the season's highlights, from the Misanthrope to Johnny Marr, Lulu to Lichtenstein, H7steria to Hitchcock. What are you most looking forward to? Add your comments below and download a pdf of the calendar here

December | January | FebruaryDecember

1 Film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (3D)

Well, not so very unexpected. Every move has been tracked by fanboys, from the casting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug to the return of the king, Peter Jackson, to take over directing from Guillermo del Toro. But Middle-earth (or, as it's sometimes known, New Zealand) is back for the next three Christmases.

3 Pop Scott Walker

The avant-garde Walker Brother returns with his first album since 2006's The Drift. Not for the faint-hearted, Bish Bosch finds the former romantic hero deep in dystopian territory, at once sonorous and rigorous.

3 Classical H7steria

World premiere of...

The distinctive and beguiling Irish actor David Kelly, who has died aged 82, was as familiar a face in British television sitcoms as he was on the stage in Dublin, where he was particularly associated with the Gate theatre. But he was perhaps best known in recent years for playing Grandpa Joe in Tim Burton's movie adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), an engaging performance that was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Film and Television Academy; Johnny Depp, who played Willy Wonka, paid a touching tribute on a video link from Hollywood to Dublin.

Kelly was a tall and flamboyant figure who was often cast as a comic, eccentric Irishman, notably as Albert Riddle, an incompetent, one-armed dish-washer in the late 1970s British sitcom Robin's Nest; he...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? Hell and Back Again Trailer I talked about the first trailer for this movie a couple of months ago [1]. Danfung Dennis looks like he's made...

This November, a series of events are planned to celebrate its 100 year history

The Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, home to one of the oldest repertory companies, will celebrate its centenary later this year with a special gala performance of The Ladykillers.

A new book on the Williamson Square landmark and a series of events will also mark the 100th anniversary on November 11.

The gala evening will include a pre-show champagne reception and a chance to join the cast – which includes Peter Capaldi, James Fleet and Ben Miller – after the show to toast the theatre as a special birthday cake is cut.

The Ladykillers adapted for stage by Graham Linehan is on from November 3-19, but is sold out already.

Meanwhile, the cast of Roger McGough's adaptation of Moliere's play, Tartuffe, have been entertaining audiences at the Playhouse. Tartuffe runs until Saturday.

The Playhouse is also launching a book to...

Olga Tschechowa points the finger.

It's a listless country house gathering, broiling with intrigue under the surface: Bertie Wooster might appear, except we're in Germany. The hunt is rained off: nobody has anything to do except read the paper or gossip. And then Graf Oetsch arrives, suspected of murder, and they really have something to gossip about...

I first saw F.W. Murnau's Schloß Vogeloed (1921), under the misleading title The Haunted Castle, on a grey-market VHS bought on eBay. Grey was the word: the washed-out images were devoid of clarity, life and atmosphere, and the only thing that struck me asides from the pervasive theatricality was a double dream sequence which crashed into the plot for no real reason.

The first dream is scary, although the dreamer is the film's comedy relief character, "the anxious gentleman" played by Julius Falkenstein. As he slumbers, the window blows open and the diaphanous curtains blow in the gale.

Deviating from French cinema for the first time in a few weeks, Not In The English Language returns with a film technically not in any language, with F. W. Murnau’s Tartuffe.

In the year between his well known classics Der Letzte Mann (1924) and Faust(1926), Friedrick Wilhelm Murnau produced Tartuffe. Historically deemed a minor piece in Murnau’s body of work, I find it hard to empathise with those who deem this to be an unfair assessment. While the film is not particularly terrible it lacks the magic that empowers the likes of Sunrise or Faust.

Loosely based upon the play Tartuffe, ou l’Imposteur, that fell from the pen of Moliere, Murnau frames Moliere’s tome with a separate, but rather familiar set up. The framed section of the film works a charm, in which the tale of a young actor that returns to his grandfather’s home is told.

There is no point pretending that the play itself will be the main attraction to lots of the audience at London's Comedy Theatre when its new show officially opens next week. The West End debut of Keira Knightley will irresistibly get all the headlines and shift a lot of the tickets, though the rest of the cast of The Misanthrope – including Damian Lewis, Dominic Rowan and Tara Fitzgerald – are not exactly duffers. A special word of welcome is due, nevertheless, for the overdue return to the London stage of any play by Molière, who is an all too rarely performed dramatist in this country these days. We haven't yet reached the point where any reference to Molière requires a footnote to explain that he was a celebrated 17th-century French comic playwright. Yet things may be heading that way. Even the National Theatre, which in its early days was a staunch champion of his work,...

Stage West presents Liz Lochhead's wry and funny Good Things. 

49-year-old Susan is going through what is generally described as a bit of a rough patch. Her husband has left her for a much younger woman, she has lost her job, her father is slipping into senility, and her teenage daughter is behaving like-well-a teenager.

Now she's volunteering in a resale shop, and maintaining a (mostly) cheerful determination not to fall into victimhood, in Liz Lochhead's comedy Good Things, beginning Thursday, October 29 at Stage West's Vickery playhouse.

Susan's co-workers, the nurturing and possibly gay Frazer, and the micro-managing Marjorie, are eager to see Susan's life sorted out in appropriately fairy-tale fashion. They've encouraged her attempts at online and speed-dating, though she herself is less than enthusiastic. It hasn't worked out very well so far; she's currently having to dodge the attentions of one particularly creepy match-up. And then into the shop comes David,...

Director/Photographer Kevin Abosch is set to begin production on his second feature project this year, 'Tartuffe', an Irish production of Molière's classic French stage-play. Abosch, who recently wrapped photography on his debut feature 'Vena', plans to begin shooting the comic tale at the end of July. In what the director calls "a contemporary abstraction of the original work with Tartuffe re-imagined as a spiritual guru," the film is a direct adaptation of the stage-play with a contemporary Irish setting.

Dog Run Rep announces, as part of the South Street Seaport Winter Theatre Season, a new American adaption of Moliere's classic comedy Tartuffe, directed by Jeff Cohen. Tartuffe will play a four-week limited engagement @Seaport (210 Front Street), presented, in part, through the generous support of General Growth Properties. Performances begin Friday, March 6 and continue Saturday, April 5. Opening Night is Monday, March 9 (7 p.m.).

Dog Run Rep presents Winter Theatre At South Street Seaport featuring Dog Run Rep, Abraxas Stage Company, Studio 42, and Unknown Productions. Celebrating its 3rd season, Dog Run Rep?s mission is to enhance cultural programming in Lower Manhattan. As part of its Seaport Semester program, General Growth Properties, the owners of the South Street Seaport, is teaming up with the collaboration by providing the @Seaport! venue at 210 Front Street for Winter Theatre at South Street Seaport. The line up includes: *Dog Run Rep presents Moliere?s Tartuffe, adapted and directed by Jeff Cohen. Tartuffe, set in 1930?s New York, begins performances on Friday, March 6th and runs through Sunday, March 29. *Abraxas Stage Company?s Crazy Head Space, a new musical, begins performances on Thursday March 12th and runs through Sunday April 5. *Studio 42?s New Play Reading Series will be presented on Monday evenings, February 16th through March 30th. *Unknown Production?...

• Sony Pictures Classics has given us the newest trailers and poster one sheet for Moliere. Written by Gregoire Vigneron and Laurent Tirard and directed by Laurent Tirard the period pic shall open in New York and Los Angeles on July 27, 2007.  1644, Paris. 22-year-old Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also known as Molière, is not yet the writer that history recognizes as the father & true master of comic satire, author of "the Misanthrope and Tartuffe, and a dramatist to rank alongside Shakespeare & Sophocles. Far from it. He is in fact, a failed actor. His Illustrious Theatre Troupe, founded the previous year, is bankrupt. Hounded by creditors, Molière is thrown into jail, released, then swiftly imprisoned again. When the jailors  finally let him go, he disappears.  The combined efforts of historians have unearthed no trace of him before his reappearance, several months later, when his troupe begins touring the provinces - a tour that will last for thirteen years,

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