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Shirley Jo Finney, a theater director and the star of Wilma (1977), has died. She was 74.

The Fountain Theatre announced Finney’s death on social media writing in an Instagram post, “With broken hearts, we share the sad news that director Shirley Jo Finney, a beloved member of our Fountain Family, passed away yesterday after a long illness.”

Some of the productions that Finney directed included Citizen: An American Lyric, Heart Song, In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, The Ballad of Emmett Till, Yellowman, Central Avenue and From the Mississippi Delta.

Finney had been battling with cancer for eight months, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

Finney starred in the television film Wilma, a biopic about track star Wilma Rudolph and the obstacles she faced to win three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics. In the television movie, Finney starred opposite Cicely Tyson, Jason Bernard, Denzel Washington and more.

While much of the initial fanbase that helped turn Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into a pop culture phenomenon aged out following the original cartoon (1987-1996) and live action movies (1990-1993), the property has continued to flourish with reboots in TV, film, and comics every few years.

If the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem has you interested in exploring various versions of Tmnt, there’s no better place for a horror fan to start than Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series that aired for five seasons between 2012 and 2017.

While there’s an inherent connection to horror in the various mutants and monsters that pop up throughout the franchise, no rendition embraces the genre nearly as much as this one. In addition to references to classics like Alien, Friday the 13th, and The Evil Dead, the series employed several notable horror actors throughout its 124-episode run.

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The Drama League Awards set themselves apart from other theater industry kudos thanks to their Distinguished Performance Award. The category generally features forty to fifty performers from both Off-Broadway and Broadway productions. Nominees encompass both lead and supporting roles from plays and musicals, and can be of any gender. When one performer rises to the top of this deep roster, they tend to be the frontrunner for one of the acting races at the Tony Awards. This year, Sutton Foster claimed the Distinguished Performance award for “The Music Man.” In the process, the Tony race for Lead Actress in a Musical was just upended.

Most Tony pundits have assumed that Lead Actress in a Musical is a two horse race up until this point. Sharon D Clarke has held a strong lead in our combined odds thanks to her formidable performance in the revival of “Caroline, or Change.” The British...